Guild Wars 2

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

I don’t buy gems just for keys. I buy gems for other things, bank expansions or costume, and if I have enough leftover, I buy a key. I don’t see why I wouldn’t do the same in the future.

2. Did you buy them in the past?

I have bought 6 keys total in my time in GW. 1 in September and 5 during Halloween.

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?

Direct purchase is not always a good thing. A skin that anyone can purchase is not nearly as desirable as a skin that is rare to obtain. Human psychology 101 that. I personally don’t care but I imagine those who care about skins wouldn’t like this.

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

I resent the formulation of this question as it is clearly biased against Anet. I will have you know that Anet has ALWAYS had random number generated “packs” for holidays. In GW 1, there was no real money involved (unless you were buying gold from third party sellers) and they still had things like lunar fortune:http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Lunar_Fortune that worked on a drop rate with rare items having excruciatingly low drop rates. Only thing I would ask is that during Holidays, they also make mobs drop the non-locked chests, as was the case in GW 1.

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, I do not have a problem with how this holiday was handled. I got a fun trinket for doing meta quest. Got to cook some festive food and I got to temporarily try the Halloween skins by paying candy corn. I am good!

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?

I wasn’t looking for anything specific. Had I got the chainsaw skin, it would have gone to my brother. Who was looking for the skin.

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

Yes, I bought the Witch’s Outfit and love it!

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. $5-10
4. Do you believe that future events will also be handled with random number generation to make profit based on limited time item acquisition?
Example: Yes/No.
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?
If future events are handled the same. 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?
No. Was going to. Not going to now.

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

I will not be buying keys ect in the future.

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?

I would buy skins ect if they were direct purchase and for a normal price 400-500gems.

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 because this event has already shown ANets true colours and its only the first act.

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?

Unfortunately, yes I do.

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 did not obtain any skins from the BLC or the MKC.

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

I have bought 1 witch costume fairly early on, and was considering buying the mini pet box but its just too expensive for a holiday event where you’re supposed to have fun collecting items, not buying them all.

A superb post OP! Well articulated. I truly hope someone at the company reads it and makes a response here.
My personal perspective is that Anet are a responsible company and are simply trying to turn a profit. There is nothing wrong with that. But for me the way they have some of the RNG stuff set up in this game is feels more like gouging the customer. I am sure they have done their math and it showed it would be a profitable thing to do. I just wonder if they tried a new way it would net them the same profit. i.e. selling items direct in the shop. I do not buy into the keep it rare argument I see banded about. I barley look at other players gear. I may notice the odd thing here and there but I do not feel anything toward another players gear other than occasionally “oooh nice sword mate” I simply like to be able to dress my own characters.
For the record I have not bought any gems other than to buy extra bank slots and a character slot.

wow…people will QQ about anything won’t they? I guess them notifying us several weeks in advance so we could farm up some supplies and gold ahead of time wasn’t good enough eh? Maybe they should just give everybody everything we want and devalue everything in the game….some people’s kids…sheesh

I didn’t buy any keys because I’ve seen this done in other games and it never ends well (ie. Maple Story), to some degree, Anet had other examples to look at in the past and probably could have considered the reaction more. In addition, I myself would have liked a bind-to-account skin to purchase because I do want to support the company, but $10 can buy you a lot of things….Like the Assassin’s Creed 2 and the sequel Brotherhood are $5 each at the moment. With that in mind, would I rather pay $10 on a really rare chance of getting a nice looking skin (and a 1 in 6 chance of getting that one), or would I rather have two games released about a year ago?

In other words: The risk isn’t worth the reward, and once you ramp it up past $20 you end up having items totally not worth their value….and anything past $50? Might as well go buy Borderlands 2 or some other game.

I think Anet should really evaluate the cost vs reward and general value on ALL of their items in the gem store. As it stands, most people would rather buy gems with gold because they make that while enjoying the game while spending $10 on something more useful.

The majority of people I see complain say they opened 10 or less chests. Really? You want the chance so high that everyone gets it? You won’t want it near as much as when it was rare to have.
The horns that are given for free are barely acknowledged (except for the people who want to complain about those as well), but I think people would rage if they, the devil horns, were a head skin item in the chest. They would suddenly be so angry they couldn’t have them.

Entitlement is the exact word to use for the incoming generation of gamers. I’ve even seen someone complain about how the whole event sucked because they used the candy corn for the scavenge quest, and had to go out and mine one node for the meter. If this isn’t a prime example I don’t know what is. They were so mad about it they even came to the forum to create a thread.

They acknowledged your complaints about the BLC, and gave you another chance with the mad king chest (what other gaming company do you know that would have done this?). People still complain.

I think the best idea is a suggestion somewhere that there should be multiple tiers. A common chainsaw, and a rare one. The current model is IMHO common looking. Add some blood and flames and wow that would be rare. Allowing the common items to drop more frequently and the rare to drop less would solve the problem. And the graphics work to add the flames and blood is minimal.

Blueroseknight.7954:

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.

Surprise, surprise, another “You should have known better” post. The problem for ANet is that people DO “know better” now and are decidedly less likely to spend money in the gem shop. Once again, NOT a good thing.

1. No, I will not buy lottery keys or chests from the online store.’
2. No, I never bought these in the past.
3. Yes, I would support direct purchase of these cosmetic items.
4. Yes, I believe more limited time items will be offered during future events.
5. Yes, I am concerned that some future elements of their microtransaction model will impact the game negatively.
6. I have not opened any Black Lion Chests or Mad King Chests.
7. No, I have not bought any set priced Halloween items. The reason for this is not related to the existence of Black Lion Chests.

Toby Tucker, let’s take that idea further Make the common version, well, common. BUT, make it so you can upgrade the common version through the MF with some medium to rare quality materials, maybe common →rare→exotic.

My question is: Did anyone make you spend that money? Did they ever once say it was a guaranteed thing? Perhaps people don’t understand what the word “chance” means. If you want to spend 30-100 dollars to get a single digital skin then get mad that you didn’t hit the lucky chance, whose fault is it? That’s called impulse control problems. There is more to a game than a single silly skin, if you wanna leave over it, please do so because your negative attitude is not needed. Yes I think the drop rate is too low, am I gonna sit around all day QQing over it and how I should be entitled to more free handouts from Anet? No.

@NinjaKnight My experience with gambling is limited and is not so important as to merit a search. Only been in vegas once and the best odds I got were betting on whether the dice came even or odds (50% odds). Roullete the best I calculated was 33% odds (betting on the 3 “zones”). Perhaps there is another way to bet that gives 80% return and I missed it. Again my experience is limited so I wont argue with you there.

You are right that the key is knowing when to stop, I went in there with $50 dollars I think I got as high as $150 before losing all. To me the original $50 were lost the moment I decided to gamble them and was doing it for the experience (winning was a rush, of course. losing … not soo much).

If every player understood that the chest are a gamble, that buying a chance to get skins does not mean that they will get the skins and to stop if they did not win, then all this negative threads could be avoided.

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
$3-5 per Weapon skin, $2-3 per Armor Piece skin, depending on the complexity of the item and likely artist time/effort therefore involved. Items with animated features or moving parts should always clock in on the high end.

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 desired items obtained from Black Lion or Mad King chests.

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

Yes. Having purchased all Costume Pieces, Halloween and otherwise, and non-random Minis (so far just Rytlock and the Halloween Trio set), I intend to keep my set complete for as long as I can afford to do so. I will pay Gems for non-random permanent items only. I will not purchase any limited-use and/or randomized items.

Infidel.8412:

The majority of people I see complain say they opened 10 or less chests. Really? You want the chance so high that everyone gets it? You won’t want it near as much as when it was rare to have.
The horns that are given for free are barely acknowledged (except for the people who want to complain about those as well), but I think people would rage if they, the devil horns, were a head skin item in the chest. They would suddenly be so angry they couldn’t have them.

I haven’t seen people demanding that severed hand dagger much. It’s lame. It doesn’t cost much on the trading post, either, because nobody wants it.

The two weapons that people really, really want are the cool ones. And I’d want them even if every single other person around had them. I don’t care about rarity, showing off, or any of that crap. I don’t want other people to be jealous of my possessions, it would be uncivilized of me, an unwanted remainder of caveman instinct. I like being unique, but based on my own creativity, not based on RNG luck or money.

A lot of people don’t like the horns because they look like crap on their characters. They look great on mine, so I’m using them and I think it’s awesome that they were free.

Dravyn.4671:

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.

Really? How much less money is being spent now? Clearly since you’re an established economist with full access to the accounting data at A-Net/NCSoft you know how much they’ve lost because of all of this, right? You’re able to back what you’ve said with more than sneer, jibes and conjecture? Or are you perhaps giving us your PERSONAL belief in how this has and will affect their overall income from player purchases?

Will this impact some people? No doubt, as many of those who aren’t happy with the end result of their losses are saying so quite loudly (and quite frequently) on the forums. And hey, since we know the forums represent the core beliefs and ideals of that majority of GW2 players (who never even LOOK at the forums), it must be so!

Rant on. rant on.

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

RGN items, never again

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?

Direct purchases only

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 Unfortunately, former Nexon employee is involved so yes, I expect every event to be handled this way from now on.

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, very much so, Anet keeps on alienating there player base.

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

1. No
2. Yes
3. Yes
4. Yes
5. Yes
6. No
7. No, but I often buy gems for gold / boosters / bank slots / bag slots.

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

Yes.

2. Did you buy them in the past?

No

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

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

I believe they will do both, and i support both methods

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

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/yes

As a side note. The people that have bought $50 + worth of keys or half a paycheck worth, are just silly. I work at a venue that has a gaming room (gambling machines) and ive seen people spend upwards of $200 a day, come in every day (i once saw a guy spend $1600 in 5 hours). 90% of these people get nothing, yet i don’t see the world complaining to the government about it. Why? Because people EXPECT it.

Just because you wern’t smart enough to expect it doesnt make it Anet’s fault. If they didnt release the % drop rate. You need to be responsible adults and ask yourselves if you lost all the money you put in, without a return would you be ok with that?

No, unless they tell us the odds of success up front.

I got the shield-skin in my very first BLC. Not even in a MKC…I know I was very lucky but that’s not what I’m here to say.

It clearly states MKC are here for “another chance” on one of the skins. They don’t talk about higher drop-rates or anything. Also it is still random as you can see with my example. If you don’t like gambling then don’t open chests…at all. If you look at the prices in the TP then you can see how rare those skins are…and I’m quite happy they are so rare.

or you can alway use DIS:
[img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v231/squalleonahar/1-25.png[/img]

Thunderhead.5736:

Toby Tucker, let’s take that idea further Make the common version, well, common. BUT, make it so you can upgrade the common version through the MF with some medium to rare quality materials, maybe common ->rare->exotic.

I think you were referring to NinjaKnights’s suggestion, but I think it’s a good one. Give everybody a neat Halloween item, with the chance of getting a ‘rare’ one. And for those who desire one of the rares, make it possible to craft one. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the approach taken.

I’ve never figured out how to quote on these forums, but a response to the responses (I skimmed and it looks like a little of this has been said, but nevertheless):

It’s not entitlement because ANet wasn’t clear about the drop rates? They didn’t say that the drop rates were higher. They didn’t lie to you at any point. You feel that you are entitled to information about the drop rates beforehand? Wait a kittening day and ask around to get an idea of what they are. Nowhere else in the game are drop rates given to you, why would you expect that they’d give them to you in this case?

Again, the argument is that, if you spent money, you are entitled to those skins and such. That is exactly the situation being described here. Again, that may or may not be reasonable, but it is absolutely entitlement regardless of whether you want to call it that. When you spend money on chests, open a bunch, and then complain that you’ve been cheated you are being entitled in the worst sense – the exact sense that this thread seems to be arguing is inaccurate.

If people are posting because they gambled and they’re disappointed, that’s fine and, to a degree, I can commiserate because I too opened quite a few with no luck.

But if people are posting because they gambled and they’re disappointed and they feel that they have been wronged, that’s a very different situation.

Edit: Huh, suddenly the quote button is showing up. Go figure.

TobyTucker.5317:

Thunderhead.5736:

Toby Tucker, let’s take that idea further Make the common version, well, common. BUT, make it so you can upgrade the common version through the MF with some medium to rare quality materials, maybe common ->rare->exotic.

I think you were referring to NinjaKnights’s suggestion, but I think it’s a good one. Give everybody a neat Halloween item, with the chance of getting a ‘rare’ one. And for those who desire one of the rares, make it possible to craft one. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the approach taken.

I think making them craftable and letting us get the recipe fairly easily but have the required materials or 1 of the required mats, be very rare. That would pretty much solve it right there. That way, if you didn’t get the chance to craft it this time, you at least have the recipe and might get another shot at it later.

@ cancer,
the odds i’m giving are long term RETURN odds. The odds in roulette you are giving are betting odds.

Lets say the house has 0, 00, 000 in addition to the 36 black and red numbers. Then the odds of winning by betting on say a RED 16/39 = 41% or long term if you bet again and again it will be an 82% return on your money ie: you lose 18% to the house.

But you will get winnin streaks and if you stop before you go into a losing streak, then you willcome out ahead.

This is a pointlessly biased sample.

1. No. Will not buy.

2. Yes.

3. Yes. 500 gems seems fair for towns clothes and skins.

4. Yes.

5. Yes.

6. No.

7. No.

Just because you attempt to acquire a rare item does not mean you are entitled to it. Simply playing the game or wanting something does not give you some divine right to own it.

The skins are rare. RARE! They are a limited edition collectors item. Meaning they are only meant for a smaller percentage of people to have.

Just keep that in mind when you are trying to get one and make your decision (YOUR decision) on whether or not to spend your money or gold.

When you open a thread people expect you to add something to the discussion.

Not just repeat the same thing the other 100 threads are saying on the first post.

To be fair there term ‘rare’ you are so fond of was never used in any comunication.

Modus Pwnens.1932:

If people are posting because they gambled and they’re disappointed, that’s fine and, to a degree, I can commiserate because I too opened quite a few with no luck.

But if people are posting because they gambled and they’re disappointed and they feel that they have been wronged, that’s a very different situation.

But if they’re posting because they gambled and they’re disappointed, and they don’t feel like it’s worth buying gems in the future because they expect to get ripped off, then that’s just the free market at work, rather than entitlement. ANet isn’t entitled to further gem sales.

That’s why I don’t like the “this is entitlement” attitude. It’s business, and the customer has every right to complain if they don’t like a product, as well as refuse to buy it again, even if the product was accurately advertised. I only really consider it entitlement if the people who are complaining keep dumping money into keys, expecting someone to take pity and fix their problem for them, instead of exercising their only real power as a consumer. Then again, that’s probably not entitlement so much as insanity.

If you want to make money, make something that people can only use once!

Smart Business philosophy. Ask Mr. Gilette (if he was still alive). The secret to this, is to make it cheap to produce, and sell at a price your consumers think is fair.

ArenaNet took the first part, and did it well. Lots of 1 times use items. These will be the bankable items. The ones they are counting on people buying to keep the income flowing. Unfortunately, i don’t believe any of the single use items within the BLTC really reflect their value. I could be wrong, but i’m guessing that’s the case. Key sales were most likely down, and being one of the more prevalent single use items (they try to get you hooked, with free chest drops and the occasional key), they needed a way to boost those sales.

So they put in the extra super rare skins, made a nice pretty picture with them for the advertisement, and Bam! Good way to sell keys!! And it probably worked. They probably sold a ton of keys. But almost immediately following this, they ran into problems. And those problems are gonna be compounded in the future now.

The trust in Anet has been diminished. That’s plain to see. Maybe not for all players, but for at least a portion of them. And that’s always just bad for business. Not all publicity is good publicity, regardless. And nobody is gonna buy keys now. They know the chances of getting something in those chests is going to remain low, so why buy keys? If nobody is buying keys, why have them in the cash shop? Without them in the cash shop, that’s another bankable income down the tubes.

Is there a chance they can change it for the next event? Sure. But people are still going to be worried about what issues will arise that time. Resulting in less keys purchased. As the single use items stop selling, the price on the other items and/or gems will increase to reflect the lost income. And already, people are talking about not buying single use items, so it’s already started.

It’s unfortunate. The game itself is good. I would say great, but there are other issues that don’t pertain to halloween, so i’ll keep them out of this thread. I really enjoyed the game. I have 3 (almost) level 80’s. I truly was enjoying myself, and more than willing to give them time to fix those other issues. Even went so far as to support them in their endeavours with more of my money.

Of course, i find myself no longer enjoying the game, or even having a desire to log on. My faith in the company has diminished greatly. I no longer have faith that the other problems i have with the game will be fixed. It’s 2 months in, and they haven’t fixed any of them yet. Haven’t even really said they were going to, even though they’ve acknowledged the problem. So, if i can’t trust them to even advertise the halloween skins properly ( a chance does not mean lottery style odds), how can i trust them to fix the rest of the game?!

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?

No.

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. I liked the prices from GW1. The current prices are far too expensive.

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?

Hell 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?

I don’t gamble.

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

No. I had originally planned to but I decided that I wouldn’t for three reasons.

First, they were much too expensive as are all current cash shop items (especially keys).

Second, after discovering the low drop rates on the new skins, I felt betrayed by ANet and worried that it was just a ploy to get money.

Third, I fear that if ANet succeeds with their current cash store business model other games will follow suit.

FINAL THOUGHTS

I would rather pay a subscription fee than support a system which is specifically designed to get as much money out of my pocket as possible. I want developers that love the game first and foremost, not developers that love money first and foremost. Unless ANet changes their current cash shop practices I will probably not purchase further ANet games simply because I cannot in good conscious support what I believe to be pure and simple greed.

1. Maybe – depends on wealth and going rate of gems to gold. At some point I will have far more gold than I can spend and I’ll happily spend it on keys.

2. NO

3. No; I do think some sort of craftable is worthwhile, these should be made from accessable items found by playing the game not by random openings.

4. Yes. I will approach it differently by then. I will stockpile dropped keys and open during an event.

5. No

6. No

7. No and No

I believe that everyone who gets keys always uses them (unless he knows that they will be worth more in a future event). So when players got keys before Sept 25th and used them on BLC they recieved named Tonics instead of Mystery Tonics. Was this any problem back when they updated the BLC? No. Is it one now? Yes I think so.

If you got Mystery Tonics since Sept 25th you could store them in your bank and leave them there. Now that the MKC’s are added you can use those Tonics to craft MKC’s while everyone who used their keys before Sept 25th are left out because their Tonics are named and don’t work in the recipe.

I understand that this “addition” was needed to increase the worth of keys used during the current event…but right now it favors EVERYONE who opened their chests after Sept 25th while people like me who played before that day and used all their keys instantly are left out on the fun. I’d be fine if the recipe would only work with Tonics from after this event started or something like that OR if there was a way to convert named Tonics into Mystery Tonics.

This right now is just a boot in the…behinds…of all players who used to play since release and have their bank full of named Tonics because of this.

Edit: I’m not complaining that people who wanted Halloween items get a second chance. I’m complaining that everyone who opened chests since the 25th of Sept (not Oct) gets chances while everyone who used their keys prior to that date (which is unrelated to Halloween) doesn’t.

Modus Pwnens.1932:

This is a pointlessly biased sample.

Lol, and a massive wall of text. I hope the OP summarizes it otherwise it is useless.

Not like a casino? MMOs have relied on random loot drops and extreme rarity for over a decade. It’s part of the addiction. It is precisely how I explained the enjoyment of a game like World of Warcraft to my aging father, who knows a thing or two about the lure of a one-armed bandit but couldn’t get his head around people playing this type of game.

This current whine is also awfully similar to the complaining about legendary precursors. What is telling is that the same people aren’t committing forum seppuku over the fact that the rarity of the item being dropped from a mob is equally low, if not lower. Who cares what the mechanism is? Chest, forge, mob .. rare is rare.

we also still aren’t certain whether the coming acts will reward us with interesting things. or perhaps theres mini dungeons coming up for example like mad kings tower. Though from the way things are, there may still be a chance (MF) thing or idk not 100% guaranteed reward. But i don’t think ANYTHING is 100% guaranteed anyway.

any response about the boosters that can’t be put in the forge?

@NinjaKnight now I understand you. Though not sure how you apply that in GW? how do you calculte the return on a skin?

Do you mean to convert the price in gold→then to gems and calculate the $$ equivalent?

Wouldn’t that be too subjective, I mean the gold pice in the TP is simply a reflection on wheter the skin is popular or not.

And how much is “the long run” 10 chests? 30 chest? 100 chests? I gambled with 30~ chest (10 of them I payed money for) and got back a shoulder skin and 2 chainsaw skin, plus 2 BLTC kits and 30 fine trans stones adn 5 repair canisters (these items I value the most… I got booster, tonics, bankers, orbs, etc too but dont really use them) what would have been my return?

Perphas a less convoluted comparison would be better, no?

cryptomega.3745:

Not like a casino? MMOs have relied on random loot drops and extreme rarity for over a decade. It’s part of the addiction. It is precisely how I explained the enjoyment of a game like World of Warcraft to my aging father, who knows a thing or two about the lure of a one-armed bandit but couldn’t get his head around people playing this type of game.

This current whine is also awfully similar to the complaining about legendary precursors. What is telling is that the same people aren’t committing forum seppuku over the fact that the rarity of the item being dropped from a mob is equally low, if not lower. Who cares what the mechanism is? Chest, forge, mob .. rare is rare.

Uh, BIG difference between a positive surprise while fighting a mob and getting something rare and dropping $80US RL money and getting nothing. Casinos have WAY better odds.

Because the Mad King’s Chests were created to appease the demands of those who felt cheated by anet, for buying the keys for the halloween event. The chests opened during the halloween event only drop Mystery Tonics, not named tonics. Hence, why you can’t use named tonics in the recipe. And even if you could, you’d still end up with a bunch of seperately named tonics, thereby running into the same problem.

This is the best thread i’ve seen on the subject so far, nice debate going on between different opinions.
Well done on opening this Senoph.

I want to throw a stick in here.
Not an inflammatory one, just a thought to consider.

When all is said and done about the gambling, the odds, the entitled ones and the scammed ones… couldn’t it be that the base o the matter was something rather simpler?

We have the following situation, as this all unfolded:

there is a game that has a developping team that is known and repsected. They have their manifesto, they have their way of handling things in GW1.
They have a good reputation, like the game or not.

Next you have a playerbase. Some love the game, some aren’t sure, some don’t.
But let’s clear this one up from the start: only those that like the game would be willing to spend extra cash on it, I’m sure.

The game unfolds, with many longterms gear grinds to aquire special skins.
Sorry for the word ‘grind’ of which i know it is blasphemy. But when the route to special skins takes a lot of effort, it can be called a grind.
Not for stats, but for skins.
Why is this important? Because it shows special skins in this game don’t come easy, or fast…

Along comes a big holliday event!
People are excited, and the developpers pitch in by announcing lots of special treats, and also special skins.
they will hide these in the boxes for wich they already sell keys in their shop.

It’s an event, and GW1 had events.
It’s those same respected and beloved developpers that announce the shinies in the boxes!
People get exited, and the holliday spirit creeps in.

What do you think people expected from those nice and trusted developpers?
I think the answer is: ‘holliday gifts!’

Players start buying more chests than they ever would have, they spend more money than they did before.
Not because they consider low droprates like other items ouside of events. Not because they simply need more chests to increase their normal droprate.

They buy more chests because they are excited about the new goodies, the holliday gifts.
They are excited because they learned to trust the developpers of their beloved game.
They don’t see any droprates or precise chance calculations, and you know what? They don’t need those!
it’s a holliday event and they are all excited and want to buy plenty of those fun gifts.

This wasn’t a story about a casino, nor was it a story about a craddle of entitled kids.
it was a story about a holliday, and handing out gift boxes, and being excited.
Most of all, if anything: it was a story about trust…

You fill in the ending, but that’s the story I saw unfold here.
I saw no casino and I saw no noisy kindergarten. Those came after, in the words of people trying to describe what had happened.

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?

No

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?

No. I have no interest in purchasing weapon skins for real money, though I have no inherent problem with this business model.

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

Maybe. I can’t answer this question substantively, since I don’t represent ANet and don’t want to speculate. This is kind of a loaded question, by the way. You’re asking us to make a prediction on ANet policy, which is something none of us are substantively qualified to do.

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. My opinion of ANet’s microtransactions model is unchanged.

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?

I did not obtain a skin from trading chests or mad king chests. I did, however, obtain a number of cool items with which I am largely satisfied. I should note that having spent $10 on keys, I did not have a great deal of invested money to waste.

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

No. And probably not. I give myself a pretty strict budget of $20 per month, maximum, of gems. This money is almost exclusively spent on character slots and bank slots, and not expendable items. I made a small exception for Halloween.

Fiscal responsibility and budgeting means my money is rarely wasted. Interesting survey, by the way, though not very scientific. I hope you take into consider sample size, sample bias and question bias when you analyze the final tally.

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.

For a given value of “useful”, sure, fair enough. For the $$$ price of BL Keys? Not useful enough. The only Boosters I’ve ever been excited to get are Crafting Boosters… and that’s because the time limit is incredibly easy to line up with getting a big heap of materials ahead of time. Those are also the only ones I’d consider paying for separately in the Gem Store. All others have been sitting in my bank. Even when facing challenging content, the duration and power of boosts is far too small. And only a tiny fragment of my EXP at 80 came from killing critters, instead of crafting/exploring/events/map completion/daily rewards/story rewards, so the EXP boosters were similarly pretty disappointing. Maybe if I were using something that could sweep the map faster than Elementalist? Hard to say.

Cancer.9065:

@NinjaKnight now I understand you. Though not sure how you apply that in GW? how do you calculte the return on a skin?

Do you mean to convert the price in gold->then to gems and calculate the $$ equivalent?

Wouldn’t that be too subjective, I mean the gold pice in the TP is simply a reflection on wheter the skin is popular or not.

And how much is “the long run” 10 chests? 30 chest? 100 chests? I gambled with 30~ chest (10 of them I payed money for) and got back a shoulder skin and 2 chainsaw skin, plus 2 BLTC kits and 30 fine trans stones adn 5 repair canisters (these items I value the most… I got booster, tonics, bankers, orbs, etc too but dont really use them) what would have been my return?

Perphas a less convoluted comparison would be better, no?

So you spend $100 RL money on keys. That is about the same as 50 Gold depending on current exchange rate. You should expect to get stuff that you can sell for at least 40G if the return is 80%. (another problem is account binding, so you have to overcompensate for that)

Many games will increase the return well above 100% for tradable items. The return only drops when the rare items drop in rarity.

But they forgot to follow the principle of Casinos where people don’t leave because they keep getting small returns that are acceptable enough to keep them going. Common skins would have solved that problem.

buzzkapow.8465:

Because the Mad King’s Chests were created to appease the demands of those who felt cheated by anet, for buying the keys for the halloween event. The chests opened during the halloween event only drop Mystery Tonics, not named tonics. Hence, why you can’t use named tonics in the recipe. And even if you could, you’d still end up with a bunch of seperately named tonics, thereby running into the same problem.

As I said. I completely understand this. But right now it favors people opening chests after the 25th of Sept (which is ONE MONTH ago) over people opening them earlier…which has nothing to do with Halloween per se. I see that it was kinda needed to increase the value keys had during the event…but this is overshooting it, giving bonuses to everyone but the people playing from the beginning.
You can’t tell me that people who opened chests during end of September/early October have a right to feel cheated while people who opened them earlier don’t.

NinjaKnight.1340:

cryptomega.3745:

Not like a casino? MMOs have relied on random loot drops and extreme rarity for over a decade. It’s part of the addiction. It is precisely how I explained the enjoyment of a game like World of Warcraft to my aging father, who knows a thing or two about the lure of a one-armed bandit but couldn’t get his head around people playing this type of game.

This current whine is also awfully similar to the complaining about legendary precursors. What is telling is that the same people aren’t committing forum seppuku over the fact that the rarity of the item being dropped from a mob is equally low, if not lower. Who cares what the mechanism is? Chest, forge, mob .. rare is rare.

Uh, BIG difference between a positive surprise while fighting a mob and getting something rare and dropping $80US RL money and getting nothing. Casinos have WAY better odds.

So, you haven’t gambled much, have you? If you were guaranteed to make a profit every time you gambled 100 bucks, casinos wouldn’t exist. Incidentally, I got the greatsaw skin and avian shoulders within the first 20 regular chests. Burned through all my boosters (about 50 MKC) and got the shield and two more sets of shoulders. Judging by the responses, I’d say I was lucky. Some will win, some will lose – it’s the whole point of gambling.

Neither was the word ‘common’ – The fact that Anet didnt release the % drop of the items and people still expected it to be around 50% drop just shows Anet how dumb there customers really are.