An Economist Looks at Tyria: GW2 Prices and Deflation

[Cynn.1659]

@mauried.5608 said:

Mithril ingots are almost worthless, which is surprising because in most MMOs that have mithril, its normally one of the rarest and most difficult to find metals.

Forget about mithril, copper is worth more than orichalcum.

[Mokk.2397]

Since the majority of players are level 80 the drops tend to be high level .As it is now ,the level of mats is based on the level of the item being salvaged regardless of the craftsmanship (white ,blue ,green ,gold) .This tends to cause a surplus of high level (5-6) materials .Level 1 mats are rarely used and Level 2 -4 mats have reached premium prices .This really started with ascended crafting.And it's made even more skewed with the legendary crafting.On top we get a even higher deflation of high level mats occurring with the increasing number of level 80 areas with the expansions.I would like to see a more randomization of what mats are produced from salvaging regardless of the level of the item being salvaged.

[Ensign.2189]

There should be some very modest inflation in the system from the monthly 2% gold find boost. A lot of the gold produced by the game is unaffected by this (junk drops), but the trickle of cash drops should be a modest but constant increase in the rate of gold generation.

Big cash direct sinks like the griffon make gold act more like a commodity than a currency. That's good IRL when you could use it to trade, or to make jewelry. It has its own consumption value! I would see that as a large, temporary liquidity shock where players suddenly want a lot more cash than they did before. That would push prices down in the short term. In the longer term that should wash out and the transaction fees should dominate again.

[Ringlin.1863]

@"Rauderi.8706" said:Not just T6, of course... there are plenty of other "left behind" mats (as you explained earlier) that are one or near the vendor floor. Or, heck, anything we have sitting in piles of 250 (or 500+...) which includes pink-tier items with very little use (airship oil, auric dust, etc) could be roped into a single, once-per-day trading thing, just so that ANet doesn't keep having to make eaters and other accretion tactics to keep up with them.

That's a good idea.

 

 

 

@Kalendraf.9521 said:Regarding the amount of gold in the system, I didn't see much mention about gold sinks... Each player opting to get the griffon mount will suck 250 gold out of the system.

Good thinking. I haven't gotten that far and didn't consider it, nor am I familiar with any similar endgame expenses.

Still, to put that in perspective, that's what Anet pulls out of the economy for every 1700 gold spent on the TP - what 1000 players buy in one day if each spend 1.7 gold. The actual figures have got to much higher. So while gold sinks do matter, TP fees remain the biggest source of gold reduction.

If I were Anet, every day I'd look at the TP fees compared to the value of new items added via rewards. The latter needs to be larger for players to feel they're 'getting ahead' financially, since a certain amount of new items and materials will go into storage or crafting or Soulbound use.

 

 

 

@mauried.5608 said:To me , a gold sink is a mechanism that takes gold out of the economy, but gives you nothing in return, ie the equivalent of taxes in RL.

I'm carefully trying to avoid politics, but I should point out that taxes get spent on salaries and purchases. Governments don't 'save' the way some households do (and can't, actually, but that's for another discussion).

In any case, you're quite right about the trouble with gold sinks that become grinds. I enjoyed my time in WoW, very much, but eventually it felt too much like work.

 

 

 

@Mokk.2397 said:I would like to see a more randomization of what mats are produced from salvaging regardless of the level of the item being salvaged.

That's another clever way to reduce a glut at a certain tier, without reducing drop rates overall.

 

 

 

@Ensign.2189 said:There should be some very modest inflation in the system from the monthly 2% gold find boost.

Do any veterans here have a sense of how much of their gold comes from drops versus TP sale of items? 2% monthly adds up if that's a significant source.

[Sojourner.4621]

@"mauried.5608" said:It would be a bit better to define what gold sinks are .To me , a gold sink is a mechanism that takes gold out of the economy, but gives you nothing in return, ie the equivalent of taxes in RL.Gold sinks which remove gold , but give the player something in return will eventually fail, because players will eventually have all they want, unless the game goes down the WOW road and introduces a gear and weapon grind, along with a never ending level cap.Theres a limit on how much players will ultimately spend on cosmetics, and after you have made 20+ legendary weapons there isnt too much left to buy that you actually need.There are ways of introducing gold sinks that last forever, but most players wont like them.eg Food for your character.If your character doesnt consume sufficient food each day, they die from malnutrition.Same goes for your mount, just needs lots more food.Item durability.Weapons and armour wear out over time , and eventually have to be replaced, as repair costs become prohibitive the older the gear is.Obviously the better the weapons and gear in the first place , the longer they last.

It doesn't have to give you nothing in return, but it does have to give you something that a) you can't get somewhere else, and b) you will want to continue getting over and over again. If it gives nothing at all, there is no reason to spend gold on it, by definition. Even if there is a survival mechanism, buying food to keep from starving is still by definition getting something. The biggest issue is there really isn't any kind of gold sync in the game that meets that criteria. Most of the "syncs" that exist and take a large amount of gold out of the economy... really just aren't enough. 250g for a griffon may seem a lot, but I have spent tens of thousands of gold long before the griffon ever came out (and not on gold syncs, but rather to other players) and so in the grand scheme 250g is actually just a drop in the bucket... and it isn't like anyone is spending that 250 more than once. It doesn't continue to remove gold from the economy, so gold keeps being created the wealthy become wealthier and it doesn't go anywhere.

[zerorogue.9410]

@Ringlin.1863 said:

@"juhani.5361" said:From my understanding the gems-to-gold conversion process is due to players trading their gold through the market for purchased gems from another player. So, a wealth transfer from player to player. This process doesn't generate new gold, but instead re-allocates it. Did I get this wrong?

Good point, and I've edited my OP to clarify. You're exactly right about the exchange you mention: any exchange between players does not add gold to the economy.

There is gold being made from the gems. Gem<>Gold prices are set biased on two pools of gems and gold. When someone exchanges between gold and gems, it takes out of one of the pools and the price shifts accordingly. (EG. trading in x gold for 100 gems takes 100 gems out of the trading pool and the price changes biased on remaining ratio between gold pool and gem pool.)

This does not take into account gem purchases from real currency and other sources. For instance the price of gems dropped from 27g to 23g per 100 the week after path of fire was released as many bought the ultimate edition that had 2000 gems in it. Most gems are burnt up in gem-store purchases but some are converted to gold.

On to the main topic, this is a well thought out post.

I always see game economies in reverse as real world economies. Resources the players collect will never be worthless, Npc merchants will always buy that ectoplasm from you for 2 Silver 56 Copper, you would be silly to sell it for that price currently but that price sets a limit on the value of that item. This safety net allows players to know their items will always have value, so they never need to sell right away unless there is a reason.

extra credits(a youtube series about game design) made a few really good videos on this.

[Ensign.2189]

@Ringlin.1863 said:I'm carefully trying to avoid politics, but I should point out that taxes get spent on salaries and purchases. Governments don't 'save' the way some households do (and can't, actually, but that's for another discussion).

From a certain perspective, the only point of taxes in a modern currency regime is to keep inflation in check, as the government in no sense needs to 'raise' money from taxes to pay for spending. So in that sense TP taxes are identical to real world taxes - they keep inflation in check.

Do any veterans here have a sense of how much of their gold comes from drops versus TP sale of items? 2% monthly adds up if that's a significant source.

It'll depend heavily on play; fractals kicks out a lot of raw gold for instance. Still you can ballpark it off of sources and sinks needing to balance out in the long run - about 15% of income is in the form of gold, enough to cover the TP costs of selling the goods to another player. It'll deviate from that a bit for savings of both currency and goods, and from resellers, but it'll be close to that.

The 2% isn't a huge deal from drops, since most gold from drops is from junk items - and junk drops decrease with magic find. The net effect might actually be currency drops decreasing over time.

[Tanner Blackfeather.6509]

@zerorogue.9410 said:There is gold being made from the gems.

That's the second time in this thread someone has made that claim. Do you have any source showing that the currency exchange generates new gold as opposed to its stated function of storing and releasing gold.

Repeating my post from upthread for clarity:

@Tanner Blackfeather.6509 said:

@Sojourner.4621 said:[...] and there is never a scenario where the system will refuse to give you gold for your gems because no one is actually buying them. Any time more people are exchanging gems for gold than there are people exchanging gold for gems, this system still creates gold and puts it in to the economy (and the exchange rate changes accordingly).

Do you have a source on that? Because everything I've read says that there was an initial seed of gems and gold in the exchange at launch, but the exchange

generates

neither gold nor gems. The algorithm sets exchange rates in such a way as to be practically impossible to empty out the pool of either.

[BunjiKugashira.9754]

@Tanner Blackfeather.6509 said:

@zerorogue.9410 said:There is gold being made from the gems.

That's the second time in this thread someone has made that claim. Do you have any source showing that the currency exchange

generates new gold

as opposed to its stated function of

storing and releasing

gold.

Repeating my post from upthread for clarity:

@Tanner Blackfeather.6509 said:

@Sojourner.4621 said:[...] and there is never a scenario where the system will refuse to give you gold for your gems because no one is actually buying them. Any time more people are exchanging gems for gold than there are people exchanging gold for gems, this system still creates gold and puts it in to the economy (and the exchange rate changes accordingly).

Do you have a source on that? Because everything I've read says that there was an initial seed of gems and gold in the exchange at launch, but the exchange

generates

neither gold nor gems. The algorithm sets exchange rates in such a way as to be practically impossible to empty out the pool of either.

I guess it depends on whether you consider the gold-pool a part of the economy or something external.If you consider the pool to be part of the economy, the gold-gem-exchange only removes gold from the economy via fees.If you consider the pool to be external, the gold-gem-exchange both generates and removes gold from the economy. Still, on average it removes more gold than it creates.

[mauried.5608]

The NPC merchants are a bit of a problem to the economy.Firstly they will always buy your junk regardless of how much of the same junk previous players have sold to them, and the gold they pay you for the junk comes from thin air.Secondly, they resemble a cartel, in that every merchant , regardless of where they are always gives the same amount of gold as all the others.It would interesting to know how much gold enters the game everyday from merchant sales, as compared with the amount of gold removed from the game from TP sales.If TP prices dip too low, then the 15% tax thats applied on sales also gets lower, so the TP removes less gold from the game with every transaction, but the amount of gold entering the game from the merchants either stays the same or goes up, as items which could be sold previously on the TP now cant as there are no buyers.Id like to see some kind of rudimentary supply / demand formula for the merchants, so when too much of the same stuff has been sold to them, they refuse to buy any more, for a random time period.

[Tanner Blackfeather.6509]

@BunjiKugashira.9754 said:

@Tanner Blackfeather.6509 said:

@zerorogue.9410 said:There is gold being made from the gems.

That's the second time in this thread someone has made that claim. Do you have any source showing that the currency exchange

generates new gold

as opposed to its stated function of

storing and releasing

gold.

Repeating my post from upthread for clarity:

@Tanner Blackfeather.6509 said:

@Sojourner.4621 said:[...] and there is never a scenario where the system will refuse to give you gold for your gems because no one is actually buying them. Any time more people are exchanging gems for gold than there are people exchanging gold for gems, this system still creates gold and puts it in to the economy (and the exchange rate changes accordingly).

Do you have a source on that? Because everything I've read says that there was an initial seed of gems and gold in the exchange at launch, but the exchange

generates

neither gold nor gems. The algorithm sets exchange rates in such a way as to be practically impossible to empty out the pool of either.

I guess it depends on whether you consider the gold-pool a part of the economy or something external.If you consider the pool to be part of the economy, the gold-gem-exchange only removes gold from the economy via fees.If you consider the pool to be external, the gold-gem-exchange both generates and removes gold from the economy. Still, on average it removes more gold than it creates.

I consider it no more removed from the econony than the gold in the account of a player on hiatus. It can reenter circulation at a moments notice, and is unlikely to have a noticeable inflationary effect even in periods of more gold being 'withdrawn' than are 'deposited'.

[Torolan.5816]

+1 for both how you wrote this post and especially the Simpson comparision and the ultimate answer to the question if economics is an exact science or a mish mash of social, political and mathematical opinions which are barked out by quick to anger economists with a lot of bravado but usually not much substance or severe disadvantages.

I also want to add that it is not Darryl Strawberry that wins the game for the Isotopes in the end but Homer. Why? Because Mr Burns is a weird old man who likes to look at numbers and doesn´t care that Darryl Strawberry is famous. Maybe this would also be something for economists instead of hanging feverishly at the lips of neo capitalism and eternal growth.

[zerorogue.9410]

@Tanner Blackfeather.6509 said:

@"zerorogue.9410" said:There is gold being made from the gems.

That's the second time in this thread someone has made that claim. Do you have any source showing that the currency exchange

generates new gold

as opposed to its stated function of

storing and releasing

gold.

From : https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/2xtjc7/psa_how_gems_work/cp3gd2a/

Jhon Smith said:To be clear. The exchange has a supply of both Gems and Gold. When you trade to the exchange you influence the supply of each. The exchange rate is relative to current supply of each. The price changes geometrically as one pool empties creating a better exchange rate for the low supplied currency. For this reason it's VERY difficult for the exchange to run out of currency. The supplies are contained entirely within the exchange. Players farming gold for personal uses would not have an effect until they exchanged that gold for gems.

Technically gold is not created, rather the value of the gold is being decreased. I wanted to make sure people understood that the gold<>gems exchange is not a neutral exchange, but it is changing the value of gold.

[Talindra.4958]

Interesting write up. As far as many ppl feel how items prices drop significantly is affecting them.. it doesn't for me. I spend the gold when I need to.. farm the item I need when I need to.. take my time on the game at the pace I can manage while still enjoying the game as it intended. So there's no big deal. The only income my character get in game is via raids and fractal. I don't do any other farming... I see virtual gold as a number and use it anytime for ap as much as I can afford. Achievements and points are my primary focus in this game. :)I do guild hall and home instance farm daily so to collect items as I go and keep for any future need.

[Sojourner.4621]

@zerorogue.9410 said:

@Tanner Blackfeather.6509 said:

@zerorogue.9410 said:There is gold being made from the gems.

That's the second time in this thread someone has made that claim. Do you have any source showing that the currency exchange

generates new gold

as opposed to its stated function of

storing and releasing

gold.

From :

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/2xtjc7/psa_how_gems_work/cp3gd2a/

Jhon Smith said:To be clear. The exchange has a supply of both Gems and Gold. When you trade to the exchange you influence the supply of each. The exchange rate is relative to current supply of each. The price changes geometrically as one pool empties creating a better exchange rate for the low supplied currency. For this reason it's VERY difficult for the exchange to run out of currency. The supplies are contained entirely within the exchange. Players farming gold for personal uses would not have an effect until they exchanged that gold for gems.

Technically gold is not created, rather the value of the gold is being decreased. I wanted to make sure people understood that the gold<>gems exchange is not a neutral exchange, but it is changing the value of gold.

There is definitely a maximum and minimum exchange rate, and those playing the market since launch have seen both... It is VERY unlikely that it will ever create gold, but in the VERY unlikely scenario that the exchange did somehow run out (people completely stop trading one way or the other) ANet would not simply stop allowing players to make the exchange, and would add a new starting pool to the economy. Additionally when the game launched the pool was independently created gold for this specific purpose. I can say we haven't hit anywhere close to the height of the exchange rate in a long time, and in fact have sat on the low end for years, so as they stated the only way for this to happen would be... basically no one ever exchanging gold for gems ever again. It's a hypothetical state where it could create new gold in to the economy, and only a technicality.

[Trevor Boyer.6524]

Good read, great job.

[Tanner Blackfeather.6509]

@Sojourner.4621 said:

@zerorogue.9410 said:

@Tanner Blackfeather.6509 said:

@zerorogue.9410 said:There is gold being made from the gems.

That's the second time in this thread someone has made that claim. Do you have any source showing that the currency exchange

generates new gold

as opposed to its stated function of

storing and releasing

gold.

From :

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/2xtjc7/psa_how_gems_work/cp3gd2a/

Jhon Smith said:To be clear. The exchange has a supply of both Gems and Gold. When you trade to the exchange you influence the supply of each. The exchange rate is relative to current supply of each. The price changes geometrically as one pool empties creating a better exchange rate for the low supplied currency. For this reason it's VERY difficult for the exchange to run out of currency. The supplies are contained entirely within the exchange. Players farming gold for personal uses would not have an effect until they exchanged that gold for gems.

Technically gold is not created, rather the value of the gold is being decreased. I wanted to make sure people understood that the gold<>gems exchange is not a neutral exchange, but it is changing the value of gold.

There is definitely a maximum and minimum exchange rate, and those playing the market since launch have seen both... It is VERY unlikely that it will ever create gold, but in the VERY unlikely scenario that the exchange did somehow run out (people completely stop trading one way or the other) ANet would not simply stop allowing players to make the exchange, and would add a new starting pool to the economy. Additionally when the game launched the pool was independently created gold for this specific purpose. I can say we haven't hit anywhere close to the height of the exchange rate in a long time, and in fact have sat on the low end for years, so as they stated the only way for this to happen would be... basically no one ever exchanging gold for gems ever again. It's a hypothetical state where it could create new gold in to the economy, and only a technicality.

Interesting, because I'm not convinced the historical API data for the gem exchange supports you there. But I've absolutely not detail-studied it enough to argue the point, so conceding!

I just want to make sure no one is led to believe that the exchange is a relevant factor in the actual day-to-day creation of gold.

[Gemnaid.4219]

Too much overthinking.

[Daddicus.6128]

There's a third source of deflation: an increase in the amount of materials available for selling.

What I mean is that you can only store so much stuff (2000 of each material). For me, I hoard everything, until I can no longer do so. This usually occurs with 2000 unrefined materials and another 2000 refined materials (of the same type, like ore and ingots). Once I reach 2000 of each, I either have to sell them, use them or store them in bank slots.

Storing them isn't cost-effective, and there aren't enough things for me to build. So, I sell them.

ANet alluded to this in a recent post, at the very beginning of PoF. They kept some new materials out of the list of storable materials, to force this upon players. Their reason was so that the BLTC would have a realistic price, rather than an artificially high price due to lack of the mats (because they would be going into storage). Their logic was flawed*, but that's their position.

* Flawed because all that action does is delay the onset of price fluctuation. It doesn't actually change the math.

[Daddicus.6128]

@"juhani.5361" said:Just wanted to say, I really enjoyed your analysis :) I did have a question with one point you made:

It can also come from gold bought with real-world money (or gems bought with real-world money).

From my understanding the gems-to-gold conversion process is due to players trading their gold through the market for purchased gems from another player. So, a wealth transfer from player to player. This process doesn't generate new gold, but instead re-allocates it. Did I get this wrong? I'm not an economist at all-- barely passed Econ 101-- so beyond broad concepts, I'm sort of floundering in the dark.

Not quite. Trading gold for gems (or vice-versa) is indeed not an increase or decrease.

However, whenever a player spends real money to buy gems, that causes "gold" to flow into the system

NOTE: This assumes that the markets are roughly fair. In other words, if I buy anything that has value in-game (like boosters or bag slots), the gem value approximates the actual in-game value of the item.

One other thing: the 15% tax on gold/gem trading does remove gold and gems from the game.

[zerorogue.9410]

@Sojourner.4621 said:There is definitely a maximum and minimum exchange rate, and those playing the market since launch have seen both... It is VERY unlikely that it will ever create gold, but in the VERY unlikely scenario that the exchange did somehow run out (people completely stop trading one way or the other) ANet would not simply stop allowing players to make the exchange, and would add a new starting pool to the economy. Additionally when the game launched the pool was independently created gold for this specific purpose. I can say we haven't hit anywhere close to the height of the exchange rate in a long time, and in fact have sat on the low end for years, so as they stated the only way for this to happen would be... basically no one ever exchanging gold for gems ever again. It's a hypothetical state where it could create new gold in to the economy, and only a technicality.There really isn't a maximum, rather the system is designed to never have either pool empty entirely. Let me put this to example. (disclaimer: I'm not an anet dev nor do I know the formulas, but this is a basic way of doing this.)

buying 1 gem = goldPool / gemPool standardValue 0.85whereasgemPool goldPool = number of gems or gold in their respective pools.standardValue = a base value of gems when they are equalthe 0.85 is the 15% tax on all purchases in the exchange.

With this formula as the pools empty the value of the item skyrockets.

buying 1 gem = 500 / 500 1g 0.85 = 85 silverbuying 1 gem = 500 / 300 1g 0.85 = 1 gold 42 silverbuying 1 gem = 500 / 100 1g 0.85 = 4 gold 25 silver

This means as the gem pool empties the value of selling gems for gold rises and people refill the pool.conversely as the gold pool empties the value of buying gems lowers more people buy gems, and the gold pool refills.

The real formula for this will likely have a bit of tweaking, but should have the same principal.

[Tanner Blackfeather.6509]

@zerorogue.9410 said:

@Sojourner.4621 said:There is definitely a maximum and minimum exchange rate, and those playing the market since launch have seen both... It is VERY unlikely that it will ever create gold, but in the VERY unlikely scenario that the exchange did somehow run out (people completely stop trading one way or the other) ANet would not simply stop allowing players to make the exchange, and would add a new starting pool to the economy. Additionally when the game launched the pool was independently created gold for this specific purpose. I can say we haven't hit anywhere close to the height of the exchange rate in a long time, and in fact have sat on the low end for years, so as they stated the only way for this to happen would be... basically no one ever exchanging gold for gems ever again. It's a hypothetical state where it could create new gold in to the economy, and only a technicality.There really isn't a maximum, rather the system is designed to never have either pool empty entirely. Let me put this to example. (disclaimer: I'm not an anet dev nor do I know the formulas, but this is a basic way of doing this.)

buying 1 gem = goldPool / gemPool

standardValue

0.85whereasgemPool goldPool = number of gems or gold in their respective pools.standardValue = a base value of gems when they are equalthe 0.85 is the 15% tax on all purchases in the exchange.

With this formula as the pools empty the value of the item skyrockets.

buying 1 gem = 500 / 500

1g

0.85 = 85 silverbuying 1 gem = 500 / 300

1g

0.85 = 1 gold 42 silverbuying 1 gem = 500 / 100

1g

0.85 = 4 gold 25 silver

This means as the gem pool empties the value of selling gems for gold rises and people refill the pool.conversely as the gold pool empties the value of buying gems lowers more people buy gems, and the gold pool refills.

The real formula for this will likely have a bit of tweaking, but should have the same principal.

This is precisely how I've understood it to function (obviously with more involved calculations etc). This should make it

• Practically impossible to afford the last few scraps out of either pool unless both pools are much smaller than now (like at launch)
• Very improbable that we'll ever get down to those last few scraps, as the conversion rate becomes far too enticing in the opposite direction; again unless both pools are much diminished.

[mauried.5608]

The value of gold has actually gone up, because 1 gold now buys you more stuff than 6 months ago.But to get 1 gold you dont have to do anymore than you did 6 months ago.eg do the dailies, you get 2 gold, same as 6 months ago.Also the npc vendors will give you exactly the same for the same junk as they did 6 months ago.So effectively your income has gone up, ie you have been given a pay rise, even though in numerical terms your income has remained the same.The only TP item that I could find that isnt following this trend is mystic coins which seem to have stayed the same, but thats likley due to the strange way you get them.

[Etterwyn.5263]

@Daddicus.6128 said:There's a third source of deflation: an increase in the amount of materials available for selling.

What I mean is that you can only store so much stuff (2000 of each material). For me, I hoard everything, until I can no longer do so. This usually occurs with 2000 unrefined materials and another 2000 refined materials (of the same type, like ore and ingots). Once I reach 2000 of each, I either have to sell them, use them or store them in bank slots.

Storing them isn't cost-effective, and there aren't enough things for me to build. So, I sell them.

ANet alluded to this in a recent post, at the very beginning of PoF. They kept some new materials out of the list of storable materials, to force this upon players. Their reason was so that the BLTC would have a realistic price, rather than an artificially high price due to lack of the mats (because they would be going into storage). Their logic was flawed*, but that's their position.

* Flawed because all that action does is delay the onset of price fluctuation. It doesn't actually change the math.

The materials influx is huge. I have thousands upon thousands of unidentified gears that I just don't have time to go through yet. This past weekend I upped my MF in Silverwastes and at least went through the stack of rares that I had accumulated. Ha! I though I had accomplished something... until I searched all my toons and found out I had over 500 more rare unid's I had not noticed! :s

[Rauderi.8706]

@"Sojourner.4621" said:The biggest issue is there really isn't any kind of gold sync in the game that meets that criteria. Most of the "syncs" that exist and take a large amount of gold out of the economy... really just aren't enough. 250g for a griffon may seem a lot, but I have spent tens of thousands of gold long before the griffon ever came out (and not on gold syncs, but rather to other players) and so in the grand scheme 250g is actually just a drop in the bucket... and it isn't like anyone is spending that 250 more than once. It doesn't continue to remove gold from the economy, so gold keeps being created the wealthy become wealthier and it doesn't go anywhere.

250g for the griffon was a speed bump for me. I shoveled off a few Mystic Coins (back up to my 500 cap, by the way), and now I'm sitting on 400g again. I don't even do anything all that interesting (dailies, sell stray goods to the market) for the gold I have on hand. Granted, I'm slated to work on three legendary weapons ( ;_; I don't wanna WvW...) and I'm not immediately buying all the stuff I need, so I'm also anticipating several thousand gold of expenses.

Which is to say, ANet is leaning extra hard on these specific material grinds to keep some materials aloft while the rest are giving little value.