Guild Wars 2

Tim.9850:

They really should be stating the odds of winning the lottery. That is what this is, people paying real money to win a lottery.

Wrong.

Even though we keep calling it gambling, Black Lion chests (and TF2 crates and whatever) are not technically gambling or a lottery because every purchase results in a “prize” or goods delivered. You have a chance of receiving something rarer, but every purchase is guaranteed to receive something.

This is the exact same reason that buying booster packs of card games or miniature games is not considered gambling (and is not regulated).

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.

I’m guessing you’re not smart enough to understand the implication of the post you quoted, so I’ll spell it out for you:

If Anet had been more generous with the rewards, more people would spend more money on the cash shop. Since they were not generous, less money is being spent, which leads to a loss in revenue, and will also cause future events to suffer. Anet screwed themselves with this fiasco, whether you rabid fanboys want to accept that or not.

I’m actually astonished that folks are touting that they’re leaving due to Black Lion Chest stuff. I mean, I can understand not buying gems (or not spending them on keys), but there is a lot more to this game than awesome weapon skins. Anyhow, I said it, but I’ll say it again: I’m very happy with the Mad King Chest solution. I came in with the understanding that Black Lion Chests were a gamble — my gripe was that either you got one of the rare event items, or no event items at all. The Mad King Chests addressed this by giving folks a way to not only get more chances at the rare event stuff, but ALSO guaranteed event items. I just don’t understand how that’s not an acceptable solution.

Taurethion.7302:

I have played MMOs since EQ1, but this is my first experience with boxes you buy…

It’s fairly common in F2P games to have some sort of “gamble box” in the cash shop. Said “gamble box” will usually contain some rare item that has like a 1-2% chance of being looted.

Was yet another thread for this really necessary, Shakespeare? This is becoming spam. ANet is aware that a lot of people didn’t like the system, and we’ve had 100 of these same threads float through. Both sides of this argument are getting really old.

I come from a game called “Atlantica Online” (run by Nexon). I did not left it because it was a bad game (it was a great game, a turn-based MMORPG) but because how Nexon handled it. Especially the item shop. They offered random boxes with one very good item and a lot of bad ones, the good one being obviously quite improbable to get. I hated that system and went over to ArenaNet because I was told that it was a quite honest company.

Then I came to know that in GW2 is an Item Shop, too. Ok, only useless or cosmetic items so far (except for the bank and inventory slots, but you can do without if you want). So no biggie.

And then came halloween.

On the plus side: these weapon skins are still only cosmetic items. As an elementalist I would LOVE to wield a scythe shaped staff. But it would have the same stats as my current staff. Compare that to Atlantica Online where they now sell really good weapons in random boxes which make a huge difference in game play (at least for the people in level 140 and below, 150 being the level cap there).

But on the minus side: I start to feel uneasy. I simply don’t like random boxes. Especially not ones where the odds are not published and where one good item with a very small chance is hidden beneath a heap of rubbish. I find that scheme, applying to hope and unreasonable lottery instinct, despicable and “fishy”. It is, to apply an even more evil attribute to it, “nexony”.

I have to admit, I am from Germany, where such things would simply be illegal (you have to publish the odds – in every casino, even in every restaurant where a gambling machine is installed, there is a “Gewinnplan” (plan of winning) hanging at the wall beside or printed on the machine where the odds are described). This influences my feelings about gambling a lot.

In the end it is not a question of entitlement or right or wrong. It is simply (from ArenaNet’s point of view) a question how many people do not like how the BLC are handled. I am one of those who don’t like it. Consequently I haven’t bought any. I only tried my BLC where I got keys for during the game. As you can imagine: without any success to speak of.

I like this game very much. I do not want ArenaNet going the Nexon way (or you could say: the usual way most ftp game go). So I voice my opinion here in the hope that ArenaNet will consider it for future events.

Death.2091:

Now I know not how it was in GW1 (it is to my limited knowledge a lot of earning instead of buying),

I hear a lot of people saying that and it’s total dis-information to confuse non GW1 players

GW1 cash shop skins could all be freely bought DIRECT from the cash shop. No random number generator, no drama. You just gave them your money, they gave you your skin, everyone was happy.

Nobody ever complained this setup was “too easy” or that the skins had to be in any way exclusive.

Basically RNG + Gems = Cash grab. RNG should have been limited to ToT bags.

szthesquid.9576:

Tim.9850:

They really should be stating the odds of winning the lottery. That is what this is, people paying real money to win a lottery.

Wrong.

Even though we keep calling it gambling, Black Lion chests (and TF2 crates and whatever) are not technically gambling or a lottery because every purchase results in a “prize” or goods delivered. You have a chance of receiving something rarer, but every purchase is guaranteed to receive something.

This is the exact same reason that buying booster packs of card games or miniature games is not considered gambling (and is not regulated).

Huh, did’t consider that. Makes sense though.

if I remember right skins in GW1 were account-wide too not just per character

igmolicious.5986:

I’m actually astonished that folks are touting that they’re leaving due to Black Lion Chest stuff. I mean, I can understand not buying gems (or not spending them on keys), but there is a lot more to this game than awesome weapon skins. Anyhow, I said it, but I’ll say it again: I’m very happy with the Mad King Chest solution. I came in with the understanding that Black Lion Chests were a gamble — my gripe was that either you got one of the rare event items, or no event items at all. The Mad King Chests addressed this by giving folks a way to not only get more chances at the rare event stuff, but ALSO guaranteed event items. I just don’t understand how that’s not an acceptable solution.

Because unless everything is given to you, then people will complain. It’s really the state of the MMO world at this point. Make nothing special, and make it so everyone can get it or there will be those who complain. It’s just a guarantee at this point.

If anything, I laud A-Net for sticking to their guns on this and making certain items (that are completely OPTIONAL) rare so that for people who have them, they are something special.

A-Net is really taking a risk here, pleasing the fans who want to see items like these extremely rare and special. Compared to those who just want everything, which there are most definitely more of in this day and age. These are also generally the people who still can’t comprehend the fact that this is only Act I of a four act event. What I really want to see happen is later on, they make it so these items are obtainable through the completion of the Mad King quest line. Then they’ll have nothing to complain about, except their own impatience.

nottsgman.8206:

if I remember right skins in GW1 were account-wide too not just per character

You do. Skins wern’t given but “unlocked” and you could claim a skin as many times as you wanted on any number of characters once unlocked.

maybe they are going to open up more ways to get the skins in later acts? that the chests were not the “expected” way to get them?

All this crying is hilarious. If you think ANet will lose out from using a gacha model, which tons of other MMOs use successfully, you’re horribly mistaken.

I can understand why a person would leave over it (I have not said I will). When a company dupes a person out of their REAL money then yes it puts a taste in their mouth that would lead them to not play their game. Before anyone says it was a known gamble. Look at their emails on this event. They played up the chests as if there was a legitimate chance that you could get a skin. I don’t mean a particular skin. I mean a skin period. There are people that paid 30-200 dollars and didn’t get one skin.

To those that say it should be rare because it shows a sense of accomplishment… RNG from a chest is not an accomplishment. It’s called luck. Their second attempt came showing it to be a rare chance. Had they been upfront then not as many people would have bought the chests.

I wouldn’t have because I have horrible luck with RNG in games. Horrible. I know it and I don’t complain. I simply state it and I try at best to avoid RNG type things. It’s part of what I liked about this game was it seemed to try to take RNG out of dungeon sets and so forth.

When it was presented in a way that made it seem like you had a reasonable chance to get a skin. If everyone got a skin would that ruin it? No. Not everyone would use them and honestly some would tire of the skin and use something else down the road. They went for the cash grab… they got the cash but they also created a decent amount of ill will by not being upfront when they grabbed the cash.

I can understand why a person would leave over it (I have not said I will). When a company dupes a person out of their REAL money then yes it puts a taste in their mouth that would lead them to not play their game. Before anyone says it was a known gamble. Look at their emails on this event. They played up the chests as if there was a legitimate chance that you could get a skin. I don’t mean a particular skin. I mean a skin period. There are people that paid 30-200 dollars and didn’t get one skin.

To those that say it should be rare because it shows a sense of accomplishment… RNG from a chest is not an accomplishment. It’s called luck. Their second attempt came showing it to be a rare chance. Had they been upfront then not as many people would have bought the chests.

I wouldn’t have because I have horrible luck with RNG in games. Horrible. I know it and I don’t complain. I simply state it and I try at best to avoid RNG type things. It’s part of what I liked about this game was it seemed to try to take RNG out of dungeon sets and so forth.

When it was presented in a way that made it seem like you had a reasonable chance to get a skin. If everyone got a skin would that ruin it? No. Not everyone would use them and honestly some would tire of the skin and use something else down the road. They went for the cash grab… they got the cash but they also created a decent amount of ill will by not being upfront when they grabbed the cash.

That isn’t to say the whole halloween event is worthless. The event is fun and I am enjoying it. They got my money but I know kitten well sure I didn’t get much for it.

aliquis.9180:

NinjaKnight.1340:

After reading the posts I did not buy any keys. But I did buy a Witches outfit and was very pleased.

I agree the drop rate is too low. For those who compare it to the lottery or Vegas, it isn’t the same. Even in Vegas you get I think 80-90% back, higher if you play poker or count cards in blackjack. With lottery the odds are really low but if you win you win really big.It would be like buying a key and getting a 1 million Gold reward.

We need to distinguish between drop rate and jackpot rate. The drop rate was 100% in the sense that for every single key purchased, a prize was won. If you are referring about the drop rate of skins, that would be the jackpot. Jackpots are very rare in any type of gambling.

True, but I will use the closest analogy which would be value when converted to Gold on TP. If I spend 100G to buy gems to buy keys I would hope to get on average 80G back in value. Many other Cash shop games eg Perf World actually have a higher than 100% payback at least for the early buyers.

ATM 1G~ 1key and the chance of getting ANY tradable Halloween item is from what I see very low. The most valuable of the skins appears to be the Chainsaw which last I checked was about 50G. No way you can profit. Easier to just buy the Gold and buy the skin you want.

No they won’t, they seem to be of the belief that rare will bring them more money than making it reasonable to receive.

Ryuujin.8236:

Death.2091:

Now I know not how it was in GW1 (it is to my limited knowledge a lot of earning instead of buying),

I hear a lot of people saying that and it’s total dis-information to confuse non GW1 players

GW1 cash shop skins could all be freely bought DIRECT from the cash shop. No random number generator, no drama. You just gave them your money, they gave you your skin, everyone was happy.

Nobody ever complained this setup was “too easy” or that the skins had to be in any way exclusive.

Actually you can buy a lot of halloween related items freely DIRECT from the gem store. There’s just the bonus that if you want really rare items you can gamble, or you can just buy it off the TP.

It would be chaotic if ANet put up the rare skins for direct buy on the gemstore. Imagine if the Greatsaw was put up. Everyone would just buy it without any grind, and no one would ever go out and get any other GS, except for the legendaries. Now take this to a new level and imagine all kinds of gear items, that have the level of awesomeness as the Greatsaw currently has. No one would play the game since it doesn’t require any real effort to grind for armor or weapons, since you could get them all from the cash shop. A BIG chunk of the dedicated and hardcore players would simply leave the game, and that wouldn’t be good for ANet, not at all, just think about it. Currently they’ve brought the right decisions and I’m happy to see the way they’ve went. Unique items are what keep an MMO running. (see GW1)

I love events like this because I end up making mad profits off the market games <3

1. Will you or will you not be buying black lion trading company or random number generation materials again?

No I will not.

2. Did you buy them in the past?

No I never saw the point. Expect Mini pets, things are like crack.

3. If you would not buy trading post material/gamble, would you support direct to buy weapon skins and what general price do you find acceptable from a business standpoint both as a customer and realizing that they must make money as a business?

Yes I would buy skins, if they were permanent and in the 5-15$ range.

4. Do you believe that future events will also be handled with random number generation to make profit based on limited time item acquisition?

Yes.

5. If you believe that the future events will be handled in the same manner, does this realization negatively effect your trust of Arena Net in regard to handling micro transactions for permanent content?

No. As the items are purely cosmetic and do not effect gameplay, pvp, or endgame content in any way.

6. Did you obtain a skin or whatever it is you were looking to get from the black lion trading chests? From the Mad King Chests?

No but then I wasn’t really trying to get anything. I didn’t buy the keys, nor did I make the mad king chests.

7. Have you bought any of the direct purchase, set priced halloween items. If so, will you be buying more?

Yes I bought the mini pet pack, twice. Once to have the pets, and another set to make the chainsawed skeleton.

NinjaKnight.1340:

After reading the posts I did not buy any keys. But I did buy a Witches outfit and was very pleased.

I agree the drop rate is too low. For those who compare it to the lottery or Vegas, it isn’t the same. Even in Vegas you get I think 80-90% back, higher if you play poker or count cards in blackjack. With lottery the odds are really low but if you win you win really big.It would be like buying a key and getting a 1 million Gold reward.

I’m sorry I’m not sure I understood this. Do you think that in Vegas for every dollar you spend gambling you get 0.80 cents to 0.90 cents back?

You have clearly not gambled in a casino ever or you have been very very lucky. (perhaps I have been unlucky?)

As to being good at poker or counting cards that is a feat in itself, its not something you do overnight you have to practice.. a lot … years even.

I don’t understand why people complain about a lottery system. Do you go and complain to 649 or whatever lottery when you don’t win anything (or less than you started with)? People are kittening because they ‘spent real money’. Did anyone twist your arm? Is this item something that will prevent you from winning the game, or make it less enjoyable? Come on. They even gave you a second chance, or a chance to recover some of the costs. STILL COMPLAINING?

ANet never said any of it will be ‘widely available’. It was always presented as a ‘chance to’, which to me in any MMO has always meant “haha you’re screwed” but at least you can craft a permanent skin with mats, or profit on those making skins if you aren’t planning to. Whining about it is just childish.

TL;DR
l2stats or get farming

That is the most fallacious statement I’ve ever heard.

Everyone would just buy it without any grind
I wasn’t aware that people paying money for an item had to grind as well, when you go into a shop and pay for a basket of shopping have you ever been asked to drop and give them 20 to make sure you did some work for it?

no one would ever go out and get any other GS, except for the legendaries.
Do you have any evidence to make up this assertion? – In GW1 whenever a new outfit came out suddenly that was hot outfit of the month, having some really sweet outfits early on didn’t appear to hurt long term sales.

. Now take this to a new level and imagine all kinds of gear items, that have the level of awesomeness as the Greatsaw currently has. No one would play the game since it doesn’t require any real effort to grind for armor or weapons, since you could get them all from the cash shop
Again, look at existing examples like GW1 and City of heroes, both games freely sold gear and yet people played them for years. Indeed, City of heroes had no gear grind at all all of it’s gear was cash shop or given freely. Most people see more in a game than vanity outfits… I hope you do too right?

A BIG chunk of the dedicated and hardcore players would simply leave the game
Again can you back up this assertion? – That is a hugely sweeping statement that doesn’t seem to tally

Unique items are what keep an MMO running. (see GW1)
See GW1, as a game where people could just buy gear, yet they kept playing anyway. Your statement is provably wrong.

I do not gamble because I have crap for luck.

I have never even seen a key drop from a mob or world chest, only from map completes and BL chests that I have opened.

Claudius.5381:

In the end it is not a question of entitlement or right or wrong. It is simply (from ArenaNet’s point of view) a question how many people do not like how the BLC are handled. I am one of those who don’t like it. Consequently I haven’t bought any. I only tried my BLC where I got keys for during the game. As you can imagine: without any success to speak of.

This is how I feel. I don’t really feel this whole thing was really right or wrong, nor did I see this as an issue of entitlement; but I don’t care for how the chests were handled either. I would have spent money on skins if they were offered up front. But the only thing I bought was the witch costume.

cough If you want pure data, I’ll just leave this link here:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/halloween/Poll-What-s-your-stance-on-the-Halloween-related-BLC-Mad-King-Chests/first#post535572

I know it’s not as verbose as your query, but it’s similar and the votes are starting to add up to a number that can give a fairly decent glimpse on the topic of buying keys.

Being a “casual” and investing zero real dollars into this game, other than the price of purchase, it’s my conclusion that these “What’s in this box?” gambling items in games are simply cancerous to the community. Why? Because we are gamers, not gamblers.

A gambler knows odds and knows the game well. More importantly, they do far more gambling and far less work earning that chance to gamble. In many forms, there is plenty of skill, not just luck. Addicts are addicted to gambling, the fun in gambling, and it has its ups and downs. They don’t even think of the money.

Gambling with game chests is a different beast. First of all, we are gamers, we expect our work to produce rewards. We aren’t in the right frame of mind to lose. This is incredibly compounded by the treadmill effect: farming, grinding and scraping together the keys (or “nickels”) to put into that “slot” takes significant effort, and is not something any gamer wants to repeat. It’s time they could be using to earn other, guaranteed game rewards. In sum, the trouble is simply not worth it. No matter how you look at it, there is one box, one key, and an overwhelming chance of losing time and money.

Imagine if the gamblers in Vegas had to craft their nickels or convert real money to a very diminished value of “Vegas money” used for gambling, and you could not win more money, only prizes. Think of the effort put in to merely have the ability to gamble.

Let’s look at it this way: in real-life, you can walk up and start gambling with the money in your pocket, and maybe double it. Now, would you rather have $50 with that in mind or $50 at a very tiny chance for your pixel character to hold a pixel chainsaw sword?

Gamers certainly make their own beds when they gamble with RNG boxes. However, it is an absolutely soul-crushing money pit that needs to be expelled from the school of quality game design. I’m all for donations and offering incentives to supporting a company, I just cannot support this poor implementation, mostly out of respect for the company and its pledge to set the bar for MMOs. Much like crafting, it has taken an extremely cheap design route and left a bitter taste in many mouths. A shame, really, because I know there is the talent on this dev team to be more innovative.

There’s three kinds of people involved here actually:
1: people who don’t like to gamble and those don’t buy the keys
2: people who like to gamble and therefor buy keys
3: people who don’t like to gamble and for some reason still buy keys

Group number 1 and 2 are perfectly fine and completely catered for. Group number 3… I seriously hope that’s a vocal minority because honestly if you are gambling money for virtual stuff when you don’t like taking a chance…. a.net is not to blame in this case in my opinion. Group number 3 should blame their spine, or rather, lack thereof.

tl;dr: vocal minority.

(I only read OP’s posts, not the long comments)

I complete agree with OP, it’s the wallet that did the talking for all the complainers.

Although I have to say I sort of support the current RNG system they have, purely because of the fact that the items you get are tradable. It’s just like in TF2 and I enjoyed it there too. If it wouldn’t be tradable I definitely would not support it, but in the current state I think ANet has made it fair, and no one has a right to complain about that. Key buyers are lucky Anet even gave them a second chance at the items, yet immature people are still very vocal about losing here on the forums…

nottsgman.8206:

if I remember right skins in GW1 were account-wide too not just per character

Yes they were. Anet seems to have decided to make costumes a town only affair. Costumes are account bound and can be worn by any toon in your account.

@ Cancer,
take Roulette, you can see exactly what the house odds are by how many 0, 00 and 000s they have added to the 36 numbers. Roulette is considered by many to have the worst odds.

Of course slots have the odds hidden, but most other games you can calculate the house odds and yes it is usually well above 80% return.

The reason most people end up losing big in Vegas is the psychology. They go a winning streak then make a big gamble and lose it all. Also, many people don’t stop when they are ahead.

PS: and yes I have gambled in Vegas and won when I remebered to stop when I was ahead.

sorae.7394:

All this crying is hilarious. If you think ANet will lose out from using a gacha model, which tons of other MMOs use successfully, you’re horribly mistaken.

exactly, and I hope ANet doesn’t give in a second time to this vocal minority…

Drunken Mad King.8193:

No they won’t, they seem to be of the belief that rare will bring them more money than making it reasonable to receive.

where’s your evidence to back up that statement? her’s my chain of logic to the assumption that they will have other methods to acquire Halloween skins. there is a mad Kings realm (as evidenced by the achievement to explore it) as Halloween theme, the mad kings realm is likely to have Halloween themed monsters, like the stuff that comes out of the trick-or-treat doors. the monsters that come out of the trick-or-treat doors have a higher probability to contain Halloween themed loot. therefore, Halloween loot is more likely to drop in the mad kings realm. therefore, as the weapon skins are Halloween themed loot, they are more likely to drop in the mad kings realm.

TSLlol.4879:

sorae.7394:

All this crying is hilarious. If you think ANet will lose out from using a gacha model, which tons of other MMOs use successfully, you’re horribly mistaken.

exactly, and I hope ANet doesn’t give in a second time to this vocal minority…

Um, do you want GW2 to become associated with those low quality MMOs? I for one expected more from it especially since the game is head and shoulders better.

7. Yes, (Mad King Outfit is AWESOME) and YES … actually… I’m very tempted to buy the witch’s costume before the event is over…. ANet did an AMAZING job with the costumes for this Holiday Event!

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.

We don’t know yet. It doesn’t matter whether the idea was great on paper. You don’t want to anger your customers and get them to stop buying your product (everyone playing already owns the game, so we’re talking about gems.) A few days of selling a huge amount of gems will only really be worth it if it doesn’t cause people to stop spending for months afterward.

Is it smarter to charge 450 gems for five chances at a highly desirable object, and let people buy these repeatedly in their quest for success, and then buy gems for gold to get them off the trading post? Or is it smarter to price them kind of high (like 1500 gems or something) and let people buy them outright? In the short term there’s no question whatsoever that the first approach is more profitable. In the long term it is a question of how the customers react.

Since I believe people generally have more money than sense, and very little self control, I’m expecting the BLC lottery or something just like it to return next event. But I don’t really know.

Hi,

does anyone know if it will be possible to craft Mad King Chests at the Mystic Forge after Halloween if I have the ingredients left?

Cheers

I think it’s absolutely pathetic that some people spent over $100 on keys ( I read some guy spent $350 rofl ) for a small chance at a video game weapon graphic. I think a lot of those people are just mad because they realised how utterly stupid they were for doing it. I also think that Anet could have provided some skins via the gem store and also had some others that were rare and only came from the chests.

From my experience, especially on this forum, 99.9% of the people that throw the word entitlement around don’t know what it means.

Question was already asked but hasn’t been answered. Here is the link:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/halloween/Mystic-Forge-and-the-Mad-King-Chest/first#post538342

NinjaKnight.1340:

TSLlol.4879:

sorae.7394:

All this crying is hilarious. If you think ANet will lose out from using a gacha model, which tons of other MMOs use successfully, you’re horribly mistaken.

exactly, and I hope ANet doesn’t give in a second time to this vocal minority…

Um, do you want GW2 to become associated with those low quality MMOs? I for one expected more from it especially since the game is head and shoulders better.

I agree. It may be a prevalent model in a lot of MMOs, but those MMOs are not exactly what I would describe as successful. Most of those money-gouging F2P MMOs are hanging by a thread, barely scraping by.
On top of that, the player base sure as hell does not enjoy being treated that way; they just accept it because they enjoy the game in spite of such things.

1. Will you or will you not be buying black lion trading company or random number generation materials again?

I haven’t yet, and don’t plan to do so in the future.

2. Did you buy them in the past?

Nope

3. If you would not buy trading post material/gamble, would you support direct to buy weapon skins and what general price do you find acceptable from a business standpoint both as a customer and realizing that they must make money as a business?

Yes, as I did in GW 1 on a few occassions.
I thought those prices were fair -- seven dollars for an account-unlocked costume was amazing. I would jump at that again -- the Witch outfit has me considering it already despite being a little more expensive and, as I understand it, usable by only one character at a time.

4. Do you believe that future events will also be handled with random number generation to make profit based on limited time item acquisition?

Sure do
It’s worked in other MMOs, unfortunately.

5. If you believe that the future events will be handled in the same manner, does this realization negatively effect your trust of Arena Net in regard to handling micro transactions for permanent content?

I’m not sure what you’re getting at here with "trust of ArenaNet". I won’t like it, and it won’t motivate me to participate, but I don’t feel I will think they are somehow messing up everything. Ultimately, the affected items are just for fun and don’t impact gameplay at all.

6. Did you obtain a skin or whatever it is you were looking to get from the black lion trading chests? From the Mad King Chests?

Nope, but if I get any more free keys I’ll give it a go.

7. Have you bought any of the direct purchase, set priced halloween items. If so, will you be buying more?

Not yet. Thinking about it, but also kind of turned off by the Perfect World lockbox style of things. Still, those costumes are well done. I hope they continue making more of those, as they did in GW1.

OrianZeta.1537:

Being a “casual” and investing zero real dollars into this game, other than the price of purchase, it’s my conclusion that these “What’s in this box?” gambling items in games are simply cancerous to the community. Why? Because we are gamers, not gamblers.

A gambler knows odds and knows the game well. More importantly, they do far more gambling and far less work earning that chance to gamble. In many forms, there is plenty of skill, not just luck. Addicts are addicted to gambling, the fun in gambling, and it has its ups and downs. They don’t even think of the money.

Gambling with game chests is a different beast. First of all, we are gamers, we expect our work to produce rewards. We aren’t in the right frame of mind to lose. This is incredibly compounded by the treadmill effect: farming, grinding and scraping together the keys (or “nickels”) to put into that “slot” takes significant effort, and is not something any gamer wants to repeat. It’s time they could be using to earn other, guaranteed game rewards. In sum, the trouble is simply not worth it. No matter how you look at it, there is one box, one key, and an overwhelming chance of losing time and money.

Imagine if the gamblers in Vegas had to craft their nickels or convert real money to a very diminished value of “Vegas money” used for gambling, and you could not win more money, only prizes. Think of the effort put in to merely have the ability to gamble.

Let’s look at it this way: in real-life, you can walk up and start gambling with the money in your pocket, and maybe double it. Now, would you rather have $50 with that in mind or $50 at a very tiny chance for your pixel character to hold a pixel chainsaw sword?

Gamers certainly make their own beds when they gamble with RNG boxes. However, it is an absolutely soul-crushing money pit that needs to be expelled from the school of quality game design. I’m all for donations and offering incentives to supporting a company, I just cannot support this poor implementation, mostly out of respect for the company and its pledge to set the bar for MMOs. Much like crafting, it has taken an extremely cheap design route and left a bitter taste in many mouths. A shame, really, because I know there is the talent on this dev team to be more innovative.

I would prefer the option to gamble not be taken away from me just to prevent some players from acting irresponsibly. Let’s not make gamers sound as if they are inherently incapable of making rational decisions.

If you are capable of acting responsibly in real life, then there is no reason why you you shouldn’t be able to do the same in game. If you are incapable of acting responsibly in real life, then you’ve got much bigger problems than gambling in a game.

1. Will you or will you not be buying black lion trading company or random number generation materials again?

Will not.

2. Did you buy them in the past?

Yes, keys for this event.

3. If you would not buy trading post material/gamble, would you support direct to buy weapon skins and what general price do you find acceptable from a business standpoint both as a customer and realizing that they must make money as a business?

Probably not.

4. Do you believe that future events will also be handled with random number generation to make profit based on limited time item acquisition?

Yes.

5. If you believe that the future events will be handled in the same manner, does this realization negatively effect your trust of Arena Net in regard to handling micro transactions for permanent content?

Yes.

6. Did you obtain a skin or whatever it is you were looking to get from the black lion trading chests? From the Mad King Chests?

No, I got nothing of value from either my BL chests or from the Mad Kind Chests afterwards. I traded junk for more junk.
7. Have you bought any of the direct purchase, set priced halloween items. If so, will you be buying more?

No and No.

5. Yes it has negatively impacted my opinion. Anet is from all accounts a great company Nexon (the ones managing cash shop) does not have a good rep. That partnership was in my opinion a disaster. (Look up Nexon on urban dictionary )

7. Yes, the Witches outfit is amazing.

well, now i know what it’s like to be blame for being a victim. We should have known that Anet was going to put low drop rates, and it’s our fault for trusting them. It’s our fault that Anet suddenly decided to change the way they do business. Fools, all of us!

Lesson Learned! Never Trust Anybody!

Seriously? This is the lesson people want us to learn? Sad state of society, that is. People want to complain about the “gimme, gimme generation”…

The main problem here is that people went into this thinking it was a FUN event, not a GAMBLING event.

FUN event – people saying “Look at all the neat stuff I got, I can’t wait until the next big event!”

GAMBLING event disguised as FUN event – people saying “I got ripped off, I’m not spending another penny on this game.”

Which approach benefits ANet in the long term, eh? It doesn’t seem to me that they were taking a long term view here.

I certainly didn’t get the impression that Halloween items were supposed to be ‘rare’ and by setting the drop rates so low, they’ve certainly alienated a number of people, particularly those willing to buy gems. Seeing as this game depends on people buying gems, this can’t be a good thing.

TobyTucker.5317:

The main problem here is that people went into this thinking it was a FUN event, not a GAMBLING event.

FUN event – people saying “Look at all the neat stuff I got, I can’t wait until the next big event!”

GAMBLING event disguised as FUN event – people saying “I got ripped off, I’m not spending another penny on this game.”

Which approach benefits ANet in the long term, eh? It doesn’t seem to me that they were taking a long term view here.

I certainly didn’t get the impression that Halloween items were supposed to be ‘rare’ and by setting the drop rates so low, they’ve certainly alienated a number of people, particularly those willing to buy gems. Seeing as this game depends on people buying gems, this can’t be a good thing.

Many people go to Las Vegas with their families and friends to gamble; it is fun. Other people can’t control themselves and blame the casinos when they lose their shirt gambling. Play the tables for awhile, enjoy the buffet and take in the experience. Stop being so alarmist.

Please note that my answers are based on the skins, if it was about another item i may answer differently
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1. Will you or will you not be buying black lion trading company or random number generation materials again?

No.

2. Did you buy them in the past?

Yes.

3. If you would not buy trading post material/gamble, would you support direct to buy weapon skins and what general price do you find acceptable from a business standpoint both as a customer and realizing that they must make money as a business?

Yes. I would buy them even if they were direct purchases.

4. Do you believe that future events will also be handled with random number generation to make profit based on limited time item acquisition?

Yes.

5. If you believe that the future events will be handled in the same manner, does this realization negatively effect your trust of Arena Net in regard to handling micro transactions for permanent content?

Yes.

6. Did you obtain a skin or whatever it is you were looking to get from the black lion trading chests? From the Mad King Chests?

No.

7. Have you bought any of the direct purchase, set priced halloween items. If so, will you be buying more?

Yes I have purchased the direct purchase halloween items. I don’t plan to buy more.