I had to laugh when I first saw they were doing this before the halloween event.
Sure scummy f2p MMO’s do them, but they were 100% free. I payed $60+ bucks for this game. Just give us good quality skins and fluff and we’ll buy them, it’s really that simple. If they truly did this to have the items be “rare” then they should only be attainable in game through something like a dungeon or w/e, not on the cash shop.
Unfortunately even if alot of people have learned their lesson and don’t buy into it this time around there are still stupid rich people that will spend stupid amounts of money on these things, there are people that do that in all the past F2P mmo’s i’ve played, I’m talking thousands.
And while I don’t normally mind this, as it basically gets these super rich people to blow their money on a game to support the developer, it’s making these cool skins completely exclusive to them which isn’t very fair.
Buy this new super awesome mega epic legendary sword for only 10,000 Gems! As a reward to only the super rich that support our game! You other lowly peasants can enjoy this hat you can wear in town.
I played TERA for a while and I liked what they did. They had a beach event where you could loot (drop rate was reasonable) swimsuit costumes for your character that were temporary (30 days if I remember right—also reasonable). If you wanted a permanent swimsuit costume for your character you could buy one in the cash shop.
GW2 kinda had something similar with the Halloween weapon skins you either bought temporarily for candy corn or that you crafted and were permanent. The big difference was that the GW2 temporary skins were too temporary: 4 hours? Really? And the crafting recipes seemed a bit excessive regarding mats.
There are things that only those with money can get, but at least in GW2 they give you no real advantage over players other than leveling faster. That’s just life. Game currency can be converted to gems so no real money is required, only effort if you have the time. If a player has neither time or money, I don’t see how there’s any valid complaint to be had. Some things should be rare, and only achievable through great effort or expense: that’s a big part of why they’re valuable to players.
ArenaNet is in this to make money and I don’t mind that one bit if they come up with ways that convince to willingly part with my cash. They’re very careful to control the game economy so that gold is scarce enough and valuable enough to make buying gems a tempting prospect. Nothing wrong with that. When I heard that there were to be new craftables and gatherables, my first thought was: I bet there won’t be storage slots added to the bank for these items. Like the Halloween gatherables, you’ll have to use normal bank storage space, which means a lot more players will feel compelled to spend gems on extra bank space.
I’m not particularly thrilled about that if it turns out to be true. I understand it, but I’m not happy about it. I want to be happy about spending money. I don’t want to do it begrudgingly. That just saps my enjoyment of the game a little bit. I’ve already spent a good amount of money for gems to expand bank and bag space.
The obstacle is the path.