Guild Wars 2

“If they shut the game down, they shut it down. I’m going to go out in a limb here and say that GW2 probably has many many times the playerbase that CoH did even in its heyday, but that’s purely speculation. Point is, what NCSoft might or might not do in the future isn’t really relevant to this discussion.”Ekera.5281

I would hope that it would have relevance, at least in how Anet respond to this. If you work for a company that is under another company that has a habit of shutting down Western studios to use their money for Eastern Projects, you’d want a large income of money to buffer you in case of a kitten up overseas.

NCSoft will all ways favor their homeland studios, which fair enough most big companies will do, if only for better press around their head offices, but if you’re kittening off your customer base and it’s your first content update? Perhaps a mild state of panic has to occur, not so much this for this time, but for three years down the line when overspending on ‘Magical Bikini Elves Grindathon Four’ has your parent company looking for a quick freeing up of cash.

TLDR Version: Don’t kitten off your customer base just in case your boss is looking for some one to fire when someone else kittens up.

Wayshuba.5912:

Just a quick point, you are incorrect here. Korea just passed laws this year that made this exact thing illiegal and legislation is up in Japan and other countries over the same thing. Right now, the fact they are virtual goods is circumventing current laws, but they are good with real world cash values (i.e., real money is exchanged for them) and therefore many countries are looking into this now.

P.S. There is proposed legislation in the US as well, though it hasn’t made the floor yet.

So, to say it isn’t a big deal when this is going on all over the place, I don’t think so. My bet is, these RNG practices will be legislated out by most countries over the next couple of years.

A quick read of a couple articles on the subject suggests that Korea’s law is intended to stop the exchange of in-game items and currency for real world currency. The most obvious example of this would be Diablo 3 which is currently a big target over there, the reason being you can spend time finding items in-game and turn them into real cash.

Since you can’t do that in Guild Wars 2, not seeing a connection.

We’re also moving pretty far afield of the point here since the vast majority of the people posting in here are those who bought keys, didn’t get what they wanted, and are now throwing out all sorts of accusations and dire predictions about GW2 and in-game gambling and such. It defies logic to imagine people being this righteously indignant and apt to start quoting laws and current events if the drop rates were higher. Do you see the disconnect there?

I’m not a gambler which is why I don’t buy keys. I do wish I got more keys as drops, I’ve maybe gotten 5 or 6 keys total from map completion and drops so I have a lot of chests sitting unopened.

I don’t much like having holiday items tied to chests. If the items were year round, ok, but limited time items, not so much.

"

So if I buy a lottery ticket and get nothing then tell the lottery officials that I should get my money back that is not entitlement? These people believe that through spending their money on a random thing, without knowing the odds, that they are “entitled” to a prize". Sounds like the definition of entitlement to me. They got what they paid for, the chance to get something.

See you at Xmas, maybe you’ll have better odds then. The chests are calling after all"
Blueroseknight.7954

You do know that lottery tickets have the odds printed on them right? As do scratch cards.

Do you think people would be quite as kitten’d off if Anet had given the odds of getting these skins up front?

No they either would of not bothered buying the keys, or accepted the odds and run with it. It’s the not telling people upfront the chance of getting a skin which makes it seem like such a shameless cash grab.

Devil horns are free right? Everyone can enjoy those.

Blueroseknight.7954:

I’m just pointing out how childish this thread is. Just a bit of Halloween fun :-D

Well, I seem to be reading the wrong thread, because I’m getting the exact opposite vibe. I thought this was a very serious issue for both the players and Anet. It’s true you might get a few whiners/complainers who don’t say much but “I SPEND $XXX, GIMME SKIN NAOOO!!”, but the majority aren’t doing this.

@Blueroseknight

So if I buy a lottery ticket and get nothing then tell the lottery officials that I should get my money back that is not entitlement? These people believe that through spending their money on a random thing, without knowing the odds, that they are “entitled” to a prize". Sounds like the definition of entitlement to me. They got what they paid for, the chance to get something.
See you at Xmas, maybe you’ll have better odds then. The chests are calling after all

You sir are a troll or a need to learn how the real world works. Go buy a lottery ticket, guess what they do… they give percentages on chances to win. Why? So people can be informed and not assume on their chance to get what they hope to have.

What did arenanet do? Simply put the word down chance. They didn’t state a rare chance. They didn’t state a small chance. They simply didn’t let customers have an informed decision on the rate. When you see people in map chat ringing off I got X skin or Y skin you think ok they are dropping at a good rate. It was a great way to fool the customer base into buying keys.

I have only stated in these posts an intelligent response of, “Arenanet if you are going to do this system of Gambling with peoples real money than you need to give people knowledge of the odds.”

How is that a ridiculous request?

Cactus Brawler.7415:

"

So if I buy a lottery ticket and get nothing then tell the lottery officials that I should get my money back that is not entitlement? These people believe that through spending their money on a random thing, without knowing the odds, that they are “entitled” to a prize". Sounds like the definition of entitlement to me. They got what they paid for, the chance to get something.

See you at Xmas, maybe you’ll have better odds then. The chests are calling after all"
Blueroseknight.7954

You do know that lottery tickets have the odds printed on them right? As do scratch cards.

Do you think people would be quite as kitten’d off if Anet had given the odds of getting these skins up front?

No they either would of not bothered buying the keys, or accepted the odds and run with it. It’s the not telling people upfront the chance of getting a skin which makes it seem like such a shameless cash grab.

Exactly, even the lottery (or any sweepstakes for that matter) has to publish your odds of winning. But RNG items in MMO cash shops do not. Go figure.

I’d just like to give my two cents on the whole black lion chest drama. I spent 900 gems on 10 keys, and with some of the chests containing additional ones I probably got to okitten-20 chests with no Halloween item.

I only used in-game gold and I was very conservative with what I spent so I’m not frustrated. However, reading how people spent 50+ dollars on keys only to get nothing or 1-2 items makes me sad, and I offer you my condolences.

I think the most upsetting factor in this situation is that people were told the chests would have a chance at holding some holiday goodies and many didn’t. Perhaps if they had just added some very common items people would be a little less angry.

5-10 trick or treat bags in the chests would’ve been nice, or maybe some recipes. A compromise could’ve been made when designing what dropped from these chests.

And as for the skins being rare, I don’t believe a holiday is the time or the place to do such a thing. I hope both the company and player-base learn from this experience and find a comfortable middle ground so both parties are content next time around.

I was going to drop some money for this event when I got home, but now that seems like it would be a waste so I’ll spend my money elsewhere.

To me, I side with those who have already spent money. It isn’t so much about getting a rare skin, it’s about at least receiving something in return that is not completely useless and actually related to the event.

If I spend money on a chance to get a chance for a rare item, then it is my choice and my fault if I expected to only get the rare item and did not, but I would hope that the prize I do get is at least sort of nice to have that is related to the content provided.

I’d just like to give my two cents on the whole black lion chest drama. I spent 900 gems on 10 keys, and with some of the chests containing additional ones I probably got to okitten-20 chests with no Halloween item.

I only used in-game gold and I was very conservative with what I spent so I’m not frustrated. However, reading how people spent 50+ dollars on keys only to get nothing or 1-2 items makes me sad, and I offer you my condolences.

I think the most upsetting factor in this situation is that people were told the chests would have a chance at holding some holiday goodies and many didn’t. Perhaps if they had just added some very common items people would be a little less angry.

5-10 trick or treat bags in the chests would’ve been nice, or maybe some recipes. A compromise could’ve been made when designing what dropped from these chests.

And as for the skins being rare, I don’t believe a holiday is the time or the place to do such a thing. I hope both the company and player-base learn from this experience and find a comfortable middle ground so both parties are content next time around.

Ekera.5281:

Wayshuba.5912:

Just a quick point, you are incorrect here. Korea just passed laws this year that made this exact thing illiegal and legislation is up in Japan and other countries over the same thing. Right now, the fact they are virtual goods is circumventing current laws, but they are good with real world cash values (i.e., real money is exchanged for them) and therefore many countries are looking into this now.

P.S. There is proposed legislation in the US as well, though it hasn’t made the floor yet.

So, to say it isn’t a big deal when this is going on all over the place, I don’t think so. My bet is, these RNG practices will be legislated out by most countries over the next couple of years.

A quick read of a couple articles on the subject suggests that Korea’s law is intended to stop the exchange of in-game items and currency for real world currency. The most obvious example of this would be Diablo 3 which is currently a big target over there, the reason being you can spend time finding items in-game and turn them into real cash.

Since you can’t do that in Guild Wars 2, not seeing a connection.

We’re also moving pretty far afield of the point here since the vast majority of the people posting in here are those who bought keys, didn’t get what they wanted, and are now throwing out all sorts of accusations and dire predictions about GW2 and in-game gambling and such. It defies logic to imagine people being this righteously indignant and apt to start quoting laws and current events if the drop rates were higher. Do you see the disconnect there?

I’m done discussing the point. I have seen first hand as a shareholder in another company which owns another MMO company what the long term effects of this are financially. ANet is going to do what they think works. It is up to customers whether to spend money on it or not. Burn enough customers they won’t spend anymore money.. it is simple as that.

I didn’t get burned on this at all. But I do feel for, and understand why, those that did are rightfully upset and deserve to do so.

The sub model for MMOs looks better all the time the more you see this type of behavior permeating MMOs. Perhaps it’s time MMO companies looked to companies like Zynga to see what the long term effects are once the customer base becomes disenchanted with the business model.

Drunken Mad King.8193:

@Blueroseknight

So if I buy a lottery ticket and get nothing then tell the lottery officials that I should get my money back that is not entitlement? These people believe that through spending their money on a random thing, without knowing the odds, that they are “entitled” to a prize". Sounds like the definition of entitlement to me. They got what they paid for, the chance to get something.
See you at Xmas, maybe you’ll have better odds then. The chests are calling after all

You sir are a troll or a need to learn how the real world works. Go buy a lottery ticket, guess what they do… they give percentages on chances to win. Why? So people can be informed and not assume on their chance to get what they hope to have.

What did arenanet do? Simply put the word down chance. They didn’t state a rare chance. They didn’t state a small chance. They simply didn’t let customers have an informed decision on the rate. When you see people in map chat ringing off I got X skin or Y skin you think ok they are dropping at a good rate. It was a great way to fool the customer base into buying keys.

I have only stated in these posts an intelligent response of, “Arenanet if you are going to do this system of Gambling with peoples real money than you need to give people knowledge of the odds.”

How is that a ridiculous request?

words like “need” and phrases like “have to” (from the next post) are demanding. They don’t need to do anything. It is a good suggestion however it is hardly necessary. Buy the skins in the AH if you don’t want to gamble. Or move on and enjoy your free holiday event.

The first thing that people did when this event came out was whine about how the drop rate was unfair in the chests. Some theories and discussion was born out of people feeling slighted but it still all boils down to people being upset. Run a jumping puzzle. Do an event. Farm Karma.

The only part of my posts that has been trolling is bringing up Occupy. I just wanted to get your blood boiling there :-P

The thing I find so humorus about all this are the people coming into this thread for the sole purpose of antagonizing or belitting those who feel like they are being played like a slot machine by ANet.

I get the impression that while some of you are simply trolling, the rest of you might be under the impression that you are above this issue or it doesnt pertain to you, so why not have some fun poking these dumb entitled kids and getting them riled up. Amirite?

What you fail to realise is: you are in the same boat we are. You are just too dense to realise it.

Players burned by a ridiculously low drop rates for cosmetic items will do two things, spread bad word of mouth about the game and be less inclined to spend money for gems in the future.

Less sales of gems means less money ANet has to develop content. Making cosmetic items so rare they rival other games epic mounts or cost almost as much as a legendaries to craft is already driving the prices of them up to astronomical heights.

Devs cant keep servers up and running, cant keep developing quality content without MONEY. The result of people buying less gems from this will be a direct impact on the quality of game content developed for this title. Sure it might not be immediate or obvious in the next few days. Hell, you might not even see it for months. Good or bad every pebble dropped into a pond leaves ripples, those ripples will be felt by everyone who plays and enjoys this game sooner or later you can buhlee dat.

So the next time you see a mass of bots lying dead and naked somewhere. The next time you grit your teeth and curse because that gold spammer has spammed his message for the umpteenth time in the past 10 min. The next time you feel the need to post about how a certain event that ANet rolled out was uninspired and boring. The next time you feel like lamenting how prices on items on the BLTC keep rising. The next time you feel that there doesnt seem to be enough players to do x or y. The next time you feel the need to gripe complain or whine about something the devs are doing to cut corners as far as content is concerned.

Remember one thing …… we TRIED to tell the devs the correct way to fleece our wallets. We tried to tell the devs just the right way to get money for microtransactions from us. All for the purpose of making sure their coffers were filled and quality content was consistently pumped out.

All YOU did was come into this thread and make an kitten of yourself.
shrug
Carry on.

1 skin out of 24 chests-20usd paid for gems (22 keys bought 2 more dropped from chests).
Now not going to complain about the skin drop-its a rare item and whatever (the skin i got wasn’t the one i hoped for but oh well).
But i would like to issue a complaint about the useless garbage that i ended up with. the mountain of SOULBOUND gathering gear-why aren’t these ACCOUNT BOUND like the rest of the items?
Having 6 toons i could spread them out and not clutter one toon’s pack with them, and since they can’t be sold i can’t even recoup some in game cash for the real world cash i spent.
Please for the love of whatever god you pray to PLEASE REMOVE THE MYSTERY TONICS…i don’t use them and they are just fodder…again a useless item that cannot be sold, yet oddly enough are account bound, as are the boosts but the gathering equipment isn’t account bound? why not?
If people are going to complain about something complain about the return on investment that isn’t being met-tonics that serve no purpose and items that can be used but restricted to one toon are silly and reduce any value the chests might have. Neither the tonics from the chest nor ANY of the gathering gear can be sold.
I could have spent all my gems on the boosts which would have been far more valuable than wasting them on the chests since there isn’t anything else of value in them but the boosts.
If you want to fill them with trinkets and baubles that are this crappy please at least give us the option to sell the junk or pass it on to a lowbie alt who might make use of them instead of what we have now.
Skin rate could be better but again i’ve no desire to waste any more money on tonics and gathering gear i don’t need and can’t give to an alt because its bound to me only and can’t sell because its all soul/account bound.
I don’t mind the buying of gems with real money but when you use those gems to open chests that are really full of worthless junk its just stupid.
Really the stuff in the chests is right up there with the prize in a box of cracker jack…but at least that prize you could sell
(and for anyone interested i still have 28 chests if anyone wants them-free since they are only worth 6cp each on TP and its not worth my time/money to post them)

+1 Kinome, +10 if i could. Money makes the world go round, and when the money stops, so does the world.

Wow, people need to chill out a little. It’s your own fault you “wasted” your money without knowing all the facts.

Take a look at this game that we all are playing. It already has existing methods of loot acquisition with incredibly low probabilities that act as money sinks:

1) Legendary precursors out of the Mystic Forge
2) Permanent items out of Black Lion Chests

Did you really think that you were going to pull a skin – that is almost the resource-equivalent of making a legendary or at the very least a precursor – out of a Black Lion Chest? You’re all looking at this backwards!

“I deserve a skin because I opened x many chests.”
“I’m never buying gems again because I wasted 1800 gems to get nothing.”

Are you kidding me? It’s not like you didn’t get anything for opening all those chests, you just didn’t get what you want.

You have a weapon- or armour-skin that is incredibly expensive or at least time-intensive to make and the mats are around for a limited time. And you think you deserve to pull it out of a Black Lion Chest? No, no you do not deserve it. You have a chance to pull it out, a really low chance given that it the equivalent to a legendary. You gambled and lost, that is what happens when you go all in with imperfect information. God help you if you ever step into a casino.

I would suggest the next time one of these events rolls around you save your money and wait for the rich players to buy 1000 of this item or that item to figure out the chance of acquiring one of these items.

BAMFZILLA.1850:

This thread is giving me ridiculous amounts of lolz. It’s a good thing I would never spend money on virtual gambling for a weapon skin. To the people complaining they got ripped off…..thanks for the laugh.

Completely agree. As for how they should conduct their business in the future I think they should just mirror Riot and League of Legends. Make skins cost 5-20 dollars and release them every few weeks. Keep the random thing though, I love to laugh :-D

I feel kind of stupid I didn’t check the forums before I spend my money. There is no way I’d have bothered to buy the ten keys I did, if I’d known how low the chance was I’d get a weapon. I knew it wasn’t guaranteed I’d get one, but it never entered my mind that the drop rate would be anything like this low.

By the way they were advertising the weapon skins I just assumed that in 15+ chests I’d have had at least a reasonable chance to get something cool. Maybe its not justified but I feel kind of conned and its completely put me off spending more money in the Gem store.

I love the game but today ANet made me feel like a chump.

The people playing the devil’s advocate aren’t taking the main point into consideration: it isn’t fine that so many people complain or that they should just shut up and accept it.

Anet runs on the money people spend by buying gems, not the same as free-players who trade gold for gems, if people feel cheated out because of the ridiculous chances on rng getting them, these same unsatisfied people will be those who wont buy gems and support the game anymore.

Legendaries are hard but work at it and someday you will get it.
Halloween permanent weapons are hard but work at it and you can get it.

BLC? Open 100+ and you might get some skin and it might not even be what you wanted, compared to other “insane” but tangible tasks given for other weapon or armor, these blc skins are not okay at all.

I don’t have a problem with the idea of he BLC having something like these skins in them perse, but the rate is a bit stupid as is the decision to make it such without telling us off the bat, its a bit of misleading advertising. I dropped 20$ to get the costumes and the rest on keys, and I’m very pleased with the costumes and I don’t mind buying more (they did this right) but why make the chest drops so absurd? You’re just angering many people and making a quick buck but losing long term profit because now no one will be dumb enough to ever gamble on a chest. 25 to 50% would have gotten people buying, 1% though is just going to alienate everyone.

I don’t even know how to fix this now… I don’t want or need a refund, I’m happy with my costumes, but you may want to consider some sort of reimbursal form those who spent so much for nothing, especially since you didn’t clarify on odds until after the fact.

I would pay gems to get them from the BLC store, but not to get a random chance at one. So Anet wont be getting any money from me.

Drunken Mad King.8193:

@Blueroseknight

So if I buy a lottery ticket and get nothing then tell the lottery officials that I should get my money back that is not entitlement? These people believe that through spending their money on a random thing, without knowing the odds, that they are “entitled” to a prize". Sounds like the definition of entitlement to me. They got what they paid for, the chance to get something.
See you at Xmas, maybe you’ll have better odds then. The chests are calling after all

You sir are a troll or a need to learn how the real world works. Go buy a lottery ticket, guess what they do… they give percentages on chances to win. Why? So people can be informed and not assume on their chance to get what they hope to have.

What did arenanet do? Simply put the word down chance. They didn’t state a rare chance. They didn’t state a small chance. They simply didn’t let customers have an informed decision on the rate. When you see people in map chat ringing off I got X skin or Y skin you think ok they are dropping at a good rate. It was a great way to fool the customer base into buying keys.

I have only stated in these posts an intelligent response of, “Arenanet if you are going to do this system of Gambling with peoples real money than you need to give people knowledge of the odds.”

How is that a ridiculous request?

Ok ok so Anet didn’t give a specific chance you are absolutely right. So , going by this simple fact, why on earth did you and everyone else buy the kitten keys when you clearly have a massive problem with being in the dark? I feel it’s a very good question, and it’s something which should have been discussed beforehand.

It looks to me as if there are alot of irresponsible people here that bought blindly, and are now only complaining because they weren’t successful in getting a skin.

The major issue isnt the skins, or Halloween for that matter. It is the inflation prices of gems that is the real issue. I play mostly pve and I dont really care about the markets all that much. The issue is if I want to buy something other than BL Chests, it is now a ridiculous price for that item using in game gold. This basically forces the user to use Paypal or Visa to get the item they want, be it fine transmutation stones, boxing gloves or Karma boosters. The philosophy of Anet letting people use ingame gold for gems is starting to come into question. Lets hope this is inadvertent because if not then it goes DIRECTLY against their mandate.

“Ok ok so Anet didn’t give a specific chance you are absolutely right. So , going by this simple fact, why on earth did you and everyone else buy the kitten keys when you clearly have a massive problem with being in the dark? I feel it’s a very good question, and it’s something which should have been discussed beforehand.”

Do you know the drop rates of all the items in a regular BL chest? Random boosts, gathering tools, etc? No, but you still know you’re going to get something. You open chests that have now officially been infused with halloween stuff… what do you expect to happen?

Is it really irresponsible to assume that they actually wanted us to have limited-time seasonal skins? 10 chests, nothing—is it bad luck, or a bad drop rate? 20 chests? 30? 40? You don’t know until you come to the forum and see the kittening.

One good thing to come from all of this is the sword is double edged. The Anet pundits supporting the drop rate and Anets right to create gambling via the gemstore are as valid as anyone elses.

That said it is good to know that the vast majority will not be supporting this type of game mechanic during the next event or ingame because of the rates, sure there will be a few but the number will continue to shrink until like a rubber band the Anet corporates wave their hands and say “let there be lootz in our gabling houses, namely the chests” the devs will scurry from the shadows and go to work briefly and then slink back into the shadows until their masters call them and decide what you like, and what you will pay them as tribute.

Of course Anet has the right to whatever they want in regards to money, chests and chances………and YOU also have a choice, the question is, do you have the willpower to change things? Close your wallet.

I’ve got to ask all you saying AN ripped you off , wasn’t fair , kicked your dog , whaever.

In those chests you opened , was there something ? I don’t think you are opening blank/empty chests , they still contain everything they could have before.

You are just choosing to buy/spend $$ for the Halloween items.

How in the world is this anything AN is doing “wrong” as the chests are EXACTLY the same as before , now just with more possible loot.

It’s your own personal decision if the chance is worth it or not for the item that you hope to get , and whining after the fact is just amusing.

Everyone here got something in their chests , just not what they wanted , thus again

/stomp foot
/stomp foot
/cry
/stomp foot.

Real problem is people expected something, either correctly or incorrectly, based on their perception of what had been said, those people, like myself, did not get what they expected.

It’s the idea that we expected better from ANet that allowed us to buy into the idea in the first place, if I was playing Perfect World or Atlantica, or something like that, those companies lost my trust because of things like this, and now ANet is in the same boat.

Those people that show up just to say, lol stupid gamblers, miss the point entirely don’t they? In the overall regard anytime you have a large base of your players, your customers, angry, it is a negative influence. It doesn’t matter if it is rational or not, for every 1 angry customer, 10 potential customers will hear about it, that’s just how business works. Instead of pointing and laughing, maybe you should help with the problem?

We’re all in this together.

I got a bull shoulder armor skin after 4 chests or so. Go me.

What would people want the drop rate to be?
If everyone could get the rare stuff easily, wouldn’t that make it…….. Not very rare?

I’d like to know what people want done to fix this? I won’t really be buying any gems, so I’m not the right demographic. But I’m interested.

I have to agree with the general wave of discontent in this thread. The problem with how they implemented the chests isn’t that the skins are so rare – it is that the rest of the stuff in the chests are completely and absolutely garbage to everyone. What makes this issue even more painful is that ANet seems to have been aware of this beforehand. Remember the permanent BL Trader/Merchant that were added to the chests? If people were buying keys like mad why would ANet need to add those to the chests to facilitate key sales?

I mean if they added something festive like candy corn or a reasonably large chance for temporary skins/minis then people would have SOMETHING and wouldn’t be nearly so enraged about not getting the rare skin. As it is it comes across to these angry (and often paying) customers that ANet is just trying to fleece them for their money. I sadly have to agree that it feels this way to me also – 20 keys later (gained from exploration/drops) and I’m left holding a bunch of nonsense.

For what it is worth, I would have bought gems to buy the weapon skins straight from the gem store if that option was available. Unfortunately as ANet has decided to rely instead upon what has struck their customer base as a RNG cash grab I am voting with my wallet and not buying gems from ANet.

I pity their community team though. Not even the legendary precursor threads exploded this quickly with this much negativity.

dahkot.3579:

I’ve got to ask all you saying AN ripped you off , wasn’t fair , kicked your dog , whaever.

In those chests you opened , was there something ? I don’t think you are opening blank/empty chests , they still contain everything they could have before.

You are just choosing to buy/spend $$ for the Halloween items.

How in the world is this anything AN is doing “wrong” as the chests are EXACTLY the same as before , now just with more possible loot.

It’s your own personal decision if the chance is worth it or not for the item that you hope to get , and whining after the fact is just amusing.

Everyone here got something in their chests , just not what they wanted , thus again

/stomp foot
/stomp foot
/cry
/stomp foot.

Don’t even try to justify this with something like that. First of all, everyone knows the chests have complete garbage for loot. Second, they made an official statement basically saying “Hey, buy chests now and you might get this awesome weapon skin!” But they made no mention whatsoever of what kind of a chance you might really have. Because if they had, most people would have just continued to ignore them.
They did this to deliberately encourage people to buy the chests for the sole desire to acquire one of these items. Do you honestly believe that all these people would’ve bought 20 or 50+ keys today if the chests were -not- said to contain those items? Neither would they have purchased so many if they’d gotten the skin they wanted within the first several keys.
And the reality is, that the odds are so low that almost no one will actually acquire one without either ludicrous blind luck or buying an absolutely disgusting number of keys.
They consciously decided to manipulate people into throwing money at something with almost no hope of actual return.

As a person that makes a person designing slot machines, I can only advise the complainers in this thread to never, ever enter a casino.

The biggest deterrent for me is the RNG associated with these items. I would have absolutely no problem with the RNG approach if there was a way to acquire these items via in-game currency but because the BL keys require spending real money and the chance is random to boot, it just does not sit well with me.

As others have said, I would have absolutely no problems purchasing these skins with gems but I won’t spend real money on a random chance of getting a virtual item.

$50 on keys here and nothing cool. lesson learned

kinome.4236

The thing I find so humorus about all this are the people coming into this thread for the sole purpose of antagonizing or belitting those who feel like they are being played like a slot machine by ANet.
I get the impression that while some of you are simply trolling, the rest of you might be under the impression that you are above this issue or it doesnt pertain to you, so why not have some fun poking these dumb entitled kids and getting them riled up. Amirite?
What you fail to realise is: you are in the same boat we are. You are just too dense to realise it.
Players burned by a ridiculously low drop rates for cosmetic items will do two things, spread bad word of mouth about the game and be less inclined to spend money for gems in the future.
Less sales of gems means less money ANet has to develop content. Making cosmetic items so rare they rival other games epic mounts or cost almost as much as a legendaries to craft is already driving the prices of them up to astronomical heights.
Devs cant keep servers up and running, cant keep developing quality content without MONEY. The result of people buying less gems from this will be a direct impact on the quality of game content developed for this title. Sure it might not be immediate or obvious in the next few days. Hell, you might not even see it for months. Good or bad every pebble dropped into a pond leaves ripples, those ripples will be felt by everyone who plays and enjoys this game sooner or later you can buhlee dat.
So the next time you see a mass of bots lying dead and naked somewhere. The next time you grit your teeth and curse because that gold spammer has spammed his message for the umpteenth time in the past 10 min. The next time you feel the need to post about how a certain event that ANet rolled out was uninspired and boring. The next time you feel like lamenting how prices on items on the BLTC keep rising. The next time you feel that there doesnt seem to be enough players to do x or y. The next time you feel the need to gripe complain or whine about something the devs are doing to cut corners as far as content is concerned.
Remember one thing …… we TRIED to tell the devs the correct way to fleece our wallets. We tried to tell the devs just the right way to get money for microtransactions from us. All for the purpose of making sure their coffers were filled and quality content was consistently pumped out.
All YOU did was come into this thread and make an kitten of yourself.
shrug
Carry on.

This guy said everything.

I’m going to love seeing every and single one of these self proclaimed whitknights and defenders of Arenanet break into tears, because Anet wont afford making any new meaningful content in the future. Due to noone is buying anything from the store.

Well played Anet you convinced your biggest spenders that they had a chance to get something meaningful from the BLC. I bet you got alot of money out of this. Very shot sighted, but well played.

You think its funny seeing how your biggest spenders are suffering the consequences for gambling against unknown low odds? Well you gambled too with the shenanigans you just pulled. I for one am gonna enjoy seeing the massive layoffs at Anet ala Swtor style. See how your whitknights will save your jobs then.

P.S Your whiteknights that keeps telling people that the ones who spent alot of money buying keys have noone but themselves to blame, probably hasnt spent any meaningful amount on your precious game and that revenue wont save you. D.S

^DarcShriek.

But we don’t, but it seems Anet has brought the casino to US…..on what is supposed to be a happy festive season. Thats right you cynical gloating trol.ls. Have we forgotten its supposed to be Halloween now? Don’t give me that entitlement cr………….ap. People should feeel it is their frigging right NOT to feel ripped off on a holiday event. They got the rest of the year to feel disapointed with the legendary weapon gamble. Have some empathy , or should I suggst you don’t deserve to feel the festive season?

Hey now, it could have been worse. It could have been a DLC instead forcing everyone to cough up 15-20 bucks to participate in halloween.

I spent the rest of my gems for about 10 keys + 4 i acquired from questing and I got unlucky as well, but It’s my own fault for spending quickly without checking the chances or more information before getting em.
From the absurd number of F2P MMO’s i’ve played in my life, I can say I’ve seen worse, much worse for RNG items like black lion chests and from a way I see it, regardless of what is done to any microtransaction store, nothing will please every single player, Even if League of legends did it right, even if it could be a minuscule minority, there will still be complaints about it.
The day I see everyone pleased with the microtransaction is the day where pigs will fly.

I was just talking about microtransactions store in general I know and probably gave nothing to the thread’s discussion point but If I’m wrong with anything I stated, let me know in a positive light if possible.

Belz.9037:

I’m going to love seeing every and single one of these self proclaimed whitknights and defenders of Arenanet break into tears, because Anet wont afford making any new meaningful content in the future. Due to noone is buying anything from the store.

Well played Anet you convinced your biggest spenders that they had a chance to get something meaningful from the BLC. I bet you got alot of money out of this. Very shot sighted, but well played.

You think its funny seeing how your biggest spenders are suffering the consequences for gambling against unknown low odds? Well you gambled too with the shenanigans you just pulled. I for one am gonna enjoy seeing the massive layoffs at Anet ala Swtor style. See how your whitknights will save your jobs then.

P.S Your whiteknights that keeps telling people that the ones who spent alot of money buying keys have noone but themselves to blame, probably hasnt spent any meaningful amount on your precious game and that revenue wont save you. D.S

I am confident that they will continue to release quality content and that over half of the people who say that they will no longer be buying gems will continue to do so. Guild Wars has alot of good things going for it; it is a shame that the first thing people did when they released this new content was complain. Learn to enjoy the game.

Who is to “blame” then ?

How did ArenaNet in any way force you to keep buying and keep trying after one , two , three , twenty , thirty keys and so on ?

Who is to blame for not learning , “hey , this might be a low chance on winning this lotto , maybe I shouldnt spend $$ unless it’s truly disposable income”.

And again , this is a cosmetic skin that is meant to be rare , they have accomplished this , and for you “haters” who think that you’ll be able to “ruin” AN , I feel quite confident that the VAST majority of players will be playing tonight , tomorrow , whenever , and they never even look at this forum , this thread etc. They simply play a game they enjoy and don’t worry about it.

I dont think that AN understands that there’s a difference between going to dungeon for 100 times and not getting an item and and paying 20 bucks and not getting an item.

CaptSlate.6205:

Real problem is people expected something, either correctly or incorrectly, based on their perception of what had been said, those people, like myself, did not get what they expected.

It’s the idea that we expected better from ANet that allowed us to buy into the idea in the first place, if I was playing Perfect World or Atlantica, or something like that, those companies lost my trust because of things like this, and now ANet is in the same boat.

Exactly. People talking about playing the lottery just don’t get it. No one really expects to win the lottery because everyone knows how bad the odds are. Everyone thought ANet was decent enough to give a good return, and all their advertising specifically encouraged people to open chests to get Halloween items. They never communicated the odds until after people started complaining.

Who is right or wrong in the matter is ultimately irrelevant. The point is that ANet has lost some goodwill here, and that’s a resource that is really valuable. They betrayed the trust of customers and that is not in the best long-term interest of the game.

For example, when the Christmas holiday comes along and weapon skins drop from chests, does anyone think as many people will buy keys after this? Why engage in a business practice that leaves your customers feeling burnt? Buying something from the gem store should always be positively reinforced.

@BlueRoseKnight

I am confident they will continue to release content as well, they did so in GW1, but remember that it tailed off, costumes and merc packs increased revenue to do things like GW Beyond, but again, that’s the issue isn’t it? You knew what you were getting when you bought those things.

Batterybiscuits, without starting anew argument about other things you said, just this one little thing:

this game is not free to play, we actually paid a good ammount for the initial purchase.
We’re hardly 2 months past and than this whole selling business hits us on Halloween.

Doesn’t make things right or wrong, but it does make things slightly different from real f2p games that have no other means of income from the playerbase.

Just throwing that in here, not arguing your post as such.

adding small rewards in each chest, and a few semi-rare towns clothing skins on a better drop rate than the really rare weapons and such…

I think that’s all it would have taken to prevent this whole uproar.
That simple, I’m afraid: just a few tokens and comfort prizes

55 chests opened with ZERO Skins.

I am 100% confident that most, if not all, of you will forget about your “boycott” when the next event rolls around. Just like every other srsbsnz video game boycott, ever.

FalconDance.1637:

@Rickets

Just a thought, but this event goes on for a week or so. We already know that content will be added periodically specifically for this event all that while. Why would anyone spend all their money on the first day and then decide that, because they didn’t get what they expected (‘cause we all know that the odds are always in our favor and not anyone else’s), Anet is obviously greedy and uncaring about their customers. I’m sorry, but that sort of attitude is childish; gimme what I want, what I expect or I’m going to raise holy smoke and take my toys home forever.

Now, not that I’m accusing anyone here of this, but coming from 7+ years of GW1, I know that there are those who rush in, essentially grab up/buy the special goods as soon as possible and then re-sell, driving up the market prices. Perhaps Anet took that into consideration (it is a valid idea) and deliberately drizzled out the chance rate so that wouldn’t happen so soon. I don’t know – and neither does anyone besides the developers – what the actual percentage is, but apparently there are individuals who have opened chests and received special goods since there are apparently ones for sale.

Heck, I’m reading 17 pages (just this thread alone) of people griping and griefing – and I was tickled pink today to get really good armor drops on my girls and gleefully looked forward to finding pumpkins to carve, candy corn nodes and trick-or-treat bags fall from foe.

Pretty much this. While I agree that the advert on BLC is misleading at best (why not have common, rare and epic BLC drop: 1 in 10, 1 in 50, 1 in 1000, etc…) I do truly think it sucks that people are expecting halloween goodies and get nothing but the same old stuff is bad. Why not have the minis skins and others drop. Make the booster icons black and orange? I dont know’ something … it is pretty lazy.

That said, people didnt wait to hear feedback before diving in and got burned…They are uoset because

-they cant zerg the skins and turn a profit off the auction house
-poorly thought out investment
-due to RNG they cant use a huge wealth pool to get all the good stuff first…and show it off. Clearly, that is the point of the recipies — which require tons of resources only the harder core will get them —BLC gives everyone a shot regardless of time (aka the purpose of a cash shop)

A majority of the people crying about it are min maxers or TP flippers…I feel bad for those that bought 20 chests for the right reasons and got nothing …this system needs to be redone but not so the 2% of the game that sell dusk for 350g can do that with chest items and get richer…..my 2.

Dungin.2983:

FalconDance.1637:

@Rickets

Just a thought, but this event goes on for a week or so. We already know that content will be added periodically specifically for this event all that while. Why would anyone spend all their money on the first day and then decide that, because they didn’t get what they expected (‘cause we all know that the odds are always in our favor and not anyone else’s), Anet is obviously greedy and uncaring about their customers. I’m sorry, but that sort of attitude is childish; gimme what I want, what I expect or I’m going to raise holy smoke and take my toys home forever.

Now, not that I’m accusing anyone here of this, but coming from 7+ years of GW1, I know that there are those who rush in, essentially grab up/buy the special goods as soon as possible and then re-sell, driving up the market prices. Perhaps Anet took that into consideration (it is a valid idea) and deliberately drizzled out the chance rate so that wouldn’t happen so soon. I don’t know – and neither does anyone besides the developers – what the actual percentage is, but apparently there are individuals who have opened chests and received special goods since there are apparently ones for sale.

Heck, I’m reading 17 pages (just this thread alone) of people griping and griefing – and I was tickled pink today to get really good armor drops on my girls and gleefully looked forward to finding pumpkins to carve, candy corn nodes and trick-or-treat bags fall from foe.

Pretty much this. While I agree that the advert on BLC is misleading at best (why not have common, rare and epic BLC drop: 1 in 10, 1 in 50, 1 in 1000, etc…) I do truly think it sucks that people are expecting halloween goodies and get nothing but the same old stuff is bad. Why not have the minis skins and others drop. Make the booster icons black and orange? I dont know’ something … it is pretty lazy.

That said, people didnt wait to hear feedback before diving in and got burned…They are uoset because

-they cant zerg the skins and turn a profit off the auction house
-poorly thought out investment
-due to RNG they cant use a huge wealth pool to get all the good stuff first…and show it off. Clearly, that is the point of the recipies — which require tons of resources only the harder core will get them —BLC gives everyone a shot regardless of time (aka the purpose of a cash shop)

A majority of the people crying about it are min maxers or TP flippers…I feel bad for those that bought 20 chests for the right reasons and got nothing …this system needs to be redone but not so the 2% of the game that sell dusk for 350g can do that with chest items and get richer…..my 2.

Eh, I just wanted a skin, and wanted to show ANet that I liked them, so I opened my wallet, maybe some, or more than some are TP flippers, but maybe people just wanted a skin? Is it really fair to lump everyone into a group? Though that being said, it’s a system that needs to be fixed.