Guild Wars 2

I recently made a blog post on some of the topics and suggestions floating around. http://beautifulpeoplesclub.org/index.php/blog/11/entry-325-guild-wars-2-the-banana-you-cant-peel/

The banana you can’t peel is symbolic of having that bitter satisfaction from consuming it’s contents.

JustTrogdor.7892:

I’ve been getting some goofy stuff since last update but I’ve been holding off to see if it is game wide. Mostly skill lag (that I never had before), the usual TP stuff, and for some reason some mouse freezing for a few seconds at times. I’ve done all the usual stuff but it is still going on.

Oh and after waiting about 20 minutes for SB just before it spawned I got the lovely crash where I had to hard reboot. Oh well.. Guess I will just keep cleaning up folders, running disk utility and doing my best to have fun. At least I do have fun even when the game makes me /facepalm at times.

Just want to say that both skill lag and mouse freezes have been happening on my PC as well, so i really don’t think it’s a mac thing.

I’ve yet to fire up the game on my mac to diagnose any of the forum posts, but i can say that some of these issues happen on the pc side too.

Rendier.8490:

An Anet official still hasn’t reply, so I would like to kindly ask again: Can people expect a compensation of any sort?

With my limited knowledge of game code and logs and the such, I understand salvaging items is probably a pretty complicated process (Item ID’s get removed and created I gues), but perhaps there are logs of some sort, I don’t know. I know there are TP logs which could indicate how much rares an individual bought, I just don’t know how far back they go in your database.

As I said in my previous post, I’ve lost a substantial amount of money which would take me several weeks to get back. (I’m not good at flipping or other TP tricks which scale with the amount of gold you have) Converted to gems/real world money, I lost about 30 dollars which is like 3 quarters of the price of a new game…

Would be cool to hear an official reply regarding this.

They might do some overall thing like they did with Halloween and chests, but i can almost guarantee they won’t be going through logs figuring out who gets what. That would be a ridiculous amount of manpower and i can think of at least 20 different things i’d rather see them address. I dumped a bunch just testing salvages with BLSK’s, i really don’t expect compensation.

BTW i get like 20% more ecto out of a salvage like that like clockwork, prior (over 1000 items that way easy). So i’d expect 56-60 ectos for that salvage.

I wanted to make sure and it’s absolutely messed up with BLSK. 50 level 80 rares 31 ectos and only 1-2 ecto out of the whole stack. The numbers don’t lie, it’s for sure borked. I don’t have a you tube but here’s the twitch stream.

http://www.twitch.tv/munkiman4/b/410448566

Vol.5241:

Didn’t we just have a new node for the Azurite a few weeks back? And the unlimited pick work for those?

Azurite came out of ori and mithral nodes.

I think the tool reads “same efficiency as Ori” noting there are different efficiencies between Ori and say Mystic tools. Pretty sure the picks read “used to mine all metals”.

There have been 2 patches since the initial patch, could just be some odd anomaly that got into the build? If rates are fine after this last patch, that would seem to make some sort of sense.

John Smith.4610:

Hello all, I’m on the case still, but want to make a quick statement. If there is any change to ecto salvaging it is not intentional.
I promise you that if we change anything involving ectos, there will be public information on it.
Some may be skeptical if they haven’t interacted with me before, and that’s ok, but as long as I’m working with the economy, information on ecto changes will be public, end of story.

Thanks for the update. I’m actually getting mixed returns from people i’ve been surveying. It’s obviously a difference in materials salvaged moreso than the kits themselves it seems. Some are saying they are getting what they consider normal returns while others are stating more of what we see in this thread. I wish i could have gotten those people to nail down what they salvaged exactly, but is it possible that only certain types of rare equipment would give worse returns than others? The only thing i can actually confirm are of those surveyed, they were salvaging 75+ or better gear and that they were from world event drops or random loot drops, not crafted or purchased off the TP in bulk.

Might want to give John a bit more time, i can’t imagine tracking anything down is easy, plus it’s not even 9am PST

Skill lag after the patch was horrible, not sure what it’s like today, but i was getting the worst skill lag just about everywhere in the game.

Ugh more RNG boxes… That’s very saddening news

WaxWorm.8574:

You got ~0.9 ectos from rares of lvl68+ using the master’s kit. So the dungeon-token-rares of lvl70 also yielded ectos at that rate. Until yesterday that is…

I’ve tried dungeons rares (using BLSK’s) and have always gotten next nothing…

Umm aren’t dungeon rares like level 70 or lower? It explains why you’re not getting more than 1 ecto…. I’m actually surprised you got any at all.

I really think it’s just a bug, that the wrong animation is tied to it. There’s really no other good explanation for it. Your simply not going to be stabbing a sickle into the ground… It really makes no sense.

Nageth.5648:

Indeed. However, that does not excuse the lack of presence here. Prior to the release of this beta they unofficially sanctioned the use of Wine to run the game on Mac and Linux. The beta was actually a bit of a surprise as it implied some level of support to help optimize performance as best as possible using this less than optimal work around (e.g. it is easy to tell someone to fix their config file but actually fixing it is another matter). The level of support for this has decreased to almost non-existant though, leaving us wondering what we can realistically expect.

Oh i wasn’t trying to justify the lack of support, just saying that there is a 3rd party here and i get the feeling a good deal of anet’s tech support just aren’t familiar enough with the product, but they should be if they are releasing it. Sad that they haven’t given proper support here really.

The biggest problem with supporting this is that it’s running in Cider http://transgaming.com/cider/frequently-asked-questions which is a 3rd party technology and not a perfect one at that. There is a config file that you can mess around in (always keep a backup however) that can fix some general issues with certain systems. I’ll try to keep my nose in here and check out anything I can answer, but know a lot of this is on Transgaming since anet is just packing the windows version in a Cider wrapper.

If you’re interested in looking over the config file it can be located by right clicking (control click) on the Guild Wars 2.app and choosing show contents. Here’s a typical path /Applications/Guild Wars 2.app/Contents/Resources/Preferences/config.

Leablo.2651:

munkiman.3068:

Behellagh.1468:

Gem to Gold has been ~72.25% of the Gold to Gem price from nearly the begining. Check the history at GW2Spidy

Oct 1, 2012: Gem to Gold – 27.90s Gold to Gem – 38.62s Ratio: 0.72242
Now: Gem to Gold – 221.04s Gold to Gem – 305.95s Ratio: 0.72247

Difference due to not allowing fractional copper.

I took the first one, it’s 71.5… Not sure where the discrepancy there is, maybe the data was wrong.

Please explain your math.

edit: never mind, by “first one” he apparently means the prices from Sep 10.

Yeah, i was scratching my brain on that little anomaly. I actually thought for awhile that as the prices go up the “tax” went down, keeping the spread a little tighter. If the cost of 100 gems went to 10g… well you see what i mean

Aurelian Omenkind.2470:

Lane.3410:

Many consider 3g+ per 100 gems to be too high and have quit converting gold to gems.

I tend to think that short term ups and downs in the market really have no bearing on the long term value of in-game currency. Inflation will naturally happen as liquidity grows in the player base. 3g may seem cheap in retrospect next year.

I personally think that the real world tends to dictate a game’s currency value overall. I used to play a different online game whose currency was very closely tied to real money. When the world economy started to sour, the game’s proxy currency more than doubled in the space of 3 months. The devs offering new and desirable items also helped the inflation along, I’m sure, but since fewer players were putting real money into the devs’ pockets, less conversion was happening to favor the game currency, thus supply dwindled and became more valuable. The fulcrum is the proxy currency.

So, I have a question: are the only gems available in the game available through players who’ve bought them, or does Anet help keep ANY of the supply available on the market?

The exchange was supplied with gems at launch (a very large amount of them) and a balances of gold. The exchange doesn’t generate gems, only cash does and we can basically conclude any purchases in the store removes the gems from the system (just not the exchange). Unless the exchange was very off kilter, i don’t think any single player could have enough gold to make it move much.

Arduin.3029:

munkiman.3068:

Hmmm, the sales data on spidy doesn’t really show much about the prices going up, which is a good sign. Maybe enough people will be done with this and anet will give up the ghost. One can only hope.

Maybe the increase in gem price is halted because more and more people are converting $$$ to gems, to gold. This would be very profitable for Anet indeed

Possibly, hard to know based on the data. I still don’t think sales on keys is booming though, at least that’s my hope.

bluemonkey.1762:

munkiman.3068:

Long gone are the day that a company can tout the benefits of a product without specifying the risk involved with using said product.

Companies do this daily: it’s called advertising.

Specific examples of unstated factors not related to advertising: trans-unsaturated fats: they’ve been added to food for decades, but it wasn’t until the 90s that SOME government decided it was important enough to list separately from unsaturated fats. Companies don’t disclose the risk that you might get Salmonella from eating raw eggs, instead they recommend you cook it before eating it. In fact, it wasn’t until Pepsi & Coke went to court with each other over formulation disputes that “high fructose corn syrup” had to be listed separately from “sugar” in the US. I got thousands more examples to highlight that you don’t know as much as you think you know about the things you buy.

But to stick to the larger question: putting valuables into chests & not posting the odds of receiving any given item is a design decision. They aren’t obligated to tell you and probably won’t. Your very best chance of forcing the issue is with a lawyer and a court case. And while you’re at it, lots of people want to find out the drop rate for the precursors.

If you define this as gambling, and gambling as unethical, so be it—it’s an unethical practice according to your definition. I don’t agree, but that’s the thing about ethics—each person sees things differently. If you truly valued open & honest warning on this point, you’d post your drop frequencies & crate quantity.

Correct, it’s a design decision and it’s a bad one to me. It make ANet look like they are milking a long dead cash cow.

If you read what i wrote, numerous times, i don’t have an issue with gambling, nor am i trying to define it as such, i actually call it a scam, much in the way a snake oil salesman might be defined. I personally don’t gamble often, i got scammed once with the fused weapons, i posted my data in the same thread where John Smith gave us this lovely tidbit:

John Smith.4610:

Gasoline.2570:

Let’s see what the average will be

Statistically inaccurate

Surveying forums leads to massive biases including Sample Bias and Response Bias. In this case there are at least 3 other biases not being accounted for off the top of my head.

Basically saying it’s not going to give you accurate enough data, which i can agree with, however I did open 270 chests (including the keys i got for opening them) before i got my ticket. So there’s that. I also said i wouldn’t get suckered in again and have not bought a single crate, again if you read my post you’d know that.

I also gave an example of a possibly more acceptable way at this gambling game. So i’m at least trying to offer alternatives to paying to play. I buy gems, i bought 3 mining picks, tons of kits and just as many keys in the past. However i’m not even convinced ANet even sees as much profit off the store as some people might think. It could very well be going into NCSofts pockets to fund other titles i don’t even play. I really have no way of knowing either.

I personally believe (based on guilds i’ve been in and run) that the game is bleeding it’s player base at a large rate for an MMO and this frustration of using these RNG boxes, crates, chest, etc. isn’t helping. There is a pretty large group of people that take issue with it and it doesn’t make them look very good. That is what really rubs me the wrong way.

Hmmm, the sales data on spidy doesn’t really show much about the prices going up, which is a good sign. Maybe enough people will be done with this and anet will give up the ghost. One can only hope.

The problem with the magic mouse is gestures. You should disable those in the mouse settings when playing GW2. IF you want, you could make a simple applescript and keybind to turn the settings on or off as well. That’s if you use gestures.

Mourningcry.9428:

munkiman.3068:

This is a suckers game, we all know it, the odds are so stacked against you, you’d have to be a sucker to continue to play it.

I’d say you’d have to be a sucker to even play it once. And yes, that’d make me a sucker as well.

But forget about that, if you believe that we all know it’s a sucker’s game, then why the necessity to even bother disclosing the odds? Because, as you continue, the average joe doesn’t actually know. So which is it? Do they know or don’t they know.Or do they indeed know it’s a sucker’s game, but until someone lets them know exactly how big of a sucker they are, they’re cool with it?

I said if they knew the odds, they wouldn’t, you say they would based on a gamblers mentality, or human nature or some other such thing. I’m also stating they don’t post those odds for the very reason that it doesn’t benefit them in the least and would most likely cut into sales. It’s like the old way the drug companies would tell you about all the good stuff but leave out their product might actually kill you. Anyway, I know a lot of gamblers, maybe to many, i’ve studied their habits, many of them tend to make money more often than lose. Is that the norm for all gamblers, absolutely not, but i’m really not trying to paint a picture of the players that might fit into this window. I’m just stating there’s a pretty large discrepancy and this isn’t a gamblers game.

- I have issue with the presentation, as i mentioned.
- I have issue with posts being made that dissuade people from trying to spread the word that this game has horrible odds or even any attempt at calculating them. (i.e. a couple anet posts about this)
- I have issues with the reward, both being not tradable and not worth the outlay of earnings, either with gold or with cash, since the price tag is impossible to calculate.

These may simply be my issues, but it doesn’t seem that way given the sample of people taking issues with it (here, reddit, guru, etc.). My question still remains though, why with all the backlash, why do they continue this? Is it really to just make more money?

I also wonder why people continue to stick up for this thing? It’s not beneficial to them in any way… At some point you have to wonder about this. i’ve heard a fair share of defense for it, yet even though they don’t like a person presentation (ie calling it unethical or immoral or a scam, etc), most seem to agree that it’s a money grab.

So here take this example as a possibly more fun, more rewarding way to play this game. Sell me an unlimited use key to crack open these crates for 1000 gems, hell make it 2000gems and make me by those boxes with karma. Keep the drop rate, same junk and everything. At least then i have to actually play the game and earn the karma to get a chance to win the grand prize. The whole things just seems so counter intuitive the way it stands now.

Mourningcry.9428:

You perhaps consider them "suckers’, or naive children who ANet is taking advantage of. But, perhaps I’m the optimist, I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt that they aren’t suckers, and they aren’t guppies swimming with the sharks, rather, they are aware the odds are stacked against them (even if they don’t know how much), or that they don’t even care what the odds are, and that knowing this, they still, of their own free will, and own judgement, choose to partake. What I won’t do, is back them up and join in condemning ANet for providing them the opportunity to do so when they come here to complain about how unfair or unethical they now find the whole deal to be after not having things turn out as they thought it should.

By stating we’ve both been suckered into this game of chance says a lot about it. On one hand you would like to side with anet, so would i, after the first time, maybe even the second, but this is at least the third installment of this type of box o chance game and i’m losing hope. Arguably the worst one yet, since you just get mats if you lose, not even rare mats at that. It just makes them look pretty crappy to me and that’s really not how i want to feel about them.

There are several apps that allow you to do this along with commands you can run to increase priority. Here’s a free one GUI working of the nice unix command http://www.lachoseinteractive.net/en/products/processwizard/

Realize that this isn’t a tidy os thing and it has it’s risks. You could easily kernel panic your machine if you’re not careful.

Most likely you’re not going to get any results, your bottleneck is at the memory buffer most likely.

Behellagh.1468:

Gem to Gold has been ~72.25% of the Gold to Gem price from nearly the begining. Check the history at GW2Spidy

Oct 1, 2012: Gem to Gold – 27.90s Gold to Gem – 38.62s Ratio: 0.72242
Now: Gem to Gold – 221.04s Gold to Gem – 305.95s Ratio: 0.72247

Difference due to not allowing fractional copper.

I took the first one, it’s 71.5… Not sure where the discrepancy there is, maybe the data was wrong.

Mourningcry.9428:

Sucker’s bet or not, it’s still a bet.. And if you’re going to classify it as such, then it’s a gamble, and those who partake in it are gamblers. That being the case, as you said, their behavior is unliekly to change regardless if odds are disclosed. No?

Further, if they’re not gamblers who are concerend with “risk versus reward”, then how would you define them? If these people have no concept of risk, or choose not to take it into consideration (therfore not gamblers) then what good is it to declare the odds? They’re not going to take them into account anyway.

I think you’re being highly optimistic in the sense that by just delcaring odds, suddenly the market is going to become so risk aware that they will no longer partake in the practice, or at least reduce the amount they partake. I think it’s fair to say that the people concerned with the odds are all very well that they’re not at all favorable. Yet, despite that, they still partake.

How do you conclude that actually pinning a number to them will actually dissuade them? I can tell you now, that I have such a low estimation of what the odds are, that if they actually published them it would likely look more favorable to me then it is now.

And to the second point fine, I’m reasonable, and can appreciate that this RNG should be considered separately because of the cash component.

It really irks me that people bring in an argument without realizing that there are huge discrepancies between things. A gambler isn’t going to take huge risks versus rewards, gamblers that play to win, do so at much smaller risks, it’s simply how the mentality works. Suckers play the big payouts at the higher risk games (this is why Vegas makes so much money) the massive influx of first time players will be attracted to playing the games that offer the highest rewards. It’s like a child on his first birthday wanting to grab that lit candle. This is a suckers game, we all know it, the odds are so stacked against you, you’d have to be a sucker to continue to play it. Sure the average person might give it a shot once, but once you know how bad it is you don’t continue doing it. So what i’m saying is we see a sucker born every minute and that’s whakitten feels like anet is catering to, just to make the quick extra cash. A gamble isn’t just a gamble. If the average person (some, most?) knew how crappy the odds were, i’m pretty sure they wouldn’t even bother, which is why they aren’t published. That’s how i see it, and typically how things are done across games of chance.

There are also finer details to these sucker games, when we talk about Vegas gambling, many people will sit in front of these machines because they enjoy it and why not play something you might win big on if you like doing it? So the experience there is much richer, more “rewarding” to those players, but i would never lump them into a gamblers mentality. So yes, maybe i’m being optimistic and maybe there is this rather large amount of people that keep doing this over and over (i actually think it’s far less than you seem to think however), but i really think if people knew what they were up against, they wouldn’t bother. Let’s face it, it’s just a virtual skin and one you can’t even sell…

marnick.4305:

munkiman.3068:

marnick.4305:

Aurisai.3416:

So in an attempt to bring this conversation back on track, the crux of my argument is that while the in-game ability to to earn gold in gw2 has remained flat, or slightly increased, the total gold supply in the game has drastically increased thanks mostly to gem->gold conversions. As a result, price is pressured upwards and scarce items become more difficult to attain by people not willing to make gem->gold conversions or spend their game time flipping items on the TP.

Gold isn’t put into the economy by gems> gold but rather sinked. Every gem/gold transaction destroys 30% of the gold involved!!! This a very important point you don’t seem to get. As long as you don’t acknowledge that, further discussion is moot.

You are so set on this Austrian idée-fixe of an increase money supply, that you’re clinging to the one thing that could potentially create loads of money, while disregarding all evidence to the contrary. To your defense though, videogames are probably the only economies where Austrian ideas hold merit.

What 30% are you on about? When you buy gems with cash there’s no 30% fee. If you’re talking about gold->gems there’s still no fee. There is just the disparity between the 2 to keep people from creating endless wealth in gold.

Patently false. Both exchange directions incur a 15% gold tax, which creates the 30% disparity. That has been affirmed by the devs on several occasions. I’m too lazy to find the quote myself but I’m sure you could find it with a bit of googling …

I can find no such quote, the only thing i’ve ever seen any dev elude to is a transaction fee. If you start at beginning the disparity was aprox. 28.5%, where we are now currently is 27.75%. This leads me to believe it’s on a scale, meaning the higher you go up in value the less disparity between the 2 is. If it was a flat 30% @ 10g per 100 you’d have a 3g disparity. Doing the math, it’s not looking like that’s how it’s functioning at all.

bluemonkey.1762:

Company’s must disclose the very nature of their product?!? munkiman, I think you’re confused about what thousands of court cases say: Company secrets stay secret UNLESS there is legal action. Sure they have to list the ingredients, but not all of them (natural flavorings). And even if they happened to, you have no idea where they got those ingredients from (genetic engineered chocolate from corporate farms in Brazil) nor how they might have been processed/combined/etc (flash pasteurized). There is variability in how every product comes off the assembly line—that’s not disclosed in the package (contains 48 upwards of 49 oz of cookies with 30 +/-0.5g of sugar per serving). Besides, consumers barely read the ingredients that are provided, you think they’d read a 10 page document describing it unless & until it nearly kills them?

If you never attempted to research the answer to your question outside of reading the sunstone crate description, maybe you should start. If you opened crates—post your results: otherwise, you’re contributing to the very problem you’re complaining about.

Long gone are the day that a company can tout the benefits of a product without specifying the risk involved with using said product. I’m not opening crates due to the fact that i got suckered into the fused claim tickets. I’m well aware of the risk versus reward now, even though it’s not clearly stated.

Mourningcry.9428:

I think you either missed the point of my analogy, or are simply choosing to ignore it.

But seriously, if buying these items is, or at the very least perceived as, a gamble, then what are the people who buy them if not gamblers? Are they not in, in the words of the OP, and numerous others, gambling?

Forget that for a minute. Lets assume it is as you put it a straight up dupe. My point still stands that disclosing the odds isn’t going to dissuade someone intent on trying to get a new shiney. They either won’t care, can’t comprehend the odds, or otherwise won’t even bother to view them.

You make the point yourself. If people have come to realize how incredibly “unfair” and “unethical” the practice is, then why do they persist and keep at it? Because, as the OP pointed out, it’s part of human behavior that is just too powerful for some to resist. Will providing statisitcs really going to be a deterent to their behavior?

Edit: For clarification, I think your “they” refers to ANet, and my “they” refers to the players who continually engage in the purchasing of these contentious items.

My point was the odds being presented doesn’t stop a gamblers behavior, although it would prevent most people (at least the cash paying type) from bothering with it and definitely not be as shady as it is. The mentality of a gambler has to do more with risk versus reward, in most every case it’s money and the rush over a win at a nice payout. Once a gambler mentality wins (in this case) the game is up, there’s no reward to continue. So while it’s a gamble, it’s not a pay out over the long haul. Not to mention the extreme rarity the actual win is. If i go to a blackjack table, i have a far better chance at the rush of a win than opening these boxes. This isn’t a gamblers game, this is a suckers bet.

I have no proof one way or the other that people continue doing this, as a matter of fact, i was pointing to the new “suckers” that come here and complain about it. Which makes the fact that they (anet) keep doing it will ultimately end up with far less income than if they would have sold the items in the first place. The people that got duped thinking they had a decent chance, most likely won’t do it again, since the odds seem to be far worse than most gambles.

Mourningcry.9428:

Again, my point is either being ignored, or misunderstood. Why is RNG perceived ok in some instances and not in others? As another pointed out, the same crowd should be up in arms about mob drops. And not to the extent that drop rates have been nerfed, but rather that the RNG for a precursor, or like items, is not disclosed. It’s all the same, or it isn’t; not in some cases the same, and some cases not.

You last point is your opinion, as was mine. So, respectfully, to each their own.

Simply because in this case it’s clearly about getting the player to cough up cash. Sure people will and most likely do buy gems with gold, but how much gold does it take to win? Somewhere down the line anets betting you’re going to toss money at them, so this just saps a players earnings one way or the other. Apparently you haven’t seen the numerous threads about the RNG in general, there are plenty of complaints, but none of them are about being scammed since the items in question aren’t gated behind cash+RNG and are attainable by just playing the game.

The reason i keep rehashing this is because it feels like ANet is out to make a quick buck moreso than simply selling the items in question. Why they keep risking looking like this to their player base is beyond me.

We can do this dance again if you really like.

As Buttercup said, many are just rehashing the same positions posed elsewhere. The question of ethics has been raised, and discussed before. So, I’ll also pass on rehashing much of what I’ve said before.

No one complains that they don’t state the odds for the types of boosters, mats or tonics that they’ll receive. Why not? Because their thinking is inherently biased exclusively towards the “shiny”. Where, if not from their own expectations does this bias stem?

It’s really one in the same, they complain about the nearly impossible to guess chance at getting the “rare” or “very rare” items, if you know those odds, you know the odds for the rest. Apparently the quoting system is broken now

Do you really think that stating the odds will result in a significant change in behavior? Here’s a little experiment in human behavior, next time you’re at your locale convenience store, watch to see how people buy lottery tickets. How many, if any of them ever ask to see the ticket before purchasing to check the stated odds? How about after they’ve scratched it off?

I’m not interested in the behavior of the gambler, this isn’t about that at all, this is about getting duped. It started way back on Halloween (i think) and people put up a huge stink then which actually anet tried to rectify using the forge. The fact is it kitten es people off, a lot of people, but they keep doing it. It really smells rotten at this point.

And for the record, and as stated before, I don’t find the practice unethical. That being said, I’ve never even hinted that it was at all favorable in the least for the consumer. Would I rather it otherwise? Perhaps. But does lack of understanding, when there is sufficient information available to make a personal judgement call, from the participants inherently make it an unethical practice?

The issue isn’t about me particularly, i simply won’t buy them, but I sit on this forum and read the almost constant flood of new or newer players that think that they have a decent chance at getting one, since maybe there buddy got one out of a random drop and the cycle continues. At this point, based on the history and player outrage, I do believe they are doing it simply to soak players, meaning they simply earn more out of the store by doing it this way than just selling the item. I find that unethical, yes, I find a lot of companies practices unethical as well and simply avoid buying the products or services they sell. If you want to talk about the lottery, really the only reason it still exists is that part of the profits goto public services, like schools and it’s also a pooled payout that often has several ways to win. Odds on getting 5 bucks for your 2 dollar ticket are far better than what we see in this scenario. Not that i play the lotto either.

Mourningcry.9428:

Vizeroth.1295:

Aye.8392:

Selling lock boxes without telling the purchasers the odds of “winning” is unethical.
Buying lock boxes without knowing the odds of “winning” is stupidity in action.

One statement does not negate the other.

This is very well stated, and may get the point across in a way that I was unable.

Maybe this discussion breaks down into those who think fair trade should be regulated by people not being stupid and those who think it should be regulated by sellers not being unethical.

If I could turn this into a poll, I would.

So, just to whittle out some ambiguity – If ANet were to disclose the odds for each item, this would then make the practice ethical? Even if the odds were 1 in a billion? No?

Oh, so, then it’s not just a matter of disclosure, but rather of disclosure plus offering “fair” odds. Ok. So, what’s fair?

Regardless, just go ahead and offer both full disclosure, and “fair” odds. Now, you presume that every consumer can make an educated, and rational decision? How optimistic.

So, that one poor soul who dumps what amounts to a very significant sum of money for them, and despite the “fair odds” and full disclosure, comes up short, and comes here to complain. Do you blame him? Or is it still unethical because this poor soul simply is incapable of understanding what the situation is?

It can be easily be argued that there are consumers that will act, rationally or not, regardless of any disclosures provided to them. The corporation cannot be held responsible for the consequences resulting from poor judgment of irrational consumers.

Where is the line drawn? At what point is it no longer the seller’s responsibility, and shifts to the buyer’s? Where does corporate responsibility end and consumer responsibility begin?

As an alternative to trying to change what the OP and others may deem as “unethical” practices, why not spend the energy trying to instruct your fellow consumers on how to make rational purchases? Arguably, if they then stop making purchases, the corporation would have to change their practices to satisfy the educated consumer, no?

Everything you just said is borderline accurate. There are thousands of court cases proving otherwise, that in fact the company selling a product absolutely must disclose the very nature of that product, there can’t be a chance this product might contain asbestos or it might contain gold for example. Sure they say what they might contain… No consumer is required to know everything about the product and be held liable for just being ignorant at their own expense. Regardless, this is still only a “chance” at the purchase and not the actual purchase, so they absolutely should be required to state the odds. Gambling throughout all games of chance have calculated odds and in many cases even state them directly on the game itself, so yes, it for sure feels unethical to have this sort of practice of undisclosed odds, if not unethical, at least slimy. I really just don’t see how anyone can state otherwise, especially based on real life examples versus virtual ones.

There’s one giant elephant in the room no one ever seems to consider, the items being used that are in question are account bound/soul bound items, meaning they have no value beyond your personal worth for them. You cannot compare that to anything in RL. Not to mention the fact that this “worth” versus what it might actually cost to get one is very out of balance. You’re also talking about digital pixel that you can never actually own, so even in that sense it’s very much a sham. It’s basically selling a chance at a snake oil cure that does nothing but look pretty on your shelf. When looking at it that way it’s a very different scenario than simply gambling.

I’ve made 3 of them, 2 which i sold. Great weapon for my Mesmer

I really wish people would stop using the entitled argument. No one should be playing a video game that isn’t rewarding enough (in both fun and unique loot), if you are then there isn’t really much to say. Maybe you’re just generally bored or you don’t have enough going on in your daily life… I dunno. People are allowed to expect certain things, get over it.

Although the game is getting better with the rewards, it’s still really not that great. Some of the new content is a bit engaging, but it’s not really all that strong and is often riddled with bugs. The game has problems and in some ways those problems outweigh the good stuff. I find less and less motivation to play weekly and that’s not something i regularly find in games like this.

In the case of weapons if you put all the same type you get the same type back almost 100% of the time. I haven’t done much with armor other than mix them in with rare weapons and what you get back seems pretty random. But yes all those scenarios you have a chance at getting an exotic back.

Astraea.6075:

Mystic.5934:

I grab the +200%, so I have 220% mf, and when I go around killing karkas I’ve gotten an average of 0 crates from 10 total hours of killing.
maybe mf increases the chance of them dropping, but the +200% mf is bugged?

I had my first crate drop yesterday while running with 220% MF. I haven’t kept track of my total time on the island since the patch, but I’d estimate it to be in the 7-8 hour range.

I haven’t gotten any and played 6 or 7 hours there over the weekend running mostly 250% MF. A couple people I was running with got at the most 2 over the equal amount of time.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Aurelian Omenkind.2470:

Curo.2483:

Lisa.6102:

I fail to see how its a scam?

False ideas are put into people’s heads and somebody benefits from this monetarily. It’s the functional definition of a scam.

People do not willingly throw money away. They are convinced one way or another that it’s a good idea. They are persuaded to make a choice that is detrimental to themselves. Scam.

This is also the definition of gambling as a whole. Ergo, all gambling is a scam, right?

Is fighting monsters in Orr for RNG drops included in this definition?

Fighting for drops is a game mechanic that doesn’t cost the player anything but time playing a video game.

There’s been so much debating over this… It’s not gambling when you get a return on every purchase, however little that return is worth. Is putting a dime in a gumball machine considered gambling if you REALLY want a red one and you got yellow instead?

They clearly put these things in with the promise of always getting something, which makes people think they are getting a deal. Regardless, buying a chance (an unknown chance at that) feels much more like a scam.

The Stain.4169:

munkiman.3068:

There’s nothing wrong with having the forge, but i would like to see it as a secondary thing. It’s such a primary crafting tool, it’s a bit silly.

Thats kind of my main point… The MF is too central a part of the game to be this “broken”.

I have done pretty much everything PVE and WVW that there is to do in the game. Chasing legendaries was about the only thing left. I guess you can buy a precursor (for an insane amount of gold) but legendaries need clovers, and there is no way to get clovers other than to play the MF.

I am also arguing that the RNG odds have to be deliberately manipulated on some basis. I “rolled the dice” too many times with too few resulting clovers for it to simply be “bad luck”.

Yes, unfortunately there are quite a few people i know with that kind of bad luck. It’s all a bit disheartening.

DeWolfe.2174:

If this was his first time buying items from the TP, he has a right to vent his anger on here. Anet needs to hear it loudly!

Not to put salt on his wounds but, on my 5th crate from last night I got a weapons ticket. They were drops from my time spent in Southsun. Yet, I utterly…. utterly… despise the appearance of those items. I wish I could give it away to those spending so much for one.

I’m personally glad people are posting on this and it’s pretty much in the hope that it goes away. +1

Mystic.5934:

1) you should NOT have to read a game’s forum to get insight into what to expect in the game. I’d prefer it say on the tooltip for that item something like “high chance at passion fruit/flowers and karka shells, very low chance at minis or anything you are expecting”
2) you did not pay money to get a mini. you paid money to support Anet.
3) You would of been better off selling the gems for gold, then buying off the TP:
Kasmeer=17g = 758.3 gems = $9.52
In fact, you said you still have $20 uninvested in crates. just use that to buy your mini.

If you read the post, he was talking about the ticket, which can’t be bought.

I posted this in another thread, but i guess it’s more of a suggestion.

One thing to me is the Mystic Forge and it’s very centralized use around crafting unique items, it simply takes too much away from crafting professions. When i first heard about the forge, i thought what a great secondary mechanic, but it soon turned to such a primary focus, it became this really horrible thing.

How great would it be to get one random out of 20 different recipes to make say a FoeFires essence type weapon for completing all 4 paths of AC?

How cool would it be that you would only earn this once per account for the achievement?

The materials needed to craft it only came from areas around Ascalon, giving you reason to run around there.

How uniquely rewarding does it become to be a weaponsmith and have the ability to craft something really cool that not many people will get?

There’s a lot of stuff they can do like that, that would make playing the game so much more rewarding and fun.

There’s nothing wrong with having the forge, but i would like to see it as a secondary thing. It’s such a primary crafting tool, it’s a bit silly.

How about adding a looking for guild in with a looking for group tool? How about some actually API’s we can hook into a guild site? When are those things coming, i wonder?

Im Mudbone.1437:

Vol.5241:

Yeah you’re understating the # of messages. You get this message if you spam a lot and admit it, you were spamming.

As I explained to another respondent it was after the SECOND(the 3rd attempt was suppressed) identical message sent in map chat that an event was starting in Queensdale. Why don’t you try it yourself before coming in here and basically calling me a lier.

I agree, this has happened to me before as well. Duplicate messages being posted more than 2 times end up getting suppressed. Sometimes it may take more, but most of the time 2 seems to be the limit. Once you get hit with it, it takes awhile to go away too.

The game has core problems and it’s not until the last 2 patches where we are starting to see a change in the design of content. Right now IMO, SouthSun is what every zone should be like in the terms of rewarding and even then it’s a mixed bag.

Building much of your core content strictly around the RNG monster is always bad news, there really needs to be unique rewards for different areas of the game and they need to be guaranteed rewards. I see some slow movement on ANets end that addresses that part, but yet they keep adding more things weighted so heavily on RNG, it’s really not good at all. It really does tick people off… The inflated rarity of things is a pretty big problem.

People also take a big issue with skills and their tie in with weapons… It’s not going to go away soon either.

I believe however, Vayne is correct in that spreading out the population isn’t a good solution to having people playing the starter zones more. But, in turn, making them more uniquely rewarding wouldn’t actually make things worse.

One thing to me is the Mystic Forge and it’s very centralized use around crafting unique items, it simply takes too much away from crafting professions. When i first heard about the forge, i thought what a great secondary mechanic, but it soon turned to such a primary focus, it became this really horrible thing.

How great would it be to get one random out of 20 different recipe to make say a FoeFires essence type weapon for completing all 4 paths of AC? How cool would it be that you would only earn this once per account? Also, the materials needed to craft it only came from areas around Ascalon. How uniquely rewarding does it become to be a weaponsmith and have the ability to craft something really cool that not many people will get? There’s a lot of stuff they can do like that, that would make playing the game so much more rewarding and fun, they just keep missing the boat.

Vision of the Mists is a nice weapon that’s fairly cheap to craft.

OIIIIIO.7825:

munkiman.3068:

The item is unique due to it’s looks and effects, not it’s rarity.

FTFY The item is unique due to it’s looks, effects, and it’s rarity.

It’s a crafted weapon, not a drop. The only thing you can do about its rarity is in its materials, most of which are pretty common. So we basically have maximum rarity in the precursors and that’s about it.

That’s right for 2 weeks only, we are rewarding new recruits on the Northern Shiverpeaks server. It’s time to get real and join a guild that cares about it’s members!

See details here: http://beautifulpeoplesclub.org/index.php/topic/12000-recruitment-drive-it-pays-to-be-a-new-member/

Afya.5842:

Tolmos.8395:

CPU – i7 860 2.8GHz
MEMORY – 12 gigs DDR3 1666 + 8gig readyboost USB3 drive
VIDEO – GTX 580 1.5 GB w/ dual monitors
STORAGE – 5 TB (250gig SSD for OS, 1.75TBs across 2 HDDs for data, 1.5TB HDD for games, 1.5TB HDD for downloads). An additional 4TB across 2 external drives for extra storage, putting me up to 9TB. I’ve saved every file, folder, etc since 2006, only deleting because I no longer want the item around, not out of necessity of space =D
CASE – ANTEC 900-2

NET CONNECTION

Your network is so weird that UL > DL?? And that seems pretty high speed by comcast standard, is that a business plan?

Someone may have been downloading on the connection at the time. I get about 70/35 on a business class line.

Mad Rasputin.7809:

Try guesting on a few. Find out for yourself which one seems to fit you. Then pay for a transfer if you wish.

This too, although it might take awhile to figure out which one works best for you. You can always guest NSP and i’ll be happy to run around with you. Couple of us are helping out in the lower areas. Whisper me if you want.