Currencies as reward are interesting, many people who argue for barter systems fail to realize that currency is an emergent property of economics, not an artificial invention of government. Even when there is no formal money, people develop currencies for exchange purposes (e.g., cigarettes in prison). Because if all you have to offer are eggs that I don’t need and all I have are carpentry skills which you don’t need, we can earn currency and spend it as we see fit. This is one reason I am not fond of special currencies in MMOs that have no exchange rate between them.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. The GW2 AH is a buyers’ market, it “works as designed” in a game devoid of scarcity, especially when Gold can be converted to Gems, which is ANet’s income. Only those people who expect to play the market and make a profit think it’s broken. ArenaNet wants you out there adventuring, not watching lists. Having said that, vendor+1c is silly. Since the AH takes a cut, if you sell at vendor+1, you may as well just vendor the item. But no one says you have to sell your stuff at that price. Those that want it “right now” will pay.

What does all that mean for GW2 crafting? Yet another game where crafting is barely an afterthought. At least you can level up a little while doing it. TSW has the only crafting I’ve ever gotten into, because I don’t have make a bajillion copper pants to skill up. However, it’s still a “mats market” (materials being more expensive than finished items) like WoW always was. And the Elite and Nightmare Tier Gear is not generally craftable.

However, I dislike the randomness of dungeon drops, and the unreliability of the loot system in WoW and several other games. You might quite simply never obtained certain “must-have” items through RNG. Perhaps you might get something through the AH, but that leads to the original issue of having the in-game cash to purchase it. Many players dislike the more prosaic token systems Blizzard once instituted, but least they were more in line with the sense of steady progress you get through leveling your character. I think people’s tunes might change if XP were as random as loot. “Ohp, sorry! You got no XP for the last ten bears you killed. Better luck on this next one.”