Talk:Gem

Currencies

I see both Karma and Gold are on the main page listed as currency. Shouldn't this one be added there as well? --Kilaa1000 15:49, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

The current Main Page/editcopy doesn't have currencies at all. Not sure where it's headed. Maybe discuss on Talk:Main_Page/editcopy? --Eerie Moss 16:16, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

The current Main Page/editcopy does have all the currencies. They are listed under their respective area of the game. Karma is under PvE, glory under PvP, influence with Guilds, and Coins and Gems under Trading. The editcopy really needs to be pushed live to update those links. Hasn't changed in a week and the last change was two weeks before that and those links really needed to get updated as evidence by a few talk pages asking something similar to this that is already fixed on the editcopy. 17:16, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Gems for free?

So do we get any for free as being in beta or with a certain edition of the game? Or do we pay for those 2000 gems offer in the beta?Yumiko ^,~ 04:44, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

Also I did the math from the commerce tab of the game. So at current beta prices; gems are 5 silver 0 copper at lowest and 30 silver 0 copper at highest prices. Using that knowledge and the fact that 100 copper is 1 silver, 100 silver is one gold, and 10000 copper is one gold, we can assume that 1800 gems needed to change servers each week (to be with friends or move guilds to find people we know or a more favorable server for PvP) will cost roughly 500 - 3000 copper atm per gem. Thus by that logic, it will cost so 1800x (500~3000) = 900k - 5.4 million copper with prices going ever up and possibly never down... like how the United States Gold Market currently is. Its like ANET is saying, "HAPPY FARMING TROLLOLOL!! Love you!" Yumiko ^,~ 04:54, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

The cash price never changes though. 05:04, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

How much is one gem in cash? If we can figure that out then we can see how inflated our currency (coins) is to gems. Yumiko ^,~ 14:16, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

There is no reason to change servers for most of the reasons you listed. Be with friends: guest. Move guilds: guilds are global. The only reason to change servers is to get an advantage in World PvP, which is why it is so very costly. Also if 5 silver gets you 125 gems (which is how much it cost me towards the end) then a server transfer would cost 72 silver. Even if it was 30 silver per 125 gems, it would only cost 4 gold, 32 silver. DarkNecrid 14:21, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

"The only reason to change servers is to get an advantage in World PvP" ... right, and being able to not play with your friends in WvW unless you pay that much is purely detestable. --Mooseyfate 21:01, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Also note that transferring to another world means you won't get any WvW benefits until after the current match. --RoyHarmon 15:17, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

"right, and being able to not play with your friends in WvW unless you pay that much is purely detestable." And not playing on the same server as your friends from the start is purely silly

A few gold for a server transfer is nothing; I had 6 gold by the end of BWE2 and I was in no way shape or for trying to get a lot of money. If you can pay for a server transfer by the time you're level 10 then why are you complaining? Stop whining about things you don't actually understand yet and wait for the game to actually be released before you make a big deal out of your speculations.

P.S.

Almost every single other MMO out there requires you to pay real life money to transfer servers. And those MMOs don't have Guesting or global Guilds/Trading Posts so there really is no way you can complain about the way ANet is handling servers because they are doing such a better job than everyone else out there. --Sollinton 21:06, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

Real life money --> in game money

If real life money can buy gems and in game money can be traded to gems, isnt it then possible to get a lot of in game money by buying lots of gems via real money. This seems kinda worrying... 88.85.130.64 13:12, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

That would lead to deflation for in-game currency. It will be expensive for everything as it will cost 1000s of copper just for materials in the trading post, as materials, like copper ore, are not sold at any shops in game and only supplied by players/farming so unless you can get all your own stuff, (ore nodes) you will be affected in the market. Trust me, having real money affect the game too much ruins your in-game economy in the sense that your in-game money goes into the worthless category. This happens in many Ragnarok Online servers that use donation/cash shops that are imbalanced and nearly happened in our very own gw 1 in a totally different angle do to shadow form ecto farmers in gw 1, but that case was in game currency to in-game commodities. Yumiko ^,~ 15:26, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

The gems you buy/sell in game come from/to other players, so it doesn't cause inflation (no new gold enters the economy). Will you have more coin to spend? Yes. Will you be at a significant advantage? No. A lot of stuff is either restricted by level, or bought with karma, which you can't trade. 91.74.205.113 15:57, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

One direction players will go when selling gems for gold, is they will then spend the gold in ways that remove it from the game (did you notice the influence you could get for 100 gold?). Buying gems does not itself create gold, but selling them to players can cause gold prices to remain more stable across the life of the game. So long as the value of the currencies going into gems remains stable, and the supply of gold does not vastly change,, the gem prices will remain stable as well. 97.118.203.172 02:31, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

This is a very touchy thing, ANET need to be careful with this. This is like teetering on a needle. We'll have to see how it goes. Give it a week and see how it falls into the econ. <---Neji was here---<<< 03:15, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

Agreed. I can imagine a high demand for gems to unlock extra slots & storage resulting in high prices for gems. Good for the person who bought some in the first place but could result in the rest of us being unable to match the amounts of coin offered by gold-farmers to get them. It would be more balanced if it's possible to win gems from treasure chests or high-level crafting but I guess that would reduce the $ going into Anet coffers. They are starting to seem a bit greedy when the game already costs £50 (that's about $78 btw). 194.66.175.81 13:36, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

This tried and tested concept has been working in Eve Online for years. It does NOT cause an issue. YES, it will cost a "lot" of in-game money to buy gems. Of course, if loads of people buy gems to sell, the price will crash. Which makes it cheaper for you "I don't pay to win" players to buy gems with in-game money. So why complain? It funds the servers and costs you nothing. Won't give them any advantage in sPvP and WvW is casual. 86.178.143.188 01:38, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

I think you answered your own question at "YES, it will cost a "lot" of in-game money to buy gems". Solo PVE players are already at a disadvantage since they will be unlikely to get very far in the elite dungeons where the best drops will occur so they will never accumulate a lot of in game currency. Guildy gold farmers meanwhile will be able to get free account upgrades while rich noobs will be bestowed with enough currency to drain the trading post of most useful stuff. For the record I'm neither so I object to those groups getting such advantages. I did however support Anet servers by buying the odd extra character & storage slot which appears to go unrewarded in GW2. Besides, if I wanted to play a game like Eve online I'd actually go and play Eve online but I draw the line at waiting 6 months to learn a skill. God I hope Anet don't start thinking of things like that.

I don't think you understand the system . The exchange rate for gems/coins depends upon the market for those items. If there are a lot more people who have bought gems with IRL money and want to exchange for coin than people who have in-game coin who want to buy gems, then the value of coin goes up relative to gems. So coin gets really expensive to buy with gems and gems get really cheap to buy with coin. You're worried about BOTH "gold farmers" and "rich noobs". If both have exactly the same level of impact, then they cancel each other out in the market and you have an exchange rate as if those two groups don't exist. If there are more rich noobs, then the price of character slots and other upgrades goes down for you. If there are more gold farmers, then it's more expensive for them to get gems and they have to work harder to get benefits. The specifics are going to be tricky, but, as a concept, it's pretty solid. As someone who doesn't plan to use IRL money, I hope there are a lot of rich noobs driving down the cost of gems. - Me 02:18, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

I think I understood the system perfectly. It's supply & demand. Unfortunately I think there will be less rich noobs buying gems than there will be demand for them therefore the in-game price goes up as the l33t f4rm3rz figure out how to get more gold than the rest of us. The high demand for gems will be there from day 1 because players will want extra storage & character slots, 50% rare drops boosters, mini's etc. The farmers and the rich noobs do not cancel each other out even if they exist in the same proportion. Every time a rich noob buys a perfect weapon using gems, there is one less perfect weapon available at the trading post for everyone else with coin. The noobs and farmers effectively become a closed economy where one group provides goods and the other group provides gems (and the gems provide boosters to get the good stuff so completing the loop). I do predict an initial undervaluation of gems as those who want extra slots & storage may buy more gems than necessary. Likewise Anet can affect the value at any time by offering them at reduced rates for a period (so gem value fluctuation should be expected to some degree but I suspect in 6 months time new players will not be able to buy gems using coin). I hope I'm wrong.

(Reset indent) This discussion has gone on long enough. It has no relevance to the wiki and does not belong on a mainspace talkpage. If any of the posters wish to continue, please do so on one of your user talk pages instead. Thank you. —Dr Ishmael 12:47, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

Home server exchange

How does the gem trading work, is it based on your home server, along with the auction house as the two appear to be linked, or is it using an aggregate across all the servers so everyone gets the same rate? E.G:(100 gems for 30 silver). Or can you simply guest to another server and use their exchange rate. I think it should be listed on the main page which of the three systems it uses. Coltaine 12:25, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure Anet stated that both the Trading Post and the Gem Exchange are game-wide - they cover all servers. —Dr Ishmael 12:33, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

Beta Gems

Is this quote "Each beta player will receive 500 free gems on their account, so do a little shopping on us!" implying all beta players recieve some free gems, as this slightly differs from the 2000 gems we were given to experiment with last beta weekend. It sure would be a nice reward for prepurchasing and helping them get the game perfect for release, especially if we're going to need them to use our HoM reward skins on semi decent weapons.79.75.92.83 09:31, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

It's for BWE2 only, just like the 2000 were for BWE1 only (although if you didn't spend all 2000, they might carry forward to BWE2). No one's going to get any free gems at launch (yet). —Dr Ishmael 12:33, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

(To correct my parenthetical statement here, in the Reddit AMA, it was stated that unused balances from BWE1 will not carry over to BWE2.) —Dr Ishmael 21:59, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

Money Player vs Normal Player

can i say bad word? i got nothing to say if i can't! to think about everytime you loseing in WvW because you got no money in real world, this make me want to give up gw2.--151.199.39.38 14:48, 19 June 2012 (UTC)

As far as I can see, there's nothing WvW-ish in the Gem Store. The only WvW thing I can think of are siege weapons and guild boosts, which of course can only be bought through Gold and Influence respectively. ~ ♥ Kailani! ʕ •ᴥ•ʔ 15:20, 19 June 2012 (UTC)

The IP is probably worried about people spending real money to buy gems to exchange for gold to buy siege weapons. —Dr Ishmael 15:23, 19 June 2012 (UTC)

And to address that, supply is likely to be the more limiting factor there, and you can't buy that. Blueprints aren't that expensive. --Eerie Moss 15:56, 19 June 2012 (UTC)

I haven't played any WvW yet so I didn't want to make any assessments of how this might actually play out, but if that's how it is, then you're right - simply having a ton of gold isn't going to give anyone a practical advantage in WvW. —Dr Ishmael 15:59, 19 June 2012 (UTC)

Imagine a scenario in which those with spare RL cash flock to World A, leaving 95 other worlds without monied players. The 10,000 World A players band together in 100 guilds, earning influence like crazy, and building up frequent bonuses for holding forts and even more bonuses to help generate influence. Assuming these one-percenters were as skilled at combat as the rest, I can imagine that they would tend to win more often.

Anything less extreme would mean at least several worlds with gem-bought and coordinated-guild-powered teams...and ANet's competition system means those worlds would play against each other. So while IP151 might have a couple of days at losing in WvW due to poverty, it seems very, very, very unlikely this would be an ongoing problem. – Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 16:57, 19 June 2012 (UTC)

Paying for server transfer is horrid. That aside, paying for in game currency is good. Sure, it has it's down sides, but the unfortunate fact of the matter is, if you can't pay for in game currency with real life money, other companies will unethically find a way to circumvent this. Basically, playing for in game currency is bad. But, paying for in game currency to ANet is better than paying for in game currency though an unofficial channel. Prices will be more fair, and in game economy will suffer less. I'm not saying it's perfect, but it's the better of two solution. It's just paying for server transfers and map travel that sours their system, counter-productively to their to the core tenants manifesto even (which is not to say they are breaking promises, but stifling who you play with is the reverse philosophy of what they have stated many times about the experience they wish to create). --Mooseyfate 21:07, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Mooseyfate -- Don't forget about the world guesting system. I'm not aware of it being available in the beta-- I've had no opportunity to try it, but I think I remember a developer saying it wasn't available yet-- but when the game goes live, we won't have to worry about "stifling who you play with."

On the original topic, I think everyone who goes into convulsions at the idea of the gem store should be patient and watch to see what happens before they declare the end of the world. I'm sure it's fun and makes them feel quite clever to cry out that "the sky is falling" now, but when we see the model in action, they're more likely to be wrong than to say, "I told you so." Remember, the people who made the decision to implement the gem store were the people who made the game. They work in the industry every day. Most of us only play in it. If the awesomeness of Guild Wars and the previewed awesomeness of Guild Wars 2 can tell us anything, it's that these are people who do their homework and get it right. I trust them on this. If anyone else thinks they know more about the MMO industry than the folks at ArenaNet do, consider applying for one of the available job openings. --RoyHarmon 15:15, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

Purchased with Coin directly from the BLTC?

In the last beta, I could spend my character's gold to buy gems (or it seemed like i could, didn't finalize the transaction though). On this page, we state that you can trade coin for gems with other players, should this be updated to reflect the change or do we wait for the actual release? PixelMatt 19:03, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

You're buying second-hand gems from other players who purchased the gems with real money (the only way to acquire "new" gems). —Dr Ishmael 19:37, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

This was what the community speculated when we first learned about gems, but I think this is not the case. I think they use a simple gem <=> coin conversion rate based on the size of transactions on either side, not on the amount of "banked" Black Lion Trading Company gems from people that sold their gems for gold. If my presumptions are correct, that would mean that in theory if a player would have an infinite amount of gold, they would be able to exchange that for an infinite amount of gems (regardless of the amount of gems on the market), but that would mean the gold price per gem would inflate infinitely high, and the amount of people interested in buying gems for gold would drop to almost infinitely low, and the amount of people interested in buying gold for gems would be almost infinitely high. Just as a thought experiment to illustrate my point.

It could still be possible that the exchange rate is based on the amount of gems "banked" by the Black Lion Trading Company, or it could be that gems are effectively constantly created and destroyed by gem <=> coin exchange, we don't know for sure. But the current text reflects only one of these possibilities that we are not even that certain about anymore. It should be based on what we know, not on what everyone (including me) has been shouting against naysayers when we first learned about gems.

And either way, the Trading Post is currently not the section of the Black Lion Trading Company where gem exchange takes place. Note the Gem Store, Currency Exchange, and Trading Post are named as separate sections on the Black Lion Trading Company article. People can't place buy orders for gems, for example. —RaizinMonk 13:02, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

After trying to purchase exactly one hundred gems for coin I found the conversion rate theory more likely given the possibility to trade an exact amount (going 2 bronze over an amount in silver gave me an extra gem) for 100 gems rather than putting in an offer. Is this confirmed yet? Sarkai 08:33, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

Gem pricing in real money terms

Based on the following table from the main article:

Currency	Gems/Unit	Unit/Gem
British Pounds	94/£	£1.0625/100
EU Euros	80/€	€1.25/100
US Dollars	80/$	$1.25/100

Here's some conversions that are accurate as of today's exchange rate, which will make comparisons easier. I'll use a common currency and my local currency for reference, as this is just as much for my own benefit as for yours.

First, let's take the price for 10,000 gems to make the calculations easier:

Cost in £ (GBP): 10,000 gems costs 106.25 GBP = 13,305.70 JPY = 1,001.17 DKK

Cost in € (EUR): 10,000 gems costs 125 EUR = 12,371.26 JPY = 930.860 DKK

Cost in $ (USD): 10,000 gems costs 125 USD = 9,909.18 JPY = 746.177 DKK

As we can see, gems are quite differently priced, based in locale. This may be because of VAT.

If we call the price in GBP index 100, the price in EUR is 93 and the price in USD 75. Unless my quick-and-dirty math is off.

Is it in any way possible for an european player (e.g. 'me') to purchase gems using dollars? It would save me some money given 8 euro = 10 usd = the same amount of gems as 10 euro. If there is no official way one could always ask an American friend to buy gems on their behalve and then trade the gems back. Which would be the return of the unofficial money trade, only in smaller margins. Sarkai 08:33, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

PaySafe card?

Can you buy gems with PaySafe card? If not, will it be available in the future?

Are gems tradable?

Is it possible to trade gems player-to-player without use of the trading post? Like if I wanted to give a friend of mine gems for another character slot, could I buy gems and trade it to him directly? My guess is No, but I can't find anything on it specifically. Viruzzz 18:10, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

I was wondering this too. I do giveaways for my guild, and I'd love to do one for something like a character slot, but I'm not sure if it's possible. Looking around, I couldn't figure out a way, but maybe there's something I'm missing. -- Melliechick 18:39, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

No, you cant. We did a guild event with a price of 1000 gems and when our GL asked a GM, they said its not possible. Instead, he bought the items worth 1000 gems and traded with the winner.

Sadly it is not possible to mail gems to friends either. I tried to transfer 800 to my OH so she could get another character slot. I changed them into coin and sent her that instead but when she tried to change it back she only got 600 gems (literally seconds later). Sounds like a good idea to trade expensive items instead - I wish I'd thought of that. Lesson learned, no more gem stockpiling.

Gems to Gold

What makes this rather silly, is that selling gems for gold is rather worthless at the moment. I calculated that the top tier of real money gems (4000 at £45.00) sells for approximately 7.5 gold.

Has there been any explanation about the difference in exchange rates from Gems to Gold and Gold to Gems? Having just checked, I could buy 75 for 2813 or I could sell 107 for the same 2813. Why the disparity and why so great? Adeira Tasharo 13:17, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

Well at least I have figured out the graph at the bottom. Five Day Low is the price you get if you're selling Gems, Five Day High is the price you pay if you're buying Gems. I had been thinking that there was a single rate... I suppose that if there were just a single rate, people would play the Gem market like the stock market. Adeira Tasharo 13:25, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

Structured PvP?

I'm pretty sure the structured pvp section of the article is no longer accurate. Perhaps someone who knows the exact current state of affairs could correct?

On a related note, does this wiki have an "outdated" template or tag to insert?

VAT

I added the fact that the price of gems in $ doesn't include Sales Tax, while the price in € includes 20% VAT. I'm not certain about £, though. I think it also already includes 20%. It all depends on where the company that does the actual selling of gems to British residents is located (which country) and how much VAT that country has. Can someone from the UK confirm this? --Alad 23:19, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

This seems to end up being a confusing topic. I've seen posts that say in-game, tax was previously not charged/included... and then it was. I've bought gem cards (and others) in California Gamestops and no tax was charged. I've tried to buy through California Frys and been charged tax. It looks like bestbuy.com does not. This just seems like a big 'ol YMMV. 184.23.131.23 06:51, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

Taxes applied to purchases in Europe are rarely ambiguous, while in the US, they always are. Unlike in most countries, US sales taxes are determined locally. Technically, the consumer is considered responsible for paying the tax and retailers are only responsible for collecting it; in actual practice, if the vendor doesn't collect, the tax never gets paid. In particular, vendors have long argued with local governments about whether sales taxes should apply for sales conducted over the internet and if so, what jurisdictions determine the amounts.

• Often, "dot coms" won't collect it, but sometimes, they do.
• Some vendors won't collect the taxes on gift cards (including gem cards), because sometimes, some jurisdictions consider that the "sale" only takes place later, when the gift card is redeemed for goods.

The end result is that there's no way to be 100% sure about whether or how much you get charged. Thus, it's typically easy to include VAT as part of the price outside the US and it's generally impossible to do that in the US. – Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 13:15, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

Retailers with Gem Cards

(quoting from https://www.facebook.com/GuildWars2/posts/10151161572874209)

Looking for Guild Wars 2 Gems Cards? Here's a list of retailers where they can be found:
Canada: Best Buy Canada, London Drugs, EBGames
United States: Fred Meyer, Hasting, NewEgg, Fry’s, Amazon
Germany: Gamestop, Media Markt, Saturn
France: FNAC, Amazon
Belgium & Netherlands: Game Mania, Free Record Shop
Italy: Amazon.it
Spain: FNAC, Gamestop
Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland: CDON, Webhallen
South Africa: BT Games

I have found them in the US at:

* Newegg.com (2000)
* Amazon.com (2000)
* Gamestop (1200)
* Fry's (2000)
* Bestbuy (1200 and 2000)

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 12.0.205.82 (talk • contribs) at 18:01, 3 September 2014‎ (UTC).

Walmart stopped carrying anything related to GW 2 as its a 2-3 year old game and they see no value in it anymore. Idiots. So I'll be taking that off the list, unless when HoT comes out and Walmart will start selling both again.Yumiko ^,~ (talk) 16:19, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

Every store on the list has discontinued carrying the cards at some point and representatives usually don't know why. It could be because the head office decided there aren't enough sales to make it worth the shelf space, that the distribution network stopping carrying them, or a dozen other reasons. As often as not, things change and they get a supply in. I've seen more than a few players post that Target or Gamestop no longer offer cards, according to what those players were told. And then a few weeks later, I see an advertisement showing Target or Gamestop offering cards at a minor discount.

Accordingly, I'm going to restore the original list, including Walmart and rephrase the intro. The idea is to maintain a list that shows where people should check, if they want to buy gems but not from ANet. None of the shops are guaranteed to have gem cards. 162.205.5.130 04:09, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

changes to Currency Exchange UI

The panel includes the high, low, and average over the last 5 days, along with a graph displaying the rate over the same period.

Was this removed in the October 21 2014 update or is there some other way to get at the info? - Temerity (talk) 23:41, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

New accounts - delays on access to Currency Exchange

The delay on using the Currency Exchange definitely is, or at least can be, higher than the 2 days (?) in the article. I bought and started a second account, transferred some gold from my primary one, and have been waiting ever since to be able to buy a couple of things, watching the conversion rate yo-yo up and down. That was 3 calendar days ago (I've seen 3 midnight resets and put in my dailies 3 times, although it's not yet actually a full 72 hours). I'll update here with the actual time it takes once I'm enabled for conversions - but I'd suggest that a more woolly wording might be better.

Update: If my experience is representative, the delay appears to be 72 hours for a new account. I was able to create a new character and access currency exchange immediately, however.--90.209.151.248 19:52, 15 April 2015 (UTC)

Acquisition

I feel that either listing all methods (default O, graphical user interface menu bar, Trading Post NPC or Trading Post consumable) or no methods of accessing the Black Lion Trading Company panel (since all accsss methods should already be listed there) might be appropriate, but not a single method. ~ 1Maven (talk) 09:41, 23 May 2015 (UTC)

Maximum Amount

Is 9999 the maximum amount of gems you can hold? If not, is there a set maximum amount? 87.10.51.127 23:13, 7 March 2019 (UTC)

No, I've had 12000 without issues. Hyper (talk) 02:51, 23 March 2021 (UTC)