Farming Does NOT Cause Inflation

I've said it before I'll likely say it again: I'm not even sure there is any inflation at all in GW. There might even be deflation. What there is, though, is mudflation.

Prices in the user-run economy isn't rising, they're falling across the board, with a few exceptions - notably monk runes, perfect weapons of certain prestige types, and... uh, that's pretty much it.

All non-max white objects are pretty much worthless. Max white objects are pretty much worthless. Non-perfect max blue or purple objects are usually dirt cheap, well within the financial reach of your average lvl 10 player. Max gold items usually fetch 1-5 K, except for a few kinds.

What does this mean?

It means that GW is suffering from a surplus of items. Only perfect items are in high demand, because everyone already got very good item. Only the "perfect fellblade" market isn't already close to saturation. Mudflation.

And yes the immediate cause for this is farming and botting, but the REAL cause is that GW has reasonable gold sinks (e.g. the FoW armors), but no item sinks.

Weapons don't decay, and there's no "trade in" because the merchant prices of weapons are so ridiculously low.

It would be interesting to see what'd happen if there was a weapons & upgrades trader.

stay tuned.

I definitely think we're in a period of deflation. It's an excellent thing for all players in the game. Farmers and "investors" should watch out though. I believe the price of ectoplasm and other such things are very likely to fall within the next week.

ESPECIALLY because of this much anticipated update. With the possibility of NEW items, it is likely that many of our "godly" items may become less in demand with the game "consumers" so anyone looking to buy items will definitely be in a for a treat as most farmers will probably clear their stock for good prices.

The economy is doing well sirs! :O

I am an honourable farmer. I use a 105 monk, or my E/Mo or my W/Mo to farm pretty much anything across the board. I sell most runes back to the trader (unless I keep em for my own characters) and I sell ridiculously awesome items for amazing prices (except for my best which go for 80k+ which is still a bargain despite what some have said to me, I am patient and will find buyers)

With this pvp thing this weekend it's highly likely that I will slip off the trading grid for a bit because I've been wanting to get involved with pvp for awhile but just have felt too newb to do so

I have a theory as to why the title of this thread is true. I'll try to explain it briefly, as I am sure I will get lip service based on bias rather than analysis...

First of wall, think about instanced gaming for GW. You leave Old Ascalon. Warmaster Grath stands like a retard with a shout icon over his npd head. He says "go and do x task and come back here for 500 eager xp"

You set out to kill gargoyles or some other such nonsensical busybody task, and one of them drops a purple whateveritemofthemoment.

Now then, you got that item in a drop. It is purple, which means it does not drop from EVERY gargoyle.

A few kills later, you get another purple, or you have several blues.

Back in town now, you salvage some of these things, use the mats for armor, and sell the rest to either the merchant, the material trader, or some idiot typing in all caps about needing fur squares.
You sell the other weapons to the merchant.
You make out with about 560 or gold.
Now multiply this phenomenon with all of the other players in the game in this part of the game.

Now think about the monsters in your instance. They exist for YOU. They are not respawning. Each time you enter the zone again, the same KIND of monster, not DROP is guaranteed.

So, therefore, drops being random, and what people do with them being a small list of random possibilities, and that meaning that the game server(s) themselves spawn items and cash drops according to preset probability rates, inflation CANNOT exist. The server will balance itself...

You can't really compare real world economy to GW. There are only a few items that people want, the rest has to be sold to vendors. There is no commodity that wears out, and/or consumed for the most part.

I agree farming itself does not cause inflation, but the botters do because the have the market cornered on what everyone wants and not only can they set the price but they have the resources whatever they need to equip thier bots.

Player farming is great, but does little to the economy. I wish there was more dependancy to other items especially consumables to make farming worthwhile... but then again that would be considered a grind to most.

This is completely inaccurate. Inflation is simply that the supply of money increases, so the value of the money DEcreases = prices rise.

Randomness doesn't come in to it.

As every player get get money from pretty much every monster killed, there is a constant increase in the amount of money in the game, and hence the value of money would drop (inflation) unless money was also removed from the game. Removing money from a game is done through gold sinks, ie anything which has the player giving money to an npc. The biggest money sinks in GW is probably the prestige armors, which may or may not be sufficient to avoid inflation.

Mudflation is when the value of ITEMS drop because there is a surplus of items around. As there is a large number of items dropping per day, and players can only use so many items and the ones they've got never get used up, the prices of items will drop.
This is what we're seeing - noone wants items like the ones dropping outside Lions Arch, they want gold perfect Underworld/Fissure of Woe stuff. Everything else is pretty much worthless.

The only things which remain expensive are things which are used up, like runes and dye.

Because just like gold sinks are the solution to inflation, the solution to mudflation is item sinks. In most MMORPGs this is achieved by having items decay through use, e.g. you have to pay to repair your sword every now and then, or it'll break.

Op, please, just make me laugh and try to refute this excellent post.

I think something that might be getting overlooked quite a bit here is that an increase in the gold supply does not inherently equal a devaluation of gold, or thus inflation. In order for inflation to occur, you would need an increase in the gold supply relative to the amount of goods that gold would go towards buying. If both things go up at a pretty equal rate, then prices do not increase.

Therefore, if a farmer farms soley to sell his stuff to the merchant (NOT the trader) then yeah, the gold supply is increasing and the goods aren't. That might lead to inflation if that's all farmers did. The problem is that farmers don't just sell to the merchant. The items they find go into circulation whether through traders or being sold to other players, and thus you have the tricky question to now answer: Are farmers creating more gold (through selling to the merchants and such) than they are goods to pit against that gold? I don't think there's an easy answer for this even before you take into account different people's farming/selling styles.

If my post is somewhat hard to follow, I'll reiterate my point: an increase in the gold supply does not by itself cause inflation.

Also, from the relatively stable prices I'm inclined to believe there isn't a problem with inflation.

Although I am not the OP, I believe I have already refuted that post. He's a quick summary:

The items with the best stats are cheap and have always been cheap. The most expensive item that will improve one's ability to rush through the game are 1,500gp armors, which cost a fixed amout of gold plus a fixed amount of raw materials (which have dropped in price). You could argue that a +30hp wrapping will help you run through the game 5% faster than a +28hp wrapping, but no one would believe you.
And to those who want to nerf farming from your ivory towers, I suggest you admit to yourselves that you are also falling prey to human nature yourselves, as it is very human to be jealous of others, even if such activity has no impact on your own gaming experience (or at least no one has given any conclusive evidence that farming has ruined their ability to buy things they need). Admit your jealousy and move on.

im willing to bet that K is also a farmer. I am. this has nothing to do with jealousy, and reducing his post to an expression of jealously is irresponsible

And suggesting that farmers need to defend their "innocence" is stupid.

Farming in itself does not cause inflation.

What are the most valuable items in the game? Random drops like 5/1 grips, +30 wraps, Fellblades, Stormbows, Superior Absorbtion Runes, Superior Vigor, Sigils, etc.

Farming doesn't suddenly give a player all these things every time they travel to the UW, or farm griffons, or any of the other popular farming spots. The more people farm, the more these items are in the economy, the less they cost.

You could make a case for Droknar Forge runners causing just as much inflation, since they can make thousands of gold in 30 minutes work - or the Elona Reach runners who can make 5-10K in 5 minutes work. Or the guilds that have so many sigils they can't store them all.

In the early stages of the game, before the 105 monk came around, there were plenty of rich players, and inflation was JUST as bad, if not worse, due to the economic structure of the game at the time. Rune traders, increased drops in Sigils, etc, have changed things in spreading the wealth around, but there is still a huge gulf between the uber rich and the casual player. Why? Not because of farming, but because the casual player doesn't invest the time or energy to make any more money than they need.

The beauty of GW is that you don't NEED a lot of money. Armor up in Droknars that costs about 12K to assemble works just as well as Fissure Armor that costs 100x more to create.

Thus, the current items that cost so much money - to the casual player - have zero impact on their game. A +20 fort drop (fairly common) doesn't change a PVE player's experience versus one that would cost him more money than he's ever dreamed of having. You can "win" the game with just collectors items, basic armor sets and a PUG.

Farming has been in every MMO game since antiquity. Farming in itself doesn't cause problems within games. How many people had D2 characters with MF of 500+ soloing Mephisto? No one seemed to mind then, did they? In fact, it was bragging rights to have more MF than the next guy. What destroyed the D2 economy and gameplay experience wasn't farming, but duping.

Quit complaining about something that is a real non issue.

Tanwarv, you're a lot of fun to debate with. I love when people turn my wording around on me because it shows you're at least reading my posts. Kudos to you for not resorting to personal attacks. It shows a lot of maturity and I salute you for it

I am jealous of those with all the cool toys. You're right, it's human nature. It's hard to justify if I'm jealous of someone who worked hard for what they have, but it's much easier when I find out they're cheating - even a little. Personally I would prefer to say I am envious of those with the cool toys in this game, but I won't argue semantics because it's the same thing. Hopefully with more time invested I'll be able to give Koroh ever more impressive tools to thump enemies with. With luck he might even look cool while he's doing it!

I'm a new player. I've only been playing for about 2 weeks and to be honest I've played way more than I should because of recent setbacks in my personal and professional life. Sucky deal, but not the issue. In those two weeks I've managed to get a gold hammer through a lucky drop. I haven't ascended yet but I'm level 20 and pretty close to ascension from what I can tell.

I only have one 80-armour piece (Dwarven Helm I think) so I'll have to take your word that the rest will be easy to acquire. It won't be the "cool" stuff like Fissure or Droknor's (hope I got those right), but it will be functional.

In these past two weeks I've also been reading these boards and I've noticed a lot of complaining about farming. I haven't ascended so I haven't been to UW or FoV, but I hear they're pretty similar in concept to high level dungeons in games like AC or DAoC.

As I understand it, some very clever folks have developed a template that can exploit a certain weakness in the high level creatures that allows them to gather treasure or experience at a rate higher than intended by the designers. This is where the term exploit comes from, and I think many of those arguing that the 105/55 is not an exploit should consider this. Also consider that an exploit is different from cheating or a hack. This is why I laugh when people say it's not an exploit. I can say with confidence that the designers did not intend for one class to be so terribly effective in a high level dungeon while solo.

My point is that many of those opposed to farming are not complaining about their ability to compete in the PvE or PvP arena. What they are complaining about is that farmers are getting access to those highly coveted items like fissure armour with much less time and effort than players who are not using an exploit.

Basically this argument comes down to perception. If I saw someone who had better armour than me, but found out he played 8 hours a day, I'd be satisfied. I have a social life outside the game and he probably doesn't.

On the flip side I'm going to feel justly rewarded if after playing consistantly for two months, I finally find that last piece of treasure that lets me reach my long-awaited goal: shiny boots!

The real problem is that farmers are getting these items with much less time and effort than is seen as required by these non-farming players. There is a perceived injustice so of course we're hearing about it. While I understand that your easy solution is for these players to simply join in the exploit, you must ask yourself if this is good for the game as a whole.

The allure and appeal of any RPG is that the long-term effort and time is rewarded with milestones like levels and "uber" items. By reducing the amount of time you require to achieve these milestones, you are cheapening the achievements of these other players, and also reducing the amount of satisfaction gained from these otherwise difficult tasks.

Please don't confuse all of the griping on this board with pure jealousy. Look deeper and you'll find that perhaps there is a reason fissure armour was so hard to get.

Damn but those shiny boots look good.

Koroh

Well, not to sound arrogant, which I'm not, but having only played the game for two weeks, you can't be an informed player about what the issues are, can you? You don't know what "better" armor is, it's bonuses if any, or what makes it cost so much. You bandy about a fairly strong term like "Cheating" which makes your whole outlook fairly biased and skewed, don't you think?

In addition, let's examine the term "exploit" shall we?

exploit

n. [originally cracker slang] 1. A vulnerability in
software that can be used for breaking security or otherwise
attacking an Internet host over the network. The Ping O' Death is
a famous exploit. 2. More grammatically, a program that exploits an
exploit in sense 1,

Taken from www.jargon.org .

This is a case of people taking a fairly serious computer term and tossing it around like a salad. In diablo 2, infamous duping methods were exploits, as they took advantage of a security/programming flaw in the system to allow someone to gain something illicitly. Just how is using a skill or sets of skills that are functioning properly an exploit? How is it cheating?

It's amusing to read people's posts that overly exaggerate something by substituting a more appropriate word like (perhaps, depending on your POV) "overpowered" with "exploit" or "cheating" like they were interchangable.

They're not.

As I've stated in other threads - prove to me it's a cheat. Give me concrete evidence from a developer of the game that farming using a 105 monk is a "cheat" or an "exploit". Just one. An interview. A BBS forum link. In game announcement. ANYTHING. She me a link from a developer stating that using any solo farming technique (except BOTs, of course) is wrong.

THEN we can talk.

If they somehow nerf a 105 monk, then perhaps everyone will shut up about it (including me) but until then, I'd like folks to stop exaggerating the issues.

Next people will complain about grind...oh, wait.

With all due respect that's just one definitions of exploit which pertains to network security. The word exploit has been around far longer than the internet. It also has other meanings such as:

-use or manipulate to one's advantage
-To make use of selfishly or unethically
....just to name a few

To exploit in games terms means to manipulate the gameplay mechanics to your advantage. It doesn't necessarily mean they are cheating or wrong, but sometimes they are.

I enjoy these debates as well and never intend to attack anyone personally on these forums. I try to keep the focus on a discussion of ideas. As I mentioned before, I also respect your viewpoint.
Like the poster above pointed out: be careful of the term "exploit" when discussing MMORPG's. Taking advantage of exploits is often against a MMO's EULA and in many cases results in banning. I consider it using a unique combination of skills and game mechanics to your advantage. There are many many builds that allow one to solo (in fact there are quite a few UW solo build based on both Monk primary and secondary and non-monk builds that allow soloing of other areas). If the devs make changes to the mechanic or certain powers to better match their intentions, I might understand. If the devs only do so to stop soloing and farming, I'd be upset.
Again, I understand your points, but please realize there will always be imbalances between classes and different styles of play. I encourage you to not pay so much attention to have fast class X or powerset Y gets xp/gold/invited to teams, etc. as you will eventually find disappointment in every MMORPG out there.

Again, it's the dilution of of word where it's lost it's original meaning. I guess that was what I was trying to state, but perhaps didn't make myself more clear. Manipulating ANY aspect of a game to your advantage is exploiting the game mechanics - lumping anything in with a word like "cheat" is something else entirely, and where it would fall under the definition I was using, and what people are inferring.

Just like the term "grind" (which I won't debate here) - someone that plays or has played WoW, EQ, D2, etc would have a much different conception of what "real" grind is compared to your average GW player. Yet people bandy about the term so readily it's insane.

It's exaggerating conditions by using overblown and innapropriate terminology or jargon to describe the current gameplay, and quite frankly it's at epidemic proportions around here.

IMO of course.

I agree with your premise about farming. And I very much agree with the differences in the word 'grind' which I will not also discuss
I just wanted to point out thats not the only definition, but I agree to most of what your saying.

I think it's ironic how there are people out there who throw out these terms, yet at the same time are guilty of it often not even realizing.... would you not agree?

You guys sound and complain like abunch of people on welfare that are too lazy to get a job.
"All you rich folks need to stop makin' money or give it to me!"

Cry more because you suck more.

I am fairly new to Gulid Wars but I am not new to MOG's in general. I didn't have to state how short a time I've been playing this one, but I did out of respect. Having said that, I don't think my years of MOG should make me an authority, anymore than inexperience invalidates an opinion.

So as to avoid confusion, let me define exploit using the dictionary.com version. This is an excerpt of the definition, and the one which most closely resembles my opinion.

1: use or manipulate to one's advantage; "He exploit the new taxation system"; "She knows how to work the system"; "he works his parents for sympathy"

note: does anyone else see the glaring grammatical error there? it's a direct quote from the site, check it out!

Mimi - Please understand that I did not directly accuse farmers or even users of the 105/55 build of cheating. I directly stated that I believed it was an exploit, but the only time I used the term cheating was when I said it helps me to feel justified when I'm jealous. I'm sorry if this is a fine point of semantics, and I really didn't intend to link the two.

Also note that I said "consider that an exploit is different from cheating or a hack." I don't consider the 105/55 cheating. Fair enough?

I think you jumped down my throat without reading my entire post. I accept the blame for this because your quotation of my entire post showed me how long it was. Just please try to read my full post in the future before you assume I'm your enemy.

The funny part about all of this is that I don't have a problem with farming. I'm sorry if you have been arguing under the false impression that I have some personal stake in this debate. I love GW. I have been playing for 2 weeks and I think it's a great game. I have played other MOG's too and many of the comments I've made here are related to the same anti-farming debates that have raged for the past 8 years. I don't think farming is good for the game, but I could really care less unless it's affecting my gameplay directly. So far it hasn't, but I still don't' think it's good for the game.

Tarwarv - I will be more careful in the future. I didn't realize the word exploit was so touchy. I didn't realize it was bannable either. I think hacking the game or outright cheating should be bannable, but creatively playing within the rules as set by ANet shouldn't carry such a penalty since the fault is with ANet for creating a balance problem. They should still fix it, but punishing players for discovering the exploit is a different matter.

I realize that every MOG will have balance issues, but I also realize that some are minor whereas others are so major they affect the game as a whole. The number of posts on this board and the number of newly created 105/55 monks shows me that this build is one that is in danger of radically changing the game. Change isn't necessarily bad, but one of the great things about this game is how hard ANet worked to create a rock-paper-scissors system of balance. When rock starts beating paper, it's time to speak up.

Koroh

You mean like this?

Lol. Irony can be so ironic at times.

Seriously though, you're correct. To give you another example - when playing online, sometimes either my guildmates are off doing their own thing, have a full PVP team, or whatever, and I get bored and start up another new character. I have 6 characters across two accounts, all of them ascended (and most have finished the game) so obviously I'm bored a lot. I'll reach a point in the game where I'm having difficulty getting a PUG together to move forward in the game (elona's reach, for example) and rather than contributing to the rampant inflation and broken economy ( ), I'll type out in guild chat "Hey, anyone not busy want to help me with xyz mission?".

One of the guildmates made the comment "LOL, No one plays PVE anymore, it's dead!".

Looking at my screen, I saw a couple of things wrong with this. First, since I'm playing PVE, obviously not EVERYONE has quit PVE. Secondly, I look around the district I'm in and see TONs of people, all of them screaming "LF RUNNER, WILLING TO PAY ANYTHING?" so apparently they aren't part of the everyone group either. Thirdly, just an hour before someone in the guild was asking a similar question for a mission beyond my current location, so apparently everyone doesn't apply to our guild either.

It's something that just bugs the crap out of me. It's overgeneralizations, exaggerations and mis-use of words and terms that quite a few folks seem to be in the habit of using that drive me nuts. It's like they can't make their point logically, so they will attach a buzz word to their argument just to make it sound worse than it is.

Another example was the amusing "600 hours of grind to get every skill" argument. That one is wrong on so many levels, but some people take it as gospel and perpetuate it so much it becomes pseudo-fact.

Shrug, it's probably taking things way too serious, I guess..

You farm, you get more money + items than you need.

You sell the good items to players => more supply => deflation.
You have much money.

You buy some expensive item => the item becomes more expensive because you cause demand => inflation

So deflation+inflation=0?
No, you are able to buy more items then you sold => inflation

But all games have this, that's what money sinks are for.

Why wouldn't a farmer buy items? To just show off how much gold you have?
I hope so, that's a moneysink too.

I've mentioned this in other threads - but GW inflation isn't caused by farming, it's caused by stupid players.

Why would anyone pay insane amounts for an item that isn't significantly better than the collector item I made collecting necklaces and upgraded using common dropped enchancements like a 20 health staff wrapping, or sundering whatever? It looks cool.

That's the pure definition of "stupid money". You have so much money you can afford to be stupid with it.

Most people have stupid money from sigil sales, from my experience. And if they have that kind of money, chances are they have so much faction they've unlocked (or can unlock) just anything they need to get more sigils faster.

Sigils are still the fastest way to become rich. If you're in a good guild, you play perhaps 1-6 maps, win the HoH, then sit until you're bored defending it, and after 4-5 hours work you have 500K or more. Teams do it all the time.

Or, you take 100K nest egg and start playing the market, buying early in the morning the next hot thing, then sell at a profit in the evening with little or no risk. Lather Rinse Repeat.

Or, you scam people selling worthless items to newbies, ripping people off outright, or find a spot where you can easily generate cash - the wreckage "feature" that dropped huge piles of gold right outside of a town portal comes to mind.

Or, you develop a niche market. These are the Forge Runners, Desert Runners, Granite Runners, etc that have sprung up all over.

Or, if you're obscenely rich, you manipulate the market, buying out inventories of items (like monk superior runes, black dyes, etc) and create a false market crash.

Or, you farm. Solo, or with a group.

Shall we "nerf" all these ways of making money? Surely ANet didn't intend for any of this to go on, did they?

The beauty of MMO games is the players for the most part run the game, not the development team. Sure the dev team can influence things to some extent, but as a living world, it's the player populating it that make it so.

i have no idea what your point is. i farm. i understand what is does to the economy. dont pretend like our effects dont exist. if they didn't, we wouldn't have any reason to farm now, would we

blow me, asshole. only posts i've seen you make are flame bait. well here, ill be happy to give you some.

You do not understand what it does to the economy, if you think the effects are negative.

My original post was simply to point out that farming does not cause inflation, which should be obvious. I was not trying to "defend my innocence" as a a farmer rofl and it's ridiculous to suggest I need to.

I have yet to see a post which effectively refutes my original post. The person who talked of "mudflation" had a good point, as only the rarest most desirable weapons have held their value, while all other weapons have dropped in price (or are crap).

Stormbows, now selling at 3-5k for even a max low req one, are a perfect example. With the amount of new bows entering the market exceeding the amount of new bow users, this price drop was inevitable. Farmers didn't cause it, but they did accelerate the process. This means that now even a casual player can scrape up the funds for a max dmg stormbow - no grind required, cause a bunch of others effectively did it for you.

I'm not arguing most of the points you made in this post; however, I feel the need to point out what I mentioned in my last post. Under the current in-game economy, a player selling something to another player does not cause inflation, regardless of what horrible prices people will pay. The amount of gold or items in the system is not changed by a player-to-player transaction, and thus inflation has nothing to do with it. Call it whatever else you like, price gouging or a rich/poor gap, but please realize that you're not discussing inflation.

So many problems with your logic here... Please let me say a few words.

Selling items to players != inflation. The ratio of items:gold in circulation has not changed.

You buy an expensive item from the trader or a player != deflation. The ratio of items:gold in circulation has not changed.

You buy expensive armor from the crafter = deflation. However slight, the amount of gold in circulation has gone down in relation to the items. I say this because armor is customized to you and thus can't really be considered in circulation.

Bought items are NOT a money sink if the items are bought from a player or the traders. The only money sinks currently in this game are things like armor, dyes (if you intend to use them, not re-sell them), and dwarven ale.

If anyone still doesn't understand why half the posts in this thread are misusing the word inflation, please read my previous post.

Well, I was thinking more in terms of gameplay like people who claim farming is an exploit, and then they pay someone to get the Drok armor. Sure running in an out of a zone to respawn things is in a sense exploiting the mechanics of the instanced zones though not a biggie. But then traveling through by rezzing at the zone point is a huge exploit. At one time I would have hoped that would be fixed but I don't really play anymore so if people wanna be cheap so be it.

On a different note-
As far as the economy is concerned it's really the player's fault that the prices are so high. Firstly you really don't need to buy that suff, if no one paid the high prices they would probably go down. Secondly there are alot of people who buy gold and everyone looks the other way. They not only are willing to pay the high prices they promote and support botters. And finally if people weren't in such a rush they probably have more fun.

...but that's just me.

Helium? causes inflation.

Gases" built up in a corpse at the bottom of a river cause inflation.

Why no one but myself and 3 other people seem to notice the same 9 threads in 90 places? PRICELESS.

For everything else, there's playing the game itself.

i could not farm so i buy swords and resell them for more

after 3 months my total is over a million

but if i could farm myself i would not be paying anything and that really sucks i always have to buy everything.

There is inflation in BOTH sides of the coin, both P-P or T-P-T transactions.

Sigils are the perfect example. When GW first started, a sigil cost a couple of plat. As the weeks wore on, the cost of sigils skyrocketed....25K, 30K, 35K, 50K, 85K, 100K, then 100K PLUS 7-9 unIDed gold items. Even when ANet instituted the increased drops prices still hovered around 90K for quite some time. Eventually prices have stabilized through ANet's trader minimum/max prices and sigils are easy to find.

Superior Monk runes are yet another example. You can't buy a superior healing rune from a trader (or at least you couldn't a day or two ago when I checked). "Black Market" traders sell them for 20-25K where before the mass buying spree those types of runes cost 1-2K at most, monk runes used to be just about worthless. Since you can't buy that rune from a trader (unless you're lucky) the PLAYERS set the market for the price, and inflation is applied accordingly.

Those are just two examples.

After re-reading your post, I more understand your point - and while your basic premise is correct, there are many types of inflation, not just your example.

In GW's economy, gold has no real instrinsic value - it's not based on any standard, it's just a commodity, like anything else. If gold was the ONLY way to pay for products and services, your point may be somewhat valid in a narrow sense, but GW's economy is more dynamic.

In addition, you're assuming that the supply of gold is a constant, like any other commodity. This is incorrect. Gold is limitless. More gold is injected into the economy every time someone sells an item to a trader. The traders never run out of money, thus, there is always a buyer for an item or services. Thus, the actually supply of gold is going UP, not stagnant. There will never be a day in GW where the supply of gold runs out. In addition, due to player activity, the supply stream of gold ebbs and flows, little gold is coming into the economy int he early morning hours when less players are playing, and hits it's peak in prime time.

Also, there are no banks in GW - people hoard cash and items in their storage or on their characters. This has a deterimental effect on the economy, as it causes inflation because while the gold exists, it's not "in the economy". It's much like someone burying their money in a coffee pot in the backyard. Hoarding money causes inflation, because if people save their money and not interject it into the economy, when they eventually do spend it, they tend to overpay - after all, they have lots of money, so what do they care if they overpay for something that normally would be worth a tenth of what it normally would sell for?

So, the REAL economy isn't based on gold per se, it's the supply and demand of ITEMS that cause inflation. The number of superior monk runes, for example is a finite # - it's supply is a fixed number. Traders run out of runes - and no one is selling them to the traders. Thus, in one aspect, RUNES are the currency of GW - at the moment. A few months ago, it was Sigils. Tomorrow it might be monsterous eyes, who knows? In D2, gold was worthless. SOJs were the real currency of the game.

It's not just the simple definition of inflation you're using.

...and yet you keep posting.

Sorry I couldn't resist. Hey how bout this -we need more positive posts!! I notice there aren't too many.

Half of these are the result of bad or the lack of game mechanics regulating the economy. Ive said it before, i dont see a working economy in this game. Eventually every player that still plays will have any item they want, because nothing really leaves the game and items are able to be altered. The large inflation spikes is the direct result of people with too much money. The mudflation is the result of the abscence of a proper flow of items out of the game creating a working economy. People using the aforementioned methods (ignoring normal farming) are basically abusing the lack of a system within the game to regulate it. This game is not designed to be an economics simulator and people shouldnt try to make it into one.

If buying, trading, manufacturing, fighting, and resource gathering is your thing, then i would direct you to eve online. That game actually has systems in place that create a living game world as far as economics are concerned. It is lacking in the politics and geography departments though, but the devs do take the time to weave player doings into flavor news within the game, helping to shape the world.

LOL good one, someone finally manages to get me and be nice but funny about it without resorting to mundanity and hate. I like that!

Positive post:

GUILD WARS Rocks! I tried

While this debate on what does and does not cause inflation is interesting, it totally misses the point.

The point being that, contrary to popular belief, there appear to be no inflation in guildwars.

Prices are not rising (except for a very few flavor-of-the-week commodities), prices are falling. For instance, when running to Droknars started, the usual price was 5K. Today when I passed through I heard noone charging more than 1K, and one charging as little as 500.

Again IMO the problem the GW economy faces right now isn't so much excess of gold as excess of items. The value of gold is still good, the runners still want payment in gold, not (for example) dye.

Items enter the guildwars world by the millions every day, some are sold to traders or salvaged, but the good ones tend to remain. Meaning that 'rare' items over time cease to be so. And meaning that prices drop as demand is saturated.

Or, put another way, there's surplus production & deficiency of demand, a situation very rarely seen in market economies other than very locally.

Nicely put Numa, especially on how the value of gold is still good and your conclusion on GW has surplus in production and deficiency in demand and how this kind of situation is rarely observed in the real world!!!

Being an adult playing GW and a nerd who did my graduate study on economics passionately, I always believed that MMORPG games could be a platform for testing economics theories. And the discussion of this form appears to fulfilled this dream of mine to some degree. I believe all the participants of this forum, whether their understanding of inflation is correct or not in a academic sense, must had spend sometime looking into this matter. And this is great!

Just as all of you are concerned about inflation ins GW, you guys should pay attention to the inflation in the real world. Even through, none of us cannot do much to change it (this is completely controlled by the government's central bank), yet we can still prepare ourselves for this loss in your purchasing power, ability to store value and to measure of wealth. Whether the solution is using another form of money, or move out of the country or support monetary policies that promotes the control of inflation, or whatever, the most important thing is have awareness of the problems of inflation and try our best to avoid the government stealing from us through inflation!!

Salute to every1 for participating in and reading this economics debate (at least in my opinion)!!

Wait a second, you don't mean...

We've all been duped into having an intellectual discussion! Economics 101? Nooooooooooooo! I just came for the arguments and flaming! Third door on the right? Thanks!



Koroh

Complain more about a made up problem please.
Less crying and more playing the game please.

The key to the GW economy is the rate of player churn (rate of players quitting) which is the main way desirable items get removed from the economy.

It works like so:

Farming generates both money and items.

Items can be placed into three general categories: junk (always sold), useable (used by the majority), and exceptional ("perfect" stats).

Useable items will get cheaper because the supply will increase. (Drops greatly out-pace players churn and removing those items from the economy.)

Generally exception items are subject to increasing value, since it is easy to acquire useable items and then you just save for exceptional items.

However, the value of exceptional items is eventually determined by their true rarity. If they are so rare that the number leaving the economy (through players churn) is greater than the number of new drops the value will grow. However, if the supply slowly increases, their value will also slowly decrease but they will start out fantastically more expensive than useable items and because useable items are subject to deflation, will only start decreasing in relative value once the useable item market is saturated.

This leads to a couple interesting points:
1) If the rate of player churn increases, the value of exceptional items should go up.
2) New exceptional items should see a spike in value once the demand for them is understood, but afterwards should slowly decrease in price given a low enough rate of churn.
3) Anything not exceptional has litte chance of becoming more valuable.
3a) Tradeable useable items (like major runes) change their traders into extra storage providers. Basically, you pay a small fee to have the trader store the item for you because your storage space is worth more than the item.

So, in response to the OP: farming can cause inflation, but only if exceptional items are rare enough (which it seems they are). Each time you farm without finding an exceptional item, you've just increased the (gold) value of exceptional items. If exceptional item drops were increased, such that there was only two categories of items (junk and useable) then farming would cause deflation.

Dyes, ecto, globs, and other aesthetic-based commodities are more complicated because useable/exceptional is far more subjective with them. (IE: There is no perfect dye).