Black Lion Trading Co Gold Tax on Items buy/sale

[Rubberkitten.3751]

For the longest time the game has this tax system where when you buy or sell your items you get taxed of some gold.

Why is there a tax when it goes to no where? Goes to nothing? Does it go to the employees of Lions Arch? Does it pay for the city streets that has no streets?

If there was a purpose, then okay but it still would be a stupid idea just to put one in. I know there are some mmo games that do t

I mean, its a waste of gold, it doesnt do anything, there is no lottery, its not going to the City like it would in life, it doesnt have a purpose but to charge gold and nothing of it is used.

Like as if the game really thrives off of gold and if there is no tax, the City would be in ruins or shut down the government.

Where does the gold thats taken from you go? I never heard of what the game does with it.

Thats my complaint, i think this gold tax in the Black Lion Trading Company store is rather meaningless, and doesnt need to be in the game if

there is no purpose. If its just for RP purposes, its a dumb idea.

Dont get confused with real life money, this is just a rant about your gold, you sell an item or you buy an item, there is a gold fee.

I never understood the gold fee besides the game just having it. This be the only complaint i have of the game. Just the gold going to

nothing.

Air.

Deleted.

This is not to agree or disagree but to just say something about it. If it were to be removed, im sure it wouldnt affect the game but it would

at least stop deleting gold from your hard work making it in the game. Just imagine you had sold something and it would be exactly the amount you need to

get something in the BLTO like a sword you need for example but then the tax takes a tiny bit away and you are like, NOO!

Now you have to go out and find something and sell it to recover that amount that was taken. Where? The cesspool of nothing...George Carlin

makes that joke, it was good.

 

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

It's a gold sink; something that's sorely needed to keep the economy in check.

[Remus Darkblight.1673]

1 hour ago, Rubberkitten.3751 said:

I mean, its a waste of gold, it doesnt do anything, there is no lottery, its not going to the City like it would in life, it doesnt have a purpose but to charge gold and nothing of it is used.

You kind of answered your own question there. The whole point is that it removes the gold from the game, it puts a dampener on inflation. It is important for any videogame economy to have sinks for gold and materials to keep the market afloat, the TP tax is just one such tool.

It also has a number of other effects on the market. For example, The fact you pay a tax means you can't easily buy up the lowest sell offers and immediately relist them for a profit while still undercutting everyone by a copper. Since you lost gold both in the purchase and the listing, you have to relist the item at least 15% above what you paid for it (excluding the tax) just to break even.

There are likely other derived effects of having a TP tax that are beyond the scope of a forum post, but the positive effects of it on the overall health of the game economy are reason enough to justify it's existence.

If it breaks your immersion to know that the gold just evaporates, just pretend it is to pay the debt for rebuilding Lions Arch or something.

[DeanBB.4268]

It goes to this guy. Blame him.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Evon_Gnashblade

[Danikat.8537]

7 hours ago, Rubberkitten.3751 said:

Where does the gold thats taken from you go? I never heard of what the game does with it.

Where does the gold you get from enemies, events and selling things to NPC merchants come from?

That's your answer - the game does not have a complete economy, but it still needs gold appearing from nowhere to be balanced out by gold disappearing into nowhere. If you kill a centaur and get some coin from him that's not money he earned (or even money he stole) that's continuing to circulate - it was created out of thin air when the game determined the drops. (It's the same for items.)

If gold was constantly entering the economy from no where and never being removed we'd see massive inflation, which actually was a problem in the early days of MMOs. The solution to that is gold sinks - things which take gold from players and remove it from the game instead of redistributing it. TP taxes are one example, waypoint fees are another and less common things like materials which have to be bought from crafting NPCs like tin and thermocatalytic reagent.

[Kiki.9450]

1 hour ago, DeanBB.4268 said:

It goes to this guy. Blame him.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Evon_Gnashblade

"EAT. THE. RICH."

[kharmin.7683]

I'm rich, you know.

[Ashantara.8731]

31 minutes ago, kharmin.7683 said:

I'm rich, you know.

This line never grows old. 😅

[IAmNotMatthew.1058]

How else would Evon Gnashblade keep up the infrastructure for same minute delivery, access to the store and trading site interface all over the world, even in the Domain of the Dead while also offering cosmetics - often - at great discounts without the ~15% tax? Not even Amazon has this kind of reliability and system reach.

[Solvar.7953]

The listing fee also encourages people to price their items to sell - if there was no listing fee, then people would list for 1 copper less than current amount (which lots of people do right now), and when the price drops, delist and relist for 1 copper less than the now current price.  With the listing fee, this costs you money, so you are more likely to either leave your item listed, hoping the price goes up, or be more aggressive in the initial listing (undercutting by more - how much really depends on the cost of the item) so that your item is more likely to sell and not get undercut.  So this stabilizes the market from people listing, delisting, selling for 1c less, repeating 50 times until their item finally sells.

 

[Danikat.8537]

8 minutes ago, Solvar.7953 said:

The listing fee also encourages people to price their items to sell - if there was no listing fee, then people would list for 1 copper less than current amount (which lots of people do right now), and when the price drops, delist and relist for 1 copper less than the now current price.  With the listing fee, this costs you money, so you are more likely to either leave your item listed, hoping the price goes up, or be more aggressive in the initial listing (undercutting by more - how much really depends on the cost of the item) so that your item is more likely to sell and not get undercut.  So this stabilizes the market from people listing, delisting, selling for 1c less, repeating 50 times until their item finally sells.

 

It also stops people from using the TP as extra bank space by doing the opposite - listing items for 10,000g knowing they'll never sell and they can simply delist them whenever they want it back.

[River Valley.2396]

10 hours ago, Inculpatus cedo.9234 said:

It's a gold sink; something that's sorely needed to keep the economy in check.

So you're saying real world taxes are also a gold sink designed to keep the economy in check?

(Yes I read the rest of OP's post, I found it too funny not to point it out.)

I wonder if this observation got me on a blacklist for this year's taxes.

Hm.

[yann.1946]

3 hours ago, IAmNotMatthew.1058 said:

How else would Evon Gnashblade keep up the infrastructure for same minute delivery, access to the store and trading site interface all over the world, even in the Domain of the Dead while also offering cosmetics - often - at great discounts without the ~15% tax? Not even Amazon has this kind of reliability and system reach.

True, Evon is a impressive entrepreneur. 

[yann.1946]

9 minutes ago, River Valley.2396 said:

So you're saying real world taxes are also a gold sink designed to keep the economy in check?

(Yes I read the rest of OP's post, I found it too funny not to point it out.)

I wonder if this observation got me on a blacklist for this year's taxes.

Hm.

This can a legit view if you are of the opinion that governments can create unlimited money.

But that goes outside the scope of this tread.

[Cernoch.8524]

You never pay any extra tax for buying an item. Only the seller pays 5% listing and later 10% selling tax if the item sells.
In general it does not make sense, golds goes nowhere but at the end it really helps keeping healthy economy. Without it it would be even easier to make golds by flipping for example.

[Sobx.1758]

The goal is to take some of the gold out of the game. Also I'd say it makes stupid sell bids less probable because you can't just blindly set something to 10k gold and then go 5 gold lower every day while losing nothing. Lack of tax would potentially make selling things harder because you'd end up with situation similar to the current buy bids: people undercutting each other by 1 copper while canceling the previous one for free.

[Remus Darkblight.1673]

13 hours ago, River Valley.2396 said:

So you're saying real world taxes are also a gold sink designed to keep the economy in check?

(Yes I read the rest of OP's post, I found it too funny not to point it out.)

I wonder if this observation got me on a blacklist for this year's taxes.

Hm.

Depends who you ask, of course we all know that real world taxes are supposed to go on public spending but it does feel like nought but a gold sink at times 😂

[Solvar.7953]

One difference vs real world is that in GW2, gold (and other items that you can sell for gold) are constantly getting created as you play the game.  It would be like if in real world, dollar bills just grew on plants and as you talk an afternoon walk, you could just pick a couple hundred dollars of bills off the plants.

Most governments limit the amount of money the produce to combat inflation.  Some (usually poorer) countries don't - government owes people $1 million?  Print $1 million and hand it out.  What tends to happen in those countries is money is basically worthless - that can of coke costs 10K in whatever the local currency is, and you don't want to hold on to money because that can of coke could cost 20K in a few weeks.

If GW2 had no way of removing money from the economy, it would be similar since there are lots of way money is added - merchant costs are fixed, but items on the trading post would be that much more expensive.  It could become viable to buy equipment for merchants for a few silver, knowing you can salvage them and then sell the materials for more than that.

 

[Randulf.7614]

It funds Evon Gnashblade’s fur softener cream

[Teknomancer.4895]

23 hours ago, yann.1946 said:

True, Evon is a impressive entrepreneur. 

I just wonder how he convinces all those Norn women to work for him for a few minutes, then die (apparently painfully, if the sounds they make are any indicator). 🤔

Edited January 10 by Teknomancer.4895
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