Updated Gaia Cash conversion rates

[gloomspell]

Lady Saxophone

On one hand, I can see the logic behind this:
Not everyone has the time to grind gold, so it's much easier to just buy something with GC
This change is probably very attractive towards casual users who have a few bucks to spend, plus it pushes GC sales.

On the other hand, this creates a lot of changes to the already-established user-run market.

My biggest complaint about the whole thing is that even if I have the cash, if there's no supply of the item, this doesn't do me any good.
Half of my wishlist is comprised of items with 0 listings.
I would love a system where we can buy items directly from Gaia when there's no listings.
Make it a GC-only system? Fine. I'm happy if it means being able to attain near-extinct items.

I agree with almost all of this, except the last part.

What do you mean by a GC-only system? Do you mean that everything on Gaia would convert to GCash currency, with no plat/gold? eek
That would be terrifying! And horrible!3
It would mean Gaia would lose all pretense of a free-to-play site and go completely money-based. No grinding, no casual users, etc.

Maybe you mean just a set of items that can ONLY be purchased with GCash, and nothing else? Even then, that poses some serious issues.
As a Gaian that spends GCash, I still like having the option of choosing to buy something with IRL money or digital currency. If an item is out of my GCash price range, I can guest for it using gold.
If we went to a GC-only system, we would completely lose that option. All nice items would be behind the gatekeeper of IRL money. The site would become a microcosm of greedy spending and many of the users would be driven away.

IDK, what were you picturing when you said "GC-only system"?

[The Immortal Prince]

Such a wacky conversion rate.

[Lady Saxophone]

gloomspell

Lady Saxophone

On one hand, I can see the logic behind this:
Not everyone has the time to grind gold, so it's much easier to just buy something with GC
This change is probably very attractive towards casual users who have a few bucks to spend, plus it pushes GC sales.

On the other hand, this creates a lot of changes to the already-established user-run market.

My biggest complaint about the whole thing is that even if I have the cash, if there's no supply of the item, this doesn't do me any good.
Half of my wishlist is comprised of items with 0 listings.
I would love a system where we can buy items directly from Gaia when there's no listings.
Make it a GC-only system? Fine. I'm happy if it means being able to attain near-extinct items.

I agree with almost all of this, except the last part.

What do you mean by a GC-only system? Do you mean that everything on Gaia would convert to GCash currency, with no plat/gold? eek
That would be terrifying! And horrible!3
It would mean Gaia would lose all pretense of a free-to-play site and go completely money-based. No grinding, no casual users, etc.

Maybe you mean just a set of items that can ONLY be purchased with GCash, and nothing else? Even then, that poses some serious issues.
As a Gaian that spends GCash, I still like having the option of choosing to buy something with IRL money or digital currency. If an item is out of my GCash price range, I can guest for it using gold.
If we went to a GC-only system, we would completely lose that option. All nice items would be behind the gatekeeper of IRL money. The site would become a microcosm of greedy spending and many of the users would be driven away.

IDK, what were you picturing when you said "GC-only system"?

No, nothing like that sweatdrop
Ideally, I was imagining a system built into the marketplace that monitors the listings of items.
If an item hasn't had a listing for 30 days, then the system automatically makes a listing for it for only GC
(kind of like Flynn's Plunder, but instead of bidding, you just direct-buy with GC).
It could just be a single listing every 30 days -- that would be fine. It would just be a way to ensure that the item doesn't go completely "extinct".

The staff are already trying to do this sort of thing with Rococo and Mecha Neko, but those efforts rely on them manually finding items that are scarce.
Plus, only about 5-10 items get stocked (and only for a limited time period) every time those shops are updated.

There are a few flaws to my idea as well though:
1. Someone could be a troll, by continually listing and canceling an item, thus making it look like there has been a listing in the past 30 days.
2. The item's value may go down over time. However, I think this would extremely gradual (over the course of months/years).
3. There's a possibility that someone continually snipes the listing before you can get to it, due to the high demand of the item.
4. Certain items would need to be excluded from this system (i.e. Custom Tickets, Gold Generators, exclusive items, etc.)

[Yeata Zi]

This would be ok if they didn't just make gold from the purchase. If the seller got GC for the payment, this would be fine because no new gold would be generated.

[Tiana Luscinia]

Lady Saxophone

On one hand, I can see the logic behind this:
Not everyone has the time to grind gold, so it's much easier to just buy something with GC
This change is probably very attractive towards casual users who have a few bucks to spend, plus it pushes GC sales.

On the other hand, this creates a lot of changes to the already-established user-run market.

My biggest complaint about the whole thing is that even if I have the cash, if there's no supply of the item, this doesn't do me any good.
Half of my wishlist is comprised of items with 0 listings.
I would love a system where we can buy items directly from Gaia when there's no listings.
Make it a GC-only system? Fine. I'm happy if it means being able to attain near-extinct items.

I must admit I recently bought something with GC in the MP because I wanted it and the GC price was more attractive to me than sinking the gold. I felt kind of bad because it's like making gold poof out of nowhere.

I do like that idea of yours. Gaia could make money off of this. Screw rarity. I don't care because I want the items and am willing to pay a reasonable amount for some of them.

[KuraiSakura]

Well recently I've been buying GCash Giftcards (Because conversion rate to dollar is still nasty). And its an average of 150k for 1000 GCash.

The conversion rate of 1007 Gcash to 150k Platinum, is still a bit weird! But it does make sense the rates are similar to spending 1 Gcash to 150 Platinum.

Then wouldn't it be just easier to remove the 10% Gcash tax because of the adjustments? Or lower it a bit because GCash would be useful to a non-paying player as currency they'd send back into the system?

[Frozen Mist]

I thought it was weird... yesterday I was staring at an item I’ve been unable to find for literal years, waiting for the seller to read my item offer.... when I suddenly realized I could buy it for $30. It felt like I’d stepped into the twilight zone.

It always bugged me that gc prices on MP didn’t match the true conversion rates, but I wish the seller received actual GC instead of gold because this is just going to keep causing an inflation loop if it’s generating gold...

[Nyadriel]

Frozen Mist

I thought it was weird... yesterday I was staring at an item I’ve been unable to find for literal years, waiting for the seller to read my item offer.... when I suddenly realized I could buy it for $30. It felt like I’d stepped into the twilight zone.

It always bugged me that gc prices on MP didn’t match the true conversion rates, but I wish the seller received actual GC instead of gold because this is just going to keep causing an inflation loop if it’s generating gold...

It was always meant to be a gold generator (now plat generator) while the company gets the money that you paid for to get the gc. So no, the mp seller was never gonna get the gc.


@ topic: I mentioned a question about why it wasn't put at 50 million gold/5 plat to 1 gc or 500 million gold/50 plat instead of over a billion gold in the Site Feedback thread.

[CraftyRani]

I was hoping they'd get rid of it at some point, tho before the update nobody was buying with GC bc it wasn't worth so it wasn't a problem anymore...Great way to start the year, this is just a never ending gold/plat generator emotion_puke

[submissive]

☽
I'm kinda indifferent with this update.
This is gonna cause more inflation to happen all over again.
Either that, or people won't have GC as a buying option for their items anymore.

But since i'm someone that prefers to buy items with Gcash, this isn't so bad for now.
I can actually buy items I want if I don't have the plat to get it.

It would be nice if gaia did an update to where you can buy unlisted items for GCash.
They could have an alternate "Buy now" option with Gcash and just make an estimate
on how much it would cost based on the abp. That would be nice.
✧

[Lady Venger]

Thank you for bringing this to our attention. These recent methods (lottery/jackpot's back~) coupled with the slight gc bonuses this past week...

I'm worried how this will work out in the long run.
Obv there's the fear of the generated gold/plat form this method and previously it was laughable considering the poor conversion but now...we'll have to see. ninja

Currently, you can see new LQR/LQI sticking at a specific price instead of buyers/sellers figuring it out... Which I'll miss since they're usually priced more affordably... but with the exact GC price, sellers will stick closer to it to match CS.

I will have to check out the exchange soon.

Ultimately, this will help free/less-time-online players-- maybe even entice them. Now users have something to spend their saved up GC on from the bulletin board, even--?

As for the comments on unlisted items (and I'd rather see an update to inventory sorting), I do miss the updates to Rococo and Mecha Neko but I do understand the manual updates would've been inefficient.

[HiR0SHi]

cosmere

They are basically improving a gold generator. They take GC and the person on the other end gets gold. I get they want to reduce amount of GC in the system, but pouring more gold into system isn’t the answer.

I agree with you here. It's taking cash and creating gold = more gold in the system. This is one of the features I would've liked done away with - unless it a was GC for GC purchase.

[Moepi]

Here we go again ...

[Chu-Lip Jam]

Svbmissive

☽
I'm kinda indifferent with this update.
This is gonna cause more inflation to happen all over again.
Either that, or people won't have GC as a buying option for their items anymore.

But since i'm someone that prefers to buy items with Gcash, this isn't so bad for now.
I can actually buy items I want if I don't have the plat to get it.

It would be nice if gaia did an update to where you can buy unlisted items for GCash.
They could have an alternate "Buy now" option with Gcash and just make an estimate
on how much it would cost based on the abp. That would be nice.
✧

Same. I can see the inflation happening again, but I was able to get two items on my WL that I couldn't afford with plat, but could afford with GC since the prices fell in line with what Gaia usually prices things for.

But not planning on making it a habit since I don't want to be spending up lots of GC either.