Those worrying about how people being about to buy Gems to then trade them just to get in-game currency will some how "break" the economy need some perspective. Let us take a very volatile, unstable MMO economy where small events can quickly cause havoc, EVE Online. CCP once banned some people who used an exploit and with this exploit controlled certain parts of the player-driven economy in EVE, once banned prices for certain items rocketed, even minerals, the very basic items for manufacturing changed wildly. That was just an example to help people understand how badly the economy can be messed with in EVE. Now in EVE you can buy currency with real world money, not directly but buying a game time code then trading it for money was allowed, and not just allowed buy encouraged, they even helped players by introducing PLEXs and sub-forums. Now has this harm the EVE economy in anyway? Not at all, certain things can effect the price of a PLEX(game time code) but it has never harmed the economy, many said it would or has, but really nothing has changed and the EVE while slowly evolving constantly has not been harmed with the ability to buy in-game currency with game time codes/real world money. Hope that made sense :)

My god it's crazy, people still repeating either what I wrote on page 8, either asking themselves the questions which I answered back in this very post ...

When you open a thread, gents, please do yourself a favor, read all the posts before you intend to reply.

So quoting it for the 4th time, maybe it will end the redundancies this time (thanks Jiveturkey12 for the forwarding) :

Originally posted by k-damage

Re : Keys 

I looted 2 mystic keys during my first 10 levels of beta.

 

Re : XP Boosts

In the second Norn zone, one history quest reward was a +50% XP boost for one hour.

 

Re : Gold

Gold can only let you purchase "white" gear.

 

 

/thread

Originally posted by k-damage

My god it's crazy, people still repeating either what I wrote on page 8, either asking themselves the questions which I answered to in this very page ...

When you open a thread, gents, please do yourself a favor, read all the posts.

So quoting it for the 4th time, maybe it will end the redundancies this time (thanks Jiveturkey12 for the forwarding) :

 

Originally posted by k-damage

Re : Keys 

I looted 2 mystic keys during my first 10 levels of beta.

What is the drop rate in comparison to mystic boxes?

 

Re : XP Boosts

In the second Norn zone, one history quest reward was a +50% XP boost for one hour.

Someone that had cash could buy 8 of those and have the buff up for 8 hours instead of 1.

 

Re : Gold

Gold can only let you purchase "white" gear.

Gold can be spent on the market to buy better than white gear.

 

/thread

That is part of the reason the thread has not ended. Your perception of how "/thread" your statements were was not how all other people percfieved your comments.

Originally posted by Fadedbomb

 PayToWin :(!

 

Thanks for reading!

Wanted to quote it but his OP was just too long and seems like i am pandering to him if i did so i snipped it.

Regardless, just yet another uninformed, sky is falling attempt to discredit GW2 by pointing to the cash shop as a Pay to Win scheme by ANet. 

I did not see EvE get closed down after PLEX was introduced, and EvE still requires a sub to play along with its cash shop.

It is very simple to gather information about GW2 by simply searching for the topic your worried about and then you can actually educate yourself by reading the search results.

Originally posted by Fadedbomb

 

/end pointless rant :(

Your post would have been better informed and more to the point had you just posted the above. 

EOM

Originally posted by Fadedbomb

VideoLink

 

The three things in this video that make the cash-shop P2W:

-Keys [edit]

-Apparently keys drop in-game according to posters below, editing this out :P!

 

-XP Boosts, these are exchanged for RL currency in order to decrease the amount of TIME you're spending to level than another person. Standard, cut and paste, advantage over another player in order to level faster, get to other content quicker, yada yada yada. I've seen these very same "hourly boosts" in Asian Grinder MMOs (most of whom have generally failed completely, btw...like 9-Dragons). Time after time it's been proven that uses "hours" instead of "DAYS" for XP boosts has been shown to be pay-to-win. Simple fix if you want to keep it fair is to treat these like a "paid customer" title similar to a $15/month sub. That way you're supporting the game in a meaningful way each month for an exp boost of like 25% rather than getting 50% normal experience for an hour as it currently stands. Again, NOT cool ArenaNet, not cool. 

 

 

-Lastly, we have the end-all, be-all to the PayToWin situation. If you watch said video you can, in fact, buy in-game gold FOR RL CURRENCY! All it takes is a swipe of the CC to buy gems and THEN convert them into gold. I don't care if the conversion rate is $10 for only 10 gold any time you allow in-game currency purchasing to happen it INCREASES outside source popularity because they tend to massively undercut the in-game prices. Look at StarTrek Online!! The DAY they started a similar exchange system Gold Farming purchases increased by almost DOUBLE!! Seriously ANET, wtf here? I understand the need to allow players to convert gold into gems so they can play for free and still benefit from the store, BUT DON'T ALLOW PEOPLE TO TURN GEMS BACK INTO GOLD UNLESS IT WAS GOLD TO BEGIN WITH!!!!

 

/end rant :(

 

 

That being said, I have money to burn and i could easily benefit from this cash shop. However, I wouldn't use it to begin with, but the fact it's there means others will, and that's NOT cool.

I was planning to buy GW2 a week prior to launch if nothing else came out to hold my interest, however the odds keeping stacking up against me as I'm fervently against supporting PayToWin :(!

 

Thanks for reading!

 RL is pay to win,games we play today are less pay towin than RL is. lick some b..t to win and you are happy,live sucks.

Originally posted by colddog04

Originally posted by k-damage

My god it's crazy, people still repeating either what I wrote on page 8, either asking themselves the questions which I answered to in this very page ...

When you open a thread, gents, please do yourself a favor, read all the posts.

So quoting it for the 4th time, maybe it will end the redundancies this time (thanks Jiveturkey12 for the forwarding) :

 

Originally posted by k-damage

Re : Keys 

I looted 2 mystic keys during my first 10 levels of beta.

What is the drop rate in comparison to mystic boxes?

 

Re : XP Boosts

In the second Norn zone, one history quest reward was a +50% XP boost for one hour.

Someone that had cash could buy 8 of those and have the buff up for 8 hours instead of 1.

 

Re : Gold

Gold can only let you purchase "white" gear.

Gold can be spent on the market to buy better than white gear.

 

/thread

That is part of the reason the thread has not ended. Your perception of how "/thread" your statements were was not how all other people percfieved your comments.

Dear me, okay first of all you guys keep complaining that you can buy gold  with gems and vice versa, yet turn around and forget that very thing when it suits you.

Sure... someone could buy 8 of those XP buffs with real cash just as someone with gold could turn around and buy the gems to buy 8 of those XP buffs...... so again, whats your point?

Chests...... again the chests don't even matter, you get a gathering/harvesting tool, one of the buffs you can buy with gold, cash or get in game as quest rewards etc. and some costume potions. Now as far as drop rates I ended up with 3 chests from drops and 2 keys and I got a 3rd key from a quest. Seems most others had similar experiences.

As far as the whole gold thing goes.... you keep harping on this, Karma isn't hard to get first off and it builds up fast. Your better off buying karma gear with karma. You should have enough Karma to buy level appropriate gear without difficulty if things stay the same as they were in the BWE. Why you would spend money to buy something you can already get with a fair amount of ease is beyond me.

I know you have an agenda but... it's just not cutting it man. At some point you need to think about cutting your losses and just let it go.

None of the stuff  he mentioned is true.

Gold cannot buy the good gear, it is not purchased with gold, you have to earn it with other in game currency that cannot be bought on the market either.

Getting to 80 1st means nothing, you are lvl 80 in PVP no matter what.  If you xp boost through PVE you probably will just enjoy less of the beautiful game world by fast forwarding and missing content.

The keys is not even worth mentioning as its an item that drops in the game.

The only item that would be "Pay2Win" - if at all - would be the resurrection orb (which OP didn't even mention).

Technically, this is the only item I see that helps winning a challenge - like finishing a dungeon or boss or whatever (so that would be "p2w a dungeon more easily" rather than "p2w"). Also, I suspect that if you want to kill boss X before all other guilds on the server, then having a few of these orbs could make your guild "win" this challenge.

I don't know how they work though (didn't try them), and I think I can live with the thought that someone is going to kill a boss before me.

Oh boy.. ANOTHER cash shop thread, havent had one of these in ages (ages does mean hours, right?)

Dont like it, vote with your wallet. Please stop using the term "pay2win". Like you said, the xp boost is a point of view thing.. and so is the gem for gold. In YOUR opinion this is pay2win... this is NOT a fact no matter how much you and the vocal minority claim. If you say you dislike these things so much that your are not buying this game, I respect that. I am not going to buy Diablo 3 because of the always having be be on-line to play single player. A lot of other will buy it even if they dont like that, but it wasnt a big enough hurtle for them like it is for me.  Do I wish it wasnt there so I could play the game how I want it.. YES. Am I going to crusade to try to make them change it for me? Come on, this is a video game. There are real problems in the world, if you need to fix something, fix one of those. Might I suggest trying to make sure the homless have enough food and blankets.

This thread is so backwards. This is the first item shop I have seen where you can use in game money to buy items from the item shop. Nothing in the item shop makes you more powerful, NOTHING. Sure there are some time savers like exp boost. Even the items you get from the boxes that drop in game and you need to buy the key on the item shop, is not any better quality of an item then what you can earn in game. I think people need to learn what "Pay to win" means.

PAY TO WIN: Where spending real life money gives you an advantage people can’t get in game that makes your char more powerful in combat by (1) damage boost (2) healing (3) items that are more powerful then dropped in game. 

GW2 has none of the above listed!!!!! Get over it, ANet has to make money somehow and if you don’t want to spend RL money on in game advantages. Then you don’t have to, as it will not leave you left out of a PvE groups for being gimped or leave you at a disadvantage in PvP as your drop gear is just as powerful. END GAME!!!! You lose.

Originally posted by askdaboss

The only item that would be "Pay2Win" - if at all - would be the resurrection orb (which OP didn't even mention).

Technically, this is the only item I see that helps winning a challenge - like finishing a dungeon or boss or whatever (so that would be "p2w a dungeon more easily" rather than "p2w"). Also, I suspect that if you want to kill boss X before all other guilds on the server, then having a few of these orbs could make your guild "win" this challenge.

I don't know how they work though (didn't try them), and I think I can live with the thought that someone is going to kill a boss before me.

I believe that the resurrection orb puts you back into a downed state instead of completely reviving you. In other words, if you use one near mobs, you'll get killed as mobs have no issues with attacking downed players.

I will get more satisfaction beating people in pvp with cash shop purchased cosmetic items.  They will leave a pretty corpse.

Gems->Gold is a much better system overall, sure you can buy gold but its far more important that people can buy cs items for gold then it is to prevent people from buying gold(to no avail as you have goldfarmers in every mmo title). There will be alot of people that will play gw2 that have no access to CC or simply cant afford to spend rl money on it since gw2 has no sub. Its a good evil for the game. The few they will loose to this system is nothing compared to what they gain.

Xp boost, if you think thats a real benefit you didt play this weekend period. it only boost your monster kill xp. Sure it helps a little but it is so little. If someone can play 1h more then you they have an advantage on you no matter if you use an xp boost or not.

Karmaboost sounds good on paper for sure, but i had so much karma at level 15 that i couldt spend em all. Another completly useless item

The entire shop needs a rework to be honest, they have been way to fair with this one. Only worthy items in there was the cosmetic costums, bag space, and content when it arrive.

Everything else was overpriced and useless.

I wonder if people that make these threads actually played true P2W game.

I wonder if anyone calls EvE P2W? It sure is by these standards. But...yeah.

Originally posted by Fadedbomb

VideoLink

 

The three things in this video that make the cash-shop P2W:

-Keys [edit]

-Apparently keys drop in-game according to posters below, editing this out :P!

 

-XP Boosts, these are exchanged for RL currency in order to decrease the amount of TIME you're spending to level than another person. Standard, cut and paste, advantage over another player in order to level faster, get to other content quicker, yada yada yada. I've seen these very same "hourly boosts" in Asian Grinder MMOs (most of whom have generally failed completely, btw...like 9-Dragons). Time after time it's been proven that uses "hours" instead of "DAYS" for XP boosts has been shown to be pay-to-win. Simple fix if you want to keep it fair is to treat these like a "paid customer" title similar to a $15/month sub. That way you're supporting the game in a meaningful way each month for an exp boost of like 25% rather than getting 50% normal experience for an hour as it currently stands. Again, NOT cool ArenaNet, not cool. 

 

 

-Lastly, we have the end-all, be-all to the PayToWin situation. If you watch said video you can, in fact, buy in-game gold FOR RL CURRENCY! All it takes is a swipe of the CC to buy gems and THEN convert them into gold. I don't care if the conversion rate is $10 for only 10 gold any time you allow in-game currency purchasing to happen it INCREASES outside source popularity because they tend to massively undercut the in-game prices. Look at StarTrek Online!! The DAY they started a similar exchange system Gold Farming purchases increased by almost DOUBLE!! Seriously ANET, wtf here? I understand the need to allow players to convert gold into gems so they can play for free and still benefit from the store, BUT DON'T ALLOW PEOPLE TO TURN GEMS BACK INTO GOLD UNLESS IT WAS GOLD TO BEGIN WITH!!!!

 

/end rant :(

 

 

That being said, I have money to burn and i could easily benefit from this cash shop. However, I wouldn't use it to begin with, but the fact it's there means others will, and that's NOT cool.

I was planning to buy GW2 a week prior to launch if nothing else came out to hold my interest, however the odds keeping stacking up against me as I'm fervently against supporting PayToWin :(!

 

Thanks for reading!

1. Keys

Thanks for the edit on the keys. In the 38 hours, or so, I spent testing this weekend, I think I had two more chests drop than keys. If you are patient, you'll get keys. The items inside were mostly just some one use functions or buffs, nothing that was a big deal.  I was also able to get a key some where around level 12 for doing the personal story for each character.

I'm going to assume that during game play you will get slightly more boxes than keys, but you can sell the boxes or even buy the keys, on the Marketplace, so not a real issue imo.

2. XP Boost

A 50% increase in XP sounds like a big deal, because in most games, it would be a big deal. However, this buff provides the 50% XP bonus only to XP from kills. The thing is that GW2 deliberately gives very little XP for kills and relies on players doing tasks, events, exploration, gathering and story to earn the bulk of their XP.

One big reason for this is that some classes have a huge advantage in AoE capability and the game awards XP and loot to everyone that does damage to a foe. By minimizing XP for kills, the imbalance caused by AoE is largely nullified.

Leveling by grinding mobs is just not viable in this game, even if you have deep pockets and maintain a continual 50% XP buff on kills.

Since tasks/events/exploration/gathering/story are by far the more efficient way to earn XP, you'd probably level faster focusing on exploiting these avenues for game play than trying to find situations where you would get the most of your 50% Kill XP bonus. It might make sense to pop one of these at the beginning of a long event that you know will feature waves of hostiles, but even if you did this a few times a day your over all leveling rate would not be much faster than it would be with out them.

Just to give an example of how minimal this might be, let's say 20% of your XP is earned via kill XP (I'm not sure it's even that high). If you kept the buff up for every hour you spent playing the game, you might advance 10% faster, over all, than you would have with out it. If it takes an average of 110 hours to reach the level cap, which is about in line with estimates, you might pay ~$150.00 to make it to the cap in 100 hours of play, rather than 110!

So, if "Bob" levels with out buffs as efficiently as "John" levels while continually popping XP buffs, at the 100 hour mark Bob would be level 74 and John would be level 80. The only place where level provides a competative advantage is in WvW and the difference between level 74 and level 80 would be miniscule. With the flat leveling curve, Bob would catch up by another level every 1 1/2 hours and a day or two later will have completely erased what ever level advantage John bought for $150!

In short, it just is not a big deal!

3. Gold for Gems, Gems for Gold on the marketplace

As long as gems can't be turned back into $$$Cash, there really isn't an issue. Supply/demand/value will set prices and the exchange rate will set a ceiling for illicit RMT, which in turn limits RMT created inflation.

It is very important to note that gems do NOT create new Gold in the economy. The only way to get gold for gems is for someone to buy those gems off of the marketplace. (Also, there is no way to just trade gems to another player).

As far as gold farmers, in general, Arenanet have designed the game in a way that makes it very difficult for gold farmers to operate. No direct player to player trades outside the easily tracked mail system. No ability to buy a particular item from a particular seller off of the marketplace for a price higher than the current lowest price. Dynamic Events and active, dynamic content, along with the auto leveling down of characters, to make botting difficult, if not impossible.