State of the economy: requesting Anet input

#1 - Oct. 19, 2012, 4:55 a.m.

Hey guys, first off thanks Anet for your continued effort and dedication to improving the game. I’ve got 500hrs + on my account and I’m still finding it a pleasure to play each time I log on. Also thanks my fellow players that have made this one of the best MMO communities I’ve been with thus far <3.

The Trading Post: recent trends with popular, fast moving items suggest they are losing value and fast. Despite the nerfs to things such as karma commodities, Orichalcum nodes, etc, the supply (according to gw2 spidy) always seem to find a way to tank and prices go through the floor.

As a farmer, a TP enthusiastic, and an honest gamer trying to grind out a little personal profit, I find this pattern with prices discouraging. We are a little over week 7 of gw2, and it ‘seems’ that the volume of stuff hitting the TP is far greater than the demand. Does this suggest that there’s just now a whole bunch of 80lv players competing for sales? If so, I fear for what the economy will look like in the next few months. Perhaps there’s just not enough sources for players to burn these materials? Between PVP gear, dungeon gear, and drops perhaps highly valued commodities aren’t as needed as they should be.

There are so many variables. Us players don’t have the figures, but Anet you do. I’m not asking for insider info so I can make a quick buck off TP in the next 5 minutes.
My request: could you kindly provide some thoughts on the current state of the economy. How do you feel about the trends? Is there hope for us blue-collar farmers? Are there any changes that you ‘can’ comment on planned for the future, that will positively influence prices and the economy?

Thanks for reading! Looking forward to your thoughts.

John Smith

#7 - Oct. 19, 2012, 5:15 p.m.

sinisterpink.7912:
Hey guys, first off thanks Anet for your continued effort and dedication to improving the game. I’ve got 500hrs + on my account and I’m still finding it a pleasure to play each time I log on. Also thanks my fellow players that have made this one of the best MMO communities I’ve been with thus far <3.

The Trading Post: recent trends with popular, fast moving items suggest they are losing value and fast. Despite the nerfs to things such as karma commodities, Orichalcum nodes, etc, the supply (according to gw2 spidy) always seem to find a way to tank and prices go through the floor.

As a farmer, a TP enthusiastic, and an honest gamer trying to grind out a little personal profit, I find this pattern with prices discouraging. We are a little over week 7 of gw2, and it ‘seems’ that the volume of stuff hitting the TP is far greater than the demand. Does this suggest that there’s just now a whole bunch of 80lv players competing for sales? If so, I fear for what the economy will look like in the next few months. Perhaps there’s just not enough sources for players to burn these materials? Between PVP gear, dungeon gear, and drops perhaps highly valued commodities aren’t as needed as they should be.

There are so many variables. Us players don’t have the figures, but Anet you do. I’m not asking for insider info so I can make a quick buck off TP in the next 5 minutes.
My request: could you kindly provide some thoughts on the current state of the economy. How do you feel about the trends? Is there hope for us blue-collar farmers? Are there any changes that you ‘can’ comment on planned for the future, that will positively influence prices and the economy?

Thanks for reading! Looking forward to your thoughts.

I don’t have any specifics to give you unfortunately. What I will say is that we pay a lot of attention to the economy. It is vastly complex and so changes made have to be gentle and precise. This means there is a lag between recognizing problems and finding the exact solution that meets the problem and the exact intensity of the solution, because we don’t want to take shots in the dark. The economy is still stabilizing, but we are paying attention to patterns that aren’t positive and taking steps to correct the issues. In the next few month I would continue to expect an evolving game (and maybe some specific data eventually).