These past few days have been ones of healing in Guild Wars 2. Yes I have finished up most of Kryta now with the 100% completion of Bloodtide Coast, yet I went at a more relaxed pace. I got my cooking and artificing up above 200 too. It’s been much more relaxed for sure. This is a good thing.
Another good thing, so far I’ve dropped $40 on Guild Wars 2. $20 was necessary because I wanted a 6th character slot on launch day, and then $20 was on a whim because I had a neat gift card from a rebate, and why not. Regardless, ArenaNet has created only the second game ever where I have had glee in throwing money at them (another sophomore game being the other).
So what have I bought? No gold. I am still too much of a miser to go that route given the current exchange rate. I have bought quite a few miniatures. So far against the market it’s been a fool’s game. Out of 6 packs, I’ve received one rare (no exotics). So for about 70-90 silver (300 gems) per pack at six packs, I have maybe a gold’s worth of miniatures. Much like my other gaming hobby, Magic the Gathering, it appears that buying singles is the way to go. I was hoping to pull one exotic, but I am loping down the road of gambler’s fallacies now.
The thing I bought last night was the Cook’s Outfit, since it was on sale. So I am sitting on a rainy day fund of gems, but the Chef’s Outfit was 560 gems (~1.5 gold). I love how I was able to just cash in 16 silver to immediately pick up 60 gems so that I could stay at a nice round number in my stockpile. I love the gem exchange (and am not alone)!
The Cook’s Outfit was nice because it was a different type of gameplay. It had nothing to do with progression or really roleplaying. It was akin to goofing around. This is something I did a lot of in Guild Wars 1 (especially waiting to group up) that I haven’t had much of in Guild Wars 2.
Many players from Guild Wars 1 will remember items like Ghost-in-the-Box and fireworks that were just goofy. It appears that the town clothes with toys now incorporate those festive items as skills. For example, with the Cook’s Outfit I could smack the ground really hard with a frying pan, eat something then belch out fire, ice, or ooze, summon a charr sous chef (my favorite, I order him around too… I just wish he would respond “Yes, Chef†once in awhile and salute), and set myself on a grease fire. Once every ten minutes I can summon a pig roast. Players can go up and “f†it to “eatâ€, but it appeared bug or just for show since interacting with the pig roast didn’t seem to do anything.
For me, this was like a prelude to the events that I know are coming. The Pirate’s Outfit also has some neat toys. Massively’s Elisabeth reminded me of how awesome it is going to hear a voiced Mad King this Halloween. I cannot wait. I am hoping that ArenaNet will have more town toys available as gifts or in the gem store for Halloween. I’ll be very interested to see how they continue the story of the mysterious lich. And, that is apparently only the beginning.
–Ravious
What I don’t get with the pets is how you’re supposed to carry them with you when they are removed along with all the crafting mats whenever you do a collectibles cleanup. maybe am missing something here….but I like pets to actually come along as company. it would be nice to get access to that particular tab from anywhere.
I’ve spent 10euros so far, I really wanted extra bank space. Also considering the extra bag, although that isn’t such a big deal. and I bought some dyes with the leftover cash and got really lucky on scoring Midnight Fire right away :D
Don’t invisible bags or something like that lock them down?
Yup, there are special bags called “invisible” and stuff in those bags do not get deposited.
ohhhh…there we go. cheers! :)
One thing that’s puzzling me – do the Gems in the Exchange come from an infinite stack produced by ArenaNet or from a variable, finite pool of Gems players have purchased for real money and chosen to use to buy gold rather than spend in the store?
It is a finite pool. They stocked them with some amount at a certain exchange rate right at launch. This is why, for me, it so amazing that the exchange rate has held course. If the pool was being drained it should be skyrocketing up.
It confirms that people are buying gems for cash at a higher rate than are buying gems with gold.
Which, as you say, is amazing to me.
That hadn’t even occurred to me, ArenaNet priming the pump then standing back. Hmm, I already bought a second account to cover most of my storage needs for the foreseeable future but even so I think I will concentrate on getting some gold and buying gems as a matter of priority. The exchange rate can’t stay this low for long, surely?
Really?!? Finite pool of gems – wow! That is very cool actually. Where did you get that info?
I don’t think that is actually how this works. I am pretty sure Arenanet always acts as the middle man. If more people are selling gems than people are buying gems, Arenanet effectively is destroying gems and generating money (not taking into consideration the built in money sink right now), giving incentive for people to buy gems, since they lower the price at which they sell gems.
Now If more people start buying gems than people are selling gems, they start generating gems and destroying money, while giving players the incentive to sell gems or waiting to buy gems with money.
At the end of the day, they don’t make any extra profit or loss, since it will always balance itself out, but if players were to actually trade gems, you would have to be able to face a scenario where there is no money left to give the gemsellers or no gems left to give the gembuyers. Something that would not board well with the customers. Effectively you could say that players are trading them with each other though, since arenanet would only generate the more demanded item for a short period of time, destroying the excess when the market rebalances.
I do love the gem exchange, I’ve decided to bench my crafting and money needs and spent all the money I didn’t need for new armor, repairs and consumables on gems. I’ve bought a banktab and two charslots up until now and even though that could halt my progress pretty soon, I feel good about this. I like twinking, I’ll just make some money on an alt and send it back to the main, or bench the main entirely. After all, I’ve got time to get to par with the rest of players, but a gem course this low might never come again.
From how I understand it though ArenaNet does act as middle-man, just like they did in GW1 with the rare material traders… but they could still run out.
You also have to consider that it is not a 1 for 1 trade. Selling gems for gold will equal less gold than what it takes to buy that same amount of gems. So like 33 silver to buy 100 gems, and 100 gems will get you 26 silver.
That is the question I am always asking myself. Could they run out? And what happens if they run out? I’ll be honest, I would be pretty disappointed if I couldn’t buy or sell gems due to money or gems running out and would prefer arenanet to act as more than just a middle man.
“Another good thing, so far I’ve dropped $40 on Guild Wars 2. $20 was necessary because I wanted a 6th character slot on launch day”
What’d you spend the other $10/800 gems on? :) [character slot = $10/800 gems]
EDIT: And the gem exchange rate is totally messed up. Without farming or grinding, just selling materials rather than crafting (which I find just annoying and tedious to advance), it took less than a week to get 3000 gems for 3 character slots (2400 gems; so I can play one of each Profession) and another bank tab (600 gems).
Well when I was buying gems… I was like… why not buy more. Just in case, you know. ;)
Do we know for sure the Mad King is returning?
The original set the bar pretty high for holiday events but I’m trying to keep my hopes in check.
You know, if I were you I’d buy a second bank tab. And maybe a third one as well.
If you want to craft, bank space is pretty much a must.
I can’t actually figure out how to buy bank tabs, not sure where those even are on the shop :)
Bank tabs are too well hidden. Maybe you’ve noticed inventor bags have a “lock”, click on the lock and it costs 400 gems to unlock the bag slot.
Bank tabs have a lock that I swear is like predator-style invisible just below the edge of your bank slots. IIRC it costs 600 gems.
Look for the padlock icon in the lower right corner of the bottom bank tab.