Guild Wars 2

Shikigami.4013:

Geotherma.2395:

If that all sounded confusing; that’s because it is, because the discussion itself is confusing and sort of pointless. You and others are arguing that you get no fast return on investment; others are arguing they received a ROI in the form of time, convenience, and visual satisfaction. If you notice, those two arguments aren’t even arguments-hence why this giant pointless thread is leading nowhere.

Actually I never said anything about return of investment before commenting on your odd question. My only statement in this thread had been that I am not buying the pick because it is soulbound and not account bound. I also do not see what this huge reply had to do with my post, so you were right with the “confusing” thing.

It was about the entire thread, not just you. Everything can be summerized as:

1. It costs too much(Opinion)
2. I can’t make money from it right away. (Not the purpose of the item)
3. It is soulbound (Just like every other skinned item)

But it went from those statements to-

1. It’s worthless.
2. It is a waste of money.
3. Arenanet is charging people too much and will fail.
4. I’m not rich enough to buy it like other people.
5. People who wasted their money on this are stupid and won’t see their ROI for years.

Why people can’t simply use the thread to post why “they” didn’t get the pickaxe, instead of throwing tantrums and belittling those who did is beyond me. Holding an intellectual conversion on this forum is about as easy as holding lava…

This isn’t stated at you, it is just my opinion. And unlike others I haven’t shaped my opinion into a giant ugly stick and tried to beat others in the face with it.

Shikigami.4013:

Geotherma.2395:

Whats the ROI for GW2 itself?

Any return of investment calculation was based on ingame currency to determine how long/often you would need to use the pick to save up as much gold as it costs (calculated by gold/gem ratio). As GW2 cannot be bought with ingame currency, and you cannot convert ingame currency back to real world currency (unless you break the rules and become a goldseller) your question is as invalid as it is rethorical.

Counterquestion: I paid €40 for the game, the pick costs €10 in gems. Do you think 4 of these picks are worth as much as a complete game account?

Change pick to expansion, and ask that question again. If it is considered an add-on for the game, much like an expansion is, then I doubt anyone would be having this conversation. What if the entire F&F story + the pick is $10? Was it worth it? People will pay what they believe is of value to them, that value does not have to be monetary. Truly the only ones who care about the ROI of these picks are the ones who don’t want them. So wouldn’t at that point the entire conversation be moot? Wouldn’t a better question be to ask players what it is worth to them? Did you have fun when you bought it? Was it enjoyable? Has it saved you time and convenience? I see yes’s to all these questions from those who bought them. Obviously they are convenience/fashion items and no more. The in game gold value is negligible, and has no bearing on most people’s view of it. Furthermore, if people bought the pic using gold>gems, then how much was that time worth to them? They literally spent no real world worth on that item. They are not paid to play the game; therefore their time is not money. They chose to spend the gold, and receive the pickaxe.

But to answer your question, yes I believe something with the words “unlimited” is worth that much of the game. As it has already given me the ROI that I feel was fair, that being pure enjoyment and convenience of having it. Also, if you cannot afford the pickaxe with real world money, then simply don’t buy it. I see a lot of flaming against those who did. It seems a lot more like jealousy than true constructive criticism on the topic at hand. How are any of the games pixels worth anything after all? It is but a game, something we do as a hobby, or past time. Therefore any further purchases must be for convenience, and not for return on your investment. Because in no way at this point will playing the game garner you wages as a regular player without doing something illegal.

But finally, I ask you if you pay for your internet. If you do, and you sleep through 8 hours a day of that paid for service, aren’t you technically losing money? The only thing lost in the game is time, and we pay ourselves that. If you cannot afford to set aside time, which in sense is a currency, then you aren’t able to purchase this in the first place with gold. And the pickaxe saves you time, so in essence, over a period of time you are getting your currencies worth (time) back from buying this.

If that all sounded confusing; that’s because it is, because the discussion itself is confusing and sort of pointless. You and others are arguing that you get no fast return on investment; others are arguing they received a ROI in the form of time, convenience, and visual satisfaction. If you notice, those two arguments aren’t even arguments-hence why this giant pointless thread is leading nowhere.

Whats the ROI for GW2 itself?

9:26 http://www.eurogamer.pt/videos/entrevista-game-designer-guild-wars-2

There was an interview recently, maybe a month or two ago? I think Colin had some info on what classes were most played etc. But my memory is fuzzy on that.

Kasama.8941:

danbuter.2314:

How are you guys getting the load screen shots without all of the other chars, etc showing up?

ctrl+shift+H

Or change this terrible bind key to something else like, ya know.. F12. Like I did :P Gosh 3 key inputs to hide UI..ugh lol.

Vayne.8563:

Kasama.8941:

I don’t farm nearly enough to make the price of this worth it. I can get 25 Orichalcum Mining Picks for 1 gold, that’s 2,500 uses. More then enough to last me a long time. Also, drawing more attention to yourself in WvW while you’re gathering a node, is a bad idea.

Unless you have a bunch of friends stealthed nearby and use it as a lure.

I’m going to bookmark this and wait for the thread where people qq about being ambushed by 35 thief’s in stealth at a ore node in WvW. :P

This problem seems to happen alot. I was told my card is linked to too many acounts.. Which i guess because I have an Aion and Lineage II account that I use my card for many purchased. Since then they have told me I will never be able to use my card again because it is connected with other accounts… So I go to gamestop and up my power rewards points, so I guess that works. I had an NCsoft rep unlock my card for 48 hours in which I quickly tossed about 1k into the game lol.. Sadly Arenanet hasn’t done this for me, but they are way past the 1k mark anyway. And I have about 20k points at gamestop.

Riaky.8965:

Submitted a ticket for 6 hours now, still no response or anything -.-;;

6 hours isn’t too bad ^^ Give it at least 24 hours then write again. there are time zones, and off times etc. I’m sure they are busy.

nchandler.3697:

fragnstein.3486:

nchandler.3697:

My account was preordered and never touched because my computer couldn’t run it. I finally get a new computer, find out my account’s been hacked, spend three days with customer service to retrieve it, try to log in to find that the account was suspended due to suspicious activity, spent another two days with customer service to get it unsuspended, and now this. I seriously haven’t even gotten to play yet. Yes, my account was hacked, so it’s possible that the gold spammer who hacked the account used an exploit. HOWEVER, I’ve consulted support about the hack, and I should NOT be held responsible for YOUR COMPANY’s security flaws.

I would greatly appreciate if you would review my ticket. I do not want to spend three more days waiting to use the product I payed for ages ago.

#130418-000521

If Anet had security flaws, dont you think there would be alot more that got hacked and not just you. Sounds like you went to a bad web site, thats your security flaws.

My security flaws? I don’t think so.

http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/ingame/thousands-guild-wars-2-accounts-hacked-985019

Try again.

Try reading it..

""Hackers have lists of email addresses and passwords stolen from other games and websites, and collected through spyware, and are systematically testing ‘Guild Wars 2’ looking for matching accounts," ArenaNet staff wrote on this wiki page tracking the issue. "

Stolen from other games using phishing and spyware. Wow.. Don’t use the same passwords and logins for everything and this don’t happen. No ones brute forcing into Arenanet server and spy-snagging your uber account.

Gestankfaust.4216:

Geotherma.2395:

Gestankfaust.4216:

No Walking.6349:

Hoyvin.3241:

Gestankfaust.4216:

No Walking.6349:

Costume Brawls (something that nobody does outside of when they have to for dailies) was added before duels…..

What was anet thinking exactly?

I hate duels. I hate the duel system in most MMOs. I have blocked so many annoying “duelists” in other MMOs just for this.

Costume brawls are voluntary. You “suit” up and go. It’s a blast to me because it’s not a bunch of little morons running around asking for duals to ppl that just don’t care to. Almost irritates me as much as the old gold moochers did.

This. I hate duels with a passion. I turned off duels in WoW because some kitten would always plop down out of nowhere and want to duel when I was in the middle of farming or whatever.

If A-Net never put in a dueling system, I wouldn’t give it a second thought. Just one less checkbox I have to check in the options panel.

So you’re going to take out a major part of a game that many players would absolutely love to have, simply so you don’t have to go into your options a single time and check a single box?

Yeah….selfish

Many players obviously have stated they would not love to have.

Why is it that you and a couple others think that a check box is all that it would need to make this happen? Not that simple. And they need to work on real things right now. Not “dual me dual me dual me”

Your missing the combined favorite: “Duel me!!!! Oh hahah I seen your gear soobaaddddd omgomg” Gosh, that used to be so fun to deal with /sarcasm

lol!

Yeah. Someone up there did at least make a good point about it passing time. But then, I don’t sit around waiting for some group to gather or mob/boss to spawn. So I can’t relate much.

Well Aion had dueling, and it was pretty meh. Most people just wanted it for kitten status. Then they would berate you for being bad etc etc, I hope I speak for all of us or the majority when I say GW2 is not THAT community. You did have a deny function, but people still whispered… I don’t think players should be bothered about this or the preview function while playing there game. I can agree that an arena or posibly a section of sPvP dedicated to this. But in open world I think the current “fun style duel” is perfectly fine. In fact I think it is actually better than regular duels because people really have so much fun since you lose nothing. And if you win you get the cute crown, this is why i often put down boxes o fun randomly on my server. It is nice to watch people have fun with them.

What I got from this is: You really hate kittens. Well then sir, may I suggest a puppie.

Ah another “Get everyone to rush to the market and mess with prices thread”. It feels almost as if it was just the other day i seen one of these.

Gestankfaust.4216:

No Walking.6349:

Hoyvin.3241:

Gestankfaust.4216:

No Walking.6349:

Costume Brawls (something that nobody does outside of when they have to for dailies) was added before duels…..

What was anet thinking exactly?

I hate duels. I hate the duel system in most MMOs. I have blocked so many annoying “duelists” in other MMOs just for this.

Costume brawls are voluntary. You “suit” up and go. It’s a blast to me because it’s not a bunch of little morons running around asking for duals to ppl that just don’t care to. Almost irritates me as much as the old gold moochers did.

This. I hate duels with a passion. I turned off duels in WoW because some kitten would always plop down out of nowhere and want to duel when I was in the middle of farming or whatever.

If A-Net never put in a dueling system, I wouldn’t give it a second thought. Just one less checkbox I have to check in the options panel.

So you’re going to take out a major part of a game that many players would absolutely love to have, simply so you don’t have to go into your options a single time and check a single box?

Yeah….selfish

Many players obviously have stated they would not love to have.

Why is it that you and a couple others think that a check box is all that it would need to make this happen? Not that simple. And they need to work on real things right now. Not “dual me dual me dual me”

Your missing the combined favorite: “Duel me!!!! Oh hahah I seen your gear soobaaddddd omgomg” Gosh, that used to be so fun to deal with /sarcasm

Little Old Lady.3742:

I gotta say lots of people are very picky about this, and it really fired up a big debate. Hopefully they will release more of these and we can gather up some more cool items before the qq makes Arenanet axe the whole cool concept.

You mean I have to PLAY A GAME…. And have fun for 8 years … To get my 10 dollars worth? The people should be throwing money at Anet for the super value. What does game plus 10$ over 8 years come out to? Less than 10 dollars a year… Less than a dollar a month… How much do people spend on junkfood or something they use for only once.. bottled water… It’s a silly argument… If you defend the right to buy bottled water then surely you support this item. Or is that bottled water worth more than hours of game play?[/quote]

Bottle water costs me $1.05, and I never get that kitten 5 cents back cause I’m too lazy to bring the bottle back to the store…

PS did quotes mess up?

Little Old Lady.3742:

8 years? To get back 10 bucks. 1 year to get back your investment? … 1 week or 1 day… Its funny how we look at money. We don’t mind spending 10 bucks on a bad movie… But 10 bucks on a game… I should buy one for each of my main characters.. at least 8 picks.

I gotta say lots of people are very picky about this, and it really fired up a big debate. Hopefully they will release more of these and we can gather up some more cool items before the qq makes Arenanet axe the whole cool concept.

I bought it for $10, no gold was spent. The gem card I bought was at Gamestop and I had a coupon for $10 off ANY purchase. So my 1200 gem card cost around $6(tax is lame). When will I see ROI? the moment I logged in, used the pickaxe and both my son and wife wouldn’t let me play until they could use it too. Not everything is measured in monetary value, ROI can be pure and simple enjoyment. If I invest in a nice suit, and it gets me compliments my investment was worthwhile. Could the suit pay for itself in other ways? Sure, it could make an employer see me as a professionally dressed person. People need to stop seeing the pickaxe, and some other items as something you need to get your money back on. Sometimes in life you simply invest time or money into something and your happiness is all the payback you need.

If you want a ROI on the pickaxe here it is:

You bought the pickaxe, it supported development of the game. Gj.

Very few people ran to their GW2 game and bought the pick thinking “OMG I’m going to save oodles and oodles of money!”.. At very least I’m sure they bought it for the convenience (as all gem store items are) and maybe the cool effect.

After seeing many people say that the guide is quickly becoming outdated, which I can sort of agree with, I’ve decided to make this post. I enjoyed the guide for the price is was decent. Granted many things can be learned from Google/wiki, but i think arenanet and players could benefit from an updated guide or addons to the guide.

Some ideas are:

After several updates say like when F&F is over, offer an addon guide with updated info,guides, recent interviews etc. Possibly for just a few dollars maybe $2.99? Or those who bought the original guide could get the updated ones free.

If the above was done right and thorough you could even possibly incorporate giveaways to those who purchased them. You buy the original guide for $10, and all addons are guaranteed $2.99 forever. On top of that you get a key code or maybe just mailed an item for purchasing. Maybe a free quaggan backpack, a few BL keys, or something? Maybe it could even be themed on that series of addon, F&F addon guide could be 1 fused weapon ticket?

The guide itself is pretty thorough and well laid out. I just believe it is being underutilized. Anyway, if anyone has any thoughts please share. I’m curious to see what others think. Some people (like me) would like to see all that info in one nice and neat document rather than spamming tabs of wiki, google, dev interviews.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/players/Better-loot-in-a-party/first#post931713

http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/78935-magic-find-and-party-loot-tables/

@Navi
Groups
“There is an increase in useful loot drops because you are killing more things faster.”
^ All I could find in handbook..

Why not:

US/EU:
Server:
Banned Message:
Ticket Sent?:

Just to make things a little bit more organized. I haven’t heard of any of my friends being banned, they would have mentioned it on my guild website. Sorry to hear some people got banned, hope those who if/were banned falsely get their account back.

Nephele.5063:

An official response would be great. My main’s going to have one, but if this is up in the air I’ll pass on buying additional picks for my alts.

What I said before is as official of a response you will get.

SpiritofTrini.8374:

I so want to buy one of these, only for the fact that i would never need to purchase another pick. EVAH!

BUT… I’m just wondering how long before there will be a new mat with a higher pick? I know it will eventually change, but I would sure hate to lose $$$ and not get my time out of it, if there is something coming.

Anyone know?

They said they have no plans to add new tiers of ore/picks right now(Or in the near future). Future expansions could change, but I would like to believe they will still be viable. Otherwise, they haven’t planned on or worked on adding tiers as of right now.

John Smith has more +1’s than Hugh Hefner at a charity dinner. I never salvage hoping for Ori, just ecto. From my little experiment I noticed that different items have different mats drop more frequently. I’m guessing this is because it takes different mats to make them of course. I often farm mithril more because Ori is never on an easy path and I am at times very lazy :P Prices will rise and fall just like the ectos are, and don;t forget there are TP players that post on forums just to influence (even if just for a short time) prices to their advantage. And sadly it actually works sometimes.

Ectos are tanking!: TP players and other scramble to buy them out, price goes back up, $$.
Ectos are going to rise because of X patch!:Players rush to buy them all and people unload ectos as the price rises.

Prices come back to a lull, and people rinse and repeat. Then John comes in and lazer blasts everyone with single sentences for 9000 damage.

Ah the circle of life :P

My main right now is a female thief. because shows like la femm nakita showed me girls are 100x hotter when they are spys,martial artists, or just beating the crap out of people. And then I watched “Monster” and never gave a hitchiker a ride again..

You guys and your forum threads to change the market lol. Good job, but short lived.

People do love duels, just not the elitist creating, smack talking, kitten meter having, kind that you are referring to.

[Edit: An arena for these people is fine as you know exactly what your getting into when you enter. Just don’t do something stupid like Aion did and put quests inside so that randoms can kill you while you PvE..]

Ursan.7846:

Geotherma.2395:

kokiman.2364:

Geotherma.2395:

You could simply wait for the huge influx of cool items to die down and the gem ratio to re-stabalize.

Never going to happen.

Revisit my comment in May :P

Well, the huge influx of cool items may or may not die down.

But the ratio will stabilize. The system has to, since going one direction encourages movement the opposite direction. The way the system is constructed, it has to reach an equilibrium as opposed to infinitely increasing.

When we’ll hit it though, we’ll never know.

Like musical chairs, but with gold! That actually would be fun.. to the suggestion forums! lols

They have no desire at the moment to add new tiers of ore, nor plans (right now) to do so in the future.

kokiman.2364:

Geotherma.2395:

You could simply wait for the huge influx of cool items to die down and the gem ratio to re-stabalize.

Never going to happen.

Revisit my comment in May :P

I love that people complain about an unlimited pickaxe that they will have forever and use over and over for 800 gems but don’t complain about:

Krytan Armor 500 gems, one time use (without buying trans stones)
Primevil Armor 500 gems, one time use. *
Profane Armor 500 gems. one time use.
Backpacks 300 gems, soulbound on use.
Riding broom 250 gems, soulbound on use.
Self style hair kit 250 gems, one time use.
Total makeover kit 350 gems, one time use.
Name change ticket 800 gems, one time use.
Communal bonfire boost 300 gems, one time use, one buff only.

And aren’t legendarys, those shiny weapons everyone waves/shoots around, soulbound on equip and never able to transfer through account?
Seriously.. This is what I see when I see the pickaxe on the store:

Vanity Items-
Profane Armor 500 gems. one time use.
Molten alliance pickaxe unlimited uses-Soulbound to one character forever-Mines any ore-Has cool animation every time.

So an armor set for 500 gems I get to look cool once on one character assuming I have 0 trans stones.
But a pickaxe (something I actually use in the game, not just look pretty, and is functional) has unlimited uses, and gathers any ore node, and it is 300 more gems? Hell yes.

You pay $10 for a character slot, you have that character forever and it will incur any other costs along the way. You pay $10 for a pickaxe and you have it forever and requires no further cost to improve it. I have 1 pickaxe, in the event they bring in 2 other tools I’m on board if the price is the same or even slightly higher, or if there is a set discount. People really need to find something more interesting to complain about than a vanity convenience item that is entirely optional and in no way needed to enjoy the game.

I have 11 characters, so I pretty much have every class/race ^^

Caedmon.6798:

gimmethegepgun.1284:

Caedmon.6798:

gimmethegepgun.1284:

Caedmon.6798:

You know all those bots going around need pick axes aswell.Maybe Anet is using them in this way and hoping they all buy those axes.Since those botters already pay big cash for accounts and for the bots self..It wouldn’t surprise me if they all start buying those picks.

As has been explained before, no bot would buy the molten pick as it is ludicrously expensive for what it does and they won’t expect to get anywhere near the lifetime needed to pay it back.
Also bots mostly use hacked accounts rather than waste money buying games. They’ll certainly be happy if they get an account that has the pick on it already since that’s less gold wasted but they’re certainly not going to waste their money buying them.

Well,theyre wasting a hell of a lot of money to buy accounts,and when those get banned they simply Buy more accounts. 10$ for a pickaxe is nothing for them.They arent all hackers,most are kitten with too much money,they Buy hacked accounts buddy.

You don’t understand. They’re in it to make real money. If they spend real money on the pick, which won’t even come close to paying for itself, they’re wasting money.
It is extraordinarily cheaper for them to clean out their inventory and fill it with a ton of picks rather than buy a permanent pick. They won’t last long enough for the permanent pick to pay itself off.

I do understand,i follow their forums..i know why they do it.I also know they dont mind paying 60$ per account,and pay a monthly fee for the bot they use.These ppl lay down big cash,they do not care,They will make it back in time anyways.

They very much care about spending money lol.. Not all, but some bots are from RMT farms in countries where they are getting paid pennies(if anything) to do this. They try not to buy accounts if they don’t have to, they do everything they can to save and earn every copper they can. I’ve done enough research on them to know better than to think they would squander money on something so stupid. They won’t get this money back, even with teleporting, they will get banned and lose a lot more than they gained. It is a high risk item to be “betting” on for them.

Anyway, the pickaxe is fun. It is optional and a convenience/fashion item. You can get along just fine without it, if you don’t like it you save $/gold. If they release the 2 others though I’ll have 4 more free inv spaces, and I can only hope someday for a basic salvage kit with unlimited uses.. I’m not saying how many spaces that takes up… I didn’t buy the krytan armor (twice) thinking it would be account bound and reusable, so I didn’t expect to use the pick on several characters. And I’m totally fine with that.

Vayne.8563:

Gestankfaust.4216:

I have a hunch. It is…just a hunch…

But my hunch is that it might have to do with worthless posts and the replies made thereafter.

Not quite. But yeah it was a great guess.

I’ve been infracted and permanently banned. But hey, I have no hard feelings when things are sorted out lol.

Kaiza.4618:

@geotherma Id love to know what you can farm solo that makes 5g an hour. Lodestones are the only thing I can think of and I dont know of good locations for many.

Ew lodestones… lol. I tried that after a friend recommended it, it was definitely not for me. The regular drops aren’t worth much, and really what your aiming for is pretty rare. I farm events/waypoints where many mobs are. The large amount of drops i get from a few events add up quickly. I never expect rare/exotic, and have learned that it is more about how many items you get rather than “what” items you get. There is a few reasons people don’t do this method:

Some people want to save mats instead of sell that they get from the bags.
Some people don’t want to farm the same events.

Anyway, aside from the 4 waypoints I often do at least 3-4 boss/chest events a day as well. I use BL salvage kits and get a decent return on ectos, but again I don’t expect them (other than the bonus).

Imo it is far better to have a variety of ways that you enjoy playing the game, and knowing which ones make you money. If you need “quick” money, like the 5g/hr I mentioned then that just means focusing a little more on profit than fun. Then switching back when your done.

(Edit) Forgot a very important part lol, I run these with at least 30% MF. So usually Omnomberry Bars.

Kaiza.4618:

@LFK I think you are overstating the amount of people with a built up level of wealth. Gold isnt exactly easy to come by in this game and there have always been money sinks even before the Gem explosion happened. Ectos used to cost 35s+ when I started playing in Dec. Crafting is a money sink for most professions.

People are just working alot harder to keep up I believe as I have been, more than theres just a ton of rich players driving the economy forward. I made this thread in order to voice concerns about people hitting the wall and New players getting shafted all together trying to catch up.

Fully optimized with as little downtime as possible I can make 5.5G an hr doing CoF before selling any drops. Ive gone days where I dont get an exotic out of there in 10 hrs because of DR affecting the chests. This takes a dedicated 5 man that knows what its doing to get that kind of cash, LFGin it sucks 90% of the time. AFAIK CoF is the best money in the game outside of TP Manipulation and im not fond of playin the auction house 24/7.

Anyways… Im busting my butt to keep up and from looking at the popularity of CoF farming, many others are too since its the only real viable way to make cash in my experience. If Gem prices and T6 Mat prices continue to inflate, were gonna have a real problem on our hands.

I’ve never done CoF, I make 5g +/- 1 from just farming for an hour. Granted it isn’t the most exciting thing to do, but I enjoy it. I don’t find money hard to come by in this game. My previous experiences were FFXI>Aion, so I may be slightly biased.

Well there is a list of things not to do if people actually read them. Discussing bots doesn’t develop any constructive feedback. There is a sticky that describes what to do when you see one, so no real need to make 800 more posts about it. Also in the rules is that you shouldn’t discuss their decisions. I mean how much do you need to talk about? Bots are real, they get banned, use report function if you can, and read the sticky about them. There isn’t really room for constructive feedback other than to let everyone know how the bots work, as if people need incentive to try using them..

So yea, I don’t see the point in a post on that. And then complaining about the non constructive thread being closed, what does that do? People will come in and post pro/anti arenanet stuff and that leads us back to the whole pointless journey we started with.

There is a like 300 page thread on this, in the appropriate forum. And possibly others in this forum.

Tenoh.2305:

Cant belive how bloody greedy Anet has become! Shame on you anet,shame on you! 800 gems for kitten pick? really? i like you less and less now,wich is sad.

Lol greedy, as in they are forcing you to buy this. Greedy is making you pay monthly for a broken game.

clay.7849:

I usually delete BLC’s or sell them for their measly couple of copper on the TP. I certainly don’t buy keys for them. If I happen to get a BLK and I don’t have a BLC, they are about one of the cheapest things to buy on the TP.

If I bought a key for every chest drop I have gotten in the last 3 months.. I’d probably of paid for the next expansions worth of content already lol. And thats just me, times that by 100k-1million others doing the same thing and Trump Towers would have “Arenanet” on them. Oh.. one can wish.

dronzer.8392:

Geotherma.2395:

And as for the “no one buys these for boosters etc”, thats your opinion. I buy them for boosters and salvage kits and whatever else it wants to give me. If it gives me another ticket (#5 for me), that is fine too.

If that’s what motivates you to buy the boxes then that’s great! and good for you! but I suspect you’re in a very small minority for this, If one wanted boosters, salvage kits, wouldn’t it be wiser to just buy them direct rather than opening a box? o.O ).

…But for the majority this is not what is attracting the sales, it’s that chance to obtain that luxurious desirable item anything else is considered a loss, just like a casino, you consider the money the reward and everything else a loss, even if it’s a t-shirt given to you on the way out.

No I don’t believe so. I’ve bought… a .. lot. And I can say from experience in the overall picture you get far more gems worth from keys than buying directly. Often times I get salvage kits 300 gems, more keys, total makeover kits, and other items. if you look at it from say 200 keys, you start to see that you really do wayyy better than buying directly. I really wanted to do a test for everyone to show my average, much like I did for BLSK VS Master kits on rares, but sadly my car brakes decided to fail me.. So there goes almost $600.. I still intend to do this even if it does not sway people either way, it is an idea of what you get. And over all I truly believe you get far more than your gems worth in the big scheme of things. I add up the gems worth I get every 5 keys I buy, so far I’ve yet to go back on my word. 3 months, and about 500 keys? ish. And you can hold me to my word, you will see me on here with a youtube video..someday. Assuming my car doesn’t do some other awful thing in the next 30 days..

Also, that loss you speak of is perspective. If someone thinks that getting tons of other items is a loss, i don’t know how to counter that argument.. If I spend $10 on a lottery ticket and the guy gives me a free snapple for “trying”, no way am I going to be angry.

dronzer.8392:

Arganthium.5638:

Ursan.7846:

So Anet is selling a box with random cosmetic/luxury items. They clearly stated that this was random. A consenting customer purchased this box with random goodies.

If you think this is unethical, by gods I hope you don’t play Magic the Gathering.

Basically this.

As somebody who used to play those kinds of card games a long time ago, I second your comment there.

For those who want those items have no other choice but to purchase them for a chance to obtain them, it’s a gamble , just like that in a casino – drop a coin , pull the lever and hope you walk away with that gold filled jackpot- this is not comparable to a TCG.

It’s unethical because their using these desirables that are only obtained this in method supported in their promotions/marketing using big arty graphics, front page banner images etc promoting these rewards and hoping that this is something that will attract players to spend their money to gamble for a skin.
We also know the drop rates are quite low , else everyone would be having them by now, the rates are probable comparible to the average person going into the casino and walking out with more than $10,000 (or equiv in your own currency).
No one buys these boxes for the boosters, tonics, the karma rewards… they buy it for the super desirable item, the luxurious weapon skin.

Remove the "only obtained via this method (which this method actually has mechanics of gambling) " and this thread wouldn’t have even been made.

A casino runs like this:
You spend money and-

A-You win something.
B-You lose and win nothing.

The keys/chests work like this:
You use a key and-

A-You win something.
B-You win “something”.

Granted it may not be what you want, but it is not a gamble. Chance and RNG is not gambling, it is simply fighting odds if YOU want a specific item. You are playing the RNG game, not the casino game. From someone who always “wins” something from the chests and has about 5 bank rows dedicated to those somethings, I can tell you it very much does not feel like a casino or gambling. You win something, sometimes you win something better. Either way you win.

And as for the “no one buys these for boosters etc”, thats your opinion. I buy them for boosters and salvage kits and whatever else it wants to give me. If it gives me another ticket (#5 for me), that is fine too.

Evon Skyfyre.9673:

I’m curious, with 2.9 MILLION on the BLTC on Dragonbrand, I have to question drop rate, success rate with opening, drop rate of keys?

What am I missing, I mean with so many on the BLTC people aren’t even buying keys are they?

They drop “often”, I’d even say “very often..”. Lots of people are buying keys, check the Fused Ticket discussion..

The price of the chests shows that they are a common drop item. The keys on the other hand are Gem, rare drop, or story reward only. And are not available through BLTC other than by Gems, Story reward, very rare drop. And are account bound.

Also reading “on the BLTC on Dragonbrand”, don’t take this the wrong way but just letting you know in case you didn’t, all servers are connected through the BLTC.

It is called an economy for a reason. it is based off of players actions, there is enough qq threads about conspiracy theories that anet is controlling the market to fill the grand canyon. No point in giving those people credibility.. Why everyone sees it from 1 point of view is beyond me. It will sway just like everything else. Stuff available now is worth X amount, later it will be worth way more, especially if it is no longer available through various means. Go google twinkies price..

When PVE culling is fixed, everyone of use needs to get together in game and farm 1 ore node at the same time. I want to see the screen explode. 3000 players using at the same time.. My graphics card might melt.

You could simply wait for the huge influx of cool items to die down and the gem ratio to re-stabalize.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

I think you mean SSA, not SSI. =)
Two different programs.
More on topic, I am much older than anyone…lol…been playing since pong. I hope to play until arthritis and alzheimer’s prevents me from doing so. Yay, old gamers.

Ah but with alzheimers we would never get bored of the game, because we would just forget about it and it would be all new over and over lol. Not to make light of the disease, but my memory is crap since the military, so I already learned to joke about myself ^^

Maybe they will release piece 2 and 3, and then give a discount on owning the set.Maybe 1500 gems or lower, who knows. (almost $20)

Scrambles.2604:

Geotherma.2395:

Onshidesigns.1069:

Just because someone has more things does not always mean they are rich. They could be in debt. About to lose their job or business. What responsible rich person would just waste money on a game?

Rosario Dawson
Megan Fox
Mila Kunis
Seth Rogen
Jessica Alba
Jenny McCarthy
Daniel Craig
Snoop Dogg
Zac Efron
Jodie Foster

there’s more…

Not solely MMO’s, but I would say a lot of rich responsible (does not apply to all people listed..) people can and do play/buy games.

This thread has derailed so hard it is now in the middle of the ocean.

Lols. Okay sorry. “I am not rich in real life, but many people in game think I am because I have hundreds of items/features that they may not.(right now)” But that in no way makes me better than them. I do spend more cash on this game than most, that i can admit. But, I do not convert to gold, so my money is in my items,features. Anyone who earns gold in game can receive the same.

Onshidesigns.1069:

Just because someone has more things does not always mean they are rich. They could be in debt. About to lose their job or business. What responsible rich person would just waste money on a game?

Rosario Dawson
Megan Fox
Mila Kunis
Seth Rogen
Jessica Alba
Jenny McCarthy
Daniel Craig
Snoop Dogg
Zac Efron
Jodie Foster

there’s more…

Not solely MMO’s, but I would say a lot of rich responsible (does not apply to all people listed..) people can and do play/buy games.

It goes many ways though. Not everyone who has money is rich, not every rich person has tons of money (could be capital in other forms), and not every player who has many things means they are rich irl or in game necessarily.

Quarktastic.1027:

Geotherma.2395:

Quarktastic.1027:

Ratphink.4751:

ITT: People who don’t realize that if the Pick wasn’t soulbound, you would have completely circumvented a goldsink with a 10 dollar purchase.

No, the goldsink isn’t large by itself but that’s because there are other goldsinks available in game to keep the cost of other goldsinks to smaller increments. Many small gold sinks is better than fewer larger gold sinks. Were the Pick to be account bound, it’d require a readjustment of Merch Prices/Waypoint Costs to accomdate for the disappearance of the goldsink that the Picks provided.

These Goldsinks are a necessity to prevent your in game gold from becoming utterly worthless.

I hope you realize that you can circumvent this “gold sink” just as easily by purchasing orichalcum picks with karma.

I haven’t spent a single silver on gathering tools since southsun cove was introduced.

The reason these picks are soulbound on use, is because anet wants more of peoples’ money.

If you buy with karma, you just used a karma sink. Some would argue this is generally equal to a gold sink in some ways.

Karma and gold aren’t mutually exclusive. Pretty much everything you do to earn karma also earns you gold.

And you can earn gold with karma, but cannot earn karma with gold. (Directly)