19 Dec 2005 at 20:36 - 269
One thing that has me less than impressed with people is their view on how things should be. Why don't we try being realistic about the HoH option, shall we? HoH isn't even PvE, so let's not even go there. It is the "ultimate" of PvP, and suggesting winning there as a source for income is inane at best. Running? Yes, this is a rather good way of making money. The only problem is that ANet is going out of their way to make the truly profitable runs less worth the effort.
The Droknar run is still soloable, but reliability comes in 2-man teams, which cuts the profits in half. (So they just cut that income in half.) Other runs are just pathetic to try and get decent money for. The worse that they make the runs for Droknar/Copperhammer/Granite/Marhan, the more people change over to running Ascalon City to Crystal Desert, or full Desert tours, or running missions. This means that it is increasingly difficult to be the one chosen to run people, because the realms are flooded with "Runnin to XXX for Xk, invite yourself!"
eBay is a non-option, as it is pathetic and a good way to get your account banned.
Farming? Well, farming is still just as doable as ever, and every place that could be farmed in the past is still farmable now (yes, solo and all). The only problem is that every "balancing" change that they make slows the farming speed exponentially. Am I bitter about losing my "aggro everything, take a nap, and come back still at 100% life and energy" pbond build? Of course I am. But it was hardly the only way to do it. They took away the method of doing it with ease that required no skill at all, and that's fine. Then they nerfed one smiting skill after another, until there is only 1 smiting skill even usable with farming now. Not that this is the only way to farm, mind you, not at all. But let's look at the changes that came after nerfing smiting, shall we? In comes the AoE AI update, which was misleading and a blatant anti-farming nerf. It didn't update the Henchie AI at all, as they will still stand in the middle of AoE spells, while the enemy runs right out of it. This isn't just a farming issue, it's a game balance issue. The only thing left balanced in the game is PvP. Perhaps they WANT to force people to lose interest in PvE and switch to PvP. I personally never considered PvE to be a building phase that lead to PvP. PvE and PvP are worlds apart and should stay so. But now, only the most adept nukers can be effective, because the enemy runs straight out of their real nuke skills. Minion Horde body block FTW!
Oh, and let's not forget the option that keeps being brought up: play the game. Really, now. Make a new character, play it straight through the game without putting any money in storage and never using any items in storage. Even if you use nothing but collector gear and buy no skills ever, see just how much you will have when you beat the game. If you find an item worth 150+k, then consider yourself very lucky and not in the norm. I guarantee that yes, you will be easily able to afford Droknar gear when you get there. However, if you think that you will be able to afford 15k for that character by the time that you beat the game, you are sorely mistaken. To get real money with that character, you will end up re-doing Missions for drops, or making multiple trips to the same area for the drops.. and then you are *gasp* farming!
Since this post has gotten long anyway, I'd like to touch on what I've seen people saying about us wanting the economy ruined for our benefit. Well, why don't you try looking at the way that it was compared to how it is. ANet already ruined the economy. Perfect items are worth a fraction of what they used to be, runes are worth next to nothing, the chests have made items that people find from drops completely obsolete because perfect items with perfect mods became horribly common, and let's not forget green items. Green items? What genius came up with this? While I personally would prefer a good gold item to a green any day, they further destroy the economy. Apparently, adding chests that always drop purples and golds wasn't enough screwing of the economy, they had to add easily obtainable perfect stat items that were always the same.
And though I have avoided saying it, I'll do it anyway. We all know where the people that made GW came from, and what their track record was. I stopped playing GW for a time after all the nerfs, because it just gave me flashbacks of Diablo 2. And now, with the extent of the nerfs, the adding of chests, the adding of green items, and now the verification of an Assassin profession in Chapter 2... I think that it's safe to say: Welcome to Diablo 3 MMO. When I bought this game, it was truly innovative and new in the MMO world, but it has become more and more like the standard fodder out there. In many ways, the only difference now between this game and the others out there is the lack of a monthly fee. They sold over 1 million copies of their game on the "fresh" and "new" angle, why do they feel the need to ruin their game to become more like the standard garbage out there?
) the game yet. But there are many many people who came by thier money the old fashioned honest way. Buy low, sell high. Some have gotten rich just by pure luck. I myself once found a req 8 gold fellblade and sold it unid for 70k. But I guess you could have 5 million people come on here with all the proof in the world that they make thier money honestly, and even show everyone else how to do it, and there would still be people bitching and complaining. That's the best part about living in a free country. You can piss and moan all you want and no one can do anything about it except piss and moan back at you.
