What press told me about GW2 that I didn't already know

[Lensor]

Have not been in any released game. As for feeling lame; yes, initially it does. However when considering the advantages (no price bloat, instant cash, zero off-market trading etc), the advantages are obvious.

Maybe you have touched on it already, but how would this work in respect to gifting?

If it destroys gifting, is that a sacrifice you are willing to make? (I know I am not, imagine all the player-run events that would instantly die...)
And if it does not, how do you prevent said off-market trading? (like how ppl in GW1 trade ectos even though they are available at trader, for a higher prize).

[djacob]

Is that so? Let's say that iron hammers of fail are farmed to such an extent that the price drops to 1 copper per item. And then people keep bringing it in. The net result is that for every 1000 hammers they sell, 1000 coppers are generated. Of course, 1000 coppers is not a large sum, while 1000 hammers takes a substantial amount of time to obtain. Thus, no one will do it.
While it is possible that an item will hit bottom, it is quite unlikely that said item would be massively farmed due to its low price.

It's not a perfect solution, just the best one. Of course there will always be inflation in the long run; the reward for playing X hours is fairly consistent (increasing when the average player skill goes up, but not by much). But there will be inflation in any system that rewards players monetarily. (EDIT: except one with efficient money sinks, as in, the amount of gold is kept constant. But as I said before, you would not want to play such a game; you'd constantly be running around with like 100 gold in your purse).

Have not been in any released game. As for feeling lame; yes, initially it does. However when considering the advantages (no price bloat, instant cash, zero off-market trading etc), the advantages are obvious.

Let's take an example from guild wars 1, someone goes into the underworld to farm ectos. In the process of getting 2-3 ectos they get lets say 30-40 weapons. Every last one of those weapons are easy to get, because let's face it in gw1 almost all weapons are merch fodder. In your system, every last one of those would be 1g because they are, as I said before, merch fodder. No one will ever buy them, so the "trader" would not spend more than 1g. This to me, would annoy me greatly. Think of it like how dye is currently bought and sold to the dye "trader" right now, except with 1g as the minimum for what he'll buy at. When was the last time he bought a brown dye for more than 25g? In your system, all dye except black and white would be more than 1g. This would make getting black and white really expensive unless it happens to drop for the player, because this would be a universal constant across ALL items.

ANYTHING that drops in any abundance would be worthless. In fact, any weapon without inscriptions would be worth 1g. So opening chests anywhere but Nightfall/Eye of the North would be idiotic. Oh, and where will players get keys/lockpicks from? Drops? They'll be worth ten times what they are now because of all the people going for the treasure hunter title, it would become the most expensive title. Ridiculous. Put it in your own game, I don't care.

Maybe you have touched on it already, but how would this work in respect to gifting?

If it destroys gifting, is that a sacrifice you are willing to make? (I know I am not, imagine all the player-run events that would instantly die...)
And if it does not, how do you prevent said off-market trading? (like how ppl in GW1 trade ectos even though they are available at trader, for a higher prize).

Don't you know? These are things we can do without, it's for the greater good! Jam already told me that I wouldn't be allowed to make friends by giving stuff away for almost nothing, so obviously that means that gifting would not be allowed. The trader is the only one allowed to give people stuff, for whatever price he thinks is fair. Like I said, this system insults the players. Also, you can't drop items on the ground or trade items in any other way. Think of it like the /bonus items, except you can sell them to the trader for whatever he deems the item to be worth, with no other options whatsoever.

Eh, I'm done discussing this. Not worth my time because anet would never be dumb enough to give this the attention it doesn't deserve.

[Alaris]

Eh, I'm done discussing this. Not worth my time because anet would never be dumb enough to give this the attention it doesn't deserve.

This.

Especially given that ANet has already done many things to the trade hall to fix the usual problems associated with it... traders are now redundant and offer practically no advantage aside for immediacy.

[Skyy High]

It's pretty clear that the entire drop, item, and trade system would have to be restructured for jam's system to work, and in the process it'd completely remove the market play that some players enjoy. Nobody, except possibly jam, hates gold sinks enough for this to be a reasonable alternative. Ergo, this is not happening in GW2.

End of discussion?

[The King of Dust]

I hate gold sinks enough too, but my solution would probably be to remove all drops/trading and make the appropriate equipment automatically available as you progress through the game. Maybe have some special skins obtainable through completing specific tasks/dungeons/whatever.

But every other MMO player would hate a system like that, so it's not really worth discussing.

[Alaris]

Merit-based unlocking of stuff would be fine by my, King of Dust. Well, better than grinding anyway.

I think the main problem with that would be that an economy builds a community. But in single-player games, I much prefer the merit method than the economy.

[djacob]

It's pretty clear that the entire drop, item, and trade system would have to be restructured for jam's system to work, and in the process it'd completely remove the market play that some players enjoy. Nobody, except possibly jam, hates gold sinks enough for this to be a reasonable alternative. Ergo, this is not happening in GW2.

End of discussion?

Pretty much what I was thinking when I said I was done talking about it, thanks for putting it so eloquently.

I hate gold sinks enough too, but my solution would probably be to remove all drops/trading and make the appropriate equipment automatically available as you progress through the game. Maybe have some special skins obtainable through completing specific tasks/dungeons/whatever.

But every other MMO player would hate a system like that, so it's not really worth discussing.

I don't know if I'd hate it so much as well...

Merit-based unlocking of stuff would be fine by my, King of Dust. Well, better than grinding anyway.

I think the main problem with that would be that an economy builds a community. But in single-player games, I much prefer the merit method than the economy.

This. I agree that grinding money in single player games seems a bit silly and I'd rather just unlock stuff. I'd probably be fine with a merit based system in mmos even, if it weren't for the fact that it would eliminate parties where players give stuff away and things along those lines. It would also cause some people to stop playing because they think they're done when they've unlocked the strongest weapons/armor of their class, much like some people stopped playing gw1 when they hit lvl 20. Of course, it might take quite a bit longer to do, but it's possible there will be max items by max level, with no additional grind.

[Alaris]

I do like a mixed system, where it's easy to get max stats, but if you want a give look (cosmetics) then some looks are tied to merit, others to chance, others still to hard work. If you are not interested in one, you still have other options for getting a pretty good look.

For example, in GW1 you could get the ectos by farming it yourself, buying it, or you could entirely skip that armor and get other really cool armors it's all good. Sounds like GW2 is like that too, some armors are drops, others are linked to dungeons, etc.

[raspberry jam]

1) The system is transparent, you instantly know how much the item costs and how much it sells for.
2) The system is a gold sink, defined by the difference between buy & sell prices.
3) Inflation will still happen, but due to natural causes, i.e. people running out of new things to spend on.

4) No more RMTs. Ever.

Maybe you have touched on it already, but how would this work in respect to gifting?

If it destroys gifting, is that a sacrifice you are willing to make? (I know I am not, imagine all the player-run events that would instantly die...)
And if it does not, how do you prevent said off-market trading? (like how ppl in GW1 trade ectos even though they are available at trader, for a higher prize).

Gifting, yeah, general gifting would be removed. That is perhaps the worst side effect of it. Though, player-run events would still be possible; you could have a system where you notify the devs about an event you want to arrange, and then they unlock some special mechanic for gifting (for a specified time). That is, admittedly, a bad solution, though.

[raspberry jam]

Let's take an example from guild wars 1, someone goes into the underworld to farm ectos. In the process of getting 2-3 ectos they get lets say 30-40 weapons. Every last one of those weapons are easy to get, because let's face it in gw1 almost all weapons are merch fodder. In your system, every last one of those would be 1g because they are, as I said before, merch fodder. No one will ever buy them, so the "trader" would not spend more than 1g. This to me, would annoy me greatly. Think of it like how dye is currently bought and sold to the dye "trader" right now, except with 1g as the minimum for what he'll buy at. When was the last time he bought a brown dye for more than 25g? In your system, all dye except black and white would be more than 1g. This would make getting black and white really expensive unless it happens to drop for the player, because this would be a universal constant across ALL items.

Well, yes and no. You could have trap supply to combat this (as in, a % of the total supply is removed every now and then, on a random interval per item so that it can't be predicted). But mostly, yeah, prices would be and remain low. As I said, it's very efficient against inflation.

ANYTHING that drops in any abundance would be worthless. In fact, any weapon without inscriptions would be worth 1g. So opening chests anywhere but Nightfall/Eye of the North would be idiotic. Oh, and where will players get keys/lockpicks from? Drops? They'll be worth ten times what they are now because of all the people going for the treasure hunter title, it would become the most expensive title. Ridiculous. Put it in your own game, I don't care.

You're complaining about that the system would not fit in a game which the system is not made for. That would be like complaining about how GW2 have 80 levels when GW1 only had 20, I mean imagine when you are level 80 wouldn't you be overpowered? That's a ridiculous argument and you know it.