Guild Wars 2

The update notes say something about the black lion skins retiring. Does this mean I won’t be able to get them ever again with tickets? I’ve been saving mine up that I’ve gotten over the last 6 months for one skin… I’m only up to 4 scrapes so…

Will they ever come back? It takes so long to get tickets why are they disappearing?

Back when the Winter’s and Sclerite weapons were being retired, Colin (or another high level dev) said not to rule out the old sets EVER coming back; they could possibly bring it back for special occasions (e.g. Lovestruck weapons come back every Valentine’s Day).

If there’s a particular skin you have your eye on though, I suggest just buying it outright with gold, since there’s no guarantee of when the skins might be returning.

That’s really unfortunate. I’ve wanted to pick up one of the dreamthistle skins for almost a year now. I don’t understand why they would want to remove good content from the game. I’m not really interested in spending all my gold on one skin (I don’t have enough for it anyway). That’s why I was saving up the scrapes in hopes of one day achieving this goal.

The explanation the devs gave was that too many weapon sets clutter the Black Lion Weapon Specialists, so they clear some out to cut down on the clutter.

Which seems rather silly to me, considering they’re all just separate tabs and I don’t think it looks cluttered at all personally. And if it really becomes a problem they could just have a “Historic Weapon Specialist” for older sets and the normal one for more recent ones. But, ya know, that’s their reasoning anyway, regardless of whether I agree with it.

Indeed. My suggestion to them was that if space is an issue, then restructure the way the skins are given out.

1. Instead of having each separate skin listed there, combine them all into a single Weapon Box (e.g. Fused Weapon Box, Lovestruck Weapon Box). You open the box and you pick the skin you want.

2. Consolidate all the different Weapon Boxes into categories. For example, you can have a “Season 1” category for Fused/Sclerite/Dreamthistle skins, a “Festivals” category for Lovestruck/Halloween/Wintersday skins etc.

You now have saved a lot of space, and you can still keep all the weapon skins permanently available.

That’s a really good suggestion Zaxares.

I’m really surprised this kind of a logical solution cannot be “thought up” by the team working on this update.

Indeed, that was a very good suggestion, Zaxares.

I had offered this (and pics) as another suggestion in that same thread that involved Curtis Johnson in the discussion.

It’s a real shame that neither of our suggestions, nor those put forth by anyone else, had any effect on their decision to continue removing skin sets.

seriously – when you need 6 months for 4 scraps than you would need 6-7 years for 1 skin anyway

so relax – your playstyle is just to slow and you will never have it when you play like this^^

when noone buy this item from blacklionstore than no point to sell it – thats only reason why they are removed and when you wanna have it go buy it in tradepost

Zaxares.5419:

Indeed. My suggestion to them was that if space is an issue, then restructure the way the skins are given out.

1. Instead of having each separate skin listed there, combine them all into a single Weapon Box (e.g. Fused Weapon Box, Lovestruck Weapon Box). You open the box and you pick the skin you want.

2. Consolidate all the different Weapon Boxes into categories. For example, you can have a “Season 1” category for Fused/Sclerite/Dreamthistle skins, a “Festivals” category for Lovestruck/Halloween/Wintersday skins etc.

You now have saved a lot of space, and you can still keep all the weapon skins permanently available.

This exactly…you can preview them all in the wardrobe so there’s no reason not to do this.

Zaxares.5419:

Indeed. My suggestion to them was that if space is an issue, then restructure the way the skins are given out.

1. Instead of having each separate skin listed there, combine them all into a single Weapon Box (e.g. Fused Weapon Box, Lovestruck Weapon Box). You open the box and you pick the skin you want.

2. Consolidate all the different Weapon Boxes into categories. For example, you can have a “Season 1” category for Fused/Sclerite/Dreamthistle skins, a “Festivals” category for Lovestruck/Halloween/Wintersday skins etc.

You now have saved a lot of space, and you can still keep all the weapon skins permanently available.

People, who trade in those skins, would be able to pick up a box, then a couple of months later be able to choose, which weapon they want (obviously the most expensive one). Not sure, if that is a good change or not.

They are disappearing because anet is making the “hard sale,” similar to the reason why the minipet boxes diss appeared.

“Buy it now or lose your chance forever.”

Of course, this just increases the odds that the skins will be brought back someday on sale.

Wanze.8410:

Zaxares.5419:

Indeed. My suggestion to them was that if space is an issue, then restructure the way the skins are given out.

1. Instead of having each separate skin listed there, combine them all into a single Weapon Box (e.g. Fused Weapon Box, Lovestruck Weapon Box). You open the box and you pick the skin you want.

2. Consolidate all the different Weapon Boxes into categories. For example, you can have a “Season 1” category for Fused/Sclerite/Dreamthistle skins, a “Festivals” category for Lovestruck/Halloween/Wintersday skins etc.

You now have saved a lot of space, and you can still keep all the weapon skins permanently available.

People, who trade in those skins, would be able to pick up a box, then a couple of months later be able to choose, which weapon they want (obviously the most expensive one). Not sure, if that is a good change or not.

Not a huge difference than now, only now people have to guess which one they think will be the most expensive.

It’s most likely a marketing decision. Look at what Mountain Dew did with their limited-time flavors. Some of them they bring back seasonally, but they were never intended to be for sale perpetually.

Fact is, when something desirable goes out of stock, that makes people all the more pliable when it comes back in stock.

:/

Penarddun.6827:

That’s a really good suggestion Zaxares.

I’m really surprised this kind of a logical solution cannot be “thought up” by the team working on this update.

Perhaps they thought of this solution, and rejected it for some very good reason.

You could assume that they know what they’re doing.

Just a thought.

I kind of assume they are taking them away in order to build up demand so they can re-release them later on and then they will be “new” again and there will be new people who want them.

This allows them use old skins as recycled release content for the black lion chests. It’s less work this way for them but still sells keys.

It’s really simple. If you check the BL vendor, there is simply no more space to add a new tab for a new weapon set. So they decided to remove some to make space for future sets. They decided to remove them in bulk like now 4 weapon sets are leaving. So they are fine for a couple of months until the run out of space again.

ProTech.8402:

It’s really simple. If you check the BL vendor, there is simply no more space to add a new tab for a new weapon set. So they decided to remove some to make space for future sets. They decided to remove them in bulk like now 4 weapon sets are leaving. So they are fine for a couple of months until the run out of space again.

They can’t add more space for tabs?
They can’t add a second vendor with the older skins?

Surely that’s not so hard to program.

The simple reason is that they did not design their interfaces for future possibilities and expansion. They’re stuck on old gw1 design methodologies and are already out of space for expansion in just 2 years of lifespan. If it continues, there will be no way to possibly get any of the old skins without an overhaul of the entire interface system. They need to think really hard and serious about the future of gw2 and whether they want US to be happy or them to be happy. As it sits their infatuation with limited time stuff, super RNG, and time gating is really grating on the populous that pays attention.

I think Anet should take a cue from Aion, they’ve been constantly adding things to their market place and haven’t taken anything out of it. However, it is an extension of their website (could be implemented in-game through the gem store easy enough).
http://store.aiononline.com/store/index

Zaxares.5419:

Indeed. My suggestion to them was that if space is an issue, then restructure the way the skins are given out.

1. Instead of having each separate skin listed there, combine them all into a single Weapon Box (e.g. Fused Weapon Box, Lovestruck Weapon Box). You open the box and you pick the skin you want.

2. Consolidate all the different Weapon Boxes into categories. For example, you can have a “Season 1” category for Fused/Sclerite/Dreamthistle skins, a “Festivals” category for Lovestruck/Halloween/Wintersday skins etc.

You now have saved a lot of space, and you can still keep all the weapon skins permanently available.

Would work perfectly for me.

The only “downside” I see with weapon crates is that you wouldn’t be able to preview all the weapon skins when talking to the NPC, but as we have access to those previews through our own bank, this is kind of a non-issue.

(Although I suppose it would be easy to add a dialogue option to the BL Weapon Trader NPCs that allows you to open your wardrobe.)

As for removing skins at all… I said in another thread:

• I am okay with festival-type skins only being available during the actual festival, but recurring once a year – Lovestruck, Dragon Jade, Wintersday etc. weapons.
• I am not really okay with arbitrarily removing the other weapon skins. Who does that serve? It means that 1) ANet will sell fewer BL keys as the skins people would like to pick up for their character (for instance Dreamthistle) aren’t available, and might not return. And b) ANet JUST introduced the collections – I hope they didn’t assume that players just had hundreds of BL tickets stashed away to buy entire sets (at 5-7 tickets a skin!!) with a sudden 2 week deadline.

Wanze.8410:

People, who trade in those skins, would be able to pick up a box, then a couple of months later be able to choose, which weapon they want (obviously the most expensive one). Not sure, if that is a good change or not.

So all weapon skins of one set would even out in price over time and all be the same price – what’s bad about that? Does a trident HAVE to be cheaper than a greatsword? If that’s the worst that can happen, I completely don’t see the issue.

/Shrugs.

Labjax.2465:

It’s most likely a marketing decision. Look at what Mountain Dew did with their limited-time flavors. Some of them they bring back seasonally, but they were never intended to be for sale perpetually.

That’s just because society simply isn’t ready.

Pixelpumpkin.4608:

Wanze.8410:

People, who trade in those skins, would be able to pick up a box, then a couple of months later be able to choose, which weapon they want (obviously the most expensive one). Not sure, if that is a good change or not.

So all weapon skins of one set would even out in price over time and all be the same price – what’s bad about that? Does a trident HAVE to be cheaper than a greatsword? If that’s the worst that can happen, I completely don’t see the issue.

/Shrugs.

Yeah, you made a good point, Wanze, but I would agree with Pixel here. I think in the end this system would end up bringing greater market equilibrium for Black Lion Weapon skins. Demand is higher, price goes up, speculators/keyfarmers increase the supply to account for the demand, price stabilises.

The logical explanation is that these skins were probably not selling that well anymore, so ANet decided to squeeze the last drops of money out of them by removing them and thus creating demand for them.
In a few months, when they return for a week only – because they will – everyone is going to be all over them again, which means even more black lion keys sold. Simple.

I like the idea of the crate, but it makes previewing the weapons more difficult. Of course, the weapons are in the wardrobe so it would still be possible to take a look at them

I like the idea of a crate too. You could just have the crate be tradable, but once you chose a specific skin it becomes account bound. That would allow a wider variety of skins to be available for that person who just really wants the speargun, but no one is posting that on the TP because ... Greatswords. Yeah, it would even out the prices between skins, but not such a bad thing in my eyes.

That doesn’t help the preview functionality though. Once the crate is opened it could spawn a private vendor with them all listed out to preview, but it doesn’t help people who don’t know what set they want in the first place. The trader could offer previews through a drill down menu, perhaps?

DCM.3654:

The logical explanation is that these skins were probably not selling that well anymore, so ANet decided to squeeze the last drops of money out of them by removing them and thus creating demand for them.
In a few months, when they return for a week only – because they will – everyone is going to be all over them again, which means even more black lion keys sold. Simple.

Yes, noone buys these skins because 5 tickets each is too much to be worth it. In most cases its better to buy 5x 1 ticket weapons and sell them to get the one you want.
If anet would sell them for 2 instead of 5 tickets after the introduction phase they would sell much better.

I’ve suggested it before, but the solution to a “cluttered” BL vendor is bloody simple: stop selling the skins at the BL weapon vendor.

We have the Wardrobe. Just add a new function (or rather an old function which already exists in our inventory) to the wardrobe where you can right click on a skin to get a “Buy at Trading Post” or “Buy with (1 or 5) Black Lion Ticket Scrap(s)” option; the former just sends you straight to the Trading Post, while the latter can either automatically buy it or open a vendor window with no tabs for any other types of skins.

Never have to worry about retiring skins due to vendor clutter again.

They could also just add a second BL vendor.. you know, like they have for cultural skins..

They take some out to make room for new ones.

Some may come back later, some may come back much later. I doubt aay will never comeback. It’s mostly a tactic to give people a sense of pressure into getting currently available skins ASAP before they are gone.

Who knows? Maybe in 20 years or so they’ll make it so you can actually buy them directly one by one and/or in complete packs, without the unethical RNG gacha-like nonsense.

It just doesn’t make sense to me that they would remove them JUST after adding the collections into the game. The number of players who can afford full sets is probably <1% of the population, and the new deadline just makes sure that nobody can even work towards that as a reaaaaally longterm project.

Its a marketing ploy to remove them. Nothing more nothing less. Thats why they cost 5 tickets after a few weeks, so everyone feels like they need to rush to get it as fast as possible. Removing them completly from vendor makes the feeling even worse for people.

nice plot, i never ever bought even one because i never ever got the chance, if i had tokens instead of scraps all the time i might…..but the one i like never returned (jade dragon) and the skins are insanely expensive…..

believe me when i say the limiting part isn’t working as much as you think it does, why rush when you know it’s gonna cost you allot of fun, time and even money.

How many 5-ticket sales did they make of the Halloween Weapons last year?

Why not just rerun the Halloween weapons as seasonal items? But what aren’t they on the list of disappearing skins?

What would be nice is if there was a blowout/clearance sale on the last weekend. 1 or 2 tickets each for 1/2/3 day(s) only.

Or a ‘sale’ weapons vendor that only gets the stock in when he finds it, constantly rotating discontinued stock (like how reward tracks rotate in and out).

Tyger.1637:

What would be nice is if there was a blowout/clearance sale on the last weekend. 1 or 2 tickets each for 1/2/3 day(s) only.

Or a ‘sale’ weapons vendor that only gets the stock in when he finds it, constantly rotating discontinued stock (like how reward tracks rotate in and out).

Yes, would love this. It would give people who were saving up tickets to get some of these a chance before they are gone.

Are these only for the BL tickets, or for the other tickets during LS1 as well?

I still have two Dragon Jade tickets lying around – will I be unable to use those? I believe these have a different weapon vendor.

Sungak Alkandenes.1369:

Are these only for the BL tickets, or for the other tickets during LS1 as well?

I still have two Dragon Jade tickets lying around – will I be unable to use those? I believe these have a different weapon vendor.

Same vendor, different option. If you have old currency or tickets; you get to pick ‘I have a time-limited ticket’ and it opens the old LS1 claim menu.

Tyger.1637:

Sungak Alkandenes.1369:

Are these only for the BL tickets, or for the other tickets during LS1 as well?

I still have two Dragon Jade tickets lying around – will I be unable to use those? I believe these have a different weapon vendor.

Same vendor, different option. If you have old currency or tickets; you get to pick ‘I have a time-limited ticket’ and it opens the old LS1 claim menu.

And to further clarify, the fact that they use a different option from the vendor means they will not be removed, either. The only thing that’s getting removed is the weapons from the normal vendor window, the special option will still work (and should always work, Anet has said they don’t want to invalidate special tickets).