Astralporing.1957

If your idea of a bard is someone shouting loudly while waving a banner around, i definitely don't want to hear you singing.

> @"Illconceived Was Na.9781" said: > [During the same AMA, John Smith added]( ) > > Looking at total sources and sinks of mystic coins, we've reached a stable state with sources being about 10% above sinks. Trading post prices also have reached an equilibrium even in the face of multiple manipulation attempts. Still, we're going to keep an eye on them to make sure the pattern remains stable in the long run. > > And he repeated that: > > ...the input into the economy and the output from the economy are sitting at a +10% state. Like i said, they balanced it so the supply should be slightly above demand (by 10%), but didn't think about the possibility of many players realizing that MCs became a valuable resource, which resulted in "hoarding" and thus a lot of supply never ending up on TP. I'm also quite sure they never predicted MCs becoming an alternative form of currency for barter trades (so, additional increase in demand). Which changed the whole equation away from the intended state. Notice btw, how they are commenting on the price reaching an "equilibrium", and how proud they seem of it, even when, in fact, the prices _never stopped rising_. In reality, MC prices still haven't reached that equilibrium state, and we still have no idea how far they are from it, or if they'll _ever_ manage to get to that point before the game shuts down.

> @"Fuchslein.8639" said: > So what's the problem with deleting BLK and selling the items overpriced in the Gemstore instead? > Someone will acknowledge their value. > They would take the rng-factor and in the end maybe even more people would buy it, because they can be 100% sure to get the item. > > Or would something completely different happen in the end? mhh They already answered that in the discussion about the Mountgate, and the first (completely RNG, without non-rng option) mount skin license. They flat out said that they did it that way, because otherwise they would _not_ be able to sell some of the skins for the same amount of money. Basically, if they were to post the items people are aiming for, as a direct purchase, for the "average" price you'd end up spending when buying boxes to get them, they would never get as much money as with the RNG model. A lot of people would look at the value, and decide it's way too much for them and that they don;t need it after all. Remember, like with any lottery, there's a ton of people that buy the keys, but do _not_ get the result they want. In fact, i'm quite sure that _most_ of the players buying keys end up in that category. And a lot of them will continue to buy, hoping that "this time it will be different". Except, again, for most of them it won't be any different. Ever. _that's_ where most of the lootbox income comes from. From people spending a ton of money and getting stuff they didn't want and wouldn't buy if they could choose.

> @"AnonBackStabber.8536" said: > > @"Trinnitty.8256" said: > > as long as the game continues to have super rare items like infusion that are worth more gold than the trading post will allow and a gold cap on mailing gold > I just don't get this - I played GW1, and there was a legit trade window. kitten happened?!? There were way too many scams associated with it. Apparently their support had a lot of problem with those, so they decided to switch in gw2 to a system that is scam-free. And the additional boon for them is that they can tax the transactions now, which works as a major gold sink and one of the core stabilizing elements for the market.

> @"JusticeRetroHunter.7684" said: > > @"Seera.5916" said: > >I've only seen actual proof that it would lessen the social experience if there were fewer waypoints and no mounts. > > And what proof would that be exactly? > > The way i "proved" (it's not actually proof btw, it's a hypothesis) that waypoints mounts, and other features take away social interaction is by explaining how taking away the time it takes from point A to point B eliminates interactions that could have occurred along the way. This is shown in a mockup network map that illustrates that behavior. And we have already told you that your original example targetting waypoints as the primary problem _does not actuall match the state of the game as it was at any point in time_. Hint: changes in waypoint distribution from core to HoT to PoF to Saga (with less and less waypoints per map for every iteration) had done absolutely _nothing_ about "density of interactions". If anything, that density is _lower_ now than it was originally. So, obviously, the factors you claim are not as important as you think, and you have overlooked something (or a lot of somethings) far more impactful. > I backcheck these hypothesis with in game observations...from what i observe in most cases, is that interaction is incredibly low, where population densities are very high (like Lions Arch) which is not normal...it's not normal for hundreds of people to be standing completly silent and completly still for hours without saying anything to anyone. Nothing to do with waypoints. (and yes, it is completely normal, seeing as 90% of those players are likely afk at the moment) > Edit: Also as a continuation of the above thought, is that there should be places that you would expect there to be a higher population density than what is actually present in the game. These are places like The Human Starter area for example, which, according to some statistics, is the most commonly picked race among new players. However, this location, although it does have slightly more people than other surrounding areas, is drastically lower than what one would expect it to be. You can actually compare this to other games where it actually matches with the expectation like WoW's Goldshire. The two places don't seem to be any different to each other in design, in fact both seem nearly exactly the same...with a tavern, a few houses, and an outdoor centralized square...except one of them is completely devoid of interaction and people, while the other is so crowded it's hard to understand why there is such a massive difference between these two, seemingly similar starter zones. That's actually simple. There's _nothing_ there. Those taverns and plaza? They have no function at all. There _are_ people around, but not there - they are at the nearby "hearts" areas. Move just slighly away from that starting place, and you will see them. By the way - ironically, that starting place has a waypoint, which means that, according to your own assumptions, that density should be higher. So, again, it seems there's some major flaw in the very basis of your reasoning. Also, another simple reason - yes, humans are the race picked the most among new players, and generally the race played the most. Notice, though, how this game doesn't seem to have any significant influx of new players at all, so obviously player density in starting areas would not be high. It _was_ very high in the first years of the game, though, when we still had a lot of new players around. > I just said that my Post is not "proof" it is a hypothesis. Then your hypothesis is wrong (as any hypothesis that does not match reality). Try a new one.