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In-game gambling and time-consuming farming forced me to stop playing this game


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I know there's been a big furore over the loot boxes that were introduced into the gemstore a couple months ago, and I was against that because it promoted gambling to many people who either may have had a problem with it, or to children who were subsequently taken advantage of. Last week I realized that I had fallen prey to the in-game gambling myself: not with the mount skin loot boxes, but with the Black Lion Chest loot boxes and purchasing the keys to open them. Over the past few months I have spent in excess of $200 just buying BL chest keys to open chests. And when I realized that, I realized that this game was structured in a way to get people hooked psychologically to thoughts like "I have to get this skin, or this in-game item", etc, and it became a very big eye-opener for me. I realized that I had been chasing things in-game and spending LOTS of time trying to farm to grind out things like legendaries and other items, and that when that psychological development had happened in me, it had also pushed me towards the practice of gambling with the chests to try to get something worth a lot of gold that I could sell and help me get more legendaries etc. I made a mistake in thinking that I could stop after just a few. I couldn't. This game is structured in such a way as to make the game itself an addiction, and once you become addicted, it's then relatively easy to translate that addiction into gambling for skins etc. Because I was so addicted to the game itself, I spent so much time in it of a night after work that it was affecting my sleep patterns, my work performance, and my relationships with my wife and my friends. The hardest part for me was realizing that I had let all this happen because of the way that this game is designed. I ended up having to uninstall the game from my computer.

Please keep in mind that I'm not saying here that people can't play this game sensibly without letting it take over their lives. This is just my experience. Does anyone else here have a similar experience, or knows someone who struggled with something like this in the past?

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There's a weird situation between anet offering things that will make them money and certain addict personality types. Anet HAS to make money, and some people have addictive personalities. I guess that's about all there is to say.

People that can't handle the gem store are probably going to have a problem with any game or franchise. I know nothing about WoW, but I assume you could easily spend thousands of dollars on it.

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@"Fluffball.8307" said:There's a weird situation between anet offering things that will make them money and certain addict personality types. Anet HAS to make money, and some people have addictive personalities. I guess that's about all there is to say.

People that can't handle the gem store are probably going to have a problem with any game or franchise. I know nothing about WoW, but I assume you could easily spend thousands of dollars on it.

The issue though isn't the Gem Store as there's certain things you know you can get.If anything, it's the chest/key and the mount adoption crap.

If the keys were more of "a bit easy to get normally, but a bit slow or buy quickly in the gem store" it wouldn't be an issue I would say.But seeing you can only 100% chance a key weekly, and then a 50% chance on 100%ing a map which you can only do once per character and that's not "slow" that's once again a game of chance making it that if you're in it for those limited items, you HAVE to pretty much buy those keys to get what you want which can cause those with gambling addictions to fall prey to it.

I could easily myself fall prey to those things, but at least I'm super mega ultra picky on what I like/hate and most times there's no inbetween so it's harder to catch me in those situations.The closest I got was for that Hydra Staff as I really wanted it, but thankfully I bought no keys to get it. Other than that, there has not been a thing that made me go insane for keys.

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@Ayumi Spender.1082 said:

@"Fluffball.8307" said:There's a weird situation between anet offering things that will make them money and certain addict personality types. Anet HAS to make money, and some people have addictive personalities. I guess that's about all there is to say.

People that can't handle the gem store are probably going to have a problem with any game or franchise. I know nothing about WoW, but I assume you could easily spend thousands of dollars on it.

The issue though isn't the Gem Store as there's certain things you know you can get.If anything, it's the chest/key and the mount adoption crap.

If the keys were more of "a bit easy to get normally, but a bit slow or buy quickly in the gem store" it wouldn't be an issue I would say.But seeing you can only 100% chance a key weekly, and then a 50% chance on 100%ing a map which you can only do once per character and that's not "slow" that's once again a game of chance making it that if you're in it for those limited items, you HAVE to pretty much buy those keys to get what you want which can cause those with gambling addictions to fall prey to it.

That's the purpose of the keys though. They make anet money, and the gamble is fun for some people. I wouldn't care if they removed keys, but you'd probably have a lot more non-gambling addicts complaining about the loss than there are gambling addicts having life problems because of keys.

I'd be very annoyed if my state went dry because alcoholics exist.

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@"Krumnoltzwitsky.8971" said:And when I realized that, I realized that this game was structured in a way to get people hooked psychologically to thoughts like "I have to get this skin, or this in-game item", etc, and it became a very big eye-opener for me.

Welcome to the world of MMOs and games in general. And no I'm not joking at all. How do you think they keep players playing?So if you have issues, you may just want to give up any form of digial games. I do apologize as I do not intend it to be a mean statement.

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@Ayumi Spender.1082 said:

@"Fluffball.8307" said:There's a weird situation between anet offering things that will make them money and certain addict personality types. Anet HAS to make money, and some people have addictive personalities. I guess that's about all there is to say.

People that can't handle the gem store are probably going to have a problem with any game or franchise. I know nothing about WoW, but I assume you could easily spend thousands of dollars on it.

The issue though isn't the Gem Store as there's certain things you know you can get.If anything, it's the chest/key and the mount adoption crap.

If the keys were more of "a bit easy to get normally, but a bit slow or buy quickly in the gem store" it wouldn't be an issue I would say.But seeing you can only 100% chance a key weekly, and then a 50% chance on 100%ing a map which you can only do once per character and that's not "slow" that's once again a game of chance making it that if you're in it for those limited items, you HAVE to pretty much buy those keys to get what you want which can cause those with gambling addictions to fall prey to it.

I could easily myself fall prey to those things, but at least I'm super mega ultra picky on what I like/hate and most times there's no inbetween so it's harder to catch me in those situations.The closest I got was for that Hydra Staff as I really wanted it, but thankfully I bought no keys to get it. Other than that, there has not been a thing that made me go insane for keys.

You can get more then 1 key a week.1 for level 10 story and then as many lvl 40 and 60 story keys as you have tomes of knowlage to boost characters up with.

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@Linken.6345 said:

@"Fluffball.8307" said:There's a weird situation between anet offering things that will make them money and certain addict personality types. Anet HAS to make money, and some people have addictive personalities. I guess that's about all there is to say.

People that can't handle the gem store are probably going to have a problem with any game or franchise. I know nothing about WoW, but I assume you could easily spend thousands of dollars on it.

The issue though isn't the Gem Store as there's certain things you know you can get.If anything, it's the chest/key and the mount adoption crap.

If the keys were more of "a bit easy to get normally, but a bit slow or buy quickly in the gem store" it wouldn't be an issue I would say.But seeing you can only 100% chance a key weekly, and then a 50% chance on 100%ing a map which you can only do once per character and that's not "slow" that's once again a game of chance making it that if you're in it for those limited items, you HAVE to pretty much buy those keys to get what you want which can cause those with gambling addictions to fall prey to it.

I could easily myself fall prey to those things, but at least I'm super mega ultra picky on what I like/hate and most times there's no inbetween so it's harder to catch me in those situations.The closest I got was for that Hydra Staff as I really wanted it, but thankfully I bought no keys to get it. Other than that, there has not been a thing that made me go insane for keys.

You can get more then 1 key a week.1 for level 10 story and then as many lvl 40 and 60 story keys as you have tomes of knowlage to boost characters up with.

That I wouldn't know as I rarely ever see tomes of knowledges in this game.

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Playing almost from release I never used my Black Lion keys (quest rewards) untill PoF, and had accumulated about 50 of them.Once I started to use them.... yes I can imagine people wanting that one thing so badly and keep going.I used 10 during Halloween, and used 30 during Wintersday (because it sometimes contained Charged Crystals and wanted to complete my first celestial armor collection).So I bought the big package of (25?) keys to for the discount. Now I learnt my lesson and will only use about 10 of them during seasonal/festival events. Hoping for some rewards that match the festivity.

Before this I only spent lots of gems on stuff that benefits my account: 1 big pack of shared slots, bought gold for getting a Griffon,7 bank and material storage expansions and 2 extra bag slots for each toon and many wardrobe sets (700 gems) that have unlimited uses. I don't regret buying any of these.

Ignore the chests, allow yourself to spend 5 during festivities if you like.

GW2 is about having fun, and spend time doing that. Hours and hours for free (or with purchasing expansions)How long will you be having fun with a chest reward you wanted so badly that you spent lots of keys for it? Few days? A week?

All that chest stuff is temporary satisfaction. Don't let it ruin the game for you!

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@Ayumi Spender.1082 said:

@"Fluffball.8307" said:There's a weird situation between anet offering things that will make them money and certain addict personality types. Anet HAS to make money, and some people have addictive personalities. I guess that's about all there is to say.

People that can't handle the gem store are probably going to have a problem with any game or franchise. I know nothing about WoW, but I assume you could easily spend thousands of dollars on it.

The issue though isn't the Gem Store as there's certain things you know you can get.If anything, it's the chest/key and the mount adoption crap.

If the keys were more of "a bit easy to get normally, but a bit slow or buy quickly in the gem store" it wouldn't be an issue I would say.But seeing you can only 100% chance a key weekly, and then a 50% chance on 100%ing a map which you can only do once per character and that's not "slow" that's once again a game of chance making it that if you're in it for those limited items, you HAVE to pretty much buy those keys to get what you want which can cause those with gambling addictions to fall prey to it.

I could easily myself fall prey to those things, but at least I'm super mega ultra picky on what I like/hate and most times there's no inbetween so it's harder to catch me in those situations.The closest I got was for that Hydra Staff as I really wanted it, but thankfully I bought no keys to get it. Other than that, there has not been a thing that made me go insane for keys.

Only the lv10 reward is limited. The other 4 are not AFAIK. It does meet the "slow but easy" requirement.

@Ayumi Spender.1082 said:

@"Fluffball.8307" said:There's a weird situation between anet offering things that will make them money and certain addict personality types. Anet HAS to make money, and some people have addictive personalities. I guess that's about all there is to say.

People that can't handle the gem store are probably going to have a problem with any game or franchise. I know nothing about WoW, but I assume you could easily spend thousands of dollars on it.

The issue though isn't the Gem Store as there's certain things you know you can get.If anything, it's the chest/key and the mount adoption crap.

If the keys were more of "a bit easy to get normally, but a bit slow or buy quickly in the gem store" it wouldn't be an issue I would say.But seeing you can only 100% chance a key weekly, and then a 50% chance on 100%ing a map which you can only do once per character and that's not "slow" that's once again a game of chance making it that if you're in it for those limited items, you HAVE to pretty much buy those keys to get what you want which can cause those with gambling addictions to fall prey to it.

I could easily myself fall prey to those things, but at least I'm super mega ultra picky on what I like/hate and most times there's no inbetween so it's harder to catch me in those situations.The closest I got was for that Hydra Staff as I really wanted it, but thankfully I bought no keys to get it. Other than that, there has not been a thing that made me go insane for keys.

You can get more then 1 key a week.1 for level 10 story and then as many lvl 40 and 60 story keys as you have tomes of knowlage to boost characters up with.

That I wouldn't know as I rarely ever see tomes of knowledges in this game.

Tomes of knowledge are part of the login rewards. Writs from dailies can also be turned into ToK. Then there are are the ones from ley energy converter. Guild vendor and probably other stuff I am forgetting. There are also tomes of mentorship which is effectively the same until reaching lv80.

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@OneYenShort.3189 said:Welcome to the world of MMOs and games in general. And no I'm not joking at all. How do you think they keep players playing?

Well, I spent a lot of time in my youth playing board games. There were no loot boxes, no random rewards you have to buy with casino chips. Thesegames, simple compared to an MMO, kept us engaged for many hours. There are ways to keep players playing outside the world of gambling.

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The MMO business model is based around the concept of keeping players engaged for the long haul because that's how the company makes its money. In order to keep players engaged, the game has to give them things to do that take a lot of time. Developers cannot churn out new stuff fast enough to keep up with the lengthy play sessions that the "typical" MMO fan engages in. In your case, OP, it sounds like the combination of random box monetization and the desire to complete the lengthy goals as fast as possible caused your issues.

I'm glad you caught it. Stick to your guns. I had to quit playing WoW because raiding became an obsession. To this day, I play games sparingly, rarely for more than an hour at a time.

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Lol of all the reasons to quit the game RNG box "gambling" and farming? When will people just own up to the reality they don't have any self control.

I know I like to spend money hell I spend a lot on this game even after spending a breath taking amount over the years and every time I do it and go damn I spent more money on this shit who do I have to blame for it? (Me) and only me not Arena Net not anyone else (Me) Arena Net is not forcing me to type in my debit card security code every time I log in to the game and Arena net is not forcing me to keep my card number saved on their gemstore billing info I am choosing to do it and if it bugs me that much I can choose to not do it simple as that.

In a way its like being overweight then rolling up to a burger king ordering a large whopper with fries eating it then 20 mins later going back to that BK getting mad because they didn't offer them a salad instead.

No one is forced to buy any of these shiny skins or take their chances on black lion chests people choose to do it some accept the fact its a gamble and they enjoy it others accept the fact its a gamble while understanding they might not get what they wanted from the black lion chests and if they don't its o well try again next month or give up on it but the constant is the same People are Choosing to do this they aren't being forced

I was hoping to search thru this thread and find someone with an ounce of personal accountability and integrity yet there isn't any to be found people keep blaming this company for their own personal character flaws and utter lack of integrity/will power.

Once again I find my self in defense of a company I hate and for all the reasons I have issues with them their utter lack of balance when it comes to the game modes their favoritism of specific classes thru out countless balance patches...and that horrid looking fucking fart cloud on soulbeast beast mode these are just a few minor issues I have with them but one thing I cant blame them for nor would I choose to.....my own personal flaws If I know I'm a risk taker I like to gamble I might even be addicted to it and I still choose to do it that key word Choose Who do I have to blame for that Arena net a company trying to keep their lights on since their game is dying? or my self for a lack of will power among other things? The answer is still (Me)...

Personal Integrity and Accountability Learn it try it love it.

I await the next special snowflake weebo thread dripping with entitlement yet lacking integrity and accountability better lock the city gates and post some 360 security around because if it even hints at entitlement while shifting blame away from ones self then chances are I will be there to spew forth my 2 cents.

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@"Dawdler.8521" said:PvE claims another victim...

In WvW and sPvP the question instead is "whats in a BL chest that help me kill the enemy over there?" and the answer is... absolutely nothing. Fashion wont kill him/her. Not normally anyway.

People hyping gambling and grinding in GW2 are playing it wrong.

In WvW/sPvP the question is "What new modes or features added?" and most answers is... absolutely nothing.

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@"Umut.5471" said:You don't need those expensive cosmetic stuff, even ascended armor as a stat item.Unlike other MMORPGs, essential items are pretty easy to farm.

Cosmetic stuff is a major part of the gameplay though, the game's called Fashion Wars 2 after all. BLCs are bullskritt, but they're kinda ok'ish since Anet has to make money somehow. If they keep them and refrain from adding other glorified-gambling-bullskritt, that would be ok. Hope they learned their lesson from "Mountgate".

Had to laugh about this thread though. Just look at glorified-gambling-bullskritt in other MMORPGs...

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@Ayumi Spender.1082 said:

@"Dawdler.8521" said:PvE claims another victim...

In WvW and sPvP the question instead is "whats in a BL chest that help me kill the enemy over there?" and the answer is... absolutely nothing. Fashion wont kill him/her. Not normally anyway.

People hyping gambling and grinding in GW2 are playing it wrong.

In WvW/sPvP the question is "What new modes or features added?" and most answers is... absolutely nothing.Oh if you are like me with sPvP theres always new stuff. Like, when I log on now and go "wait I have to qualify again? But I did that in the summer when I last played :/"

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I always just farmed everything if it got too tight with time then I would use wallet so I wouldnt go crazy. Not a fan of gambling either tho I have gotten a few keys when they were on sale just in a play the lotto kinda sense. I got all the mounts from the 9600gems pack. Was it worth it probably not as I made tons of efforts to stack those gems and the pof ultimate gems and had to sell a legendary too. Also some of those skins are not differentiable enough to warrant a separate release ie jackal, skimmer. What I am surprised about is no one complained about having to spend 250g on a griffon most got it first week, I got it two months after cause mostly building new super expensive pof guildhall that not all people in guild seem to put any effort to.

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Every single MMO is like this. Even many mobile and certainly Facebook games.

They're designed to make you feel you "have to have something/do something" , "spend money" or seven stat online a long time.It's an online game problem.
If you don't have the willpower to resist that, then you should play single player offline games only.

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To me everything that I have to buy in the gemstore, because it isn't tradable, and is locked behind RNG (Mount Adoption thingies, BL Keys, ...) does not exist. I won't ever pay attention to those things and thus I don't feel like I miss out on anything. I'll glady buy a skin I like on the TP or in the Gemstore but I won't buy a random skin, ever.

Who'd go in a store and ask the staff to hand them a random piece of clothing and pay for it?

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