Talk:Money

Consolidation
While there are quite a lot of different things we could say about currency in GW, I move that we combine the Gold and Platinum articles into one article, and make the originals simply redirect to that one, to avoid repetition. For example, the Platinum article is listed as a stub, but I can't think of anything that could be added to that article which would not also be relevant to Gold. Kidburla 16:03, 10 January 2006 (UTC)


 * I like that. I suggest Money. --Karlos 23:28, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Spending Money
The droknar run cost should go, things like that aren't fixed and don't belong. 14:47, 17 February 2006 (CST)

The whole spending money sections hould go. Nice consolidation though. --Karlos 22:25, 17 February 2006 (CST)


 * The "Spending Money" section was going to be a section which eventually had rough prices for items, as:


 * a) We don't have any kind of central resource on things which are "buyable", and


 * b) We don't have info on how much things cost e.g. rough guidelines on how much various items cost when purchased from traders/other players (for example, black dye costs ~8k, and so forth).


 * c) Since we have a section on "Obtaining Money", it follows we should have a section on what to do with it.


 * d) This article is labelled as a "stub"; what more information can be put on it aside from how to spend money?


 * e) There is no other place I can think of for putting this information.


 * But thanks for the "Nice consolidation" compliment! :) Kidburla 20:29, 22 February 2006 (CST)


 * Unfortunately, you are running up against de facto Guildwiki policy of not tracking ephemeral stuff like trade prices, guild ranks, and so on. You will have to be a bit more politically nimble if you want to suggest a change to this policy. For instance, I think you can make a lot of hay (by means of analogy) out of a new effort to track drop rates of items. Good luck! &mdash; Stabber 20:48, 22 February 2006 (CST)


 * I think we might allow a "pricewatch" section for goods that you can buy at Traders (Runes, Dye, Materials, ...), because trader prices can easily be verified ingame, and actually they don't fluctuate that much. But prices negotiated between players vary widely and should never be put on this wiki, strictly! -- 21:03, 22 February 2006 (CST)


 * I think that prices between players are very important to gauge a ballpark figure for, for new players. When I first started playing GW, there were a number of times when someone typed "WTS blah" and I whispered them to say "ok, how much?" and they said "make an offer". Then I'd make an offer and either it was ridiculously too high (I once paid 1 for an iron ingot) or ridiculously too low (in which case they'd probably be insulted!) Some sort of rough idea, say to within 500, would have been very helpful to me then. Kidburla 20:45, 23 February 2006 (CST)


 * The point is that prices given on GuildWiki might be just as misleading. Prices vary, depending on supply and demand, and there is no quick and clear way to verify them ingame.
 * Even worse: There is room for abuse. Somebody who wants to sell an item for a high price might edit GuildWiki to put in that high price, then tell a potential buyer: "That's a reasonable price. GuildWiki says so!" We simply can't allow that. -- 21:01, 23 February 2006 (CST)


 * Unfortunately, I think this is where a Forum is more useful than a Wiki. On a forum, people can post what prices they actually successfully sold or bought at, and you can browse through the thread to get a sense for the average.  Other people can also directly comment if a particular posting seems fishy.  That format is not quite suited for an wiki article.  The alternative will be have one single price range listed, and people who want to buy would come in and intentionally edit the lower bound lower, and seller would do the opposite.  In the end you get into either a revert war for each green item, OR you see Razorstone sold anywhere between 20k and 100k+20 ectos, which I doubt is useful at all.
 * I agree with Tetris L on this subject. Trader prices are checkable, and the wiki can potentially handle it.  Non-trader items?  You'll have to propose a sophisticated system to convince me it could work. -PanSola 21:08, 23 February 2006 (CST)


 * There is a price-check forum on GWG. Considering our "partnership" with them, we might simply link to it. Also, sites like RPGTraders or the GWG auction system are good places to check prices. -- 21:34, 23 February 2006 (CST)


 * More importantly, there is Guru's Auction site. It is the best place for price checking anything in the game. You have a Holy Rod req 9 and +5^50 and you want to know how much to sell it for? Just look up similar items there. We can put a link to them in the scam page or in the WTS and WTB pages, but we shouldn't do it ourselves. Too easy to manipulate and too easy to be wrong. Yesterday, the price of Rubies went up 6 to 6.5 and went back down to 6 in the span of 20 minutes. We would miss such a fluctuation. --Karlos


 * Hmmm ... rubies. Those are rare materials, so you can simply check the price at a trader. I don't see a problem with a trader pricewatch. I was going to do a trader pricewatch anyway, for personal use. I would write down the prices for every good available at traders every few hours while I play GW. After a week or so I should have collected enough data for a decent reliable statistic. The statistic could be checked regularly to see if any prices have considerabley gone up or down. But even if a price has changed: No harm done, as players can easily verify it ingame. Very little room for scam/abuse. -- 22:32, 23 February 2006 (CST)


 * That argument has another side: When players can easily verify more reliable prices ingame, wouldnt be any price posted here redundant? --Xeeron 03:58, 24 February 2006 (CST)
 * The benefit is they wouldn't need to log in the game to look it up, or go from ToA to LA to check (and leave their party). -PanSola 04:47, 24 February 2006 (CST)


 * Ok, I'm sold (pun not intended). Probably a wiki is NOT the right place for a price listing. Such a listing should be off-site. I may think of doing such a project in the future (yes, I have access to plenty of Internet hosting space). I quite like the "Finding Fair Prices" section added recently. However I still stand by my decision to have a list of items which are "buyable" in the game. Kidburla 22:40, 24 February 2006 (CST)


 * That's gonna be the same list of items that can be placed in your inventory, plus not sure if you want to add services ("Will play 50g for female Elementalist dance!" "Will pay 3g for female necro to run around the fire 5 times!"). Heck, someone bought my spare pumpking crown for 200g (fully knowing it's customized), and resold it to someone else for 500g (the other guy also knew it's customized).  Maybe it's simpler to have a list of things you CANNOT buy/sell in the game -- your character's backpack, your character's soul, the Staff of Orr, and the land rights to Ascalon City.  Yeah, that's a much shorter lsit. -PanSola 22:46, 24 February 2006 (CST)


 * You can't buy the Scepter of Orr because it's mine! bwaha! 23:44, 24 February 2006 (CST)
 * Actually because the one you got is fake. Vizor was already holding the real one before you hand him yours at Sanctum Cay!!!  He just needed you at Sanctum Cay so Markis can betray evannia and capthure them so Vizor has an excuse to send you off to the desert! d-: -PanSola 23:55, 24 February 2006 (CST)


 * Obviously, I meant items which are typically bought/sold in the game. I don't think "Will pay 3g for female necro to run around the fire 5 times" is a TYPICAL service (I may be wrong though... ;)) Also, even if the list is the same as the list of items which can be placed in your inventory, I don't think such a list is maintained on this Wiki either.


 * Really, I just wanted a list of stuff so that when I suddenly get lots and lots of cash from something and I'm wondering what to spend it on, I can just look at this list and see some ideas. And I don't think it's just me who'd find that useful. Kidburla 05:39, 25 February 2006 (CST)


 * Also, even if the list is the same as the list of items which can be placed in your inventory, I don't think such a list is maintained on this Wiki either. Try Category:Items.  If it's incomplete, that just means we need to fill in what's missing. BTW, if you suddenly get lots and losts of cash from something and wondering what to spend it on, and you want that list to be useful, then 15k armor should have it's own entry as opposed to getting lumped under "Armor". -PanSola 03:47, 26 February 2006 (CST)

New Project: Price Tracking on Rare Items
I think Tetris L has a brilliant suggestion in the comments above about a great use of a Wiki-like resource. I think we should be able to set up a price index tracker for rare materials, so we can see at a glance how the market has been fluctuating. What I envision is: I think this will be a nice and relaxing weekend coding project for me. Don't worry, I'll be experimenting on an entirely different wiki. Stay tuned for results. &mdash; Stabber 05:51, 25 February 2006 (CST)
 * Whenever anyone is bored, they enter the current trade values for items in a specific format on the item's page. These entries should be timestamped, and probably restricted somehow, but we'll worry about securing it later. One entry per item per day ought to be sufficient.
 * A script runs overnight that gathers the trade values and plots the current values and a moving average on a graph.
 * This script maintains a separate page with all the plots.
 * Sounds exactly what I had in mind! Was going to do it using cron/PHP and set it up myself, but it wouldn't have been for another few weeks yet (got a lot on at the mo...) so I'm glad to have it taken off my hands :) Kidburla 21:33, 25 February 2006 (CST)
 * May I suggest we only allow registered users to enter info on this? :p -- 21:37, 25 February 2006 (CST)
 * And remember to have seperate ones for europe and america, nice idea  22:33, 25 February 2006 (CST)


 * I don't like the idea to begin with. It seems more like historical data than actual useful data. What use is it for me as a user to know that 5 months ago, ectos were 15k each and now only 7k and by the next chapter (when a new use for them is found they will be up again)? Right now, they fluctuate bween 7K and 8.5K (trader selling price) and unless we track something relevant with that number, it makes no sense.
 * In any case, Skuld, the Euro, Korean and US servers are now supposedly aligned. This was done several moneths back since alot of US players used to go to Europe, buy Ectos cheap then sell them high in the American servers. --Karlos 10:39, 26 February 2006 (CST)
 * Your dislike is noted. However, historical trends in any commodity is good information both for people who want to know what to invest in (i.e., does an item hold its value well?) and also for people who want to speculate on the market (if something had a sharp and inexplicable drop, then its a good idea to invest in it before the bounce). Ectos are not the best example of this, because their price fluctuates too much. I think this sort of data is good for things like vellum, charcoal, and deldrimor steel ingots. &mdash; Stabber 11:03, 26 February 2006 (CST)