[Guild Wars 2] Why are you still playing?

[Gray_Matter]

OMG, even I could not spend that much. :P That's crazy. I can't even break 300g.

I am sure he/she is exaggerating, just a little bit.

[Meledelion]

sorry I keep thinking in silvers and say gold: that's 1k gold

[Valeron]

lol, that seems more reasonable

although I only have 6 gold at the moment

[Rukh]

I don't really see anything good to save for, so I generally end up spending on stupid things.

[Fencers]

If the game didn't have travel costs I would spend almost zero gold. Would likely topple 1k gold easily as I am half way there with little effort and about 1 hour a week of playtime. Maybe less than that actually since I started a new job w/ little time for games the last 3 weeks.

Would be nice if they had more things to do with money that interested me.

[Valeron]

Heh, I wish I knew how people made their cash. I have just over 800 hours played in the game and I don't think I've made over 100 gold the entire time. Certainly don't make gold by just playing the game that's for sure.

[Meledelion]

Did you read http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...o-you-get-rich ?

My final "advice" is probably the most crucial and is an easy way of setting your limit.

For instance the ecto price drop/rises were easily predicted using http://www.gw2spidy.com. You can tell when "unnatural" spikes occur (nov 21/28, jan and mar 18) and thus expect that prises will drop... (also note that most "spikes" tend to come 1week before a patch goes live (aka announcement day) which means that if you hear stuff about dungeons (fractals) world chest changes and the likes and it's prior to the "one week notification" you have to invest at that time and not when the announcements are made.

For skins there's a simple rule of thumb. Invest early check
http://www.gw2spidy.com/item/41946
http://www.gw2spidy.com/item/36339
http://www.gw2spidy.com/item/36336
http://www.gw2spidy.com/item/36340

Now there's another "big secret" being that it's easy to manipulate people into buying your item that's very pricey.
1. List item for really high price in comparison to the first buy order (if no other items are listed, otherwise undercut slightly)
2. Make a buy order significantly larger than the first buy order but below the "crafting cost" of the item (or below profit margin due to tax, depends on how risky you like to be)
3. People think others are willing to pay a lot more than they really are.

A good tip is to try and find a niche which you can monitor and get to know, instead of playing all fields. For instance my first real money was made by using cooking and JC. Once I had enough I moved onto runes/ectos and now I'm in the precursor business (well was).

If you don't want to go the risky route there's only one alternative quantity (cooking is a good example) you can make higher returns (%wise) from cheap patterns but this requires more time investment (volatile markets+more suppliers) and understanding of the LIFO "glitch" to maximise profit.

[Lane]

For skins there's a simple rule of thumb. Invest early check

I doubt I'm going to invest in skins anymore. The Super ones have taught me they're too uncertain. When those skins were at their cheapest there was zero indication whatsoever they wouldn't be available again with the next SAB release (it's still not 100% certain they won't be either). I truly believe(d) anyone buying in bulk at that time was making an incredibly risky, uninformed investment that could have backfired into a substantial loss of money.

Right now I'm holding onto a large amount of T6 materials and am uncertain when to liquidate them. I think I may have missed the high prior to the last patch unless there's another spike before the upcoming one. Given how much Orr farming has tapered off I really expected them to keep rising in price over the course of the month (I wasn't the only one either, there was a thread about it on the BLTC forum for a while with similar speculations), but that hasn't happened.

[Meledelion]

The reason why skins are a relatively safe investment is simple. Getting one is "fun" getting two is "stale" and getting three is a frigin pain. Add to this that the uncertainty works two ways. People think they'll disapear which pushes the price, think they'll stay pulls the price down.

The thing you need to do is look for a reasonable date at which to sell. For instance my halloween skins were all sold close to the peak of february for two reasons. 1. someone clearly was hunting for them 2. "new" players who had missed the skins had time to gather cash by now.

I told my brother that prices would probably peak at around july/august since that's when people start "saving" for the next halloween skins so we'll see if that holds true.

T6 mats have a really annoying property of being a complement with legendaries. When Precursers are flowing, so are t6 mats. With the precurse drop chance nerf (chests) prices also have dropped.
T6mats never were a good investment anyway, you were better off just buying the bags

Before FotM I think ectos were 20ish silver and I told a guildy they would drop since better loot would drop yada yada yada. After fotm it rose due to the patterns requiring a lot of ecto and ppl wanting to be "first" spent a lot of money. When prices hit 40s a friend of mine was certain we'd never drop below 25s again, so he bought all his ecto for the backpiece/legendary and look at the price now

As I said before, stick to your plan...

P.S.: I think the super GS will hit 80g+ during may. (depends on if it comes back in may or not) it'll take 2weeks after sab is gone for prices to settle down and then they'll climb again.

[Lane]

The reason why skins are a relatively safe investment is simple. Getting one is "fun" getting two is "stale" and getting three is a frigin pain.

I hadn't really thought about that. I guess since I really enjoyed SAB getting the baubles for more skins than I wanted (which is saying something given my altoholism :P) I didn't personally find it all that difficult or even particularly time consuming.

T6mats never were a good investment anyway, you were better off just buying the bags

They weren't much of an investment. I was looking at ways to profit from skill points of alts I was deleting, so before the spike in dusts (back when T5 was 24c/ea.) I transmuted a lot. I never sold all of my stash because prices for whatever reason started skyrocketing.

P.S.: I think the super GS will hit 80g+ during may. (depends on if it comes back in may or not) it'll take 2weeks after sab is gone for prices to settle down and then they'll climb again.

I was guessing prices would go up after SAB is officially removed. I'm debating at this point how long I want to wait. I've seen people say that long term investments aren't as profitable because your gold is tied up for sometimes months, so I have to decide if it's worth waiting or if I want my gold now to invest in other things.

[Fencers]

Heh, I wish I knew how people made their cash. I have just over 800 hours played in the game and I don't think I've made over 100 gold the entire time. Certainly don't make gold by just playing the game that's for sure.

For me, it's mostly not spending any and vendoring almost everything.

All I do in game is wander about doing events here and there. A dungeon or fractal once in a while when my friends are online.

Not sure I have 800 hours in the game. While enjoyable, I didn't find Guild Wars 2 a game that required any sort of intensity or investigation. It's not a particularly serious game so I just roam around doing whatever I feel like.

[Kelimbror]

For me, it's mostly not spending any and vendoring almost everything

This is really it in any MMO. You can either not spend money, or you can grind everything you would have spent money on. In GW2 I am just as broke as other MMO's and I'll tell you why:

1) I use the AH for leveling crafting because I'm impatient. Even with all the time spent in certain zones you never have enough fangs, or claws, or whatever to max it out. Just a couple of levels in one profession will set you back a few gold if you aren't careful. Completionists, who must have all professions will have this magnified.

2) I'm lazy and teleport everywhere. Running to the next zone then porting would reduce my cost, but I cba to even do that.

3) Instead of vendoring everything, I salvage everything and stockpile mats/use them. If I sold them in any shape, be it vendors or the AH I would make more money.

If instead of doing what I do, you focused on never doing these things or at least making money first then pursuing these goals, you would wind up with more wealth than otherwise.

[Meledelion]

1. You're simply not being efficient, you shouldn't buy claws and all that stuff you should be buying the clerics/.... dowel or w/e and then making stuff basically just check this http://gw2crafts.net/ it costs like 50g to max everything to 400.

2. travel costs are 1/10th of the reward of a random event

3. That's simply being inefficient. It's not a bigger hastle to click "sell" 10times over salvaging them.

I do agree though that it comes down to mentality (I have hundreds of golds worth of mats sitting in my guild banks) of instant profit vs delayed profit.

[dense]

i played the last trial weekend and i really liked the game.

I was just always waiting for a ps3 version of it because i heard rumors and several articles mentioning one. I haven't heard anything about it lately though, so i was wondering if anyone of you know if it has been cancelled.

Unsure whether i should wait or buy the pc version :/

my pc is crappy and i prefer playing with a controller so i can walk around while playing

[Lane]

This is really it in any MMO. You can either not spend money, or you can grind everything you would have spent money on. In GW2 I am just as broke as other MMO's and I'll tell you why:

1) I use the AH for leveling crafting because I'm impatient. Even with all the time spent in certain zones you never have enough fangs, or claws, or whatever to max it out. Just a couple of levels in one profession will set you back a few gold if you aren't careful. Completionists, who must have all professions will have this magnified.

It's worse in GW2, IMO. Mainly because actual gathered mats are worthless for the most part. There's very little you can make without insignias/inscriptions, which rely totally on drops. I can also say after leveling multiple 80s that I never had enough drops to max even one craft without supplementing from the TP, let alone all of them. I've had to buy almost all of my insignias/inscriptions, especially since the individual components (claws, blood, etc.) sell for more than the finished product.

Diminishing returns is no help either, it's incredibly difficult to farm for materials.

3) Instead of vendoring everything, I salvage everything and stockpile mats/use them. If I sold them in any shape, be it vendors or the AH I would make more money.

I only salvage whites, everything else gets vendored. I also quit salvaging leather entirely because it's just a straight loss of money.

[Kelimbror]

You're simply not being efficient

That was the whole point of what I said. If you do things like me because you are lazy, you'll never have money. If you go all out on things, but don't take time to research or earn, then you'll never have money. And regarding salvaging, it's the difference between actively pursuing profits versus just doing what you want. I salvage b/c I like hoarding materials for no purpose. I could either sell the items or try and make a profit with the materials, but I just let them sit around...probably for alts and helping friends.

And travel costs are not 1/10th the reward of an event unless I'm playing a different game. I don't know why people keep claiming events give bajillions of karma and gold, because they don't. Teleporting across the map costs almost 3 silver. I don't usually get 3 silver from events and I certainly don't get 30 silver from events, ever.

[Fencers]

If it costs more than 3 silver to portal somewhere either;

A. I'm not going.
B. I'm walking.
C. You're paying.

[Odeezee]

my pc is crappy and i prefer playing with a controller so i can walk around while playing

if your pc handled the free trial fine then just buy the PC version and play GW2 with a controller problem solved. there is also a mod out there that you can use to further streamline your controller play, look up combat mode 1.1 on Youtube for a demo.

---------- Post added 2013-04-24 at 01:15 PM ----------

If it costs more than 3 silver to portal somewhere either;

C. You're paying.

ummmmm, what? haha, who would let you abuse them like that?

[Fencers]

ummmmm, what? haha, who would let you abuse them like that?

Friends and family. Natch.

[Odeezee]

Friends and family. Natch.

damn, i can see it now. you probably won't even budge until you see the travel fee in your mail. the funny thing is you do that to people you actually like, haha.

On-Topic: the game is still fun for me, best combat, best visuals, great animations (Aion's are still the best tho), best content delivery, best open world PvP experience, best instanced PvP experience and my character looks baws!