User talk:Morgaine/Feedback/My use of waypoints

PLEASE NOTE: This page has been factored out of its parent Talk page at User_talk:Morgaine/Feedback to improve readability.

The following discussion relates to the user feedback topic at User:Morgaine/Feedback#Price waypoint travel more reasonably.

A trend I've discovered on your feedback page is simply that you use waypoints in a quantity that can be considered excessive and counterproductive. The way you've written up your suggestions actually implies to me you're losing coin in general game time, instead of earning it. So a general suggestion for most of your feedback can be: avoid using waypoints as if they are free, because where GW had its excellent map travelling system, GW2's waypoint system is a gold sink. - Infinite - talk 10:20, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

You are certainly right, Infinite. But I do so because it is ArenaNet's often-stated position that waypoints were provided in GW2 in order to make gaming fun by avoiding travel tedium , and I endorse that view and purpose totally. The trouble is, Anet omitted to mention that an accurate statement of their position on waypoints should end in "for those who want to be poor." In other words I am strongly opposed to Anet building the money sink that you correctly identify into their waypoint travel. Money sinks, if needed, should be built into non-essentials such as vanity pursuits, not into a key facility that has the purpose of making gaming fun. Fun should be a primary property available to everyone without it making them poor. In due course I intend to provide feedback to Anet on this issue, and so I'm documenting (just for myself at present) how extremely excessive their wayppoint charges currently are. You are completely right: they are the single biggest contributor to my being very poor. Morgaine 11:44, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

While I preferred Guild Wars' map travelling system to the waypoints, I must also stress that contrary to previous promises, Guild Wars 2 is in fact riddled with grind. Their dynamic events aren't half as dynamic as they had promised us ("We don't think that's okay."), and most importantly, they have seemed to almost completely distanced themselves from the casual-gamers-shouldn't-be-forced-to-seriously-commit-themselves-to-an-MMORPG implications in practise. So as much as it pains me to admit, ArenaNet has failed its promises in the key aspects, and thus the old promises and statements are no longer accurate. I wish it was a casual-friendly thing, the waypoint system, but in the end it is merely a gold sink, most primarily affecting casual players. - Infinite - talk 16:18, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

It really doesn't make any sense at all that some costs scale exponentially (waypoints, crafting lumps/runes), while all rewards scale linearly. That's really my only complaint with the (non-TP) economy. —Dr Ishmael 16:36, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

Indeed, it makes no sense at all. I have two theories why Anet has structured this so badly. One is that the devs don't have a money problem because they use test money instead of having to spend weeks and months to earn it, and so they aren't actually experiencing the player hardships that result from this flawed scaling.

The other theory is that it's fallout from their very myopic fight against bot farmers. They're using the same tactics employed in the so-called War on Drugs and War on Terror, neither of which has any possibility of succeeding because they address only the symptoms and not the root causes of, respectively, drug trafficking and terrorism. It's only by removing the conditions that give rise to a problem that it can be made to go away, otherwise it continually re-germinates, and in the meantime these "wars" just end up putting the population in jail and creating an environment of official terror. The direct counterpart of this in GW2 is keeping the value of drops low and inflating the currency in answer to bot farming, which just inflicts harm on the entire player base without bothering the farmers at all because wealth is purely relative. Anyway, whatever the reason, they're doing it wrong, and ruining the game for the vast majority of ordinary players. Morgaine 03:37, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

Well, it ultimately doesn't matter whether or not this is an anti-botting measure, because there are still botters active. Think node farming bots (the teleporting players appearing next to a node, gathering from it, and then disappear), gold seller bots (they actually very rarely still appear), TP buy-away bots (ever wondered why sudden offers you put on the TP are sold literally immediately after submitting them?), and so on, and so forth. So if it is a measure against bots, they're doing it very inefficiently. - Infinite - talk 09:30, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

Gold sinks are a necessary evil in any game. Their complete purpose is to remove gold from active play in an environment that is constantly producing gold. I think we all know this, and recognize their importance to the longevity of a game. I agree that the waypoint expenditure is going to keep players poor in the early stages of the game's life. This is especially hard on new players coming into low levels where gold is slow to accumulate. However, as the game ages, and players move on to alt characters, and working on end game accumulation of goods, this will become a very necessary part to reduce inflation/deflation of the games Economy.

Comparing GW2 to the original GW in areas like these is pointless as the two games were developed with a completely different viewpoint. GW was designed as a linear progression game, you start the story at a low level, work through it as you progress in level, and then complete it, going back to experience side stories along the way with very little thought to end game content. GW2 appears to have been developed much less story driven, and much more end game focused, with the end game being the accumulation of the "good stuff". Thus the singular storyline. Top end armor is difficult to acquire quickly and easily... gold is harder to accumulate, crafting costs a fortune both to get leveled up in and to work with at top end. This game is all about the grind, grind for gold, grind for mats, grind for tokens, grind, grind, grind. If any developer says or thinks otherwise, they are completely delusional. I just hope they can keep adding enough new content to keep the grind from becoming so completely mind numbing that players will stick around, since longevity is the name of the game. I personally don't see myself playing it for 4-5 years, as I did GW as it stands now. I doubt that these gold sinks are in any way geared as being anti-botting measures. -- Wyn talk 10:06, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

It's a very severe misconception to believe that "gold sinks are a necessary evil in any game", despite this being such a common claim. The misconception stems from the extremely comical belief that since virtual money is being created all the time, if must therefore be removed all the time so that people can pretend that it isn't being created out of thin air at all. Well that's so ridiculous and blinkered that "comical" is indeed the right word for it.

In-game money is not like dollars and cents, and trying to cram it into that straightjacket is doomed to create more problems than it solves, which is what we are seeing. The myopic "remedy" of gold sinking just creates hardships for ordinary players and solves nothing except for those who mistakenly think that they're playing Sim Market. Well, there's no helping them when they don't realize that this is not the closed system of finite resources that they think it is. Morgaine 08:42, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

Unfrotunately, Wyn is right. Gold sinks are required, because when currency is infinite (hey, hey!), prices don't have caps and will continue to rise with more coin being generated. Like with supply and demand, if there is an infinite demand, but a limited supply, the supply's price can go up infinitely. Per example, that rune that gives you amazing stat boosts that currently costs 6g? Without gold sinks, that price could just as easily be 60g. Because no one is losing coin to gold sinks, there is an abundance of coin, thus justifying higher prices.

Money makes money, so with or without gold sinks, those with less money will make less money, whereas those who make lots of it will be making more. Gold sinks help regulate the economy, even in virtual worlds. Without them, the in-game economy would be impossible (especially for casual gamers). Unfortunately, even in-game universes' economies aren't utopia scenarios, and they are, in fact, exactly like real life economies. Wish it was different and the market was more generous, but alas. Where people go, money goes. - Infinite - talk 13:43, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

The "Wooosh!" you heard was the sound of the key point going right over your head. :P

I urge you to reread the very words that you wrote, which summarize as "Virtual worlds are completely different to RL, and hence they must be treated the same." As I said, the illogic of "conventional wisdom" is just plain comical. No Infinite, and Wyn, the fact that the money and object supply is completely unlimited and created out of nothingness should be telling you clear as day that the rules which govern the RL economy in a closed universe of finite resources cannot possibly apply. Morgaine 16:00, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

Then, in turn, I urge you to explain what the market would look like if everyone looked past the illogical conventional wisdom that currency invokes. I'm extremely curious now, because no matter how I theorise, I can't imagine a working in-game economy from your POV. - Infinite - talk 17:41, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

[Resetting indent]

It's a very interesting question, and I've addressed it many times in other places in the virtual worlds scene. It's sometimes asked by those who think their virtual world is Sim RL Market, but I'll assume you don't or there would be no point in continuing. They tend to be stuck in a mental cage created by RL economics and refuse to step outside of it, or worse, sometimes they don't even accept that there is an outside.

Markets and market economies in RL are a reflection of the finite nature of all our resources in RL. RL market exchange is concerned with shifting the scarce resources and currency tokens representing those resources around, and little else. Middlemen skim a little off the transfers, and technology adds some value to the raw materials, but the essence of what is happening is just circulation of scarce resources, and it is their scarcity that gives them value. Consequently the entire concept of "market" in the RL sense is inapplicable to a world in which resources are created out of nothing by everyone everywhere continually. It's inapplicable not only on principle but also for practical reasons. A central one is that there would be near infinite natural inflation in such a virtual world since for each token representing 1 object, a million similar objects will be created in the next few seconds, and so the token would have nil value almost instantly. As a result, not only would "making money" be ineffective because money doesn't represent any knowable quantity of resources for which it can be redeemed, but more importantly the very concept of accumulating money to acquire resources would make very little sense, since everyone already has the means to create resources out of nothing automatically.

In other words, the whole concept of "market" in the RL sense is a broken expectation and an ill-founded desire in virtual worlds. Unfortunately our acquaintance with RL is forcing people into this mental cage and so they can't think outside the RL box, and fail to realize that their RL box has no foundation here. (It adds to the confusion when virtual objects are deliberately presented as if they were physical objects despite sharing almost none of their properties.)

If you want to create something in a virtual world akin to a "market" in RL, you need to structure it around a resource that is finite to serve as its stable basis, and that basis cannot ever be virtual objects or automatically created money. There is no shortage of finite resources in virtual worlds, and some of them are even shared with RL --- location, reputation, novelty, celebrity, exclusivity, and many others. Anyone who feels uncertain whether such concepts represent real value needs to spend an hour with an estate agent, who will soon put them right. But money or goods created automatically out of thin air are not in this category, and anyone expecting to create a real RL-type economy based on them is violating the foundations of the RL market system so their plan isn't starting on solid ground.

This makes the question "So what is running in GW2?" a reasonable one for people to ask. The answer is, it's a manufactured illusion of a market system directly manipulated by ArenaNet to behave roughly as people acquainted with RL markets would expect, because if left to market forces it would hyper-inflate almost instantly. They have been totally open about their direct management, and have never pretended that it is otherwise. Players sometimes think that there is a real market and that their buying and selling is the actual driving force, but this stems from not examining it carefully enough. It's dressed in market clothing for game purposes, but it works entirely differently, and the only purpose of gold sinks is to put pressure on players to encourage purchase of gems with dollars, not to "control the economy" except superficially. Unfortunately this "encouragement" is rather easy to get wrong to the detriment of the game, and sadly this is happening currently. Hopefully they'll loosen the garrotte a little before the game develops a reputation for SOE-type hardship. Morgaine 01:37, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

Short version: You could certainly create an economy that is natural to a virtual world in which money and objects are unlimited resources, by trading in different elements that have the required scarcity. It would of course not be anything like RL nor like the current in-game system, which deliberately attempts to look like the RL economy but is really only a superficial illusion. And finally, because it's just a superficial illusion, arguing that gold sinks are necessary from an economic standpoint is silly because this is not a real economy. Its parameters are manipulated directly as needed. Morgaine 12:42, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

No, I get what you're saying, but I asked for a solid example. You simply restated your ideal, but to the question of what that would actually look like, no answers are presented. I'm aware of ArenaNet's market manipulation and stimulation, but all you've done in the paragraphs above is sketch how everyone deluded themselves into following it. Unless you have an actual concept of what it should be like (not vague sketches, but in detail), I can only conclude there is no actual, implementable alternative. At least not one that results in a fair and healthy in-game market. I understand that the current market is horribly realistic, though holds no real reason for it (save ArenaNet making actual money), but if you have a better, concrete plan for what the market should be like in this game, by all means enlighten us. - Infinite - talk 13:19, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

I gave you specific examples of finite resources available in virtual worlds that could be used as the basis of a natural trading economy. Weren't those enough from which to imagine how it might work? As I stated, it would look nothing like RL so we're into new territory, but such an alternative world is not actually all that weird. In some ways RL is heading into a post-market era in some fields too, for example Google's services being offered free of charge and profit being made from user's eyeballs instead. That's a demotion of what was previously a costed resource to an uncosted one, which shares some properties with the fate suffered by money and objects in a virtual world. It also introduced some new scarce resources (eyeball time) and made them central to not only Google but Google's entire advertising ecosystem, so it's a microcosm of the kind of reorganization I was describing. Morgaine 13:50, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

(Edit conflict) Holy cow, I was laughing while reading most of that. Your basic point is that the concept of scarcity doesn't apply to online games because nothing is scarce. That's a load of baloney. If nothing was scarce, then why do I only have 14 gold in my bank right now? Why does my main character not have all legendary weapons yet? Why haven't I been able to achieve max rank in all 8 crafting disciplines yet? Because in-game resources are scarce. I can't instantly generate 250 of every tier 6 fine material. I can't instantly generate 1000 gold. I have to invest time into playing the game in order to gather those resources. And that investment of real-world time is what gives the in-game currency its value.

"put pressure on players to encourage purchase of gems with dollars" Oh, here we come with the conspiracy theory angle. "Anet puts so many gold sinks into the game in order to make sure most players stay broke and have to buy gems and convert them to gold in order to afford anything at all." Again, baloney. Or maybe I should go a little Biden here and say malarkey. Either way, it's wrong. —Dr Ishmael 13:26, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

I assume you're being deliberately obtuse, since you must know full well that the ability to create money and objects from nothing and without exhausting any resource doesn't mean that everyone instantly has everything. If you're going to make wild extrapolations that are really straw men in disguise since I said nothing of the sort then there's little purpose in dialogue. Also, your bank balance was acquired under Anet's workalike-RL system, so it can't be used to infer anything about a virtual world free of such manipulation. Morgaine 13:34, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

I'll spell it out in case it helps. The property that makes a virtual world "non-compliant" with RL economics is creation of money and objects not from fixed-size resource pools into which money and objects eventually return and recirculate (which would approximately simulate RL), but from inexhaustible sources. The rate of creation is just a parameter and not fundamental, so a world having unlimited resources does not imply anything about how much money or objects individuals in the world will have. Morgaine 14:20, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

Sure, the source is inexhaustible, but the quantities of things available within the economy at any given time are not infinite. And thus the principle of supply and demand still applies. Given an infinite number of players with infinite amounts of time to invest in the game, yes, everything would be worthless because there would be infinite quantities available. But that is not reality. Reality is that there is a finite number of players who have a finite amount of time to invest in gathering in-game resources. The scarce resource is not the in-game stuff itself, it is player time. —Dr Ishmael 16:14, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

It's a good observation you make about the primary resource being player time. However, that correct observation doesn't support the view that the economy revolves around virtual money and goods, but instead it directly supports the view that I described in my last answer to Infinite about virtual economies needing to center on different scarce resources and not on virtual money and objects when the latter come from an inexhaustible pool.

So, I agree with your last point completely, but it does not in any way justify the use of gold sinks in this manufactured illusion of a money-based economy, which is the topic that we were discussing before it got derailed into virtual economics by the incorrect assertion that gold sinks are required for the economy to function properly. They're not required at all. That's just a manufactured behavior which is part of the manufactured illusion that this is a money-based economy. Morgaine 10:23, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

That's a string of lawyerish if I ever saw some. Why do virtual economies have to be different from real life? Social networking, credit cards, online shopping, digital purchases, etc. moves real life closer and closer to those same virtual economies. Any goldsink will have an impact on the economy of an MMO, it's a joke to say otherwise. Developers have been using goldsinks for years to fight off inflation and remove currency from exploits and botters. They provide stability to the economy, they aren't related as far as the design of the economy.--Relyk 10:26, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

If you don't want to contribute to a reasoned discussion about the topic, just don't. Name-calling like "That's a string of lawyerish" and "it's a joke" contributes no reasoning at all, neither pro nor con, and is better suited to the inanity in Youtube comments. Morgaine 08:42, 15 December 2012 (UTC)