so did anyone spend money in the gem store?

i just read about a cow finisher that was available, and i am going to try and find a youtube video of it, i guess there are a bunch of them. since there is no monthly fee i might drop 5-10 bucks once to check something out.

what do you guys think?

They gave you 200 gems for free during the beta. Most people just used those I'm guessing. Most of the stuff seems pretty cool, also you can trade gems for gold which could be good later on. I don't mind them having this considering there is no monthly fee and its mostly stuff you either don't need or just boosts your ability to level faster. IMO its fine... But I mostly probably won't use it. I guess I'm still getting my 200 free gems; but after that. Probably not.

@HadesTimes: I don't think we're getting any free gems. I didn't get any in the last beta weekend.

I don't think I'll buy the temporary items.. but I'm sure to drop $10 later to buy hats and stuff.

You can exchange gold for gems right? 
It was a pretty decent transfer as well when I typed in some random gold and silver numbers at the merchant/trader for it.
 
If that's in retail, consider me sold, working ingame to earn stuff instead of dishing out cash seems good to me.

I blew my free gems in BWE1 and BWE2 on mostly dyes and minis, but seeing as how the way those systems turned out aren't really appealing to me I don't know if I'll use the BLTP at launch. I didn't even open the store in BWE3.

I bought like 2400 gems = 250 ish swedish.

Now, I can totally see why this might be rubbing some ppl the wrong way.

Cause yes, if I need crafting mats I can just trade those gems for gold and go nuts on the Trading Post. It dosent affect other.

But I guess the big concern, at least as far as a friend of mine goes, is that it can possible ruin the global economy.

What you guys think of that?

Personally, I really hope that it will be on a balanced level between the ppl using the gem store for this and the ppl that wont touch it.

The great thing thou is that you can trade gold for gems as well as you guys know. So you could pay your server transfer with just putting down some time getting the money right? As well as getting dye packts, cow finishers or whatever you may like from the store.

That is the great thing. You can get all that real money can get you....just by spending time, getting ingame gold.

...all this said. Am not sure am 100% happy with it. I guess am just not use to being able to buy gold.

Even thou it was great for getting my crafting skill up a bit, cause those darn TIny claws wouldent drop ;)

Anyway. Sorry for ranting guys

I didn't buy any, but a friend of mine bought a bunch of those cow finishers. They're so good, that I'd probably be willing to pay $20 to have that permanently. Of course, in true Guild Wars fashion, there's probably a way to get something similar permanently through a lot of farming!

What the hell is a cow finisher?

I used the rabbit finisher though that just seems to be a flag with a rabbit on it. As for the Cow Finisher it seems to indeed drop a cow on people. I just looked for it on youtube and found this. (Link should go right to when the finisher is used)

I wouldn't worry about the ingame economy, Star Trek Online uses a very similar system and it remains pretty stable there, even as a F2P/P2W game with constant grab bags being added.

The really sought after weapons/armour can't be bought with ingame gold anyway. I'll probably spend some on more bank tabs or character slots, but I'm not a fan of the boosters or character based unlocks.

@Gravier251: Wow, Earthworm Jim style...that's weird.

I have a really bad feeling that the game is gunna get me throwing money at the mini-pet packs. Damn you minis.

@Selona83: It won't ruin the global economy because all the gold you get if you trade gems for gold is gold that people traded for gems. Gems and gold are just changing hands, the trade post doesn't generate any gold.

@TaliciaDragonsong: You can indeed exchange gold for gems but the prices in the beta would be nowhere near the prices at launch. The exchange rates are determined by an algorithm and I suspect that when the game is out it will seem like an awful lot of gold for gems which is probably how it should be, given that a lot of people actually paid real money for them.

We'll see though, if anything you should be able to buy a lot of them early on for much cheaper than when everyone hits level 80 because of the way gold earnings scale.

I'll be buying bank slots and bag slots ASAP.

i'm going to use the store to buy the bag slots and posibly 1 or 2 bank slots i love me inventory space o-o

( yes i know you can store colectibles form inventory to bank. but need space for stuff anyway =D)

I bought some gems, yeah, but not too many. Maybe £10 worth. Over the course of the beta weekend I only used them to purchase mystic keys to open the mystic chests I found, which, btw, drop at a pretty frequent rate. I managed to hit level 30 over the weekend just mostly just playing pve and found maybe 7 or 8 mystic chests and no mystic keys. The stuff you get in them is actually pretty good though. The total gem value of their contents was always greater than that of the key you I bought to open them, the only catch is it's random of course.

@HadesTimes: We didn't get free gems during BWE 3 and we won't at launch either. From this point on-wards Anet are gonna want people to actually pay for them.

@Selona83:

The point being, buying gold for gems doesn't generate gold from thin air. The trade is gems for player-generated gold. The more people buy gems, the less gold they can buy with it, and the easier it is for non-gem-for-cash buyers it is, to afford a couple of vanity items from the gem shop (or unlock additional character slots for your account).

As far as I can tell, it's the perfect solution to integrate cash shops into a MMO.

You people buying gems are crazy!

I hope they add some sort of gifting function to the store. As someone who has made a lot of friends through MMOs and other games I like getting people birthday gifts through Steam / other online means. Spending a few € to get someone an outfit or a minipet is something I'd do.

When it comes to economy, I'd say that the leaders of big alliances and communities are more likely to imbalance it than people buying gems for real money.

@Seppli said:

@Selona83:

The point being, buying gold for gems doesn't generate gold from thin air. The trade is gems for player-generated gold. The more people buy gems, the less gold they can buy with it, and the easier it is for non-gem-for-cash buyers it is, to afford a couple of vanity items from the gem shop (or unlock additional character slots for your account).

As far as I can tell, it's the perfect solution to integrate cash shops into a MMO.

Aha okay.

Well I honestly taught it kinda was from "thin air". Becasue I dident see where the gold came from when I typed in how many gems I wanted to trade for gold.

I might sound a bit stupid now, but am asking anyway. The "player generated gold", what generated gold are we talking about.

If am understanding it correctly: If there is a lot of players buying gems to gold. The cheaper/easier it might get for the ppl trading gold to gems. Simple as that. ?

@Selona83:

People who buy gems for cash introduce gems into Guild Wars 2's market. The gems can be traded for gold. The gold (respectively the exchange rate), comes from players bidding gold for gems. All gold in Guild Wars 2's economy has been earned by playing the game.

The more gems are being introduced into the market by cash buyers, the less gold they'll trade for - that's assuming gems don't simply get 'destroyed' at a higher rate. In other words, gems being spent in the gem shop are being taken out of Guild Wars 2's economy - so as long as people keep spending gems in the gem shop at an equal rate to which the gems get introduced into the market by cash buyers trading gems for gold, the exchange rate should be somewhat stable. How much gold is being generated by players factors in aswell. If more gold is being generated, than is being destroyed by money sinks such as rep costs (and buying gems, then spending those in the gem shop), then gems will get more costly for gold buyers. Economics... blech.

That's about the gist of it, at least how I grasp it as a layman. Here's a helpful video on the topic, in case I didn't make a sound case...

I don't know how much control ANet's economist will assume over such things as (gems to gold) exchange rates and such, but I'd expect them to be on that - likely trying to find a balance between fucking us and making us happy.

@SamStrife said:

What the hell is a cow finisher?

You 'Finish Him' dudes by sticking downed characters with a battle standard. With the cow finisher buff, you'll stick 'em with a cow banner and some etheral cows will dance around the corpse (or something along the lines of the rabbit finisher).

@Giefcookie said:

I hope they add some sort of gifting function to the store. As someone who has made a lot of friends through MMOs and other games I like getting people birthday gifts through Steam / other online means. Spending a few € to get someone an outfit or a minipet is something I'd do.

When it comes to economy, I'd say that the leaders of big alliances and communities are more likely to imbalance it than people buying gems for real money.

I might be wrong, but I'm remembering that there was a little gift-box button next to items in the store the last time I used it.

@Dark_Lord_Spam said:

@Giefcookie said:

I hope they add some sort of gifting function to the store. As someone who has made a lot of friends through MMOs and other games I like getting people birthday gifts through Steam / other online means. Spending a few € to get someone an outfit or a minipet is something I'd do.

When it comes to economy, I'd say that the leaders of big alliances and communities are more likely to imbalance it than people buying gems for real money.

I might be wrong, but I'm remembering that there was a little gift-box button next to items in the store the last time I used it.

no you are right, if you hovered over it it said it was not implimented in this beta, but i bet it will be working at some point when the game is live.

@zyn said:

You people buying gems are crazy!

Why is it crazy to pay for things?

@TTMSHU said:

@zyn said:

You people buying gems are crazy!

Why is it crazy to pay for things?

You're buying in-game items with real money! That's crazy!

@zyn said:

@TTMSHU said:

@zyn said:

You people buying gems are crazy!

Why is it crazy to pay for things?

You're buying in-game items with real money! That's crazy!

I think that makes sense, I can either spend lots of hours in game to grind up an item set, or probably a hour at most at work to grind up an item set.

I never found grinding for items in games fun, its the part of the experience i consider myself not really "playing" the game anymore. If I can save myself that time so i can spend it doing other stuff like PvP, i think its worth a few bucks.

@TTMSHU said:

@zyn said:

@TTMSHU said:

@zyn said:

You people buying gems are crazy!

Why is it crazy to pay for things?

You're buying in-game items with real money! That's crazy!

I think that makes sense, I can either spend lots of hours in game to grind up an item set, or probably a hour at most at work to grind up an item set.

I never found grinding for items in games fun, its the part of the experience i consider myself not really "playing" the game anymore. If I can save myself that time so i can spend it doing other stuff like PvP, i think its worth a few bucks.

Yeah, I understand. If that's what you want to spend your money on, okay. It's none of my business. I just think that's crazy.

Never spent any, don't really plan to in the full game either. At least not for the first couple of years.

@zyn said:

Yeah, I understand. If that's what you want to spend your money on, okay. It's none of my business. I just think that's crazy.

Some people might call you crazy for spending all your money on video games. :P

@project343 said:

@zyn said:

Yeah, I understand. If that's what you want to spend your money on, okay. It's none of my business. I just think that's crazy.

Some people might call you crazy for spending all your money on video games. :P

Touché

I might throw some money at the gem store to get 3 character slots, so I can PvP with every profession.

The only thing I can see buying would be character slots and things like the Bonus Mission Pack in GW1 that has extra story driven content. ArenaNet handles monetary transactions in the purest sense of the word "optional". They have never released a "buy to win" item in their cash shop in GW1. This isn't a company that goes back on what it says as pertains to cash items. I also love that we can buy gems with in-game gold. I will be playing this game so much that I don't think I will have to spend a dime(past purchasing character slots with real money at launch) on this game.

I spent 20 bucks on the store got about 5 gold, and used the rest on dyes and whatnot.

i used some gems in the 2nd beta event because they gave you a bunch.

I'm not against the gem store, but i just spent full retail money on a game, maybe i don't want to be putting more money into it day one. i got 3 of those mystic boxes in the first 7 levels over the weekend. those keys are like 1.50 a pop if you don't buy them in 5's i saw the boxes going for about 5c in the trading house.

i might buy some gems later, but i don't like feeling like i might need them right away

@bobomega: I'm not sure on the rarity, but you don't need to spend money to open the chests, the keys do drop in-game as well.

@WinterSnowblind said:

@bobomega: I'm not sure on the rarity, but you don't need to spend money to open the chests, the keys do drop in-game as well.

You also can get them from personal story quests. The chests themselves also have a good shot at containing another key, so you could potentially get one and open 3-4 chests with it.

@Seppli said:

@SamStrife said:

What the hell is a cow finisher?

You 'Finish Him' dudes by sticking downed characters with a battle standard. With the cow finisher buff, you'll stick 'em with a cow banner and some etheral cows will dance around the corpse (or something along the lines of the rabbit finisher).

They should have rated this game M and had Mortal Kombat-style finishers.

@shinboy630: I think all the ones i opened in the 2nd beta event did not contain keys.

I also didn't know they were rare (probably, right?) drops.

I'm sure a few months in i'll be getting some gems, character slots and bag slots at least.

Here's my opinion as some one who spent 170$ dollars on gems. When the exchange rate was still high, i traded 4000 gems for 28.5 gold.

My justification for doing so, is simple. I wanted to purchase the collectors edition but opted for this instead, mainly because after the 3 beta week-end I believe arena.net deserves my money. I also work roughly between 50 to 60 hours a week and the only free time i have to play this game is on week-ends. Compared to me spending about 5 hours in game trying to earn the equivalent of that or spend an extra 5 hours working, its much more beneficial for me to do the latter.

Now with that said, I have to admit that in a sort of way the game felt cheapened, almost as if i had typed in "show me the money". But that's probably just because it didn't mater what i did with this gold, id be getting it back and it had no real value.

In the last few betas I got a kick out of playing the trading post, managed to rack up about 10 gold in a single week-end. With that amount of gold under my hands I could afford to mess around with it some more and see how I could affect pricing.

I also tried to level with crafting, I made a spreadsheet of the amount of material required for discovering at least the first tier for every trade (except cooking) and went to town. Compared to the amount of time it takes by doing so trough Pve, it really comes down to the same thing. Plus clicking repeatably on items for 1 or 2 hours straight isn't really that fun.

For dyes, i don't know if arena.net will keep the same drop rate or if its because of the "its the end of the world, so who cares" approaches people had with them. Turns out that in terms of quantity, it was much more worth it too just buy them from the trading post. For rarity, i think it also comes down to the same, all though im not really sure on that.

One thing, that I found worth it by miles down are the lock boxes. The value of items you get from them, compared to the amount of gems you would spend buying them in the store is defiantly worth it. The drop rate of keys inside them is also fairly great. With 20 keys I managed to open 32 boxes. Also in terms of gems to gold, you can use the mystic tools they drop to harvest nods above your level and sell those for a profit.

@marslo: Damn that's a pretty crazy amount to spend without knowing how the economy will shake out at release. I'm not gonna tell you what to buy, but I would seriously advise you not to trade gems for gold right when the game goes live because although 30 gold was a lot during the beta, that might only take an hour to earn at level 80, so unless you're earning more than $50 an hour, it would be a bad trade.

I'm glad that for someone who works as much as yourself the gem store items are worth your cash and help even the playing field with the people who have more time than money to spend.