GW2 Gold Economy

[Questar]

it seems to me to that on the supply side gw2 provides a lot of gold to the players. what do we spend the gold on?
what kinds of regular gold sinks did gw1 have?

being a previously obessive AH gentleman merchant in wow, i can say the backbone of the wow economy was spending gold on raw mats(which players had to take the time to gather) and profession-created mats and mat drops from dungeons/raids to craft the latest epics so we can do the latest raids.

what will form the backbone of the gw2 economy?

[englanda]

The gold sinks in GW1 are mostly armour/consumable crafting fees and lockpicks. You also pay a small fee to enter some of the elite areas. There aren't enough gold sinks. Combined with the cap on the amount of gold you can have on a single account, this means gold is worthless.

GW2 has crafting and an AH, so I'm sure it'll be a similar economy to WoW.

[Mif]

IMO, the most interesting thing economy wise is that the Marketplace (GW2 name for AH) will be cross server, which will have big effects on supply and demand .

[Questar]

yes i agree the cross-server AH( with the feature of listing an item to buy, not sell) will be very beneficial: the range of price of an item will not be high.

what i m concerned about is gold inflation, where prices keep going higher and higher. what will be the regular gold sinks?

[hellar]

IMO, the most interesting thing economy wise is that the Marketplace (GW2 name for AH) will be cross server, which will have big effects on supply and demand .

Idk i think is should be sever only. I dont like people who arnt on my sever effecting the price at which i sell and buy stuff. It feels more like your buying from a CPU rather then a person you can chat with on your sever.
I always liked the fact that you could see who put something up on the AH and chat them in game to see if they can make it for you, or stuff like that. Gives the severs more of a "big family" feeling.

[Acquiesce of Telara]

Idk i think is should be sever only. I dont like people who arnt on my sever effecting the price at which i sell and buy stuff. It feels more like your buying from a CPU rather then a person you can chat with on your sever.
I always liked the fact that you could see who put something up on the AH and chat them in game to see if they can make it for you, or stuff like that. Gives the severs more of a "big family" feeling.

I don't think they've talked too much about it, but I'm under the impression they're cross-servering it to take a lot of the nuisance out for those who simply want a place to shop, instead of having to worry about monopolies, limited availability, etc.

The AH can certainly help define a server, but with the min/max Goblin approach taken by many gamers these days, single-server AHs can also force less monetary-minded players to think about gold instead of where the next big DE event will happen. Anet would rather you were out in the world than sitting there arguing with yourself over prices.

[Mif]

Idk i think is should be sever only. I dont like people who arnt on my sever effecting the price at which i sell and buy stuff. It feels more like your buying from a CPU rather then a person you can chat with on your sever.
I always liked the fact that you could see who put something up on the AH and chat them in game to see if they can make it for you, or stuff like that. Gives the severs more of a "big family" feeling.

The problem is that smaller servers can't support large economies and that punishes people for not playing on large servers. Take Wow for example, on my large server I could find someone to sell you a Spectral Tiger in under 30 minutes, but on other servers you'll be waiting a year.

I will miss seeing a friends name in the AH and buying their auction to help them out even though it was slightly more expensive, but I think a global Marketplace's benefits outweigh it's downsides.

[hellar]

The problem is that smaller servers can't support large economies and that punishes people for not playing on large servers. Take Wow for example, on my large server I could find someone to sell you a Spectral Tiger in under 30 minutes, but on other servers you'll be waiting a year.

I will miss seeing a friends name in the AH and buying their auction to help them out even though it was slightly more expensive, but I think a global Marketplace's benefits outweigh it's downsides.

Yea this is true. I do remember how much i hated it when i level a alt on a small sever.

[Deleted]

The problem is that smaller servers can't support large economies and that punishes people for not playing on large servers. Take Wow for example, on my large server I could find someone to sell you a Spectral Tiger in under 30 minutes, but on other servers you'll be waiting a year.

I will miss seeing a friends name in the AH and buying their auction to help them out even though it was slightly more expensive, but I think a global Marketplace's benefits outweigh it's downsides.

I agree.

Wherein most cases I dislike cross-realm solutions, I think the global AH will be a positive exception. After all a free market works best when you have lots of demand and lots of supply.

My only concern is the lack of deflation-mechanism. I know the fast-travel feature will be a small gold-sink but aside from that, I don't know of much. Ideally you'd have only slightly more gold generated over time than you are removing from the system. Single big "gold sinks" don't really do much to counter inflation.

[Questar]

to make the inflation problem worse, the devs took out the concept of paying for durability loss, which i think takes a lot of gold out of the system. even though losing gold is not a fun thing.

"single big gold sinks" may not curb inflation on a constant basis like durability or consumables. it will take the ability to inflate/control markets from ultra-gold-rich players by instead offering them something else in return for their chunk of gold.

[omlech]

double post

[Deleted]

stones to transform gear will be popular
and mats to craft pretty looking gear.
I think they will have some kind of order system? Like person A puts on AH: wants to buy this much ore to x price. And person B can instantly sell what he got to that person? Like how AH works in Eve online?

[omlech]

stones to transform gear will be popular
and mats to craft pretty looking gear.
I think they will have some kind of order system? Like person A puts on AH: wants to buy this much ore to x price. And person B can instantly sell what he got to that person? Like how AH works in Eve online?

That is correct about how the buy orders work, identical to EVE. The Transmutation Stones will likely not be tradable as it's purchased with Karma and I do believe all Karma purchases are BoP which to my knowledge is the only BoP gear in the game outside of your Personal Story rewards. They may possibly have a similar customization system from GW1 where you could get extra damage on a weapon, but it binds to your character.

[Deleted]

The problem is that smaller servers can't support large economies and that punishes people for not playing on large servers. Take Wow for example, on my large server I could find someone to sell you a Spectral Tiger in under 30 minutes, but on other servers you'll be waiting a year.

I will miss seeing a friends name in the AH and buying their auction to help them out even though it was slightly more expensive, but I think a global Marketplace's benefits outweigh it's downsides.

Fully agreed. In WoW sometimes even on large servers you have a lack of products, and on small servers... well prices are so high it's horrible and there's a bunch of nothing on the ah. A cross-server ah fixes this problem, as it also fixes monopolies on a product from some player, which is great. Unless of course a bunch of players make a "syndicate" and buy everything together... it would work similar to real life in a way if we think about it: your server is your country, but prices get affected by other servers, so world economy. And some companies can control some products almost fully.

[Deleted]

I like having cross server AH. Because currently on the Horde side on my server things are sooo scarce (like, there are only 4-5 strength gems at a time on the AH) that the prices skyrocket. You want something? Consider yourself lucky enough to even find it.

[Questar]

That is correct about how the buy orders work, identical to EVE. The Transmutation Stones will likely not be tradable as it's purchased with Karma and I do believe all Karma purchases are BoP which to my knowledge is the only BoP gear in the game outside of your Personal Story rewards. They may possibly have a similar customization system from GW1 where you could get extra damage on a weapon, but it binds to your character.

now that u mentioned Bop items... i believe making items freely tradable will help to alleviate the problem of gold inflation(maybe with some necessary exceptions). this will increase the supply of goods that can absorb gold.

---------- Post added 2011-12-21 at 06:24 PM ----------

I like having cross server AH. Because currently on the Horde side on my server things are sooo scarce (like, there are only 4-5 strength gems at a time on the AH) that the prices skyrocket. You want something? Consider yourself lucky enough to even find it.

yea the problem with inactive markets is that prices will fluctuate wildly because demand and supply have very low chance to meet at the right time. having one great market where large numbers of buyers and sellers meet will reduce price volatility.

[Deleted]

Idk i think is should be sever only. I dont like people who arnt on my sever effecting the price at which i sell and buy stuff. It feels more like your buying from a CPU rather then a person you can chat with on your sever.
I always liked the fact that you could see who put something up on the AH and chat them in game to see if they can make it for you, or stuff like that. Gives the severs more of a "big family" feeling.

Anet have said that there will be free server transfer, so people would still trade cross-realm.

[Mkalafut]

Yeah agreed. They're going for a more (I hate to compare) WoW style of economics instead of what they had in GW1. Ecto and Zkey and Armbrace trades were a pain in the ass because if one item went up in price you were screwed (if buying). I'm loving the cross-realm AH and the "WTB" feature of it all. Can't wait to see how it pans out =)

[amishjello]

globs of ectoplasm

[Wrathonia]

At least it isn't like the insanity of swtor right now. Money is incredibly important and one profession is incredibly unbalanced in how it gets money to a player. Unless they fix slicing in a quick and decisive manner than inflation will be out of control. It is not a pretty prospect. I would prefer my efforts in the game world be rewarded more than if I have in game monies to buy stuff. I got enough problems worrying about money in the real world. I don't want to worry about imaginary money in what is supposed to be a fun activity.