It’s a bit curious why they let you forge the Endless Toymaker’s Tonic (which has a lower drop rate from the boxes) but not the Unbreakable Choir Bell.
They aren’t, which is why I agree with people who say it isn’t illegal.
Toxx, and Tixx just didn’t feel fleshed out at all. Yes, I get it, Portal. That was it. There wasn’t anything else to the story that I saw at all. I’m still curious as to what the ‘Giant Clanker’ did to the skritt to make them so vengeful towards the Inifinarium. Sure you could assume they gave them presents, and they rebelled on a Skritt town, but how much cooler could it have been to investigate such a happening. Perhaps a quest line to rebuild the Skritt town out of the kindness of the player’s heart? Sounds more akin to the whole spirit of holidays; you know giving back?
Toxx lied to the Skritt, probably promised to give them shinies in exchange for them helping destroying all the toys so she could remain Tixx’s favorite creation. Some of that was available in-game but mostly it came from the interview where they stated Toxx is jealous that Tixx keeps making all these new toys and praising them as brilliant creations. She decided to start a little revolution and “liberate” the toys in more ways than one.
You could also say you refuse to participate because you don’t want to support the Mystery Box model.
Wintersday box definitely sold less than its Mad King or Consortium brothers. Nearly everything being account bound kind of pushed it that way.
TL;DR – Everything in the Gem Store has no value. They are virtual items that give you benefits from the game, such as boosts or different looks/skins to weapons. You cannot sell these items for profit. You cannon sell these items for real money. Therefore Anet is doing nothing wrong. Case close.
That doesn’t automatically make you immune to lottery laws. It is still possible to violate a state’s lottery law with virtual items of no value that you are unable to cash out on. As long as you don’t meet all three of the criteria though it will not violate it.
Mystery Boxes by their nature are usually hitting two of the three, but they usually slack in one aspect of it (typically the part where you are forced to pay money to participate).
Is it a gamble? Of course it is. So is dropping the 50 cents in the gumball machine. Is it an illegal gamble? So far the states have all said “No”.
Exercise restraint, buyer beware, and all that jazz.
Maybe they don’t know themselves! It’s a mystery to everyone.
Or maybe the commerce team is hiding.
My bad, extra zero.
Either way, still really crappy odds. Polar bear in GW1 had 0.2 or 0.02, I can’t remember which, and people almost never got that. Kinda makes me wonder why I even try.
It is less than 0.02%, they didn’t state the exact chance, just that we were close enough to the actual rate.
Polar Bear at least had the ability to draw 1500 armbraces of truth back in the day.
Very rare vanity item. They want you to be proud of owning it? Or minimize the noise complaints that will arise in Lion’s Arch.
0.00005% would be 1/2000000
1/20000 is 0.005%
Slightly better odds than 0.00005% :p
Yeah it didn’t give a reward, guess it broke?
The frames + cogs + stuffing or glue reward is once per account per dungeon path (city). Once you have done all five of them you won’t get that reward anymore, only a choice of small, medium, large, or giant Wintersday Gifts.
It’s a bit more than just “paying money for a chance at more money and getting nothing if you lose” as far as gambling laws are concerned, but yeah these things will never fall under it.
There are some pretty specific conditions that have to be met as far as gambling is concerned in games and as long as the prizes are cosmetic the chances of that happening are very low.
Whether you agree or disagree with it the games and their companies that use the Mystery Box / Gacha / whathaveyou type of system go over it very thoroughly with their legal teams to make sure it does not fall under gambling law, especially in the states that host their servers.
All you can really do is vote with your wallet and voice your displeasure and hope the commerce team listens.
I want to say you had like a week or so for the jumping puzzle since it was released on the 26th and the event didn’t end until Nov 1.
I kind of wished the event team had made their original idea for Wintersday’s jumping puzzle available in some fashion. It sounded like it would have been a decent challenge. What we have now would have probably been the first tier (the easy tier), it’d go on until a third tier (the hardest tier). Probably would have rivaled Halloween’s jumping puzzle, but would have also made a lot of people angry who would have gotten stuck on the first or second tiers.
While I’m here, why were salvage kits and gathering tools bound after launch anyway? I… I don’t understand. Especially since they’re soul bound and not account bound (which many would accept as alternative). I think too many things are getting bound for insufficient reason.
It probably had something to do with them being available for Karma. They don’t ever want a situation where you can turn Karma into Gold (like the exotics, or the food situations).
They seem to be testing various methods of delivering mini pets to find out what earns them the most money to keep them alive and doesn’t make everyone angry.
Halloween had you buy the set for 500gems, twice if you wanted Chainsaw. They are all account bound.
Lost Shores had you gamble (250gems per attempt or 1,800gems for 10), but you could sell them on the Trading Post.
Wintersday has you gambling (100gems per attempt or 800gems for 10) on one set of pets (Snowman, Infininarium, Festive Golem, Foostivoo) and paying (350gems per) for part of a second set of pets (Princess Doll, Plush Griffon, Toy Ventari, Toy Golem, Toy Soldier) that you were not able to make based on what you used your 2 (or 3) in-game forging options on. All of these pets are account bound.
I don’t have too much of a problem with Wintersday on the second set (the toys) because it lets you have some of them for free so if you aren’t a big collector or you didn’t want to have to pay for that one pet you really liked they gave you an option. The first set (the ones exclusive to the random box) is pretty horrible though.
I guess their first two attempts for gem store exclusive pets didn’t go over so well for them? Could kind of understand for the Lost Shores one because those chests are crazy expensive, although I think almost everything that came from it could be sold. I guess for Halloween they had expected a lot more people to bite on it but it didn’t pan out.
If they introduce any minis for January / February (which they probably will since they have stated the content in those updates combined will rival that of a paid expansion) we’ll see if they learned / listened from the feedback.
An interesting thing is that weapon skins went from worse to decent in terms of acquisition from Halloween til now. I’m also curious if they will keep them the same for the next event or change it up.
I would advise against the mystery boxes, unless you get lucky you will only experience disappointment.
You have to spend gems to get the remaining minis you do not make. It was stated in an interview that they hope people would be willing to commit a little of their time and money to support the game and team for giving you three weeks of an event for free that they have been working on since Halloween.
Wintersday was designed to be a more laid back take it easy event. It could be seen as a bit of a let down compared to amazing event that was Halloween but they figured since it is the holiday season people might not have as much time to dedicate to GW2 as they did compared to Halloween or Lost Shores, and created the content to suit that situation.
File a Support ticket? Every account was supposed to have been flagged and sent one.
If I recall correctly what we have now is what we’re gonna have for the remainder of the event. They didn’t want it to end up so you had to log in on a specific date or time because they know some people would rather be with their families or friends.
You should have received a piece of mail (it should be a special mail that bypasses the 10 message limit) to the first character you logged on two days ago. It goes as follows:
From: Toymaker Tixx
Subject: A Special Gift
Body: As a token of my appreciation for Tyria’s generosity in allowing me to showcase my work, and for the assistance I’ve received from its helpful citizens, I have mailed this special gift to every citizen of Tyria.
Wishing you a warm and wound-up Wintersday,
— Toymaker Tixx
Assuming the price doesn’t shoot up and the market doesn’t crash, that would be about a month or a month and a half of very casual gathering @ Lv80.
Or probably a week at Orr if you lived there.
I probably would have been able to afford it if I wasn’t buying the boxes to see what pops out. Although out of the 1000 I opened today I got lucky enough to break even from what dropped. That was pretty painful (in more ways than one) to open though so I’ll probably just stick to my daily gathering of 100~200. Mostly I want to see what would appear first (if at all), the bell or the tonic.
So that’s like… 0.005%? Talk about being lucky.
They tried what you suggested with the Lost Shores compensation, and the result was some people got extra chests, some didn’t get any, regardless of whether they were at the event or not.
They kind of implied back then they weren’t going to do something like that again (take weeks analyzing data to see who needs to get the rewards then run a script to mail out every account that was flagged as needing it) since it bugged out. Come to think of it I’m not sure they ever gave their final response on what the solution to all of that was going to be for the future.
This is separate from the 250 that everyone received in the mail that also included the back piece, etc.
Source?
I was under the impression that the mail was to ensure that everyone got at least enough cogs to make 2 of the 5 toy minis, since diminishing returns reduced the number of cogs received in the dungeon for a lot of players, and that wasn’t intended.
No longer valid because of the removal of the chest, but here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2xfliD6QGQ&t=36m5s
Interview with the event team where they mention giving 200 cogs in the chest as compensation for those hit by diminishing returns. However this plan failed after it was implemented (look for the topic about not getting a reward from Tixx in LA) and so they had to send out the mail as a surefire method.
I read about that bug. Lvl 80 unique weapons for ~35 karma or something like that
Yes. And since they didn’t have the ability to remove them from players inventories, they made them promise to delete them or risk further non-action.
If I remember correctly, in ArenaNet’s defense they did ban the abusers for 3 whole days, or something.
I think you’re safe here. I’m sure they were well aware that some people were going to end up with additional Wintersday gifts, but accepted that this was likely the easiest way to deal with the problem they were originally having.
Happy holidays!
There was another thing with Karma and food items where you bought the items entirely with Karma (for for minor amounts of copper) and made food that you could sell for pure profit. Anyone who was streaming themselves doing it earned a permanent ban. It also led to changes in how you were allowed to interact with anything purchased with Karma for better or for worse.
Back on topic though, yeah you are safe. The original fix for the problem failed, so they accepted that they had to push a different fix that would have some people get double the rewards.
Come to think of it, didn’t that also happen for the Lost Shores? The compensation mail for people who attended but didn’t get the chest at the end or had to leave and stuff went to some people who had done the event one/two/three times (depending if you were able to find the right overflows for it or not).
The “Just one more try…” thought is what makes gambling so effective. Especially if you won just a teeny bit beforehand.
If you have a lot of self control you could set a hard limit (like say, $50) and whether or win or lose, walk away with whatever you end up with. Although I suppose that kind of thing is easier with money and not cosmetic things that probably appeal to you.
Nothing wrong with multitasking. I’m just sitting in Caledon waiting for the daily reset so I can get that out of the way while poking a gift box that spawns near me once every few minutes. Also fiddling with something on the Vita that’s taking a while so I’ll refresh this sub-forum once every so often.
Once Wintersday is over though I’ll probably stop posting until something inevitably goes wrong in the big content patches in January and February. The original reason I even started posting on here was to try to clear up the confusion over the “Only two mini pets everrrrrrrrrr” post and the 200 cogs that came up (because it was only mentioned on a random interview posted to Youtube and not anywhere on the forums or on the wiki).
The more threads you make about bad RNG the more threads that would get closed because “another thread discussing the same thing exists so this thread has no purpose.” as has already been shown from some of the threads about the minis.
I’m not going to say you are wrong, but I have my doubts. I mainly come here to see what’s hot, what’s bugged and what I should pay attention to. While there are a lot of negative feedback threads, you will also see a lot of these threads being made by the same people. (No such thing as a disappointed player). But again, I wouldn’t take the tiny research as representable myself.
Well I was more getting at if you are enjoying the game you would be spending most of your free time in the game, instead of posting on these forums. Most people wouldn’t have a real reason to come here unless something goes wrong or they have a question/suggestion and depending on when they browse, topics (such as your questionnaire) may have already fallen off the first page and will not be on their radar.
Well the hats are a possible drop from the same boxes that give the minis and Foostivoo. Maybe while trying to obtain the three minis after making Foostivoo they got another Foostivoo?
I’d say highly unlikely, but it is possible I guess. Just look at Wiki how many Foostivoos dropped. I can add 60 chests with no Foostivoo q:
Edit: The obvious solution still is to make the stuff tradeable. And Anet knows it if they read the forum.
Not everyone uses or knows about the wiki. Which is funny because so many people complain that the wiki is not very accurate at all yet they don’t want to help work on it.
Plus, he never mentioned how many boxes he opened. The only other thing I can find is from 6 days ago where he mentioned acquiring six hats and three extra minis after already getting Foostivoo.
Well the hats are a possible drop from the same boxes that give the minis and Foostivoo. Maybe while trying to obtain the three minis after making Foostivoo they got another Foostivoo?
The chests bugged out and didn’t give rewards to everyone, they had to mail it out to make sure everyone got it (although some people are saying they didn’t get it).
If you were able to get the items from one of the two chests, then consider it an extra reward.
even if you got more results, the data would still be skewed to the negative side because the majority of people who come to the forums come to complain about something =P
Pretty much. Those who do post positively are either drowned out or their posts vanish because they are posting in a thread that ends up going downhill and gets removed for violating the code of conduct.
It kind of makes sense though, if you didn’t have that much of an issue or complaint there is no real reason to be posting a lot on the forums.
Tixx had a chest in Lion’s Arch (and in Heart of the Mists) that gave out rewards but it was removed for the fix that came in the mail since not everyone could loot it.
500 Cogs from Dungeon, 200 Cogs from Tixx compensation, 250 Cogs from fix for the compensation.
There is currently no other source of them.
The first two days of the event some people got hit by a bug and got diminishing returns. The 200 cogs in the chest was intended to be a quickie compensation fix for those people so they could have their second mini while the rest of us didn’t get to make a third. The problem arose when those same people and some others couldn’t loot the chest at all, or looted the PvP chest and couldn’t touch the PvE chest. They had to issue out another quick fix in the form of mail to every account in the game.
I’m still trying to figure out the leap of logic required to go from your point to “you want free legendaries / handouts” considering nowhere in your post was that even implied.
Your point was that the current method of acquisition is not very healthy or well thought out for the player base, and a different solution should be implemented that would not only ease the pain on wallets but also potentially attract more of the collectors to pay / keep paying for future sets.
I wholly agree! A different option to obtain those RNG pets should have been added. The disconnect is when we think it should be added. You suggest for it now, I suggest for it for the next event and onwards. You and some of the others are the type of people that know what you are getting into and would be willing to accept the consequences of anything done to fix things. That’s a good thing but that type of mentality isn’t that wide spread (as evident by Mystical CogGate).
I never stated that people should get refunds, or that they should keep this method of acquisition. I was saying that adding another way to get the pets this late into the event would create a lack of trust from various people. Sure, there will be those of us who knew beforehand what we were possibly getting into and that a welcome change to the system would be appreciated. There is also a bunch that would lose respect and trust for the game though.
Think about it, if you were someone who spent $60+ and got all of the mini pets because it was stated the only way to obtain them was via this box and then a week later they introduced a trio and for $10 you could obtain the same result would you be willing to pay for minis again? Well, you might, but some people wouldn’t touch it again. Their trust that the commerce team would not have gone back on their word for this event would have been broken.
Unfortunately the best solution for this event in this year is to keep it as it is and for the next one (January / February was it?) do not do it again. Also for next year do not even think of bringing it back, just bring a trio pack right from the get go. The commerce team has been made well aware that this method is not popular, via various methods of communication.
But see, it takes away half the fun if you can’t use them when they’re relevant! D’:
True, but a little restraint goes a long way.
Whelp, Just got a response to my ticket and they can’t do jack with those of us who bought the minis on the word of an Anet employee saying we could only get 2.
Guess I’m not going to be buying gems for future events anymore..
It is probably a good idea to avoid spending money on event items until it is nearing the end or all the bugs have been ironed out, especially if it is the first time the event is being done. It’s your choice in the end but if it’s an amount you would possibly get “Roda smash, grawrrrrrr” over then it is best to conserve.
ArenaNet does need some better communication of these sorts of things though. Most of these fixes weren’t known when or how they were happening unless you happen to watch the places that interview the dev teams or read other websites a lot.
and enough cogs to make a third minipet when some do not.
I believe people who did not get the items from the chest have enough cogs for a third minipet. I only got 200 cogs from the chest, which, I think, was to compensate for a bug. That isn’t enough for another minipet. I did, however, get 250 cogs from the gift received in the mail, which I think everyone got.
Some people who had diminishing returns did not get 200 cogs from a chest, thus they are still unable to create a third mini pet. It probably isn’t a large amount compared to those who can but it is still a possibility that exists.
It is a bit odd since the weapon skins can be bought outright or gambled from the box. They should have done a similar thing with the mini pets.
Sounds like a good idea to me.
The hard part is getting someone from the team to actually accept and implement the idea. I wonder if any of them looked at this thread, or the one before it.
Pretty sure they have mentioned seeing it during an interview (not this particular thread but the idea). No real comment on it though.
I agree. I spent money on the trio pack (x2) and I will gladly buy the winterdays minipets if gambling wasn’t involved. After all, they are account bound, why would I spend 100+ USD and in the end maybe not get them all?
They figured since the only way to obtain it was via the Gem Store that it should have an account bound property, so that you wouldn’t be able to rake in gold from the Trading Post, I guess.
Not exactly their best decision since the thing that would draw in the most gold from that RNG box is indeed tradable (the perma contracts).
If they do a Foostivoo type of thing again the best solution is the Halloween one. Sell it as a bundle. They really need to understand that. I was hoping that after the drama that was Halloween they would have done the event stuff in a way that didn’t annoy one type of collector.
It seems though based on the interview before Tixx hit Lion’s Arch that the commerce team isn’t sure what would bring them the best revenue while pleasing everyone.
I think he meant that those users who spent $70-100 USD to get them the legit way would be kitten the fk off because some one who didn’t invest anything or barely anything would get them for about $10-$20 with 100% guarantee. If that is the case then i am 100% on his side.
That is indeed what I am talking about. It has popped up before on this sub-forum (adding a way to just straight up buy these pets now after the fact) and there’s been a bit of back and forth between the people who have dropped the $80+ and got them all, or didn’t get any and the ones who haven’t spent a dime but would if they added the set.
I would prefer if they had put it in when Wintersday first started, or the day after. That way there wouldn’t have been as much of a chance for any backlash from people who thought the RNG box was the only way to get them and thus emptied their wallets on it. I wouldn’t mind if they did add it in now, but if you thought the complaining was bad now from one side of the fence it would be a lot worse from the other if they add it a week after stating the only method to obtain those pets was from the RNG box.
The commerce team is trying to find that perfect balance to please everyone while still providing a sustaining business model for GW2. They look at the feedback and think of how to find a solution for the next event. It’s too late for Wintersday but let them know for January / February that you do not want a RNG only method of acquisition.
I fully understand the OPs grievance. It was hinted that you would only be able to get two, and if you wanted all you had to spend gems. Altough not directly worded in such a way, its understandable to see why someone would think that.
And then they suddenly turn around and hand out so many materials you couldve gotten the 3th one aswell without spending gems.
Well, Anet doesnt owe you anything. Its never stated you absolutely could not get more then 2 from dungeons. In the future, treat these events like Steam Sales. Wait for a daily deal, if not then buy at the last day so you dont miss out on a better deal. Or buy if you absolutely must have it now, and run the risk of seeing it up cheaper later on.
In an interview they did before Tixx hit Lion’s Arch it was stated that it is something decided by the commerce team, and that at the time the final word was only two pets from the event period. It was considered an opportunity to purchase them and since they were giving this event for free it would be nice if they could show some love and buy them as support for the hard work everyone put in.
That was of course before the compensation cogs from Tixx’s chest (which was also mentioned in said interview) broke and didn’t give them to the people who needed them.
Putting the container in after the event has kicked off is only going to cause backlash.
Not necessarily, if you were hit by diminishing returns and couldn’t get any compensation cogs from Tixx’s chest, then you still would be only able to make two pets. That situation has probably happened to a few people.