Wintersday IRL

Work is, (at least professionally - I can't stay away from my laptop even over Christmas :S) now over and the season of good cheer begins!

I am at the family homestead, the hub for yuletide activity. This means one thing above all others - my precious PC is back at my own home :(. So until I return I'm on an old macbook pro - a simple device more than capable of doing most things but not playing GW2, oh no.

So I figure this is as good a time as any for a short Christmas break. Until the 27th I'll be taking a little break and have no planned posts (though something may catch my eye).

I will still be hanging around the forums when I get a chance because I'm fascinated by what I'm missing and love a gossip related to a game I'm really into. I'm hella jealous to be honest ^^ I for one have yet to get all the achievements!

Merry Christmas and happy Wintersday :)

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GW2 Gold Farming - Dungeons CoF, HotW and AC

Farmer's Almanac

The Farmer's Almanac is a series where you can learn Guild Wars 2 gold farming locations throughout Tyria. I don't disagree that the Cursed Shore is the best farming location; but with diminishing returns, you'll have to visit other areas and thus we bring other locations to your attention.

This Week's Guild Wars 2 Gold Farming Location

Hello there! Kyle here and this week we are doing something a bit differently. Many farmers avoid dungeons and I'm here to tell those unfortunate people that they are missing out on a lot of gold.

The best dungeon paths seem to be Citadel of Flame path 1 and 2, Honor of the Waves path 1 and Ascalonian Catacombs path 1. All should take 30 minutes or less and will net you a substantial amount of gold.  In the video, I did CoF path 1 and 2 in just 40 minutes and made 3.72 gold!

After the dungeon farming information, I go a bit into how disappointing ArenaNet has been with GW2 and the amount of nerfing they are doing. Sadly, after defending the game about its end-game content I've found that it really is lacking. No one seems to do instances much and really the only thing to work on after reaching cap is going for a legendary weapon and some exotic armor. I can tell you that after I finished my CoF set, my playing time has dropped substantially.

Have fun with these locations and let us know how you've done. Have a farming location you'd like to share or have tested? Leave us a comment!

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Evolution of Guild Wars 2 Events

I got thinking today about the duration of Wintersday and what kind of effect that will have on the market. I couldn't speculate without looking back at the previous events and in doing so realised that there's been quite a leap forward in a short time. Join me in speculating about it here and in the forums.

Guild Wars 2 is still new but even so we've seen 3 distinct, large events. Halloween, Lost Shores and now Wintersday. Each had their own, unique impact on the economy:

Halloween brought much sought after skins; temporarily available materials and was the first and only event (thus far) to focus on the contents of black lion chests.

Lost Shores dropped a boat-load of precursors and named exotics into the trading post. Even more when the controversy over lag and disconnects for the elder karka led to everyone and their mother (nearly) receiving a chest with a chance at the same precursors and named exotics.

Wintersday so far is interesting. The focus on materials has shifted to awards (wintersday gifts) for various activities which have a chance of dropping desirable items but which also drop tokens that can be used to purchase most of what you get in these gifts.

There are items in the gem store but much of the random element has been removed. I remember spending quite a lot on BLCs during Halloween and coming away disappointed (but wiser) - black lion chests weren't earners and they weren't even fun.

The duration of the event is extensive: 3 weeks! This means that temporary items (that we assume, because they're in recipes that won't go anywhere) in the market will be greater than Halloween... or will they?

Wintersday is kind of like Halloween without candy corn (which a lot of us are still sitting on and waiting to become valuable - which it might if the developers have decided never to implement an event in the same way as Halloween again). Snowflakes are a bit like fangs, nougat and skulls. Gifts are like treat bags. Halloween's endless tonic (well you can just plain craft these in the mystic forge at the moment - quite cheaply) is closest to the Unbreakable Choir Bell.

With this in mind - what can we speculate on, value wise? What have we learned from events past.

Personally, I think that bags are the way to go. Trick or treat bags aren't too cheap at the moment (in comparison to other Halloween items) and this might be down to their flexibility and the gamble involved. They might have a very desirable item (unbreakable choir bell, endless halloween tonic) or they might have useful items for crafts (snowflakes, fangs, skulls, and so on) - you're appealing to a broader market.

I'm looking into acquiring or farming wintersday gifts and leaving them unopened. What do you guys think? What investment opportunities have you got your eyes on?
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Farming Wintersday Gifts

Wintersday is excellent. I'm having a blast and I hope you are too. Like our own Christmas, the festivities in Tyria revolve around the excellent gifts, which, although free, tend to be stuffed with unwanted socks, jumpers and hats. More socks, jumpers and hats, in fact, than the entire population of Tyria could ever want or need.

So how to go about gathering them fast? Well fright01 started a thread about just that on the boards. I'm hoping the forum becomes a breeding ground for great topics like this. It's a good guide to what users want to read more about!

There are multiple methods for gaining presents and I thought I'd assemble a rough list in order of effectiveness. These placements are based on what I've experienced myself:

1. Farming a high present density map (1 a minute - including mob kills - is possible)
2. Jumping Puzzle (3 per run)
3. Tixx runs - but they can be erratic (I have not tested other dungeon runs so far)
4. Choir bell minigame
5. Snowball arena (1 per loss - if you get a losing streak you can come away with barely any for your time). 

If you're aiming for a skin - like the beautiful candy cane hammer or the princess wand then don't forget that you can just buy these direct from the trading post. You can also buy the socks or hats or jumpers directly. Keep an eye on which price is cheaper.

What do you guys think? How are you farming the presents? Don't forget to join our forum to talk about these kinds of topics in more detail!

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Wintersday Gift Mechanics

Quick post to show you guys the rough process for gifts and gift exchanging during Wintersday. Completing themed events (like the PvP snowball mini-game) rewards personalised gifts which you can open for a chance at goodies:

Opening these usually gives you ugly woolen items. The only purpose for these items is to exchange for better items. These better items appear to be what you have a chance of getting from each gift - so even when you're unlucky you can still save up for an item skin or recipe or materials:

This particular Lionguard present exchange fellow deals in ugly wool socks only! Tiny snowflake looks to be (I may be wrong) the only material you can exchange - but there are other materials (I got this from a gift):

The event is packed with fun so get in and get playing! 

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Wintersday Is Here

At last the time has come! I couldn't stay up late enough last night to see the content drop (and didn't want to ruin it by being too tired) so I'm up fresh, bright and early to enjoy Wintersday.

The patch notes are immense. The most relevant sections I've copied below:

Items:

• Superior Rune of Lyssa: This item now applies 5 seconds of Protection and Retaliation while on a competitive PvP map. The item’s internal cooldown has been fixed to allow rune effects to occur every 10 seconds.

• Major Sigil of Water: This item now has the correct proc chance.

• Rare crafting materials and holiday materials can now be deposited into the collections tab in the bank.

• Added Mystic Forge recipes to convert ascended rings to their infused versions.

• “Bag of Gold” has been renamed “Bag of Coins” for clarity.

• “Bag of Gems” has been renamed to “Bag of Jewels” for clarity.

• Equipment sorting bags will now properly sort back items and trinkets.

• The Durmand Priory heavy armor set now has proper icons.

• Dessa’s experiment journal now plays an effect on consumption.

• Weapons purchased with karma from vendors in Fireheart Rise, Iron Marches, and Fields of Ruin now have their intended skins instead of tier 3 cultural skins.

• Extended potion recipes can no longer be discovered, and must be unlocked using an item sold by dungeon vendors.

• Extended potions now last for two hours instead of one hour.

• The Mystic Forge recipes for offensive and defensive infusions now take five skill points instead of 50, and omni infusions now take ten skill points instead of 100.

• Increased the drop rate of Passion Flowers from Passion Vines.

• The quantity of vials of Powerful Blood, Vicious Fangs, and Elaborate Totems that drop from loot containers is now 1-2 instead of just 1.

• Several items now have updated icons.

• Rank-based finishing moves now last for 60 minutes per consumable instead of 30 minutes.

• The pirate weapons Trident, Speargun, and Harpoon have been updated to their intended model.

• Black Lion harvesting tools icons have been updated.

• The simple infusion for defensive slots has been removed from the vendors, and the cost of the versatile simple infusion has been lowered to 75 tokens.

Black Lion Chest Overhaul:

• Permanent Bank Access, Permanent Trader Express, and Permanent Merchant Express items now drop twice as often from Black Lion chests. Though still extremely rare, they can now be traded until their first use.

• The Black Lion Chest drop chance for mystery tonics has been reduced from 100% to 25%. Tonics now have the same drop chance as “Heavy Bag of Coins,” “Unidentified Dye,” or one of three new Guild Influence items worth 50, 100, or 300 influence.

• “Heavy Bags of Coins” have been added to Black Lion Chests in the tonic and buff drop sections. Bags hold between 80c and 1g50s.

• “Glory Booster” has been added to the list of possible buff drops.

• Buff drops now occasionally drop the “booster multipack” triple buff.

• Rarity and proportion of all other Black Lion Chest drops have been rebalanced to reduce overabundance of some items.

Black Lion Trading Company Gem Store:

The Black Lion Trading Company is also celebrating the Wintersday season with new deals and special items.

New Wintersday-themed items are available in the style category.

• A festive fur cap is available for 150 gems for a limited time.

• A full winter outfit, including a hat, coat, gloves, boots, leggings, and a snow globe scepter with five winter themed costume skills is now available for 700 gems.

• PvE decorative wood weapon skins for staff, sword, greatsword, dagger, shield, axe, hammer, pistol, longbow and short bow are available in the style category for 500 gems each for a limited time.

• Wintersday earmuffs are available in the style category for 25 gems each.

• A free wizard’s hat is available in the style category for every player to enjoy.

Rare mystery Wintersday boxes will have a chance to drop throughout the world. They will also be available in the consumable category of the Gem Store. They will contain gifts available in-game, plus a random item only available in the store.

Boxes will contain one to five gifts, plus one of the following:

• Common: a Wintersday dye pack, a gingerbread snowball mortar, or one of three unique Wintersday transformation tonics.

• Uncommon: One of three new festive miniatures; a snowman, a festive golem, or the toymaker’s Infinirarium.

• Rare: The festive fur cap, and a claim ticket for your choice of winter wooden weapons.

• Very Rare: Infinite self-style hair kit or unique Wintersday baby quaggan miniature.

The Wintersday baby quaggan miniature can also be crafted in the Mystic Forge by using any combination of miniature snowmen, infinirarium, or festive golems, and 50 enchanted stuffing (available in-game). The “mystery Wintersday box” is available in consumables for 100 gems each, or 10 for 800 gems.

The Black Lion Chest has also been updated. Check the items section of this update for more information. More items and sales will become available over the course of the Wintersday festivities, so be sure to keep an eye on the Gem Store.

That's a lot to look at and analyse so expect another post today OR what you can do is sign up over at our forums.

---> Guild Wars 2 Riches Forum <---

I plan on doing a lot of lurking there on my second monitor whilst experiencing the fun and frolics of wintersday!

I'll see you there.

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Join the Guild Wars 2 Riches Forum (Take 2)

An update to the last post... there were server problems so we had to migrate the forum. This meant posts and sign ups were lost :(

We really didn't want to do this at all, especially so fast. To those of you early sign ups I apologise profusely - but it needed to be done and the longer we waited the worse the fall out would have been.

I manually backed up the posts (there were cpanel issues with the original server which is why we switched) and added them again (but under my username) with an [Original post by ...] tag.

At least we're now ready and this awkwardness was resolved before Wintersday!

Visit us and join in over at the Guild Wars 2 Riches forum.

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Join the Guild Wars 2 Riches Forum

It's been a while (and there's still some work to be done to it) but let me introduce the Guild Wars 2 Riches Forum.

The timing is pretty convenient, if I do say so myself, with the event launching tonight there will be plenty to discuss!

I've populated the board with a few starter introduction posts but I think you guys can fill it up quick enough.

Feel free to continue to leave comments in blog posts, facebook and google+ but for sustained, detailed discussion nothing beats a forum.

Head over to the forum here and say hi. See you there during the event!

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GW2 Gold Farming – Fireflies, Boars and Grawl

Farmer’s Almanac

ShoddyCast's Farmer’s Almanac is a series where you can learn Guild Wars 2 farming locations throughout Tyria. I don’t disagree that the Cursed Shore is the best farming location; but with diminishing returns, you’ll have to visit other areas and thus we bring other locations to your attention.

This Week’s Guild Wars 2 Farming Location

Howdy, y’all! Kyle here, and I’ve got TWO farming locations for you to try this week. The first will be in Straights of Devastation at Plinth Timberland waypoint. Head north from there and you will see fireflies and boars. Both are non-aggressive meaning they won’t attack you unless you attack them first. Boars will drop Large Fangs, which doesn’t make sense but they do. Boars have a lot of health and armor and will knock you down so make sure you have stability or blind or keep your distance while attacking. Fireflies are much easier to take down and don’t do much damage and will drop Potent Venom Sacs. This farm is more for the crafting materials but you can expect to make around 92 silver and hour.

The second location is in Frostgorge Sound at Slough of Despond waypoint. Head East and then South down the crevice where you will find grawl. The grawl come in 3 types: berserker(melee), shaman(elemental) and trapper(ranger). These guys are pretty easy to group and kill and drop all sorts of tier 5 and 6 crafting materials. You can expect to make around 1.87 gold an hour from this farm.
Have fun with these locations and let us know how you’ve done. Have a farming location you’d like to share or have tested? Leave us a comment!

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Wintersday Information Hot Off The Press

This is what I'm talking about. The information the press releases is always better than what we get from the company itself. So let's have a read:

The "Three New Activities" section sounds amazing (harmonic music game, snowball fights jumping puzzle?! Yes!) but has little in the way of speculation or trading post information so let's move on.

The fact that the even runs for three weeks but only spends a handful of days at each races' capitol concerned me (in terms of themed rewards which I predicted) but I think we can rest easy now:

"Each city’s instance will drops plans and materials for players to craft toys themed after the capitol city.  But the good news is that you’ll be able to do every city’s instance once Tixx gets to Lion’s Arch."

So if you miss one of the first days, no matter. Plans and materials are still available! Oh and "Guild Wars 2 hard mode meets tower defense"? Colour me excited (again). This event is shaping up nicely!

"There are a whopping 275 new crafting recipes, not all of which are themed around the holiday (though many are)."

This is excellent news. I know a few of you were concerned about the drop in value of certain items after the official forum post yesterday, and how it affected the stock you were still holding onto. There is little to worry about. In fact 275 recipes (not all with a wintry theme) will require a lot of different materials. The majority of these I wager are in game, and in your banks.

"the crafting skins that will be much more accessible and attainable. "

This is an indication that they've learned from Halloween (which means those of us who stocked up on Halloween goodies might take hope from - other events will be more rewarding with skins but Halloween items will remain more exclusive).

This is just the start of the news dropping, I'll add any other links I see in the comments below - I suggest you do the same :)

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No New Resource Nodes For Wintersday

Short and quick blog post this one coming as it does after the main post earlier about the interesting gem slump:

No, there’s no resource nodes. Something else will take the place of ad-hoc, holiday content on the go. There are new crafting recipes, but the components for those will come from the rewards gained by playing any holiday content.

This is the forum post in question. Very interesting! No new resource nodes for the event. Is this something they've learned from candy cane? Will candy cane be the only resource introduced in this way?

I just don't know!

Also the recipes added (confirmation there will be - it was kind of obvious but we didn't know 100% just yet) will use rewards from taking part. This means that active play (gaining these rewards) will be the only way to stock up on this wintersday resource.

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Interesting Gem Slump

I noticed something interesting about GW2spidy's gem exchange graph this evening. After a pretty nice series of regular spikes (expected in the build up to an event where gems will be the currency for many fancy items and Christmas-y trinkets) there was a pretty sharp slump:

Now this isn't anything unusual when you look at other markets - this would be speculators offloading (a bit too rapidly though) in say, the lodestone or core market, black lion chests, or any number of chef ingredient markets.

A number of people (or one, very wealthy person or group) who stocked up on gems when they were cheap transferred them to gold. This drove the value down.

But, although there's precedent for slumps like this around holiday times, gems prove resilient - notice the spikes and slumps before previous events and gem store sales. Gems always bounce back. Their value is in rude health and climbing since game launch (more and more gold enters the market whereas gems are not as easily attained - someone has to buy).

I am nearly 100% sure I will offload my gems to gold at one peak or other during the event but that's just so I can rebuy at a lower price point (fees included). I don't plan on making an exit from that particular market once speculation is done and dusted - which is what I plan to do with a few other stock lines I've got in the bank.

No, I plan on storing wealth long term in gem form. I can only really see them getting more valuable compared to gold as the months roll on.

I just wish I could have predicted this recent slump from about 2 gold 50 silver to 1 gold 75 silver - even with the fee that'd be a few extra gems in my account now!

What are your thoughts?

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Will Black Lion Chests Feature During Wintersday?

Out of curiosity (and because I've got about 1,500 stashed when they were 3 copper or something) I checked Black Lion Chests on GW2spidy and noticed a sharp upturn. Here are my thoughts on this little speculative number:

The notes that accompany yesterday's video teaser refer to chests pretty explicitly, but they don't state the kind. There's also a new image:

With festive town clothes, wintery weapon skins, and chests full of holiday treasures, The Black Lion Trading Company has everything you need to celebrate Wintersday! Check out the new items and much more in the Gem Store today! 

What I'm curious about is whether this new image of a chest is a new item (like the Lost Shores chests) or whether it'll be the existing Black Lion Chests.

My current theory is that Arenanet are working two kinds of events, two categories.

First there are the holiday themed events - Halloween and now Wintersday.

Then there's the "world changing" events - which so far we've only seen one of: the lost shores.

It may be that they'll only release new types of chest for the world changing events and leave the black lion chest and key system in for the holiday events.

I can't say whether this is more logical than an alternative or whether it's correct or not. But I guess, as we've talked about many times, it's not what will actually happen during an event that matters, it's the strength of the speculation before hand.

Watch out for Black Lion Chests. If they reach something like 30 copper each I'll not be surprised (but I might raise an eyebrow).

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Wintersday Teaser Video

The teaser video is here! And it hasn't got any direct shots of recipes or the like (but then we weren't really expecting that, hope though we did) because it's meant to show people the 'cool' things (no text or stats or the like) to see during the event.

There's still clues to break down though and I've had a quick stab below:

There are candy canes - large ones - protruding from the ground. In the video they look to be in Lion's Arch so are most likely decoration only but they did release candy cane as a resource in GW1 - it's likely in GW2.

There are super-fine looking fur outfits. Town clothes I wager. Gem purchase only. The price of gems will be soaring - I'm not sure if it'll reach a point where investing now will get you more after the fee but if you bought any gems the past month offload them for gold now (ofc you may want to buy some goodies) and repurchase post event.

There's a new jumping puzzle :D and it looks fiendish. The fellow behind the Mad King's clock tower DID say he wouldn't put a timer on any puzzle like this in the future so I guess there's that to hope for if you had issues during Halloween.

Tixx and Toxx look like they roam Tyria going to the main cities (the festivities aren't confined to Lion's Arch). This may be the breadcrumb trail-esque portion of this event or the event may be enjoyable in any city in Tyria. Also, the vehicle they use is badass in the extreme.

The Mystic Forge looks... interesting (read - awesome) and we can bet on new forge recipes pretty safely I think. Glacial cores and lodestones may spike in anticipation of this. I can't say for certain if they'll be in the final recipes. We already know to sell to the speculative crowd pre-event.

Tixx's lab is certainly new dungeon content. Item skins will likely drop here (like the Mad King's dungeon).

In other words, more of the same carrying on from Halloween! And there's nothing I can find bad about that :) ... well, except for the amount of space I've devoted to candy corn, but hey!

Let the comments roll!

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Wintersday Teaser Incoming

Visiting the media section of the official Guild Wars 2 site and looking in videos, shows us something interesting:

A private video entitled Guild Wars 2 Wintersday: The Wondrous Workshop of Toymaker Tixx!

This can only mean we're about to get information soon, information that will spark a new speculation wave. The fact that the focus is on a toymaker really opens up the possibilities we've discussed in previous threads about toy recipes being the focus instead of cooking recipes.

I still wouldn't rule cooking out myself. I'm certain, whatever the main focus of the event, there will be a multitude of crafting recipes in nearly all disciplines.

What I like is the unknown element of toys. In our eyes 'toy' covers quite a broad range. I wonder what Tyria equivalents the developers have conjured up.

If this video goes live soon (I imagine it will be by the end of today - Arenanet time) we'll hopefully have more to discuss! Get your speculating goggles on.

PS Who else is hoping for a new jumping puzzle? Part of me wants it, part of me doesn't! :)

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More Precursor Mayhem

I'm sure most of you guys know by now but Arenanet sent out chests to all players who made it part way through the ancient karka event from the Lost Shores patch.

This means that there are a lot of folks who had a chance at a legendary weapon percursor. A lot of those folks got lucky.

I'm not sure if you followed the named exotic/percursor trends after the lost shores event when folks speculated precursors would plummet so sell now. Well this didn't exactly happen. Precursors took a hit in value but not by much.

In my opinion that hit had more to do with rumours of further tweaks to the precursor system.

So, for those looking for a medium term investment (a couple of weeks) buying up legendary precursors is pretty good money. I won't say long term because there may yet be changes to the system that means they do plummet in value - so it's best not to hold onto them for too long.

Perhaps others think the same way I do, I'm not seeing the same movement as last time. In any case, keep an eye out for any news about changes to precursors if you choose to get into that market!

Also - keep an eye out for wintersday news! I feel like teasers are late but I think it's because the first speculation started freakishly early! :)

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Gold Guru - Rune Salvaging Trading Post Strategy

It's not the first time I've taken salvage kits to the Trading Post, but will adding a little spin increase my profit potential?  Josh aka Raydon with a fresh steaming hot new episode of Gold Guru.  YES, it's another gambling-type strategy.   What can I say, my ancestors must have bet all their money on the races, because I can't keep away.  If you're a bore yourself and enjoy a more "steady and reliable income" (boring!) Kyle's Guild Wars 2 Farmer's Almanac series is for you.  Otherwise sit tight, and enjoy this beautifully handcrafted episode I made just for you.

Rune Salvaging Test Trials:

Ravaging Pirate Gloves of Divinity x5
no buy order
-11s 55c +12s 60c = -84c (6.7%)
hypothetical buy order
-8s 5c +12s 60c = +2s 66c (21.1%)

Shaman's Pirate Hat of Divinity x10
no buy order
-24s 83c +35s 86c = +5s 65c (15.8%)

Shaman's Pirate Hat of Divinity x25
no buy order
-62s 56c +76s 88c = +2s 79c (3.6%)
Strong Conjurer Mask of Divinity x5
no buy order
-12s 80c +15s 60c =  +46c (2.29%)
hypothetical buy order
-9s 20c +15s 60c = +4s 6c (26%)

If you get a chance to get out there and try this strat utilizing buy orders I'd love to hear your results, so be sure and leave them in the comments.  Also, you could do us the honor and 'Like' our video; there would be something in it for you... MOAR videos!  Seriously, thanks for watching guys.  I've been Josh aka Raydon with the ShoddyCast.  LATER.

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Long Term Versus Short Term Investments

I wanted to take a quick break from the wintersday speculation (while there's still time - before more tidbits drop and markets start fluctuating even more) to talk about short and long term investment in Guild Wars 2.

What we've been talking about the past few weeks in relation to wintersday (like here, here and here) is short term speculation. An event is coming up and that event and the speculation before it are temporarily going to drive prices up.

Short term investments are, if you like, good methods for getting building your fortune in short starts and jumps. You are in and out relatively quickly.

Long term investments are ways of keeping currency safe (from inflation - where the quantity of currency in the market means the currency is actually worth less as time goes on) and, ideally, to make that value that you stow away worth more in the long run.

Now ideally you want to divide your funds between short and long term investments (with an amount of liquid, or free, gold in case you need anything or spot an investment opportunity that needs quick action). You gain from short term and you reinvest these gains into more short term investments along with long term investments.

Here's an example based on a  beginner with 2 gold:

Investment diary day 1 - put 2 gold worth of buy orders in for chocolate after it fell sharply from 60 copper to 35 copper - the slump after the first big spike of last week.
Investment diary day 2 - listed the chocolate won for just over double 75 per bar.
Investment diary day 3 - collected approximately 4 gold. Chocolate DID have a second spike (in fact it had another major spike to nearly 1 silver 50 copper).
Investment diary day 4 - moved onto other short term investments for 2 gold. Placed 2 gold into a long term investment (gems).

Now the money came out of the short term investment towards the end of 28th November - at least that's when our man (or woman) invested in gems. He did this for a number of reasons. Firstly the gems had just spiked to as high as 2 gold 20 and fallen after that (each spike is followed by a slump) so it was a good rate.

Secondly, gems are one of the best long term investments in GW2. The only other long term investments we've really talked about so far are halloween items and chocolate and butter just when the nerf to their drop rates were announced (look how that combined with the short term investments this week past).

Why invest long term? I mean, you can see that short term investments can be very profitable. They can. But they're risky. They're also time intensive. For instance, I've had a very busy week and haven't been able to look into much short term (day or week) trading. So I've taken a lot of my funds and placed them about 50/50 in gems and glacial lonestones (lodestones) and glacial cores.

The cores and lodestones may not pay off. They're a short term gamble (for wintersday) but in truth I believe they'll increase in price anyway. It's not a market I'd need to check every couple of hours like a few other wintersday hopefuls.

Even if they don't gems will pay off long term. Get over to gw2spidy and select gem exchange at the top then hit all. See that climb?

You have to pay a fee for gems and it's a bit harsh but you won't suffer from the deflating price of inflating gold.

Truly, the crux of my post today is to remind you (if you've forgotten) to mix long and short term investments up (especially if you've not got the time to trade all day every day :P) and to remind you that gems are a pretty good long term investment vehicle.

Okay, now to the best part - encouraging comments: what other potential long term investments are you guys hiding gold in? What other trading strategies are you enjoying this weather?

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Calm Before the Storm: Wintersday Speculation III

Speculation on Wintersday started early. What this means, is that those who may have missed out on the last rush on items may have a chance to get in before the content drops. Here's what most items being speculated on look like on GW2spidy after last week's spikes:

A few haven't returned all the way to the original pre-speculation price points (like the example above - butter) but in many cases the drop has been pretty complete.

The movement hasn't finished yet though. That first spike was the activity of a reasonable amount of speculators - the early birds. I don't think we've seen the last of the excitement yet.

Theoretically, investors who were happy to buy up at previous prices will do so again. I would be surprised if many of them held onto their stock in fact during the market peaks. Better to sell and wait for the slump (now) then buy in again.

So keep your eyes peeled - I know I will. Anything could set it off. It's a beautiful reactive system. One group or individual may buy up great quantities of eggs. Another might take a shine to chocolate again. It could be any (or all) of the items that last spiked.

Also keep an eye on the main site. As soon as content starts to leak or be released about the Wintersday content expect price rises as more players learn of the content to come (believe me some don't know there's a 'windersday' on the way).

We've got a week and 4 days in which to enjoy the market manipulations we're seeing. Learn from the one just past - buy when low and sell when excitement builds. I keep saying this but it's advice that I've yet to see contradicted: most of the market spikes will be highest BEFORE the content is released. Not after.

Once the event starts we may have another tiered content release like Halloween and the Karka event. That's likely in fact though, until more information drops, we can't know for certain. The event runs for 3 weeks so it's going to be a busy market - great fun!

And finally - because I hope you all did well - did you guys make out like bandits during the last market spike? Are there any items you maybe didn't get in on and want to stock up on now?

PS Keep speculating in the comments after this post or the previous one! We've nearly got a simple forum sorted and hope to unleash it soon :)

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