Galactic.6453
-
Posts
23 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Content Type
Forums
Blogs
Events
Articles
Downloads
Gallery
Store
Posts posted by Galactic.6453
-
-
@pah.4931 said:
@Galactic.6453 said:@pah.4931 said:@Sylv.5324 said:@pah.4931 said:@Sylv.5324 said:@pah.4931 said:And frankly, if you like this game, you should too.Of course I like this game, that's why I'm ticked off that the reason I bought this xpac was gated behind 'gamble or pay a further $120 for a limited time to get the skin you want'. I already paid for the ultimate edition, why was this not included, if they were that desperate for cash?OK. First of all. Anet never promised Mount Skins with the expansion at all. I can't recall a single marketing device that stated mounts would even have skins. So you can't claim that first point. You bought PoF as it was advertised.Second of all, if they indeed are "strapped for cash" then why would they include something for free in a package that you bought without them including it? You see how that's silly right? (I still feel like most of you need business lessons ... "making money" isn't enough when you have bosses and investors and boards of directors)Now let me ask you something. Would you have bought PoF if they announced there would never be any mount skins? If you still would have, then just go ahead and pretend there aren't any mount skins. Boom. Have fun!Responses like yours are pretty much cementing my resolve never to spend a dime on ANet again, because they have enabled and encouraged this disingenuousness and condescension. Thanks for saving me money!Does logic often resolve you to not spend money in other realms? Or is logic just toxic to you in video games?People need to stop thinking with their hearts. This is a very emotional reaction to a very logical decision.And anyone who is against Anet trying to make more money, please work next week for free at your job. And never, ever ask for a raise. Lest you be yet another "greedy kitten", eh?Here you go with your strawman again. No one is against Anet making more money. It's against Anet making more money with dishonest means.It exists for a social and fun gaming experience.Says who, you? Why is your opinion worth more than that of someone who predominantly likes the dressup?1) How is it dishonest? You can't just throw words around. They have meaning. Anet never once lied.2) So, again, your argument is that EVERY SINGLE PERSON who plays GW2 is playing it to play dress up? And that is the correct opinion. And my opinion that people have tons of different reasons to play is the one that needs to be defended. Man, public schools are really failing us, aren't they?But if you refuse to believe basic logic about GW2 reason to exist, here is Anet's take on it. Let me know how heavily "playing dress up" is featured in the write up:1) How about you read my entire post in the last page.2) No, that is not my opinion, not me, nor anyone ever implied that and you just argued against your statement because you seem to think that dressup is not a valid form of enjoying the game because it's not in the manifesto. And you seem to be unaware that before they launched that there were lots of blogposts on the old anet blog about the hundreds of dye channels and the ability to mix and match gear, so dressup is certainly part of their intention for the game.
Edit well looks like the post is at the top of this page now
-
@pah.4931 said:
@Sylv.5324 said:@pah.4931 said:@Sylv.5324 said:@pah.4931 said:And frankly, if you like this game, you should too.Of course I like this game, that's why I'm ticked off that the reason I bought this xpac was gated behind 'gamble or pay a further $120 for a limited time to get the skin you want'. I already paid for the ultimate edition, why was this not included, if they were that desperate for cash?OK. First of all. Anet never promised Mount Skins with the expansion at all. I can't recall a single marketing device that stated mounts would even have skins. So you can't claim that first point. You bought PoF as it was advertised.Second of all, if they indeed are "strapped for cash" then why would they include something for free in a package that you bought without them including it? You see how that's silly right? (I still feel like most of you need business lessons ... "making money" isn't enough when you have bosses and investors and boards of directors)Now let me ask you something. Would you have bought PoF if they announced there would never be any mount skins? If you still would have, then just go ahead and pretend there aren't any mount skins. Boom. Have fun!Responses like yours are pretty much cementing my resolve never to spend a dime on ANet again, because they have enabled and encouraged this disingenuousness and condescension. Thanks for saving me money!Does logic often resolve you to not spend money in other realms? Or is logic just toxic to you in video games?People need to stop thinking with their hearts. This is a very emotional reaction to a very logical decision.And anyone who is against Anet trying to make more money, please work next week for free at your job. And never, ever ask for a raise. Lest you be yet another "greedy kitten", eh?Here you go with your strawman again. No one is against Anet making more money. It's against Anet making more money with dishonest means.
It exists for a social and fun gaming experience.
Says who, you? Why is your opinion worth more than that of someone who predominantly likes the dressup?
-
@pah.4931 said:
@Galactic.6453 said:@pah.4931 said:@Erulogos.2591 said:@pah.4931 said:But I support Anet's decision to attempt to create more profits without ANY negative impact on game design.This right here is where you and others differ strongly. If this method actually does make the money for Anet you believe it will, what are the odds of us being able to get mounts any other way? They won't give us achievement mount skins when they can make money from the same art team effort. And face the fact, this is not a game about skill, it is a game about cosmetics, so access to those cosmetics really does impact the game design.Hmm. I would say since there currently is a skin for sale for 2000 gems without any RNG, that kinda kills your argument that "we won't be able to get mount SKINS any other way" ... right??This is not a game about skill or cosmetics. It's a game about fun. If you have fun playing it, then you'll be glad that folks buying loot boxes might get you another expansion or two. If you don't have fun playing it, then why are you playing it. :P@pah.4931 said:@Erulogos.2591 said:@pah.4931 said:But I support Anet's decision to attempt to create more profits without ANY negative impact on game design.This right here is where you and others differ strongly. If this method actually does make the money for Anet you believe it will, what are the odds of us being able to get mounts any other way? They won't give us achievement mount skins when they can make money from the same art team effort. And face the fact, this is not a game about skill, it is a game about cosmetics, so access to those cosmetics really does impact the game design.Hmm. I would say since there currently is a skin for sale for 2000 gems without any RNG, that kinda kills your argument that "we won't be able to get mount SKINS any other way" ... right??This is not a game about skill or cosmetics. It's a game about fun. If you have fun playing it, then you'll be glad that folks buying loot boxes might get you another expansion or two. If you don't have fun playing it, then why are you playing it. :PThere exist people in this world who have fun with dressing up their characters and in extension their mounts in an MMO that is about dressing up their characters and lose out on fun if they cannot dress them up the way they want without paying in a roundabout way for something while wasting most of the money, who'd have thunk?And some people really enjoy loot boxes. OK. Cool.In that case they can just put in an option for lootboxes for those who enjoy lootboxes and an option for direct purchase for those who enjoy having choice and it'd be perfect for everyone, right?
-
@pah.4931 said:
@Erulogos.2591 said:@pah.4931 said:But I support Anet's decision to attempt to create more profits without ANY negative impact on game design.This right here is where you and others differ strongly. If this method actually does make the money for Anet you believe it will, what are the odds of us being able to get mounts any other way? They won't give us achievement mount skins when they can make money from the same art team effort. And face the fact, this is not a game about skill, it is a game about cosmetics, so access to those cosmetics really does impact the game design.Hmm. I would say since there currently is a skin for sale for 2000 gems without any RNG, that kinda kills your argument that "we won't be able to get mount SKINS any other way" ... right??This is not a game about skill or cosmetics. It's a game about fun. If you have fun playing it, then you'll be glad that folks buying loot boxes might get you another expansion or two. If you don't have fun playing it, then why are you playing it. :P@pah.4931 said:@Erulogos.2591 said:@pah.4931 said:But I support Anet's decision to attempt to create more profits without ANY negative impact on game design.This right here is where you and others differ strongly. If this method actually does make the money for Anet you believe it will, what are the odds of us being able to get mounts any other way? They won't give us achievement mount skins when they can make money from the same art team effort. And face the fact, this is not a game about skill, it is a game about cosmetics, so access to those cosmetics really does impact the game design.Hmm. I would say since there currently is a skin for sale for 2000 gems without any RNG, that kinda kills your argument that "we won't be able to get mount SKINS any other way" ... right??This is not a game about skill or cosmetics. It's a game about fun. If you have fun playing it, then you'll be glad that folks buying loot boxes might get you another expansion or two. If you don't have fun playing it, then why are you playing it. :PThere exist people in this world who have fun with dressing up their characters and in extension their mounts in an MMO that is about dressing up their characters and lose out on fun if they cannot dress them up the way they want without paying in a roundabout way for something while wasting most of the money, who'd have thunk?
-
@pah.4931 said:
@Galactic.6453 said:@pah.4931 said:I still find it so odd that you would quit or "never pay another dime in the game again" over this. Anet could have never even done Mount Skins at all. Two months ago, you didn't even have a mount for 5 years of the game's life. Why all of a sudden do you NEED these skins so badly? If they aren't worth it to you (I will spare you the economics lesson of supply and demand and Anet being able to set the price however they want) then just don't buy them and keep enjoying the game you blissfully enjoy in your mount skin ignorance 4 days ago...And anyone vilifying Anet for want to make more profits, I hope to GOD you are never in a leadership position at a company where you are responsible for keeping others employed, or -- worse -- that you never own or run your own company. Yikes.This isn't about needing to have anything. This is about wanting to be able to buy what you want to buy. No one is villifying Anet for wanting earn money. Doesn't mean people will be fine with them doing it with any means necessary. This is just a bad and manipulative business practice and calling them out for bad and manipulative business practice. It's as simple as that.No laws were broken, and I GUARANTEE YOU they are making more money this way. If you actually love this game, you would see that and be happy that this "manipulative" (lol) business practice is keeping the lights on. OK, so you don't get the shiny raptor you want, but maybe now you might get one more expansion before the game shutters.I don't want to go into another ROI business lesson in this thread, so suffice it to say... "making money" doesn't prevent companies from going under. They need to make "enough money" ... when budget time comes around and NCSoft has a few million to invest, it's looking more and more like that's going to be going to their mobile games which make about 400% more ROI than a huge, lunking, aging game like GW2. If I got 2 bucks to invest, why get a $.50 return when i could get a $4.25 return?? "Profitable" can still go under, guys.(p.s. calling someone bad and manipulative is kind of the exact definition of vilifying...)Yeah sure no laws were broken but that's completely irrelevant. No one is asking any government to shut them down.This makes more money you say, and have you thought why? Why would someone suddenly be inclined to buy more mount skins if they were in loot boxes than if they were sold outright? It's the same product inside. They aren't selling more because their product is better. What a mystery! Is it because, oh gosh, the mechanisms of a lootbox system flicks the right switches in people's brains to make them spend more and on things they would have not bought? And look, there's a word for controlling people for your own gain, it's manipulation.
Here's what the mount RNG does
- wager and chance triggers the human dopamine system
- it's possible to sell less valuable goods along with valuable goods
- people who only want some skins will inevitably end up buying some they would not have bought
- while the chance of not getting a specific skin until the end is low, it is still very much possible and people will be thinking of that.
- this is where the limited thirty pack bundle comes in. Limited = scarcity = encourages impulse purchases. It is also cheaper than buying the whole thing, so people who're afraid of the worst case RNG are convinced into buying more than they need.
- at the same time, they offer the 2000 gems Warhound, which makes the RNG ticket look cheap, while at the same time the RNG ticket makes the Warhound look more appealing because it's direct purchase even for its extreme price.
All of this is manipulation, there's no ways around it. And don't pretend they never thought of all that. It'd take an especially dense person to not know what's going on in the game industry, not know what their job as marketer entails and not know what they're even selling, and for it to also go through multiple instances of equally dense people who don't notice. On another note, why do you think they had gemstore sales so shortly after PoF preorders? Could it be that they wanted people to spend their preorder gems on as many impulse purchases as possible? Nah that can't be, no marketer would be smart enough to think of that, right?
And your point about profit is completely beside the point. That it's only about the numbers game to the companies is exactly why people don't like lootboxes.
-
@pah.4931 said:I still find it so odd that you would quit or "never pay another dime in the game again" over this. Anet could have never even done Mount Skins at all. Two months ago, you didn't even have a mount for 5 years of the game's life. Why all of a sudden do you NEED these skins so badly? If they aren't worth it to you (I will spare you the economics lesson of supply and demand and Anet being able to set the price however they want) then just don't buy them and keep enjoying the game you blissfully enjoy in your mount skin ignorance 4 days ago...
And anyone vilifying Anet for want to make more profits, I hope to GOD you are never in a leadership position at a company where you are responsible for keeping others employed, or -- worse -- that you never own or run your own company. Yikes.
This isn't about needing to have anything. This is about wanting to be able to buy what you want to buy. No one is villifying Anet for wanting earn money. Doesn't mean people will be fine with them doing it with any means necessary. This is just a bad and manipulative business practice and calling them out for bad and manipulative business practice. It's as simple as that.
-
@Sir Vincent III.1286 said:The hysteria over the GW2 mount skin is laughable. While WoW sells a single skin for $25, GW2 sells a skin for $5 (400 gems). $4 per skin if you buy the bundle.
It's only 5 bucks per skin if you pay 100 bucks! Wow what a deal! Let's just ignore that you only wanted five of them and would have only paid 25 bucks and just got tricked into spending four times as much for things you didn't need!
-
@Sir Vincent III.1286 said:
@troops.8276 said:There seems to be a lot of conflating making profit with by any means necessary. As if being competitive in the market and having ethical business standards are mutually exclusive. This sort of thinking has led to all sorts of problems today and throughout history. This is not radical or unorthodox thinking. Proponents on both the left and the right of the political spectrum have spoken and acted on ethics in business. How they seek to achieve this is very different in approach. I lean to the right on this in many ways but that is by the by. This leads into the idea that if any marketing is 'predatory' then all marketing is. The term 'predatory' though implies there is also 'prey'. The more helpless the 'prey' the more 'predatory' the company or marketing practise appears. Ethics are of course subjective and therefore 'predatory' infers a scale. Are GW2 players 'helpless prey' and Anet 'vicious predators'? I'd say no to both. But I also don't think it would be entirely unfair to say 'somewhat predatory in nature to a lesser degree' for it is hardly a 'highly ethical business decision'. Black and White or Shades of Grey. Little I believe is ever so simple.Nothing "predatory" about this at all. That's just an exaggeration by inappropriately labeling something they don't like.If we break this down to $15/month, that's 3 skins per month and after 10 months, you get all the skins. Nothing unethical about that when other MMO charges a $15/mo fee to play their game on top of buying a copy of their expansion. $15/mo for 3 skins is very affordable.The problem here is that people want everything NOW even though they CAN'T AFFORD IT right now. I prefer it to be 250 gems a piece but I'm not too worked up if they keep the 400 gem price. The randomness is just a fun spin on the process.Affording it has nothing to do with it. Most people don't want to have all the mounts. They want some specific mounts. People who want all of them buy the whole pack anyway. Why do I have to pay money for things I don't want to try and get something I do want? The entire lootbox system is designed around selling you things you wouldn't buy otherwise, it's their entire point.It's not a fun spin, it's designed to push people's buttons into spending more money. That's why it's predatory. It's just marketing trickery.
-
@Deihnyx.6318 said:
@Zania.8461 said:- The system promotes diluting the pool with lazy recolorsI am sorry, but a lot of new mounts are bad. As in lazy, fast re-textures that likely took about half hour to make. Those would not be bought by practically anyone. The only reason they are being unlocked now is because they are present in the RNG pool. I do not want to support the practice of making lazy recolors then shoving them down our throats for gems. Make high quality models/maps/textures that people would be willing to shell the gems out for, and I will buy them. Have every one of the 30 mounts in the stables been unique and great looking (I am looking at at least normal map tweaking with a few model changes), the number of complaints would go way down.Actually about that, I kinda disagree that nobody wants them. They are slightly retextured mounts that is true, but they offer 4 dyes and they don't have the annoying glowing eyes and super flashy colors that burn everyone's eyes.Should probably have been in game in the first place yes, but they do have great value :)
There will definitely be more people wanting the super shiny particle mounts or those with model differences that, mind you, also have 4 dye channels. Compared to those other two types the plain retexture is clearly a lower value mount, both in demand and production time that's being sold for the same price and lowers the chances of getting the more high demand mounts.
-
@Selene.9415 said:Bit late to the party so maybe this will get buried, but my suggestion for mount skins:
Define mount skins by tier:
- Retextures are "Fine", minor remodels are "Masterwork", combined (at least 2 out of 3) minor remodels/retextures/particles are Exotic. Major remodels/particles/sound effects like the Reforged Warhound are Ascended/Legendary.
Separate the adoption licenses by both mount and tier and make them non-rng:
- Example: "Fine Raptor Adoption License: Choose to adopt either the Coastal Spiketail or Savannah Monitor!" (In this case, the Canyon Spiketail and Striped Trihorn would be considered Masterwork, while the Stormridge and Flamelander would be considered Exotic). I believe this would also have the benefit of creating a "future proof," uncluttered-UI for adoption licenses (if they end up similar to /u/sonysides mockup), if you do decide to remove the RNG after the backlash.
I have one issue with this and it's that I wouldn't consider any of the current mounts to be "exotic". The regular retextures like the Coastal Spiketail would be ok as fine but I consider the Canyon Spiketail and the electric and flame ones as on the same tier, just appealing to different people. Something like the Forged Warhound would probably count as the highest tier but I'd want something more different on the exotic tier than just the raptor but with particles.
-
@Darktooth.1078 said:And the fact that they're actually asking for feedback shows that they are not 'money grubbing' like some people suddenly thought up, they want to listen and truly see if this was a bad idea on their part.
That's certainly not how their or NCSoft's marketing department works. Those people aren't stupid. They're professionals who do this as a full time job, they have done this for years, they research what all their competition does and research all statistics they can get their hands on and calculate all possible profits or losses. And it's not only one person, but multiple people who check and revise the system and suggestion. There's no way they didn't already think of all the points that were already posted in this thread and didn't know what people are thinking of lootboxes right now. And if they actually didn't do that I'd actually be even more disappointed in their competence as a company. And it's not all of Arenanet, I never said that. It's not a conspiracy that hundreds of Anet employees are in on. The artists who made the skins might have not known other than "it's going to go into the gemstore". But their marketing did and NCSoft certainly did. This thread isn't for getting actual feedback and suggestion to implement, it's for testing the waters with how mad people actually are and as a containment to let the anger simmer for a while.
Even if we assume Anet was a ragtag bunch of friendly gamer folks who wouldn't exploit microtransactions, their parent company certainly isn't and their parent company's shareholders certainly aren't
-
@Wolfheart.7483 said:.> @Galactic.6453 said:
@AnodicShadow.3647 said:There have been so many people who are trying to paint Anet in the worst possible light over this. There have been players in Map chat telling others to not team up with people who are buying the mount skins because to them, apparently people who buy them don't deserve respect. There are people who are actively out there trying to encourage others to not play/support GW2 anymore because of this decision. If that's not unnecessary hatred and anger, I don't know what is. This isn't something that warrants a cease of support for Anet for all of time. The fact that they're asking for feedback shows that they see that people aren't liking the decision and they can adjust it accordingly. I doubt that they sat there in a meeting and said "OK, let's worm more money out of people by exploiting and preying upon their unhealthy habits." like I have seen many people in an out of game say that was Anet's train of thought on this release That just makes Anet seem like an evil company that doesn't care about the people that play the game. Yeah, the whole concept of loot boxes might have a bad rep/history as of late, but again, Anet is not trying to become a Gacha game where you get tons upon tons of trash loot before getting that one ultra rare unit that's actually viable to use to progress the game. Someone could've thought getting two random mount skins for 10$ sounded like a genuinely fun and worthwhile idea. You never know. Everyone makes mistakes sometimes, people just need the space/time to fix them instead of being constantly harped on about it. They know that the majority does not agree with this adoption situation at this point already so here on Day 3, it's probably time to let the hate die down a bit because the stress probably isn't going to help. Associating the company as a whole with negative words/treating them as something that shouldn't be supported isn't fair to the people that work on the game who are genuinely passionate about the content that they release in it. You don't have to buy the mount skins if you don't agree with them, but "donating" 10$ at least once a year even just to have 800 gems to sit on won't hurt anyone and collectively, could provide more funding for content to be developed. Even then, it's still up to the player if they want to even do that. Once again, there's no need to hate Anet for this so much. Things will get better, have faith. :)Goodwill is something you earn, not something you deserve from the get go. If everyone was like you they'd just get stepped on at every corner and nothing would change because "surely it's a mistake they will change next time :)". If they change it, then they will have earned goodwill. Until then, having faith is useless. And it's not like this is just the doing of one person who made a honest mistake. This stuff goes through multiple people and multiple companies and its effects are thoroughly researched and profits are estimated. And there's no way they didn't know about all the hubbub in the industry about lootboxes right now.They have earned it.You are dismissing anything good they have done in the past. So from the point where they made this mistake, you just dismissed any good will they already had and reset it to zero so that they have to earn it again. Naturally, how much good will they have earned in the past varies from player to player but the general consensus has been that Anet/GW2 has been one of the most customer/player friendly games/companies out there. So your point has no validity. You are trying to use the "good will" argument by inverting it and implying they are only allowed to earn good willaftermaking a mistake and everything they have done prior is irrelevant.Yes of course? They had my goodwill but destroyed it with this move. It's additive and this one was a huge negative. The fact that they seemed to be so customer friendly only makes this worse. I still like the game and I really like PoF though, I'm not the person who said PoF isn't worth buying because of this. And regardless of the fact, no goodwill can explain this away as being an unintentional mistake, only blindness.
-
@AnodicShadow.3647 said:There have been so many people who are trying to paint Anet in the worst possible light over this. There have been players in Map chat telling others to not team up with people who are buying the mount skins because to them, apparently people who buy them don't deserve respect. There are people who are actively out there trying to encourage others to not play/support GW2 anymore because of this decision. If that's not unnecessary hatred and anger, I don't know what is. This isn't something that warrants a cease of support for Anet for all of time. The fact that they're asking for feedback shows that they see that people aren't liking the decision and they can adjust it accordingly. I doubt that they sat there in a meeting and said "OK, let's worm more money out of people by exploiting and preying upon their unhealthy habits." like I have seen many people in an out of game say that was Anet's train of thought on this release That just makes Anet seem like an evil company that doesn't care about the people that play the game. Yeah, the whole concept of loot boxes might have a bad rep/history as of late, but again, Anet is not trying to become a Gacha game where you get tons upon tons of trash loot before getting that one ultra rare unit that's actually viable to use to progress the game. Someone could've thought getting two random mount skins for 10$ sounded like a genuinely fun and worthwhile idea. You never know. Everyone makes mistakes sometimes, people just need the space/time to fix them instead of being constantly harped on about it. They know that the majority does not agree with this adoption situation at this point already so here on Day 3, it's probably time to let the hate die down a bit because the stress probably isn't going to help. Associating the company as a whole with negative words/treating them as something that shouldn't be supported isn't fair to the people that work on the game who are genuinely passionate about the content that they release in it. You don't have to buy the mount skins if you don't agree with them, but "donating" 10$ at least once a year even just to have 800 gems to sit on won't hurt anyone and collectively, could provide more funding for content to be developed. Even then, it's still up to the player if they want to even do that. Once again, there's no need to hate Anet for this so much. Things will get better, have faith. :)
Goodwill is something you earn, not something you deserve from the get go. If everyone was like you they'd just get stepped on at every corner and nothing would change because "surely it's a mistake they will change next time :)". If they change it, then they will have earned goodwill. Until then, having faith is useless. And it's not like this is just the doing of one person who made a honest mistake. This stuff goes through multiple people and multiple companies and its effects are thoroughly researched and profits are estimated. And there's no way they didn't know about all the hubbub in the industry about lootboxes right now.
-
@neven.3785 said:This is not gambling as some people like to yell. They simply can't get exactly what they want some are pissed off at anet for sticking to their chosen business model for this game. I love that they offer skins now and am glad they didn't chose to lock away certain mounts behind an account upgrade , rather it is only about how pretty you can make our mount.
You're wagering money for a chance to get something you want. It is gambling. And how is being glad they didn't do something even worse an argument for this being good? What people want is the ability to pay for something they want and not having to hope they don't draw the short stick. Just because this is their business startegy doesn't mean it has to be good. Imagine if you could buy all the mounts for a set price. People like you who want all or any of them get to have any of them, people who want to have specifics can have specifics. The key difference being that people aren't forced into buying things they don't want if they try to buy things they want.
-
@AnodicShadow.3647 said:
It's sad to see all of these people wishing for Anet and GW2 to fall. Why is there so much hatred in people's hearts nowadays? I personally wouldn't mind getting any of the mount skins, especially because of no duplicates and equal chance of getting them. It takes a lot of work to make sure these skins work/aren't buggy/are textured correctly and 400 gems for what would probably cost at least 1000 with some of them is a great deal. I don't care if it's random. I'm just happy to get a skin in general since I can probably find a dye combo that looks great on it.
Liking the game doesn't mean you have to like everything they do. Liking the game means you want it to develop into a good direction. This is business strategy is exploitative and people don't want it to continue like this. And not only is it irrelevant to argue about how much work was put into each skin, I seriously doubt those ticket mount skins even require more work than an entirely new glider, which are like 400-500 gems each.There are three types, retextures, skins with slightly modified models and skins with the same models but with particle effects.For the first one they only need to modify the color texture and draw four masks for each dye channel because everything else stays the same.For the modified models, they need to remodel and retexturize some parts of it but it's definitely not much more work than making a new glider from scratchAnd for the ones with particle effects, they need to make new textures or add some fancy shaders, and make and add some particle effects. The models are still the same.
Just because it's sparkly and shiny doesn't necessarily mean it takes a lot of time to make them and you aren't getting a special deal because they're in lootboxes.The main reason for them to put the skins into lootboxes is to sell more bulk. If they sold them like gliders people would just buy the ones they want, but with RNG they can convince people to buy more skins than they would have in the upfront method. Most people aren't like you and just want any, they want a specific one or a specific few. It's just plain manipulative psychology.
-
@Azure The Heartless.3261 said:
Note: When working with angry hornets, do not stick your head in their nest as a peace offering. They're watching, but they're probably also looking at metrics to see if people are actually offended.It doesn't even really matter if a majority of people don't like it because these kinds of microtransactions are sustained by a minority of wealthy whales anyway. Browser games did it more than ten years ago, mobile games have been doing it the whole time and only a few years ago did the AAA industry realize how much cash they're missing out on.
-
@Ewon.5903 said:I believe part of the reason these RNG mounts are going over so poorly is that quite a few of the mount skins feel low effort, and have minimal changes to them. I could easily reduce the number of mount options down to 10 or fewer. Having all those extra ones come a cross like a money grab to make these RNG boxes a thing.
I apologize to the those who created those low effort skins if they do feel they are great skins.
I'm sure this is completely deliberate. They can sell triple the skins for much less work.The regular retexture skins should just be in a seperate pack like the halloween packs. Buy a pack, choose one retexture for each of your mounts. That way the people buying those will be the people who actually like and want those, instead of making people hate them because it's only a hurdle on their way to the super special sparkly skin.
-
Why're people talking about the production costs as if that matters in whether this is a bad move or not? If they're really struggling with money, which I don't believe any second, that simply would mean the current state of the game is a failure and they need change things. If a company failed in making money with their product it's not on the customer to accept shady business practices. But I'm absolutely certain this isn't even the case and most of the profit is going into NCSoft's pockets anyway.
But back to the topic at hand, the problem about this is that it absolutely is designed to be predatory and manipulative and literally gambling. Let's not pretend Anet or NCSoft or whoever didn't have a psychologist behind this to make it as appealing as possible to buy multiples or even the whole pack.
- You have a 1/30 chance of getting a specific one you want, so it's entirely possible that you won't get the specific one until you buy the last box but, oh no, buying single licenses until you get the one you want could end up more expensive than buying the whole pack so you should just buy the whole pack, right? It's only a hundred bucks, what a steal!
- Some skins are obviously more desirable and "better" than others, like those with a different mesh or special particle effect, which means you'll be inclined to try again if you only got a "boring" one. This also means they can sell simple retextures most people wouldn't consider buying otherwise.
- Every ticket netting you an unique skin is pretty much just manipulating you into thinking it's a good deal. It's like stealing your wallet and then giving you back your ID cards you had inside, see how nice they are? This wouldn't even be needed if you could just choose what you want to buy. Plus it makes you think the next ticket is surely going to be the mount you want because the odds get raised by 1/30 every time you buy a ticket.
- Don't like the whole RNG thing? Don't you fret because we something just for you, the forged warhound for direct purchase for just 25 bucks!
This isn't even treating you like a player or even a customer, just some dumb cattle to milk for money again and again. It doesn't matter if it's Anet's fault, or NCSoft's or their shareholder's fault, this isn't acceptable in any way.
Official Mount Adoption Feedback Thread [merged]
in Guild Wars 2 Discussion
Posted
The ESRB is funded by gaming companies. They are not a government organization. They obviously have an interest in a lot of games not being rated M. Not to mention that their argument for that was really flimsy at best.
Would they even have any option with those questions? If they said 1 was for fun, most people wouldn't buy it, if they said it was for the money most people would hate them. And 2 is a 'yes' or 'no' answer with 'no' not being an option, same as 3.