User talk:Tertius

Trading system in Guild Wars

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I have a question about trading to ARENA NET developers, if anyone reads this.

I am very mad about the trading system in Guild Wars. It is the only reason that made me consider several times if I should continue to play the game or not.

ARENA NET is telling all over the net how proud is about its politics about trading, how is trying to keep a balance of wealth in the game. How in the game there shouldn't be a polarization of wealth - very rich players on on side and very poor players on the other side. Maybe ARENA NET has good intentions, but the trading has the worse implementation possible and favorizes at maximum the polarization of wealth in the game. And when I am saying this, I refer to two aspects.

1. First of all, the prices at merchant. The difference between buying and selling prices at merchants is enormous. For example, if I want to buy a lockpick, I must pay 1.5 platinum, but if I want to sell a lockpick to a merchant, I receive only 0.7platinum. And its the same thing with all the items, especially materials. If I buy materials for an armor, I go to the merchant knowing that I cannot escape without paying several dozens platinum. But if I sell materials to merchants, I receive practically a few gold. How is this politics in harmony with the A-net politics about wealth???? A casual player doesn't have time to spend hours to find a buyer for his goods in Kamadan ae1. A casual player doens't have time to farm a lot of time. He gets his drops from mainly from missions. The only way to make a few platinum is to sell his drops to a merchant. But at the merchant, he receives only a few gold, because the merchants, for some reason, have MORE THAN 100% profit margin!!!

2. The politics of A-NET trading between players favorizes POWER TRADING. The richest people in the game have made a lot of gold by selling and buying at huge difference of prices. How is the politics of A-NET of NOT HAVING AN AUCTION HOUSE correlated with their proclamed purpose of balance of wealth??? An Auction House would make possible that the market find its own equilibrium and the items be bought and sold at a fair price, without the possibility of power trading and scamming. I understand that an Auction House which presents to all players in real time all the prices would mean a huge strain on the servers. I understand that maybe for a game without monthly fee this would be maybe to much. But here I remind the first issue: if an auction house is not possible, it would be very possible at least to have merchants in the game with a margin of profit of 5%, 10%, 25% maybe, but not more than 100%!!!

I am very, very, VERY disapointed by the trading system in Guild Wars. I am sure that, if this situation persists in Guild Wars 2, I will not play this game anymore. --The preceding unsigned comment was added by User:Tertius (talk).

If you wish to make a suggestion for ArenaNet's consideration, please go to the Feedback portal and read the rules, and create your feedback space. The Help page is for you to ask questions regarding the game to other players, not to ArenaNet. Thanks. -- Wyn talk 08:53, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

You're completely missing the point. First, I'd like you to see that the term Gold sink means. Did you read it? In short, there is an infinite amount of monsters that can drop an infinite amount of items and create an infinite amount of gold. There has to be a way to completely destroy that gold in the game. That's a big fundament of the economy. NPC shops and various taxes are a way to do this.

Merchants don't distinguish rich players from poor players, they treat everybody equally, so that part of your argument is wrong right there. Yes, buying something from a fellow player may be a better option for both of you then buying/selling from/to an NPC, but that takes time. It's kind of like a... "convenience tax" of sorts.

Power Trading requires time and effort put into evaluating the market and caries with it risk. It's by no means encouraged, but it is an option for people who want to play the stock market. As for me, I don't want to take the risk, and prefer to put my money into the bank, that is just play the game and get money that way. Slowly, but surely. No real risk involved.

And there's no "Policy" about not having an Action House. But you wouldn't be satisfied with it even if the game would have one, because items would still be taxed in some way, and players would still trade some of them normally to avoid it. Traders already work like action houses of sorts, granted that only for a few select items. Their prices fluctuate based on supply and demand, they can be "sold out", and they have a tax.

I'll tell you a bit about how a different game does things. In Atlantica Online, there are no "merchants" per say. There's a giant market with every item in the game, and if you want to sell something, you have to input a price and place the item on the market, and wait for someone to buy it. Similarly, if you want to buy something, you're buying from other players using said market. Everything is taxed, both buying and selling, so you have to pay more then the price, and the other person gets less then the price. The money goes into a bank account, that's also taxed, and if you want to take the money out, you have to pay a tax. Traveling between cities is also taxed etc. In that regard, Guild Wars is a lot more fair, and also you don't really buy stuff from NPCs all that often, whereas there it's slowly chipping away at your wealth no matter what you do.

You just have to accept the fact that game economics work that way. Action Houses where suggested before time and time again. The developers know that it's something people want, and I'm sure that if they will be able to add it they will. As for everything else, changing the way you approach the economy at this point in the game is like ripping out it's bones and trying to fit in new ones. Impossible, unless you want the patient to die.

Hope that cleared some thing up for you and you'll re-think it. Also, Wyn is right. The Help pages are for players to ask other players for advice. No developers read it. You can make a feedback page if you want, just follow the guidelines. — Poki#3 (talk) 14:41, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Another thing that Poki failed to mention is there are multiple auction services available to players through the various fansites. I personally have made a fortune in the 3+ years I've been playing just selling average max golds in this way (they don't cost a lot, but I sell ALOT of them). It takes time to post them, and time to complete transactions when they are purchased, but I get on average 20x merchant price for items. As for materials, I have rarely had to buy materials for armor or anything else. I simply salvage any drops that are worth less than 100g, and that provides me with a solid supply of materials if I want to purchase armor (and I have a LOT of armor) or consumables. -- Wyn talk 15:49, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

In my country, there is a saying (one of the few one that I appreciate): "There is no such thing as logic. Each person has his own logic". What it means is that ppl are and they will always be subjective and they will subordonate logic to their own interests or to their obsessions.

In his comment, poki gave an example from Atlantic online and he concluded that the GW is more fair. LOL. I have to disagree and I state the opposite.

The merchants in GW DO NOT treat everybody equally. The merchant system in GW is used only by players that play very little time (maybe an hour a day and not every day) and who don't have time to find human buyers or to browse I don't know what merchant sites related to GW. Rich players, usually players that spend a few good hours per day in GW (should I use the word "addicts"?) don't use merchants. So the merchant system is not equal and discriminates between rich and poor players. On the other hand, with a system like in Atlantica, everybody pays a price proportional to the goods they trade and the amount of gold they use, which seems very fair to me.

The reason for which I started this discussion is that a player from my guild sold a PERFECT GOLD WEAPON, REQ+8!!!!, to the merchant because he had no ideea of the REAL price of that weapon. And here I come to the other big problem with the merchants: their prices have NOTHING IN COMMON with the real price of goods from THE REAL MARKET, the one between players. At a merchant you could sell even a bds or a vs for 300g. So is UNTRUE that the price at the merchants refects the demand of equipment and ressources in the game.

And about gold sink, what can I say? I thought the useless titles for the most part, take care of this problem (using hundreds of zkeys just to get a few flasks of firewater, using thousands of flasks just to max a title, using so many consets for uwsc or fowsc just to get an ecto or two and then spending hundreds of ectos for a useless armor, no better than a pvp armor, eating thousands of sweets just to get a stupid title maxed and the examples are countless).

And about the whole complicated mechanics behind the Gold Sink in GW... what can I say. Happy Red Resign Day!!!! --The preceding unsigned comment was added by User:Tertius (talk).

Yes, the merchants treat everyone equally. They will pay the same price for everything regardless of who talks to them, and it will always take the same amount of time. If you want to take the time to sell something to other players, for more money, then it's a simple "Time in Money" situation. You invest time to sell the item for more money.

GW doesn't have any price tracking system. It's too late for that, and it's too much work. I can tell you that systems like that can also be abused however. It a centralized market, some people buy out others in order to power trade and monopolize a particular item for themselves so that they can dictate the prices too. The main problem in AO's system was that you could never get money right away. You always had to wait for it. Sometimes minutes, sometimes hours, sometimes days. Here you at least have a merchant.

I've played this game for almost 4000 hours. I only sold about 30-40 gold weapons to other players during that time. I never bought anything from "strangers". The only items I sell more frequently, are Elite Tomes, because I have no use for them, and I can't merch them and there's no trader.

And finally, the titles you mentioned are not the biggest gold sinks. The biggest gold sinks are for things most commonly used. (oh, and what, you have a problem with HB now too? Read the dev blogs then... You can sign your comments by typing ~~~~.) — Poki#3 (talk) 13:57, 1 October 2009 (UTC)