Time for some gem talk:
Anyone else think that the price of gems in real money compared to using in-game money actively discourages people from buying gems with cash, and instead just playing for a few hours and cashing in some silver/gold?
I've made 800 gems over the past 4-5 days, and it seems absolutely absurd to me that someone would pay $10 instead of simply playing a game with no sub. fee and getting the gems, essentially, for free.
I suppose that's just subjective, and some people are willing to part with $10 like it's no big deal, but for me, it's almost like I'm getting paid to play the game, in the sense that "Oh, instead of paying $10, I'll just keep playing and enjoying myself, and then pick up that $10 item 'for free.'" This feeling is further enforced by the fact that there don't seem to be many in-game money dumps, like traditional MMOs had in the form of training and mounts, so it doesn't feel like there's any opportunity cost associated with using my gold for gems.
Now, with the gem market being dynamic, and gold-gem conversion being market driven, it leads me to ask another question: will the amount of in-game currency required for gems be increasing significantly in the near future, in a way that makes players more enticed to spend real currency for gems? If so, couldn't we become very wealthy in-game by dumping all our in-game currency into gems right now, and then cashing in those gems in 1-2 months?
A lot of this is "well no duh, dude" I guess, but I wanted to see what you guys thought.