Guild Wars 2

I know there are a few Black lion keys awarded from zone completions, lvl and quest rewards but these need to be a little more obtainable in game not just a cash shop item. GW2 has turned into a cash cow MMO and if they want to keep this game going in the long run they need to make Black lion keys avalable as rewards either via dungeon tokens, karma, or silver ( for a fairly high but not outragious price ) or introduce a ( Premium subscription option where you gain access to say free asura waypoint transfers, 50 free Black lion keys a month and maybe some other benefits )

ATM with all the bugged skills, events, dungeons and lack of customer support its the least they could do to say hey were sorry help support us and in return we will give you benefits and fix our unresolved issues sooner as we will be able to hire more and better qualified programmers to fix these issues.

A good example of this is DC Universe online. There premium gives you unlimited unlock to promethum chests, expanded storage, ah slots, inventory, character slots and sinse they added it there player base has gone way up and bugs, hacks and glitches have gone way down due in part to the increase in support staff.

think about it.

You can buy keys with in game gold already.

Buy Gems with Gold > Buy Keys with Gems.

Currently works out about ~67 silver a key if you buy the 5 key pack for 450 Gems.

Press ‘O’ in game, then click the second tab down for the Gem <> Gold Exchange.

Its too freaking expensive!
/rant

Wolfgang Michael.8217:

Its too freaking expensive!
/rant

What does that matter? Its not like you need anything on the Gem Store to play the game.

Tindahbawx.1540:

Wolfgang Michael.8217:

Its too freaking expensive!
/rant

What does that matter? Its not like you need anything on the Gem Store to play the game.

True. But then again its like I don’t need to play the game at all. Still I play, and still people do want keys!

Want them and therefore should be given them?

Entitlement has seeped soooo far into MMO culture these days.

You can buy keys with in game gold already.

Buy Gems with Gold > Buy Keys with Gems.

Currently works out about ~67 silver a key if you buy the 5 key pack for 450 Gems.

Press ‘O’ in game, then click the second tab down for the Gem <> Gold Exchange.

(edited October 20, 2012 09:12 by Tindahbawx.5317)

actually your wrong. sinse Anet has been pushing the price of gems up 453 gems is 3g 8 silver thats 76 silver a key atm and the market is down slightly from yesturday. I’m not asking for free keys ( unless I was paying a monthly premium ) but I do expect to be able to obtain them at a reasonable price thru multiple sources.

With the current rate of inflation keys will be about 1gold each in a week or two. To be Honest is 1 gold worth 2 random items and 3 useless trasmutation tonics?… I dont think so.

xEtherx.6127:

actually your wrong. sinse Anet has been pushing the price of gems up 453 gems is 3g 8 silver thats 76 silver a key atm and the market is down slightly from yesturday. I’m not asking for free keys but I do expect to be able to obtain then at a reasonable price.

Current Gem price: 100 gems costs 69 s 10 c
Therefore 450 Gems costs 3g 10s 95c.

Meaning each key is 62s 19c, at this time, of 14:25 GMT.

xEtherx.6127:

With the current rate of inflation keys will be about 1gold each in a week or two. To be Honest is 1 gold worth 2 random items and 3 useless trasmutation tonics?… I dont think so.

I don’t know? Is it? Its entirely subjective. If you don’t feel like its worth buying, then don’t buy it. If a lot of people begin to feel the same way and stop buying gems then the price should start dropping again.

Regardless, its nothing that you simply MUST have to play the game. Its cosmetic items, at best.

EU must be different because I did the math before posting and the price was76 silver per key and rising. To me aside from getting the occasional instant repair kit, Black lion salvage kit the chests are useless. So I’ll wait til the halloween event and sell off the 225 chests I have when the prices go up. Cheers

My only problem with the keys is they seemed to never drop anymore, I have gotten 12+ keys 3 are from random drops from mobs. Rest have all been from story quests / zone completion, but as of late I have not seen a key in weeks.

Gem prices are going to keep going up also, as a lot of people are stocking up for the event.

Do people really not understand that running, updating, and expanding a game takes a lot of money? They have to pay to operate the servers that hosts the game, they have to pay the technicians who keep that running smoothly. They have to pay for this website, the writers who provide the copy, the translators who make it available across language barriers, the moderators who keep track of the forums.

They have to pay designers to constantly work creating new weapon/armor skins, dungeons, zones, quests, and characters. They have to pay people to optimize these changes across the range of PC capabilities.

They have to pay for customer service, marketing, and advertising.

They have to pay operating fees for all of their locations and services.

And they have to recuperate MILLIONS spent in developing and launching the game.

Besides the initial cost of the game, that’s the only money they are guaranteed from their continuing players. They’d don’t make money through subscriptions. So every day spent keeping this game going just keeps increasing their costs without increasing their revenue.

And at the end of the day, they need this whole venture to be profitable enough for it to be worth it.

So BOO HOO, the items you buy with gems aren’t super cheap. Boo hoo, it’s 67s, 1g, whatever for a key to a Black Lion Chest. All that you find in BLC are items to make some tasks in game more expedient, plus vanity items.

ANet has made the choice not to restrict ANY content to players who don’t want to pay any more. Hell, even the OPTIONAL stuff is completely available through in-game currency.

If you’re going to moan about the price of completely optional, quality-of-life items that in no way restrict you from enjoying the actual game, then you are pathetic and your sense of entitlement if the perfect example of what’s wrong with modern gamers.

This also applies to the rumors that ANet has been pushing up the cost of gems. True or not, they’d be completely within their rights to do so.

The point that you seem to have missed in a lot of these discussions is that there are lots of people who’d be willing to spend more money if the stuff in the gem store were cheaper, so the speculation is that ANet is not actually anywhere close to where they’d make maximum revenue. If that’s the case, it’s in everyone’s best interest for them to lower those prices.

While I don’t deny that the keys are an obvious (and fair) way for ANet to earn some money, I do believe they should make the keys a little easier to obtain. I think that giving out one BLK for the Daily Completion (and maybe 5 – 10 for the Monthly Completion) would be enough to give players more of a feeling like they’re not being pressured into buying keys, without affecting the supply of keys unduly. On a typical playing day, I will usually earn anywhere from 3 – 5 BLC’s; one key a day isn’t going to put a huge dent in my steadily-growing stockpile. (Although admittedly I sold all of my BLC’s recently when the price spiked due to the Halloween announcement.)

It’s not the key that’s should be more obtainable It’s the chests that should be rarer, so their price could get higher on the black lion so it becomes a source of gold income ^^

That’s also a possible solution. I think the main “problem” being felt by most players is that they keep getting more and more BLC’s, and can’t do anything with them because they don’t want to buy keys (not to mention that with the exception of a few items like the Permanent Bank Express and the BL Salvage Kit, very few items from BLC’s are actually worth the price). The chests just feel like a constant “Please buy our keys!” ad in your face. If the drop rate of chests was toned down, that would also help the issue. (I’d still prefer a more reliable way to get key drops though.)

Simple supply and demand tactics. The BLC are easy (though slightly rare) drops but not the keys – why? It’s incentive to 1.) sink gold into buying gems into buying keys and 2.) have the players use IRL cash (likely the intention of ANet) to buy keys.

If your poor – sorry for you, but even IRL, those who have cash have more options and this law transfers easily into MMO’s. Especially one that doesn’t require a monthly sub. And, as other posters stated, ANYONE can get these keys without spending a penny IRL. But, trust me on this, if you’re playing this game, even at a casual rate, in two years, you’ll likely have more gold than you care to do with. In GW1, by GWEtN release, my main had more plats than I could burn through. I WISHED we had a Gem sys in GW1 – I probably would’ve been able to afford every upgrade packages without spending a dime IRL.

Nice idea with the chests and all, but here is my issue. Chests “appear” to be obtained at a faster rate than the keys. Plain and simple.

Upon age 1 and working through the various levels to 80 they appear to drop rather slow. You may see one here or there but they are far and few between. Keys typically followed at the same pace. Before you know it you maybe have 3 chests banked somewhere and a key. Use the key on chest 1, get random stuff and another key. Use the second key on chest 2, get more random stuff and maybe a key or not which leaves you with 1 chest back in the bank. Go level or explore some more and find a key. Go back to bank, get chest, open chest, and be done.

Post 80 now and doing more advanced stuff like event and / or karma farming for legendarys and chests suddenly start falling out of the sky like skittles. Before you maybe had 3 as I noted above. After a good day of man handling events you all of a sudden have 13 or more. A week blows by and now you are 30+. Guess what the issue is.

All chests, no keys.

Yes, you can buy gems with gold. Yes, you can buy keys and gems with RL money. I think the issue for many, or maybe just me, is the chest to key drop ration seems a bit skewed based on the reward for the item inside. Then again, this could be just my issue with these sort of massive player games vs. the monthly fee ones. Because I for one typically don’t buy anything else other than the initial box content.

3 kids in college means I’m going to be watching where I drop my hard earned cash. They, Arena Net, deserve the money they earned off the box no doubt about it. I’ll buy the next expansion I’m sure. However, I tend to draw the line for the smaller things.

But that is just one mans opinion.