Why is the Permanent Trading Post Express Contract so valuable?

[chrisjfinlay.5614]

Not that I'm complaining as I got one from a BLC last night and sold it...

However, I don't understand quite why it goes for ~840G sell instantly, with other sellers looking for 1000+G. Even if you went back to Lion's Arch once a day to pick up all your items and gold from the TP, it's about 3-4s each way. Rounding that up to 10s round trip for the ease of working this out (which is way higher than it actually costs, it's closer to 6-7s), that's 8400-10000 round trips before the item pays for itself! And considering there's usually somewhere close to where you are that's got a trading post and is cheaper to get to...

It just strikes me as odd, is all.

[Morozzko.2136]

it is vip item, if u want u can buy legendary weapon, but if u have 10 32slot bags, full legendary gear, u cant spend time to be more shiny

[costepj.5120]

@chrisjfinlay.5614 said:Not that I'm complaining as I got one from a BLC last night and sold it...

However, I don't understand quite why it goes for ~840G sell instantly, with other sellers looking for 1000+G. Even if you went back to Lion's Arch once a day to pick up all your items and gold from the TP, it's about 3-4s each way. Rounding that up to 10s round trip for the ease of working this out (which is way higher than it actually costs, it's closer to 6-7s), that's 8400-10000 round trips before the item pays for itself! And considering there's usually somewhere close to where you are that's got a trading post and is cheaper to get to...

It just strikes me as odd, is all.

Anyone can pop into the PVP lobby and access the trading post, then return to where they were. At no cost. You can do the same with the Mistlock Sanctuary, which at 1000 gems is only about 300 gold and offers additional convenience. The only advantage of the permanent contract is if you are in the middle of an instance and run out of something. But that's surely not going to be a frequent scenario!

[Ameepa.6793]

Because permanent contracts are nice and convenient to have! No other reason needed.

[circuitnerd.5863]

The price is so high mainly due to it being a very rare drop from a black lion chest. And keys for those aren't cheap either. Whether it be time with map completion/reward tracks or real money. Also it offers the ultimate convenience. While most probably feel they don't need it cause it's really not necessary with towns and such, it would be nice to have inside a dungeon, fractal, raid or any instance.

[Steve The Cynic.3217]

@costepj.5120 said:

@"chrisjfinlay.5614" said:Not that I'm complaining as I got one from a BLC last night and sold it...

However, I don't understand quite why it goes for ~840G sell instantly, with other sellers looking for 1000+G. Even if you went back to Lion's Arch once a day to pick up all your items and gold from the TP, it's about 3-4s each way. Rounding that up to 10s round trip for the ease of working this out (which is way higher than it actually costs, it's closer to 6-7s), that's 8400-10000 round trips before the item pays for itself! And considering there's usually somewhere close to where you are that's got a trading post and is cheaper to get to...

It just strikes me as odd, is all.

Anyone can pop into the PVP lobby and access the trading post, then return to where they were. At no cost. You can do the same with the Mistlock Sanctuary, which at 1000 gems is only about 300 gold and offers additional convenience. The only advantage of the permanent contract is if you are in the middle of an instance and run out of something. But that's surely not going to be a frequent scenario!

That's not the only advantage. Pulling up the contract NPC takes essentially zero time, and notably isn't "open inventory, click Mistlock, wait for it to load, run over to the TP, collect your stuff or your money, run back to the portal, click 'My previous map', wait for your previous map to load". So it saves two loading screens and a bit of running around.

[costepj.5120]

Fair enough. But my game play never requires me to make emergency TP visits. About once a month I go and claim my gold from sales :)If a permanent contract dropped for me, I'd list it for sale in a heartbeat!

[Pifil.5193]

I would guess that for the people who play the TP enough to want one the price isn't that much of a factor and the time savings you get from not changing instance (and possibly being put back into a different megaserver) adds up.

Ultimately though, you don't need gold for much in this game so some people just get to the stage where they're completing their account, they buy nodes for their home instance, they buy these convenience items.

[Just a flesh wound.3589]

I’m going to agree with the convenience argument. After a certain amount of time your chars are geared up, you have the look you want and you're making gold but the things you want to buy are fewer. As the amount of gold you have goes up then at that time convenience starts becoming more important than the gold you have. Some people have thousands of gold and figure, why not buy a permanent TP. They can always get more gold again.

[TamX.1870]

I agree with convenience argument, and that special items have special prices and that they are not necessarily among the top ten of your shopping list, but things you start considering when you already have all :) Anyways, trading post express in general is also nice if you are doing heavy crafting, so that you can place TP access next to crafting station and no need to run around when you forget something, which closes crafting tab, even in Mistlock Sanctuary. So I could guess people who do that a lot, might consider permanent TP access at some point for ultimate comfort? :)

[Zephyr.5382]

These permanent contracts rose to obscene prices once the shared inventory slots became a thing. The Permanent Bank Access Contract went from 928g to 2133g, and the TP Express Contract from 476g to 716g, basically overnight. I invested way early and paid probably 400g and 200g for each, respectively.

http://www.gw2spidy.com/item/35984http://www.gw2spidy.com/item/35986

These items are priceless, in my opinion, when, for example, you've been waiting a half hour+ for Teq or some other meta event and forgot a crucial item from your bank and/or need food from the TP. And you can't leave the map for risk of not getting back in.

[Zaraki.5784]

Merchant and Bank are way more useful contracts.

[Illconceived Was Na.9781]

Notice that the repair contract goes for over 600 gold. That's the height of uselessness, since there is almost no one in the game who breaks armor 8 times before passing close to repair anvil or NPC. (Or those too new to realize how unimportant damaged armor is, or how easy it is to repair... they aren't likely to have that much gold.)

There's only ever a single reason for high market prices: the demand exceeds the supply substantial. In the case of contracts, there are ~10-30 of each on the TP at any given time, and 1000s and 1000s of players who can afford to pay for them. At a certain point, the wealthiest players in the game simply run out of stuff to spend on, so they are willing to toss out 500-1000g on an item simply because they don't have it yet.

Think of it as a collector's item, like a mini (also mostly useless): some people love collecting, and some don't.

Oh and yeah, sure, those people who do a lot of trading and own a TP Express contract say that it's well worth the money to save them the aggravation many, many times a day. It's not so much about the time, it's about the constant interruption.

[SlippyCheeze.5483]

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:Oh and yeah, sure, those people who do a lot of trading and own a TP Express contract say that it's well worth the money to save them the aggravation many, many times a day. It's not so much about the time, it's about the constant interruption.

Saves walking from crafting station to trader, and back, when buying materials, too. Very expensive for a tiny convenience, but hey, if you have enough gold it might be worth it.

[thehipone.6812]

Saving WP costs isn't the reason to buy it. I have it and do a lot of TP trading. It is part convenience, but part of it is also the ability to fill in dead time with something productive. Waiting for an event for a collection? Update buy orders without having to leave the map. Trying to do DS or Gerent where you need to taxi early and can't really leave the map? Pick up and list some items while you wait. Taimi flapping her gums incessantly about something or other so you can advance the story step? Update them orders.

[Illconceived Was Na.9781]

@"SlippyCheeze.5483" said:

Saves walking from crafting station to trader, and back, when buying materials, too. Very expensive for a tiny convenience, but hey, if you have enough gold it might be worth it.

That's not the "convenience" that people are paying for (if they are paying for convenience; see above, since not everyone is). It's the reduced amount of interruption.

Imagine you have a job that is 95% "real work" and 5% "support", i.e. that you have to help someone else do their job. Sounds as if you have plenty of time to focus. Now imagine that the support comes in the form of a short phone call every 12 minutes. For people that buy→craft|forge→sell all the time, running out of mats sets back their assembly line. It's not difficult to drop the current crafting, nova launch to the TP, and nl back; it's just distracting.

To me, the price isn't any more ridiculous than silver-fed (less than 3 copper savings per salvage) or three infinite tools + 3 shared inventory slots to manage them. Those are all crazy inefficient choices if all one is concerned with is cost. The point is headache prevention/reduction.

And sure, 800 gold for that is too much for most people. But then again, the vast majority of players aren't buying any of the contracts.

[Deimos.4263]

@chrisjfinlay.5614 said:Not that I'm complaining as I got one from a BLC last night and sold it...

However, I don't understand quite why it goes for ~840G sell instantly, with other sellers looking for 1000+G. Even if you went back to Lion's Arch once a day to pick up all your items and gold from the TP, it's about 3-4s each way. Rounding that up to 10s round trip for the ease of working this out (which is way higher than it actually costs, it's closer to 6-7s), that's 8400-10000 round trips before the item pays for itself! And considering there's usually somewhere close to where you are that's got a trading post and is cheaper to get to...

It just strikes me as odd, is all.It is extremely helpful if you're scribing something big, and just need a few things off the TP. Otherwise, you need to leave the guild hall, go find a TP person, return to the guild hall, remember you forgot something for the next scribing step, repeat.