The Great Guild Wars Depression - Guild Wars Forums

hyphyclay · Jun 20, 2008, 04:22 AM // 04:22

So GW is way past recession. It is in depression really deep. The economy is pretty much crap because there are not enough gold sinks. Most expensive thing in the game is guild halls and armor. After that there is nothing to put money back to vendors, it just goes from player to player. Ectos are bein farmed to hell for 1 reason, they are the worth the most. That is slowly changing, they are falling even more. The only way they will ever rise again is by putting another thing to spend ectos on besides FoW and chaos gloves. Maybe a couple things. That way they will stop bein sold to the vendor and maybe some people will even buy them from the vendor.

this thread had potential but i really have no true direction of where this is going so... its just a random collection of my thoughts on the guild wars economy.

Sora267 · Jun 20, 2008, 04:24 AM // 04:24

Not enough gold sinks? Yeah, sure, whatever. And money going from player to player...You just defined what an economy is in an MMO.
And, ectos have ALWAYS been farmed to hell and back. ALWAYS. What's with people thinking this is something that's only started recently? The economy's been crap for at least a year now.

Gift3d · Jun 20, 2008, 04:27 AM // 04:27

You're right. I've always looked at it this way...

Guild Wars was an MMO amongst a ton of others, but still was a class of all it's own. GW tried to do it's very own thing, it was pretty unique in it's mechanics once you got into it. That being said, countless errors were bound to occur in the long run. It's very hard to start something of your own and have it withstand the test of time without big problems occurring. And that's what i think happened to GW. That some problems arose that were just too great to fix without having the community lash back. I can accept that.

What i'm hoping is that ANet realizes all of this, and fixes it in GW2. I'm hoping for still a GW feel of balanced gameplay that actually requires a brain to be good at. In a way i almost feel GW was just so the developers could get the hang of things, and GW2 will be the real test of the franchise's success.

Thizzle · Jun 20, 2008, 04:35 AM // 04:35

Do people ever stop complaining? This thread never had potential and it's been made like 100 times already. Ectos were 5k at one time and that's what they're now. 10k+ an ecto was way too much. Why do you want them to be more expensive anyway?

ALF71BE · Jun 20, 2008, 04:40 AM // 04:40

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thizzle

Ectos were 5k at one time and that's what they're now.

I lol'd.

If people hasn't noticed, it's about the same in real life, things go down in price with the time. So eventually we'll have a economy collapse. It's just impossible to stabilize the economy, as the game gets more and more of the same stuff. For example, runes, which will never get out of the market. And now ectos, which will never get out of the market.

Thizzle · Jun 20, 2008, 04:44 AM // 04:44

Quote:

Originally Posted by ALF71BE

I lol'd.

If people hasn't noticed, it's about the same in real life, things go down in price with the time. So eventually we'll have a economy collapse.

In real life there's no Anet to patch anything. If someone is farming(this is actually something else, but making money an easy way) then they're going to get away with it for the most part. Things change and we have to adapt, we can adapt, and we will adapt. I'm sorry your stack of ectos isn't worth as much. The only thing they were ever used for is Obsidian, Chaos, and high end trades. Those high end trades will be cheaper now because of everything being more available. The only thing that's going to remain a very high price is those special miniatures that are saw once in a great while. If your mad because you'll need more ectos to get them then you need to cut the QQ out right now.

slowerpoke · Jun 20, 2008, 04:49 AM // 04:49

you cant expect much from a three-year old game at the tail end of its lifecycle

the most important question though is, how long do we have to endure waiting for gw2. or indeed even hearing any news of it.

ALF71BE · Jun 20, 2008, 04:55 AM // 04:55

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thizzle

In real life there's no Anet to patch anything. If someone is farming(this is actually something else, but making money an easy way) then they're going to get away with it for the most part. Things change and we have to adapt, we can adapt, and we will adapt. I'm sorry your stack of ectos isn't worth as much. The only thing they were ever used for is Obsidian, Chaos, and high end trades. Those high end trades will be cheaper now because of everything being more available. The only thing that's going to remain a very high price is those special miniatures that are saw once in a great while. If your mad because you'll need more ectos to get them then you need to cut the QQ out right now.

I don't have even one stack of ectos. And I've never used a sin or even bothered to create one, like you do. And I have all the three minis I like (but I like mini Freezie so I may get one). And I don't need to QQ about having less ectos/less money, because they're so cheap now and will be so cheap tomorrow that I'm off trading in Z-keys or Black dyes.

Thizzle · Jun 20, 2008, 04:57 AM // 04:57

Quote:

Originally Posted by ALF71BE

I don't have even one stack of ectos. And I've never used a sin or even bothered to create one, like you do. And I have all the three minis I like (but I like mini Freezie so I may get one). And I don't need to QQ about having less ectos/less money, because they're so cheap now and will be so cheap tomorrow that I'm off trading in Z-keys or Black dyes.

I wasn't saying you were QQing, I'm talking about the person who made the thread.

Gun Pierson · Jun 20, 2008, 05:01 AM // 05:01

Quote:

Originally Posted by slowerpoke

you cant expect much from a three-year old game at the tail end of its lifecycle

Don't worry, I'm over it, but it still hurts when I read things like that. Dam you Anet, I'm gonna ninja you

Shyft the Pyro · Jun 20, 2008, 05:13 AM // 05:13

I hate to quote myself, but...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shyft the Pyro

You, and everyone else who is screaming about "ruining the economy," need to take a long, hard look at what precisely an "economy" is.

"Economy" is not the same as a "status quo."
"Economy" is not something you can "ruin."
"Economy" is always changing.
"Economy" can not become "better" or "worse" - it can only become "stronger" or "weaker."

"Better" and "worse" are qualitative judgments, which depend heavily on the observer who makes them. The problem with this is that there are as many people as there are opinions, which means that "good" and "bad" are different for different people, which in turn means there is no absolute "good" or "bad." The economy may seem to be getting "worse" to you, but an Ursan or perma player raking in the ectos will hardly agree with your assessment.

That, of course, is ignoring the fact that an "economy" cannot actually be "ruined" unless it ceases to exist. An "economy" is the sum of all trade. Making it easier to farm - whether in the real world or in Guild Wars - might lead to a price deflation (as you've witnessed at the rare material trader), but it will not "ruin" the economy unless it results in a complete economic collapse. In the case of Guild Wars, this would require everyone to stop taking part in trade relations, which would only happen if everyone either a) quit the game, or b) could get everything they'd possibly ever need on their own and with minimal effort.

Option b) will never actually happen in Guild Wars, because (as in every economic system) there are opportunity costs: the time you spend farming ectos could at the very least be spent farming something else. The reason people farm ectos is because ectos are easy to turn into cash, and cash is the way economic systems solve the opportunity cost problems: pay someone for something you are unable or unwilling to do, and you can have both what you need (say, your salary) and what you want (say, cash to buy Guild Wars 2), as opposed to needing to do everything yourself (say, designing Guild Wars 2 because you want to play it).

The "depression" is simply lowering the opportunity cost of not farming ectos with a perma sin (because it is lowering the profit of the perma sin). Under free market conditions, this simply means that a new equilibrium will soon be reached, one where people stop farming ectos with a perma sin because the profit of doing this (which is also the opportunity cost of not spending your time doing this) will decrease until it matches the profit of doing something else (which is also the opportunity cost of spending time farming ectoes with a perma sin).

In layman's terms, deflation has made ectoes and ecto-dependent products more accessible to people not involved in perma sin ecto farming, as these people did not depend on ecto farming for their Guild Wars income. People who did - "regular" ecto farmers and "old" perma sin farmers who popularized the build - will now be making less. If the market is left to its own devices, ectoes will eventually bottom out and will rise again, but nothing actually needs to be done unless ANet wishes to inflate the price of ectoes artificially. For example, if ANet's data shows that ecto farmers comprise a significant proportion of the player base, and ecto farming is the only thing keeping these players grinding away until GW2, ANet (in its newfound focus on keeping people playing GW1 through grind) may indeed choose to artificially inflate ecto prices - either by introducing new ecto-consuming items or by other means, such as nerfing the ease with which ectoes are farmed.

MMSDome · Jun 20, 2008, 05:15 AM // 05:15

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thizzle

Do people ever stop complaining? This thread never had potential and it's been made like 100 times already. Ectos were 5k at one time and that's what they're now. 10k+ an ecto was way too much. Why do you want them to be more expensive anyway?

some people are losing a lot of money from this. Lemming for instance in all his wisdom decided to make cash in to ecto after getting rp's from a mAT and low and behold ecto went down in value costing him lots of gold.

I HOPE THIS MAKES SENSE.

RavagerOfDreams · Jun 20, 2008, 05:25 AM // 05:25

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thizzle

. 10k+ an ecto was way too much. Why do you want them to be more expensive anyway?

First) no it wasn't to expensive im sorry you couldnt afford them before but o well tough shit for you

Second) Some of us had lots of money in ectos as MMS already pointed out and we lost a lot of money when the ecto price crashed. As for why we want them to be more expensive....that should be painfully obvious....so we can sell them for more.....

samifly · Jun 20, 2008, 05:32 AM // 05:32

Well if there were more players the market would be better obviously. GW is in end-of-life mode. Its going to get worse.

Molock · Jun 20, 2008, 05:34 AM // 05:34

Quote:

Originally Posted by HawkofStorms

Hopefully they follow my advice and hire an economist for GW2 like Eve did.

The economy in Eve is so much larger and complex than the GW economy.. I don't think GW2 is going to need an economist.

Anyway, yes the economy sucks at the moment... is there anything else to say? No. Just stop damaging it more, nerf SF and lets finish this

MMSDome · Jun 20, 2008, 05:36 AM // 05:36

Quote:

Originally Posted by samifly

Well if there were more players the market would be better obviously. GW is in end-of-life mode. Its going to get worse.

According to this forum GW has been in "end-of-life mode" since it came out. Negative threads such as this and the other 9001+ are nothing new. The sky is not falling its called a slump. Play the game and have fun you dont need to listen to all the random threads that these ....people post.

Ralgha · Jun 20, 2008, 05:36 AM // 05:36

Equipment is never lost in GW, except by deliberate action (the rare accident excluded). It's because of this that everything will drop in price, forever. There will be momentary up-ticks, but the trend is always down. The quantity of each item only goes up, never down, hence the price also goes down. It is also because of this that EVE's economy is very healthy. There is constant demand for just about everything, because everything is eventually lost in the normal gameplay (unless you just spin in a station forever).

Ectos are somewhat stable, because there is a large sink for them in armor, but even the price of ecto is slowly trending downward, albiet more slowly than pretty much everything else.

In order to have even a semblance of a stable economy, items have to be lost in the normal course of play. Of course that would piss off the player base more than the permanent recession does now, so it will never be fixed.

Spode · Jun 20, 2008, 05:44 AM // 05:44

Lol, Shyft... did you just go through economics class?

BLOODGOAT · Jun 20, 2008, 05:59 AM // 05:59

Quote:

Originally Posted by RavagerOfDreams

First) no it wasn't to expensive im sorry you couldnt afford them before but o well tough shit for you

Second) Some of us had lots of money in ectos as MMS already pointed out and we lost a lot of money when the ecto price crashed. As for why we want them to be more expensive....that should be painfully obvious....so we can sell them for more.....

Well I'm sorry you couldn't invest your money into a more stable "stock" (so to say), but oh well, tough shit for you.

NoXiFy · Jun 20, 2008, 06:17 AM // 06:17

ya. 10k for a guildhall is ridunkulus. mini kanaxi are most DEF not a gold sink.