Today I want to talk a little bit about education. Specifically education that leads to greater success in in-game economies. How can we get more educated about earning gold in Guild Wars 2?. What topics will result in better returns? How should we spend our time to improve our results?
It's not a straight forward question (I'm drawn to difficult topics). There are two broad categories of knowledge that help you earn money in GW2:
"In-game" knowledge; and
"Real World" knowledge
The two categories intertwine - you need a foundation in each to be successful. But we're not talking about educating a 'beginner'.
Let's assume that most of us have a reasonable grounding in Guild Wars 2 knowledge: how the trading post works; how to farm items effectively.
Let's also assume that most of us have a decent grounding in real economic knowledge as it relates to the Guild Wars 2 economy: where to find out about upcoming changes (news sources to follow) so that we can take advantage of items about to become more scarce; when to sell and when to buy; supply and demand.
Given those two assumptions where should you invest a bit of effort in educating yourself? Here's my answer - and I hope to see your own thoughts and perhaps disagreements on our forums or in the comments section:
In-game knowledge is more easily 'capped'. Your earning effectiveness is boosted only a slight amount by learning new things in-game.
You might find out where all karma bought ingredients are tokens from an explorable to items which you can then break down into ectos and sell; or place in the forge for a chance at a precursor or better item.
You can learn to be more efficient in-game. That's pretty much the extent of the advantages you get from in-game knowledge (feel free to debate with me :P).
Learning real world lessons are much less likely to hit a diminishing returns threshold. To begin with, what you're learning is transferable to other economies (real or virtual).
Economics doesn't exist solely as virtual knowledge within Guild Wars 2 (though we can apply it there) - it's something real. Talking about long term and short term investments on the Trading Post is 80% real knowledge, 20% GW2 knowledge (numbers may be plucked from thin air to highlight a point).
The same can be said of psychology. This is one of my favourite areas of study - specifically psychology combined with economics. Things like post purchase rationalisation - which has a direct link to Guild Wars 2 in that most of us have made investments that might not have been the wisest ideas and then held on a bit too long - not shedding the questionable investment as quickly and efficiently as we should.
My own preference is to learn more about things outside the game and see how I can apply them in game. But then perhaps this is a biased choice because I've learned a sizeable percentage of all the Guild Wars 2 information that there is to learn. I know a much, much smaller percentage of information about real economies and psychology.
What do you guys think? What have you learned in the past that's really helped you earn money in Guild Wars 2 or another virtual economy?
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It's not a straight forward question (I'm drawn to difficult topics). There are two broad categories of knowledge that help you earn money in GW2:
"In-game" knowledge; and
"Real World" knowledge
The two categories intertwine - you need a foundation in each to be successful. But we're not talking about educating a 'beginner'.
Let's assume that most of us have a reasonable grounding in Guild Wars 2 knowledge: how the trading post works; how to farm items effectively.
Let's also assume that most of us have a decent grounding in real economic knowledge as it relates to the Guild Wars 2 economy: where to find out about upcoming changes (news sources to follow) so that we can take advantage of items about to become more scarce; when to sell and when to buy; supply and demand.
Given those two assumptions where should you invest a bit of effort in educating yourself? Here's my answer - and I hope to see your own thoughts and perhaps disagreements on our forums or in the comments section:
In-game knowledge is more easily 'capped'. Your earning effectiveness is boosted only a slight amount by learning new things in-game.
You might find out where all karma bought ingredients are tokens from an explorable to items which you can then break down into ectos and sell; or place in the forge for a chance at a precursor or better item.
You can learn to be more efficient in-game. That's pretty much the extent of the advantages you get from in-game knowledge (feel free to debate with me :P).
Learning real world lessons are much less likely to hit a diminishing returns threshold. To begin with, what you're learning is transferable to other economies (real or virtual).
Economics doesn't exist solely as virtual knowledge within Guild Wars 2 (though we can apply it there) - it's something real. Talking about long term and short term investments on the Trading Post is 80% real knowledge, 20% GW2 knowledge (numbers may be plucked from thin air to highlight a point).
The same can be said of psychology. This is one of my favourite areas of study - specifically psychology combined with economics. Things like post purchase rationalisation - which has a direct link to Guild Wars 2 in that most of us have made investments that might not have been the wisest ideas and then held on a bit too long - not shedding the questionable investment as quickly and efficiently as we should.
My own preference is to learn more about things outside the game and see how I can apply them in game. But then perhaps this is a biased choice because I've learned a sizeable percentage of all the Guild Wars 2 information that there is to learn. I know a much, much smaller percentage of information about real economies and psychology.
What do you guys think? What have you learned in the past that's really helped you earn money in Guild Wars 2 or another virtual economy?
oh god.
ReplyDeleteThat picture is so cheesy.
I'd be interested in seeing how much gold a guild comprised solely of economists and psychologists could amass. Would be an interesting way to compare real vs in game initially, and it would demonstrate the effectiveness of real overall as they played more.
ReplyDeleteI saw posts rationalizing hoarding candy corn for months to sell later by using rationale along the lines of supply scarcity and demand, but what has happened in actuality? There's what, 7 million of them on the TP for 2c each (not at my home computer). This threw those people way off and now they are basically saying they have no idea what will happen with gift boxes and snowflakes. So, despite all the real world knowledge you have, it can sometimes just not work worth a damn in the game.
ReplyDeleteThe only real concern that there is about a snowflake investment, is that they might implement wintersday in July, like they did in GW1. Still, in that time frame, you should be able to profit based investments in the last week of the event. Most of the snowflake materials have seen a steady increase in price over the past week with demand meeting or outpacing the supply (that has no way of being replenished).
ReplyDeleteIs playing TP the only want to make a lot of gold? I actually suck at making gold from TP it seems hard to speculate and risky as well.
ReplyDeleteIs there a profitable way which involves farming mats? that may be equivalent to playing the TP ?
Hi Triheart, playing TP is not the only way to make gold. Yes there are profitable ways to farm mats, you just have to know where to farm. And no, farming can never compare to playing the markets, except for botters.
DeleteTo understand this, say you farm mats in high level areas, you would get near or more than 1G an hour. If say you invest 1G in TP on investment that makes 1G after an hour, you would have also made 1G. But if say you manage to invest 10G in similar investments, you would have made 10x the profit without 10x the effort. What makes this powerful is compounding effect, since after the first investment, you now have 20G and can potentially make another 20G.
So to recap, yes farming mats is profitable, and no it can never compare to trading on markets.
Thundergore, I fully agree that most of the trading post is basic economics. One of the things I learned right off the bat is that over saturating an item with buy orders simply means you'll get under cut faster and ultimately lose the sale -- especially when it comes to exotics. I honestly got tired of the rat race and hamster wheel searching for items at high and low points and simply decided to diversify my funds into several items.
ReplyDeleteTo avoid wasting time in finding those items, I built a tool called Gold Wars 2 http://www.goldwars2.com/
I'll avoid the spam speech, but you should check it out and if you decide to use it, let me know if it saved you as much time as it saved me (and many others from what I receive via email).
So the question is.. Where are the best sites to say up to date on the latest hot spots. As well as what's hot now when to hold when to sell etc.
ReplyDelete