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The Gem Store and You


Ohoni.6057

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ANet has the metrics, they know what we buy and don't buy, but I thought it might be useful to discuss why we do or do not buy various options. What do you buy, what do you never buy, what makes you more likely or less likely to purchase something?

I moved my own comments to a later post, to not distract form the topic. Basically just explain what sort of things you do buy, what sort of things you'd want to buy, but don't, and why that is, what will you never buy, and why?

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This sale tactic is okay to me, but i rather draw armor skin set instead of mount.

I miss gem store armor skin already, i still remember how excited to find new gem store armor release, having every character to preview the set. I will buy gem if the set fit my personal taste.

Gem store skin are usually having better details than in game armors, looks prettier, provide a lot of mix and match potential.

To be honest, i really doesn’t care about mount skin or glider, they don’t add much mix and match potential as armor skin does. Glider and mount are merely travelling tool for me, i rather we have more gem store armor release once and a while.

Since armor skin set no longer getting update in gem store, i lost interest in it totally.

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I pay for gems regularly, because it is a cost free game, entertaining me since several years, so I find normal to contribute (at my level), to support that it keeps going and as a sort of thanks for the fun too. Maybe I am naive, but that's how I feel about it. :)As for how I use the gems:

  • I have stopped with BL chests a while ago. I am not lucky at gambling and on one day, I just got tired of the waste of gems for very little nice counterpart.
  • I don't put gems on something with a gambling aspect (additional to no more buying chests).
  • For the skins and outfits I like, I generally wait that they are on promotion. I do exception to that rule only if I really do love the skin.
  • I did invest on the infinite tools almost immediately when they came out (1 of each). Later, the shared inventory slots have made my life by far more comfortable with them.
  • Very rarely - about 4 times since origin of game - I invested on a set of 5 repair cans: Each time, I was in a storyline primary, badly struggling, and I just wanted to get out of the nightmare. To repair my armor as many times as necessary was the key to hold on and reach the end.
  • Quite long ago, I received amount of gems to invest into home nodes, as Birthday presents from persons of my family. :)
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I'll buy any functional item I want or fashion. I don't mind supporting a free game. That said, I will never buy RNG related items. When they hide skins that I want in chance boxes, I do not buy the boxes. If it's available via MP and I really want it, I'll use farmed gold to buy it. If I could just buy the skins I want instead of a chance, I would spend and outright buy them. I just can't get behind using gambling boxes as a cashgrab in an MMO cashshop.

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I bought like 4 outfits - all on sale minus the Champion of Tyria one. Outfits really aren't that great IMO and I prefer armor skins (like most on here, it seems). On the rare occasion I will buy keys, like maybe 5/ month, usually with gems. I have bought like 8 of the gliders, just to mix it up to match character looks. Biggest expense was the mounts - yes, I bought all of them. For the most part, I wait for sales to happen... since this game is Free to Play (though I've bought all the expansions) I don't mind investing in the game when I feel like it (bought some character slots, bag slots, bank tabs etc - all while on sale). People play WoW and pay essentially 160 a year on top of expansions and their 'extras' that they offer. shrugs

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@Dreamy Lu.3865 said:

@troops.8276 said:^It's not 'free to play' it's 'buy to play'.

I do not agree on that. GW2 would be a "buy to play" game if anything of what is on BL would be mandatory to the game play, as in if we would be stuck progressing in the game due to not purchasing something. It is not the case: Nothing of what is available for purchasing at BL is mandatory to the game play. Everything is "nice to have" only. So yes, several items are real good, and maybe it is difficult to imagine going on without them, but fact is that they are optional.Don't forget that there are players who can't afford investing much real money in gaming. For such players, GW2 is a bless because they buy it once only and can keep going for ever without investing one cent of real money (two of my friends for example). GW2 allows them to keep playing like all of us, only with less skins, no outfits, and a longer time to obtain some stuff they want, because they need to buy gems with the gold earned ingame. For them, it is a really a cost free game.

Pardon me if I react a bit strong. I just wanted to kindly remind this, because my friends are so thankful for GW2 concept. I believe it is worth putting things back in perspective. :)

They are not saying pay to win, they are saying buy to play.

Buy to play means that there is an initual purchase (a box) to play but no subsequent subscription fee. Buy to play includes most traditional computer games. Skyrim, for example has a box price but no sub fee so it is buy to play.

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@troops.8276 said:And then using the justifications associated with actual f2p games when its not.

Many F2P games gate progress behind purchases or they make progress so mind-numbingly slow/difficult that it has more push toward purchases. Many F2P games also do not have a way to convert in-game gold to a currency to be used for said purchases. It's not the same.

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I spend, considering it is a game, a lot in the gem store - enough that I could buy other complete games at times. A fair amount of this is gem-to-gold transactions. I just don't have the time or desire to grind for gold. And I can do a little extra work at a job I really enjoy to make the extra money to buy it.

UtilitiesI have four accounts with HoT, two with PoF. My primary account has 53 character slots, my secondary account has nine and the others the base five. My main few characters on my primary and secondary have a couple short of max bag slots (I didn't upgrade the last time the maximum was increased) and some of the others have a couple extra bag slots. My bank tabs are maxed on my main account and my secondary has whatever bank slots I got from the starter packages. I don't buy crafting licenses or boosts. I have a ton of boosts and things from keys and leveling characters. I target boosts for specific events, so I don't go through them quickly. I have a Royal Terrace Pass I bought way back when and an Airship Pass I bought with the free Season 1/2 tickets I got on my main account. I use a Rata Sum scroll on my secondary account. I also have a home instance portal I never use.

SkinsI have 14 Black Lion skin collections completed and a fair chunk of the skins from the others. I don't like outfits much, unless they are good costumes like the Mad King outfit or have some effect and style I can use for a specific character. I have at least one outfit on all four accounts (for use when leveling) and half of them on my main account (some from the town clothes days). I have a lot of stuff from the town clothes days in armor and I'll pick up something that looks interesting even if I don't have an immediate use for it. I'll also buy interesting weapon skins available directly. I have a good amount that I bought when options were scarce that I don't use much now.

MinisI don't collect minis, but I pick up those that I can match to a character or that have an interesting effect - especially sounds. Minis took a giant dive in quality when they sheathed the weapons on most of them - those minis are worthless for anything other than completing a collection, and I'm not buying ugly, useless stuff just to complete a collection.

Black Lion KeysI didn't buy keys for the longest time, until a friend who buys a lot turned me on to them. I buy 5 at a time typically, usually with gems left over from buying something else. My luck has been pretty good lately - from two sets of five I got this during Halloween:kF1UK6T.jpg

And in my first of five yesterday, I got:lMwjrcm.jpg

On the other hand, I have two Bitterfrost Vantage Point things (one is great, two, not so much), two Nolan's Safe Room Key's (blech) and once hit four Boost Bonfires in five keys.

My biggest issue with the chests are the Bank Access, Merchant, Black Lion Trader and Repair things because I have permanent versions of those in my shared slots. I really enjoy the guaranteed wardrobe unlocks, which have given me some outfits and skins I wouldn't have purchased, but were worth it as a random drop. I wish all the skins I'd had and deleted before the wardrobe was put in place had counted, because I don't have some low level stuff that I found early in the game unlocked, which has bitten me a couple times. It would be nice if some decent minis were put in the selection for the miniature tickets. The selection has been pretty bad for quite a while now.

Mount SkinsI bought the Halloween Mount Skins immediately. I liked the skeleton motif, and the effect and the dye channels. I bought one of the adoption tickets with leftover gold I had sitting around. I got the Coastal Raptor skin, which, for those who don't know, is the basic skin with four dye channels. I use the raptor almost exclusively, which is nice. But the eyes don't dye, which is a bit of a drag. But it isn't as bad as getting a bunny or something. Still, there is a bit of seediness in selling the exact same skin that we earned in game with the only difference being more dye channels. For 2000 gems, I'm not buying a little mount, it needs to supersize...LoWivQ5.jpgzedflW5.jpg

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"Buy to play" means that you still pay for the game itself and the expansions. Well, not the base game anymore, but we "early adopters" did pay the price for a premium game at launch, and as I recall, many were less than impressed that HoT's price included the base game, with no bonus for people who had already paid for that. (For the record, I welcome the "ease of access" of making the base game free.)

Anyway, I agree with Ohoni on not buying one-shot items or character-bound things like bag slots. I also completely refuse to gamble. My purchases have primarily been QoL-related: one set of permanent gathering tools, some shared slots, bank tabs, and a few extra characters, as well as the most expensive editions of both expansions. So far, my only cosmetic purchase was the crystal dragon wings glider because I was sick of the dirty dish rag, the HoT special edition glider looked "wrong" on some characters, and I like Glint and Aurene, so it fit lore-wise too. Generally speaking, I don't find buying skins engaging or "rewarding" so I am pretty loathe to do it, though I would have paid for some decently-priced mount skins with the full four dye channels. I also would have bought Canach's new outfit although I really dislike outfits compared to proper armor skins, just because I'm so bloody starved for sylvari-themed gear ... but the extreme gender-stereotyping in the differences between the "male" and "female" versions were a kick in the guts and immediately became my new #1 example for why I HATE gendered skins.

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@Wolfheart.7483 said:

@troops.8276 said:And then using the justifications associated with actual f2p games when its not.

Many F2P games gate progress behind purchases or they make progress so mind-numbingly slow/difficult that it has more push toward purchases. Many F2P games also do not have a way to convert in-game gold to a currency to be used for said purchases. It's
not
the same.

Yes, thats what I'm saying. GW2 is not f2p, it's b2p yet some folks act like the cash shop is the only financial input they have and make up justifications for the product and company they are so unreasonably emotionally attached too.

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I've bought several character slots over the years, although I got the first two or three via gold to gem conversion. I've got a few armors: a medium armor set -- Krytan, maybe? tight-fitting pants, a vest, and like, skulls and fangs or whatever -- and Braham's armor, both on my main account, and a light armor (kinda like a bathing suit with spiky looking straps sticking out) on my alt account. My alt account has the magic carpet thing, and my sylvari ranger there has one of the exclusive faces. I've bought several makeover kits. I've used leftover gems on Black Lion keys on more than one occasion -- got a few makeover kits that way, woo hoo -- and will cheerfully open a Black Lion chest whenever a key drops. Most recently, I bought the spooky mount skins, and suffered buyer's remorse big time when I noticed the smoky effect, which I somehow hadn't noticed before. I'm not kidding when I say I'm overdue for new glasses. But it's all good, A couple of days ago I played around with the dyes and now my #1 mesmer is gallumphing around on a bright yellow not very spooky but quite possibly stinky raptor, and it's fine.

I currently have a grand total of 6 gems, just sitting there collecting dust.

I briefly considered upgrading my alt account with both HoT and PoF a couple of weeks ago, but decided it would be better to stick with my main account for now. I intended to get two more character slots, to have two of each profession on this account. Need another thief and another revenant. I was also considering buying a glider skin or two, as all my guys have just the default, and it's kinda boring. And then the mount thing happened -- ugh. I like them, of course, some of them very much, especially the more plain looking ones, as I'm not a big fan of all the fiery, smoky, sparkly stuff (which is why you won't see my guys running around with fiery or glowy armors). The green raptor is probably the first one I would have bought, given the option to just buy it outright. Alas.

Anyway. At this point I remain, not vehemently angry or anything, but disappointed enough that ye olde wallet is not coming out again anytime soon, and that mostly due to MO's followup message. /e smh

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@troops.8276 said:

@Wolfheart.7483 said:

@troops.8276 said:And then using the justifications associated with actual f2p games when its not.

Many F2P games gate progress behind purchases or they make progress so mind-numbingly slow/difficult that it has more push toward purchases. Many F2P games also do not have a way to convert in-game gold to a currency to be used for said purchases. It's
not
the same.

Yes, thats what I'm saying. GW2 is not f2p, it's b2p yet some folks act like the cash shop is the only financial input they have and make up justifications for the product and company they are so unreasonably emotionally attached too.

It is fair to make the distinction that the game is not entirely F2P, but it's also unreasonable to pretend that the game can survive on box sales alone. After the initial build-up, the trend seems to be that they make like 95% of their box sales within the first month or so of a release and then almost nothing from that over the next couple years. Just that alone would not appear to be a sustainable business model capable of supporting things like LW updates, raids, and other continued development. They do need to encourage players to buy things off the gem store over the years in between expansions, $30 every two years is not enough to feel that you've "earned" whatever you're getting out of the game over that period of time. All I ask of them is that when they do monetize things, they do so in a non-exploitative way, without gambling elements or exclusionary pricing.

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@Ohoni.6057 said:

@troops.8276 said:

@Wolfheart.7483 said:

@troops.8276 said:And then using the justifications associated with actual f2p games when its not.

Many F2P games gate progress behind purchases or they make progress so mind-numbingly slow/difficult that it has more push toward purchases. Many F2P games also do not have a way to convert in-game gold to a currency to be used for said purchases. It's
not
the same.

Yes, thats what I'm saying. GW2 is not f2p, it's b2p yet some folks act like the cash shop is the only financial input they have and make up justifications for the product and company they are so unreasonably emotionally attached too.

It is fair to make the distinction that the game is not entirely F2P, but it's also unreasonable to pretend that the game can survive on box sales alone. After the initial build-up, the trend seems to be that they make like 95% of their box sales within the first month or so of a release and then almost nothing from that over the next couple years. Just that alone would not appear to be a sustainable business model capable of supporting things like LW updates, raids, and other continued development. They do need to encourage players to buy things off the gem store over the years in between expansions, $30 every two years is
not
enough to feel that you've "earned" whatever you're getting out of the game over that period of time. All I ask of them is that when they do monetize things, they do so in a non-exploitative way, without gambling elements or exclusionary pricing.

I think we do mostly agree. The thing that I feel is wrong at times is the idea that any amount of money that Anet asks for is justified because of reasons given like "its f2p" not that I'm saying that that is what you're saying.

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@troops.8276 said:

@Ohoni.6057 said:

@troops.8276 said:

@Wolfheart.7483 said:

@troops.8276 said:And then using the justifications associated with actual f2p games when its not.

Many F2P games gate progress behind purchases or they make progress so mind-numbingly slow/difficult that it has more push toward purchases. Many F2P games also do not have a way to convert in-game gold to a currency to be used for said purchases. It's
not
the same.

Yes, thats what I'm saying. GW2 is not f2p, it's b2p yet some folks act like the cash shop is the only financial input they have and make up justifications for the product and company they are so unreasonably emotionally attached too.

It is fair to make the distinction that the game is not entirely F2P, but it's also unreasonable to pretend that the game can survive on box sales alone. After the initial build-up, the trend seems to be that they make like 95% of their box sales within the first month or so of a release and then almost nothing from that over the next couple years. Just that alone would not appear to be a sustainable business model capable of supporting things like LW updates, raids, and other continued development. They do need to encourage players to buy things off the gem store over the years in between expansions, $30 every two years is
not
enough to feel that you've "earned" whatever you're getting out of the game over that period of time. All I ask of them is that when they do monetize things, they do so in a non-exploitative way, without gambling elements or exclusionary pricing.

I think we do mostly agree. The thing that I feel is wrong at times is the idea that any amount of money that Anet asks for is justified because of reasons given like "its f2p" not that I'm saying that that is what you're saying.

Yeah, they can't make unreasonable demands, they have to offer fair consumer propositions, but they do need to figure out what things players will want to buy, and give them good reasons to buy those things. They can't just, as some people insist, release all skins and cool stuff for free in the game.

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I usually buy convenience items or things to put in my home instance. I'd love to buy more skins but a lot of just don't interest me; especially outfits. The only time I've bought keys was with the Account Jump Start. I've never bought them on their own because I just feel they are awful.

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I periodically convert excess gold into gems; haven't had to buy any.

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When GW2 first released I was happily buying armor sets and town clothes. Even though I felt like I was the only one buying town clothes^^. It made me sad when my hot-key for switching between town clothes and armor didn't work anymore (due to town clothes being removed).

Later I bought a lot of convenience stuff. Bank tabs, inventory space, material storage, character slots, shared inventory slots and one set of infinite harvesting tools. After HoT I spent quite a lot of money on gliders.

I have never once bought a black lion key except for 0 gems (I believe there were times when everyone would receive a key for free) and I will do the same with mount adoption licenses and any type of rng item.

I haven't spent any money in the gem shop for quite a while. Fore some reason there just isn't anything I consider worth buying. I would probably spend money on new armor sets or mount skins if ANet were to sell any.

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