Guild Wars 2

I just had to say: Congratulations, senoph!

What am I suppose to do with all the Black Lion Harvesting Tools I have =/

I have dozens of each and they’re completely useless! They’re soulbound to one character and only stack to 10/25. I’d rather buy Orichalcum harvesting tools that I don’t have to keep replacing every other node.

Any chance we can get a recipe for them? Either for Mad King chests or maybe one that lets you stack to 250 and account bound?

What i find the most shocking about this “fix” is that’s it’s an even bigger rip off than what it was ment to fix.
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Now what i mean is, i spend 20+ gold on 30 BL chest keys, this got me enough items to make 15 MK chests. In those MK chests i got 300 candy corns, 6 tonics and 30 crafting items.
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Now based on average market value the candy corns and crafting items this work out to less than 1 gold worth. In terms of farming time i could have gotten all those items in around 1 hour (the tonics i won’t even count as you can jump in the forge for free).

That means for 20+ gold i got less than 1 gold worth of items – not a great conversion at all. Now for me at best i could get mayne 1 gold for 30 minutes play time (i’m pretty casual) so that 20+ gold is around 10 hours play time, yet what i got converted from that 10 hours play time is something i could have gotten myself in around 1 hour – again not a great conversion at all.
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At the base level as standard in a chest you should get roughly what it cost to get/make one with a bonus chance to get something better, it certainly shouldn’t be a case of getting around 10% of what it cost to get/make get one with a bonus chance to get something worth more.

Basically if it costs 2 gold to make a MK chest (based on 1g for each BL chest) you should get at a minimum 2 gold worth of junky stuff and then have a chance on top to simply get a skin.
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Now convert my 20+ gold into cash and it’s over £20 cash for under 1 gold worth of items, it’s actully quite shocking when you work it all out.

Now to the people who say “well, you paid for a chance”, sorry in a game such as this and for a festival such as this you should at the very least get your moneys worth and not have either – get ripped off or get really lucky.

szthesquid.9576:

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?

As a personal thing yes, I do hate legendaries and the fact the precursor is such a low drop, however this is different because of a few things. The first being that because it is a long term goal I am more forgiving of this, the legendaries do take a lot of gathering, hard work and to much my chagrin a lot of luck if you do not want to spend a great deal of gold. The second point being that I do not have to rely on the drops to come from a chest in which the keys are available from the gem store.

I would also like to add that when were were informed about legendaries we were given the truth, that it would require a lot work, it is a long term goal and a lot of luck would be required for the items. This is not so for the Halloween skins. We were told we were given a chance. Not a rare chance mind, but a chance. One would assume that with us having to buy the keys (or be lucky enough or have the foresight of saving a few) that this chance would be reasonably high or even moderate. We all assumed wrong however.

Had a lot of players known of this chance they simply wouldn’t have bothered or even wasted their keys. This is obviously an attempt to get people to put their money into the keys to try and get the desired skins. This to me is incredibly “disrespectful”.

senoph.2930:

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.

I’d much rather open chests in GW2 or crates in TF2 than go to a casino. The odds may not be accurately labelled, but I’m guaranteed to get something for my money in these games. At a casino I could blow $10,000 and get absolutely nothing in return. In GW2 if I blow $10,000 on keys I’ll be set for life on boosters and tonics even if I don’t get a Halloween weapon skin.

And with a degree of patience, it’s easy to figure out the odds for chests/crates. Gather enough accurate data from the community and you can get a fairly precise idea of the drop rates. For example, it’s been known for quite some time that the drop rate of unusual hats in TF2 crates hovers around 1%. The game doesn’t tell you this, but the information is out there if you’re patient and/or willing to put it together.

Actually I think this ties in to the rather sad state of the GW2 wiki. There just aren’t enough contributors. Granted, the GW1 wiki didn’t immediately start off full right away, but as the community grew you could check the wiki to decide if you wanted to, say, spend your Medals of Honor on a guaranteed but expensive weapon, or gamble gifts for a chance at a very valuable miniature.

Another Interview with Mike O’brien on microtransactions:

http://venturebeat.com/2012/05/21/guild-wars-2-interview-monetization/#s:guildwars2-16

Quotes that i believe are relevant to this discussion:

O’Brien: Creating a microtransaction system that doesn’t upset or alienate your player base is straightforward once you clearly define what’s in-bounds and what’s out-of-bounds. Now that thousands of players have had a chance to play the beta and comment, I think they understand that we’re doing what’s right to create a healthy, well-supported MMO without taking advantage of our customers.

O’Brien: I wrote a blog post to our fans about this very subject because I think it’s important that we’re open and honest about microtransactions with our players.

The reason i chose those 2 highlights the problem with the chests. They did alienate and upset their customers, and they weren’t open and honest. Yes, they said chance. Honest. They didn’t say anything else about rarity. Not open. Without taking advantage of their customer? C’mon. Seriously? Even the people defending Anet have to agree that they took advantage of their customer on this.

Once again, in that article, i didn’t see him mention TF2. And from the sounds of it, TF2 still did a better job of giving incentive to continue buying. There were “consolation prizes”. The chests were poorly implemented. Everybody seems to agree on that.

There’s whole thing is a huge mess, in all honesty. I’ve spent 2 days mulling the whole thing, trying to see it from everybody’s point of view. And that’s the hard part. There are a lot of points of view. In the end, i don’t envy anybody in this situation, cause it’s basically a lose-lose situation.

Everybody is saying “Don’t buy gems with real money. Buy them with gold”. But if everybody did that, there would be no gems to buy. Double Edged sword. The way they’ve intertwined their economy of Real $$ and in game Gold makes the whole thing a giant balancing act.

I’m all for supporting Anet in their endeavours. I bought the game, i get the same content as everybody else. I put money into the game, I get the same as everybody else. Not everybody else put extra money in the game, but they still get the same as everybody else. That’s fine. But.. don’t you think that the people who put the money into the game, to get a skin they wanted, should be able to get that skin they’d like at a reasonable price? Without those players putting in their very real $$$, all the players buying gems with only gold are gonna be real disappointed. No gems to buy, new content coming slower and slower.

It just seems to me that the whole thing wasn’t planned out very well, when measured up against the only standard the company cares about. Itself.

Narkosys.5173:

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.

I don’t actually think that they could have anticipated people would buy the chests in numbers as large as this, although they may have gotten a glimpse of that after they released the Mystic Conduit/Node pieces. I certainly would not have foreseen so many people with stories of spending as much money as they have. I thought I actually would have been on the much higher end of these “I opened x chests and got zilch” tales, but I’m actually on the lower/middle.

I think the fact that so many people felt that they got nothing for their skinless chests is an issue, but it is also a rather large condemnation of the vanilla Black Lion Chests. As another person in this thread mentioned, feedback had been given far before this event. Maybe what’s happened here will lead to changes we can appreciate throughout the year, instead of just on holidays.

clydey.4963:

We all assumed wrong however.

This is where we don’t see eye to eye, I think.

When I saw “a chance for a Halloween weapon” from a chest that costs money to open, I immediately assumed that the skins would be very rare. I spent $10 on gems (keys) thinking I probably wouldn’t get a weapon but it would certainly be nice if I did. My expectations were met.

This is not to say “haha I was right”. Some clarification would definitely have been nice. But I’m honestly surprised to see how optimistic some people were about their odds. Maybe it’s because of my experience with TF2 where the community very quickly calculated the drop rates from crates and realized that the most desirable items had a 1% chance to drop.

I think that, in general, spending money for “a chance” at getting something should be approached with a cynical, or at least cautious, viewpoint, rather than an enthusiastic buying spree and being disappointed when the gamble doesn’t pay off.

As a side note, I’ve seen people argue that since Halloween items are common as dirt in other games, they assumed it would be the same here. I can’t help but think, well, Guild Wars 2 was advertised through-and-through as not being like other games (no matter how cynical and sarcastic that thought may be).

Throw them out, they’re terrible, and I doubt Anet will create another recipe. I actually get ruined logs/ore with them sometimes in Orr. Biggest waste of space in the game.

I have no interest in discussion other than simply the reply of whether you plan to buy into the black lion trading chest random number generation again or not.

The idea of this thread is to give them a better idea on whether or not the majority of their player base will buy into this from a financial standpoint alone. No morals, no discussion. Pure data.

I want to keep this thread very short and hopefully very long detailing nothing other than your response and no extra information or argument. The idea is that maybe they will see this and gather an overall idea of what the player base is wanting or sticky it. Gauging customer likelihood to buy things is difficult so lets make it easier on them.

You may copy paste the section below to quickly reply and state your general views on the subject in a yes/no pattern. No extrapolation.

Five main responses are acceptable, please:

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

Example: Yes/No.

2. Did you buy them in the past?

Example: Yes/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?

Example: Yes/No. I would/wouldn’t 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?

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?

Example: Yes/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?

Example: Yes/No I did/didn’t obtain the item I wanted from the chest. I also did/didn’t obtain the item I wanted from the Mad King Chest.

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

Example: Yes/No I have/haven’t purchased the direct purchase halloween items. I do/don’t plan to buy more.

Keep it simple, keep it civil, keep it short: My gratitude.
Yes/No answers to the above questions are alot easier to read and faster if ArenaNet wishes to gauge their audience. I am not taking sides even though I have my own opinion and wish to act as an intermediary within the confine of the thread.

TLDR; Copy and paste the section above with yes or no answers, please. If you are incapable of keeping things short and QQ (in either direction) we will all assume you have the inability to follow directions in order to give ANet another way to gauge customer satisfaction and the desire to buy gems or purchase other things.

If someone does start ranting and/or making page long arguments I ask that you please simply ignore the fact and move on in the short and objective manner.

Anet isnt the same Anet, they hired new programmers, a cash shop coordinator who already changes numerous things and NCsoft pulls the strings, not Anet when it comes to money.

The precedent for me was the perma tp and shop items. Ive seen 4-5 of them tops, so the drop rate on these items seems to be a good bit better than those. In the end, people want what they want..most everyone who is complaining wants to have their choice of weapon skin this very minute. They arent willing to wait, to see what the rest of the events give and honestly nothing else matters, its all about the weapon skin.

Pedroso.4603:

I just had to say: Congratulations, senoph!

Thank you, Pedroso! I wasn’t sure what else to say in response to that post, but really, thanks.

szthesquid.9576:

I’d much rather open chests in GW2 or crates in TF2 than go to a casino. The odds may not be accurately labelled, but I’m guaranteed to get something for my money in these games. At a casino I could blow $10,000 and get absolutely nothing in return. In GW2 if I blow $10,000 on keys I’ll be set for life on boosters and tonics even if I don’t get a Halloween weapon skin.

Well, to make it a more accurate comparison, you can spend $100 at a Casino and get absolutely nothing, but you knew that was a possible outcome. In fact, the casual gambler enters with $100 considered as a loss before they even play the game if that’s their budget for the night. I personally didn’t expect to spend what I spent, and then just say “Well, it was a good run, but I knew that would probably happen.” I honestly thought that I had a freakish streak of bad luck. Imagine my surprise when I found out that I wasn’t the only one, and that there were people who lost out far, far worse than I did. I don’t think many people expected to just lose this respective gamble as much as they did.

As has been mentioned, there are people who see a majority of those boosters as useless. They see these as a loss, either way.

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, even though I’d buy random stuff anyway.
$5-10 for a full costume/armor set.
$1-10 for a weapon.

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.

Heh, was just going to say no but there is a 15 min character requirment. No is the answer.

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?

No.

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.

If Anet alters their percentages of “rare” skins to say maybe around a 10% chance, give or take a couple of percentage points, then yes I would consider buying keys in the future. If they intend on keeping the percentage on where it’s at, then no I will not be buying keys to open up Black Lion chests for another holiday event.

senoph.2930:

Well, to make it a more accurate comparison, you can spend $100 at a Casino and get absolutely nothing, but you knew that was a possible outcome.

You knew that not getting a Halloween item was a possible outcome, and yet you still received boosters and stuff, not nothing like you could at a casino.

I understand that there are people who view boosters as a loss, but a) that’s their choice and b) they still get something, even if it’s not the desired outcome.

Of the people who see boosters as a loss, how many are going to just delete them? I’m willing to bet that most of those boosters will be used anyway, because “a loss” is not the same thing as “nothing” or “factually/objectively useless”.

@ Ditton, i don’t just want the skiin of my choice, i just what my moneys worth.

If something costs 1 gold (a BL key/chest) or 2 gold (a MK chest) i expect at least something close to that value at the very minimum. I’d be happy with not getting any skin at all if i simply got my moneys worth.

2 BL chests worth of items (the base stuff) is required to make 1 MK chest, 1 MK chest got me on average 20 candy corns, 2 crafting items and less than half a tonic (i got 6 tonics out of 15 chests) – that is far from my moneys worth.

In the end i spent over 20 gold on chests, do i think i got 20 gold worth of stuff?, not a chance – i don’t even think i got 5 gold worth of stuff.

To pay money for a chance at something and complain because you didn’t get it IS entitlement.

Anyway, (I don’t really want to argue about the definition of a word) I disagree with some of the sentiments of the OP but I do agree that the chests could have been handled better and overall communication could have been better. If they communicated the odds of the chests and what they received ahead of time better, the people who bought them wouldn’t be complaining so much. I personally don’t really care about the halloween skins as they don’t really fit my aesthetic but I bought 5 keys to try my hand. I got 2 black lion salvage kits, some repair canisters and some boosters. All of which are good.

But I digress, what I really thought was best about the OP’s post was the subject on making suggestions as to what the players would like in the black lion chests. I’ve seen far too many posts about people crying and people shaking their heads at them. Constructive criticism is what they need and they need it in an intelligent format. I think we should turn this thread in that direction.

What I would have liked to see in the BLCs would have been town clothes. If they could make simpler skins for town clothes with higher drop rates and more intricate ones with lower drop rates, I would love to see them in there. Intricate weapon skins seem to be popular so I would leave them as a rare drop. I really don’t have any decent skins for those. I need backpack skins too I’m a heavy armored guardian… I don’t want a book or a leather backpack!!

I would also like to reiterate that the drop rates for the BLC chests should probably be made available somewhere. It’s not as big a deal with the mystic forge but with BLC chests people could be/are spending real money.

Another suggestion, why not make the Mad king chests directly purchasable on the BLTC? No different than purchasing the keys and people could guarantee that they are getting halloween related goodies.

Buying gems with gold drives up the price of gems and makes it more profitable to buy them with real money. Buying them with real money reverses this effect.

Buying gems with gold to get a skin doesn’t make sense at all unless you have a lot of gold, because you know that gold will be the only way to purchase the exact one you want. If you want to coincidentally get a skin to resell for a return investment when buying lots of black lion chests, then it makes sense, but otherwise it’s much more feasible to eschew potential profit and either buy gold with gems or use your current gold if you want to get a skin you really like.

I’m going to keep comparing this to TF2 because their descriptions of the chest drops here were sufficient compared to how TF2 introduced their not-guaranteed items. The chest-key system wasn’t mentioned at all in O’brien’s post – the focus was on direct cash-gold exchange – which means that not mentioning TF2 as an example doesn’t mean anything. But the model was exactly the same and definitely did not result in failure for the company or the alienation of the player base. I’m not confident that the amount of complaints here are representative of a higher level of dissatisfaction, just because official game forums are usually contentious and very strife-addicted anyway.

I don’t think anybody who has had experience with this chest system in other games would complain about unexpected unfairness because it was implemented in the exact same time tested way, though I understand that people protected from this mechanic are at a disadvantage in terms of experience.

please note that the answers I have given are based on your question of skins, my answers would differ if it were about something else.

1. Will you or will you not be buying black lion trading company or random number generation materials again?
A. No.

2. Did you buy them in the past?
A. 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?
A. No I wouldn’t buy them.

4. Do you believe that future events will also be handled with random number generation to make profit based on limited time item acquisition?
A.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?
A. No.

szthesquid.9576:

clydey.4963:

We all assumed wrong however.

This is where we don’t see eye to eye, I think.

When I saw “a chance for a Halloween weapon” from a chest that costs money to open, I immediately assumed that the skins would be very rare. I spent $10 on gems (keys) thinking I probably wouldn’t get a weapon but it would certainly be nice if I did. My expectations were met.

This is not to say “haha I was right”. Some clarification would definitely have been nice. But I’m honestly surprised to see how optimistic some people were about their odds. Maybe it’s because of my experience with TF2 where the community very quickly calculated the drop rates from crates and realized that the most desirable items had a 1% chance to drop.

I think that, in general, spending money for “a chance” at getting something should be approached with a cynical, or at least cautious, viewpoint, rather than an enthusiastic buying spree and being disappointed when the gamble doesn’t pay off.

As a side note, I’ve seen people argue that since Halloween items are common as dirt in other games, they assumed it would be the same here. I can’t help but think, well, Guild Wars 2 was advertised through-and-through as not being like other games (no matter how cynical and sarcastic that thought may be).

Well I certainly didn’t spend too much on the keys, I got 5 and crossed my fingers and sure enough I didn’t get a thing, never been good at the RNG game. I just think this style of business is very below the standards of Arenanet. Fair enough you got tonics, boosters, gathering items etc from the old chests but they never really “changed” anything about you, they were just small little things that were convenient.

But with this people want their special skins and common sense is thrown out of the window. If these items were available in the trick or treat bags I seriously wouldn’t have kicked up much of a fuss. But because they require keys that are an incredibly low rate drop and can be bought in the gem store I can’t say I am very fond of the idea.

It’s a sleazy tactic and I honestly expected better of Arenanet. Oh well.

Kyle.3856:

To pay money for a chance at something and complain because you didn’t get it IS entitlement.

Do you realize how ambiguous the word “chance” is?

99% is a chance, .01% is a chance also.

TwoSwords.4687:

Kyle.3856:

To pay money for a chance at something and complain because you didn’t get it IS entitlement.

Do you realize how ambiguous the word “chance” is?

99% is a chance, .01% is a chance also.

Did you read the rest of my post? :P

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. Make them comparable to the costumes.

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?

Sort of. I’m coming from a background in GW1, and I don’t recall any RNG prizes for holiday events from there. There are plenty of nice items that are RNG based (Gifts of the Traveler come to mind) but those are not restricted to a limited time frame to obtain, and I quite enjoyed hunting for specific weapons / the Moss Spider Egg, etc from that feature.

I will be restricting my purchases made with gems-bought-with-real-cash to non consumable (and in particular non RNG) items. If I happen to pick up gems by gold, I might (maybe) drop some gems on obtaining keys and/or special transmutation stones, etc, but those types of purchases will be few and far between.

Honestly not at first glance, but it seems to contradict itself, you state that the percentages should probably be made available, yet with that key piece of information missing you still feel that to provide negative feedback makes you a player who believes they are entitled.

TigerDragon.4037:

I’m coming from a background in GW1, and I don’t recall any RNG prizes for holiday events from there.

There were plenty; it’s just that you didn’t have to pay real money for them. Gifts, ToT bags, lunar fortunes, etc.

The picks work fine for candy cane nodes. :-)

MajorMelchett.6042:

@ Ditton, i don’t just want the skiin of my choice, i just what my moneys worth.

If something costs 1 gold (a BL key/chest) or 2 gold (a MK chest) i expect at least something close to that value at the very minimum. I’d be happy with not getting any skin at all if i simply got my moneys worth.

2 BL chests worth of items (the base stuff) is required to make 1 MK chest, 1 MK chest got me on average 20 candy corns, 2 crafting items and 1 tonic – that is far from my moneys worth.

In the end i spent over 20 gold on chests, do i think i got 20 gold worth of stuff?, not a chance – i don’t even think i got 5 gold worth of stuff.

That does not make any sense to me. You got the chests for free, you paid for the keys. However the keys do not inherently possess any value in and of themselves. They open a chest which was already known to be random by previous precedent, so you paid for the chance at getting something great and got something you didn’t want and couldn’t use for a greater purpose. When you buy a grab bag..you sometimes get what you want, you sometimes get what you paid for..and sometimes its just crap..its the luck of the draw that thrills people though. They use this same model for their perma mini pets and yet Ive seen very little opposition to it there. The precedent for this chest is all over the place..nobody wanted to see it though, as soon as the skins were released everybody had the idea they were going to get one. We dont even know if something as cool is in store in the next few days..nobody is willing to wait..just be completely vitriolic and acrid to the point of making themselves miserable.

No, it is too expensive a gamble. I won’t spend any money yet because the prices are too high, and the store lacks items i would want.

1. No, never again

2. Yes, about $100 in keys for this event

3. Yes, but prefer in-game way to get them

4. No, this has bit them hard

5. Yes, if they did not learn this time then my opinion of their int drops by a very large amount

Why can we only use one type of mystery tonic? Seems a bit of a slap in the face for those, like myself, who made 10 mystery tonics of each type only to find two types are not useable!

I know i got the chest for free, that’s why i put it as 1 gold for a BL key/chest as it cost me 1 gold per key to open the chest.

I’ll still say it though, you should at a minimum get at least your moneys worth, even if it’s something you don’t want. To me, 2 gold (basically the cost of 2 BL keys/chests converted to 1 MK chest) to get 20 candy corns, 2 crafting items and less than half a tonic is not even close to getting my moneys worth.

Think about this for a minute, 2 gold for that and it’s not even enough for 1 4 hour skin! (i’d need another 7.5 MK chests for 1 – or 15 BL keys/roughly 15 gold!).

TwoSwords.4687:

Honestly not at first glance, but it seems to contradict itself, you state that the percentages should probably be made available, yet with that key piece of information missing you still feel that to provide negative feedback makes you a player who believes they are entitled.

I think you are jumping to conclusions about what I said… I was arguing about the definition of the word entitled. I never said that providing negative feed back makes you entitled. I only said that the feedback should be constructive.

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

No (probably not)

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.

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 don’t know.

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

Kyle.3856:

To pay money for a chance at something and complain because you didn’t get it IS entitlement.

I see, your definition varies.

What is a boost?

szthesquid.9576:

TigerDragon.4037:

I’m coming from a background in GW1, and I don’t recall any RNG prizes for holiday events from there.

There were plenty; it’s just that you didn’t have to pay real money for them. Gifts, ToT bags, lunar fortunes, etc.

Let me clarify. I don’t recall any RNG weapon prizes for holiday events from there.

The ToT bags, Gifts, Lunar Fortunes, etc were mostly bags of consumables (sweets, booze, etc) The one item that included a “skin” for a holiday that I can recall wasn’t for weapons. The new year miniatures come from lunar fortunes. That’s the one exception I can recall of something like this, and the chance on those is quite a bit higher than the chance on getting a weapon skin from the BLC and MKC from what I can tell based on feedback on these forums. I used my keys (rewards from personal story/map completion) and made a few MKC with the junk I got … and still got junk in the end. I haven’t opened nearly as many chests of either type as some of the folks here, but based on the amount of upset that seems to be on the forum over this, I can’t say that I would be willing to pay for a few keys to get more chances at it. I’m just going to give up on getting the item I want unless I happen to make enough gold and/or get lucky with more keys (still have some lower level characters that can do personal story for the key reward.) I’m not holding my breath on it at this point, though.

Now this is going into the definition of complain

Complaining is different from providing constructive criticism

I said I didn’t want to argue about definitions and now it seems like thats what Im doing… QQ

The problem is probably one of semantics. In this instance, he may have meant that they are technically feeling entitled, as opposed to the insulting manner in which the term is most often used in the gaming community currently. The most common application of the word online in reference to the dissatisfied gaming community is more like “greedy,” “childish,” “spoiled,” etc, whereas the actual definition of the term entitled is that you have a claim to a good, service, position, or outcome. I would say it is not unreasonable to think that people who spent money felt they were entitled to something of value to them, but that is where the argument over who should feel value for what comes into play, which really has no resolution itself.

lisamee.2408:

What is a boost?

The items that grant a “boost” to XP or Karma (or similar) for a set duration and/or for a chained number of kills.

1. No.
2. No.
3. Yes I would buy them if they were direct purchases. $20 or less
4. Too early to tell.
5. Not at this time.

First, people get angry that BLC’s have a rare chance of giving you something nice during Halloween, then they get more upset when you can use two of the three things you get form a BLC to get another go at possibly receiving the items available during Halloween.

I can not understand why so many people are angry at ANet. Not winning at gambling is to be expected.

magic find boost, karma boost, strength boost, regen boost, speed boost, crafting boost, and general XP boost (not killstreak) all work. These are the usables you get from chests or buying directly from the gem store.

One of the best replies in this thread…

“Thank you! For not just giving everyone skins. It would have been like giving every kid a trophy while not keeping score.

All in all, even though ANet did not need to do this IMO. This is why I have continued to support them in ALL of the GW’s games over the years…

Thank you everyone, for providing clear, concise and simple answers so far with no argument or page long posts.

Lets keep it going like this so it doesn’t degenerate into the flame war that most other threads have become.

Oh yes, because this is gambling it’s perfectly logical to have a flawed reward system.
NOT.

It would not be very hard to add tiered rewards so that even if you didn’t get that 0.01% drop rate skin you might still of had gotten that 1% drop rate ______ . People are always oh-so-quick to champion a cause they have no stake in.

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?

Yes. Minipets! Minipets for everyone!

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 do support direct to buy skins. I’ve played lots of F2P games and skins are a staple so this is nothing new to me. Not sure how to judge price, though anything more than 10USD for a single skin (especially if one-use) is kind of pushing it.

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

Probably. If they plan on running events like they did in GW1, there will be more chances to acquire these things later 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?

No. Having played several F2Ps (and even some P2P!) with abysmally terrible cash shop practices, I’m bewildered by the ferocious reactions around here.

MajorMelchett.6042:

@ Ditton, i don’t just want the skiin of my choice, i just what my moneys worth.

If something costs 1 gold (a BL key/chest) or 2 gold (a MK chest) i expect at least something close to that value at the very minimum. I’d be happy with not getting any skin at all if i simply got my moneys worth.

2 BL chests worth of items (the base stuff) is required to make 1 MK chest, 1 MK chest got me on average 20 candy corns, 2 crafting items and less than half a tonic (i got 6 tonics out of 15 chests) – that is far from my moneys worth.

In the end i spent over 20 gold on chests, do i think i got 20 gold worth of stuff?, not a chance – i don’t even think i got 5 gold worth of stuff.

That is a reasonable approach and there are items available in the game that will give you your money’s worth.

Chests are for those who wish to gamble. Gambling means that many people do not get their money’s worth while a lucky few get more than their money’s worth.

There is nothing wrong with Arenanet offering the option to gamble for those who enjoy it but people like you need to be wise enough to realize that this is not an appropriate choice for them.

You should add another question asking if the poster received any skins from their purchases.
________________________________________________________________

1. No
2. No
*3. Yes I would, but only if the economy was fixed or it was a real money only transaction.
4. Yes
5. Yes
6. No from both chests. Spent 40$ on keys.
__________________________________________________________________
* i.e. A handful of individuals didn’t posses stupendous amounts of gold due to abusing the market on release.

aliquis.9180:

There is nothing wrong with Arenanet offering the option to gamble for those who enjoy it but people like you need to be wise enough to realize that this is not an appropriate choice for them.

I am wise enough now as i now know how much of a gamble it is, i expected a gamble BUT i certanly didn’t expect that much of a gamble.

Anyways, i’ve filled my official complaint and i won’t be spending gold/cash on the store for things like this again – it’s a lesson learned and i recon i’ll just have to deal with it (it’s not like Anet is ever going to offer refunds for those that feel cheated).

I love your game Anet, i just really don’t lilke how certain things like this are being handled – anyways, off to start making my gold back .