Guild Wars 2

(Disclaimer) I love Guild Wars 2 and I post this analysis/suggestion/opinion because I care and I want GW2 to succeed and grow even bigger.

I am talking about the Halloween skins that drop from the BLTC Chests and the Mad King Chests.

Sure, it’s a lottery, many people refer to it as one aswell and I get that – but this lottery isn’t like a “real world” lottery – there’s a vital difference.
ANet don’t lose anything from letting people win – contrary to a “real world” lottery where you win (back your) money.

Usually a Lottery Company will lure customers with either
1: High Rewards (but really rare) – few people get (really) happy, or
2: Easy-to-get-Prizes – many people get happy.
Since ANet doesn’t lose anything from giving out prizes, and actually win a lot by making “many people” happy rather than a very, very few, it’s far more reasonable to go with option 2 – or, perhaps, a combination of both of them? As it doesn’t cost anything to give out that “High Reward”. Make many people really happy?

I understand the logic behind the model of “Low chance to win, pay for each try”, which “forces” people to buy a lot, really a lot, of keys to get the prize (the skin(s)).
This, not unsurprising, equals a lot of Cash for the company.
- This is a horrible model however.
What this model leads to is that people will eventually stop participate in these lotteries, they will feel ripped off and be sad about the whole situation.
This is bad, really bad.

What would be a good model is:
Letting people who participate in the lottery actually have a decent/good chance of winning a prize or two, this will create a good atmosphere and ensure that people will play the lottery again aswell as compell other people to participate in the lottery – to get their shinies aswell.
I’m absolutely certain ANet would sell far more keys (and profit more) if this was the case.

So, considering all of the above, I see two paths the game can take with this kind of thing for the next festivity:

A: Keep the “really low chance, pay per try”
-> Many keys sold, unhappy customers and eventually no (lottery) customers.

B: Make people have a decent/good chance of winning
-> Even more keys sold, happy customers and even more (lottery) customers swarming in to participate.

This is meant as a clean and civil thread, please don’t troll/flame or anything the like. Discussion/thoughts/opinions is very welcome!
Thank you for reading.

Except that reduces the value of the item if everyone can get them. That’s the problem. They want something rare and that people can be different for having.

If this model actually stops people from buying things, then most likely they will change up the events. But since they have the numbers, our speculation on it won’t actually help.

As for the lottery thing, I made 7 gold off of the things those chests dropped. Arenanet pretty much handed me back a nice chunk of my money so I was quite happy with how they did it.

EndlessDreamer.6780:

Except that reduces the value of the item if everyone can get them. That’s the problem. They want something rare and that people can be different for having.

The happiness of 1000 people is of far more value to ANet and GW2 as a whole than the happiness of 1 person with a unique RNG skin.

EndlessDreamer.6780:

If this model actually stops people from buying things, then most likely they will change up the events. But since they have the numbers, our speculation on it won’t actually help.

They should try the approach I suggested and compare the two models side by side, then choose whichever they think is best for the company and the game.

EndlessDreamer.6780:

As for the lottery thing, I made 7 gold off of the things those chests dropped. Arenanet pretty much handed me back a nice chunk of my money so I was quite happy with how they did it.

Of course you are, but I’m sure though that there’s about 1000 times other people who are equally as unhappy as you are happy.

No, here’s the thing. I didn’t get any unique items off of the chests. Literally, they just dropped SO MUCH of the yellow Halloween crafting stuff that I was able to sell it back and make myself a good chunk of gold back.

People are saying the lottery gives you nothing. It doesn’t. Each chest gives you something. People are just blinded by it not giving them what they want that they will whine and complain until they are blue in the face.

We’ll see what model they go with. This one seemed largely successful to be honest. If they do it again and it’s not as successful, they’ll look at the profit versus potential profit and rethink it.

EndlessDreamer.6780:

Except that reduces the value of the item if everyone can get them. That’s the problem. They want something rare and that people can be different for having.

Except this is a fallacy and I can prove it.

Exhibit A: City of heroes

City of heroes had little to no “earned” items, almost all outfit pieces were given freely at character creation or could be unlocked via a small one-time fee.

Strangely enough, there was little homogenity, City of heroes player avatars were amongst the most diverse i have ever seen, people dressed in a way that suited their character and/or they enjoyed, no two characters ever looked alike.

http://www.gamerzines.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/city-of-heroes.jpg

Exhibit B: Guild Wars 1 (Pre-vanity clothing)

Guild Wars, prior to the introduction of cash shop vanity clothing had 1 outfit set that stood head and shoulders above the others in terms of price and rarity – Obsidian (Fissure of Woe) armour, havbing a price tag the best part of 10-20 times that of prestige armour, and around 800-1200 times that of the “exotic equivalent” armour.

Likewise, black dye was by far the most valuable and rarest dye. Subsequently, 90% of “veteran” players would run around wearing black obsidian armour as a demonstration of their wealth.

This situation changed a little after vanity clothing was introduced, as people could buy outfits and vanity clothing became the norn and we saw a much wider selection of vanity options.

Conclusion

Making clothing available to all increases the diversity of player dress sense. Making certain clothing rare and unique actually decreases diversity, by encouraging people to acquire and display that specific item

You seem to be mistaking rarity for diversity. I never said anything about diversity and that wasn’t any part of my argument.

If you want everyone to be diverse, having all the clothes available is the way to go, you’re correct.

That has nothing to do with why LE items are released the way they are.

While I agree that the drop chances could stand to be quite a bit higher, I also understand that from a business perspective it’s easy to see the potential of having a highly desirable item that is given out on a low-chance basis to folks who spend money. This will definitely encourage people to spend money, however, I agree that more folks would probably spend money if they had a higher chance of getting a skin from the chests. All-in-all, though I’m happy with the mystic forge chest recipe that they implemented — it bumps up the number of chances you get by basically 50%. That’s fine to me.

It’s so true Ryuujin. People like to express themselves in unique ways through their avatar.
Vanity items are more meaningful when each one isn’t treated as ‘the one ring to rule them all’. Especially when GW2 has so many of these types of items and will only have more in the months/years to come.

Well, it didn’t encourage me to spend money. After $12 on keys or so, I’m done with that lottery. The chances are so abysmal that I’d rather spend $12 on actual lottery tickets.

Well, it didn’t encourage me to spend money. After $12 on keys or so, I’m done with that lottery. The chances are so abysmal that I’d rather spend $12 on actual lottery tickets.

Yeah me niether:/ I’d gladly throw a few $ for some keys if I knew my chance was higher, right now the only one losing money seems to be ANet :/ Which is sad, because the more money they make the better they’ll make GW2 and the more content they’ll add – which is what I want.

If you stopped spending money on keys at $12, you’re probably not the target of the gem store anyway.

I’m more than happy to spend $10 a day on gems. Personally, a little less guess-work would be nice, but let’s face it, you can get keys with in-game gold too.

I’d be more than happy to pay for specific things, at a significantly higher price. That would keep it so that the items are still rare, and only people who are awesome either in-game, or out, have them.

Didn’t read every comment so apologies if already been said, but my opinion on this is just to reduce the cost of the black lion keys. That is all. They are way to pricey to even bother with any kind of chance at the moment.

i’ve bought 6k gems and i got 1 skin, im sad but I REGRET NOTHING! (almost 100 chest, THE 100 will be opened tonight after i’ve bought more gems)

p.s i dont have any money left, that i regreat :<