Yuratuhl wrote:
I also have no idea what this gold/gem shit means.
The in-game store sells Gems for cash. Gems (contrary to what Meowth in his infinite knowledge said) are not in fact cosmetic in any sense of the word, nor are they literally gems in the sense of being an in-game tangible.
Gems are an in-game currency ($10/800, or $0.0125 ea) that is used to purchase a variety of items and services, including cosmetic gear (mostly town-only and unusable in outdoor/combat areas, fwiw towns are so insanely humungous in GW2, the smallest being probably ten times the size of any WoW city and ten times more detailed, that the chance of having a social interaction or getting noticed in the game world is basically nil), account upgrades (bank slots, additional character slots, etc, the game starts with one bank slot the size of the base WoW bank and additional slots can be purchased only by way of Gems), temporary boosts to XP and tradeskills, minipets and the like.
To give you a frame of reference, the amount of gems it takes to buy a new bank slot has a MSRP of $7.50. Gold in GW2 is approximately equivalent in value in the gold sinks (repair, vendor goods, etc) as in WoW.
Gems can be traded for gold or vice versa via an ingame exchange. The rate fluctates depending on supply of each but the actual volume and coefficient are as I said a black box.
I just checked the trade rate again. It's still hovering around 25s-30s/gem which makes zero sense considering that the amount of gold in the economy has increased by a factor of
thousands since three days ago and players are beginning to establish gold surpluses (and it is obvious to anyone with half a brain that in a free and fair market, gems will appreciate rapidly as the gold supply increases).
Star Trek Online has a basically identical system except that it is not possible to trade their equivalent of Gems (Zen) directly for fluid currency but only for their equivalent of Valor Points (Dil, bound PvE currency with a daily yield cap). STO's exchange, of course, is subject to fluctuation and probable manipulation when new content is added.
STO's system has an important advantage over GW2's in that it is not possible to trade a currency with an infinitely elastic supply, gold-equivalent (EC) for Gem-equivalent (Zen). If it did not work that way then chinas bots and no-lifers would have an insurmountable advantage, farming vast quantities of EC/gold to pump up the value of Zen/Gems, and Zen/Gems would be even more insanely overpowered compared to other currencies (a small amount of cash would buy a huge amount of EC/gold, washing anyone who doesn't buy out of the market).
GW2's lack of this economic insulation will be very destabilizing in months to come. Anet may try to compensate by dropping the trade coefficient far negative (meaning Gems are made to sell for far less gold than market forces would bear) though doing so may defeat inflation only by causing
stagflation instead (due to massive gold surpluses).
Both STO and GW2 stores sell Keys (in both games they cost about $1.50 ea) that can be used to open lockboxes that drop in the world (just as in WoW). The contents are roughly similar in both games, usually temporary stat/XP boosts, potions/consumables, etc.
In STO, what was eventually added to lockboxes (and I am completely convinced Anet will follow suit when they believe the game has either gained decent traction or it is clear it won't) were very powerful, usually BoE, PvE items with very low drop rates. Based on a large number of anecdotes and other mechanics in the game, I believe the drop rates for those items were negatively curved (meaning the chance of a drop
decreases the more boxes are opened, encouraging recalcitrant players with easy wins early on and exacting more money from aggressive farmers).
Basically people are fuckin stupid and think that there's somebody out there waiting to give them a sweet deal or a free lunch. Subs are >>>>> F2P/B2P and anyone who doesn't realize that is a fool.
EDIT: I'm curious what Tuhl will make of all this. I doubt Zaryi has it in her to give an intelligent, reasoned response. And for Meowth, well, there's no doubt there. Anyway, for the record, this is how people who are actually smart think when they analyze markets.
