85 replies to this topic

[Corvindi]

Not sure how you get gems, maybe a specific vendor, but I remember they said price would fluctuate with demand.

As the video pointed out, a market watch would be great so we players can see average buy and sell prices over time.  That way we won't be so easy to manipulate.  I hope they get their economist right on that.

[John F Kennedy]

Bahadur, on 19 August 2012 - 09:56 PM, said:

P.S. have i misunderstood something? I thought the only way to use gold to buy gems, was to buy the gems from players, meaning it is not a gold sink at all? Or can you actually buy gems from the Trading post for gold?

Under currency exchange you can trade gold for gems or gems for gold. But the price fluctuates depending on the amount of gems bought and turned into gold. So yes it is a gold sink, for the cheap players... Like me.

[Flavvor]

Corvindi, on 19 August 2012 - 09:45 PM, said:

I watched the video. I figured I was on top of it, good to go, ready to make my own gold rather than lazily buy it off some player with gems.  Then I realized that the way he describes people manipulating the market has yet another level to think about because of gems for gold/gold for gems.

For example, he mentioned one way to make money that involves buying dye packs and minipets in the cash shop by buying gems for gold, then using the gems to buy minipets and dye packs, and then selling the minipets and dye packs back on the market for more gold than he paid for the gems.

But if gem sellers want people to buy their gems for gold, couldn't they buy out the dyes and minipets, relist them for ridiculous prices so that people think they can make money off them, then put them back on the market for more than they paid but less than the people who bought their gems trying to turn a profit are now trying to sell them for?  

Then market manipulators will make money off both market manipulation of the minipets and dyes, and also off the rising price of gems (since there will be more demand because people incorrectly believe they will be able to play the market to make more than they paid for the gems.

Am I missing something here?

Your right, 100% correct. All you have to do is see what is selling on the Market. Anet shows you what are the 10 most selling items are. SO you can do this on any item you want. Manipulating the market will take a lot of money, a lot. This wont work with the average player but there are times you can sell your items for more if someone is trying to inflate the market with the items you want to sell.

Corvindi, on 19 August 2012 - 09:45 PM, said:

I watched the video. I figured I was on top of it, good to go, ready to make my own gold rather than lazily buy it off some player with gems.  Then I realized that the way he describes people manipulating the market has yet another level to think about because of gems for gold/gold for gems.

For example, he mentioned one way to make money that involves buying dye packs and minipets in the cash shop by buying gems for gold, then using the gems to buy minipets and dye packs, and then selling the minipets and dye packs back on the market for more gold than he paid for the gems.

But if gem sellers want people to buy their gems for gold, couldn't they buy out the dyes and minipets, relist them for ridiculous prices so that people think they can make money off them, then put them back on the market for more than they paid but less than the people who bought their gems trying to turn a profit are now trying to sell them for?  

Then market manipulators will make money off both market manipulation of the minipets and dyes, and also off the rising price of gems (since there will be more demand because people incorrectly believe they will be able to play the market to make more than they paid for the gems.

Am I missing something here?

Your right, 100% correct. All you have to do is see what is selling on the Market. Anet shows you what are the 10 most selling items are. SO you can do this on any item you want. Manipulating the market will take a lot of money, a lot. This wont work with the average player but there are times you can sell your items for more if someone is trying to inflate the market with the items you want to sell.

[Corvindi]

Flavvor, on 19 August 2012 - 10:14 PM, said:

Your right, 100% correct. All you have to do is see what is selling on the Market. Anet shows you what are the 10 most selling items are. SO you can do this on any item you want. Manipulating the market will take a lot of money, a lot. This wont work with the average player but there are times you can sell your items for more if someone is trying to inflate the market with the items you want to sell.

I wasn't going to get into market manipulation in the bigtime price manipulation way, but I thought at first that the minipet and dye idea was fantastic. On second thought, I won't go near it.

Edited by Corvindi, 19 August 2012 - 10:16 PM.

[Flavvor]

Corvindi, on 19 August 2012 - 10:15 PM, said:

I wasn't going to get into market manipulation in the bigtime price manipulation way, but I thought at first that the minipet and dye idea was fantastic. On second thought, I won't go near it.

You can just becarefull what you buy and how much you buy it for.

[Corvindi]

Flavvor, on 19 August 2012 - 10:17 PM, said:

You can just becarefull what you buy and how much you buy it for.

Yep, but it will be awhile before we know the actual 'value' of these things to other players, and if I were a big market player wanting to manipulate gem prices, I'd start screwing with the minipet and dye markets straight off the bat.  Especially minipets.

Edit:  Hm, which doesn't mean there isn't money to be made there, it will just be a wild ride, trying to slip in somewhere between honest buyers and sellers and manipulators.

Edited by Corvindi, 19 August 2012 - 10:23 PM.

[Flavvor]

Corvindi, on 19 August 2012 - 10:20 PM, said:

Yep, but it will be awhile before we know the actual 'value' of these things to other players, and if I were a big market player wanting to manipulate gem prices, I'd start screwing with the minipet and dye markets straight off the bat.  Especially minipets.

Edit:  Hm, which doesn't mean there isn't money to be made there, it will just be a wild ride, trying to slip in somewhere between honest buyers and sellers and manipulators.

Ya I agree with ya.
Copper ore is about 17 copper. If you see it go to 20-30 be care full. It was pretty must 17 throughout the 3 BWE's. That's about the only item I know would stay the same...lol

[Rynhardt]

Flavvor, on 19 August 2012 - 10:31 PM, said:

Ya I agree with ya.
Copper ore is about 17 copper. If you see it go to 20-30 be care full. It was pretty must 17 throughout the 3 BWE's. That's about the only item I know would stay the same...lol

Beta prices aren't totally reliable, seeing as people were much more willing to spend money they didn't really have (and sell gems they weren't really losing). Expect players to be much more reserved until things stabilize.

I honestly don't even know how much my money was worth during the betas.

Edited by Rynhardt, 19 August 2012 - 10:55 PM.

[Flavvor]

Rynhardt, on 19 August 2012 - 10:51 PM, said:

Beta prices aren't totally reliable, seeing as people were much more willing to spend money they didn't really have. Expect players to be much more reserved until things stabilize.

I honestly don't even know how much my money was worth during the betas.

Ya I get where your coming from. If anything prices will go down...I hope or up. It all depends on supply and demand. Either way I can't wait to play the game that's not in beta..lol
Who am I kidding I'll still play if they do more stress tests..lol

[Rynhardt]

Flavvor, on 19 August 2012 - 10:57 PM, said:

Ya I get where your coming from. If anything prices will go down...I hope or up. It all depends on supply and demand. Either way I can't wait to play the game that's not in beta..lol
Who am I kidding I'll still play if they do more stress tests..lol

Items were probably worth more during the beta since they had more short-term use. Then again we only had three day's worth of gold circulating. I can bet gems are going to skyrocket compared to beta and just keep going up as time passes.

Edited by Rynhardt, 19 August 2012 - 11:05 PM.

[Flavvor]

Rynhardt, on 19 August 2012 - 11:02 PM, said:

Items were probably worth more during the beta since they had more short-term use. Then again we only had three day's worth of gold circulating. I can bet gems are going to skyrocket compared to beta and just keep going up as time passes.

Ya your probably right. I see people selling stuff for what ever in beta cause it doesn't matter. Hell i did. Gold had no value in beta.

[Samsung934781]

TegidVeol, on 19 August 2012 - 01:34 PM, said:

Good day,

I was just asking myself if Guild Wars 2 will have enough gold sinks to have a stable economy in the long run.

Seing that the auction house was cluttered and filled with stuff already in the BWE's I am actually a bit worried of oversaturation of items too.

What is your opinion about this topic?

Thanks

   Sounds like you're spinning your wheels over nothing.  They've had 5 years to get this planned out. Feel free to worry all you want, but I've yet to see even a bad game have a totally messed up economy (well maybe once - but that game died in a few months).

[Trei]

xphenox123, on 19 August 2012 - 06:46 PM, said:

i am a bit worried too because the market is the whole game not only the server

Now why would that cause you to worry?

[Nox_Aeterna]

Samsung934781, on 20 August 2012 - 04:23 AM, said:

   Sounds like you're spinning your wheels over nothing.  They've had 5 years to get this planned out. Feel free to worry all you want, but I've yet to see even a bad game have a totally messed up economy (well maybe once - but that game died in a few months).

You know exactly what to say to give other people confidence right

[Bilateralrope]

xphenox123, on 19 August 2012 - 06:46 PM, said:

i am a bit worried too because the market is the whole game not only the server

That actually makes things better:
- No individual economies means that if a problem hits one server, it hits them all. Making it much easier for ANET to fix than if one servers economy gets screwed up while the rest are fine.
- A higher volume of sales makes it harder to manipulate prices, making things much fairer for the rest of us.

I really don't see any problems, except for the people who want to manipulate prices without having to worry about other price manipulators.

[Ritualist]

I honestly do not get a fascination with the economy that MMOs have - it is without doubt, one of the worst characteristics of the genre and I hope GW2 pays as little attention to it as possible.

[Soylent]

hanwinting, on 19 August 2012 - 05:21 PM, said:

.

and gold -> gems trading will be a good gold sink also

That's not a gold sink, that's just trade. Gold sink = removing gold from the game.

John F Kennedy, on 19 August 2012 - 10:01 PM, said:

Under currency exchange you can trade gold for gems or gems for gold. But the price fluctuates depending on the amount of gems bought and turned into gold. So yes it is a gold sink, for the cheap players... Like me.

No. Those are player offers. You're trading gold for gems that other players bought for real cash. It's not a gold sink.

Edited by Soylent, 20 August 2012 - 08:47 AM.

[Maddeth]

TegidVeol, on 19 August 2012 - 01:34 PM, said:

Seing that the auction house was cluttered and filled with stuff already in the BWE's I am actually a bit worried of oversaturation of items too.

Beta, who wants to hold on to all their items in beta if they are not planning to play the game "live like" ? no-one cares about losing money selling stuff cheap as it's beta... It's not going to be kept.

[Menehune]

Soylent, on 20 August 2012 - 08:46 AM, said:

That's not a gold sink, that's just trade. Gold sink = removing gold from the game.



No. Those are player offers. You're trading gold for gems that other players bought for real cash. It's not a gold sink.

As I understand it, you don't trade with other players via listings. You sell gems to the BLTP who trades for own account. BLTP then sells the gems to other players at a marked up price. You sell for x gold. Other player buys for x + y gold. y gold disappears from game.

[Ritualist]

Menehune, on 20 August 2012 - 09:06 AM, said:

As I understand it, you don't trade with other players via listings. You sell gems to the BLTP who trades for own account. BLTP then sells the gems to other players at a marked up price. You sell for x gold. Other player buys for x + y gold. y gold disappears from game.

Keep in mind that people will probably farm gold specifically so that they can buy gems. Which will raise the amount of gold in the game, which will raise the gem prices, which will create further initiative to farm more gold.
If anything, gems will act as the exact OPPOSITE of gold sinks.

[Eqo]

I plan to spend gold on gems if I have enough to get some. I don't think I'll necessarily go out of my way to farm gold. By the time I get a character to 80 I'm sure I'll have a decent amount of gold. I plan to play every profession to 80 so there will be a ton of gold in my bank no matter what. Since there is only one economy, shared over all the worlds, I don't expect the amount of gold in the game to really become a problem.

[Menehune]

Protoss, on 20 August 2012 - 09:15 AM, said:

Keep in mind that people will probably farm gold specifically so that they can buy gems. Which will raise the amount of gold in the game, which will raise the gem prices, which will create further initiative to farm more gold.
If anything, gems will act as the exact OPPOSITE of gold sinks.

I see that happening as part of the over all increase in the gold supply in the beginning anyway, but I would think that it will plateau along with the total gold supply after a while, maybe a month or so after launch. Also I'm sure ArenaNet (the economist) has limits on the minimum and maximum prices for gems. I doubt very much they would allow the gem price to increase without end as it surely would if players traded gems via listings. It would be interesting to know what the ArenaNet economist has as a target range for the maximum gold supply.

[Ritter]

From what I've seen, there're not many ways for gold to exit the economy. So yeah, it's worrying.

[Bilateralrope]

Don't forget that every transaction on the trading post is subject to a tax. That tax will be a rather effective gold sink as it's unavoidable unless you want to avoid trading altogether* and as inflation pulls up prices, the gold sink of the tax also increases.


*Which means that, no matter how much coin you have, you aren't causing inflation until you try to spend it at the trading post.

[Ritualist]

Menehune, on 20 August 2012 - 09:43 AM, said:

I see that happening as part of the over all increase in the gold supply in the beginning anyway, but I would think that it will plateau along with the total gold supply after a while, maybe a month or so after launch. Also I'm sure ArenaNet (the economist) has limits on the minimum and maximum prices for gems. I doubt very much they would allow the gem price to increase without end as it surely would if players traded gems via listings. It would be interesting to know what the ArenaNet economist has as a target range for the maximum gold supply.

Limiting the gem cost absolutely doesn't make sense - once the gem costs become insane, people will more likely simply purchase the gems with money instead (or they'll be forced to do so!) and that means more money for A.Net.

[Menehune]

Protoss, on 20 August 2012 - 10:19 AM, said:

Limiting the gem cost absolutely doesn't make sense - once the gem costs become insane, people will more likely simply purchase the gems with money instead (or they'll be forced to do so!) and that means more money for A.Net.

Forum thread title : Who else thinks the price of gems is too high?

OP QQ post: WTF?!? Anet said you can buy gems for gold. WTF?!? Anet lied to us !!!!!!!! Who can afford 10g/gem?!?!?!?!?!?

I have gotten the impression that ArenaNet is quite serious about controlling in game inflation. They did after all hire an economist. Yes, they did say that gem prices would be subject to supply and demand, but I really don't think that they would let it run away to the point where hardly anyone would be able to save enough gold to buy any meaningful number of gems. ArenaNet need to, and I'm sure that they really want to, find a balance between maximizing income and player satisfaction. No doubt any cap would be fairly high, but still not so high that it would need hundreds of hours of gold farming.

[BlackDevil95]

One thing that will be a huge gold sink: Legendary weapons.

[absolute]

Quote

worried about economy in GW2

Don't Worry.

[Biz]

Economy doesn't need to have a flawless equilibrium of moneys going both ways be "stable". Bleeding active player population and tons of veterans who have more money then they know what to do with and just sitting on them is just fine for a game that doesn't make you pay for every single thing in it and just about throws money at you if you show even a sliver of skill.

GW2 has a surprisingly small number of items and stat variations on those items for a modern mmo - there is no such thing as "over-saturation" of auction-house - as good as everything you put on there will be sold eventually provided the price is low enough - Items that completely useless to anyone else can not go in the AH and the rest will either sit there or be sold as good as instantly because of the buy-orders - which makes people think twice before putting up a sword of noobishness in there instead of the copper it is made from. Because what AH will be mostly used for is materials - perhaps high-end crafted gear once game matures to that point. No one has monopolies on crafting - it takes minutes to learn and takes almost no money provided you are handy with a axe/pick/sickle or ideally all 3 at once.

Edited by Biz, 20 August 2012 - 11:54 AM.

[Aragiel Renegade]

Do not forget there is a limited ammount of gems, therefore the economy will be turning in and back in cycles.

Im possitive it will be fine