275 replies to this topic

[Ritualist]

Killyox, on 27 November 2012 - 08:51 AM, said:

It would not work with how the game works and that's why it's like this and not other way.

The point is that we are not forced to have the game work this way - the game can be modified to allow certain other options to be viable.

[Shatteredz]

marvalis, on 27 November 2012 - 07:14 AM, said:

Tiglatpilesar, on 24 November 2012 - 05:33 PM, said:

Actually if most basic things needed to for efectivly playing the game are at fixed price ( max stat gear in GW1), infaltion would casue new players catch up faster with old rich players, but we can't have it , can we ?
Quoted for truth.


The quote you are referring too specifically stated that items at fixed cost become cheaper when there is more gold in the economy. Why are you turning this statement into something it is not? You can't just imagine things and then claim someone wrote it. You actually have to read what people post. I can't believe how retarded this is. Go read the quote again and try to actually think before posting.

And before you come bitching that exotics can't be bought from NPC's. First of all this isn't completely true. Second it doesn't really matter. Even if people just buy rares, they are still going to be cheaper and that will still make it easier for new players.


And 4 silver is going to change all of this? Not really. The only thing the 5 silver cost does is stop people from exploring. The point of the game should be to roam around and stumble into events. That is not going to happen if people don't travel.

You know what, I bet you are right. That means you will stop using way-points from now on? Because you know, traveling around for only 4silver is much too cheap. You should travel actually actively travel through this dynamic, large persistent world, by walking to your destination like a real man.

On a sidenote, did anyone else notice that in every good movie when someone takes an airplane they don't actually show the journey, but just the person landing? Unless the move is about an airplane crashing down, that changes everything. In games, just like in a movie you usually just want to skip the boring part.

They skip the airplane ride because, usually, it is not inportant for the story, not because it would be boring. Also, movies try to put as much togheter in the 3 hours they have, games need to do the opposite, spread the content to keep people playing.

Edited by unraveled, 27 November 2012 - 11:00 AM.
Amended quote.

[raspberry jam]

DuskWolf, on 26 November 2012 - 06:11 PM, said:

Also a smart idea!

See, this isn't taking money away from people that they already have. Were I still playing, if they made this change, I'd be perfectly fine with selling my stuff on the trading post.

Thanks it's not originally mine, though.

Killyox, on 26 November 2012 - 06:28 PM, said:

That's very bad proposition.

Except it's not, as you would know if you actually had a master's in economics. The merchant is not only a totally artificial component of the market, it's also a way to inject gold into the economy. If this was the real world it would literally be a garbage disposer that printed money.

gustavxiii, on 26 November 2012 - 08:57 PM, said:

if you remove sell to merchant option, then people won't have money to buy things on TP.  unless of course mob drops more money instead of loot, in which case it's the same as having the sell to merchant option.

and gold sink does fight inflation.  it won't stop it.  nothing can stop inflation unless you get rid of the economy altogether.  you can only slow it.

Mobs could drop money, that's ok, and is not the same as keeping the merchant because it's up to the player to choose which things to sell - gold drop rates affect the amounts of all items on the market, while sell decisions based on item rarity etc will skew these amounts. Without the merchant though, drop rates become the only gold source and thus the way to guide inflation. There would also be an excess of items on the TP, meaning that prices would be naturally low.
Of course, a small amount of inflation is healthy because it makes people feel that they are getting richer. This could be produced in two ways, first, have TP listings yield a small amount of gold before the sale (this is similar to borrowing money from the TP). Second is anonymizing the TP and letting all listings pay up front instead of after the sale; this would allow the system to "leak" by deleting items as needed to inflate their prices.
EDIT: Ok, there is a third way: allow people to break apart items into crafting materials.

Edited by raspberry jam, 27 November 2012 - 10:51 AM.

[Red_Eye_Dreams]

The games economy shouldn't impact the game itself for the casual player..  Its a game.  You play it.  You don't live it, you don't politicize the economic environment of it.  You just play it, and have FUN(a term that is absent from most games these days). I shouldn't have to worry about something that doesn't impact me, I don't use the trading post, I don't pretend I'm some sort of MMO economist.  Like the OP, I have a full time job and a business to run, I have a family to take care of, and also like the OP, I wish I had some funny money to spend on drugs and hookers.  But I can't.  So I play short bursts of an MMO for fun, level a bit, tinker with my character, and I don't want to have to walk through half a zone to get where I need to go for the next DE, Heart, POI, etc.  I should be able to port for free, like GW1, so I can do what quest or zone I want, when I want, on my terms.  Just because they can't create a stable economy and need to sell gems for gold like a bunch of Chinese scammers so people have to buy 1000+ keys to open their chests doesn't mean I should suffer, or other people with actual responsibilities need to suffer.  This is a fantasy world.  In 8 years or so like GW1, it will fade into the past.  It shouldn't feel like I am living in the real world, I have enough financial responsibility to deal with.

[DuskWolf]

Red_Eye_Dreams, on 27 November 2012 - 03:43 PM, said:

I have enough financial responsibility to deal with.

I hear you.

This is one of the things that's made me wonder if most (if not all) of the tax supporters are incredibly well off or spoiled younglings who've never lived hand-to-mouth. A game is played to get away from real life, if it does things like stacking obnoxious taxes on top of almost everything you do, then it's doing something wrong. That's not fun, and thus doesn't belong in a game.

Edited by DuskWolf, 27 November 2012 - 04:04 PM.

[marvalis]

Trei, on 27 November 2012 - 07:48 AM, said:

Yes, the cost does make me consider walking from one part of a zone to another. Often I would do just that. Is the 5min it takes for me to run from A to B worth 2silver? Not for me, so I walk. Is the 20min I need to run from Ascalon to Orr worth 3silver? Definitely. So I port.

What level are you? Level 20? In the early levels, up to a certain points, waypoint costs can prohibit you from using them. When you reach a certain level and wealth in the game, the cost no longer prohibits you from using waypoints.

But then what does these waypoint costs do? They actively discourage players from exploring.

Let me try to explain why:

1) What is exploration?
First of all, exploration needs to have an element of novelty. That means, to explore something you have to go somewhere you haven't been before, or do something new.
Second, it has to be unpredictable. If you know where you are going and if you know what you will find there, then it is not exploration. So when talking about exploration we assume the players does not know beforehand what he will encounter.

So that brings me to a working definition for exploration:
Players who decide to go to a random location trough intuition or chance to discover new things in area's where they don't know what to expect.

2) Now let us look at waypoint costs, and how they change the mind of the player. 5 silver is not going to prevent you from taking a waypoint from Lion's Arch to Orr, to farm the Arah dungeon. In fact, as long as you are farming you are earning more currency than your waypoint expenses. So farmers do not experience any significant discomfort.

But suppose you want to go somewhere random, for no particular reason at all? Would you still do it if you have to pay 5 silver? First you will have to rationally explain to yourself how you can justify the cost. Can you justify the cost if you are just running around?

Suppose I want to go somewhere and just randomly run around, and you know, not loot anything?  Suppose I want to go somewhere and - god forbid - not farm but instead enjoy the scenery? Suppose I have only 5 minutes before a guild event, and I want to go explore somewhere? You are not going to do that, because you cannot justify the costs of 5 silvers without getting some phat loot in return.

3) conclusion
So while waypoint costs do not prevent or discourage farming, they do prevent any kind of exploration where there are no immediate returns from looting. In reality, waypoint costs encourage farming, since people now have a higher need for money to pay for their expenses.



Then there was the argument that inflation would be bad for new players. This was proven to be wrong.

The thing that matter here is not how high inflation is. Rather, the question is: What is the competitive advantage of new players?
Or, to put it in other word: What items can low level players get that are in demand on the trade post, so they can earn money.
A second variable of importance is the amount of money earned from loot per hour when we compare high level and low level players.
In guild wars, this curve is relatively flat. Although there are some better farming spots than others, and low level players do not have access to it.

As mentioned before, when there is a lot of money floating around then items at a fixed costs become cheaper (npc armor, weapons, waypoint and repair costs, and everything else you buy from NPC's). That means that new players will find it much easier to afford for example things like bags.

While it is true that under inflation many things become more expensive at the high end, many other items on the trade post will not. Items where the price is currently determined by the NPC trade value will not become more expensive (you see these items in the trade post for a little more than what you can get by selling to an NPC). So in reality many many items will become relatively much cheaper for new players.


Finally, a word about gold sinks and how to deal with inflation: Prevent money from entering into the economy and skim excess gold at the top.

First of all, as mentioned before the best way to prevent inflation is by stopping to give loads of money to the players in the first place. The single biggest measure to do this would be drastically lowering or completely removing the NPC sale value of items. Most of the money earned by players come from vending items at the NPC. Note that this would also modify the relative value of money in loot versus items in loot.

Second, if you want to get gold out of the economy then you can also skim it at the top. That mean, let some players collect a lot of money, then offer them something of value (this could be anything, virtual item or a real life reward - a trip to arenanet or whatever). If they buy it, you simply remove the gold from their accounts and it is gone.

Thirdly, and least important, are the goldsinks / the broad base taxation. These are things like trade post expenses (15% of everything you buy is removed from the game iirc), repair costs, and so on.

Conclusion

It is simply not true that you need waypoint expenses to prevent inflation. In fact, these kinds of costs encourage farming behavior (players need more money) and this behavior leads to more farming and thus more inflation! This is a behavioral element that I did not even discuss yet.

My final thesis (that some people failed to understand) is about the decision that anet made to make a large persistent world (versus the instanced world of GW1). It is my argument that in such a event driven world you want players to explore. Waypoint costs discourage players from exploring (as explained above). Therefor waypoint costs do not fit in such a strategy. It simply does not make sense to invest so much time and money into creating event driven persistent player-shared maps, to implement waypoint expenses that prevent players from exploring. Because exploring is exactly the kind of behavior you want to see in an event driven world.

[Trei]

marvalis, on 27 November 2012 - 05:47 PM, said:

What level are you? Level 20? In the early levels, up to a certain points, waypoint costs can prohibit you from using them. When you reach a certain level and wealth in the game, the cost no longer prohibits you from using waypoints.

But then what does these waypoint costs do? They actively discourage players from exploring.

Exploring... ?

I don't know how you manage to do it, but normally I have to explore my way to a new waypoint first before I can unlock it.

These costs actively discourage you from exploring.
They don't for me.
Waypoints have nothing to do with exploration past that first time you reach one.

Your scenarios seem a little contrived and frankly impractical.
What exploration do you hope to do in 5 mins?

I have never once encountered such dilemmas you are trying to describe, perhaps due to my playstyle habits.
I don't set out to explore, it just happens along the way on my way to do something else or go somewhere.
Or maybe because waypoints have... yup nothing to do with exploration; if I have a waypoint there, I probably already explored that place.

It's funny you mention early levels, because early levels were the only times I was not concerned at all with waypoint costs. A few pieces of grey vendor trash were enough to cover all the ports I needed for the day, which were really not a lot, considering how many waypoints/zones were realistically available to me at those early levels.

[marvalis]

Oh god you are going to argue about this? Yes, the very early game waypoint is cheap, then it gets expensive perhaps even until level 80 but at some point, especially if you farm for cash, waypoint costs become trivial.

Just because you visited a way point once does not mean there is nothing to revisit. In fact I often do TP runs, those are runs just to get the way-points, just in case you need them later (to travel to a specific location or dungeon with a group of people).

Maybe you are one of those players who do _every single event_ in a given area before moving on? However the reality is that most event are timed and might even not be happening when you visited it the first time. Perhaps it will surprise you when you revisit later? Who knows? The only way that you are going to run into these events is by randomly exploring area's even if you visited them once before. But as it is right now, revisiting area's is discouraged (for various reasons including level distribution and way-point costs).

Trei, on 27 November 2012 - 06:58 PM, said:

perhaps due to my playstyle habits.

Yes, habbits is the key word here. Waypoint costs forces you into certain habbits, and while you might not always be aware of it, this influences how you play the game.

What kind of exploring can you do in 5 minutes? Who cares? Really? Maybe you just want to check out an area or whatever. That is the entire point. Exploration does not have an immediate purpose. There is no direct return (in terms of money, loot or practical usefulness). Maybe I just want to go to a zone, and then I find out that I don't like that zone and I teleport to somewhere else. By doing this I am actively exploring until I find an area that I like (for whatever reason).

I even gave a definition of exploration in the hopes that you would understand that exploration does not have to make sense in any practical way.

Edited by marvalis, 27 November 2012 - 07:22 PM.

[draxynnic]

Relair, on 27 November 2012 - 06:45 AM, said:

Now I agree the cost can be a little exorbitant in places, perhaps make waypoints to capitol cities free, and base the cost in other areas by zone instead of level. Lower level zones will always be in the coppers, where when you get up to level 80 areas its several silver. But theres no need to remove the costs completely and further dumb down the game.

Well, the way things are, you CAN always go to any city for free, it just costs several loading screens to pull it off. Might as well streamline that and make it the default that you can port to a city for free.

Beyond that, how about simply making it a flat cost as a compromise? That'd discourage short hops, but if you want to pop over to, say, Iron Marches to run around seeing things you might have missed during your first visit, you can. It'd also make zone completion of more remote zones less of a case of 'do everything the first time you visit because it's going to cost you time or money to go back' investment.

raspberry jam, on 27 November 2012 - 10:49 AM, said:

Except it's not, as you would know if you actually had a master's in economics. The merchant is not only a totally artificial component of the market, it's also a way to inject gold into the economy. If this was the real world it would literally be a garbage disposer that printed money.

Actually, the merchant is essentially a simulation of the part of the economy that isn't player-driven. Just because players have no interest in whites doesn't mean that units such as the Seraph wouldn't appreciate having a few spare weapons. Just because players have no use for merch-fodder "trophies" doesn't mean there isn't an NPC collector or spellcaster that would like them.

Now, I don't have a masters in economics, but I do have some background in economic theory, and as I explained on the last page, the fees under discussion here pretty much represent a regressive tax - the burden falls disproportionately on the poor than on the rich. That's pretty much the opposite of what you want a goldsink to do.

[Sandpit]

Relair, on 27 November 2012 - 06:45 AM, said:

You're thinking about it in the wrong way, as a tax. Its more than that. Yes, obviously its a gold sink to help keep the economy more stable, but its also there to give people incentive to WALK.  

No, that is handled  by exploration. People walk around the world to get to points of interest, open up waypoints (irony), do vistas, skill challenges and quests. Players get to see the whole map, there is no need to force players to walk when they want to get to a destination, Then there are the dailies, which require you to get 15 different kill types and 5 events. Players already get to experience the world enough.

[Ritualist]

You know what would be an amazing gold sink?
Makeovers.

[raspberry jam]

draxynnic, on 27 November 2012 - 09:37 PM, said:

Actually, the merchant is essentially a simulation of the part of the economy that isn't player-driven. Just because players have no interest in whites doesn't mean that units such as the Seraph wouldn't appreciate having a few spare weapons. Just because players have no use for merch-fodder "trophies" doesn't mean there isn't an NPC collector or spellcaster that would like them.

Now, I don't have a masters in economics, but I do have some background in economic theory, and as I explained on the last page, the fees under discussion here pretty much represent a regressive tax - the burden falls disproportionately on the poor than on the rich. That's pretty much the opposite of what you want a goldsink to do.

Yes, and a very bad simulation it is. Why is everything I sell to the merchant swallowed by some sort of black hole? Where does all this money come from? A good simulation would allow the prices of the stuff that the merchant sells to me, and the price he's prepared to pay me for stuff that I sell to him.

I read your argument on the previous page. True, even though I wouldn't call gold sinks a regressive tax, it has much of the same effect. This is another reason why I keep suggesting a fully anonymized, up-front-paying trader house/auction house/TP instead of the current solutions; it would offer a possibility to control gold sink through a buy/sell price spread, the absolutely most natural way I can think of.

[Jobuu]

my problem is the cost per distance doesn't make sense. you can stand right on top of a waypoint and it's what 1 silver 40 copper? the end place you want to go is 2 silver and 50 copper. so you run maybe half way and port the rest. you waste 5 minutes and save 10 copper?

[SirGamesalot]

Without moneysinks money become worthless.

[raspberry jam]

SirGamesalot, on 28 November 2012 - 04:58 PM, said:

Without moneysinks money become worthless.

Just like in real life amiright? When you pay for a taxi ride or a bus ticket, those money just disappears, it's not as if they stay in the economy lolz.

Or, wait, they do. There are no money sinks in real life. And money still have worth. What a strange thing.

Maybe it's because money isn't falling from the sky every time you go out and kill an undead bear in the forest? Maybe it is, in fact, because money is printed according to a very controlled system intended to prevent rampant inflation?

That might have something to do with it. BUT PROBABLY NOT CUZ WHEN I BUY A BUS TICKET THE BUS DRIVER LIGHTS THE MONEY ON FIRE AND THEN ITS GONE.

[Kenjamin]

Stopped reading at page 2, but to add my own suggestion;

Make 1 WP per zone a free-to-travel-to location.  All the others can/should cost money.


(well, since I posted, I may as well also throw this out there, just make a free portal back to Lions Arch.  Everyone ports back for free using the Mists anyway, so just cut out the middle-zone, so to speak.)

[Minion]

I don't understand the problem... Waypointing averages at 3s (going from LA->AC or CoF) and once you get there, you have the potential to earn far more than you spent. Just doing one path in CoF earns you close to 1g with magic find gear/omnomberry bars.

Exploring and doing events also yields several silver. So the real complaint isn't "i can't pray gaem b/c no monies" it's more like "i wan legendary but can't save up fast enough!!!" Repairing armour is a nice deterrent to bad gameplay and getting better (unless you're like me and just never spend your monies, so you can afford to be bad).

[Sandpit]

Minion, on 28 November 2012 - 06:00 PM, said:

I don't understand the problem...

Try reading this thread. It discourages cooperative play, group events, helping guild mates etc. It's a bad mechanic that should never have been put in. If the game needs gold sinks, then ADD gold sinkseg. makeover kits. Don't invent ways to suck gold by penalising normal gameplay.

ie. don't make normal gameplay less fun.

[Minion]

Sandpit, on 28 November 2012 - 06:17 PM, said:

Try reading this thread. It discourages cooperative play, group events, helping guild mates etc. It's a bad mechanic that should never have been put in. If the game needs gold sinks, then ADD gold sinkseg. makeover kits. Don't invent ways to suck gold by penalising normal gameplay.

ie. don't make normal gameplay less fun.

It's not less fun? Gold sinks need to be used and shouldn't be avoidable.

[Sandpit]

Minion, on 28 November 2012 - 06:37 PM, said:

It's not less fun? Gold sinks need to be used and shouldn't be avoidable.

That makes no sense at all. It is less fun to not use a facility created specifically to make life easier for players, it is also less fun to have to grind more to accumulate the gold to buy what you want; as a player you get to choose between the two less fun aspects. Gold sinks should be giving the players something they want, not punnishing them for playing the game as intended.

[McNasty]

raspberry jam, on 28 November 2012 - 05:05 PM, said:

Just like in real life amiright?
-snip-
There are no money sinks in real life.-
-snip-

kind of off topic, but...
in the real world money is created through bank loans. Yes, created. they do not use the money that is held in deposit. When you repay the loan the money is destroyed, ie:removed from the economy. The RL "gold-sink" is called interest, as this is not created with the originating loan and must be acquired through trade(be it labor or goods).

just sayin'

Edited by McNasty, 28 November 2012 - 08:11 PM.

[raspberry jam]

McNasty, on 28 November 2012 - 08:10 PM, said:

kind of off topic, but...
in the real world money is created through bank loans. Yes, created. they do not use the money that is held in deposit. When you repay the loan the money is destroyed, ie:removed from the economy. The RL "gold-sink" is called interest, as this is not created with the originating loan and must be acquired through trade(be it labor or goods).

just sayin'

I know, that's how banks earn money (they let you earn it and then you pay it as interest). Money is created, and debts are created to cancel out the created money, thus it is a virtual* money sink, not a real one, just like the actual loan isn't a real money source (as various people that got their houses foreclosed the past years would know). I don't see how interest would be a money sink though. The money paid in interest goes to someone's pocket. The fact that that someone is a bank has nothing to do with anything.

Anyway, you are right in that money can be destroyed if they can balance out debts.

* I use the words "virtual" and "real" about the sinks/sources, not the money.

[Minion]

Sandpit, on 28 November 2012 - 07:42 PM, said:

That makes no sense at all. It is less fun to not use a facility created specifically to make life easier for players, it is also less fun to have to grind more to accumulate the gold to buy what you want; as a player you get to choose between the two less fun aspects. Gold sinks should be giving the players something they want, not punnishing them for playing the game as intended.

This perspective seems wrong. You must be playing seriously inefficiently to be spending more than you're making via waypoints and repairing armour. I waste mine by gambling on Forge, about 10g everyday. I still have  approx. 1g left, and I'm not really hardcore... I do maybe 3 paths of AC a day then sit around talking. Maybe CoF, too. I don't enter Orr much, so I don't get my daily burst of ori nodes.

What I'm saying is, this is a non-issue. Players who cry over losing a few silver are not the people who will have legendaries any_time_soon.

[DuskWolf]

Sandpit, on 28 November 2012 - 07:42 PM, said:

That makes no sense at all. It is less fun to not use a facility created specifically to make life easier for players, it is also less fun to have to grind more to accumulate the gold to buy what you want; as a player you get to choose between the two less fun aspects. Gold sinks should be giving the players something they want, not punnishing them for playing the game as intended.

I like you, you make sense, like rj does.

Gods damn, if some of the people here were let loose in game design, I can't imagine the horrors we'd have to deal with. I like looking at things from a different angle though to help people understand. I'm going to use VVVVVV, for those who haven't played that, go and play the demo. It's pretty damned great. I'll wait.

Now, in VVVVVV, if you die you return to a teleporter. That's fun. It means that you can try the challenge again. Now let's add a GW2 style tax to it! Ready? Okay, in VVVVVV you now have to collect coins. It costs 30 coins to activate a respawner. If you're low on coins, you may avoid activating a respawner in order to save your coins. This would mean that you'd have to replay difficulty rooms over and over that you've already completed just to get to the part that you're already at.

That's not fun. This is why there are no coins and no respawner costs in VVVVVV. For those who've played that title, imagine that you had to do the last 15 rooms before veni, vidi, vici before you could attempt it again, just because you didn't have enough money for the veni, vidi, vici respawner. So you wouldn't be learning anything new by doing those rooms again and again, you wouldn't be challenged, it's just grunt work and artificial elongation.

Now let's look at GW2 and the waypoints. It's the same thing. You choose to walk to a place instead of teleporting because you don't want to waste your coins. So if an event is up, you'll have to make the agonisingly slow run over there, simply because if you were to teleport you'd have to pay a tax. This means that if you're in trouble in an event and you need help, 50 per cent of the players you ask won't want to because they can't teleport, and the rest would slowly run over there and barely even make it in time.

This is all because they can't just teleport.

The tax is the antithesis of fun! Now, what's the difference between a tax and a gold sink? People have probably noticed that I've been calling the waypoint tax a tax (because that's what it is). The difference is is that a gold sink is indeed buying something that you want, but it's not a tax. Okay, look at it this way... What if they were to add items to the game that made you twice as big for a small amount of time (maybe 20 seconds)?

Something you could pop in combat and have fun with. Just for the hilarity of a giant asura.

Things like that are gold sinks, you waste your money on them because they're fun. And what about weapon skins and armour skins? Or what about a transformation skin? Personally I'd have a blast with being able to turn myself in to a charr car temporarily outside of combat so that I could drive around. But they can't do this. Why? They need to put it all on the gem store. So instead they foist these taxes upon us.

Okay, so what about teleports? You could buy a teleport that would take you exactly to a friend's position no matter where in the world they were. This would save having to do a little bit of waypoint planning and walking from a waypoint to where they are. If you're in the same team as them, you could maybe buy a more expensive version that would allow you to teleport into a dungeon. That'd work as a gold sink.

But no, that would have to go on the gem store, too.

This is the problem, they're not selling things at vendors that you'd otherwise have to get at the gem store, and because of this (in my opinion) bad choice, we have taxes to deal with instead. Why couldn't it be that the gem store sells better (longer lasting, or even permanent) versions of these things? I think that ArenaNet's stinginess will be the thing that does them in, personally.

[draxynnic]

raspberry jam, on 28 November 2012 - 11:47 AM, said:

Yes, and a very bad simulation it is. Why is everything I sell to the merchant swallowed by some sort of black hole? Where does all this money come from? A good simulation would allow the prices of the stuff that the merchant sells to me, and the price he's prepared to pay me for stuff that I sell to him.

It's not bad, if you make the assumption that the rest of the economy is large enough that it's stable against adventurers selling to or buying from it. In most fantasy settings, adventurers are usually a tiny fraction of the population and experienced adventurers are vastly richer than most members of the population. Compared to the volume of base-quality weapons being made for armies and so on, the purchases and sales of adventurers don't make a dent.

It's only the worlds top-end and most expensive items, that only adventurers and the similarly rich can afford to pay full price, where the player-driven economy kicks in (with the merchant price representing the maximum price people in the general economy can stand to pay for the item). It's the difference between buying a regular baseball bat at the local mechanic and collectors bidding for Babe Ruth's personal bat... except that with the magic in Guild Wars 2, using Babe Ruth's bat actually makes you a better baseball player rather than simply being a display item.

Incidentally, where is this idea that banks create money with loans coming from? Banks certainly do make loans with the money they're holding in accounts - every loan they make is essentially a gamble that people aren't going to withdraw that money before the loan is paid (or if they do, that they can borrow the money from another bank to cover it). That's why banks go bust if too many people default their loans - I seem to recall there was a bit of a hubbub about that a few years back.

[raspberry jam]

draxynnic, on 28 November 2012 - 09:42 PM, said:

It's not bad, if you make the assumption that the rest of the economy is large enough that it's stable against adventurers selling to or buying from it. In most fantasy settings, adventurers are usually a tiny fraction of the population and experienced adventurers are vastly richer than most members of the population. Compared to the volume of base-quality weapons being made for armies and so on, the purchases and sales of adventurers don't make a dent.

It's only the worlds top-end and most expensive items, that only adventurers and the similarly rich can afford to pay full price, where the player-driven economy kicks in (with the merchant price representing the maximum price people in the general economy can stand to pay for the item). It's the difference between buying a regular baseball bat at the local mechanic and collectors bidding for Babe Ruth's personal bat... except that with the magic in Guild Wars 2, using Babe Ruth's bat actually makes you a better baseball player rather than simply being a display item.

Incidentally, where is this idea that banks create money with loans coming from? Banks certainly do make loans with the money they're holding in accounts - every loan they make is essentially a gamble that people aren't going to withdraw that money before the loan is paid (or if they do, that they can borrow the money from another bank to cover it). That's why banks go bust if too many people default their loans - I seem to recall there was a bit of a hubbub about that a few years back.

But in that case how come the rest of the economy never participates in the player economy except through the very small portal that the merchant represents? How come that no matter how massive the player population is, it never changes the price of merchant goods even a single copper up or down? How come the merchant buys anything we want to sell him, in unlimited quantities? It's a bad simulation.

Mmm, anyways, Theoretical Economics 101. This might sound a bit scary or weird, and some people freak out when they hear about this, thinking that their assets are unreal and that society is a soap bubble that might collapse at any moment, stuff like that.

Ok. Here goes.

MONEY IS NOT TANGIBLE just like "mass" isn't tangible. Not exactly like that, but almost.

Currency is the physical representation of money. It is not money. Take out your wallet and dig out a U.S. Federal Reserve $1 note (or any other note, depending on where you live and how rich you are). Hold it in your hand. What are you holding? $1? Money? NO. I told you it's not tangible. You are holding a piece of paper that represents money. If you are actually holding an American note, you can even read it, because it says "This note is legal tender for all debts, public and private". What that means is "you can use this piece of paper to pay your taxes and to buy stuff". That is what makes it represent money.

Money is in the first instance completely useless for everything and anything except for the sole purpose of paying debts. When you go to the store and buy a can of Coke for $1 (I don't live in America so I don't know what your Cokes cost), what actually happens is that you go into the store, grab a can of Coke, and notify the store owner that you wish for ownership of the can to be transferred to you. That will infer a debt on you amounting to $1, which you immediately pay using your $1 note, which, as established above, is actually just a representation of $1.

Debt, finally, is a promise pay money, either now or in the future. When you look at your bank statement and see that your bank account has $49.30 on it (just an example), what that actually means is not that $49.30 is waiting for you in a bank vault, it means that the bank have a debt to you of $49.30.

So far so good, because all we've done so far is talking about cash in a way that is 100% autism, but perfectly valid. It gets more eerie as we put money on the bank. Let's see what happens: Say we work really hard and make $100. We don't spend it, instead we put it in our bank account.

Sum total of money created by labor in our little economy right now: $100
Sum total of the total currency in our little economy right now: $100.
Sum total of the total money in our little economy right now: $100.

Right after we deposited the money, someone else comes in and make a loan. The bank must keep a certain amount of in-loaned money in their reserves, let's say 20% (not the actual figure, this is just an example), so they can only out-loan $80. They use the currency that you deposited. However, the money (intangible, remember?) is still on your account. That is $100. The guy who loaned $80 also has $80 because hey, he just got that much from the bank. He deposits that in another bank...

Sum total of money created by labor in our little economy right now: $100.
Sum total of the total currency in our little economy right now: $100.
Sum total of the total money in our little economy right now: $180.

The loan guy of course deposits the money in another bank, which makes another loan... 20% reserve rate gives us a maximum out-loan of $64. That money is deposited...

Sum total of money created by labor in our little economy right now: $100.
Sum total of the total currency in our little economy right now: $100.
Sum total of the total money in our little economy right now: $244.

Well, you see. The only actual work being done generated $100. That is also how much currency we have. But there is definitely $244 in the economy. How? The difference was created by loans. That sounds completely crazy, but the thing that keeps it all together is that along with that money, debts (positive and negative debts totaling out at $144) are created that have to be repaid, just like when you bought that can of Coke. Of course it goes on, adding up.

The "hubbub" you refer to happens when people in the middle of the chain need to pay their debts but don't have any money. Instead, they own debts (other people promised to pay them), and these debts are not repaid. Of course, the value of a debt decreases with the probability of the promise being upheld...

[Ninja Ataris]

The only other gold sinks in the game are gathering tools, salvage kits and TP fees. Trait resets are as much of a gold sink as vanity armor. It's not needed to play the game effectively.

Yes, GW2 economy can be harsh if you're not careful, but that's because it's balanced against those vicious TP sharks. If you just play the game and don't WP around like a maniac, sell what you gather and don't die every 2 mins you -will- go +, not -.

Heck, just vendoring everything you get will be enough.

No, you won't get any Legendaries that way, but then those are supposed to be hard to get. You're gonna have to put in quite a bit of effort. There's no WoW AH monopolies in this.

[draxynnic]

Well, the question you should be asking is... What proportion of the total population of the world do the players represent?

Out of the entire population of the world, how many are heroes, and how many are ordinary citizens?

I'd put it to you that the answer is pretty small. Maybe if it was just the norn than heroes would have a significant impact on the general economy, but for everyone else, you're probably looking at a squad of regular soldiers for every PC-style hero, or even an entire company. We may not actually SEE that many soldiers on the map, but that's because ArenaNet naturally wants to put the players in the spotlight - realistically speaking, when you're, say, participating in a massive event to capture the gates of the Citadel of Flame, most of the zerg is actually taking the place of rank-and-file Pact and High Legion soldiers.

So there's going to be a point in the economy where the PC economy is just going to get swamped by the NPC economy. For every dragonslaying hero that vendors a few whites on an occasional basis, there's a seraph lieutenant or a charr centurion looking to keep their unit outfitted with weapons and armour against the wear and tear of combat, providing weapons to new recruits, and so on. While they're certainly pleased when some adventurer comes along willing to part with a to-them worthless item for a handful of coppers, that's probably a drop in the ocean while the majority of their supplies comes from NPC merchants... who likely charge them the same as they would charge a PC (seriously, look at the difference between buying and selling a white item. Dagmar at Trinity Fort sells level 75 weapons for an average of three silver apiece... and won't pay more than a handful of coppers if you try to sell one back. PCs are already getting ripped off at the low end of the market).

Consider what you can get out of vendors - with the occasional special exception, generally the best you can get is a green from a karma merchant. From the perspective of the common herd, even a relatively poor adventurer is among the super-rich that only want the best of the best... and are often willing to sell items of the highest quality most people are ever likely to see (greens) for less than the price a weaponsmith charges for a standard-issue (white) weapon. Seriously, every time an adventurer turns in their loot for a fraction of its true value because they just want to get back to adventuring ASAP, the vendor is probably laughing all the way to the bank.

The point at which PCs truly affect the market is around the point where it starts becoming worthwhile to sell on the trading post - rares and high-demand greens. Which matches with their availability - rares and above tend to only come from the loot of ancient days or from the craftsmanship of the very best of crafters whose services only the richest can afford. The adventurer depositing a white for a few coppers probably has about as much effect on the general economy as people just coming into a fortune turning in their old car for a Mercedes or some other prestige brand - which, from the perspective of the typical car-buyer, is effectively none.

Sure, you could simulate a supply/demand curve for whites, but what's really the point? Players don't really care, since they're almost never going to treat whites as anything more than a salvageable or a source of a few coppers anyway. In order for that simulation to be anything apart from driving the price down to the point where they're never going to be sold to a merchant, only salvaged (it's pretty close to that already), ArenaNet would need to formulate a model for how much it actually costs to make a white item (to set a price floor) and just how much volume is moving in the general economy. In principle it could be done, but it seems to me that it would be a lot of work for relatively little effect, since an accurate modelling of what the arms market of the continent of Tyria as a whole would probably turn out to be pretty much what I'm saying - the prices of whites and even blues are just not significantly affected by the activities of a few heroes. And seriously, is a shift of a couple of coppers in the price of merchant fodder really worth going to all that effort when it could be spent fixing some of the many bugs or missing features that afflict the game?

Now, I get the feeling that what you're proposing is to reduce the inflow of gold into the player economy from people selling whites. There are better, more realistic ways of doing this - for instance, raising the question of just why it is non-humanoid opponents drop humanoid weapons and armour in the first place.

When it comes to loans... the link in the chain you're missing is that if the first person in the chain comes back and wants their $100 back before the second person has paid off their loan, the bank will borrow money off another bank in order to cover the shortfall. At no point is there actually more than $100 in the economy - what's really happening is that the first person is essentially loaning $80 to the second person with the bank acting as a proxy.

Edited by draxynnic, 29 November 2012 - 03:28 PM.

[Solid_Gold]

Sandpit, on 28 November 2012 - 06:17 PM, said:

Try reading this thread. It discourages cooperative play, group events, helping guild mates etc. It's a bad mechanic that should never have been put in. If the game needs gold sinks, then ADD gold sinkseg. makeover kits. Don't invent ways to suck gold by penalising normal gameplay.

ie. don't make normal gameplay less fun.

Exactly this.

[raspberry jam]

draxynnic, on 29 November 2012 - 03:25 PM, said:

Well, the question you should be asking is... What proportion of the total population of the world do the players represent?

Out of the entire population of the world, how many are heroes, and how many are ordinary citizens?

I'd put it to you that the answer is pretty small. Maybe if it was just the norn than heroes would have a significant impact on the general economy, but for everyone else, you're probably looking at a squad of regular soldiers for every PC-style hero, or even an entire company. We may not actually SEE that many soldiers on the map, but that's because ArenaNet naturally wants to put the players in the spotlight - realistically speaking, when you're, say, participating in a massive event to capture the gates of the Citadel of Flame, most of the zerg is actually taking the place of rank-and-file Pact and High Legion soldiers.

So there's going to be a point in the economy where the PC economy is just going to get swamped by the NPC economy. For every dragonslaying hero that vendors a few whites on an occasional basis, there's a seraph lieutenant or a charr centurion looking to keep their unit outfitted with weapons and armour against the wear and tear of combat, providing weapons to new recruits, and so on. While they're certainly pleased when some adventurer comes along willing to part with a to-them worthless item for a handful of coppers, that's probably a drop in the ocean while the majority of their supplies comes from NPC merchants... who likely charge them the same as they would charge a PC (seriously, look at the difference between buying and selling a white item. Dagmar at Trinity Fort sells level 75 weapons for an average of three silver apiece... and won't pay more than a handful of coppers if you try to sell one back. PCs are already getting ripped off at the low end of the market).

Consider what you can get out of vendors - with the occasional special exception, generally the best you can get is a green from a karma merchant. From the perspective of the common herd, even a relatively poor adventurer is among the super-rich that only want the best of the best... and are often willing to sell items of the highest quality most people are ever likely to see (greens) for less than the price a weaponsmith charges for a standard-issue (white) weapon. Seriously, every time an adventurer turns in their loot for a fraction of its true value because they just want to get back to adventuring ASAP, the vendor is probably laughing all the way to the bank.

The point at which PCs truly affect the market is around the point where it starts becoming worthwhile to sell on the trading post - rares and high-demand greens. Which matches with their availability - rares and above tend to only come from the loot of ancient days or from the craftsmanship of the very best of crafters whose services only the richest can afford. The adventurer depositing a white for a few coppers probably has about as much effect on the general economy as people just coming into a fortune turning in their old car for a Mercedes or some other prestige brand - which, from the perspective of the typical car-buyer, is effectively none.

Sure, you could simulate a supply/demand curve for whites, but what's really the point? Players don't really care, since they're almost never going to treat whites as anything more than a salvageable or a source of a few coppers anyway. In order for that simulation to be anything apart from driving the price down to the point where they're never going to be sold to a merchant, only salvaged (it's pretty close to that already), ArenaNet would need to formulate a model for how much it actually costs to make a white item (to set a price floor) and just how much volume is moving in the general economy. In principle it could be done, but it seems to me that it would be a lot of work for relatively little effect, since an accurate modelling of what the arms market of the continent of Tyria as a whole would probably turn out to be pretty much what I'm saying - the prices of whites and even blues are just not significantly affected by the activities of a few heroes. And seriously, is a shift of a couple of coppers in the price of merchant fodder really worth going to all that effort when it could be spent fixing some of the many bugs or missing features that afflict the game?

Now, I get the feeling that what you're proposing is to reduce the inflow of gold into the player economy from people selling whites. There are better, more realistic ways of doing this - for instance, raising the question of just why it is non-humanoid opponents drop humanoid weapons and armour in the first place.

When it comes to loans... the link in the chain you're missing is that if the first person in the chain comes back and wants their $100 back before the second person has paid off their loan, the bank will borrow money off another bank in order to cover the shortfall. At no point is there actually more than $100 in the economy - what's really happening is that the first person is essentially loaning $80 to the second person with the bank acting as a proxy.

I assume this is a reply to me.

When I count the people I can see in LA for example, the majority are players, not NPCs. Even more so in the killing fields outside. (I'm assuming here that the mobs don't participate in the economy). Even if most NPC population is indoors or hiding in various bushes all the time, players would outnumber them. Even if that wasn't true, the merchant is still a bad simulation for reasons already stated - if players represented a 0.1% portion of the population, they are among the richest, and should be able to affect the non-player part.
What you say about the buy/sell spread is true; players are getting ripped off. Consider, however, that the weaponsmiths selling things would probably sell for that price to everyone. Including that seraph lieutenant. Yet that lieutenant will never seek out the TP to get cheaper player-crafted swords. Why? Oh, lieutenants aren't allowed there, only PCs are. Why? They have a World-Saving Hero certificate? Not really, as we can access the TP right from the start.

Anyway, the buy/sell spread is, in a way, a gold sink in itself, one which could be used in a fully anonymized trading post. We're not just talking about the arms market here, we are talking about every market in the entirety of Tyria. And no, it wouldn't be very difficult - the math itself is a day's work. And, again, yes, it would drive the prices down. That would be the point, actually doing something about inflation. That prices would be so low that salvage is the economical option is not true: the most it would get is a balance between sale and salvage, since salvage items would be funneled through the same price filter.

Totally agreed on that mobs should drop things that they realistically would have. It does feel kind of weird to kill some animal and then have that animal drop a pile of coins. Or most other enemies for that matter.

Um, no, in the example there is actually $244 in the economy. Money is not tangible, remember. You actually have $100 in the bank. The other guy actually have $80, but also a $80 debt. The third guy actually have $64, but a $64 debt.