I have a lot of hours in GW2, and regularly buy gems in order to support the game. However, I do have a problem with the current mount adoption system implementation, and so despite having enough disposable income to buy them, I have not got them all. Good things: The addition of new styles of mounts with full dye channels is positiveThe fact that you cannot get duplicates is also goodThe amount of mounts is good, bringing more mount diversity style to the gameMy issues are: The only way to get the adoption certificates is through the gem store. Unlike black lion chest boxes/keys, you cannot get them in the game world. The cost is prohibitively high at 400 gems each, and I am not impressed overly with many of the mounts on offer and would never use most, making the cost even more of an issue due to the rng of getting the skin you want. If the cost was lower, say 150 gems, even 200, it might not be such a massive deal, but to throw such a high cost at it seems really greedy, considering the overall cost is more than double or even triple that of the expansion if you buy them all (depending if you bulk buy). As someone that buys gems regularly, if the cost had been half, I would likely have bought the entire set, but at that price, it left a bad taste in my mouth. It feels money-grabbing and greedy of the game, and I don't like having that feeling when purchasing an item.Some of the skins in the adoption pack are very much just the basic mount skin with more dye channels. There should have been an update, or at least a cheap pack of full-dye-channel mounts (like the spooky ones, but cheaper), and any in the adoption pack should have been far more different than we saw.Trying to buy gems with in-game gold would be horrific, especially for casual players, of whom the game is designed for mostly. Especially with the fact that the gold-to-gem economy fluctuates on demand.The new mounts have a tendency to focus more on a neon aspect, or at least eye-catching. From a design point of view, I like the variety, and it can be argued that clothing and gliders already do this. However, the sheer amount of neon mounts these days is horrible to see. An option for disabling seeing other people's shiny mounts, to see them as default would be better by far.In general, I feel the marketing of this has been poor, damaging people's enthusiasm for mounts in the game. Lots of people were really hyped about the mounts, even myself who had been a sceptic of them in the game, but I don't think people are going to forget this marketing ploy any time soon, and it is intrinsically linked now to the expansion, and the game as a whole. Things like this, where short term monetizing of things in a game can harm it long term. I hope Anet learns from this situation and avoids it in future.
I have a lot of hours in GW2, and regularly buy gems in order to support the game. However, I do have a problem with the current mount adoption system implementation, and so despite having enough disposable income to buy them, I have not got them all. Good things: The addition of new styles of mounts with full dye channels is positiveThe fact that you cannot get duplicates is also goodThe amount of mounts is good, bringing more mount diversity style to the gameMy issues are: The only way to get the adoption certificates is through the gem store. Unlike black lion chest boxes/keys, you cannot get them in the game world. The cost is prohibitively high at 400 gems each, and I am not impressed overly with many of the mounts on offer and would never use most, making the cost even more of an issue due to the rng of getting the skin you want. If the cost was lower, say 150 gems, even 200, it might not be such a massive deal, but to throw such a high cost at it seems really greedy, considering the overall cost is more than double or even triple that of the expansion if you buy them all (depending if you bulk buy). As someone that buys gems regularly, if the cost had been half, I would likely have bought the entire set, but at that price, it left a bad taste in my mouth. It feels money-grabbing and greedy of the game, and I don't like having that feeling when purchasing an item.Some of the skins in the adoption pack are very much just the basic mount skin with more dye channels. There should have been an update, or at least a cheap pack of full-dye-channel mounts (like the spooky ones, but cheaper), and any in the adoption pack should have been far more different than we saw.Trying to buy gems with in-game gold would be horrific, especially for casual players, of whom the game is designed for mostly. Especially with the fact that the gold-to-gem economy fluctuates on demand.The new mounts have a tendency to focus more on a neon aspect, or at least eye-catching. From a design point of view, I like the variety, and it can be argued that clothing and gliders already do this. However, the sheer amount of neon mounts these days is horrible to see. An option for disabling seeing other people's shiny mounts, to see them as default would be better by far.In general, I feel the marketing of this has been poor, damaging people's enthusiasm for mounts in the game. Lots of people were really hyped about the mounts, even myself who had been a sceptic of them in the game, but I don't think people are going to forget this marketing ploy any time soon, and it is intrinsically linked now to the expansion, and the game as a whole. Things like this, where short term monetizing of things in a game can harm it long term. I hope Anet learns from this situation and avoids it in future.
