GW1 economic disruption coming due to GW2

[Gabs88]

Originally Posted by Martin Alvito

Did the price go from 16:100 to 12:100 in the span of a week? No, it did not. So my question still stands: why do you think it's going to crash that hard when it didn't during the last CNY?

Yes it did, despite what you're inaccurate chart says. I know, cause I made tons on it.

Even if it crashed to 1k for a whole week you're chart wouldnt pick up on it if it measured the price a week later.

[Martin Alvito]

Originally Posted by Gabs88

Yes it did, despite what you're inaccurate chart says. I know, cause I made tons on it.

Funny, I was around too and I seem to remember it creeping from 14 to 13 to 12 over weeks myself. So perhaps the chart represents a better data source than our fallible memories, despite its limitations?

[Daesu]

Originally Posted by Martin Alvito

I said "most serious players", not "most players".

Sure, Joe Average with 20k in his storage box may want to buy things for HoM, but will he have the capacity to pay? Moving the demand side requires both ability and willingness, and there will be lots of prospective items conferring HoM points on the supply side competing for Joe Average's money.

As in every game, there are a lot more Joe Averages than there are hardcore players so the total combined Joe Averages would impact the economy a lot more. That said, I think the value of gold itself would drop and some people would even give theirs away as they quit GW1.

You're making a dangerously unwarranted assumption about why prices stabilized here. What are you basing this conclusion on?

It is a logical implication. You can't keep prices high forever, waiting on a future game that may or may not be released and for a long time nobody knows when it would ever be ready. Their prices have to stabilize after some time.

[MithranArkanere]

There can't be any 'economic' anything in GW because without a global trading system, there is not a real game economy, unlike in the real world.
The current 'ecomoney' perceived by the few that bother to trade is like a thin layer of milk skin on a cup of hot milk, compared to the amount of trades that would be with an actual trading system.

In a game economy that leaves out those that do not have time spare for spamming in outposts or create accounts in several external auction sites and keeping tabs on them, only a few are affected by major changes, since the rest of the people either either give up on getting the stuff or get it it by themselves, trading very sporadically, if ever.

What will happen if many people leaves for GW2? The traders will get their prices increased because of the lack of re-stocking (maybe to the point that ArenaNet has to modify the maximum prices they can have in the trader for sale, and the minimum price traders pay for the items, so players bother to salvage and sell them more often), and most people will just go on getting stuff by themselves without trading like they do now, and some auction sites may close because of the lack of activity.

That isn't really a problem, it's just a natural development.


I can see how many may think that exchanges between the games may turn into a problem.
GW2 will have an actual game economy thanks to the marketplace, and so mingling GW1's 'ecomoney' with it will only bring a bit of GW1's problems to GW2, so exchanges between the two games should not be allowed.
They are separate games, and unless they prepare for that in some way (like giving an actual economy to GW1 by adding a marketplace too and having some kind of limited inter-game conversion), they should not share trades.
Exchanges between the two games would look just like wealth being 'given away' separately in each game, and so that would probably raise some flag for RMT or hackers, unless the accounts are linked to GW2 accounts and they can track that, in which case it's even easier to find out the problem and punish the culprits.


They should warn players just in case.

[cthulhu reborn]

I'm thinking that as soon as the GW2 release date is known, some things might go up for a bit and when GW2 hits the shelves GW1 will be a ghost town. I suspect there will be a small group of people still playing and I expect to log in from time to time still, but when GW2 is out, most of us would be there I would think.

[Bright Star Shine]

Originally Posted by coil

cool discussion

has anet said anything about banning for trading currency across games?

I had a thread about that last year

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/t...tml?t=10466022

but we didn't hear anything about it from Anet, we just speculated a bit.

I would most certainly hold on to my ecto (or most of it, I could buy myself like 6 Zaishen Ranks with it by now) just in case. I wouldn't be surprised to see people sell things in GW2 for ecto in GW1 because they want to get obby armor or something. It could turn out pretty cool tbh.

[Swingline]

Originally Posted by Bright Star Shine

I had a thread about that last year

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/t...tml?t=10466022

but we didn't hear anything about it from Anet, we just speculated a bit.

I would most certainly hold on to my ecto (or most of it, I could buy myself like 6 Zaishen Ranks with it by now) just in case. I wouldn't be surprised to see people sell things in GW2 for ecto in GW1 because they want to get obby armor or something. It could turn out pretty cool tbh.

One of the things mentioned in that trading scheme is the fact you can get scammed easily. Even if a third party is involved there is still too much risk. The third party can't be completely trusted by either person depending on who supplied the intermediary and then the third party can run off with it. Its akin to trading Runescape gold for GWs gold.

[fireflyry]

Originally Posted by cthulhu reborn

I'm thinking that as soon as the GW2 release date is known, some things might go up for a bit and when GW2 hits the shelves GW1 will be a ghost town. I suspect there will be a small group of people still playing and I expect to log in from time to time still, but when GW2 is out, most of us would be there I would think.

Pretty sure that's the main reason the 8 hero system was implemented.

[KingCrab]

Originally Posted by Swingline

One of the things mentioned in that trading scheme is the fact you can get scammed easily. Even if a third party is involved there is still too much risk. The third party can't be completely trusted by either person depending on who supplied the intermediary and then the third party can run off with it. Its akin to trading Runescape gold for GWs gold.

So like trading Runescape for GW gold would trading GW1 for GW2 items be considered against the terms of service? Or would it be only an incredibly risky move?

[Rhunex]

I'll let the avid traders duke out all the fine points, but the basic premise of the thread is obvious to anyone who's done any serious trading over the last couple years. Any time extra content, or something HoM related was released, prices went crazy for a bit and power traders abused and took advantage of this(not saying it's a bad thing).

When GW2 comes out, anyone who hasn't met their HoM goals will help drive prices up a bit, and after the dust has settled it will probably return to what most of us consider to be normal.

[bleh]

Originally Posted by KingCrab

So like trading Runescape for GW gold would trading GW1 for GW2 items be considered against the terms of service? Or would it be only an incredibly risky move?

I think Anet will foresee this and Put it into the terms and conditions. (hopefully)
and maybe actively police it.

Otherwise whats stopping me selling off all my items for "forum credits" and then waiting too buy items in GW2 with said "forum credits". Stuff HoM i got real shiz! chuck in my diablo 2 stash... hey presto im rich b****h!

I'm not sure how (legally) they get away with it but you can already trade a certain websites "forum credits" for: GW1, diablo2, diablo3 beta... (WTH?!), runescape, WoW the list goes on and on.

I don't trade for forum credits, it just seems an equivalent to cheating and would ruin the game very fast for me.( the game2game part that is)

On Topic : I think any "economic" disruption would be minimal at best and then we would just see a slow reduction in prices. But surely the power is in Anets hands, and if it gets "bad" they can tweek.

[Martin Alvito]

Originally Posted by Daesu

As in every game, there are a lot more Joe Averages than there are hardcore players so the total combined Joe Averages would impact the economy a lot more. That said, I think the value of gold itself would drop and some people would even give theirs away as they quit GW1.

It's not hard to imagine a summation sequence where the behavior of a few on the supply side outweighs the behavior of the masses on the demand side. The CDO market in 2008 is a great real life example - a few individuals made a killing taking all of the counterparty bets on the winning side, propping up that market for a year or so in the process. If you treat election outcomes as a market (as commodities exchanges are starting to), that's another well-documented example of where the few can outweigh the many.

Your story is appealing because it is intuitive, but that doesn't necessarily make it true. If your assumption about substantial gold giveaways in the second sentence is correct, your story becomes more likely. I wouldn't bet on giveaways substantial enough to move the market myself; the wealthy in GW didn't get there by having strong charitable impulses.

Originally Posted by Daesu

It is a logical implication. You can't keep prices high forever, waiting on a future game that may or may not be released and for a long time nobody knows when it would ever be ready. Their prices have to stabilize after some time.

No, it isn't a logical implication. I'll grant that market uncertainty often leads to price stabilization, but it does not logically follow that it caused stabilization in this instance. Here's a simple, alternative hypothesis: prices stabilized once the relatively few buyers with both means and high value on HoM made their purchases and exited the market, and once sellers recognized this and quit investing time chasing the now non-existent surplus.

Originally Posted by MithranArkanere

There can't be any 'economic' anything in GW because without a global trading system, there is not a real game economy, unlike in the real world.

All you need for an economy is two people, two goods and a means of communication and exchange. A proper trading system might keep transaction costs down, but it's certainly not a necessary condition to have an economy.

Originally Posted by Rhunex

Any time extra content, or something HoM related was released, prices went crazy for a bit and power traders abused and took advantage of this(not saying it's a bad thing).

Sure - this represents a shock to the system followed by players chasing prospective surplus. It doesn't follow that prices on HoM items will rise when the GW2 release nears. The important difference is that players have had time to prepare. The story that prices will rise as release nears may be true; it also may be true that speculators have already artificially driven up the prices on those items, and will be forced to dramatically cut prices to clear inventory when release nears.

Great GW examples: the price bumps in rubies and sapphires prior to the Factions and Nightfall releases, as well as the price bump in Onyx and Diamonds prior to EotN. In every case, speculators got burned.

[MithranArkanere]

Originally Posted by Martin Alvito

[...]
All you need for an economy is two people, two goods and a means of communication and exchange. A proper trading system might keep transaction costs down, but it's certainly not a necessary condition to have an economy.[...]

I wrote "game economy".
"Game economy" isn't the same as just "economy".

Games are supposed to be fun. If trading hinders fun for many people, then it's not "game economy".

[a-kyle]

the GW economy has been fcuked ever since the user base started dying down, things that were expensive may have become even more so while things that were common became rarer as people actually have tow work for it instead of being like "so im sitting here selling r9 jazz"...

[Martin Alvito]

Originally Posted by MithranArkanere

I wrote "game economy".
"Game economy" isn't the same as just "economy".

Right, "game economy" is a subset of "economy". If we can identify conditions that define an "economy", then anything which meets the aforementioned conditions in a game is therefore a "game economy".

[MithranArkanere]

It is not a subset.

An actual economy develops in a certain environment, and a game economy develops inside another environment.

Since ANet does not allow RMT, then they do not touch in any way, and are just similar concepts but different things.

To put it in another way, it's not like plants and animals evolving from what once was the same kind of unicellular organism, but like the living beings in earth evolving with DNA and RNA, and another organism evolving in another planet under different conditions and in different ways.

There will be similarities, since the universe has universal laws, but it will not be the same. It will be separate. Both are 'life', and that will be mostly what they have in common.
There are similarities in real and game economy since both are created by human behavior, but the conditions are so different, that they are really nothing alike.

The main differences are that in the actual economy, there's limited access tor resources, and many are limited in availability too, once the last diamond and the last nugget of gold it's mined, there's no more. if you want something, only some will have it. In a game, most if not all resources are unlimited, and most people if not everyone has access to them, if you want something, EVERYONE could have it.
And in real economy, people is specialized. While you wait for resources, you can't do anything else. You can't bake without flour. You can't just go and hunt. Your job is baking. You need the flour, if you don't have the flour, you'll go find some.
In a game economy, there's ALWAYS something else to do other than waiting for a transaction to complete. That is usually playing the game.

In the same way we breath oxygen and another lifeform may breath sulphur or methane you can't use the same rules for both.

Game economy is too different to real economy. Their environment and conditions are too different. And can't be treated the same way.