x(wai)x

@Deliverator

That's a good question. The event's probably on a timer though. That seems to be their default fail condition for events that wouldn't otherwise seem to have one. So if the NPCs wander into a pack of mobs and get killed and no one helps/rezzes them, or if that happens too many times and they take too long to reach the destination, then the event fails.

@Eamil

Also, my point about you underestimating was in response to your assertion that "if making gold through normal gameplay is easy, the gem system will fail." Even with gold flowing like water in WoW today, gold-farming companies are making bank. And I have no idea how you can say that gold was as plentiful in TBC as it is now. Those months I spent farming 5k for epic flight via dailies seem to contradict that.

@(Unverified)

I thought your point was that "Selling gems for RL money is basically saying 'You know, making the gold in game just isn't going to be fun so here's a shortcut for you.'" If your actual point was what you just said, that's a whole different kettle of fish.

@(Unverified)

"Actually 20k was nothing in WoW. You got that many times over through normal gameplay, and in very little time. Gold in WoW is so plentiful it's a joke."

It is now. It was considerably less so then (although towards the end of Wrath it was getting pretty bad).

"And if I'm underestimating, that just proves my point even more. "

You're going to have to explain that one.

@(Unverified)

I think you're underestimating how many people would pay for a shortcut to certain REALLY expensive items, even if those items don't affect gameplay.

Think of the 20k gold caravan mammoth in WoW. When it was introduced, 20k was a TON of money. I have no doubt people would have paid for a shortcut to that (or indeed that many people did), even if they actually enjoyed doing dailies for money, because making 20k gold that way would still take a long time.

The same goes for GW2. There will be a few things that cost a ton of money, and yes you will have to save up money for them. That's not unusual. It ALSO doesn't imply that the game isn't fun, just that someone didn't feel like waiting until they'd earned 1 million gold to buy their solid diamond armor.

@(Unverified)

Actually, this is the part of your argument I'm failing to understand so let me ask you another question:

"Let's be honest, if making the gold needed was possible through normal enjoyable gameplay, then selling gems would be doomed to fail"

Why?

@(Unverified)

"Because, if the gold can be gotten through normal enjoyable game play to purchase the gem, no sane person would spend RL money on them."

Except if NO ONE spends RL money on them, then no gems will exist in the game, because no one will have bought them to sell them for gold.

Therefore if no one spends RL money on them, you will not be able to get them for gold. Someone, somewhere, has to spend RL money in order for you to buy gems for gold.

@(Unverified)

Let me ask you this: Why would the devs care if I use gold to buy gems from someone else to buy something in the cash shop rather than buy it in the cash shop myself? Either way the devs get paid - if I buy the gems with gold, the person who sold them to me paid for those gems himself.

@Deliverator

Did you miss my point, or are you suggesting they're going to tweak gold rewards on the fly based on the gem market? Gems could go for 1,000g per on release and then tank to 10g per six months later, and regardless of how easy/hard they make it to farm gold, it would be quite a lot easier to farm 10g than 1,000.

If you're just saying they'll make it really hard to get gold, that doesn't really matter as far as determining where the market will settle. If it's hard to farm gold, prices won't be as high as if it's easy to farm gold, because people won't be willing to pay nearly as much for them.

@Irem I don't see that as a related issue, to be honest. If they want to implement controversial microtransactions they'll just do it. I don't see how the presence or absence of gems/PLEX/whatever affects that.