Guild Wars 2

So I really want this new weapon token right, like super seriously want it!

Is 40 supposed to be a magic number or something?

Well at least you can open 7 more chests

dinominator.9862:

Is 40 supposed to be a magic number or something?

No, it’s a joke on how the RNG from black lion chests for these new weapon skins is just a pathetic money-grubbing attempt from arena net.

Linnes.2678:

dinominator.9862:

Is 40 supposed to be a magic number or something?

No, it’s a joke on how the RNG from black lion chests for these new weapon skins is just a pathetic money-grubbing attempt from arena net.

NCSOFT, technically. Most anything having to do with monetization is handled by them (or more specifically, a monetization specialist placed by NCSOFT), while the remainder of the game design is handled by Anet.

Conncept.7638:

Linnes.2678:

dinominator.9862:

Is 40 supposed to be a magic number or something?

No, it’s a joke on how the RNG from black lion chests for these new weapon skins is just a pathetic money-grubbing attempt from arena net.

NCSOFT, technically. Most anything having to do with monetization is handled by them (or more specifically, a monetization specialist placed by NCSOFT), while the remainder of the game design is handled by Anet.

True on this, but apparently Arena Net can’t handle the rest of their game either. In terms of balances and updates. I really wonder how much hate they’re getting. You know they’re not gonna do a kitten thing about it though because “lol we got paid for your purchase already.”

Linnes.2678:

Conncept.7638:

Linnes.2678:

dinominator.9862:

Is 40 supposed to be a magic number or something?

No, it’s a joke on how the RNG from black lion chests for these new weapon skins is just a pathetic money-grubbing attempt from arena net.

NCSOFT, technically. Most anything having to do with monetization is handled by them (or more specifically, a monetization specialist placed by NCSOFT), while the remainder of the game design is handled by Anet.

True on this, but apparently Arena Net can’t handle the rest of their game either. In terms of balances and updates. I really wonder how much hate they’re getting. You know they’re not gonna do a kitten thing about it though because “lol we got paid for your purchase already.”

I really don’t think NCSofts meddling is as bad as some people think, I doubt it’s reached beyond the game economics and monetization. That may seem far fetched, but there are certain developers at ANet that would undoubtedly leave in a second if NCSoft ever overstepped certain bounds, and they haven’t. But if we ever see an unexplained massive exodus of GWs senior developers, we’ll know why.

If there are mistakes made, they’re most likely ANet’s (no matter how much we’d like to pin them on NCSOFT). But that’s pretty understandable in my opinion, this isn’t only a new game it’s practically a new genre of MMO.

dinominator.9862:

Is 40 supposed to be a magic number or something?

Nah, see this is the problem. The O.P. should of tried 42.

Gehirn.8796:

Nah, see this is the problem. The O.P. should of tried 42.

The answer to everything ^
(Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy)

Nice one

How much gold or $$ does 40 keys cost? Must be quite a lot lol.

Current price is 5 keys for 450 gems, so 3600 gems. That’s $45 I think.

To put it in perspective, that would buy you a whole expansion in WoW, or 3 months of game time.

Go look in the BLTC forums, and you’ll see that some people have opened 100 chests and received none, while others have opened 5 and gotten 1.

Well how else are they suppose to make money as it has no monthly charge not that i bought any but just saying

Well if you got to get every thing day one and unwilling to wait for them to add in ways to get the new skins to drop in game spend your money it sure helps Anet.

Beeca.9467:

Well how else are they suppose to make money as it has no monthly charge not that i bought any but just saying

They could just get rid of the stupid gold->gems conversion, and then sell things in the shop that people actually want to buy for real money, knowing that they will actually be bought with real money.

The idea behind gems to gold was that it would kill the gold-seller market, and it failed, abysmally; in fact it made gold-selling worse than I’ve ever seen it in any other game, because it literally gave the in-game currency a proportionate real-world value.

Conncept.7638:

Beeca.9467:

Well how else are they suppose to make money as it has no monthly charge not that i bought any but just saying

They could just get rid of the stupid gold->gems conversion, and then sell things in the shop that people actually want to buy for real money, knowing that they will actually be bought with real money.

The idea behind gems to gold was that it would kill the gold-seller market, and it failed, abysmally; in fact it made gold-selling worse than I’ve ever seen it in any other game, because it literally gave the in-game currency a proportionate real-world value.

but then they wouldn’t (as much) make money.

Linnes.2678:

Conncept.7638:

Beeca.9467:

Well how else are they suppose to make money as it has no monthly charge not that i bought any but just saying

They could just get rid of the stupid gold->gems conversion, and then sell things in the shop that people actually want to buy for real money, knowing that they will actually be bought with real money.

The idea behind gems to gold was that it would kill the gold-seller market, and it failed, abysmally; in fact it made gold-selling worse than I’ve ever seen it in any other game, because it literally gave the in-game currency a proportionate real-world value.

but then they wouldn’t (as much) make money.

Personally I believe the opposite will happen. There are two ends to manufacturing economics.

One is that you make your product so good that if anybody wants that product, yours is the one they want, and you profit from that reputation of quality, you will spend more but make more off each unit as a result.

The second is that you make your product as cheap as possible, and flood the market with it, people will buy it because it’s easy and cheap, and you will profit because you are spending so little to make it.

With the games development, they clearly followed the first venue, this game is high quality, no details missed, unique, everything you want in a luxury product. But since release, with every gem-store and item addition, it’s leaned heavily towards the second. You buy an RNG item which is almost guaranteed to be low-quality, and you are required to buy TONS of them just to get the high-quality item that players are attracted by.

This isn’t working, they already have over four million people they know want high-quality items and are willing to pay for them, because that many players already bought the game. But very few of those four million are buying into the gem store, because it’s not aiming for them as a market, it’s aiming for people that the game doesn’t attract. The RNG chest bit does fine in F2P grinder MMOs because that is what the playerbase in a free grinder MMO is looking for. It is not at all appealing to the market which GW2 has attracted.

They need to monetize for their audience, doing so will increase their profits, players want a straight price for a good quality product and will pay for it, they will not pay for this low-brow market flooding garbage.

I on the other hand spent $70 on Keys which netted me 70. Opended 70 BLC and nothing, got another 11 Keys from them and still nothing. RnG you are a Pain!!! IMO theres just to much loot in these chest to get what you want.

Just a thought— and a developer would have to chime in here for us to know the truth— but is it possible that the random number generator has some kind of bias? I don’t know if it’s seeded on system time, or noise from the sound card, or random pixels from the screen buffer or what… but there’s currently no such thing as a truly random number generator (though Intel is working on a hardware fix for that).

An interesting experiment would be something like this:

1) Get a couple hundred chests. Open the first 100 immediately. Count the number of tickets received.

2) Wait a bit.

3) Open 10 more chests.

4) Wait a bit.

5) Open 10 more chests. Repeat from step 4 until the remaining chests are opened. Count the number of tickets received this way.

Would there be more tickets received if you open the chests over a longer period of time?

Beeca.9467:

Well how else are they suppose to make money as it has no monthly charge not that i bought any but just saying

Sell the skins for 5 dollars a pop instead of hiding them in rng chests. Putting them in chests is meant to sucker people into spending more money than they otherwise would. Money grab pure and simple.

I think people would be far more likely to spend money on gems if they did that.

fellyn.5083:

Beeca.9467:

Well how else are they suppose to make money as it has no monthly charge not that i bought any but just saying

Sell the skins for 5 dollars a pop instead of hiding them in rng chests. Putting them in chests is meant to sucker people into spending more money than they otherwise would. Money grab pure and simple.

I think people would be far more likely to spend money on gems if they did that.

Pretty much this, I personally dropped a couple hundred on GW1 cash shop due to the fact that it was fair and I got what I wanted. Also the items received from it were ALL REUSABLE and ALL ACCOUNT-WIDE.

Linnes.2678:

dinominator.9862:

Is 40 supposed to be a magic number or something?

No, it’s a joke on how the RNG from black lion chests for these new weapon skins is just a pathetic money-grubbing attempt from arena net.

B-but you can just farm those keys.

Random Prize chests are always a “pathetic money-grubbing attempt.”
But look at the bright side… there’s nothing in them remotely required to enjoy the game.

Gehirn.8796:

dinominator.9862:

Is 40 supposed to be a magic number or something?

Nah, see this is the problem. The O.P. should of tried 42.

Should have*

I can’t even understand from where does this mistake come… It has no meaning, why would someone even use it.

Boy is my post gonna be unpopular..

Arenanet needs to eat to. I agree that the holiday lotteries were terribly lame, but some sort of revenue stream needs to come from something like this (as opposed to guaranteed cosmetic items like backpacks and whatnot). Everyone takes a chance, most take a lot of chances and invests in their own future content and entertainment.
You may not get your loot drop.. But you could be buying bug fixes, new dungeons, WvW features, class balance, expansions, etc..

Beeca.9467:

Well how else are they suppose to make money as it has no monthly charge not that i bought any but just saying

$15 monthly subscription.

vs

~$15-20 dollars for enough keys to do 47 attempts (he got none at 40)

then a couple more bucks on fine transmutation stones unless you care to farm the gold at the very high gem prices.

and a couple on more money on total makeover/hairstyle kits. WoW gives you a haircut for about, what 3 gold? That’s less than half of a low lv daily quest gold reward.

F2P games always end up being more expensive because they suckerpunch people into thinking everything they’re given is free while all the grinds are actually worse enough to encourage people to exchange gems for gold or use exploits in dungeons to make money.

It’s also why they are so harsh toward their competitors, the gold sellers. Subscription games fear less of gold sellers because most subscription games are not balanced around the economy — WoW never has drops costing the same proportion as precursors, and the prestige items (armor/weapons) outside trading card game mounts are not tradable. Instead on GW2, every major decision you see is carefully tailored for the economy like the rare loot nerf from open world chests — they don’t want too many people getting what they need for cheap because then they don’t buy gems and exchange it for those 250 ectoplasms they need to make an ascended infused backpiece.

@Nachtz

“Should of” kinda sounds like “Should av”
“Av” being what happens to Have when said with some accents.

Not correct. Pretty simple evolution of regional speech.

You should av known betta

Your Dakka, your responsibility

dinominator.9862:

Current price is 5 keys for 450 gems, so 3600 gems. That’s $45 I think.

To put it in perspective, that would buy you a whole expansion in WoW, or 3 months of game time.

Or a server transfer and half a mount. lol

…and 40 black lion chests gets us…

ear kitten

Beeca.9467:

Well how else are they suppose to make money as it has no monthly charge not that i bought any but just saying

They made money from the game itself, and make plenty of money from the store. There really is no excuse to add a ridiculous lottery to the game just to rob people of their money. I’m sure some states even have laws against online gambling.

TheBlackLeech.9360:

…and 40 black lion chests gets us…

ear kitten

ear kitten?

I quit.

I’m done.

michaeltm.6247:

@Nachtz

“Should of” kinda sounds like “Should av”
“Av” being what happens to Have when said with some accents.

Not correct. Pretty simple evolution of regional speech.

Lol what?
The answer is simple.
Should have contracts into should’ve… Which when you say it, it SOUNDS like ‘should of’…
So people who don’t know any better think ‘should of’ is correct because that’s how it sounds. They just don’t know their English well enough to know that when typed, you use ‘should have’.

It’s like people who have no concept of math think that 1 + 1 × 0 = 0.
They don’t know math well enough to realize the answer is 1.
I blame the public schooling systems.

If people don’t buy product X, then eventually they stop selling product X. They are still selling product X, so someone is buying product X. Then probably coming to the forums and crying about it.

Terok.7315:

Boy is my post gonna be unpopular..

Arenanet needs to eat to. I agree that the holiday lotteries were terribly lame, but some sort of revenue stream needs to come from something like this (as opposed to guaranteed cosmetic items like backpacks and whatnot). Everyone takes a chance, most take a lot of chances and invests in their own future content and entertainment.
You may not get your loot drop.. But you could be buying bug fixes, new dungeons, WvW features, class balance, expansions, etc..

I dont understand this, you act as if they didnt charge for the game. They did, it cost $60 and they sold over 4 million. They’ve been fed, the servers are paid for, for years to come. The revenue stream you talk about that needs to feed them is just gravy., pure profit after expenses. Nothing wrong with wanting profit but it costs, its costs us in a game that allows cheating (buying gold) costs us in the way the game is developed as a money grab isntead of as entertainment. Stupid people will buy black lion keys and keep encouraging them to make more of this. Thing is I wont ever spend real money on this game. I spent over $200 on accounts and expansion in gw1, I wont be spending anywhere near that on this game by the looks of it. If those gambling morons can make up that extra money for me then good for them, then the moron game will be filled with morons gambling on chests and I dont want to be apart of that crowd anyway. So, no loss for me.

Let’s not forget that locked chests can be sold on the TP. Enterprising individuals with a supply of chests could benefit from this surge in demand for chests and keys. The losses of many become the gains of a few.

dinominator.9862:

Current price is 5 keys for 450 gems, so 3600 gems. That’s $45 I think.

To put it in perspective, that would buy you a whole expansion in WoW, or 3 months of game time.

I think the prices are absolutely ridiculous to say the least.You can feed your family for 45$ for a few days honestly.I will never..ever..ever spend this kind of money on something as stupid as a ingame Key to open a chest that will grant you absolutely nothing of importance in return.Thank god were not being forced to buy this stuff though

Caedmon.6798:

dinominator.9862:

Current price is 5 keys for 450 gems, so 3600 gems. That’s $45 I think.

To put it in perspective, that would buy you a whole expansion in WoW, or 3 months of game time.

I think the prices are absolutely ridiculous to say the least.You can feed your family for 45$ for a few days honestly.I will never..ever..ever spend this kind of money on something as stupid as a ingame Key to open a chest that will grant you absolutely nothing of importance in return.Thank god were not being forced to buy this stuff though

I agree…

Just to keep it to gaming, you could buy 3-9 full games on steam for example, that would give you 1000’s of hours of entertainment and require no further cash outlay…

Anyone buying gems at this cost is either rich (so doesn’t care), totally addicted to GW2 (so doesn’t care) or just pain stupid (doesn’t know any better)…

michaeltm.6247:

@Nachtz

“Should of” kinda sounds like “Should av”
“Av” being what happens to Have when said with some accents.

Not correct. Pretty simple evolution of regional speech.

regional speech, yes.

As far as I know, we are not talking here, we are typing. I am not a native English speaker, yet I hate seeing a language being destroyed. “Should of” has 0 meaning, period.

Caedmon.6798:

I think the prices are absolutely ridiculous to say the least.

They do seem so.

Nachtz.4930:

michaeltm.6247:

@Nachtz

“Should of” kinda sounds like “Should av”
“Av” being what happens to Have when said with some accents.

Not correct. Pretty simple evolution of regional speech.

regional speech, yes.

As far as I know, we are not talking here, we are typing. I am not a native English speaker, yet I hate seeing a language being destroyed. “Should of” has 0 meaning, period.

You wouldn’t happen to be German would you?

bigtime.7410:

Terok.7315:

Boy is my post gonna be unpopular..

Arenanet needs to eat to. I agree that the holiday lotteries were terribly lame, but some sort of revenue stream needs to come from something like this (as opposed to guaranteed cosmetic items like backpacks and whatnot). Everyone takes a chance, most take a lot of chances and invests in their own future content and entertainment.
You may not get your loot drop.. But you could be buying bug fixes, new dungeons, WvW features, class balance, expansions, etc..

I dont understand this, you act as if they didnt charge for the game. They did, it cost $60 and they sold over 4 million. They’ve been fed, the servers are paid for, for years to come. The revenue stream you talk about that needs to feed them is just gravy., pure profit after expenses. Nothing wrong with wanting profit but it costs, its costs us in a game that allows cheating (buying gold) costs us in the way the game is developed as a money grab isntead of as entertainment. Stupid people will buy black lion keys and keep encouraging them to make more of this. Thing is I wont ever spend real money on this game. I spent over $200 on accounts and expansion in gw1, I wont be spending anywhere near that on this game by the looks of it. If those gambling morons can make up that extra money for me then good for them, then the moron game will be filled with morons gambling on chests and I dont want to be apart of that crowd anyway. So, no loss for me.

They sold over 3 million copies, nowhere does it say 4 million. Of the 3 million copies sold, some are retail copies. They don’t make the full boxed price on those, only a small percentage.

There are 270 devs at Anet, and they’ve been working for five years. Do you know how much that costs. Or rent on offices for five years? Or electricity? Or going to shows? Or advertising? Or insurance?

You sound like you’ve never run a business. I have. It’s not that simple to say they sold X amount of games, and they’ve been paid. They may well have recapped their investment already, but they sell less boxes each month as less people who would have bought the game are left without out. So that means they still have people they’re paying every month, still have rent, electricty, phone bills, convention bills, insurance, advertising and everything else…and they’re still producing content, which takes time and money.

Unless you have had a look at their bookkeeping system, you have no idea what their profit is, but looking at the NCsoft quarterly report, considering it’s a subsidary of that company, it’s the only product in the stable that’s producing.

I think you’re simplifying things far too much.

dinominator.9862:

Let’s not forget that locked chests can be sold on the TP. Enterprising individuals with a supply of chests could benefit from this surge in demand for chests and keys. The losses of many become the gains of a few.

Half a million locked chests available at 9 copper or less. I don’t think so.

What’s this? Black Lion chests are still not only near worthless if you got the key for free, but they’re a ripoff if you pay real money for them? How did that saying go about “Fool me one…”?

Really, you’d think that ANet would bother giving us some microtransactions worth paying for, but no, they’re just laughing away as they toss these glorified lottery tickets with a grand jackpot of five dollars!

I got one after about 10 chests when my real intention was trying to get some black lion salvage kits and fine transmutation stones.

Teofa Tsavo.9863:

dinominator.9862:

Let’s not forget that locked chests can be sold on the TP. Enterprising individuals with a supply of chests could benefit from this surge in demand for chests and keys. The losses of many become the gains of a few.

Half a million locked chests available at 9 copper or less. I don’t think so.

That could start to go the other way is what I was implying. People are already writing on here that they’ve spent upwards of $200 in real money to try to get these things. o.0

(I still can’t believe someone would spend that much for an item with a new skin, but let’s assume they do…)

If you think it is a problem, just don’t freaking buy them. Problem solved.

Look, you get a MMO with no subscription, woopee!

killcannon.2576:

Nachtz.4930:

michaeltm.6247:

@Nachtz

“Should of” kinda sounds like “Should av”
“Av” being what happens to Have when said with some accents.

Not correct. Pretty simple evolution of regional speech.

regional speech, yes.

As far as I know, we are not talking here, we are typing. I am not a native English speaker, yet I hate seeing a language being destroyed. “Should of” has 0 meaning, period.

You wouldn’t happen to be German would you?

Nop, sorry

My only issue is that we could have gotten some forewarning…..I used like 5keys on the 25th