Guild Wars 2

I logged in this week to poke around a bit and maybe decide to buy myself an expansion, and lo and behold I find my decorative molten jetpack’s price has crashed because there’s a new random box that is dumping them on the market.

Normally that would be a buyer beware sort of deal, but I’m pretty sure we were told explicitly that this wasn’t going to happen.

To be clear, I always thought having exclusive content like that was a bad idea. But given that I remember getting a specific statement saying they weren’t going to start dropping again, it seemed the safest asset to keep around to avoid keeping gold and watching it devalue due to inflation over time.

It’s particularly galling that the new drops aren’t coming from a reward for content or the return of Season 1, but instead from RNG boxes. It would have been a little easier to stomach watching my net worth drop 80% overnight if it didn’t feel quite so much like ArenaNet just cashing in to my detriment.

What gives?

Sorry I don’t remember being told that wasn’t going to happen. Not saying your wrong, but it strikes me as the kind of thing Anet virtually never says. If they did say that, I’d love to see a quote.

All I usually see them saying is stuff like we have no plans of bringing them back at this time.

It’s kinda annoying that you can’t search the dev tracker, but at least I remembered correctly that it was a post from Colin, so I found it.

Here’s the specific post:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/lwd/The-Historian-for-people-who-missed-content

Admittedly, Colin isn’t around anymore, but I didn’t realize that meant I’d wake up to this particular surprise.

Yea that was regarding them droping in fractals or other content.

Since these are from gambling boxes I wouldent call that content

Never really understood why that backpack was so valuable in the first place. It’s butt ugly.

Specifically, from that post Valediction linked:

ColinJohanson.2394:

Any updates to the fractals will need to include additional update to the reward systems as well, agreed.

As for the jet pack, those specific rewards are intended as limited rewards you can only earn during that time, thus making them valuable. It wouldn’t be fair to the people who did earn jet packs for us to bring them back, and suddenly undercut their value entirely.

I think interpreting this comment to mean “regarding them dropping from fractals” is quite a stretch. No matter how it entered the game again, it is content and very specifically contradicts what the Game Director at that time said.

The value of the items has been undercut suddenly and entirely.

To be clear, I disagree with him. I think if you get items hoping that their value increases is a gamble, like anywhere else. If I buy that axe skin today for 50 gold and keep it (without using it), I’m betting on it to become more valuable in one or two years, maybe 1000 gold or more. If Anet makes that skin available again in 2 years, I lost the bet.

It’s unfortunate that the Game Director at that time made this statement, but I understand why the current person in charge thinks and acts differently. Maybe they aim to make as many people happy as possible.

Even without the random drop form those boxes, the value might have decreased now, since many players return to the game due to the expansion. They haven’t logged in for 2 years or longer, check their bank and inventories and notice the prices of the skins they have. At least that’s what I would do immediately. Some of those people probably sold them for 4k asap, and with 6 times more supply than before, the price has dropped to 400 gold.

But yes, the big impact came on the day the Season 1 memory box was released ^^
Imagine, there were people offering to purchase it for 3k half a year ago and didn’t log in that day (holiday season). They were sold that item for 3k and an hour later it was worth 400. Andf those who put them on the TP for 5k lost the 5% fee because they would never sell it for 5k anymore. But that’s the risk when you play the market.

Yeah, they’ve already added a lot of the Living World Season 1 rewards to the Laurel vendor and we have in the past been told that they’d love to bring back Living World Season 1 in some form to the game.

If anything I would have expected this backpack to have a chance to drop from the Molten Boss Fractal (as it originally dropped from one of those two bosses) but these kind of loot boxes are popular these days. Especially popular with the companies selling them.

I wonder though, will we get Season 1 Halloween Memory Boxes with say Ghastly Grinning Shields in them?

Pifil.5193:

Yeah, they’ve already added a lot of the Living World Season 1 rewards to the Laurel vendor and we have in the past been told that they’d love to bring back Living World Season 1 in some form to the game.

If anything I would have expected this backpack to have a chance to drop from the Molten Boss Fractal (as it originally dropped from one of those two bosses) but these kind of loot boxes are popular these days. Especially popular with the companies selling them.

I wonder though, will we get Season 1 Halloween Memory Boxes with say Ghastly Grinning Shields in them?

You have a chance to get the hallowen weapons from the mystic forge already.

Does it really matter? You haven’t been playing, whats the issue? are you annoyed something in your bank has gone from from over 2k to nearly nothing?

Oh well, I lost the gamble, as well. Had an item worth 400G when I looked earlier that day, or the day before (I don’t remember), and now it’s worth 83Gold, which is up from what it was in the afternoon of the box releasing.

I guess I will hang onto it a bit more, and see if the price rises after expansion. Then, either put it up for sale, or finally unlock the skin. /shrug

Such is life…and gaming.

Linken.6345:

Pifil.5193:

Yeah, they’ve already added a lot of the Living World Season 1 rewards to the Laurel vendor and we have in the past been told that they’d love to bring back Living World Season 1 in some form to the game.

If anything I would have expected this backpack to have a chance to drop from the Molten Boss Fractal (as it originally dropped from one of those two bosses) but these kind of loot boxes are popular these days. Especially popular with the companies selling them.

I wonder though, will we get Season 1 Halloween Memory Boxes with say Ghastly Grinning Shields in them?

You have a chance to get the hallowen weapons from the mystic forge already.

Bah! There’s no gemstore money in that!

If you read the Dev’s post again very carefully, you’ll see that the only thing he said was the jet pack is “intended as limited reward” and “It wouldn’t be fair to the people who did earn jet packs for us to bring them back, and suddenly undercut their value entirely.”

So technically, it’s indeed unfair to you (OP) or others who kept the jet pack hoping it would increase in its value, but even though it was “intended” to not come back, ANet never said its set in stone to not make it available ever again.

I do understand your frustration, but claiming you were explicitly told it wouldn’t come back is a false statement.

edit:
what I learned from past experiences in several games, not only MMORPGs, is to never trust the Dev’s on not making limited content available again in the future

So people got “burned” because they hoarded an item for literally years and some people finally get a chance to have said item for free or at least at a reasonable price.
Sounds like the best possible outcome to me.

and yes, it is pretty hard to lose that much weight, and Anet may have promised that said items would not reappear. Anet also said that GW2 would be the game for those who do not want to have raids, special roles for classes and mounts, and look where we are now…

I think that’s a bit of a semantic stretch, Hyrai.

If you take those two statements at face value then it’s quite clear that Colin was saying these items wouldn’t and shouldn’t come back. That’s particularly important because, well, they came back and they’re now no longer a “limited reward” and when they brought them back that "suddenly undercut their value entirely.”

I just want to state that I have no jetpack and no interest (financially or otherwise) in getting a jetpack at all (I think they look horrible). You can argue that that is or isn’t relevant in this post-Colin world and I personally don’t care if they did or didn’t “pinky swear” about this but they have gone back on this statement.

Edit: both my English and typing ability are getting worse and worse.

They finally decided to dig into the gold mine they have been sitting on all this time. Can’t blame them for it even if I am not any fan of RNG boxes.
Sucks if you wanted to be special by wearing an expensive skin, I guess. Good for those who missed these items in the past or the chance to use them as a long-term investment.

Pifil.5193:

I think that’s a bit of a semantic stretch, Hyrai.

If you take those two statements at face value then it’s quite clear that Colin was saying these items wouldn’t and shouldn’t come back. That’s particularly important because, well, they came back and they’re now no longer a “limited reward” and when they brought them back that "suddenly undercut their value entirely.”

I just want to state that I have no jetpack and no interest (financially or otherwise) in getting a jetpack at all (I think they look horrible). You can argue that that is or isn’t relevant in this post-Colin world and I personally don’t care if they did or didn’t “pinky swear” about this but they have gone back on this statement.

Edit: both my English and typing ability are getting worse and worse.

I don’t see where I’m stretching Colin’s post in any way. I’m just stating what it literally says.
You’re right that he wrote this particular item shouldn’t come back. But he never said it wouldn’t.
Huge difference there.
All he said was, it’s not intended to come back. Which is by nature a very stretchable phrase, and probably intentionally used in this case.

I also don’t own a jetpack, nor do I have any desire for it, I’m just looking at this case from a 100% neutral point of view. which is: neither Colin, nor anyone else from ANet, promised anyone those items wouldn’t come back.

For those players who bet on the jetpack not coming back, it’s a stab in the back, no doubt.
Colin’s post is definitely phrased in a way that suggests the item not coming back, but – as I said – stating that anyone promised, or “explicitly told”, the players the Jetpack won’t come back is a false statement.

Hyrai.8720:

Colin’s post is definitely phrased in a way that suggests the item not coming back, but – as I said – stating that anyone promised, or “explicitly told”, the players the Jetpack won’t come back is a false statement.

And since we are not at court here and players’ feelings have an impact on the game (some vote with their feet), what the former Game Director suggested matters more than how a lawyer would interprete it. Nobody is going to sue Anet about this statement, but people might decide to keep their pocket money in their pockets more than before, or maybe it was the last drop for some players. Constant dropping wears away a stone.

If a player leaves because of it or if it adds to dissatisfaction and is just part of why he reconsiders his commitment, he will not be convinced by your argument that the Game Director never explicitly told players that those items will not come back. It’s just semantics.

btw, I only started playing this game 6 months ago, don’t have a Jetpack, find it ugly and don’t want one for free. I just think that those people have a right to be disappointed.

An MMO company is not a person. People say all sorts of things all the time and mean them when they say them. Time passes and what was once true is no longer true. Colin was the game director and under his watch, that never came back….but MO never said it, and may have never even thought it.

People say Anet said something but it’s never true, because Anet has no mouth. It has 300 mouths. What someone says is only good as long as management doesn’t change, and even then circumstances can change.

I remember when Anet said an expansion wasn’t in the works and the Living Story was going to be the way forward. I always remember telling us that eye color wasn’t important enough to include in character generation and that walking would never been in the game, only running. All those things changed.

Town clothes changed too. They felt something didn’t work and they changed it.

At the end of the day, Anet doesn’t say anything ever. Individual developers say something and very likely mean it when they say it. Nothing is law or set in stone, because circumstances change. Hell in real life even laws change.

Sometimes it sucks when it happens, but this is one instance where I’m in favor of the change.

Faaris.8013:

Hyrai.8720:

Colin’s post is definitely phrased in a way that suggests the item not coming back, but – as I said – stating that anyone promised, or “explicitly told”, the players the Jetpack won’t come back is a false statement.

And since we are not at court here and players’ feelings have an impact on the game (some vote with their feet), what the former Game Director suggested matters more than how a lawyer would interprete it. Nobody is going to sue Anet about this statement, but people might decide to keep their pocket money in their pockets more than before, or maybe it was the last drop for some players. Constant dropping wears away a stone.

That’s absolutely true.
And it’s the reason why I would never pay an absurdly high price for an item just because it was available for 1 week and the devs said it won’t come back, nor hoard it just because its value might increase.
I’ve seen such items come back several times in several games.
So I rather bet on those items coming back than betting the other way round. Saved a lot of money and nerves this way.

Hyrai.8720:

I don’t see where I’m stretching Colin’s post in any way. I’m just stating what it literally says.
You’re right that he wrote this particular item shouldn’t come back. But he never said it wouldn’t.
Huge difference there.
All he said was, it’s not intended to come back. Which is by nature a very stretchable phrase, and probably intentionally used in this case.

I also don’t own a jetpack, nor do I have any desire for it, I’m just looking at this case from a 100% neutral point of view. which is: neither Colin, nor anyone else from ANet, promised anyone those items wouldn’t come back.

For those players who bet on the jetpack not coming back, it’s a stab in the back, no doubt.
Colin’s post is definitely phrased in a way that suggests the item not coming back, but – as I said – stating that anyone promised, or “explicitly told”, the players the Jetpack won’t come back is a false statement.

Oh fair enough, I take your point completely, nothing was promised here.

Colin’s post was straightforward in stating the items were intended to be limited and valuable. That being said, I’ve never been a big fan of content being gated behind other players, whether it be on the trading post or requirements to be in a guild or certain type of squad. Back at the beginning, there was discussion of people who engaged in “economic PvP” and blocked off items. And really, with the TP being the equalizer on RNG for stuff, reintroducing stuff in some quantity to prevent that is a good thing.

I’m not a big fan of making some of the items so easily attainable from the boxes – but I’m really thinking more of the halo and horns potions, which took significant work to get and weren’t random, but instead a time investment. I’ve never been one to want things excluded from coming back or being available, but making them available for less time and effort is kind of a bummer.

I don’t mind the jetpack, and previously the greatsaw, coming down a bit in price. It let me get them for my alt on FA, so I look like “me” all the time. I was also able to get a greatsaw and now jetpack for my nephew, and that is worth more to me than any exclusivity they ever had. I’d really like Mad Memories to become available at some point, preferably by completing the quest from the first Halloween.

Vayne.8563:

An MMO company is not a person. People say all sorts of things all the time and mean them when they say them. Time passes and what was once true is no longer true. Colin was the game director and under his watch, that never came back….but MO never said it, and may have never even thought it.

People say Anet said something but it’s never true, because Anet has no mouth. It has 300 mouths. What someone says is only good as long as management doesn’t change, and even then circumstances can change.

I remember when Anet said an expansion wasn’t in the works and the Living Story was going to be the way forward. I always remember telling us that eye color wasn’t important enough to include in character generation and that walking would never been in the game, only running. All those things changed.

Town clothes changed too. They felt something didn’t work and they changed it.

At the end of the day, Anet doesn’t say anything ever. Individual developers say something and very likely mean it when they say it. Nothing is law or set in stone, because circumstances change. Hell in real life even laws change.

Sometimes it sucks when it happens, but this is one instance where I’m in favor of the change.

This attitude would be the quickest way to the closest conyon for the largest majority of companies. It would be like:
“Well, the developer said so to sell stuff and because he meant it because we promised him so. But screw him, we do what we want as a company.”
Not only is this massively cynical, it would make all involved people look like dorks. so either gag the developers or put out only serious information about the product.

If said developer makes such a statement on reddit or another inofficial forum, it is nearly excusable and makes just the company look like fools because the left hand has no idea what the right hand does. But if this happens on Gamescon or anything resembling a PR event, it is a sign of a trigerhappy management who either bit more that they could stomach or just made a false advertisement.

Linken.6345:

Pifil.5193:

Yeah, they’ve already added a lot of the Living World Season 1 rewards to the Laurel vendor and we have in the past been told that they’d love to bring back Living World Season 1 in some form to the game.

If anything I would have expected this backpack to have a chance to drop from the Molten Boss Fractal (as it originally dropped from one of those two bosses) but these kind of loot boxes are popular these days. Especially popular with the companies selling them.

I wonder though, will we get Season 1 Halloween Memory Boxes with say Ghastly Grinning Shields in them?

You have a chance to get the hallowen weapons from the mystic forge already.

You can also get them from wardrobe unlocks.

Torolan.5816:

Vayne.8563:

An MMO company is not a person. People say all sorts of things all the time and mean them when they say them. Time passes and what was once true is no longer true. Colin was the game director and under his watch, that never came back….but MO never said it, and may have never even thought it.

People say Anet said something but it’s never true, because Anet has no mouth. It has 300 mouths. What someone says is only good as long as management doesn’t change, and even then circumstances can change.

I remember when Anet said an expansion wasn’t in the works and the Living Story was going to be the way forward. I always remember telling us that eye color wasn’t important enough to include in character generation and that walking would never been in the game, only running. All those things changed.

Town clothes changed too. They felt something didn’t work and they changed it.

At the end of the day, Anet doesn’t say anything ever. Individual developers say something and very likely mean it when they say it. Nothing is law or set in stone, because circumstances change. Hell in real life even laws change.

Sometimes it sucks when it happens, but this is one instance where I’m in favor of the change.

This attitude would be the quickest way to the closest conyon for the largest majority of companies. It would be like:
“Well, the developer said so to sell stuff and because he meant it because we promised him so. But screw him, we do what we want as a company.”
Not only is this massively cynical, it would make all involved people look like dorks. so either gag the developers or put out only serious information about the product.

If said developer makes such a statement on reddit or another inofficial forum, it is nearly excusable and makes just the company look like fools because the left hand has no idea what the right hand does. But if this happens on Gamescon or anything resembling a PR event, it is a sign of a trigerhappy management who either bit more that they could stomach or just made a false advertisement.

Actually this isn’t true, because MMOs aren’t like most products. MMOs are services. You’re not paying for a program, you’re paying for access to a world. That’s how it works.

I have had favorite rides at Disneyworld that have closed. It happens. Things change over time.

Most games dont’ have an over time, or at least didn’t. When I buy a driving game two years later, it’s pretty much the same game. Maybe some new tracks or new cars, but the game doesn’t fundamentally change. This isn’t true of MMOs and anyone that’s played a lot of MMOs would know this.

I can think of tons of reasons why something would change from what someone said. If I ran a health spa and I said I was going to put in a new machine and you were interested in it, but no one else used it, I’d take it out, even if it kittened you off. Because there’s limited room in the spa, and the machine wasn’t getting use. That’s probably why the Twilight Arbor forward/up path was replaced. Not enough people running it.

At the end of the day, an MMO is an ongoing thing, a world that changes. Have you looked at the difference between WoW when it launched and WoW now? Or Rift? Or SWTOR, or Age of Conan, or TSW, or Lotro or DDO, or Star Trek Online? They’re all vastly different games. And stuff any company says can change over a period of years.

That statement made by Colin was made five years ago. But this is true in the business world too. Once you see under new management sign anywhere, changes can happen. A new CEO takes over a corporation and that company can move in a new direction. It happens all the time.

Not sure how wise it is to put your faith in two paragraphs from a forum post from a single person in an ever changing world.

Vayne.8563:

An MMO company is not a person. People say all sorts of things all the time and mean them when they say them. Time passes and what was once true is no longer true. Colin was the game director and under his watch, that never came back….but MO never said it, and may have never even thought it.

People say Anet said something but it’s never true, because Anet has no mouth. It has 300 mouths. What someone says is only good as long as management doesn’t change, and even then circumstances can change.

I remember when Anet said an expansion wasn’t in the works and the Living Story was going to be the way forward. I always remember telling us that eye color wasn’t important enough to include in character generation and that walking would never been in the game, only running. All those things changed.

Town clothes changed too. They felt something didn’t work and they changed it.

At the end of the day, Anet doesn’t say anything ever. Individual developers say something and very likely mean it when they say it. Nothing is law or set in stone, because circumstances change. Hell in real life even laws change.

Sometimes it sucks when it happens, but this is one instance where I’m in favor of the change.

When someone authorised to speak on behalf of a company says something in their capacity as a representative of the company, then the company has said something.

Also, in the US, where ANet is based, the Supreme Court has decided that a company is essentially a person.

I agree with your overall point about things changing however.

Vayne.8563:

Torolan.5816:

Vayne.8563:

An MMO company is not a person. People say all sorts of things all the time and mean them when they say them. Time passes and what was once true is no longer true. Colin was the game director and under his watch, that never came back….but MO never said it, and may have never even thought it.

People say Anet said something but it’s never true, because Anet has no mouth. It has 300 mouths. What someone says is only good as long as management doesn’t change, and even then circumstances can change.

I remember when Anet said an expansion wasn’t in the works and the Living Story was going to be the way forward. I always remember telling us that eye color wasn’t important enough to include in character generation and that walking would never been in the game, only running. All those things changed.

Town clothes changed too. They felt something didn’t work and they changed it.

At the end of the day, Anet doesn’t say anything ever. Individual developers say something and very likely mean it when they say it. Nothing is law or set in stone, because circumstances change. Hell in real life even laws change.

Sometimes it sucks when it happens, but this is one instance where I’m in favor of the change.

This attitude would be the quickest way to the closest conyon for the largest majority of companies. It would be like:
“Well, the developer said so to sell stuff and because he meant it because we promised him so. But screw him, we do what we want as a company.”
Not only is this massively cynical, it would make all involved people look like dorks. so either gag the developers or put out only serious information about the product.

If said developer makes such a statement on reddit or another inofficial forum, it is nearly excusable and makes just the company look like fools because the left hand has no idea what the right hand does. But if this happens on Gamescon or anything resembling a PR event, it is a sign of a trigerhappy management who either bit more that they could stomach or just made a false advertisement.

Actually this isn’t true, because MMOs aren’t like most products. MMOs are services. You’re not paying for a program, you’re paying for access to a world. That’s how it works.

I have had favorite rides at Disneyworld that have closed. It happens. Things change over time.

Most games dont’ have an over time, or at least didn’t. When I buy a driving game two years later, it’s pretty much the same game. Maybe some new tracks or new cars, but the game doesn’t fundamentally change. This isn’t true of MMOs and anyone that’s played a lot of MMOs would know this.

I can think of tons of reasons why something would change from what someone said. If I ran a health spa and I said I was going to put in a new machine and you were interested in it, but no one else used it, I’d take it out, even if it kittened you off. Because there’s limited room in the spa, and the machine wasn’t getting use. That’s probably why the Twilight Arbor forward/up path was replaced. Not enough people running it.

At the end of the day, an MMO is an ongoing thing, a world that changes. Have you looked at the difference between WoW when it launched and WoW now? Or Rift? Or SWTOR, or Age of Conan, or TSW, or Lotro or DDO, or Star Trek Online? They’re all vastly different games. And stuff any company says can change over a period of years.

That statement made by Colin was made five years ago. But this is true in the business world too. Once you see under new management sign anywhere, changes can happen. A new CEO takes over a corporation and that company can move in a new direction. It happens all the time.

Not sure how wise it is to put your faith in two paragraphs from a forum post from a single person in an ever changing world.

It’s been a while since I farmed dungeons, but wasn’t forward/forward the pain path no one ran? Spider/Bees were frequently speed-farmed paths back when that was a thing, I find it hard to believe it was the least run dungeon path in the game… which as a matter of fact IS the Anet-quoted reason for replacing it.

I suppose the lesson of this thread is take Arenanet quotes with a grain of salt.

Faaris.8013:

And since we are not at court here and players’ feelings have an impact on the game (some vote with their feet), what the former Game Director suggested matters more than how a lawyer would interprete it.

Perhaps, but then if you were paying attention you’d have noticed that they are not above completely ignoring what they suggested, while explaining that they haven’t actually eplicitly said whatever players assumed they did. Just think back to the ascended gear introduction, which happened barely 3 months in the game.

Nowadays, when Anet says one thing, it means exactly what has been said, to the letter. Anything that has been interpreted out of it is not guaranteed at all. And since they like to make vague and imprecise statements, they aren’t actually promising much at all. They definitely promise far less than you think they do.

…if someone has been paying attention, they’d have also noticed that Anet started to introduce old LS skins throughout other means long ago. It’s just that this specific skin had to wait its turn till now.

Dovienya.6597:

Vayne.8563:

Torolan.5816:

Vayne.8563:

An MMO company is not a person. People say all sorts of things all the time and mean them when they say them. Time passes and what was once true is no longer true. Colin was the game director and under his watch, that never came back….but MO never said it, and may have never even thought it.

People say Anet said something but it’s never true, because Anet has no mouth. It has 300 mouths. What someone says is only good as long as management doesn’t change, and even then circumstances can change.

I remember when Anet said an expansion wasn’t in the works and the Living Story was going to be the way forward. I always remember telling us that eye color wasn’t important enough to include in character generation and that walking would never been in the game, only running. All those things changed.

Town clothes changed too. They felt something didn’t work and they changed it.

At the end of the day, Anet doesn’t say anything ever. Individual developers say something and very likely mean it when they say it. Nothing is law or set in stone, because circumstances change. Hell in real life even laws change.

Sometimes it sucks when it happens, but this is one instance where I’m in favor of the change.

This attitude would be the quickest way to the closest conyon for the largest majority of companies. It would be like:
“Well, the developer said so to sell stuff and because he meant it because we promised him so. But screw him, we do what we want as a company.”
Not only is this massively cynical, it would make all involved people look like dorks. so either gag the developers or put out only serious information about the product.

If said developer makes such a statement on reddit or another inofficial forum, it is nearly excusable and makes just the company look like fools because the left hand has no idea what the right hand does. But if this happens on Gamescon or anything resembling a PR event, it is a sign of a trigerhappy management who either bit more that they could stomach or just made a false advertisement.

Actually this isn’t true, because MMOs aren’t like most products. MMOs are services. You’re not paying for a program, you’re paying for access to a world. That’s how it works.

I have had favorite rides at Disneyworld that have closed. It happens. Things change over time.

Most games dont’ have an over time, or at least didn’t. When I buy a driving game two years later, it’s pretty much the same game. Maybe some new tracks or new cars, but the game doesn’t fundamentally change. This isn’t true of MMOs and anyone that’s played a lot of MMOs would know this.

I can think of tons of reasons why something would change from what someone said. If I ran a health spa and I said I was going to put in a new machine and you were interested in it, but no one else used it, I’d take it out, even if it kittened you off. Because there’s limited room in the spa, and the machine wasn’t getting use. That’s probably why the Twilight Arbor forward/up path was replaced. Not enough people running it.

At the end of the day, an MMO is an ongoing thing, a world that changes. Have you looked at the difference between WoW when it launched and WoW now? Or Rift? Or SWTOR, or Age of Conan, or TSW, or Lotro or DDO, or Star Trek Online? They’re all vastly different games. And stuff any company says can change over a period of years.

That statement made by Colin was made five years ago. But this is true in the business world too. Once you see under new management sign anywhere, changes can happen. A new CEO takes over a corporation and that company can move in a new direction. It happens all the time.

Not sure how wise it is to put your faith in two paragraphs from a forum post from a single person in an ever changing world.

It’s been a while since I farmed dungeons, but wasn’t forward/forward the pain path no one ran? Spider/Bees were frequently speed-farmed paths back when that was a thing, I find it hard to believe it was the least run dungeon path in the game… which as a matter of fact IS the Anet-quoted reason for replacing it.

I suppose the lesson of this thread is take Arenanet quotes with a grain of salt.

Yea the only reason people dident run that path was the last boss was bugged spawned endless spiders that dident despawn so if you wiped once it was almost impossible to kill boss.

Instead of fixing the bug they removed the whole path.

I don’t really buy the idea that this is something they just forgot. There was a pattern right into MO’s tenure as game director.
- At the end of 2013, we got Molten Facility fractals that didn’t drop these rewards.
- In mid 2014, we got LW Season 1 items added to laurel vendors, but only specifically account bound items, not tradeable items like monocles, desert roses, molten jetpacks, etc.
- In 2016, they added Guaranteed Wardrobe unlocks, which also conspicuously left out the above LW season 1 items from their drop tables

These items almost certainly had to come up in conversations at those points, and they made the deliberate decision to exclude returning them to availability.

Like I said before, I’m generally against limited availability of content, and I’m glad ArenaNet has moved away from the concept for LW Season 2 and beyond. But I’m feeling pretty burned when the only interpretation that I can come up with here is that ArenaNet cynically cashed in on my trust.

And for the several people pointing out that it’s really my fault for trusting ArenaNet, I suppose I’ll have to learn that. But I’ve been a fan since Guild Wars Prophecies, I’ve bought every expansion for GW1 and GW2 plus plenty of the optional cosmetics in GW1 and gems in GW2, and I was super excited to go play in the Crystal Desert and to try out Soulbeast, and yet despite all that, I’m thinking that maybe I’ll give this expansion a skip and just go play something else.

It’s all just kind of depressing.

@Vayne
Sure, products change. Maybe in MMOs even more so than everywhere else. and yes, you are right when you say that it is stupid to cling to a sentence of a developer that is not even still in the company or that is a thing of the past.

But if that truly is the case:
Why make a statement, and more importantly, why listen to it? In my mind, this would mean that preordering is the embodyment of stupidity because you never know if the company does not pull a fast one on you.
If you push it to the extreme, it is false advertising which is illegal in some countries.
So either you put a disclaimer(personal opinion) in your statement as a developer, or you shut up even when fans push you.
Of course that would make PRing your game extremely difficult, and it is shady business and a sign of untrustworthyness with your own word.

Valediction.3275:

I logged in this week to poke around a bit and maybe decide to buy myself an expansion, and lo and behold I find my decorative molten jetpack’s price has crashed because there’s a new random box that is dumping them on the market.

Normally that would be a buyer beware sort of deal, but I’m pretty sure we were told explicitly that this wasn’t going to happen.

To be clear, I always thought having exclusive content like that was a bad idea. But given that I remember getting a specific statement saying they weren’t going to start dropping again, it seemed the safest asset to keep around to avoid keeping gold and watching it devalue due to inflation over time.

It’s particularly galling that the new drops aren’t coming from a reward for content or the return of Season 1, but instead from RNG boxes. It would have been a little easier to stomach watching my net worth drop 80% overnight if it didn’t feel quite so much like ArenaNet just cashing in to my detriment.

What gives?

I think something important to remember is that at the time of the statement Colin was the game director. Since then he has left and Mo took over and now Z is the GD. With a change in management often comes a change in policy. While I have no idea if it was Mo or Z that made the decision to bring them back it is clear that whichever one made that choice did not agree with Colin’s stance.

Ultimately the decision Colin made comes off as more of a personal choice than a business one. I see it as Colin wanted people to have some type of exclusive item while the different GD wanted to give players a chance to have these items even though they weren’t here to play the game at the time.

The important thing to remember here is that the role of GD often involves making personal choices and not business ones for their game. Sometimes they make a firm stance on something but can change their mind later down the road depending on factors like player feedback and/or change in management. A great example of this is a game called Overwatch. It’s a class based and team based PvP shooter. The GD for that,l game made a firm stance early on that they would not add a mode like free for all or deathmatch because he believed that those modes did not hold true to his vision for the game. Deathmatch was a very popular request and very recently they added it to the game stating that it was something the community has been asking for.

The role of GD means they have to make decisions that make the players happy and sometimes what makes the players happy is something that the GD may not of agreed with at the time. That’s when they are faced with the delimea of “should I stay with what I think the game should be or should I make a change the community has been asking for even though it does not fit my vision.”

ColinJohanson.2394:

Of course, the specific rewards and achievements will not return since those are intended to be completed as the story unfolds, but the content itself will be used to expand out our fractals experience and serve as a place to continue to experience great (and strange) moments in history.

I don’t see any “promise”.. I see CJ making a statement about the company’s plans releasing rewards. He even says “as those are intended” — intent, not “we promise never to do anything different.”

At best, there’s a reasonable case that ANet was saying that rewards wouldn’t return as non-content and (as some argued above), RNG boxes might not be considered as content.

But look at the alternative: here’s a bunch of items that were completely unobtainable or limited to a tiny number of souls who thought ahead (and invested/hoarded) or a tinier number who held on to a few for other reasons. Is it in the best interests of the community that these items should never return the game, given that ANet has no plans to release LS1 as a replayable storyline?

ANet’s made it clear over and over again that there are no guarantees about the market value of items. They reserve the right to change recipes, introduce superceding items, change mechanics, or otherwise make obsolete or common that item you were holding onto until it reached 3k in gold

Valediction.3275:

It’s all just kind of depressing.

If this depresses you, it might be a good time to take a break from the game because you are taking it way too serious.

Another question that I’m asking myself is: When did you plan to actually cash in? If I understand it correctly, you had this item for 5 years now. Were you even planning to sell it? It was at 4k gold, were you waiting for it to sell for 5k? In the last 5 years, the item didn’t add any value to your life, didn’t make your character look cooler, nothing. You could have played the game without it and nothing would have been different.

And isn’t that’s exactly the same situation as now? What exactly changed for you after the price drop? Are you playing differently? Do your characters look different? I’m pretty sure that since you never bothered to actually sell that skin to someone who would have enjoyed it for 4k gold, you would have kept it for another 5 years. Everybody loses, the person who would love to have that skin, and you because you held onto an item you don’t use. Now the people who want the skin can enjoy it, and for you nothing really changed. Sounds like a better situation to me than before.

How much time do you think ArenaNet should give people to cash in on rare items? Maybe they thought “people are not planning to sell them anyway, so they don’t really need the money, and we want other players to have access to the content.”

You could just play like you never owned this item, that’s basically what you did the last 5 years.

Valediction.3275:

I don’t really buy the idea that this is something they just forgot. There was a pattern right into MO’s tenure as game director.
- At the end of 2013, we got Molten Facility fractals that didn’t drop these rewards.
- In mid 2014, we got LW Season 1 items added to laurel vendors, but only specifically account bound items, not tradeable items like monocles, desert roses, molten jetpacks, etc.
- In 2016, they added Guaranteed Wardrobe unlocks, which also conspicuously left out the above LW season 1 items from their drop tables

And all the time they were constantly saying that they’d really, really like to bring LS1 back if they could only think of a way to do that. For all you know, they might have been working on such a way for years now, and it might have arrived at any point in the past. And your backpack would have plummeted in value then all the same.

No, you weren’t guaranteed it will never return. You only thought it’s going to be like that, and that’s only because it has suited you. In short, Anet didn’t deceive you. It’s you that deceived yourself.

Love when stuff like this happens.

Buy stuff because you think it’s cool and want to use it, not to play the market.

Moral of the story…… Always take what Anet says with a grain of salt

Dashingsteel.3410:

Moral of the story…… Always take what Anet says with a grain of salt

Real moral of the story: If you’re going to play an MMO expect things to change over time. I find it extremely unreasonable to expect that five years after someone says something to believe the situation will not have changed, sometimes significantly.

of course MMO’s change…… Anet also dreams big…… sometimes too big… Sometimes they say things before they realize the work involved…..

So, unless they use the words “this is a promise” or “we absolutely guarantee this”
take with a grain of salt

How do I get more of those boxes? I used the first one up and got a sprocket out of it. I want more sprockets.

I’m guessing the only way is through the gem store?

ElectricGoat.8253:

How do I get more of those boxes? I used the first one up and got a sprocket out of it. I want more sprockets.

I’m guessing the only way is through the gem store?

Only way to get sprocket is the gem store, but many of the individual items are on the TP right now as well.

That they did bring this back is imo a good thing. In fact, from the day they removed that dungeon I said they should bring that dungeon back including the rewards. Eventually we did get the dungeon back, but without the rewards.

The bigger problem is that now it finally is back, they did not put it in the dungeon but in some RNG boxes? The dungeon is still there (in fractals) put it in there and suddenly you have people interested in fractals again who were not interested in it for a long time.

Somehow they never seem to understand how to get a good reward system. Most implementations of rewards (like these RNG-boxes) result in people grinding gold to buy the items what results in a boring experience. It was, is and likely will stay one of the biggest issues with GW2.

Vayne.8563:

ElectricGoat.8253:

How do I get more of those boxes? I used the first one up and got a sprocket out of it. I want more sprockets.

I’m guessing the only way is through the gem store?

Only way to get sprocket is the gem store, but many of the individual items are on the TP right now as well.

You see Vayne, this is another example of why I have a problem with this system. ElectricGoat wants an item, and if those items where available in game he could now be doing dungeons, fractals and so on… the content that did reward that type of items he is after.

And when he was after the next items, there would be other dungeons or content rewarding it that he would go after.

But instead the only approach he has is grinding gold (what tends to burn people out) or buy it. MMO’s are for a big part reward driven games, if you then sell those items or put them behind a boring currency-grind that is negative.

Anyway, I just notice your reaction on this great example, and because we talked about this so many times I wanted to point this example out to you.

The rule of supply and demand.

And also, if it were possible to obtain through the game, i think the price would have been almost the same…

…or worse!
He could have done specific things:

-From tokens farm to time gating tasks.
-From random drops to Achievements/Boss kills ).
-From Mystic Forge RNG to Seasonal Content ( Oh i missed halloween… well, i only have to wait till next year! ).

Having the opportunity to buy it from the TP should be a Must for everything.
Maybe you won’t buy it from there, but you still had the choice.

I wanted HOPE as a legendary item.
Great i have plenty of golds… Checkin TP… oh… nothing? Oh Darn, i have to play and have no possibility to go through the TP.

I really wanted it so i did it at last, but it sucked that i had to play with no alternatives.

I made many golds through Winter’s JP.
Many people would have done Chest Farm Instead.
Others PVP/WvW.
And so on.

I understand that the choice here is unfair, due to the RNG drop of the Tokens, but this case apart it is really good to have the TP selling Everything.

Devata.6589:

Vayne.8563:

ElectricGoat.8253:

How do I get more of those boxes? I used the first one up and got a sprocket out of it. I want more sprockets.

I’m guessing the only way is through the gem store?

Only way to get sprocket is the gem store, but many of the individual items are on the TP right now as well.

You see Vayne, this is another example of why I have a problem with this system. ElectricGoat wants an item, and if those items where available in game he could now be doing dungeons, fractals and so on… the content that did reward that type of items he is after.

And when he was after the next items, there would be other dungeons or content rewarding it that he would go after.

But instead the only approach he has is grinding gold (what tends to burn people out) or buy it. MMO’s are for a big part reward driven games, if you then sell those items or put them behind a boring currency-grind that is negative.

Anyway, I just notice your reaction on this great example, and because we talked about this so many times I wanted to point this example out to you.

Ah but you see, the items weren’t really supposed to be back at all. The content attached to those items is no longer here. There are indeed plenty of items to go for in game, which you seem to ignore.

Furthermore, anyone can farm gold in game, by doing fractals and dungeons and content, and then use the gold to buy gems. So yes, you can play the game to get them. I’ve heard your argument before again and again. I didn’t agree with it then and I don’t agree with it now, for the same reason I’ve never agreed with it.

You have zero proof the company could support itself your way

Devata.6589:

Vayne.8563:

ElectricGoat.8253:

How do I get more of those boxes? I used the first one up and got a sprocket out of it. I want more sprockets.

I’m guessing the only way is through the gem store?

Only way to get sprocket is the gem store, but many of the individual items are on the TP right now as well.

You see Vayne, this is another example of why I have a problem with this system. ElectricGoat wants an item, and if those items where available in game he could now be doing dungeons, fractals and so on… the content that did reward that type of items he is after.

And when he was after the next items, there would be other dungeons or content rewarding it that he would go after.

But instead the only approach he has is grinding gold (what tends to burn people out) or buy it. MMO’s are for a big part reward driven games, if you then sell those items or put them behind a boring currency-grind that is negative.

Anyway, I just notice your reaction on this great example, and because we talked about this so many times I wanted to point this example out to you.

Yea but I belive alot of players want to have token system like the gears.
Just see how many threads there have been about egg sacks, invisble shoes, teqatil weapons etc.

Doing teq for example 250 times and getting 3 of the 16/19 if they have under water skins is just not fun in the long run.

Still saving up my Teq tail fragments and hope they will put in a trader for boxes.

ANet has said a lot of things over the years, and some of those things are no longer true. Cave ergo per ludio (let the player beware).

I wasn’t going to get involved but I will anyway.

Two thing:
1) Colin is gone, with his departure came a huge readjustment to the practices and direction of GW2. To believe that any promises that Colin made would be upheld is naive at best. So his assurances are less than worthless at this time.

2) What value, exactly? These are imaginary items in an imaginary economy that brings you nothing. What exactly do you gain by being the kingpin of the fake money of Tyria? Is it just the ability to buy more Gems with gold instead of real money that keeps you going? Or that you can have whatever you want on the trading post? Is there a cap to the amount of gold you can carry that you needed to convert it into items?

I’ve got a question. How may people here have legendary weapons? Out of those, how many would be okay if they put out a new RNG box in the gem store that dropped legendary weapons, and then prices on said items dropped by 90%+? I can’t help but think that a lot of people were okay with this only because it didn’t happen to their stuff.

Since a couple of you asked, I tend to jump in and out of games over time, and if I can manage it, I tend to fund my stretches playing by making long term investments so that when I come back, I can pick up new shinies without having to spend a bunch of time grinding out gold. I’ve bounced in and out of Guild Wars 2 multiple times along the way and sold off various bits I’ve had lying around (I sold off some desert roses well before their price eventually peaked) to do things like upgrade a guild hall, get new armor sets to gear out elite specs, etc. I funded my chest key runs in Guild Wars 1 for the Hall of Monuments by selling off Wintergreen gear.

At some point probably around the expansion coming out (unless there weren’t significant gold sinks), I would have sold the jetpack to fund whatever fun I was going to have there, maybe buy some more skins to better play dress up, and then buy some other, less expensive items to reinvest a lot of it so that if I got bored and wandered off to play other things again, I’d have money again the next time I showed back up.

That sort of thing is ultimately to ArenaNet’s benefit. I’m an adult with a job, and I’m sure not dedicating all of my free time to one game, so having a way that I can pop back in every once in a while gets them continued revenue when I buy expansions and occasionally dump money in to the gem store to support them. Heck, if I had just bought the gems I purchased with cash instead with gold, I probably would have sold the jetpack by now and come out fine.

Devata.6589:

The dungeon is still there (in fractals) put it in there and suddenly you have people interested in fractals again who were not interested in it for a long time.

Somehow they never seem to understand how to get a good reward system. Most implementations of rewards (like these RNG-boxes) result in people grinding gold to buy the items what results in a boring experience. It was, is and likely will stay one of the biggest issues with GW2.

Maybe you are the one that doesn’t understand reward systems in MMO games, but you think your experience and expertise in that field is greater than that of the people in charge at ArenaNet (and of people with common sense)

Can you even picture a situation where that backpack skin and other S1 rewards drop from Molten Boss fractal (after all, it’s the molten boss jetpack)? Everybody would have it within 2 days. People farm that fractal, it’s played thousands of times per day. It would turn all these items into trash. Soon people would start asking for them to be removed (or at least stack to 250) because deleting jetpacks and other items from the inventory takes time. They would be like Mini Professor Mew!

Being able to buy the items with gold is the maximum freedom you can give people. Even gems, since you can buy gems with gold. If you make the skin (example) a rare drop from Molten Boss, how is that not require players to grind? Molten Boss gives so much gold, you could just buy the skin from the TP after a while, maybe even before you get the drop. Personally, I find having the freedom to get gold in a way that suits me, better than having to grind a specific fractal. Somehow you seem to believe that the thousand ways of getting currency in a game is more grinding than doing a fractal over and over to get a drop.

@Valediction: your comparison with legendary weapons only applies in the following situation: Let’s say I got a precursor drop 5 years ago and then crafted a legendary weapon with it, and then put it in my bank. I’m not actually using it because I plan to sell it on the TP. Then I don’t do anything with it for 5 years. But in that time, other aquisition methods have been added to the game, and even people who didn’t get a very rare precursor drop were able to craft that weapon (like a quest that can be started at a Grandmaster Craftsman Hobbs). So, 5 years after I got that rare item, it suddenly is not that rare anymore and prices dropped. In addition to that, overt those 5 years, many people got the precursor for the weapon and saved a couple hundred gold.

How would I feel? I might kick my own ass because I didn’t sell it in those 5 years, then shrug it off and move on.

Your last paragraph reveals what your real bone here is. You feel entitled to passive income. You expect to drop into a game, get some stuff, then leave, come back after a year or two, and then sell that stuff for 1000% profit. And that might still work for you in 9 out of 10 attempts. It didn’t work with that skin because you waited too long (and you can still sell it for 400 gold btw). This is all on you, sorry. And I don’t have much sympathy with people who feel entitled to passive income and then start whining when they don’t get it.

Valediction.3275:

I’ve got a question. How may people here have legendary weapons? Out of those, how many would be okay if they put out a new RNG box in the gem store that dropped legendary weapons, and then prices on said items dropped by 90%+? I can’t help but think that a lot of people were okay with this only because it didn’t happen to their stuff.

There’s a difference – legendary gear is available in the game. All the new player needs to do to get it is to do the same things old players did. It’s not true with Molten Backpack because that content is gone.

Now, if you’re saying, that the better option would be to put it as a drop in Molten Duo fractal, then yes, i agree, that would be better.

But to answer your question: yes, i do have legendaries (more than one). I wouldn’t be opposed to making them more accessible by opening new sources for them (say, pvp and WvW avenues of obtaining legendary weapons). I’m not so sure about making them cheaper, but that’s not because i consider them an investment. It’s because they are one of the things that tend to take up my free time in the game. If i could buy them cheaper (and with such a price reduction i most likely would buy them), i’d end up with less things to do.

And if someone were to suggest, that the crafting of legendaries (that i already have) should be removed, so that the current ones would be the only ones in existence forever (and new players could get one only by buying them off tp), i’d oppose that very, very, very strongly. There should not be things whose acquisition methods are no longer available.