Guild Wars 2

F o r u m b u g b o y s

Malediktus.9250:

-snap-

As for SAB skins, it finished all 4 sets this time, so if you can only get 3 out of 68 skins in 20 days you are doing something wrong. I also got the moto backpack and the blue sab cover.

And that’s the kind of attitude that just doesn’t belong in GW2.
Stop and think. YOU actually have NO idea, why someone wasn’t able to get more than 2 SAB skins this time around. To make this clear: I am NOT talking about myself here, all good with my SAB skins.
There are literally thousands of reasons why someone might have not been able to do it. Or anything else in the game. Just because it was easy for you doesn’t mean everyone else was “doing something wrong”. I am so sick of people not even realizing how unbelievably privileged they are at every single moment of their life without even realizing it.

No item in a game should be unobtainable for a certain group of people if a game truly wants to be community oriented. There are plenty of elitist “prestigious” (again, such thing doesn’t exist in a game as a fact but plenty of games have communities which happily make up prestige in their game because they need it to be happy) games on the market. I am SO glad GW2 isn’t one of them.

cakemonkey.6347:

From a financial standpoint limiting access seems pointless. They have to spend time which is money to pay these people to develop skins. Limiting availability to them is an absolute waste. When they make a skin they need to leave the method of acquisition in the game. Even if it is seasonal – like SAB, Wintersday, etc… Making a skin show up briefly never to be seen again is a waste of money.

Same goes for stuff like Living story season 1. The marionette should be back as a world boss. The dungeons that were made should be left permanently. They spent time and money making content just to take it out. Mechanics are there, stuff is designed, leave it out there.

as a possible counter, if the content has exploits then people will spend less time playing the game.

Firefly.5982:

Malediktus.9250:

-snap-

As for SAB skins, it finished all 4 sets this time, so if you can only get 3 out of 68 skins in 20 days you are doing something wrong. I also got the moto backpack and the blue sab cover.

And that’s the kind of attitude that just doesn’t belong in GW2.
Stop and think. YOU actually have NO idea, why someone wasn’t able to get more than 2 SAB skins this time around. To make this clear: I am NOT talking about myself here, all good with my SAB skins.
There are literally thousands of reasons why someone might have not been able to do it. Or anything else in the game. Just because it was easy for you doesn’t mean everyone else was “doing something wrong”. I am so sick of people not even realizing how unbelievably privileged they are at every single moment of their life without even realizing it.

No item in a game should be unobtainable for a certain group of people if a game truly wants to be community oriented. There are plenty of elitist “prestigious” (again, such thing doesn’t exist in a game as a fact but plenty of games have communities which happily make up prestige in their game because they need it to be happy) games on the market. I am SO glad GW2 isn’t one of them.

Well then there are thousands of reasons why they should not have those skins. There are 3800+ skins in this game, no need to make all of them easily accessible or cheap. If you want everything last skin (instead of being happy with a selection of skins the 85% of the easy skins) you better are willing to spend 200k+ gold and 10k hours on this game.
Not everyone is a winner in life or in games. People nowadays are so spoiled and entitled by bad parenting nowadays.

Ok so… I know I’m going against the group for the most part here… Here is the deal. I agree that exclusivity of skins within the game should be based upon accomplishing difficult or arduous tasks. That said, threads of this type pop up EVERY time the original Halloween skins pop up as a topic. I think that out of all the skins that have come out in this game that aren’t achievement or task based, these should have been exclusive. The reasoning I have for this is because they were the skins from the very first event GW2 ever had… You may call me as having special snowflake syndrome but I take great pride in the fact I was there since the beginning and I have the skins from the first event. It shows my dedication to the game.

Yes there are outliers given they were made sellable (something that shouldn’t have happened), but those are few and far between and up until now have only been the extremely wealthy. No I do not believe someone should have access to those skins because they weren’t there to get them. I was… MANY of us were… here from the start and as such those people should have stuff no longer available. To me, Anet re-releasing those skins, is a smack to the face to everyone who was there for the first Halloween event. Anet is basically telling us we don’t care you have been here for almost 4 years, Joe Schmo who has been playing for two days can get what you got way back when.

Oh and for the record, with about 5 days left in the 1st Halloween event, a banner popped up on the gem store that said and I quote “Only X days left to get one of the exclusive Halloween skins before they are gone FOREVER!” Had I known everyone would have a diaper fit over it every year I would have screen shot it…

This is why the next year they came out with different ones and it was a different event… They were never meant to return… It is due to Anet’s pandering to the whiny minority here on the forums they brought them back with the candy wrapper skritt… The whiners kept whining and now here we are… mystic forge drop table.

Anet isn’t getting another dime from me… ever… and I guarantee you I’ve spent more on this game than most of the users on this forum combined…

Well done Anet…

No.

Exclusive items breed a two tier community, which is bad all round for the game.

Take pride in being a snowflake Solomon, because apparently ANET thought we all were or we’d not have gotten the items or chance at them. Anything that was acquired from events that first year should be left exclusive period. Notice I said “events”, gem store items can be repeatable. If you weren’t there for the item then hey that’s just too bad, should’ve bought the game. Be there for the next one Anet runs events for days so no excuse. GAME ON

There’s different kinds of exclusive.

- Exclusively available at a specific type of content. (Wvw armor/pvp armor/backpieces/Raid armor etc)
- Exclusive one-time event items (Spinal backitems, Living world season 1 items that aren’t available anymore, rare halloween skins etc.)

I think the first one is fine, as it’s not unobtainable or unavailable (other than not being able to pass the challenge or refusing to play content). The second might not be unobtainable because TP, but at the very least the price just keeps going up and up, while the original effort involved doesn’t warrant for such a price. It’s really just people ripping eachother off by taking a chance and keeping or upping the lowest price.

Making something available again just means that the price doesn’t keep increasing needlessly.

Let’s be honest, this is what happenes when you meet a player wearing a lot of expensive skins:
You run past them in Lion’s Arch, you eat a nacho, and three seconds later you’ve officially forgotten that you ever even met said person.
Grow up, guys.

What does catch my eye from time to time though is players that mix different skins to create some really cool individual looks. It doesn’t take expensive skins to do that, you just need a good sense of composition and some creativity. And these are the players that make me stop to look at them, sometimes I even take a screenshot (;

I don’t think everyone should get every skin for free, working towards certain skins can actually feel very rewarding. But there’s no need for skins to be completely unobtainable or unreasonably expensive. Nevertheless, Anet should still keep at least some of them exclusive or really expensive, otherwise the lil’ kids won’t know what to wear.

Tasida.4085:

Take pride in being a snowflake Solomon, because apparently ANET thought we all were or we’d not have gotten the items or chance at them. Anything that was acquired from events that first year should be left exclusive period. Notice I said “events”, gem store items can be repeatable. If you weren’t there for the item then hey that’s just too bad, should’ve bought the game. Be there for the next one Anet runs events for days so no excuse. GAME ON

I just find it funny because every year I see these threads… or even worse ones whining specifically for certain skins… and yet none of them ever have any kind of counter argument to my FACT about what the banner said in the gem store at the end of the first Halloween… I guess sense of entitlement far outweighs one’s capability to hold a logical debate…

I always find “sense of entitlement” to be a phrase that more accurately describes the opinion of “I was there and you weren’t so I deserve this nice thing and you don’t” than it describes the opinion of “other people also having the chance to get nice things is a good thing”.

Your Mad King says… shrug.

I stand by exclusive. Example: If someone wasn’t there at beta/launch they absolutely should not have the ball cap, and any event items received in S1 should stay exclusive as well. Be it hats, wings, titles etc. Any wanting it should have been there (regardless of excuses.) Again gem store items are fine for repeating but not event items…And yes this kind of post usually always pops up every few months when some newcomer sees an item another is wearing and desires it. So this thread will be repeated in couple months tops. GAME ON

Solomon Darkfury.3729:

and yet none of them ever have any kind of counter argument to my FACT about what the banner said in the gem store at the end of the first Halloween…

They’re back! Why do we still need a counter argument?

Back then they decided that these skins should be gone forever. Many months later they probably felt like their previous decision was wrong, and decided to bring them back instead. They basically admit that they made a mistake back then and want to go another way now, and admitting mistakes is actually something that I respect a lot.

They probably underestimated how difficult it is to make predictions for a time span as long as “forever”.

Time exclusive items should be a rare occurrence and the items should be easily obtained by those who want them within the timeframe given to earn it. I do not include yearly festival items that return yearly to be time exclusive.

Content exclusive items should be what the majority of exclusive items should be. Content that will be around for forever, or at the foreseeable future. This can be difficult content or easy content, or somewhere in between.

Conski Deshan.2057:

@Ashen, It’s your hobby your ability within a hobby can be as important to a person as anything else in their life, doesn’t matter if it’s Olympic swimming, card shuffling, ping pong, grass growing or MMO gaming. The “prestige” is contained within the activity (no one’s arguing that putting yourself through college and being good at a game are comparable).
(Actually that’s why gold conversion irks me so much you’re using an external force to influence your position in the hobby unfairly rather than improving as a hobbiest in the activity.)

Sorry for the delayed response.

The thing of it is that everything involves an external force to influence your position in the hobby.

One person has more time to play than another and so has more AP, or is more practiced in a given game mode, becoming more skilled in the process. All because he doesn’t have to work three jobs to just survive.

Where does unfair external influence begin and end? One player’s employment situation provides him with more time to play for rewards, another provides him with more money to buy what he wants. In both cases it is an external influence involving their financial/employment circumstances that determines their situation in game.

This is why I advocate for a variety of approaches.

Some rewards are earned through dedication of time.
Some rewards are earned through overcoming difficult challenges.
Some rewards are earned through the expenditure of money.

I do not think that there should be much, if any, crossover in these categories though. Something that is earned through time dedication should not be purchaseable for real money, and vice versa.

AzureSky.3175:

Solomon Darkfury.3729:

and yet none of them ever have any kind of counter argument to my FACT about what the banner said in the gem store at the end of the first Halloween…

They’re back! Why do we still need a counter argument?

Back then they decided that these skins should be gone forever. Many months later they probably felt like their previous decision was wrong, and decided to bring them back instead. They basically admit that they made a mistake back then and want to go another way now, and admitting mistakes is actually something that I respect a lot.

They probably underestimated how difficult it is to make predictions for a time span as long as “forever”.

And again… a testament of Anet pandering to the vocal minority of the whiny forums…

Solomon Darkfury.3729:

And again… a testament of Anet pandering to the vocal minority of the whiny forums…

Because voicing your desire to have the ability to acquire a skin in the game makes you a “whiner”. Wanting to have the opportunity to earn skins is completely reasonable and I have yet to see a reasonable argument as to why people shouldn’t be able to earn them if they can.

If the skins were just being handed out that would be one thing, but that’s not the case.

Fermi.2409:

Solomon Darkfury.3729:

And again… a testament of Anet pandering to the vocal minority of the whiny forums…

Because voicing your desire to have the ability to acquire a skin in the game makes you a “whiner”. Wanting to have the opportunity to earn skins is completely reasonable and I have yet to see a reasonable argument as to why people shouldn’t be able to earn them if they can.

If the skins were just being handed out that would be one thing, but that’s not the case.

Because no offense… if you weren’t actually there at the first event in the HISTORY of GW2… honestly… you shouldn’t have them…

Why? What reasoning is there behind that statement?

Fermi.2409:

Why? What reasoning is there behind that statement?

Ummmm because you weren’t there? Let me use an analogy… You want to buy a corvette when you are 20 but you don’t have enough money. You are now 40 and want to get the same Corvette… but wait… it’s been discontinued and now classic… You can find it on a secondary market for a premium price… Wat do you think Chevy would do if you asked them to re release the model?

The principle is the same… you weren’t there or couldn’t afford it… sorry for ya…

Do you go to car shows and call collectors special snowflakes or elitists because they have a car you want?

Not everyone can have everything nor should they… get over it

Solomon Darkfury.3729:

Ummmm because you weren’t there?

Why does that matter? I wasn’t there for SAB originally, either, but I went ahead and did the content to earn the rewards when they brought it back recently. It’s perfectly fair.

Solomon Darkfury.3729:

Let me use an analogy… You want to buy a corvette when you are 20 but you don’t have enough money. You are now 40 and want to get the same Corvette… but wait… it’s been discontinued and now classic… You can find it on a secondary market for a premium price… Wat do you think Chevy would do if you asked them to re release the model?

That’s a really, really poor analogy; it’s not a car, it’s a virtual item. Having the MF drop tables altered is a fair bit different from having Chevy redo their production lines to make new 1960 Corvettes.

Solomon Darkfury.3729:

The principle is the same… you weren’t there or couldn’t afford it… sorry for ya…

Except for there being no real reason for it to be “you were there or you’re kittened” besides your desire to be a special snowflake because you jumped in at the start.

Solomon Darkfury.3729:

Do you go to car shows and call collectors special snowflakes or elitists because they have a car you want?

No, I called you a special snowflake because you’re so defensive of being one of the few with the skins. It’s pretty much a textbook example of special snowflakeism. Not to mention the entitlement you seem to feel to the skins just because you showed up at a given time.

I don’t even want any of these rereleased skins. It’s just fair that everyone has a chance to earn them in some shape or form. There’s no reason to prevent people from earning them just because they didn’t happen to be playing the game at a given time.

Solomon Darkfury.3729:

Not everyone can have everything nor should they… get over it

Apparently anet thinks otherwise. “Get over it”.

I agree on the idea that not everyone should have everything, but when it comes to things like skins in this game, yes, everyone should have the chance to earn them (reasonably; having to pay 3500g for something because the supply hasn’t been replenished in years is ridiculous).

No very kittened off, i found out the Wizard hat was exclusive so i’ll never get that now, all that does is upset me, make me want to leave..

Fermi.2409:

Solomon Darkfury.3729:

Ummmm because you weren’t there?

Why does that matter? I wasn’t there for SAB originally, either, but I went ahead and did the content to earn the rewards when they brought it back recently. It’s perfectly fair.

Solomon Darkfury.3729:

Let me use an analogy… You want to buy a corvette when you are 20 but you don’t have enough money. You are now 40 and want to get the same Corvette… but wait… it’s been discontinued and now classic… You can find it on a secondary market for a premium price… Wat do you think Chevy would do if you asked them to re release the model?

That’s a really, really poor analogy; it’s not a car, it’s a virtual item. Having the MF drop tables altered is a fair bit different from having Chevy redo their production lines to make new 1960 Corvettes.

Solomon Darkfury.3729:

The principle is the same… you weren’t there or couldn’t afford it… sorry for ya…

Except for there being no real reason for it to be “you were there or you’re kittened” besides your desire to be a special snowflake because you jumped in at the start.

Solomon Darkfury.3729:

Do you go to car shows and call collectors special snowflakes or elitists because they have a car you want?

No, I called you a special snowflake because you’re so defensive of being one of the few with the skins. It’s pretty much a textbook example of special snowflakeism.

I don’t even want any of these rereleased skins. It’s just fair that everyone has a chance to earn them in some shape or form. There’s no reason to prevent people from earning them just because they didn’t happen to be playing the game at a given time.

Solomon Darkfury.3729:

Not everyone can have everything nor should they… get over it

Apparently anet thinks otherwise. “Get over it”.

I agree on the idea that not everyone should have everything, but when it comes to things like skins in this game, yes, everyone should have the chance to earn them (reasonably; having to pay 3500g for something because the supply hasn’t been replenished in years is ridiculous).

1) SAB was always meant to return… they just broke it in an update… Nullifying point one of yours

2) How is comparing premium discontinued item versus premium discontinued car a bad analogy? Nullifying your second point

3) Why is it so bad that the players that supported the game from the beginning… that helped fund the game via the gem store during that first event… that they have stuff exclusive to them for said long term support? It’s not special snowflakism… it just what is right because we have been supporting the game since launch and you haven’t.

4) And again… I’m sure car collectors would feel the same way… I guess that makes them special snowflakes and elitists too huh?

5) Anet pandering to the vocal minority will ruin this game… and bc of said pandering, particularly in this case they have lost my SUBSTANTIAL financial support via the gem store… hope they are happy pleasing the $5 a month spending casuals…

cakemonkey.6347:

From a financial standpoint limiting access seems pointless. They have to spend time which is money to pay these people to develop skins. Limiting availability to them is an absolute waste. When they make a skin they need to leave the method of acquisition in the game. Even if it is seasonal – like SAB, Wintersday, etc… Making a skin show up briefly never to be seen again is a waste of money.

Same goes for stuff like Living story season 1. The marionette should be back as a world boss. The dungeons that were made should be left permanently. They spent time and money making content just to take it out. Mechanics are there, stuff is designed, leave it out there.

All of this. I also see no reason to limit skins and to let stuff go to waste in a scenario where Anet is hard pressed to give out any kind of content as it seems.

Solomon Darkfury.3729:

2) How is comparing premium discontinued item versus premium discontinued car a bad analogy? Nullifying your second point

This was already explained. Nullifying your point.

Solomon Darkfury.3729:

3) Why is it so bad that the players that supported the game from the beginning… that helped fund the game via the gem store during that first event… that they have stuff exclusive to them for said long term support?

Why does the fact that they bought in earlier entitle them to special rewards? Not to mention that everyone who bought the game supported Anet, and you didn’t have to buy in at launch to be a “long term supporter” at this point anyways.

Solomon Darkfury.3729:

It’s not special snowflakism… it just what is right because we have been supporting the game since launch and you haven’t.

It’s “right” that you get exclusive access to things just because you picked up the game earlier? That’s utterly ridiculous. You got the game earlier, so you got a headstart on getting up and running and enjoying the game. Why should you also get further ingame rewards?

Solomon Darkfury.3729:

4) And again… I’m sure car collectors would feel the same way… I guess that makes them special snowflakes and elitists too huh?

And again, the car collector analogy is absolutely terrible. Not only that, but most car people I know would be ecstatic at the opportunity to get more people/new blood into the scene since having more people around who enjoy similar things creates a big community. Still, not relevant at all here.

Solomon Darkfury.3729:

5) Anet pandering to the vocal minority will ruin this game… and bc of said pandering, particularly in this case they have lost my SUBSTANTIAL financial support via the gem store… hope they are happy pleasing the $5 a month spending casuals…

And you have… what to back up the fact that it’s a “vocal minority” requesting that these skins are readded to the game? Oh right, nothing?

And it’s kind of sad that you’re letting the fact that other people get skins and you no longer get to be special completely ruin the game for you. Like, being the exclusive king of skins in a game is so important to you?

Solomon Darkfury.3729:

5) Anet pandering to the vocal minority will ruin this game… and bc of said pandering, particularly in this case they have lost my SUBSTANTIAL financial support via the gem store… hope they are happy pleasing the $5 a month spending casuals…

Considering an MMO lives and dies by it’s player base size, I’d say swapping out a whale for a group of small spenders while breaking even is a net gain for the game.

Kind of a hollow threat to be honest…

Personally I would like ANet to continue removing the exclusivity of items. I’m not one to care about prestige. For example, I went after Trib skins because I wanted the skin, and I did that back in the first run, before any of this exploit nonsense. The only thing that bothers me about the exploit is that ANet is being inconsistent in its handling of how they punish exploits.

But people getting the skins? Hey, whatever. As long as they like the skin.

This is a video game, and there’s no need to do this whole “have and have not” thing like in real life. People need to get over their kittens, cause they’re really not all that big.

Ashen.2907:

Sorry for the delayed response.

The thing of it is that everything involves an external force to influence your position in the hobby.

One person has more time to play than another and so has more AP, or is more practiced in a given game mode, becoming more skilled in the process. All because he doesn’t have to work three jobs to just survive.

Where does unfair external influence begin and end? One player’s employment situation provides him with more time to play for rewards, another provides him with more money to buy what he wants. In both cases it is an external influence involving their financial/employment circumstances that determines their situation in game.

This is why I advocate for a variety of approaches.

Some rewards are earned through dedication of time.
Some rewards are earned through overcoming difficult challenges.
Some rewards are earned through the expenditure of money.

I do not think that there should be much, if any, crossover in these categories though. Something that is earned through time dedication should not be purchaseable for real money, and vice versa.

I still consider time spent IN the hobby as more than gold I realise the balance of this is different for different people depending on the job but it’s still how I feel (even now that I have far less time to play).

I agree with the mix of item acquisition methods, I’ve always thought:
30% Gold/Gem acquirable
30% Time investment acquirable
30% skill based acquirable “challenge”
10% Event/exclusives/one offs
was a good mix for a game to have and very few people would be arguing if that was the case, unfortunately the first one has a significantly higher portion and regularly pilfers skins from the other sections (I.E if it’s available for runs then it’s considered gold acquirable).

AzureSky.3175:

Let’s be honest, this is what happenes when you meet a player wearing a lot of expensive skins:
You run past them in Lion’s Arch, you eat a nacho, and three seconds later you’ve officially forgotten that you ever even met said person.
Grow up, guys.

What does catch my eye from time to time though is players that mix different skins to create some really cool individual looks. It doesn’t take expensive skins to do that, you just need a good sense of composition and some creativity. And these are the players that make me stop to look at them, sometimes I even take a screenshot (;

I don’t think everyone should get every skin for free, working towards certain skins can actually feel very rewarding. But there’s no need for skins to be completely unobtainable or unreasonably expensive. Nevertheless, Anet should still keep at least some of them exclusive or really expensive, otherwise the lil’ kids won’t know what to wear.

I said it earlier in the thread; Prestige is a perception for the person, they don’t actually need you to notice, it’s if they feel they have succeeded in their goal of having a nice exclusive outfit. compliments are nice but not necessary.
It is a little disappointing when your full set of TA dyed in cool colours get more complements than the nice glowing outfit you pieced together but it can be lived with.

Also no need for insults they have a different viewpoint to you , doesn’t mean either side is right or older.

Rashagar.8349:

I always find “sense of entitlement” to be a phrase that more accurately describes the opinion of “I was there and you weren’t so I deserve this nice thing and you don’t” than it describes the opinion of “other people also having the chance to get nice things is a good thing”.

Your Mad King says… shrug.

I’ve always seen entitlement as the “I have a right to have this item”, If you take a player pro-exclusives and one anti-exclusives and both of them don’t get the item, the anti one will be on the forums complaining while the pro will be hunting for the next one in the hopes of getting it.
They may think they’ve earned an item though. In this case they would obviously be disappointed when someone comes along bypasses the effort they invested and just nabs the item easily.

In any case there are currently 4061 skins in the game I think there is plenty of room to have some exclusive, no one is expected to be able to get them all

Fermi.2409:

Solomon Darkfury.3729:

2) How is comparing premium discontinued item versus premium discontinued car a bad analogy? Nullifying your second point

This was already explained. Nullifying your point.

Solomon Darkfury.3729:

3) Why is it so bad that the players that supported the game from the beginning… that helped fund the game via the gem store during that first event… that they have stuff exclusive to them for said long term support?

Why does the fact that they bought in earlier entitle them to special rewards? Not to mention that everyone who bought the game supported Anet, and you didn’t have to buy in at launch to be a “long term supporter” at this point anyways.

Solomon Darkfury.3729:

It’s not special snowflakism… it just what is right because we have been supporting the game since launch and you haven’t.

It’s “right” that you get exclusive access to things just because you picked up the game earlier? That’s utterly ridiculous. You got the game earlier, so you got a headstart on getting up and running and enjoying the game. Why should you also get further ingame rewards?

Solomon Darkfury.3729:

4) And again… I’m sure car collectors would feel the same way… I guess that makes them special snowflakes and elitists too huh?

And again, the car collector analogy is absolutely terrible. Not only that, but most car people I know would be ecstatic at the opportunity to get more people/new blood into the scene since having more people around who enjoy similar things creates a big community. Still, not relevant at all here.

Solomon Darkfury.3729:

5) Anet pandering to the vocal minority will ruin this game… and bc of said pandering, particularly in this case they have lost my SUBSTANTIAL financial support via the gem store… hope they are happy pleasing the $5 a month spending casuals…

And you have… what to back up the fact that it’s a “vocal minority” requesting that these skins are readded to the game? Oh right, nothing?

And it’s kind of sad that you’re letting the fact that other people get skins and you no longer get to be special completely ruin the game for you. Like, being the exclusive king of skins in a game is so important to you?

Again I am not understanding how comparing one type of discontinued item to another is a poor analogy…

In regards to buying the game earlier entitling me to special rewards… that is not what I said… The Halloween skins were EXTREMELY rare BL chest drops. That means you had to spend a ton of money on keys to get the ones you wanted. That means I was there… for the first event and showed my support for their creative devlopment in the early days (the most crucial ones) financially well beyond the cost of the initial game purchase.

Your poor attempt at validating your point regarding car collectors has one fatal flaw… They would NEVER want new blood at the cost of devaluing their own collectible vehicles…

Just look at statistics for how gaming forums are the vocal minority in the gaming world… The majority of people who go on to forums do so in order to complain. Hence the inherent negativity of the majority of posts. It has been like that for every game since online game and critical forums first came about. There are exponential amount more of people who just play a game and have no problem with the status quo, therefore yes… whiny forum users who complain about wanting this that and the other are the vocal minority in ALL gaming communities…

People who get enjoyment out of other people not having things they already have are still the worst kind of people.

Solomon Darkfury.3729:

Ok so… I know I’m going against the group for the most part here… Here is the deal. I agree that exclusivity of skins within the game should be based upon accomplishing difficult or arduous tasks. That said, threads of this type pop up EVERY time the original Halloween skins pop up as a topic. I think that out of all the skins that have come out in this game that aren’t achievement or task based, these should have been exclusive. The reasoning I have for this is because they were the skins from the very first event GW2 ever had… You may call me as having special snowflake syndrome but I take great pride in the fact I was there since the beginning and I have the skins from the first event. It shows my dedication to the game.

What about me then?

I pre-purchased GW2 on the very first day it was available, I’ve been playing since the first beta and played the game since release without a break longer than a week or so.

But I don’t have a Halloween skin.

Is that because I’m not as “dedicated” as people who do? I chose not to waste real money gambling on virtual items, which means I never had a chance at getting one of those skins (except by buying them from the TP) and certainly never felt required to do so simply to meet the arbitrary requires of other players looking for an excuse to judge those around them.

(Besides which the Halloween skins were never intended to work that way – they’d already covered that base with the ridiculous Celebration Hat. Unless of course you weren’t there to get one and have to tell yourself what’s essentially the first set of Black Lion weapon skins is the same thing because it’s all you could get.)

Conski Deshan.2057:

I said it earlier in the thread; Prestige is a perception for the person, they don’t actually need you to notice, it’s if they feel they have succeeded in their goal of having a nice exclusive outfit. compliments are nice but not necessary.
It is a little disappointing when your full set of TA dyed in cool colours get more complements than the nice glowing outfit you pieced together but it can be lived with.

This might sound strange but it depends on the person. I have on more than one occasion seen someone complain that they “wasted” money on a legendary because they’ve had it for a week or a couple of weeks or whatever and no one has whispered them to say they’re impressed they have it or it’s really cool to see one or whatever.

More commonly I’ve seen people asking for advice on what skins and dyes they “should” be using because they want to make sure they’re using the ones that people will be surprised and impressed to see, ones that will get other players to stop and look.

Both of which seems odd to me because what gets me to stop and look at another player is a great combination. Skins that work well together, dyed in colours that suit them, maybe to create an overall theme. It doesn’t matter what that is – my “other people” screenshot folder has about an equal mix of people who look like NPCs, people who dressed to match their Bifrost or Dreamer, someone who actually made all the electro dyes work together (and I think she did use all of them) and people who have made ‘themed’ characters like in-game cosplay or a GW1 paragon.

But the only time I can remember a single item making me stop and look it was the first time I saw a SAB weapon, I didn’t know they existed and it looked so out of place it totally threw me.

The problem with the “Collectible cars” analogy is that cars are real, physical objects that, even once you have the design made, take thousands of dollars worth of labor, materials, and other infrastructure to produce. And, being physical objects, each one is unique. There will never be any more 1956 Chevy Impalas, because it’s not 1956 anymore. If someone wants their car to look like that model impala, they can still probably find a way to convert another vehicle’s chassis to match the appearance, or, at an extreme case, build a brand-new one based on the old designs – but it still wouldn’t be a Chevy Impala – it would simply be a replica.

Solomon Darkfury.3729:

Ummmm because you weren’t there? Let me use an analogy… You want to buy a corvette when you are 20 but you don’t have enough money. You are now 40 and want to get the same Corvette… but wait… it’s been discontinued and now classic… You can find it on a secondary market for a premium price… Wat do you think Chevy would do if you asked them to re release the model?

If there’s enough demand for the model, Chevy would look into restarting production, though they’d first have to make sure it’s compatible with safety and environmental regulations. But even if Chevy were to release a “2016 Vintage ’96 Corvette” model, it still wouldn’t be a true ’96 Corvette, simply due to the effects of the passage of time and differences in manufacturing process. Of course, car collectors would probably enjoy a new supply of parts to maintain their true classic models.

If I wanted to, I could have the Mona Lisa hanging on the wall of my house. Not the original one, of course, but a replica of some sort (If I’m really cheap, I could print off a copy of it on an 8″×11″ piece of printer paper and tack it to the wall. Or, I could spend a fortune to commission a painter to create a faithful recreation of it)

With virtual items, though, there isn’t a difference between the new and old, and there’s also no point expecting it to be artificially enforced.

also

and yet none of them ever have any kind of counter argument to my FACT about what the banner said in the gem store at the end of the first Halloween…

What banner? The banner promised only you and those who saw that banner that they’d be gone forever. In fact, upon that message being displayed on your screen, the game client tagged your account to never be able to acquire those skins again after the event. But that doesn’t hold true for anyone else. Nobody else was told that those skins will never return, and there’s no official source currently saying they will never return.

… time to drop the serious.

In fact, the skins are currently for sale in the gem store for those who never saw that banner, for a single gem a piece for any of them. Not only that, but they’re also being handed out in daily chests, as random mob drops (I got 13 last week alone!) and as a bonus log-in reward, all able to be almost freely sold on the Trading Post… but accounts that did see that warning are tagged and completely locked out of these new copies of the skins, not listing the sell and buy orders of the new, freely-dropping skins, unable to see the listing in the gem store, and excluded from the daily chests and mob/bag RNG. Sucks to be you, missing out on this Formerly Exclusive Skin bonanza.

“exclusive” meaning that you have to do some particular activity and/or do it well to obtain it, sure, there should be exclusive skins for that.

“exclusive” meaning that someone who joined the game a year after launch or at HoT launch can’t obtain it without paying 1000’s of gold to the TP guy who bought up all the supply? No. There’s no prestige in anything that can be bought anyways.

Solomon Darkfury.3729:

And again… a testament of Anet pandering to the vocal minority of the whiny forums…

Did it ever occur to you that you might be part of the actual vocal minority of the whiny forums? Halloween skins are back, and everyone seems to either be happy with it or just don’t care – except for a vocal minority here in the whiny forums.

Solomon Darkfury.3729:

particularly in this case they have lost my SUBSTANTIAL financial support via the gem store… hope they are happy pleasing the $5 a month spending casuals…

Wow, I’m sure the Anet employees will have so many sleepless nights now that you’ve stopped buying gems. If they want this game to continue to exist, they should really base all their decisions only around your opinion.

Solomon Darkfury.3729:

SAB was always meant to return… they just broke it in an update… Nullifying point one of yours

SAB skins were originally not intended to return. That’s why the second SAB release featured a completely different set of blue weapons than the first one. Nevertheless they decided to bring back all of them this year, contrary to their former decision, and that’s a good thing!

Solomon Darkfury.3729:

Anet pandering to the vocal minority will ruin this game…

I really wonder why you think that Anet does not know that there’s only a vocal minority on the forums. By the way, the people that wanted the Halloween skins back were a really small minority within this minority. Do you think Anet cared that much about their opinions?
No, they don’t. They just thought it’d be nice to make the skins more available again! And that’s okay!

The TP prices stopped to represent the demand of people who want to use this skin long ago. The prices were artificially inflated by hoarders and flippers – their actual value became visible again earlier this year, when prices suddenly started to crash. It crashed because there was so much supply left, but demand by people who wanted them for their skin and not for flipping was really really low.
Prices didn’t fall that badly since then, so the mystic forge itself didn’t even affect them that much. These skins actual uninflated value just wasn’t that high to begin with, and Anet just made them available again for uninflated prices.

cakemonkey.6347:

From a financial standpoint limiting access seems pointless. They have to spend time which is money to pay these people to develop skins. Limiting availability to them is an absolute waste. When they make a skin they need to leave the method of acquisition in the game. Even if it is seasonal – like SAB, Wintersday, etc… Making a skin show up briefly never to be seen again is a waste of money.

Same goes for stuff like Living story season 1. The marionette should be back as a world boss. The dungeons that were made should be left permanently. They spent time and money making content just to take it out. Mechanics are there, stuff is designed, leave it out there.

except, when you make one skin more available, you reduce the use of all other skins. Uhhh, numbers:
let’s say 100 people in the game
10 have weapon A, 10 have weapon B, … 10 have weapon J
if you release weapon K, 1 from weapons A-J will switch to it and there will be ~9 on each
if you re-release weapon B, 1 from weapons A,C-J will switch to it. now you have 8 on A, 19 on B, 8 on C-J, 9 on K
most people go with the latest and craziest new shiny. by re-releasing old shinies, people abandon the newer shinies in favor of them. you devalue recent items by adding old ones. you don’t just top off a cup of water, you have to fill that cup with water from another cup.

Danikat.8537:

Solomon Darkfury.3729:

Ok so… I know I’m going against the group for the most part here… Here is the deal. I agree that exclusivity of skins within the game should be based upon accomplishing difficult or arduous tasks. That said, threads of this type pop up EVERY time the original Halloween skins pop up as a topic. I think that out of all the skins that have come out in this game that aren’t achievement or task based, these should have been exclusive. The reasoning I have for this is because they were the skins from the very first event GW2 ever had… You may call me as having special snowflake syndrome but I take great pride in the fact I was there since the beginning and I have the skins from the first event. It shows my dedication to the game.

What about me then?

I pre-purchased GW2 on the very first day it was available, I’ve been playing since the first beta and played the game since release without a break longer than a week or so.

But I don’t have a Halloween skin.

Is that because I’m not as “dedicated” as people who do? I chose not to waste real money gambling on virtual items, which means I never had a chance at getting one of those skins (except by buying them from the TP) and certainly never felt required to do so simply to meet the arbitrary requires of other players looking for an excuse to judge those around them.

(Besides which the Halloween skins were never intended to work that way – they’d already covered that base with the ridiculous Celebration Hat. Unless of course you weren’t there to get one and have to tell yourself what’s essentially the first set of Black Lion weapon skins is the same thing because it’s all you could get.)

awwwwww sorry… you chose not to spend the money to get them then… and now are upset you don’t have them? are you serious? lololol

Answering the OP

1) I disagree with ANet’s take on this. Yes they probably couldn’t (and to my knowledge didn’t) fix it before SAB went away but saying it’s okay simply encouraged it while if they said it wasn’t wouldn’t have stopped it but it wouldn’t have blown up so big.

2) I have no problem with them returning skins that had yet return since they were pulled or were last available. This includes things such as event specific minis. No player should ever believe that any item on the TP is a long term investment due to new supplies being non-existent. It’s not like ANet broke the mold on the Limited Edition Rytlock Plate from the Franklin Mint. ANet has no obligations to keep those items indefinitely unavailable to newer players who can’t ever play the content that rewarded them. I’m looking forward to the armor sets that vanished with the introduction of the wardrobe to return.

That said, I don’t have problems with exclusive skins that require completing X to get it, as long as it can’t be sold. Now if the skin is tied to an item and that item has unique mechanics, that’s a different story.

For instance as it stands, legendary armor will only be available via raids. But I would like to see it available in PvP, WvW and even PvE but each with a unique skin only attainable for each of those game modes.

Something that could be purchased for real world money being cheaper at a later point doesn’t seem all that unusual to me. Things often go down in price over time.

I am not sure that the classic car analogy holds up unless you are going to wait more than 50 years for the gemstore skin price comparison. How much did that 1960 automobile cost in 1963? The analogy also fails to consider the fact that reproducing, in mass, a 1960 auto today would involve having to reset an entire factory. Not the same thing as flipping a digital switch.

Also, there is nothing to say that the people who purchased the skins from the gemstore, black lion chests, etc early in the game’s life have in fact supported the game more than someone who did not. The person wanting the skin today could have spent an order of magnitude more on the game than someone who got the skin during its first release. I could totally support the idea of letting the skins keep their exclusivity if everyone with them was required to spend at least as much on the game as any and everyone without. So, to keep the skin, based on the idea that you have supported the game more, you would have to pay more than the highest spending whale in the game who did not get the skin back at initial release.

Brand new players should NEVER be given a free ticket to anything a veteran had to work for.

It completely undermines all of the time and effort players put into earning their rewards if they are just handed out for free to new players.

Yet time and time again anet spits on veterans and butters up the new players.

They clearly desire a churn and burn playerbase.

Anything nice that you currently own in the game will be given out for free (or close to it) to newer players at some point… mark my words.

…and the only people still happy with this game are the people who have only had the game for months instead of years.

kitten exclusive items and item skins. It only harbors elitist codpieces and divides communities.

As long as the effort is more or less equal to the first release, I don’t mind at all for skins and items being available to players later on. It’s mostly cosmetic and can easily be replicated stat-wise in this game. There is nothing to gain from it never being re-released.

Malediktus.9250:

-snip-

Well then there are thousands of reasons why they should not have those skins. There are 3800+ skins in this game, no need to make all of them easily accessible or cheap. If you want everything last skin (instead of being happy with a selection of skins the 85% of the easy skins) you better are willing to spend 200k+ gold and 10k hours on this game.
Not everyone is a winner in life or in games. People nowadays are so spoiled and entitled by bad parenting nowadays.

I knew this would come out eventually…the entitled argument. People are not entitled to have certain things – but you are entitled to having prestigious exclusive items? There is no logic in that argument whatsoever.

And then you seriously bring bad parenting into this? People suffer from bad parenting for wanting a game in a virtual world that everyone plays purely for fun to be fair for everyone playing it – but you demand exclusive items only a certain percentage of people can get…and they are the ones suffering from bad parenting? Again, there is zero logic in that argument.

GW2 is a GAME. Games are meant to be fun for everyone playing them. There is enough classism, sexism, elitism, etc. in the real world folks. We don’t need more of it in a game we all play in our free time for fun. There will never be fairness and equality in the real world so aiming for it in a game is the least we can do.