An in depth look into the economic system of Guild Wars 2.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kx7o7CRoDXc&feature=g-u-u&context=G29364ddFUAAAAAAAAAA

Enjoy :)

Nice find, maybe this will help explain a few things to some not knowing or unsure :)

Bridger to the rescue!

I agree about it being not P2W. But the gems will cause faster inflation.

Players will farm extra gold for cash shop items (to buy gems with and with gems cash shop items). Anet will keep adding new items to the cash shop. This will create a constant high demand for gems. Players will create gold faster because of this. This is gold that doesn't leave the economy and the goldsinks are too low for this.

So the gembuyers can buy their guild to max influence, they can have an edge in player economy just buy buying gold with gems right after starting to play.

All those ppl who try to 'explain' this, leave out that inflation in MMO's is cause by how fast gold is created. This is determined by player incentives. The addition of being able to pay gold for gems is a HUGE extra incentive to create new gold (farming).

- The cash shop items introduces a strong incentive for players to earn extra gold. It has besides vanity stuff, also the normal services, like characterslots and storage expanders.

- The last leak showed that they sell gems in increments of 100. Item prices in the cash shop are of course rarely increments of 100. Which leads to a surplus of gems even with players that never set out to buy gems to sell for gold. This means that even when the gold price would drop for a gem, there would still be a supply.

- I've seen several players post about how it is very difficult to farm in GW2. Well, all I can say is that in any game, players will find ways to maximize gold creation in a faster way then the devs intended. What will Anet do if this happens? Raise goldsinks? Lower golddrops in areas? What can they do that doesn't fck with casual players that don't buy gems?

Basically the gems let players buy themselves into the player economy and cause a faster rate of inflation (how fast will be dependant on many factors, but faster then without the existence of for gold tradable gems.

Well its good that selling gems wont and cant affect PVP.    Thats about all I got out of the video that I didnt already know. 

Originally posted by ChuvarHrama

An in depth look into the economic system of Guild Wars 2.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kx7o7CRoDXc&feature=g-u-u&context=G29364ddFUAAAAAAAAAA

Enjoy :)

ty! still watching but very good explaining things. I have paid close attn to and I am learning stuff from this vid. 

Everything looks ok, except one little thing...

Originally posted by cippalippa

Everything looks ok, except one little thing...

Let's not forget gems can be traded for karma boosts, so gems also = karma.  Oh, and you can buy perfect salvage kits, which will let you craft better BoE items faster!  I think we need a lot more arrows coming out of gems.

Gems do not create gold. They do not have any direct influence on inflation as a result.

It's an interesting thought that being able to buy gems for gold will drive more people to earn more gold via gold farming and that extra incentive to earn gold will lead to inflation. However, to me, that seems like a very flawed arguement, because to accept it would be to suggest that anything worth buying with gold creates inflation, because people will farm more to afford other high gold cost goods! There are relatively few offerings in the cash shop vs. goods and items available in game also competing for player gold. The vast majority of gold earned will likely be spent on things other than gems, so it's hard to imagine that aquisition of gems will drive the earning of gold in any meaningful manner.

The arguement might have some merit if you could convert the gems back into $$$, but there is no direct way to do so.

Originally posted by Magnum2103

Originally posted by cippalippa

Everything looks ok, except one little thing...

Let's not forget gems can be traded for karma boosts, so gems also = karma.  Oh, and you can buy perfect salvage kits, which will let you craft better BoE items faster!  I think we need a lot more arrows coming out of gems.

I'm hearing that most, if not all, of the boosts associated with cash shop rumors, (and others not available in the shop at all), are also available in game as drops, event rewards or even for karma. If this is so, then cash shop availability really becomes completely moot. Not only does demand take a hit, but the value of buying these things for cash has to be weighed against the cost of just aquiring them in game.

Originally posted by fiontar

Gems do not create gold. They do not have any direct influence on inflation as a result.

It's an interesting thought that being able to buy gems for gold will drive more people to earn more gold via gold farming and that extra incentive to earn gold will lead to inflation. However, to me, that seems like a very flawed arguement, because to accept it would be to suggest that anything worth buying with gold creates inflation, because people will farm more to afford other high gold cost goods! There are relatively few offerings in the cash shop vs. goods and items available in game also competing for player gold. The vast majority of gold earned will likely be spent on things other than gems, so it's hard to imagine that aquisition of gems will drive the earning of gold in any meaningful manner.

The arguement might have some merit if you could convert the gems back into $$$, but there is no direct way to do so.

This is a disengenuous statement not because it's not technically true but because there is a direct link between Gems and gold which when combined with a direct linke between cash and gems creates a single degree of seperation thus indirectly there is a relationship between cash and gold which can be used to purchase many things in the game.

Furthermore, gems currently exchange for gold so, using guilt by association, cash exchanges for gold - or as most of us call it, RMT => gold can be purchased with RL cash.  So you are wrong, gold does create gems.

The arguement might have some merit if you could convert the gems back into $$$, but there is no direct way to do so.

This statement has nothing to do with the debate.

Originally posted by fiontar

Originally posted by Magnum2103

Originally posted by cippalippa

Everything looks ok, except one little thing...

Let's not forget gems can be traded for karma boosts, so gems also = karma.  Oh, and you can buy perfect salvage kits, which will let you craft better BoE items faster!  I think we need a lot more arrows coming out of gems.

I'm hearing that most, if not all, of the boosts associated with cash shop rumors, (and others not available in the shop at all), are also available in game as drops, event rewards or even for karma. If this is so, then cash shop availability really becomes completely moot. Not only does demand take a hit, but the value of buying these things for cash has to be weighed against the cost of just aquiring them in game.

No it doesn't, because you can still earn it via the cash shop too.  Gems can still be used for karma boosts which in turn can be used for more karma, even if you can get them via drops, personal stories, dynamic events, etc. (which is represented in the chart) gems to karma should still be represented.

Also any proof the boosts can be obtained in game with going through a gem trade first?

Great video, thanks for the link.

As to the above posters and other people so worried about "P2W". I really don't understand the fuss. There is nothing in this game that you can buy to give you and advantage, unless you could magically buy some skillz. The cash shop worries that so many people are worried about only affect, and minimally, the "wuv v wuv" pvp before reaching level 80. The amount of variation in the armor and weapons in GW is MINIMAL, its mostly titles and looks what will differantiate you from someone else. In structured pvp the cash shop means NOTHING and in PVE it also really means nothing, it only marginally matters in World pvp and still you can't really buy anything to make you overwhelm an opponent.

Originally posted by Magnum2103

Originally posted by fiontar

Originally posted by Magnum2103

Originally posted by cippalippa

Everything looks ok, except one little thing...

Let's not forget gems can be traded for karma boosts, so gems also = karma.  Oh, and you can buy perfect salvage kits, which will let you craft better BoE items faster!  I think we need a lot more arrows coming out of gems.

I'm hearing that most, if not all, of the boosts associated with cash shop rumors, (and others not available in the shop at all), are also available in game as drops, event rewards or even for karma. If this is so, then cash shop availability really becomes completely moot. Not only does demand take a hit, but the value of buying these things for cash has to be weighed against the cost of just aquiring them in game.

No it doesn't, because you can still earn it via the cash shop too.  Gems can still be used for karma boosts which in turn can be used for more karma, even if you can get them via drops, personal stories, dynamic events, etc. (which is represented in the chart) gems to karma should still be represented.

Also any proof the boosts can be obtained in game with going through a gem trade first?

So what? Let them have their KARMA gear 20% faster, i dont care as i can get that same gear in a reasonable ammount of time myself. In this game the most skilled player is going to win the battle and not the best geared one.

I have to say this is a great video, for those that obviously still dont know how the system is going to work.

And back to the JPG, if you are implying that there will be no Gems avaialble, then you misunderstood your economics classes. IF there are less Gems availble prices rise and people are inclined to sell more Gems at those higher prices.  Unless the gold ingame becomes totally vallueless, but this will never happen because of the goldsinks that are there.

Originally posted by fiontar

Originally posted by Magnum2103

Originally posted by cippalippa

Everything looks ok, except one little thing...

Let's not forget gems can be traded for karma boosts, so gems also = karma.  Oh, and you can buy perfect salvage kits, which will let you craft better BoE items faster!  I think we need a lot more arrows coming out of gems.

I'm hearing that most, if not all, of the boosts associated with cash shop rumors, (and others not available in the shop at all), are also available in game as drops, event rewards or even for karma. If this is so, then cash shop availability really becomes completely moot. Not only does demand take a hit, but the value of buying these things for cash has to be weighed against the cost of just aquiring them in game.

Originally posted by Quesa

Originally posted by fiontar

Gems do not create gold. They do not have any direct influence on inflation as a result.

It's an interesting thought that being able to buy gems for gold will drive more people to earn more gold via gold farming and that extra incentive to earn gold will lead to inflation. However, to me, that seems like a very flawed arguement, because to accept it would be to suggest that anything worth buying with gold creates inflation, because people will farm more to afford other high gold cost goods! There are relatively few offerings in the cash shop vs. goods and items available in game also competing for player gold. The vast majority of gold earned will likely be spent on things other than gems, so it's hard to imagine that aquisition of gems will drive the earning of gold in any meaningful manner.

The arguement might have some merit if you could convert the gems back into $$$, but there is no direct way to do so.

This is a disengenuous statement not because it's not technically true but because there is a direct link between Gems and gold which when combined with a direct linke between cash and gems creates a single degree of seperation thus indirectly there is a relationship between cash and gold which can be used to purchase many things in the game.

Furthermore, gems currently exchange for gold so, using guilt by association, cash exchanges for gold - or as most of us call it, RMT => gold can be purchased with RL cash.  So you are wrong, gold does create gems.

 

The arguement might have some merit if you could convert the gems back into $$$, but there is no direct way to do so.

This statement has nothing to do with the debate.

I am sorry Quesa, but i think you misunderstood something in his post.

When he says "Gems does not create gold" I think he means that the gold has to be earned to players trough traditional ways (quest, dungeons, de etc) in order to buy gems. You might say that whem gems are being sold for gold, players er motivated to use some of their gold on gems, but in that case i dont think you could say that "gold does create gems".

This is very much close related to the last statement that "gold cannot be convertedt to cash" which you claim has nothing to do with the debate, which is where you are wrong in my oppinion. What drives goldfarmes are in fact that spending time farming gold in a game CAN produce cash, meaning it IS a job for them. They get real life money for farming gold. Since this is not possible in GW2, the incentive for farming gold is lower, as you can put cash into the game, but there is not way that you can get cash out of the game or by playing to game.

Originally posted by Magnum2103

Originally posted by fiontar

Originally posted by Magnum2103

Originally posted by cippalippa

Everything looks ok, except one little thing...

Let's not forget gems can be traded for karma boosts, so gems also = karma.  Oh, and you can buy perfect salvage kits, which will let you craft better BoE items faster!  I think we need a lot more arrows coming out of gems.

I'm hearing that most, if not all, of the boosts associated with cash shop rumors, (and others not available in the shop at all), are also available in game as drops, event rewards or even for karma. If this is so, then cash shop availability really becomes completely moot. Not only does demand take a hit, but the value of buying these things for cash has to be weighed against the cost of just aquiring them in game.

No it doesn't, because you can still earn it via the cash shop too.  Gems can still be used for karma boosts which in turn can be used for more karma, even if you can get them via drops, personal stories, dynamic events, etc. (which is represented in the chart) gems to karma should still be represented.

Also any proof the boosts can be obtained in game with going through a gem trade first?

I can't provide proof because we can't discuss leaked info.

It does indeed effect the equation of the effect of Gem trading on the economy. Value of items obtainable in game will set a limit on how much gold someone is willing to pay to buy gems to purchase the same item from the Cash Shop.

I don't know if the press restrictions will allow them to directly discuss the cash shop, but hopefully we will get some indication of what kinds of buff items are available in game, which should help inform these discussions.

Originally posted by flup

Originally posted by Quesa

Originally posted by fiontar

Gems do not create gold. They do not have any direct influence on inflation as a result.

It's an interesting thought that being able to buy gems for gold will drive more people to earn more gold via gold farming and that extra incentive to earn gold will lead to inflation. However, to me, that seems like a very flawed arguement, because to accept it would be to suggest that anything worth buying with gold creates inflation, because people will farm more to afford other high gold cost goods! There are relatively few offerings in the cash shop vs. goods and items available in game also competing for player gold. The vast majority of gold earned will likely be spent on things other than gems, so it's hard to imagine that aquisition of gems will drive the earning of gold in any meaningful manner.

The arguement might have some merit if you could convert the gems back into $$$, but there is no direct way to do so.

This is a disengenuous statement not because it's not technically true but because there is a direct link between Gems and gold which when combined with a direct linke between cash and gems creates a single degree of seperation thus indirectly there is a relationship between cash and gold which can be used to purchase many things in the game.

Furthermore, gems currently exchange for gold so, using guilt by association, cash exchanges for gold - or as most of us call it, RMT => gold can be purchased with RL cash.  So you are wrong, gold does create gems.

 

The arguement might have some merit if you could convert the gems back into $$$, but there is no direct way to do so.

This statement has nothing to do with the debate.

I am sorry Quesa, but i think you misunderstood something in his post.

 

When he says "Gems does not create gold" I think he means that the gold has to be earned to players trough traditional ways (quest, dungeons, de etc) in order to buy gems. You might say that whem gems are being sold for gold, players er motivated to use some of their gold on gems, but in that case i dont think you could say that "gold does create gems".

 

This is very much close related to the last statement that "gold cannot be convertedt to cash" which you claim has nothing to do with the debate, which is where you are wrong in my oppinion. What drives goldfarmes are in fact that spending time farming gold in a game CAN produce cash, meaning it IS a job for them. They get real life money for farming gold. Since this is not possible in GW2, the incentive for farming gold is lower, as you can put cash into the game, but there is not way that you can get cash out of the game or by playing to game.

Thank you flup, you definitely save me a lot of time on the reply. :)

Who cares about degrees of seperation? A flow chart tells us nothing about how much commerce travels along each individual connection. The offerings of the cash shop are extremely limited in number and scope vs. all the items that can be traded for in game without Gems. Since there is no direct way to convert Gems back into cash, the value of gems in the economy and the total amount of gold traded for gems on a daily basis are very much limited by the demand for the items the cash shop offers.

The buffs we have seen are extremely uneconomical at cash prices, what makes you think that they will demand a price in gold, which will represent time spent earning said gold, that will be sufficient to create a significant flow of in game gold into the purchase of gems?

The cash shop items with the most substantial value are probably account services, like character slots. If a character slot costs about $10, the question for someone considering trading gold for gems to buy a character slot becomes "what is my time worth"? If the time required to farm gold to buy the required number of gems exceeds the value of $10 for a person, they are likely to just pay the cash, instead of wasting time to farm gold. However, these services would represent infrequent purchases, so they would not drive significant ongoing Gem purchases on a long term basis.

So, there is the question of demand for Cash Shop items, but there is also a soft limit on the value of gems in gold currency. This should translate into a brake on in game inflation, since there will always be a cash equivalent for gems and gold implicit in the exchange rate.

There is no cash incentive for farming gold beyond the potential cash it can save you on a cash shop purchase. Though I believe that the cash shop will provide worthwhile revenue for NCSoft, I just don't see the indirect purchase of cash shop items via gold to be more than a tiny percentage of all daily gold based transactions. It just will not be significant enough to produce an indirect effect on inflation as a result of people "farming more gold to buy gems to buy things in the cash shop".

The perceived value of the time needed to farm gold to buy gems may produce a soft price ceiling based on the cash equivalent, but there may still be a significant gap between the ceiling and the floor based on the actual level of demand for cash shop items. It won't matter how much of a value Gems seem to offer on the Marketplace price vs. the cash cost, if there just isn't much demand for cash shop items.

Originally posted by fiontar

Originally posted by flup

Originally posted by Quesa

Originally posted by fiontar

Gems do not create gold. They do not have any direct influence on inflation as a result.

It's an interesting thought that being able to buy gems for gold will drive more people to earn more gold via gold farming and that extra incentive to earn gold will lead to inflation. However, to me, that seems like a very flawed arguement, because to accept it would be to suggest that anything worth buying with gold creates inflation, because people will farm more to afford other high gold cost goods! There are relatively few offerings in the cash shop vs. goods and items available in game also competing for player gold. The vast majority of gold earned will likely be spent on things other than gems, so it's hard to imagine that aquisition of gems will drive the earning of gold in any meaningful manner.

The arguement might have some merit if you could convert the gems back into $$$, but there is no direct way to do so.

This is a disengenuous statement not because it's not technically true but because there is a direct link between Gems and gold which when combined with a direct linke between cash and gems creates a single degree of seperation thus indirectly there is a relationship between cash and gold which can be used to purchase many things in the game.

Furthermore, gems currently exchange for gold so, using guilt by association, cash exchanges for gold - or as most of us call it, RMT => gold can be purchased with RL cash.  So you are wrong, gold does create gems.

 

The arguement might have some merit if you could convert the gems back into $$$, but there is no direct way to do so.

This statement has nothing to do with the debate.

I am sorry Quesa, but i think you misunderstood something in his post.

 

When he says "Gems does not create gold" I think he means that the gold has to be earned to players trough traditional ways (quest, dungeons, de etc) in order to buy gems. You might say that whem gems are being sold for gold, players er motivated to use some of their gold on gems, but in that case i dont think you could say that "gold does create gems".

 

This is very much close related to the last statement that "gold cannot be convertedt to cash" which you claim has nothing to do with the debate, which is where you are wrong in my oppinion. What drives goldfarmes are in fact that spending time farming gold in a game CAN produce cash, meaning it IS a job for them. They get real life money for farming gold. Since this is not possible in GW2, the incentive for farming gold is lower, as you can put cash into the game, but there is not way that you can get cash out of the game or by playing to game.

Thank you flup, you definitely save me a lot of time on the reply. :)

Who cares about degrees of seperation? A flow chart tells us nothing about how much commerce travels along each individual connection. The offerings of the cash shop are extremely limited in number and scope vs. all the items that can be traded for in game without Gems. Since there is no direct way to convert Gems back into cash, the value of gems in the economy and the total amount of gold traded for gems on a daily basis are very much limited by the demand for the items the cash shop offers.

The buffs we have seen are extremely uneconomical at cash prices, what makes you think that they will demand a price in gold, which will represent time spent earning said gold, that will be sufficient to create a significant flow of in game gold into the purchase of gems?

The cash shop items with the most substantial value are probably account services, like character slots. If a character slot costs about $10, the question for someone considering trading gold for gems to buy a character slot becomes "what is my time worth"? If the time required to farm gold to buy the required number of gems exceeds the value of $10 for a person, they are likely to just pay the cash, instead of wasting time to farm gold. However, these services would represent infrequent purchases, so they would not drive significant ongoing Gem purchases on a long term basis.

So, there is the question of demand for Cash Shop items, but there is also a soft limit on the value of gems in gold currency. This should translate into a brake on in game inflation, since there will always be a cash equivalent for gems and gold implicit in the exchange rate.

There is no cash incentive for farming gold beyond the potential cash it can save you on a cash shop purchase. Though I believe that the cash shop will provide worthwhile revenue for NCSoft, I just don't see the indirect purchase of cash shop items via gold to be more than a tiny percentage of all daily gold based transactions. It just will not be significant enough to produce an indirect effect on inflation as a result of people "farming more gold to buy gems to buy things in the cash shop".

The perceived value of the time needed to farm gold to buy gems may produce a soft price ceiling based on the cash equivalent, but there may still be a significant gap between the ceiling and the floor based on the actual level of demand for cash shop items. It won't matter how much of a value Gems seem to offer on the Marketplace price vs. the cash cost, if there just isn't much demand for cash shop items.

This all depends on the usefullness of gold in the game, if all the really cool items come from Karma stuff, gold quickly looses a lot of its potential vallue. If cash shop items are much more cool looking and vallued then ingame items then everyone wants to have gems instead of gold.  There are really a lot of factors and ballancing to be done, the inclusion of gems adds another mechanisme to be ballanced.  As in Cash shop stuff cant be much cooler then ingame stuff, or it will unballance the gold vs gems trade.   They should only be different (visually, but not cooler) or the same, as in the potions and possible keys.

The big boobytrap behind this is companies trying to sell the most awesome looking stuff through their webshop. This will bring more money to the company in short term, but could unballance and so harm the game in the long term.

Lets see how Arenanet handles this, i have utmost confidence that Arenanet know how to handle this ballance, but can they stand the pressure from NCsoft that might not see this and try to make as much money as fast as possible with the game (after all is B2P)

Very nice video upto minute 10 or so. Till then he explains how the system in GW2 works. Only facts, no speculation.

Unfortunately then he starts to speculate by saying that it will be inefficient to buy gems/gold/BoE/guild bonuses with real money.  Efficency is a very personal factor. It depends on each persons income, his will to spend money on games and the prices in GW2 market.

The first two I only know for myself and the third we will know when game will be released. So let's wait for release. ;)

P.S ups, I forgot. And of course it is p2w. You can buy all stuff except bind on pickup stuff. And even if only the guild buffs from those purchaseable goods can be used in pvp. It's still p2w. How much p2w depends on details we don't know yet. (buff strength, prices etc).

Flame on. ;)