Daddicus.6128

Take this VERY seriously. A Kansas (USA) man was recently killed due to swatting. (And, he had nothing to do with the $1.50 squabble that started it.)

First of all, report it to your local police. Not so they can catch them (they don't have the tools, really), but so they know the threat was issued. That can help them with false swatting calls. If they want to see your domicile and interview you, it's probably just so they know you're not a real threat, should they receive a false call. So, I recommend granting that "intrusion". Just don't have anything illegal or threatening laying around.

Second, report it to ArenaNet (ANet). ANet's tech support can tell you whether it's possible to see your IP address. (I doubt it, but there are several hacker tools that might figure it out if ANet's implementation has any holes in it.) ANet also almost certainly has connections to federal law enforcement in your country (FBI and Secret Service in the US), and may have already dealt with this kind of threat.

Third, and maybe most importantly, **AFTER** you've contacted ANet, talk to your Internet provider and have them give you another IP address. It can still be dynamic, but just not the same as the one you had. You'll have to re-do your IP address in Guild Wars, but once ANet knows, they can look for hacking traffic trying to discern your new address.

Most of these threats are just noise, because there aren't that many people who can pull off the pieces needed to make it work. But, because you don't know whether this guy is one of them, or just blowing smoke, take it seriously. One man is dead because of a $1.50 squabble between two idiots in a (another) gaming community. We don't want you to join him.

Thanks for all the tips! I'm up to only needing two more insects, and 10 more recipes. I've completed the WvW track now three times, working on number 4. It's slow going for a non-WvWer, but it's a lot faster than doing events in Dry Top.

I am also taking all my level 80 toons through mapping it. Once you get the hang of it, it goes pretty quickly.

However, I still haven't seen a tier 6. Yesterday, there were quite a few tier 5s, because it was event day. I'm going to save up for my last 10 until either I see a tier 6 (with 3400), or when I have 4000. With 4000, I only need tier 5.

I wish they would let you sell the insects, though. The real gate is the geodes, so the insects become garbage once you get the last one.

Anyhow, thanks to all!

Thanks, folks! All helpful.

> @"Ayrilana.1396" said:

> The geode rate from events is the tier level plus one. For example, tier 4 would yield five per event. During Sandstorm, this is doubled so you would earn ten per event on tier 4.

>

> I usually earned 100+ during just Sandstorm alone on T4.

OK, now THAT I understand. Thanks!

> @"Voltekka.2375" said:

> Open community in EU does weekly runs of dry top. They usually get to T5-T6. Other than that, if youre a pvp or wvw player, I would strongly recommend you do the reward tracks. I got all weapons that way,easily enough.

> Another thing you can use is the tyrian voucher, which gets you 150 geodes. Map completion is easy enough for another 100 (plus the chance for a bl key).

What is "open community"?

Thank you!

> @"thehipone.6812" said:

> I'd recommend doing the reward tracks. The fossils are the real bottleneck if you're going for all of the weapons.

I think I have enough fossils. I only have ~~7~~ make that 6 left to go. I think I was lucky with the random-drop fossil that you can trade in.

It's the recipes that are killing me.

> @"Tanner Blackfeather.6509" said:

> If you have several characters, or have an *abundance* of Tomes and an open character slot, you can do map completion for 100 geodes each time. It's pretty fast with mounts!

I do have a lot of characters.

Without a griffon, can you do map completion without doing the storyline missions? There's that closed door where Scarlet lived, and I haven't found a way over the cliffs without doing the missions.

> @"Ayrilana.1396" said:

> Do as many events as you can during the sandstorms. If you can join an organized run, that also helps. Make sure to only buy recipes on a T6 map if possible.

>

> There’s really no other reliable way outside of reward tracks and events.

Why the sandstorms? Do they generate more?

And, how do I find T6? I don't believe I've ever seen a map get to T6.

I'm targeting the fossil weapons, so I would like to know the best ways to farm geodes.

I know about doing events and the reward track in WvW. But, I would be interested in what people think about their geode-generating rate.

Also, are there any other ways to earn geodes besides Dry Top events and WvW?

I use it every day to harvest the nodes in my homesteads. I leave it in my shared inventory, so any character can use it. I don't think it needs an upgrade.

However, one of your ideas I could support: upgrading it to have the home instance selectable. But, I would do this as a mastery (in Core Tyria), rather than bake it right in.

For my nine mains, I've purchased three bag slots each. For my nine secondary characters, I've purchased one bag slot each.

For all 27 of my characters (plus four mules), I try to get them all to 20-slot packs. However, that's a long process, due to the expense (I don't seem to earn gold anywhere near the rate that other players earn it). So, 39 of their slots don't have 20-slot packs yet.

I have three 32-slot packs as well. But, those are SO expensive that I've shifted my purchases to more bag slots, rather than 32s.

On my 9 mains, I have at least one each of normal, equipment, oiled, craftsman, siegemaster, and invisible packs. They're in that order in the bag slots.

In total, I have 148 packs in use, totaling 2766 inventory slots (not counting shared).

I'm eventually shooting for six 20-slot (or more) packs of the six specialty pack types listed above for all my characters. I count things like fractal masterwork equipment packs as equipment packs.

I buy at least nine extra bag slot items every time they go on sale. Since I don't earn gold very fast, I always buy them with real money. (ANet, are you listening?)

In addition to not earning much gold (or, perhaps because of it - I'm a cheapskate), I don't buy infinite-use gathering tools. So, I have to store many more gathering tools. For several specific ones, I've noticed that I go through them a lot, so I keep spares in the shared inventory slots. (for example, tier 6 harvesting tools and all three tier 5 gathering tools.)

Here's a no-downside (I think) proposition:

All soulbound items can be picked up by any character on the account. But, they cannot be used, except by the one two whom it is soulbound.

This idea would help with another issue: the items characters get when leveling up. They are soulbound. Their only value is to trade them in at the Mystic Forge. So, they generally either get tossed, or they take up bag slots until you get four of them.

Another idea that would do the same thing, is to make crafting and the Forge accept soulbound (to other people) items from bank accounts. This might be easier to code.

ANet?

I'm fine with considering them "interim". But, the current method catches the unwary, and makes them permanent.

NOTE: As someone above pointed out, they COULD level that character to 500 in the appropriate discipline. But, that's a darned expensive proposition. And it takes a very long and boring time.

They really need to make them all account-bound. There's frankly no excuse for leaving them soulbound as long as they have.

Unfortunately, as usual ANet is completely silent on this. They DID fix the 32-slot bags early on, so clearly the recognize the lunacy of the problem. Why they haven't fixed the others is ... I'm not sure what it is. But, it's not good.

> @"Ayrilana.1396" said:

> > @"Daddicus.6128" said:

> > Not quite. Trading gold for gems (or vice-versa) is indeed not an increase or decrease.

> >

> > However, whenever a player spends real money to buy gems, that causes "gold" to flow into the system

>

> Could you clarify this statement? I only ask because buying gems has zero impact on the exchange until you go to convert them to gold. Your statement comes off as if that’s untrue or at least that’s my interpretation.

Sure:

For the moment, assume I'm buying gold with those gems. They're coming from other players, but I'm paying for it from outside the game. So, net inflow.

Now, if I'm only buying other stuff, whatever I buy that has an in-game advantage (like bag slots or garden plots) has a gold value. Probably impossible to calculate an exact amount, but it has some value. (In fact, their value in-game is probably way less than it might appear. But, it's non-zero.)

So, again, I'm adding gold to the economy.

NOTE: This is not a bad thing. And, it's nowhere near what players get from simple farming. But, it is a source of currency to the economy.

2nd NOTE: It's NEVER 100% of the value I buy with it. There's the 15% for buying the gold. And, the other items are hardly appropriately priced.

Thanks. That helped (it confirmed that I did not buy gems that day). But, the amount might be enough for PoF ($80 + tax). Was October when PoF came out?

> @"juhani.5361" said:

> Just wanted to say, I really enjoyed your analysis :) I did have a question with one point you made:

>

>

It can also come from gold bought with real-world money (or gems bought with real-world money).

>

> From my understanding the gems-to-gold conversion process is due to players trading their gold through the market for purchased gems from another player. So, a wealth transfer from player to player. This process doesn't generate new gold, but instead re-allocates it. Did I get this wrong? I'm not an economist at all-- barely passed Econ 101-- so beyond broad concepts, I'm sort of floundering in the dark.

>

Not quite. Trading gold for gems (or vice-versa) is indeed not an increase or decrease.

However, whenever a player spends real money to buy gems, that causes "gold" to flow into the system

NOTE: This assumes that the markets are roughly fair. In other words, if I buy anything that has value in-game (like boosters or bag slots), the gem value approximates the actual in-game value of the item.

One other thing: the 15% tax on gold/gem trading does remove gold and gems from the game.

There's a third source of deflation: an increase in the amount of materials available for selling.

What I mean is that you can only store so much stuff (2000 of each material). For me, I hoard everything, until I can no longer do so. This usually occurs with 2000 unrefined materials and another 2000 refined materials (of the same type, like ore and ingots). Once I reach 2000 of each, I either have to sell them, use them or store them in bank slots.

Storing them isn't cost-effective, and there aren't enough things for me to build. So, I sell them.

ANet alluded to this in a recent post, at the very beginning of PoF. They kept some new materials out of the list of storable materials, to force this upon players. Their reason was so that the BLTC would have a realistic price, rather than an artificially high price due to lack of the mats (because they would be going into storage). Their logic was flawed*, but that's their position.

\* Flawed because all that action does is delay the onset of price fluctuation. It doesn't actually change the math.

I would like to know how I can tell when I purchased gems (with real money) in the past. Is there any way to do this?

The history tab in the BLTC Gem store tab shows what I spent them on, but not when I bought them.

I have suspicious charges on my credit card, so I want to be able to confirm them. It also doesn't go back far enough.

I agree, Freeman. But, I would extend it to all of the other map currencies as well.

Thanks to both of you!

I missed a couple of days checking the trading post: have "Bag Slot Expansions" gone on sale yet this month?

This is to get rid of them. Trade up two-for-one. 8 level-20 scrolls would make a 50, for instance.

This would be a quality of life addition:

Make experience scrolls (like the ones you get for birthdays) be upgradable. Double-click to turn two level-20 scrolls into a level-30 scroll. Same doubling effect all the way up through level 50, 60, or 70.

An alternative at the top end would be to use 55, 60, 65, 70, and 75, so the price gets higher (diminishing returns).

* I use them all almost all the time. I'm a cheapskate, so I use copper, iron, etc. implements. I keep the spares of the ones I use the most in 5-6 of the shared slots.

* I also keep a spare basic salvage kit there.

* I have three of the "port me somewhere" items, and all three live there.

* A copper-fed and silver-fed salvager.

* I also have a lot of lower-level characters. I sporadically level them with tomes, so I keep a stack there, along with writs of XP things.

* I keep all of my bank express and merchant express consumables there, so any of my toons can use them when they need to.

* I leave a bunch of some kind of booster, food, or tool items there.

* I keep a few free for transferring stuff between characters.

I would instantly buy 10-20 more if I could, and pay real-world money to get them ASAP when they came out. (Are you listening, ANet? :))