Guild Wars 2

Especially if there’s real money involved. ANet has chosen to design gambling into their game, it’s a part of acquiring all those Legendary Weapons. And it’s definitely a part of rare items only to be found within Black Lion Chests, where real-money is more likely to be involved.

I know it would be bad for me If I start buying Gems to get in-game gold, that’s one thing that would easily break my gaming budget. While I should be old enough, and wise enough to control my spending habits, I’m not always successful. If it becomes a problem, I may be forced to decide that I can’t afford to play this game, and that would be a shame because inspite of a few complaints, I really love this game.

I’ve had to make that decision about several other games, with cash shop perks, in the past. With more and more MMOG’s making the move to this business model, I may just have to give up MMOG’s entirely for my own good.

I know that Turbine has a pretty good F2P offering with LOTRO, you can earn all the cash shop perks by playing the game. But i just don’t like that game as much. :-)
In LOTRO you can’t buy and sell in-game money, the folks at Turbine are smarter than that!

I can easily predict that the introduction of cash Gem cards, will open up a path for players to buy and sell gems without using the Black Lion Trading Company.

I can understand the distress with legendary weapons. Although I don’t really mind it, it’s still poses as a valid reason to upset some portion of the player base.

However, for the H’Ween rare skins, I think it’s completely ok for them to use a gambling method to obtain them. The reasoning behind that is just because there is bound to be plenty of items and skins to be earned during the event without spending a cent in the gem store, the gamble just gives those who have extra gold or cash an -additional incentive to spend it – Remember it isn’t a subscription game so having money plugs isn’t a bad thing as long as they supplement it with items that can be gained through “f2p”.

Runescape always has had special holiday items, anyone who participates in the event can get those items. Arguably Jagex has been very successful with that game, they still manage to sell enough memberships even though non-members can get the holiday items as well.

I can cite what other companies have done successfully, but of course it doesn’t prove that a different strategy will be unsuccessful. I’m just saying that the business strategy may be unsuccessful in my case, and i’m not likely alone.

You still get a free devil horn from halloween.

Even if they make you gamble chest for rare skins, you can still get enough keys in game via buying gems with gold. I managed to gather 1100 gems just last night as a lvl 59 without alt from selling materials, and i think i can get at least 400 more gems in a day or two. Thats 15 keys right there…..

Yea, the rng factor sux, and i think i will rage if i fail to get the skin i want from the chest with 15 keys from gold and 4000 gems worth of keys via real money, but i respect the fact that its neccessary to let anet make profit so more contents would come.

They have already give us enough options and chances to earn those skins.

Of course the cash shop will work for ANet because 10% of the player-base can spend virtually unlimited amounts of real-money on it. The players with deeper pockets are getting a little bit more than a cosmetic advantage IMHO.

Most companies that are using the cash-shop business model are willing to give their client away for free, and depend on that cash shop for all their profits.

I’ve opened 18 of the Black Lion Chests since the chests were patched and I didn’t get anything interesting out of them, not even another key! I’m guessing that they’ve removed the keys from the chests or changed the odds of getting them. 10 of my 18 keys were bought with Gems, 8 were earned by playing the game.

I’ve already dropped over $100 in real-money on a gamble to create one pre-cursor weapon, which failed.

Just like real-life, I find that the gold is much easier to spend than make or save. It doesn’t really matter to me if that gold disappears into one of the many gold-sinks or into another players pockets, the results are the same.

My concern with this game moving forward is that many of the cosmetic pieces coming will be introduced as cash shop pieces. Either via gambling or direct purchase or as replacement for RNG such as the precursors, I suspect they’re going to be okay with making these things cash shop since they won’t have superior stats.

GW2 wouldn’t be pay to win in that case, but it would be (and already is to an extent) pay to customize, and I dunno how I feel about that.

I think it’d be okay if there was also a stream of in-game stuff to have too, just worried that too many things will be bought from the cash shop rather than earned through gameplay, I guess is how I’d summarize it.

lol token… that’s full of kittens..

1. what kind of advantage does people with deeper pocket has other than easier to get cosmetic items?

2. there is usually nothing interesting in lion chest right now other than a really low chance to get unlimited tp and banker, or the endless potion. What were you expecting from them?

also Rng is rng. I have gotten at least 2 keys out of 5 boxes i opened since i played.

3. this is what i think is ridiculous. How on earth could you spend 100 bucks real money on gambling pre cursor weapon? Unless you are talking about buying gems and exchange for gold to buy exotic weapons and gamble it on MF… if that’s the case you probably deserve it because it was a really dumb thing to do to get the precursor weapon.

p.s. those games that gave away their client for free and depend on cash store to survive are usually p2w. I don’t see why you are bringing up that point here when cash shop are just for cosemtic items.

Personally I think all the legendary weapons are hideously ugly and so don’t care much on that point, can leave that one for those that care about it.

Black Lion Chests though, I have not spent any money on gems, but i have converted ingame gold to get gems to get more character slots and expand my bank space. I have no need whatsoever to purchase Black Lion Keys even with the 60+ in my bank since I get plenty of keys from map completions (2 characters at 100% so far). I have opened at least half of the chests I have acquired since headstart.

There is no need to buy gems with money if you don’t want to. There is no disadvantage to not buying gems with money. There is therefore no reason for anyone to complain as they are not disadvantaged in any way whatsoever.

The game has the rating of contains violence and gambling, so i guess you were told before you brought it.
I like gambling, but i prefer sports gambling where i can statisticly through time investment and game awareness move the odds into my favor. This type of gambling is casino and slot machine based which is just pure luck.
I don’t mind tho as it’s a cheap thrill

Solution: Don’t buy any keys.

I don’t like gambling either, which is why I won’t spend anything on it. Now, if they sold something that I wanted that didn’t involve luck, then I’d buy it in a heartbeat.

shockingly simple advice: Then don´t partake in them.

Guess what? Servers aren;t free to run, and developers and support staff don’t work for free.

Of course ANet want you to buy gems. But nothing that requires gems gives a stat boost over not having it and gems can be purchased with gold too so this is one of the mildest cash shops I have ever seen.

There are npcs in-game that used to let you gamble coins with them (betting on which cow will win the race/how far will this cow get launched etc.) but they’re all temporarily unavailable right now, perhaps people were actually winning with their gambling.

If the black lion chest skins actually have a decent drop rate I don’t think I’ll be upset about it. If it’s just way too low or on top of that is account bound so you can’t even buy/sell from other players, then I’m sure alot of people will be very frustrated.

I’ve played too many F2P mmo’s with these crappy lottery grab bags, and when it’s the ONLY way to acquire said items it really sucks. I would much rather just have a flat price for the kitten things in the store.

Jestunhi.7429:

Guess what? Servers aren;t free to run, and developers and support staff don’t work for free.

Of course ANet want you to buy gems. But nothing that requires gems gives a stat boost over not having it and gems can be purchased with gold too so this is one of the mildest cash shops I have ever seen.

I don’t understand how this goes past everyone’s head. It’s not about costing gems, it’s about spending gems for a CHANCE at the items, as opposed to just buying the items for a flat gem price in the store like everything else. Once you’ve wasted enough gems that would buy 2 of the weapons and still didn’t get anything you’d be PO’d.

They would make a lot more by just putting the items up for purchase. Leave the gambling in for people that think they are lucky and let the rest of us just buy the items. I’d pay a decent amount of money for the rare chest drops. But I’m not buying the keys for a small chance at them.

At least the chests are selling for a little more than 1 copper now, so I don’t have to destroy them when I find them.