Well, yay. Or not. Not at all.
I’m one of those people who used to simply enjoy the game and never post in forums or complain about anything. This Halloween event, however, made me break with this habit because it just feels wrong. Horribly wrong.
I’m just another “crazy cat lady” a.k.a. miniature collector who feels screwed, exploited and very, very sad. I understand the concept of RNG and also know this feeling of excitement when something really rare (like a precursor) happens to drop. There is, though, a fine but distinct line between reasonably rare and absurd.
I opened about 500k bags during the Halloween event. To do this, I had to click for several hours every day or to let my boyfriend click for me because it was physically too much for me. I spent my entire gold and sold nearly everything I had stored in my bank (except for really worthless stuff like tin lumps). So did my boyfriend, who kindly gave me 2000 gold so I could get that cute mini. Two accounts completely drained of savings – for nothing.
Observing my own drops and those of other players who posted theirs, I assume there is a 1:50k or 1:60k chance for a “rare” drop like Oontz’ necklace, Gwyn etc. And since there are 9 or so of those “rare goodies”, the chance for Gwyn has to be somewhere around 1:500k. This is just absurd, for anyone who doesn’t use macros or have thousands of gold to begin with. Heck, I had tons of gold and stuff I could sell, and I spent the last two weeks clicking like crazy instead of playing the game and enjoying real content. For what – for a statistical chance of 63ish % that yielded me nothing in the end.
Sure, the strategy behind this seems obvious. It is working as intended. Some random people get this mini to prove it exists and is super rare, while all those collectors who really care about it spend tons of money (i.e. tons of real money in some cases). Now, with Halloween being over, they can hope to open a few bags every day for a sliiiiiiiiim chance to finally get it, thus keeping playing GW2 and remaining vulnerable targets for other “marketing decisions”.
This makes me really, really sad. As I stated above, I always loved this game, but the habit of using cute minipets and dedicated collector mentality for dirty manipulations like this Halloween feels disgusting. Normally, I hate QQ, I don’t do QQ. I don’t rant about stuff I don’t like. This time, I can’t help but QQ. Because holiday events (and video games in general) are supposed to be fun, and it was the opposite of fun. It made the game taste bad for me, taste like smug grins of all those statisticians and economists who pooped in my favourite cuddly world and now rub they hands giggling because everything goes according to plan a.k.a. “working as designed”. Designed to make sad kitties sad, after more than two years of excellent gaming experience. An evil asura in Mount Maelstrom used to say, “Your failure is only funny if you try”. Well, I can easily imagine those guys who really had their fun with this event.
I have no idea if our concerns really reach those responsible (although with Gaile’s kind help, I might still have some hope, kinda like “a slim chance for an epic drop”). I just felt the urge to post a comment. For that slim chance.
Sincerely,
a sad kitty
