Elyssandariel.2679

Yes, this assumption was a mistake. Congratulations. You have now seen just how "surprise mechanics" (aka gamble boxes) work. Be grateful you didn't fall for the other assumptions: the gambler's fallacy that you are due for a change of luck; and the sunk-cost fallacy that you should continue to pour money into getting the desired item so that the initial money was not "wasted." Randulf is correct. As long as people buy keys (either with gems or gold), and as long as laws don't interfere, gaming companies will continue to milk consumers with these boxes. I don't even buy BL weapon skins on the TP anymore, because even that supports the system. While I would buy a skin I like at a price I considered reasonable, apparently the "what the market will bear" price is not enough, and I'm not part of ANet's target market. I just want to take the time to appreciate your psychology here. Those fallacies are straight-up murder to your wallet. Thank you for posting about them!

In ESO I made an extremely fat pirate Kajhiit....no idea if I spelled that right. He was adorable and had a fat bear waddling along right next to him his entire journey. Fat cats need love too!!!

You know that his VA is an actual Englishman? The rest of the Sylvari are Americans doing an accent, so he's not the one mispronouncing things. I meant from an American point of view. My husband is an actual Englishman as well, so I’m well aware that there are differences between voice acting and “the real deal.” I enjoy listening to Trahearne, his voice is very peaceful. But honestly I don’t think anyone hasn’t chuckled at Clawr Island at least once with someone else who plays this game. As for the other sylvari, I believe Gideon Emery is also an English voice actor in this game so no, not all of the others are Americans putting on an accent.

Unpopular opinion: I miss Trahearne. Hear me out. I loved his melodramatic mispronunciations. He wasn't particularly useful but I enjoyed having him around if only to laugh at "Clawr Island" and other things of that nature. I have gone through the cycle of hating Logan and making fun of him to the point I have a character called "Sir Logan Slackeray" and hated Braham and Taimi as well. They've become a lot more tolerable to me now. So I'm going to say Kasmeer and Marjory. Because I honestly have not enjoyed a single moment of their onscreen time. I don't like their voices, I don't like their overly-dramatic "Help meh!" from Kasmeer and then Marjory rushing into trouble. TL;DR: Kas and Jory gotta go. Or improve somehow.

Immersed or not, if he got offended, he should grow thicker skin. I actually find it worse in fantasy settings if they DON'T have some sort of cursing or swearing (using their own words for it in their culture of course, they don't have to use our vulgar words but they should use THEIR vulgar words), and we should be able to grasp that what they said was considered vulgar in their world (wheel of time comes to mind where Mat would say "Blood and Ashes!" and Nynaeve would chastize him about his language), based on context of when those words and phrases are said.Blood and bloody ASHES!!! LOL just glad someone else was thinking of this, as they read this thread :D

Yeah I knew exactly what was going on too. I would go for cheap discovery too. Congrats on your grandmaster though!!

I thank Mesmers for the port and tip when I can. Sometimes I forget, I just see a shiny portal on the ground that everyone is pouring into and I go along with it and forget to thank, especially in a Meta. But if it's one on one, then it's polite to thank the person, especially if the port was done out of the kindness of their heart.

I think it's sweet. RIP Stewie.

Thanks for the information, guys! This discussion caught my eye because I'm looking to get my griffon still too :)

Welcome back! Fractals are accessible for everyone, at the lower levels, as long as you have a level 80 character. To reach the upper levels you need ascended gear, but that can be gotten in the fractals and through various vendors. I would definitely recommend getting both expansions. Gliding and the Specializations for each class is worth it for HoT. Mounts are so much fun to ride and customize, in PoF as well. I like story, so I enjoyed those things about the expansions too. If you want to play Living World content, then the expansions are required for Season 3 and 4.

@Chickenooble.5014 said: I laughed so hard at this response, only because I am a very dry, sarcastic person when dealing with my friends. I tend to agree, though, that if you put up a post on social media, all bets are pretty much off. It's public. People will read it, respond to it, use it, in whatever way they see fit. I'm pretty sure unless they are making money from something someone wrote, its not necessary to contact the original person for quotes, such as reposting on a forum. Now, it is polite, if you WANT to ask them, but I don't think people should get bent out of shape over repostings of public posts (not that PeaceInLove did. They were pretty chill about the request). Like, I quoted you both in this post. I'm not going to ask you if I can. ;)

I totally agree with you 100%. This is absolutely shady how they handled this. You and I and a few other people that have posted too know the science behind this stuff. It's all Behavioral Modification 101. Watson and Skinner would love this stuff going on right now. I would rather just have a few skins ingame, even if they were just the 4 channel ones, that we can work towards, and then buy the others directly. Someone made a point that they based this whole expansion on mounts and very little else, so that ANET could monetize it so heavily in the gemstore. I don't mind something being monetized, just not to the extreme we are seeing now. Prices are too high for RNG or for individual skins for the one they DID release. If they had done this RIGHT they could have made SO MUCH MONEY. I agree that many people would have had less of a problem with an RNG box with only 5 skins. I would not have been one of those people, but many would. It would still not be a simple 1:1 of me buying the skin I want. I wouldn't like it either, but I wouldn't mind it so terribly much as I do now. It's a 1 in 5 chance instead of a 1 in 30, to begin with. Sometimes random loot boxes are fun to play with. I like opening them as much as the rest of the players. I think they should keep the boxes on the market, for people that like to have that kind of fun. They should reduce the chance and split up the skins somehow, definitely. But, put the skins out for individual purchase, as well!!!

No, you bought a skin. You have to have POF and unlock the type of mount that the skin goes to, before you can use that. That is not an actual "mount." That is a skin for an existing mount.

People are happy to pay for mount skins. Directly. Not for lottery tickets. I want mount skins to be like glider skins - I buy what I choose. There is only ONE REASON why they did mount skins this way: Anet knows that gamble boxes force people to spend more than they would if they simply purchased what they want. There is no other reason - forcing people to spend more money if they want skins.Yes, and I agree with WP on the fact that GW2 needs to make ANET money, so that we continue to have a game to play. I don't dispute that at all. We need to buy the things that are done the way we like them, when we buy gems. And before anyone starts in about gold to gems, those gems that you are buying with gold? Someone BOUGHT them with REAL MONEY. It is real money gems that go into the system. If they are needing money because they are working towards GW3, or they are trying to fundraise for the next expansion in the works, that is ok! What is NOT ok is doing what they are doing right now withholding skins from the game except for cash shop only RNG boxes. WP brought up a REALLY great point, as much as I am disappointed for other things he mentioned. He said if they did this five skins at a time, just put 5 skins in a loot box, then people would have bought it with no problem. If they released 5 more next week, in another box, then people would buy that one too. We have a problem because they have no ingame skins, and then they dumped THIRTY of them in a box, and said "Here you go guys! If you buy a huge amount of these, we'll give you a discount!!" Yeah, that's not the best way to make your players want to spend real money in the gemstore.

Yes, they have outright closed the thread that talks about the damage of gamble boxes instead of merging it. Interesting, huh? Yeah, I noticed that too. All of our psychological evidence gone in one fell swoop, when they eventually clear it away. I might repost my stuff in this thread just so everyone gets a chance to see it before the other thread "disappears." I love how that merged almost ALL of the other threads, but that one.

I see that WP has posted a video about this. I watched 3/4 of it before I had to go to bed last night. I haven't finished it yet, so, keeping that in mind... I am REALLY disappointed in his video. Not because he is not outraged, that's his opinion on the subject and that's fine. I am disappointed because he cared more for pointing out specific things about the game, than he did for the people who play it. He thinks it's "tacky" to talk about how this is gambling in some way, shape or form. He think that the people affected by this gambling are a few "phantoms" that aren't worth fighting over. So who is potentially affected by this, and might spend more money than they should? EVERYONE. We all have the same type of neural system that runs basically the same way. Imbalances happen, yes, but on the whole, we're all running on a similar system. these games are designed to tap into that system and make us feel as awesome as possible for playing it. Which is fine! That's not inherently bad. I enjoy playing these games. Because they are designed to be enjoyable to us! And there is nothing wrong with THAT, in and of itself. It's when systems like this RNG loot box stuff comes in that it gets into shady "this might not be the best thing for me to be doing eventually" territory, in my opinion. ALL of us are wired to feel good when we open these things and to want more and more and more. It's just the degree that it's affecting you personally, that is the difference. I totally agree with WP that we need to support GW2. I love GW2! This is my favorite MMO. I have no problem with buying gems and buying things that I want to support them. I'm not saying boycott the gemstore by any means. If you like they way that something is being sold on there, then BUY THAT. They know how much of each thing is sold. Voting with your wallet is not just not buying something, or buying it. Sometimes it's buying SOMETHING ELSE that is being done right, in support of the game. I totally think we should support this game. I don't think we should support random loot boxes, however. I think random loot boxes are "tacky."

This is one of the best explanations of why people spend too much on these boxes, without going into the whole dopamine thing. I love seeing so much psychology on the forum this week! This and the Skinner Box concept are exactly why people buy these things at such a large degree and why others are calling video game makers out about them. They are literally using brain chemistry and behavior patterns and conditioning to try to wring as much money out of the community as possible (video game makers in general, I mean.)

I've already commented on the psychological implications of this stuff. I'm simply directing this towards stuff I want to see happen now, as a player. This is entirely my opinion and some people will not agree with it and that's fine. I don't buy the dye packs BECAUSE they are random. I think I bought one, and thought I would get a random dye from that color pack, and instead I got a cheap dye I could get on the TP for like, a silver or two. Decided that was pretty much crap and didn't do it again. I think if you are going to make them random then selling the stuff on the TP is fine. Others may want to argue about how many dye packs you have to buy to get the full set of dyes. I don't know the specifics but I would think it would be a lot of gems. But, you can just buy them on the trading post, so that is ok with me. The black lion chests are horribly RNG. They even take away one of the slots to begin with, either with a booster or now a seasonal item, to reduce your chances of getting something REALLY GOOD from it. The odds are pretty horrible, in my opinion, and yeah, that fourth slot does show up from time to time but not near often enough, if you are buying those keys with real money. Putting exclusive skins in here is really terrible. I was lucky and got a hydra staff. A lot of people weren't lucky. I didn't get a jackyl backpack, and I desperately wanted one. If you put things in that chest like skins, then make them sellable on the TP, if they are not already, because if you already have that skin and get another one, how much would that annoy the holy living hell out of you? Especially if you bought the key with real money. Now we have the mount skin boxes. I like that we get a skin that we did not have automatically. This is fine with me, and I even applaud this part. Making this the ONLY way to get more dye channels or more skins for your mount is really a terrible business design. I understand that ANET needs money to run things, and selling a lot of these boxes would help. BUT as people have pointed out, there is NO WAY to get any kind of skin change in game. There is NO WAY to choose the one you want, either. I think they should keep these boxes on the gem store, definitely, for people that LIKE to GAMBLE and don't have a problem with it. For people who want their skins and only those, then make it so we can buy the skins seperately for around 500-800 gems. Like I said, these are outfits for our mounts. They should be priced that way. Not 2000 gems for one mount skin, no matter how cool it looks, without it being in a bundle of some kind, and able to purchase the skin itself separately for a lower price for those who do not want the bundled items. Someone said that the only reason people are making a hue and cry about the "loot boxes" now is because they want something. This is very true, however, there has been complaints about the other flavors of "loot boxes" in the gemstore for a while now. The majority of people want to make their mounts look pretty. This is undeniable. If there were even a few in-game skins that looked of the same quality as the gem-store ones, then I don't think that such a fuss would have been made. But this is a BLATANT cash-grab move on ANET's part. There is less and less armor in the game, and more and more outfits in the gemstore. Gliders are all in the gemstore. Now all the mount skins are in the gemstore. This is the kind of stuff I stop playing other games for. I do buy gems, and I do buy outfits with them, and gliders, and makeover kits, and yes, even black lion keys, when I feel like having fun and rolling the dice, so to speak. But I don't want to HAVE to buy gems every time I want to make my character or mount look nice. I think this is the real heart of the matter. We don't want to feel we HAVE to buy things, to enjoy the game, which is called Fashion Wars for a reason. If you give us free options to use, a lot of us will use them, BUT we will ALSO want to spend more, to support this trend continuing. TL:DR = RNG sucks, more skins in game and people will WANT to spend more money than if they felt they HAD to spend it.

A lot of different kinds of people. I've done 3 projects on Internet gaming disorder. I have 1 class and an internship to go before I graduate with a degree in psychology, specializing in addictions. Almost every aspect of a MMO is designed to hit on some kind of addiction or another. And if not a specific addiction, then just to make your dopamine levels rise in general. Do I play them? Obviously. I wouldn't be here if I didn't. Do a lot of people have problems with spending too much time or money on MMO games? Definitely. You don't have to be a "hardcore" doing a 24 hours run with Mountain Dew to keep you awake to be addicted, in some way, to the game. Whether it's spending all your gold on RNG boxes in a splurge, or playing too long when you said you would log off an hour ago, to spending a lot of real money, there are a lot of behaviors that are associated with addiction that happen in this game, with a lot of people.

Wow, this is the shadiest thing yet, Anet! This absolutely is gambling. You spend money, you take a chance on getting something you want, and probably end up with something you don't. Now, this is gambling lite edition, because you get a skin every time, but, you can't pick which mount it's for, or in any way better your chances. The House always wins, folks. I really hate that they are going this direction with the skins. There is already so few armor sets coming out in the actual game, and more and more outfits being pumped out in the gemstore. Some of them are beautiful, others are meh and just a blatant grab for cash. Now all the skins for the mounts are on the gemstore. The first bundle, which I did not buy, cost $20. I am not paying $20 for a few mount skins that I didn't even like. I sure am not spending money on a RNG system giving me skins that I don't like. The one that isn't RNG is ONE skin for 2000 gems. ONE skin for over $20. This is starting to be exactly like that other game I play for the story, by Zenimax, that sells mounts in their "gem" store, and only release them for a week at a time and make them cost around $50. I refuse to spend $50 on one digital item that is NOT a full game or expansion. If your mount skins cost the same as your expansions, something is extremely wrong with this situation. Now, I would totally buy these things if the skins were tradable on the TP. Because some people won't spend gems for these things but might want the skins, and if I don't want the skin, why not just make a bit of gold on it, myself? I would pay around 500-700 gems for a mount skin, btw, if it was one I actually wanted. That's how much outfits go for. These are basically outfits for our mounts. 2000 is teh cost of an outfit and glider bundle with some other items thrown in. ONE mount skin for it is ridiculous.