Guild Wars 2

A very good post, Senoph. A+. Too many people forget that we only get angry about things when we’re INVESTED in them to begin with; there wouldn’t be so much anger on the forums if we were all merely “entitled”.

Cruiser.3506:

Kimbald.2697:

Evilized.6430:

you paid 50 bucks knowing it was a gamble. you lost and now instead of being able to accept it you blame others. great logic.

a-net needs to make money. people are willing to gamble knowing full well they will probably see no return. i spent money and lost. i’m not complaining because i knew and accepted the risks before i made the purchase. take some responsibility for your own actions people, please.

Anet would have lost nothing if they gave better droprates.
On the contrary: they would have sold way more chests in the future than they ever will now.

Ponder on that a bit.

They could have been generous to all the players who were so generous to buy keys en masse for the event alone… they weren’t.

If anyone gambled and lost it’s Anet.

The skins were never intended to be doled out en masse, REGARDLESS of your interpretation. Rare means RARE. Look it up. If you still don’t get it, look it up again. If everyone got a rare, it wouldn’t be rare anymore, now would it? Gee, lots of fun getting the exact same thing half the game population already has? That’s soooo unique, isn’t it?

Don’t like the event? See all the forum posts with people complaining about the horrid chances to get something aesthetic? Why, you simply MUST spend your money! They’re twisting your arm and pointing a gun to your head, right? No?

Move along, nothing to see here.

you’re the one not understanding what I wrote.

I know what ‘rare’ can mean in a game, I also know how dubious it can be to say ‘a chance’ wihout specifying.
Cuts both ways.
But that wasn’t what I was saying.

I was saying how they didn’t need to make it rare… they would have gained a lot more out of this, financially and ‘game-wise’ if they didn’t make it this rare.

DreamThief.9812:

I would also like to note that while some players may find the boosters useful, I have never much considered +strength, +rejuv, or +exp to be of much use in my play style.

This is a bit of a tangent from the thread topic, but the usefulness of these boosters have nothing to do with your play style.
There is no play style that doesn’t deal damage, therefore +strength is always useful.
There is no play style that doesn’t benefit from staying alive longer, therefore +rejuvenation is always useful.
If you’re not at 80, +exp is always useful. If you are, it’s useless if you don’t need any more skill points for crafting.

Even with the chance to craft the Tonics and use the rest we got from chest that aren’t at all usefull things…. We may had more chances but again, we loose more than we can possible win.

Then, I call this a “money sink”, I would prefer buy them by gems in the Store if there as an garantee I would got something.
I would like to Spend money in the game also, but does not worth it, what ANet asks it’s too much for what they give in trade.

Anyway, let’s hope for better times.

I respect your arguments but disagree that the BLCs were handled poorly. I think that ANet took advantage of a basic psychological principle and used it to make money. I play alot of CCGs and have opened many packs of cards for many different games. You don’t always pull the rare cards that you are looking for.

I have enjoyed using basically everything I have gotten from the BLCs, even the killstreak XP booster. Each item has improved my gameplay experience in some way.

ANet has thus far been kind enough to add a second chance at their Halloween gambling event for no charge. That obviously did not work; their efforts were basically wasted. It is sad that people accuse them of so many hateful things when they are making so many wonderful things.

This whole thing kind of reminds me of the Mass Effect players demanding a different ending to the game. Fans demanding changes in the way products are presented is a bizarre concept. If you don’t like the product then don’t engage the product.

Not going to say I feel like I deserve the skins, I will however say that the way to obtain them is very “disrespectful” of the playerbase. I’ve never liked low RNG style ways of obtaining items, it is one of the reasons why I loathe what FFXIV does after you have beaten a boss and given a low chance to obtain a weapon you may not even have the correct class for.

I seriously wouldn’t have minded paying a set amount of gems for the item skin I wanted in the gem store. In the end they are cosmetic items and that is more or less what the gem store is for.

The argument has been made to me time and again “Why not just buy from other players from the TP?” and this would have been ideal for me had supply and demand not taken place and caused the Greatsaw (an item I very much would have enjoyed having the skin for) to go for 40-50g. Maybe I am not playing the game correctly but I don’t HAVE that kind of ingame currency to spend on such an item, so that is not a viable choice for me.

Am I demanding the item be placed on my lap? Not at all, in the end it is just an item skin. But it doesn’t mean I don’t dislike the way these items are obtained. I am very much enjoying this event and I like the costumes, the brawl, the book, the setting, I am having immense fun and it’s only the first act.

Shall wait and see what lies in store for the other acts, but this whole thing kinda puts a dampener on the event for me.

Kimbald.2697:

Cruiser.3506:

Kimbald.2697:

Evilized.6430:

you paid 50 bucks knowing it was a gamble. you lost and now instead of being able to accept it you blame others. great logic.

a-net needs to make money. people are willing to gamble knowing full well they will probably see no return. i spent money and lost. i’m not complaining because i knew and accepted the risks before i made the purchase. take some responsibility for your own actions people, please.

Anet would have lost nothing if they gave better droprates.
On the contrary: they would have sold way more chests in the future than they ever will now.

Ponder on that a bit.

They could have been generous to all the players who were so generous to buy keys en masse for the event alone… they weren’t.

If anyone gambled and lost it’s Anet.

The skins were never intended to be doled out en masse, REGARDLESS of your interpretation. Rare means RARE. Look it up. If you still don’t get it, look it up again. If everyone got a rare, it wouldn’t be rare anymore, now would it? Gee, lots of fun getting the exact same thing half the game population already has? That’s soooo unique, isn’t it?

Don’t like the event? See all the forum posts with people complaining about the horrid chances to get something aesthetic? Why, you simply MUST spend your money! They’re twisting your arm and pointing a gun to your head, right? No?

Move along, nothing to see here.

you’re the one not understanding what I wrote.

I know what ‘rare’ can mean in a game, I also know how dubious it can be to say ‘a chance’ wihout specifying.
Cuts both ways.
But that wasn’t what I was saying.

I was saying how they didn’t need to make it rare… they would have gained a lot more out of this, financially and ‘game-wise’ if they didn’t make it this rare.

How? By putting something common and mundane in the game that everyone will want to dole out $50 for? Really?

Come on, you’re saying the drop rates need to be changed so people have a better chance at a rare item. That in turn was responded to by Anet by giving those who spent their money a second chance. Tell me where there’s a gambling house (spending money on the chance of winning something IS GAMBLING by the way) that will let you spend your money twice if you don’t win anything.

By making things NOT rare they would NOT have made more money, because nobody would have been interested in getting something common and not special.

I have a few posts in this subforum where I’m basically pointing the finger at the aforementioned “entitled” folks and shouting “personal responsibility, nobody made you do it!” and even after reading this I still retain that stance. However, in your post you kind of acknowledge that as part of the problem as well as kind of being set up for failure by the way the event was designed, so I really have nothing to dispute here.

A lot of people would read my posts about taking responsibility and think I’m just blindly fanboying, which I’m not. I just think you’re responsible for something you voluntarily do, that being said, I agree with everything you’ve written here. The design didn’t go as planned and it ended up being a crapshoot, which is very unfortunate for those who participated.

Anyway, extremely well articulated post, much respect to you.

Ryuujin.8236:

Just food for thought:

Asides the manhours involved in making the item model and adding it to the game (not a great deal), the item costs nothing.

Supply is essentially infinite. Therefore any price or rarity assigned to it is completely arbitrary. Surely it’s better to sell them to everyone for a reasonably small amount, than to sell it to a tiny portion of the population for a large amount?

I’d be interested in seeing the maths behind this sales model.

*Besides.

the production cost for the items is in the thousands of dollars, small change compared to what they could potentially make from their sale. there are two costume items in the gem shop that sell for straight gems, no gambling involved, these recoup the cost of production. there are a number of weapon skins that drop straight from chests, these chests also give out other items varying in usefulness; they have always been a gamble. there are recipes to craft essentially “mini legendaries,” the materials required are extensive but the skins are currently very rare (the rarity of the crafted item skins will be reduced over time as more people get the recipes and stockpile more crafting mats that arent needed for stat upgrade items).

could they have made a lot of money by offering everything for sale via gems? yes, indeed they could have. they in fact did make quite a bit of money on the costume items. a-net has the items from this event broken down into categories. common (gems) rare (craftable skins) and ultra rare prestige skins (straight drop from chest). everybody has a chance to get something from this event, it just depends on the approach you want to take. do you want a guaranteed item? buy a town only costume for gems. do you want a guaranteed item and dont mind spending a lot of in-game resources to get it? craft one of the skins from a holiday recipe. do you want one of the exclusive super rare skins that can only be acquired through luck? gamble with in-game currency or real life money but there is no guarantee.

then there is the final route, buying things from the trade broker for gold from other players. pick your poison and stop complaining because if you want a holiday item there are more than enough ways to get one.

clydey.4963:

Not going to say I feel like I deserve the skins, I will however say that the way to obtain them is very “disrespectful” of the playerbase. I’ve never liked low RNG style ways of obtaining items, it is one of the reasons why I loathe what FFXIV does after you have beaten a boss and given a low chance to obtain a weapon you may not even have the correct class for.

In that case you must also hate legendaries and the very existence of random loot drops. They’re random with a low chance of getting what you want, so that’s disrespectful of the player base, right?

szthesquid.9576:

DreamThief.9812:

I would also like to note that while some players may find the boosters useful, I have never much considered +strength, +rejuv, or +exp to be of much use in my play style.

This is a bit of a tangent from the thread topic, but the usefulness of these boosters have nothing to do with your play style.
There is no play style that doesn’t deal damage, therefore +strength is always useful.
There is no play style that doesn’t benefit from staying alive longer, therefore +rejuvenation is always useful.
If you’re not at 80, +exp is always useful. If you are, it’s useless if you don’t need any more skill points for crafting.

I think you are missing the point, which is that there are people who do not feel the contents of the chest are worth the $1.25 they would normally pay to get them from a chest (note, that’s just through buying the gems with cash. The prices fluctuate with silver/gold.) I have never found any of the boosters to be worth the money, personally, but I treated them as a consolation prize for not getting the skins. I was determined to use them all, somehow. I just didn’t feel they were great in any way.

I can only guess on this point in particular, but I would imagine that if you looked at the amount of gems spent prior to this event on stat boosters and keys versus other, more expensive, one time purchases such as character slots, bank slots, bag slots, etc, you would most likely see that the stat boosters and keys would be fairly far behind.

To be honest, I also just don’t like using strength/defense/regeneration boosters. I prefer to do things with my own stats, traits, and boons that I’ve been building up and playing with. Consumables like food and maintenance oil/sharpening stones are more than good enough for me.

There’s a middle ground where ‘rare’ and ‘common’ could meet.

I’m not saying half the things you put in my mouth, but i am saying this:

as a business transaction, based on player trust, they did the wrong thing to even risk the chance of having this controversy.

You can argue about ‘rare’ and gambling all you want.
But you can’t convince me this was smart business.
You don’t kitten of your best paying customers over some event skins.

This hurts the reputation of the game, regardless of what you think of those buying chests or not…

HELL YES! I only bought 5 keys (so I never really felt ripped off), but now I’m excited ^.^ I just REALLY wish I hadn’t used up all my tonics from before the patch… I kept getting tonics and had over 60 (8 – 12 different ones in stacks before they made all mystery) and needed the bag space :-P NOW they make them worth something lol o well, better late than never ^.^ can’t wait to get home

This is what I did, bought the mad king/witch costume and the minis and with the other half i bought keys for the chests.

In the end I learned a very valuable lesson, don’t waste my money on chests again, not touching that again no sir you’ve lost me there.

Not worth the crafting. It’s like finding a trick or treat bag. With a crud chance at anything useful.

People with the ‘entitlement’ reaction seem to have a seeing the forest for the trees problem. They only see the unhappy customer and race to spout ‘Hey you got something for free and some chest filler items, and I was happy with that, so if you are not, you are acting entitled, so I will dismiss that there is a problem in the first place’.

They don’t follow the scope of things to understand that from a business model perspective, the result of such a situation is not as simple as ‘Person A is happy with what we did, Person B isn’t. Oh well, we made 1 out of those 2 people happy’.

It’s a bit more like.. how much profit potential do we have from more happy customers, versus our profits from a divided, feud filled community that is spending a fair bit of time during what was supposed to be a fun holiday event arguing back and forth on the forums. The insult hurling cannot be adding much to the event for either side, quite frankly. So, does placing RNG gambling in the cash shop work out for them in the long run? That is the real subject at hand.

Posts like yours, Szthesquid, don’t answer that question much because.. you stated you were happy with just the freebies. You made no mention of if you did buy premium holiday content, nor if you plan to in the future. Posts where people talk about how the outcome of this event effect their spending plans in the future in regards to the game are a bit of a forecasting tool.

Anet can either gamble on the odds that disappointment will have faded by december, and retry their RNG setup as is, knowing that it’s highly controversial now, or they can use it as a meter to how much tweaking they would have to do to lower the number of dismay for future concepts.

The choice is obviously theirs, but calmly stated posts like Senophs do give a fair bit more insight into things for them, than several hundred posts where a person shows up, calls others ‘entitled’ for not being happy with just the freebies, and express nothing on what their intentions towards the cash shop in general are in the process.

If you are happy with the arrangement.. do you plan to buy RNG cash items in the future? Would you be more willing to spend on an assured item, or the feeling of added rarity that comes from a low drop rate premium item?

Personally, i’m not angry, and it hasn’t ruined the holiday for me. Will I spend on RNG cash shop items in the future? Likely not. As a GW1 player, I do feel a sense of disappointment, as this was not the sort of sales tactics that Anet used in the past, and I do feel that past history with the company did cause some people to have a sense of expectation that Anet would not place such a low chance on a premium item for a holiday.

I got nothing from the chests and even bought a few more after the changes last night. I knew there was still only a slim chance for Halloween skins. So $150 down and I am alright with it by making the mad kings chests they gave us a second slim chance and that payed off for some. I am just happy they added it so the chests were holiday themed. Hopefully they do this from the start next time. Skip BLC keys and just sell holiday chests.

They did offer a non gambling method those were the two outfits.

I have been thinking and i think the Black lion/mad king chest drop rates are perfectly fine. I think the main issue is arenanet should have made those rates clearer…..

Ideally it would have been good if arenanet had made the drop rates a bit better for skins from mad king chests. But they should have at least made it clear what to expect rewardwise. If people had known the drop rate would be the same for skins and the common good reward would be rare crafting mats…i dont think people would be as upset about this.

Shaileya.7063:

Posts like yours, Szthesquid, don’t answer that question much because.. you stated you were happy with just the freebies. You made no mention of if you did buy premium holiday content, nor if you plan to in the future. Posts where people talk about how the outcome of this event effect their spending plans in the future in regards to the game are a bit of a forecasting tool.

I bought 800 gems ($10) and converted gold into 150 more gems, then bought 10 keys. I didn’t really expect to get any of the Halloween stuff and would have been ecstatic if I did, but I’m satisfied with the chest contents. I was honestly kind of surprised that ANet caved and added a recipe for Halloween chests, and that was cool and not necessary IMO. Though I do wish there were an achievement for using tonics, that’s been mitigated somewhat by the fact that EVERY tonic, Halloween or not, allows you to participate in costume brawl.

I intend on buying gems every so often. Maybe not on a monthly basis, but probably more at once around holidays or RL cash bonuses. My chest results had no bearing on my intention to buy gems.

Kimbald.2697:

There’s a middle ground where ‘rare’ and ‘common’ could meet.

I’m not saying half the things you put in my mouth, but i am saying this:

as a business transaction, based on player trust, they did the wrong thing to even risk the chance of having this controversy.

You can argue about ‘rare’ and gambling all you want.
But you can’t convince me this was smart business.
You don’t kitten of your best paying customers over some event skins.

This hurts the reputation of the game, regardless of what you think of those buying chests or not…

No, there’s not a common ground where rare and common can meet, beyond enough people finding items that are rare, to the point of them no longer being considered rare.

Gold in real life is rare, there’s only been so much of it found and so much of it available. Copper is not rare, it’s a common metal found in a myriad of geographical zones. Copper is common, gold is not. There is no common ground between them beyond them both being metals and both being sold as commodities.

The rare drop items in the event chests are meant to be rare, not common. Increasing the chances of them becoming less rare/more common decreases their rarity. Period.

Will the player base leave in massive numbers over this issue? Isn’t that a bit Chicken Little of you? Do you have the data to back that statement up or are you simply providing conjecture based on your personal opinion? Are you a marketing specialist who can advise Anet on how best to provide content to their player base? No? Well then your credibility is zip in this matter. You’re an unhappy player

Move along, nothing to see here.

Arena.Net has clearly stated that they are not “those other guys”. Yet, most “white knights” are constantly comparing them to: WoW, TF2, LoN, etc. The very companies that Arena.Net claims to be different from. If the shoes fits….

Reading Mike O’brien’s blog on Arena.Net’s microtransaction philosophy, nowhere does it state any of those games. The only game it mentions is Eve Online’s cash shop, and how they would most liken themselves to it. Yet nobody in their arguments has mentioned that game at all.

Take it for what it’s worth, just some food for thought.

IMO, the image that Arena.Net built up through GW1, and continued to build upon leading up to now has taken a hit due to this. Simply for the reasons stated above. The community is now comparing them to “those other guys”. THe exact opposite of what Arena.Net wants. They have simply become another MMO. A high-quality, AAA MMO, but then… So were “those other guys.”

I’m out

http://www.arena.net/blog/mike-obrien-on-microtransactions-in-guild-wars-2

and this “controversy” is caused by what? the fact that a very vocal minority can’t seem to understand that they aren’t the center of the universe. i can tell you right now that their “best paying customers” aren’t on these forums complaining about losing a measly $50 gambling for some skins.

Cruiser.3506:

Gold in real life is rare, there’s only been so much of it found and so much of it available.

The situation we have here though is more analogous to diamond. A material that is actually plentiful, but it’s supply, availability and price is entirely controlled by a single company who has opted to market them as rare

Pixels are essentially free, the price associated and the rareness of them is dictated entirely by arenanet.

Blueroseknight.7954:

I respect your arguments but disagree that the BLCs were handled poorly. I think that ANet took advantage of a basic psychological principle and used it to make money. I play alot of CCGs and have opened many packs of cards for many different games. You don’t always pull the rare cards that you are looking for.

This is true, but like TF2, there is also nothing keeping you from trading what you did get for things that you may want. This would be a good comparison if you could trade boosters, tonics, Black Lion tools, etc. As it is, you cannot. That is why I mentioned them being a dead end, and why so many people that are vocal on this forum are of the mindset of never engaging in this sort of buying behavior in the future.

Blueroseknight.7954:

I have enjoyed using basically everything I have gotten from the BLCs, even the killstreak XP booster. Each item has improved my gameplay experience in some way.

And here we have something of interest. You, and another poster, have said you enjoy the boosters. My wife plays as well, and she really wants Transmutation stones. Would it be unreasonable for these things to be traded to people who actually do want them and could use them? I know this is not in direct relation to the Halloween event exlcusively, but it does relate to how Black Lion Chests are handled in general. If I could, I would send you, or anyone who wants them, Killstreak XP boosters. I’d trade them for money as well. Wouldn’t that be a mutually beneficial arrangement?

Blueroseknight.7954:

ANet has thus far been kind enough to add a second chance at their Halloween gambling event for no charge. That obviously did not work; their efforts were basically wasted. It is sad that people accuse them of so many hateful things when they are making so many wonderful things.

Well, here is an area where you and I are going to be in disagreement. You say that ArenaNet has been “kind” enough to do something, and yet initially you say that they are a business and that they are tapping into our psychological workings to be profitable. Wouldn’t it be more likely that their “kindness” in this instance was an investment toward garnering good will, and thus more sales? I am not saying that the company itself is disingenuous toward the fans, but they are, in fact, a business. They added the Mad King Chests because the feedback was telling them that they made a mistake. Kindness takes a backseat toward getting back your big money buyers.

Blueroseknight.7954:

This whole thing kind of reminds me of the Mass Effect players demanding a different ending to the game. Fans demanding changes in the way products are presented is a bizarre concept. If you don’t like the product then don’t engage the product.

I think what was far more bizarre was that Bioware delivered such a slapdash product and ending on a game that players had been anticipating for years of their lives. I don’t even think that the players in that instance were demanding a different ending, so much as an ending that was actually more what they said it would be. We’re living in a time when your displeasure with a product or company can hit a thousand eyes in one post, regardless of who you are. Companies can’t afford to keep pushing out bad products and ideas anymore, at least not in this industry.

Personally, I just inherently knew that there would be a low chance of certain skins, especially the best looking ones. ANet has ALWAYS loved making things like these skins rare items. To them, they want everyone to feel cool but reserve the AWESOME looking stuff for those willing to put forth the effort.

Yes, they should have provided detailed stats of your chances, but honestly when I saw the word “chance” I knew it be a rare drop. I bought around $30 worth of chest and got the medium shoulders only, but I wasn’t mad because I knew that there was probably a low chance to begin with.

Buyer beware, I do not feel misled and appreciate them adding a second chance in the form of the Mad King Chests.

The game doesn’t have a monthly fee, so look at it this way, if you don’t buy gems for the next few months you’ll still have paid less than your traditional $15/month MMORPG.

I completely agree with you OP but please keep in mind that while your post was well thought out and objective some of the posts complaining about the event were not. They would have you believe that their worlds were ending and that arena net produced the worst product ever introduced in the gaming industry. So unfortunately the well thought out critiques and suggestions that need to get through to the development team get burried under piles of posts that sound like my 6 year old whining that his sister just took his favorite toy and ran off with it.

Appreciate your post.

Best regards,
AB

Cruiser.3506:

Kimbald.2697:

There’s a middle ground where ‘rare’ and ‘common’ could meet.

I’m not saying half the things you put in my mouth, but i am saying this:

as a business transaction, based on player trust, they did the wrong thing to even risk the chance of having this controversy.

You can argue about ‘rare’ and gambling all you want.
But you can’t convince me this was smart business.
You don’t kitten of your best paying customers over some event skins.

This hurts the reputation of the game, regardless of what you think of those buying chests or not…

No, there’s not a common ground where rare and common can meet, beyond enough people finding items that are rare, to the point of them no longer being considered rare.

Gold in real life is rare, there’s only been so much of it found and so much of it available. Copper is not rare, it’s a common metal found in a myriad of geographical zones. Copper is common, gold is not. There is no common ground between them beyond them both being metals and both being sold as commodities.

The rare drop items in the event chests are meant to be rare, not common. Increasing the chances of them becoming less rare/more common decreases their rarity. Period.

Will the player base leave in massive numbers over this issue? Isn’t that a bit Chicken Little of you? Do you have the data to back that statement up or are you simply providing conjecture based on your personal opinion? Are you a marketing specialist who can advise Anet on how best to provide content to their player base? No? Well then your credibility is zip in this matter. You’re an unhappy player

Move along, nothing to see here.

Your word means as little as mine.

I never said playerbase will leave en masse.
I said it hurts the reputation of the game.

And for the record: your analogy of copper and gold holds no ground. Yes, these 2 are different in that regard. But there are materials that are more rare than copper, less rare than gold.
That’s what a common ground would be, not what you try to babble it to be.

This is the way to voice your opinion. I only wish many other topics had the same amount of effort and thought put into them. I suggested some changes to the original Black Lion trading chest months ago and it got very little feedback from the community. Quite sadly I see nothing but those seeking something for nothing or those simply upset they gambled and lost and are now lashing out like 4 year old kids who didn’t get their way.

As a long time player of Guild Wars I can say that I for one have not always agreed on things they have done but in no way have they ever been dishonest. I might expect that from NcSoft or Blizzard but Anets track record suggests otherwise. How many of the April Fools content did we get for GW 1 that was done by Anet employees on their own free time for us players and how many companies would let alone allow their employees to even do such a thing ? No this is a company that tries its best to please as many gamers as it possibly can but sadly some of the additions to the Guild Wars community ( the player base in particular ) have not been to my liking and it wouldn’t hurt my feelings to see them leave and return to other games.

@Senoph – This is the way to discuss things and I salute the way you’ve handled this. I only wish that many others would do so in a similiar manner.

Evilized.6430:

and this “controversy” is caused by what? the fact that a very vocal minority can’t seem to understand that they aren’t the center of the universe. i can tell you right now that their “best paying customers” aren’t on these forums complaining about losing a measly $50 gambling for some skins.

a reputation of a game, outside of the game itself, is based on the vocal ones, no matter how big your silent majority is.

been mentioned a couple of times already but I just wanted to confirm that the forge is not accepting the killstreak boost reward

Ryuujin.8236:

Cruiser.3506:

Gold in real life is rare, there’s only been so much of it found and so much of it available.

The situation we have here though is more analogous to diamond. A material that is actually plentiful, but it’s supply, availability and price is entirely controlled by a single company who has opted to market them as rare

Pixels are essentially free, the price associated and the rareness of them is dictated entirely by arenanet.

Good lord, man! Don’t tell people about the abundance of diamonds! The shadow people will come and find you!

Kimbald.2697:

Evilized.6430:

and this “controversy” is caused by what? the fact that a very vocal minority can’t seem to understand that they aren’t the center of the universe. i can tell you right now that their “best paying customers” aren’t on these forums complaining about losing a measly $50 gambling for some skins.

a reputation of a game, outside of the game itself, is based on the vocal ones, no matter how big your silent majority is.

If you think the 10 people whining in this thread are going to hurt GW2’s reputation, you’re vastly over-hyping this whole situation.

Posted in another thread:

Arena.Net has clearly stated that they are not “those other guys”. Yet, most “white knights” are constantly comparing them to: WoW, TF2, LoN, etc. The very companies that Arena.Net claims to be different from. If the shoes fits….
Reading Mike O’brien’s blog on Arena.Net’s microtransaction philosophy, nowhere does it state any of those games. The only game it mentions is Eve Online’s cash shop, and how they would most liken themselves to it. Yet nobody in their arguments has mentioned that game at all.
Take it for what it’s worth, just some food for thought.
IMO, the image that Arena.Net built up through GW1, and continued to build upon leading up to now has taken a hit due to this. Simply for the reasons stated above. The community is now comparing them to “those other guys”. THe exact opposite of what Arena.Net wants. They have simply become another MMO. A high-quality, AAA MMO, but then… So were “those other guys.”
I’m out
http://www.arena.net/blog/mike-obrien-on-microtransactions-in-guild-wars-2

Zeds.1873:

Kimbald.2697:

Evilized.6430:

and this “controversy” is caused by what? the fact that a very vocal minority can’t seem to understand that they aren’t the center of the universe. i can tell you right now that their “best paying customers” aren’t on these forums complaining about losing a measly $50 gambling for some skins.

a reputation of a game, outside of the game itself, is based on the vocal ones, no matter how big your silent majority is.

If you think the 10 people whining in this thread are going to hurt GW2’s reputation, you’re vastly over-hyping this whole situation.

It was a few more than 10 in the other thread, but hey…

Listen guys: have it your way.
Nothing happened, game’s reputation isn’t hurt. Only 10 players out of 2 million are unhappy.

I’m trying to reason about this from a broader point of view than being ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ about the droprates.
You can’t grasp the notion that this could hurt the game? Fine, than don’t.

All is well and the future is bright.

I for one will never buy gems again for what can only be described as a total ripoff.
31 Black Lion chest, nothing
17 Mad King chests and more garbage

Nice update, I’m just disappointed that it doesn’t work with the old specific tonics… I had only 23 mystery tonics, but I have a lot of boosts and definitly hundreds of specifics tonics…

TF2 is probably a good “other guy” to be. As far as the goals of the shop are, the important principles – taking money trading away from bots and not giving people who spend cash an unfair advantage – have been upheld.

My female asura thief has the same issue, at least in hero screen. (with no other weapons/armor equipped at all) I submitted a bug via /bug last night.

Didn’t check if it actually displayed in the world, since I’ve got a better back item and am holding off on transmuting it until the event’s over just in case.

SDChargers.8401:

Failth.2935:

Just gotta say….

Opened 6 Black lion chests (Bought 5 keys) -> Got the scythe skin
Opened around 7-9 New Mad King chests -> Got Heavy shoulder skin + Recipe: Gift of the Souls

So yeh… I am satisfied But even if I didn’t get any of those, I would still be. Bcos unlike most ppl here it seems, I knew it was a gamble and the chances are ridiculously low to get the skins or the rare recipes. That’s why I only bought 5 keys in the first place.

If you want to have somebody to blame, blame yourself. If you buy tons of Chests so you can get the skin it is your own fault being so stupid. If you want one of the BLC skins buy them off the TP. Don’t throw your money around like a fool and hope things you want fall from the sky on your lap.

Failth, you are COMPLETELY right. I do “blame myself”. I was “so stupid”… and a lot of people are in my boat. We take full responsibility for it. So in the future, in order to be not stupid, and not need to blame myself, I will no longer be supporting Anet with money. Lesson learned. Like I said earlier. I’m not mad, I’m not complaining, but lesson WELL learned. You have just turned away probably thousands of good paying customers. BUT… when it comes time to place the blame for THAT… please remember your post. ANet will need to “Blame themselves” for being “so stupid.” And when your beloved game turns sub-par, you make sure you remember why… and don’t blame it on us for not supporting anet. Good day. =)

It’s good that you’ve learned to be more fiscally responsible, and I believe that’s worth the loss in revenue to an MMO provider.

Total of 40$ spent on keys.
Some 35 black lion chests and close to 20 mad king chests.

Not a single skin.

I put down around 66% of what the game cost me into the gem store and got nothing (useful) out of it. Yuuup, never doing that again =)

Would advise against buying black lion keys.

EDIT* Also left wondering why black lion gathering tools don’t stack past 25. That’s 8 slots of inventory space I’d like back.

As a foreword, I didn’t read all of the posts so far, so maybe this has been addressed.

The fact that you don’t like the connotation of the word “entitlement” doesn’t mean that it doesn’t apply.

In the end, this is about the issue of players wanting something and being frustrated that they can’t have it.

We can argue about whether their feeling of entitlement is justified, but it is certainly a feeling of entitlement no matter how you slice it. And certainly some measure of entitled is justified. After all, the game exists to entertain people and they paid at least some amount of money for it and put some amount of time into it with certain expectations.

I think the problem is that probably the majority of the posts I’ve seen complaining do not show evidence of reasonable expectations. There are people complaining that there aren’t things that can be gotten for free – but there are: the book can be gotten by anyone and the horns require literally a handful of clicks. There are people complaining that they’ve opened three hundred chests and haven’t found anything, but clearly they’re outliers since many of the skins are going for only one or two gold in the AH (which, after a reasonable number of chests, one might expect someone to use rather than continuing due to sunk costs or a poor understanding of probability). And there are people complaining about the craftables because they’re too hard to make and people are claiming there isn’t anything more reasonable for them to work toward despite the skins from the chest, book, etc.

And to top it all off, we’re only one stage into a four-stage event.

So yes, I think the term “entitlement” is entirely fair to use here, even if it does sound “mean”.

what I think is that the only way to make you guys happy is if Anet gives everyone exactly what they want..they should screw the rest of the event..forget the quests, jumping puzzles and DE’s..because obviously nobody cares..just send some green skins to your banks and save themselves some coding. That way everybody gets a skin, nobody feels special or unique and we can all be chainsaw avian wearing clones for halloween.

I want to add this from a document I read for a class.

“Quality First” can gain customer confidence step by step, and the company’s sales will increase gradually. In the long run, profits will be substantial, and will permit the company to have stable management. If the company follows the principle of “Profit First,” it may obtain a quick profit, but it cannot sustain competitiveness for a long period of time."

They way how the keys are handled, it’ll be more profitable if the skins are sold directly from the gem store then everyone is happy. It’s a holiday and shouldn’t be stressing out some people who be willingly spend some cash for a skin they want.

any business, when dealing with massive amounts of people like a-net is knows that no matter what they do a portion of their playerbase will not be happy. these people are seen as acceptable losses. would you want people who do nothing but complain sticking around? i couldn’t get rid of them fast enough, myself. 2,000 people quit out of 2 million? so what, there is no sub fee. the big spenders will stick around and still support the game. a-net got the box sales from the people who quit and honestly won’t miss the maybe $10 a month they might have gotten from them had they stayed. essentially this just means that come next holiday there will be XXXX less complaints to deal with.

While I have not spent any real money on gems for chests, I do find the people calling those who are unhappy after spending relatively large amounts fools and idiots amusing. Those fools and idiots are the most important customers in a FTP model, and alienating them will have a future impact on cash flow during future holidays. Hopefully, poor sales during future holidays of keys will not affect the amount of free future content.

The gold from $100 could currently be used to buy any of the skins in the AH.

And if you spent $100 on this, why on earth don’t you just add a slot to your bank so you don’t have to worry about throwing away items that take up a modicum of space?

Modus Pwnens.1932:

So yes, I think the term “entitlement” is entirely fair to use here, even if it does sound “mean”.

The term itself has become memetic, and is now used as a blanket statement to convey disapproval of disapproval. That is a very problematic stance to take for progress as a whole. I am going to give you the benefit of the doubt since you mentioned you did not read everything posted, but my point was mainly that there are people who act like the entitled, spoiled children that the term has now come to denote, and then there are those who are just giving their honest feedback on the matter.

If someone says, “I opened 200 chests, I didn’t get anything. I feel sad about this and I won’t be buying keys for future events,” and then the response is, “Well you’re entitled!”, then that is the absolute incorrect response to make on every level. That person actually did put in money, they are not expecting something for free. In fact, in their situation, they feel that they have put in a lot of money, have not gotten the value of that money somehow, and will not be doing so in the future. You’re attempting to resolve a mentally conflicting sentiment by bringing it to its opposing pole. To say that they are “just entitled,” or even “entitled” at all is to completely disregard the angle that matters, which is that of how a business and a customer will interact and what that means for the future.

Many people have compared this entire situation to a casino. I would have much rather gone to one, personally, because they are clearly labeled. I didn’t buy Casino Wars 2.

considering they probably pretty easily recouped the production costs from the gem costume sales alone i doubt there will be any quality / quantity dropoff for future holiday events.

I take issue with your assumption. Anet knew exactly what they were doing and had specific ideas/plans. When your income is based on what is sold online you have a kitten good idea of what will generate what. They planned to milk this plain and simple.
I only fault Anet for not stating it was in fact a rare item but instead they used chance.
for that they are in the wrong and people got a 2nd chance. You spent money you expected something – anything -that is not entitlement.

Modus Pwnens.1932:

The fact that you don’t like the connotation of the word “entitlement” doesn’t mean that it doesn’t apply.

In the end, this is about the issue of players wanting something and being frustrated that they can’t have it.

The fact is, it’s not that simple, people who love to throw around the word “entitlement” only focus on exactly what you do “A player wanting something and being frustrated that they can’t have it”, no it’s that Anet was not transparent about the drop rates before hand. Had they been more specific about the percentage, I would have skipped out on buying keys.

I did have an expectation that at least temporary or more event related items would drop from Black Lion Chests much like the Mad King Chests do, and a thumbs up to Anet for adding that recipe to the mystic forge by the way.

It seems obvious that with the addition of the Mad King chest that Anet doesn’t believe their playerbase feels entitled, but that they were disappointed with the results of the previous chests and possibly not in-line with the customer’s expectations.

Even the more thought out and well articulated threads about a player’s dissatisfaction regarding the drop rates brings on the “Entitlement accusers”, and the word is sorely over used to simplify and ridicule people with a dissenting opinion.