Guild wars Economy My View

In gold I have just over 11 k. I have taken 20 levels to earn it. I have Ventari armor. I have a great deal in storage that I have never used or sold, like dye because I can't tell if I will get a result I want. There is an insufficient amount of support for me to know if the investment in TIME is worth it. When I create a character, that is what I want to play. I don't, want to spend the next 35 levels attempting to piecemeal and tack together a patchwork hodgepodge of never quite was it.

I shouldn't have to hunt to be what I am: I don't want to have to get my gear from a philanthropist, but in a better world that would be possible. I want to be able to get what is appropriate for me. As I recently posted, I ran a Mesmer for nine levels and never received a decent Mesmer weapon, chalice, or chakram. I got an 8-11 bow, but I was not a ranger! I got a 6-9 sword with regen bonus, but that will only get me killed. I erased the character, his 3 k, his 4 silver, 2 blue, orange, and red in disgust.

Facts:

1. You can't play the roles of the character's background from the start with any value.

2. The majority of one's time is spent bolstering to fight monsters in hunting expeditions for junk to SS.

3. The body typing of the male necro will never be out of my posts until they cease to look like crystal meth addicts.

4. The ranged henchies dont know this unless you also are ranged, so a warrior must fight with a bow to remind Alesia she is not a Tank.

Fitz Rinley

I'm not quite sure what this has to do with my point you quoted, I've read it over a couple of times.

Even in a perfect world, most people have to work a bit to get what they want you can't get around that.... so technically you do have to hunt and quest to get what you want. The game should have a bit of a challenge shouldn't it?

It's nobody's fault but your own that you erased your character in disgust, as you could have easily tranferred it the items to a new character or sold them. A few gold here and there over time add up.

huh, you can't?

Well most RPG's you spend the majority of the time hunting monsters. I do agree that most items are deemed junk....that is a problem.

I'm not sure what these have to do with the economy (or they are really facts) but that's a interesting viewpoint..

In the original arguement he said we should have a gold cap for the entire communtiy. well thats good in theory but in reality you get a situation where the richest among us will sit on all the money and the rest of us fight over the scraps left over and that sure isn't fair to someone who's just starting out. the only way something like that would work is putting a sales tax on trade goods and dump all that money back into the game. I think if that were to happen and the tax would be a percentage alot of the godly prices would go down because a buyer isn't gonna want to pay 30k for 1 item and on top of that pay a 10% sales tax to boot. unfortunately for most people the ideas that have been set down to control inflation are going to be more detrimental than helpful. another suggestion would be to have the vendors buy items at fair market value instead of 100x less than they're worthit's really frustrating when you pick up a black dye and the vendor sells it for 7500g (i think) but it's only valued at 1g for you so you have to go to the community and try to sell it but for some items that don't have a large market it's extremely hard to unload those items

overall I don't see much of a problem with inflation in GW simply because you have the same resources as anyone else in traditional MMOs you have people who specialize in 1 thing or another and if you want those items you must buy from those people otherwise you're SOL but in GW you can go out and collect the materials and gold you need to make/buy whatever you want if you want a green item go to SF and fight for it if you want runes ectos shards you can go get those too you're not restricted by your profession as to what items you can get or craft other than the armor and runes you can use

Actually if the everyone gave stuff away, there would be no value to anything would there not? That doesn't help any economy.

Excellent suggestion. sounds like real life.

but where will the cap be? 1 million? 1 billion?

if there is only so much gold what is to stop people from hoarding, also like real life? how to redistribute the wealth gathered by the elite (thereby kept away from the, for lack of a better word, "poor"?

a death tax seems obvious at first glance. Although if you think about it, you would have to implement it based on the dead character's. total value (gold on char. and in storage, as well as items) and percentage of that (1 to 5%??)
the problem here is that 5% of a "poor" persons value could only be 500, but a well off character it may be 5000 or more if they have lotsa of ectos. this would encourage hoarding and discourage risk-taking, i.e. there not gonna risk death if its gonna cost them more then they would get.

what would happen if the "elite" stopped dying?
will the gold and drops just dry up?

You realise there already is a gold cap?

(100,000 gold x the number of characters in the game world) + (1,000,000 gold x the number of accounts)

More gold simply cannot exist.

Sure, it would still drop, but if everyone has all his gold reserves maxed out (and his inventory and storage space filled with stacks of 250 ectoplasms, for example), no one would be able to pick it up.

Give the game a thousand years (or maybe a million), grant endless endurance and immortality to players, and you will get there.

Hence: time is Guild Wars' primary commodity.

Your right. I forgot to make the main point after beating around the bush:

Because all of your time is spent trying to accumulate gold for improving your bean counted points the economy has become the focus of the game instead of gaming. The number of hours logged per individual to acquire 3-4 gold here or there is seen as a boon by someone.

If you by a salvage kit for 100 g @ 25 uses that is -4 g off of each item recovered. If you buy 6 phantom keys at 750 g ea to SS 6 purple or gold worthless objects at an average 35 g ea that is a 4,290 g loss. (Have not made this mistake yet, I buy a couple keys in an area for entertainment but consider them trash and a waste of time.)

No one has come back from a perfect world with that kind of discription. The challenge is in being what you are trying to be: Persona. The challenge is in being a Warrior who wields sacred powers for sacred obligation. The challenge is in being a Mind Bender from the haunting depths of the bloodiest soul. The challenge is in being a Survivalist avenging nature judiciously. (Hence: W/Mo, Me/Ne, & R/Ele).

Since secondaries are worthless (especially for warriors) we are left with powering up primary attributes and weapons for "challenges." This is done thru hunting (slaying large vloumes of monsters for gold and items) and farming (getting killed by monsters to raise their level until they will be worth more in drops and exp. when killed).

You completely miss the point because you focussed on what took the longest to say, not the issue. At 45% of the way toward being max level the character had not found a single weapon or artifact worth using in his primary class. While Fast Casting may transfer over to Necrotic skills (and I have no reason to believe it should, Strength does not benefit Monk skills), he was being given warrior and ranger based drops.

No, you can't play secondary attribute areas with any value. The secondary class is worthless. Especially if you are a warrior primary. The inclusion of adrenaline based skills for the warrior was offset by reducing its energy to the point of making all other classes useless. This effect is less strict on distance casters like Necromancers, Mesmers, Elementalists, Rangers, and Monks - if they can keep their distance. (Very unlikely in this game.) These five can combo more effectively, especially if they are pure casters and don't suffer the Ranger's slot loss. This is another reason for needing to maximize every potential you have in the specialty of one's primary. That means more incentive to hunt or farm and less incentive to game.

In many RPGs hunting for experience has been the only functional format for over 30 years. I have been present thru them, playing many of them. Castle Faulkenstien was superior in granting no character development for kills. It was played using regular cards and one received plot points to activate story devices among fellow players. Obviously this will not work in a pre-written pre-programmed adventure arena. This does not mean that the personas we create in game are androids to have their brains ripped and reprogrammed at a whim because the character cannot have sufficient energy, attribute points, or access to stylization to represent the play. Divine Warriors are a joke in this game. Dark Warrios are a joke in this game. And if the Primary attribute of spell casters (Rangers energy bonuses, Elementalists energy storage, Mesmer fast casting, etc. benefits other classes, but not the Warrior's Primary has no equal benefit that leaves the class with a major disadvantage to the rest in comboing.

There are many women who play, I know this. I strongly suspect there are many men who play women warrioresses. Warriors of some ilk are the primary class in the game, and easiest to find. They are they only one build like a football player, if male - (or a non-dandy/drug using punk in the case of certain casters). Their appeal is in their "health" (Connan/Red Sonja) as much as anything else. When the class is weakened deliberately because people want to play something appealing to them, and don't play what is not to them as appealing, then THIS economy becomes pushed by hunting, farming, and running. These are the three sports the warrior is most capable of doing. (Elite Rangers are good runners but lower level rangers have virtually no running skills.)

This is a fantasy game. People play it in order to be part of a fantasy. In order to have that fantasy (someone said vanity) they have to get things that will provide them this. Dye is so rare I won't waste any of it on a character until I can prove I can get the color I want. Until I find 50 or so of each color (especially black as it will be crittical to making anything that isn't pastel or for an ad campaign) I have no reason to bother with it. I currently have 1 black. This is all part of the economy.

Fitz Rinley

(I haven't logged in today, but the last I tried to make a Necro Male - he still looked like a modern day drug user from a leather bar instead of a Necromancer.)

Oh, and I do give stuff away. Anything that is not my class that a lower level can use I give away. I take newer players to where they can bet better equipment or help them get better equipment. I am quite willing to ruin the economy.

Fitz Rinley

I don't think the Guild Wars economy is in any immediate danger of becoming unreachable for new players. As with any game, the backbone of the Guild Wars economy is supply vs. demand. Seeing as more players join the game evrey day, and they start finding rare items within a week of that, supply keeps growing. Demand is slinking if anything. A single person can find dozens of rare weapons, yet will only need one or two per character. Thus the supply is bigger than the demand, and prices get lower. This has been going on for weeks, but has been especially noticable since sorrow's furnace.

Green items crashed the prices of fully upgraded perfect weapons, perfect weapon upgrades and perfect damage mods. The only things I've seen going up in price lately are ectos and runes. This is only because it's harder to get them then it used to. The UW gets nerfed for the 100th time, ecto rises back to over 10K for the first timein months. Runes are going up because the farming areas for them have been nerfed. Thus it is a healthy economy, in which new players can buy good stuff with their 10k (like a perfect monk staff: Yakslapper sells at 10K these days). The really elite items will always remain pricy, but only the really elite players need them. For example, a Vampiric Crystalline of Enchanting 20% with +15% wile hp>50% will still cost 100K and 250 globs of ecto. But who needs it? For PvE it hardly makes a difference, and for PvP you can get a weapon like that for 2000 faction...

I thought the post was rather intelligent and probably pretty close to how the game should work.

Any unlimited amount of money means the money's value goes bye-bye.

Excellent post...now if we can only convince Anet of this...LoL

I'm a W/R and I use my ranger skills about 70% of the time, Either for my ranged (to lesson the amount of life of an on coming creature) or my creature...So i don't know where you got this info from but its wrong...

With all do respect Deadlyjunk,

I am 20th level, and near half way to the next. I have just finished Villainy of Galrath. I have Ventari armor. I have near 10 k in storage. I have a max sword given to me by a RW friend's character. (Otherwise I wouldn't have accepted it, and yes I have turned them down from others.)

I do see a problem with the economy. It is not set up to support characterization, but then neither are game mechanics (ie. secondary classes).

An example is shields. They can't be modded. A W/Ne carrying a skull shield makes sense. A W/R carrying the Ascalon Shield in Ascalon Armor makes sense. Instead one may beat the game and obliterate the charcter to find that shield while getting ready to finnish up with a Mo/Me.

Fitz Rinley

No, its not wrong. I hide behind a bow and use Stefan and Thomy the same way. That keeps the spell casters alive, because then Alesia doesn't pretend she's a tank. I can switch to sword at last minute. This is the format I've taken to when exploring/mapping an area before adventuring in it.

Also, as ranged you can run away. This is an option most warriors don't get in combat. Alesia in particular, but often Thomy - or many, many real players run in every direction and agro everything onto the warrior leaving him the option of dying or mapping out. If a warrior had sufficient power and regen to use his healing, smiting, elementalist, etc. powers while in combat he could represent what he is and has (a secondary). As a W/R your using your pet as cannon fodder and then the bulk of the problem is handled for you. By the time you are required to use any real energy your enemy is damaged or near dead. No other Warrior combo has the pet, which the two slot loss is supposed to make the difference of.

The secondary class has no role value. Your pet is doing your warrior work for you but that is not making you a ranger as I can do the same with henchies and resurrect them when I am the only thing left standing. My number of deaths at this rate is over 200 and growing because I no longer care. I can only be killed down to 60%. Healing spells are the job of the monk (Alesia). Healing enchantments are only another way to get killed - they are useless. (The problem with dying is just like the economy, it isn't the dying it is the loss of time moving back to where you were so you can continue progress.)

Fitz Rinley

It doesn't help that much, but then again it does no harm as well. I give out a lot of items to beginners simply because I think the prices for items are just ridiculously high. According to Anet statistics, on average each player has no around 20k. So please explain to me how on earth that average player would buy a 200k item if it's wanted by that player.

Why indeed.... Because it is a goal to reach?
It's not a good goal, but since everyone can use just about anything in the game (in thier character class), why should they try to get it themselves?

Like I said if everyone gave people things that would devalue items and also the goals. Look at the "What are your goals in GW" thread alot of lists have some item and a amount of gold they would like to reach. You could argue that's not the point of GW, well for alot of people (the people who may buy chapter 2) it is.

That's sorta the point I was trying to make earlier point, since most mobs during quests drop lots of seemingly worthless stuff, the only goal is to save enough money to buy the high level uber weapons and/or save to get run and upgrade to the best armor. Which is kinda funny because seems like most proponents of this complain other MMO's have too much grind... and this to me seems like a grind to me. If there was only more value put into items (weapons, raw materials, armor) in the lower level areas there would be more things to look forward to down the road. Also it would create a wider variety of reasonably tradable items. Have the some dependancy where the low level player can participate.

If you were just to play PvE game without rushing to get the best stuff, you could easily play through the game without having to deal with anyone else trading or selling except for merchants. If you want to play PvP I guess it's a different story.

Well once again, you can role play but the basics for most popular RPGs (in the computer/console realm) is to quest progress through the game, craft (if in the game) and accumulate items/money/skills in doing so. A game can dress it up anyway they want, but you are doing the essentially same thing. If everything is handed to you in GW, things would be boring real quick. Even if you want a persona, you still have to aquire the proper skills and items.

Well just playing through the game, not having people tell me what I should have, I was doing fine. I'm sure if there was a better weapon or item someone convinced me was better I'd be worried that I needed it.

Once again, I had no problems. As far as farming, some folks consider farming part of the game experience. Still I'm not sure how this helps the economy or not. You have to consider that not everyone wants the same thing out of a game as you do.

With all due respect I think you are talking apples and oranges. Perhaps the problem you have with GW is the gameplay not the economy. I can't say I blame you, but you are talking completely different games. GW is a relatively casual game.

Hello, Well I guess you were wrong about people not reading your post

Well, first of all your post was very interesting and not as dull as you implied.

The recommendations you made to fix the economy problems were very reasonable and should be taken in consideration.

Guild wars economy is a problem that most players come by sooner or later in the game. So as you, I have spent my shear amount of time pondering the situation.

Well here's what I liked to add to your resolutions:

If the top of the leader items that all player crave for were a little easier to come by, perhaps as a bonus of some new final and very challenging missions, it would certainly devise the attention of money owners to other aspects of the game. What I mean is that if what drove economics of the game was lets say fashion (and I have to say that the armors in UW and FoW surely are an example of that), than players could have the items that would make them to the top (in storyline characters and not only PvP) with not more than a fair effort and time spent gaming. Then the attention would be devised to get the same level armor and weapons but with other designs and colors.
In other words, instead of having one craved item that has a gazillion chance of dropping campaigning, there could be hundreds of equally powerful items, diverting the attention of elite traders, allowing some space for the small people to breath and adding the special touch in the game that so many players crave for, making your own unique character, look the way you want her to.
Well I guess this could help balance economics, the most basic law of search and offer, adding a little of Sims (not that I like the game) in the game. After all, guild wars has 5 set of armors (which common folk can purchase), one of witch has no bonus. Is it only me who find it fairly limiting? Even if you can dye it?
Of curse this would make most players very happy and play a little while more. But the elite gamers, the ones that will stay on even when no one remembers the game, would be very disappointed. If you could reach all the objectives with a lot less effort, then they would achieve all goals in the game and have no more reason to play.

So bottom line is who does the game want to favor? Because as online games grow older this always happens, no one wants to play in a game were they will never reach the top and still others wont play a game were they can’t shine.

There's no role playing in GW as there are no options for roles. Don't get stuck believing that having what you need to be efficient and effective at what you are (or look and feel the part) is something one should do after the fact. Here go fight the Iraqi Insurgency. Flac-jacket, helmet, rifle, bullets...let me see... Well we can drop you some fishing line, a hand cranked egg beater, a rusted key saw, and an oil drum lid. That should do for the first 45 to 65% of your tour. You have a primary of Infantry and a secandary of cook. Of course we use civilian cooks and that isn't going to be necessary, but at least we gave you the egg beater in case you can scramble someone's face with it.

See item drop situation in paragraphe above. It isn't about people telling me what I need. It's about getting what is proper to the role of the character. A Mesmer/Necromancer isn't meant to run around with a wand of +4 energy, 2-4 light damage, improves casting speed of earth elemental spells. This is not worth going to Post with. It is not worth adventuring in Pre with. It is the kind of thing you get.

The greater the amount of hunting the greater the depreciation of the economy. The more people who farm realize their efforts are wasted in hunting ventures for time returns the less time they will spend hunting. End result, the current ressession will end but be regenerated when new items become available altering the expectations of the market.

GW is a cut-throat game that inspires cliques and competitveness at the highest venue. I understood there to be a supported role playing side to the game. (Caused by an entry screen, I am certain.) It avoids role playing completely. It barely maintains a stroy line as a hook and wouldn't need one for what goes on in this game. This is a game of market economics, and power grabbing for competition - personally or in guild. Those that would play a role are very few. Those that appear to even have a concept of what a role means - even in a limited electronic environment are very few; perhaps less than 3%. So, it is a elaborated Pong with androids as the paddles and the ball.

Fitz Rinley

I'm very surprised that nobody here has countered this at all. Fitz, read the description for Fast Casting. I don't even know what you're trying to say there, anyway.

Try a Fast Casting Mes-Rez. Or any Fast-Casting Mes-Monk combo. Fast Casting+Smiting is deadly, and hey...that's a secondary attribute that is invaluable.

Or Fast Casting Curses Mes-Nec.

Or Elmo Smiters.

Or hell, even Fast Casting Echo Nukers--or any Mesmer/Ele combo.

Hell, even a Nec/Mes doing Curses and Dom Interrupts is stunning (I use one myself), and the Dom Interrupts are just as devastating when played well as if you were Mes/Nec.

I could go on and on for just spellcasters. Let's not forget HamWar/Eles using KD/AS. Even though I avoid that precise combination, it's still using the secondary attribute areas with tons of value right there.

I'd like to compliment you on your post. It is very intriguing and very well backed up. The information you produced gave a good insight and sparked my mind into what will Anet do about this problem.

I do althought think you had some drastic statements saying that ectos would get to 50K+ each. If it does get that way it will take a long while. Now I have faith that it will never become this bad. Although if it does I think a better way of collecting gold/high value items will be implimented.

Even if all this does happen the number of new players entering the game will be decreasing considerably for the lack of this games popularity to awaiting gamers.

Ok that's all I have to say once again good job a very informative article.

I try to make a point to reply when someone quotes me, but I'm honestly not sure what to reply to. My point was that you can role play a persona as you put it, but in the end it all comes down to a basic gameplay formula. I'm not saying you should

GW doesn't take a whole lot of time/effort to have fun. In fact I'll be the first to stand corrected and say you really don't even need to worry about the economy in this game. I'm beginning to think that it would be better to take out the whole gold system, and if people want to play a deep MMORPG they can play something else.

u dont need much gold in guild wars actually to have the Uber weapons and neither does armor cost that much except fissure. U can get perfect Weapons at crafters and collectors so no need for a regular person to hunt/farm for gold this is just to get the highly rare weapons which in fact do the same damage.

so this gold and economy thing is just for a small amount which dont want the easily gettable items which do the same dmg
its just because of looks and status so this article is utterly nonesense if ya ask me if ya want rare weapons u gotta farm trade etc but u dont need em just the freaks need em and thats all

I'm beginning to agree, and I'd much rather quest/farm cool stuff than buy it anyways.

So specifically the game designers were prejudiced against Warriors by differentiating them in these ways:

1) Their primary attribute does not advantage secondary class skills as does the primary attribute of other classes, and

2) They are penalized with reduced energy points so they cannot utilize the class skills/powers of the secondary which they receive - unlike all other classes.

(This latter is supposed to be balanceed out by adrenaline which sometimes works against foes that drain energy, but some foes are capable of draining life, energy, and preventing adrenaline at the same time in my experience.)

3) Their regeneration rate of energy is made so low as to be useless should they equip anything that would make them capable of using any secondary class skills or powers (icon, ankh, cesta, etc.)

Fitz Rinley

(And if the Necromancer didn't look like a meth addict from a leather bar it might be worth playing.)

Well, if we had no gold, we'll have items to be the new "currency" like ecto.

that'd even make it harder to trade for better items then.


war wants a 15>50 sword
do u have 100 ectos?
no. fine. no ecto for u. i only want ecto. no ecto = no sword.




but this could be useful...remmber in D2 when collecting chipped gems actually was gonna get u somewhere. 40 chipped gems = 1 soj.

those were the times..were people from the lower ranks can rise up through dedication and hard work.

as for the "no grind people," yall gonna get stuck with collectors

Collectors armor is just as good as Droks. It simply lacks the distinctiveness of purchase and energy boost. Since energy doesn't help a warrior with any secondary skills anyway - as the secondary class is too penalized to be of value - it doesn't matter what armor they wear. Collectors is fine, when you don't represent anything but canned meat for the front line.

Fitz Rinley

What are you talking about? Prejudiced? Where in the bloody hell are you getting "prejudiced" from? Be sensible. This game (and the dev's intentions) is not some...nightmarish pre-Civil Rights Movement alternate reality.

So what? If you're a primary Warrior, you're designed to do damage. Strength adds one point of armor penetration per level. It's a primary Warrior's best friend in many cases. But I really don't see the problem with Strength being Warrior-only, anyway. How this is detrimental to the economy...I have no idea, and I haven't seen you explain it at all. When you have tried to explain it, all I read is long-winded verbosity that says little to nothing at all.

Yeah, I'm going to say "Who cares?" about a physical damage-exclusive attribute? It doesn't matter. With rare exceptions, spellcasters shouldn't be getting up in the front lines anyway, so your entire issue here seems pretty irrelevant from the outset. Warriors are frontline fighters. Spellcasters aren't. To illustrate, count how many physical attack skills the spellcasters have. Then compare that number to the amount of physical attacks you find in a Warrior's set. That's no coincidence.

Warriors are designed to be brute force. If you're trying to tank as a caster (without Earth Eles, or Illusion magic Mesmers), you need to re-think that strategy, just like if you're trying to play a finesse warrior that deals in high-damage Air magic spiking with a build that would clearly be tailored to a primary Ele doing ranged damage...you need to re-think that strategy.

25 energy is more than enough for a Warrior. If you're running out of energy, you're doing something wrong. Plus, I don't even think you've got a valid criticism here, because on top of sounding incredibly nit-picky, if you're playing a Warrior/Ele, and including an Ele spell like Earthquake in your skill bar--a spell that costs 25 energy and causes Exhaustion--that's not the Dev's fault, nor is it the fault of the War's 25 energy. That lousy planning is your own fault. That goes with any of the higher-cost Ele spells (and any higher-cost spells in general) available, too.

If you're bitching about the lower energy pool of Warriors, you need to start thinking energy management, that's the bottom line.

Yes, those are called Mesmers. What's the problem? You've got Soothing Images and Sympathetic Visage. That's about it in terms of Adre Breakers. Any Enchant removal and Symp.Visage isn't a problem. Any Hex removal and Soothing Images isn't a problem.

Solutions: Tactics Stances. Flourish-based Energy attack build. Zealous weapon mods. Condition-stacker (single target or AoE) with Victory is Mine. For W/E, run the attunements.

Like I said before, the energy pool of Warriors is fine how it is. Two pips of regen is completely appropriate for a (starting) energy pool of 20-25. Unless I'm rusty with pip rates, two pips means 4 energy per second. At a total of 20-25, you don't need any more than 2 pips. That's why it's a waste to use Blood Rit/BiP on a Warrior. They don't need it.

Honestly, I don't think your points here have any merit whatsoever, because it seems like you want to play spellcasters as if they were Warriors and Warriors as if they were spellcasters...and that's just completely irresponsible, and your expectations there are so unrealistic (even for a fantasy hack n slash setting) that no wonder you're so annoyed. Do us all a favor. Stop posting about this.

This was back when SOJ's were heavily duped to where anyone playign the game for a little bit had a whoel account full of them. with everythign being server side on GW, there is no duping like there was in D2, so in theory this idea would further inflate the problem and aleniate people. New players that dont have access to UW to get ectos and dont havethe cash to buy them would be left out and not be able to get anything. Also the price of ecto would SKYROCKET to limits that would basically force something else to be more useful. anythign of any value to be sold will be used as the new currency and thuswil lraise prices further than what they are now.

As i have said a few times, you dont have to spend 100k + 30 ectos on a max crystaline sword to have a good weapon. so many people think that in GW you have to have the rarest/most valuable/sought after items in the game to be competitive. This is simply not the case and its sad that most people dont realize that.

There are other places to discuss Primaries and Secondaries than a suggestion thread about the economy. Fitz Rinley and co., take the argument elsewhere or I'll get mad and nuke all of the posts you all have made in here.

Accepted. Will attempt to start a new post.

The inititial remains. part of what makes the economy drive poorly is the lack of value of secondary classes in their representation. The evidence of analyzing primary attributes indicates this is more true of the Warrior and Monk classes whose benefits will not aid their other classes. The only area open for modification remains items since 2.5 attribute areas is not flexible enough to represent a Warrior combo, and no one has any shown any better elsewhere. The skill slot limitation already means most of what you have is useless at any given time. So again, it all comes back to mods which is the economy.

Fitz Rinley

A real-world economy is dynamic and needs to be constantly regulated.

Value in the real world is driven by need and desire much like that in GW. The problem is, in GW the ratio of need to desire is way too polarized. Once a player has his/her needed droks armor and weapons, what's left - desirable armor and weapons - which players will use un-needed gold to purchase.
This drives uncontrollable inflation since a large part of the community is now on the hunt for the highly desirables.

Increased desire by an increasing number of players = increasing value = over-inflated prices = decreased value of gold = uncontrolled inflation.

If there were more need items such as food/character upkeep, clothing, housing and variations of thereof, there would be a greater need for gold, which should drive the prices of desirables down to a realistic level.

Since pre-searing is supposed to be training, have characters start in a mess hall where they get food and a place to stay as they do military quests until they have enough to rent a space where they'll have to support themselves.
(This can also help users learn how to play with others and get a taste for PvP.) Obviously the level space you rent, the furniture you own and how you deck out the place will be driven by your level of wealth - ever moving up the ladder of livingy luxury. The point is, this is a means of continual elimation of gold within the economy which should create scarcity in gold, which will increase the value of gold, which will drive down inflation, you can see where i'm going with this...

I think MS already made Sims, LOL. However, I only occasionally quest with others. Being pressured and forced to do so will not likely work. Someday I will probably build a guildhall. I will not invite anyone into my guild because I am too anoyed with those inviting or trying to purchase me into theirs. When I do/create something it has abstract meaning. I have learned not to expect others to have any involvement in or comprehension with me.

Making us pay for food, quartermaster laundry (getting our tatts and scars dry cleaned), rent, and weekly bathing would be interesting ways to soak money. We already have loss of money in game thru skills purchase, weapons upgrades, keys (which really do lose more than they gain), ID kits, salvaging costs, etc.

In 20 levels I have purchased 3 sets of armor, 2 cap sigs, 1-3 skills max and I have only been able to accumulate 11k thru honest work. I don't understand the term nerfed in this discussion, but my highest ranked character hasn't seen a vial of dye drop in levels. Since dye is so expensive and I can't tell what I will get if I try to do anything and gold/dye are to hard to come by, I simply store anything I get and never use it. No point trying to do something when I can't find out what I am doing. GW doesn't seem to be concerned about this either - this too directly affects the economy thru expectations.

Fitz Rinley

Perhaps I was too subtle in making my point. MistressYichi basically stated it in a response very early in this thread. I'll summarize:

The Guild Wars economy is driven by items that have no special intrinsic value.

That is, everyone wants a rare max sundering crystalline sword of fortitude. Look at the sell threads dating back a few weeks ago and see what people were offering up for that very item. Entire fortunes, including several swords with equal stats, for that one item. And to MistressYichi's point, that crystalline sword will not make a bit of difference in either PvE or PvP play.

Item inflation in Guild Wars is driven by greed for "rare" items, not their intrinsic value. This is in part due to the fact that most of the people who play the game are young, like to collect things, and want to be different and special. And they think that a big sword will do that for them. Can anyone say Sickle or Fellblade? I knew you could.

The easiest way to tame the inflationary spiral that will inevitably occur is to allow for so much character customization that each person can be special and unique. I bet you'll see that in the next release. Mark my words. The reason I bought 15k armor for my female warrior is because she looks hot in it. Not because she's special or an extra intrinsic value in the armor. I wish I had kept some of my pre-searing armor because it'd be fun to run around Sorrow's Furnace with it. I'd be more unique with that than either 1.5k, 15k, or even Fissure armor. All it takes is grind to afford Fissure. It takes real skill to run Sorrow's Furnace naked and wearing a Pumpkin Head!

I'm sure that most everyone here has several Halloween items in their inventory. Why? hmm...can you say Runescape Phat? More greed.

When I speak of philanthropy, I'm not discussing everyone giving away everything. That is against human nature, and would never happen, so arguing that it would destroy the economy is spurious at best.

My point is, if people were less concerned with the accumulation of L337 items and more concerned with good roleplay, strategy, and building a community, then the game would as a whole be much better, and the economy would not be such a concern.

Try giving away something that's worth 1-5k sometime. Even better, give it to someone who doesn't even know it's value. I dare you. You'll feel better for it, and you'll make the game better for that one person.

I could put it much simpler- There are items people want because they look cool and are rare, and things people want because they were told that's what they need to play competatively. Both these things in the real world are worth nothing except the time it took them to aquire.

Funny you should mention that. Halloween events are pretty common in most MMO's. When GW had thiers everyone had lots of fun getting stuff. It should be that way all the time. Because it was fun for everyone at most any level. I'm not suggesting they have events every day, but the reason why alot of MMOs are successful is because people at any level can achieve saisfaction from aquiring items and not feel that they won't be satisfied until they have the perfect lvl 20 character.

Sorry, I think if people weren't concerned with getting uber gear as fast as possible and more concerned with questing for items, the whole game environment would be better.

Now it seems most people quest as fast as possible, farm worthless items so they can save enough money to buy a high level uber item. Or quest as fast as possible, save enough money so they can be run for top of the line armor. Why? So the can breeze through the game faster...

The economy is flawed only in the fact that it's too simple for people who want to do more in the game. You can easily play this game, mute the trade channel and only deal with merchants for the basics.

my 0.02 cents

i agree with the op post , but , its also true that when you sell an item to the merchert , that item virtualy disapears ... and when you buy a 15 k amor , that 15 k gold virtualy disapears ... i have spent so much money in dyes , i wish i didnt ...
im playing since 10 of may , and only yesterday i saw the fissure armor price list , i was in fissure many times before , but never did the quest for it ... i think i have reach a level os skill that alows me to join a good group , help it make it better ... farming in sorrow gave me that experience i didnt have , 5 man farm ... when i when to ToA to do DNKP it was ultra fun , after fissure ... good 8 player group ... as time passed we get better and better ... very good.

Greens - becose people dont sell greens to merchent , there will be more and more greens in the game , but once you find out you can go there and get your greens , you wont pay 100 K for a ragos staff ... only if you are an ebayer ... so i think , the only people that will leave the game becose of economy , are ebayers .. people that dont enjoy the team work ... or solo farmers for being so bored , well ... why solo farm ? that is as stupid as buying gold in ebay ... play the game and live with the loots ... or team farm ... a least you have fun.

I payed 70k for a sup rune of vigor that only gave me 7 health more then the major rune ...

when someone buys a fissure armor , there is about 1.5 million gold that virtualy desapears ... i am sure that at this moment , there is not enoph gold on tthe game for everyplayer in it to have a fissure armor.
even with the farm bot and ebay sellers ...
1 million accounts * 1.5 million gold ..
im also sure that when second chapter comes out , not one quarter of the players will have fissure armor ...
i dont worry economy , period. having fun in 20k droks quests is what i like.

if you think you have too much money , give it to me , ill spend it in 5 minutes , 1 plat or 1 million , easy.

LONG POST WARNING, I WILL TACKLE THE ISSUES RAISED IN THE ARTICLE IN DETAIL.

Last time the economy crashed so badly I also wrote on this with no apparent result.
http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...ad.php?t=43647

The problems since then are still the same. We look at them scientifically like a Doctor of Economics, while we should look at them from a Game Design point of view.

Back then I wrote that people should not be able to farm money, but it somehow did not stick with them very well.

Looking at it from a design point of view I figured that there are three distinct ways of playing Guildwars:

1. Playing against the environment or other competitive players. If you choose this you will get very good items and will be able to be competitive at all times.

2. Quest for highly elusive or vanity items. People invest insane amount of times getting from +19% to +20% etc. This is basically due to the fact that GW ALWAYS rounds down any numbers. 5.5DMG = 5 DMG, 11.9 sec is 11 sec.
This leads to the fact that many items' value is either exponentially increased (e.g. +20% bonus over +19%), or just irrationally stupid (why is the +19% axe grip 10k more expensive than the +18% axe grip, after all they both translate to 11 sec)

3. plain old farming, be it killing griffons, ettins, or offering transport services. not necessarily in order to quest for the best but to be able to outfit second and third characters.

And now we have a problem, all people will agree on point 1, right. This is the way to play the game.
unfortunately some things have become so costly that you have to do step 3 to afford them. which of course they do. This Tuesday morning, while one would think that people are in school, university or work; there is ONE FARMER leaving Augury Rock EVERY TWO SECONDS. And that's only the European District English-1, the same amount is generated by the German-1 district.

THESE ENGLISH PEOPLE WILL FARM 2 MILLION GOLD PER HOUR
THEN THE GERMANS WILL FARM 2 MILLION MORE.

This is no longer inflation, this is pure insanity.
Prices will reflect this rapid loss of value. All ArenaNet can do is to flood the market in the other direction, so that rare items become common ones.
Both will kill the game, removing farming will also kill the game.

The market in a scientific sense even works. I took some friends who are very good players and did some Sorrow's Furnace runs. I analyzed the drop rate and the rate that bosses are killed. I came to the conclusion that 300h of SF playtime with my friends will leave me with every green item. (Assuming that I get every drop exactly once; not some item twice and others not at all).

Then I just added up the prices in the Green Item price guide provided by this forum. After that I thought, hey I can farm this in 180h.

If the market is alive, both figures should move towards each other, and BINGO they do. Today I would need to farm 250h to get all green Items by buyout. so there is hope after all.

The Greens and the money are now in balance you can either farm them yourself or farm for money and buy, soon it won’t matter. A balance which will be fair is achieved. GW ROCKS.

But aside from greens the world is a little more barren. Runes, something which is far more important to the game than greens are still out of balance.
To get sup absorption you will have to farm for 10hours for money and then buy it. there is no other way. Sure you can slay Ettins but since the chances of getting sup absorb are just as high as getting sup Illusion, the farming isn't really that attractive.

the same goes for dye. why is black so expensive?? Answer: it's all just hype nothing more. The hype transforms into a droprate (black drops less often than other dyes). this transforms into fantasy prices.


In the end everybody can see, that people are not doing this because they need to farm 3h/day to stay competitive in PvP. For the most part it is a quest for vanity. For being able to distinct oneself from all the others, be it black dye or Fissure Armor. They do not want a perfect item, but the coolest looking most elusive perfect item.
From this there is an easy two point play to combat farming, and that is:

1. to remove gold from the process that is setting you character apart from all the others. Do the SF quests and then get to CHOOSE one Items for a reward that is CUSTOMIZED. Do the same for perfect upgrades and the like.

2. GET MORE VANITY INTO THE GAME. the frog promised us that already and I believe in that. but many small steps might be as good as one big.

With point one realized people could choose if they play the game by grinding or by questing. It is that very choice which will make ALL people happy. Grinders grind, and players can have TRUE REWARDS for playing. Like the time I fought my way over Lornar's pass. This is of indescribable higher value than getting a taxi. The Pumpkin Crown is the first Item to exist that follows this principle, I hope it is intentionally

With more easy to come by vanity, there would be less of a chase for single items like ectos and shard or golds. Not farming for these means no gold farming along the way, means less inflation. Overall diversification will bring down prices in general. If ArenaNet did anything wrong is that it underestimated the value vanity has. And now the quest for vanity and being different from others is corrupting all parts of the game economic. Although in it self it is really working.

What he doesn't say in the above is that he did this in PRE. Who expects to get a decent class-specific weapon in pre, for crying out loud?

Bull. This is not pen & paper D&D, Fitz. If you want to immerse yourself in role-play, join a role-play guild. There are several from what I hear.

There's nothing stopping you from role-playing, at least in dialogue and methodology (ex. are you a crazed sort who gleefully charge the enemy without forethought or are you stealthy and plan your attacks). I do so regularly with all my characters. But I do not have to (and sometimes do not).
The majority of one's time should be and is spent fighting bad guys --because you're the hero and that's what the hero does. The goodies (good or otherwise) are gravy. Sometimes the gravy is smooooooth and oh-so-good and others, lumpy.
Yeah, but the rest of us are sick of hearing you bitch about the male necro! If you loathe it so much, don't play one!
I play a rangeress and Alesia still thinks she's a tank! I've seen her run ahead of me (when only she and I go out). So that part of your argument also is NOT a FACT.

Besides, you "hide behind a bow"--as a warrior MONK. Where is the role play in that? Role play does not equal character/class play and utilizing proficiencies. Like others have mentioned in various posts, perhaps you need to look to your own method of play rather than picking apart aspects of the game that others (many, many others) have little to no dificulty with.

I find it aggravating and sad that when I go to the War Camp to quest, instead of others who are doing the same, the vast majority are looking for farming groups. That's not to say I haven't gone out just to see what I could find, but I don't spend hour after hour doing it! The absolute best drops for ma have been in the midst of a mission, completely unxpectedly!

I wouldn't be so sure! The way things are looking... ectos are rising FAST. A month ago they sold around 8K. Two weeks ago I bought some for 10K, then sold them yersterday for 13K a piece. Give or take another week and a half, and they'll be pushing 15K. Though 50K seems a trifle high, they could go as high as 30-35 before someoen finds a new and efficient way to farm them.

I think that there are a few things that you have overlooked that effect the GW economy. Not everyone is greedy. Some players, myself included, help newer players by giving them equipment or selling higher quality equipment at reduced prices. When I have an exceptional farming run I'll try to do this at the Northern Wall or Fort Ranik.
You also overlooked the existance of guilds. They also try to help newer members both in experience and equipment. ( At least the good ones do.)
Lastly I think that so many people are farming that the better items are becoming more prevalent, It seems that I'm seeing more people trying to sell very similar items at the same time.
I'm not an economist or a finantial wizard of any kind. I was happy when I was able to balance my checkbook this month. I do believe that the things I have mentioned will mitigate inflation in GW.
Now my fingers are tired and I'm out of hot air so I'll climb down off my soapbox.