Cronos.6532

Yes, each of those is a gamble. Everything is a gamble to some extent, when you use the very general sense of the word. Life itself is a gamble. Just sitting in your chair is a gamble. You run the risk of it breaking and dropping you on the floor, potentially hurting you in the process. Or the ceiling falling on your head. Or even your desk suddenly collapsing into your lap. All of these things are highly unlikely, but the risk exists. No one likes to look at it from that perspective though. While you certainly could say everything in a game, or indeed life, is a gamble, If you apply the word to everything, it completely looses its significance and relevance. Therefore we must only use 'Gambling' as it's intended definition applies. Spending real money, on one of a variety of options, to which the obtained outcome does not envolve the power of choice, and leaves everything to random chance, is a form of gambling. This is akin to placing a $5 bill in a casino slot machine, pressing the button, and watching the meter spin around in circles over 30 possible items before stopping on one. If that is considered gambling in a casino -and make no mistake it is- it is gambling here too. But deffinitions aside, regardless of whether we call this "adoption" gambling or not, is irrelevant. The simple fact of the mater is I dont like it; there is huuuuge risk that ill waste a LOT of money obtaining things i dont want instead of buying something I do. Its not worth the risk, not worth the money, so I wont do it. And im not alone. Period. Simple as that. Yes, it is gambling by the broad definition of the term. The problem with trying to apply it the way you, and others, are trying to apply it implies the "legal" definition of "gamble", which this doesn't meet the requirements for. At least not at this time. If it did, it would require legal oversight, like a casino. And the game would likely require people to be at least 18 to play it at that point. This has a guaranteed reward. You are purchasing an item and exchanging it for another. Yes, there is risk in that you may not get the skin you are after; however, you are guaranteed a skin for every purchase. "Gambling" in the sense people are trying to apply it, has no guarantees which is where it's 'risk' comes in. More often than not you will get nothing, because that is how it is set up to work. Yes, you will eventually get something, but in the long run you typically lose more than you gain. Here you lose nothing, it is an equal trade. You may not like the skin. You may not ever use it. But you never, ever get nothing. You may view it as "getting nothing" because you do not like it, or because you do not use it, but it does remain that you do actually get something (of equal value. this is actually important to note). No, actually, I thought i made myself quite clear, I was not using the legal definition of 'Gambling', but the 'spirit of the word', ie: its 'intended definition.' Again, as I said, the word itself doesnt mater, the point is many of us are unhappy with ANets merchanidzing practices, and as such we request they amend them. Until they do, we will not be spending money on these items, and ANet will lose a large chunck of their possible income. It would therefore be in our best interest as players/consumers, and their's as a business/producer, to choose more consumer friendly, and thus profitable marketing practices. We, or at least I(as it would be foolheardly to claim I speak for all the dissenters) are trying desperately to send this message to the Devs because I love their game, and DO want to spend money on it, DO want to support it, and DO want to aquire some of these items. But the manor in which I support IS important, I would not let my own family starve just to feed a starving child. I care about the future and success of the game, and that is why I post complaints and suggestions: to bring GW2 back to a place where I can happily support them. A deal that is just as lucrative for them as it is for me. It's hard to believe you're using the 'spirit of the word' when you compare it to a slot machine which has no guaranteed return. Regardless, we agree that it fits the broader term, moving on. I understand where you're coming from. You don't agree with the RNG aspect of it, and as such won't buy them. That's fine. Typically that's my advice to most people - don't like it, don't buy it. That's not any different than what I do when I don't agree with something. Vote with your wallet. That said, I don't think it's going away. Which is why I made the suggestions that I did earlier in the thread - 1) give us non-rng cash shop skins that we can straight up buy if we like them (I should probably specify both individual skins as well as bundles, otherwise they'll just stick us with bundles, which not everyone likes), 2) give us non-rng in game skins that we can hunt down and earn, 3) adjust the BLS to allow us to at least limit the RNG by the mount type we want a skin for. I think between the 3 of these, it might assuage most peoples ire. I agree with all of this. Only, voting with your wallet but not your voice isnt enough. Lets say they sell 700 of these skins, there was a total of 3,000 that would have been sold if players could choose which one they wanted rather than have to pay into a RNG system, but because they made it RNG they only sold 700. Thats a loss of 2,300 sales they could have had! Now if everyone who would have bought some, but didnt, deciding to vote with only their wallet and not their voice, then there is no way for ANet to know how many sales they lost. They will only see the 700 that are, and not the 3,000 that could have been. And then pat themselves on the back for a successful endeavor, whats more they will take this "success" to heart and continue to use similar practices in the future, and thus continue to loose out on total sales in the future. Thats why its important to speak up, and not only votw with your wallet, but your voice as well. Oh, I wasn't implying anyone shouldn't voice their opinion. I do think people are/were overreacting a bit, which tends to get their opinions jumped on and even potentially ignored by those that should see it. Unfortunately there has been a lot of salt spewed over this addition to the game, and a lot of people are up in arms over it. People forget that you can give scathing feedback in a polite manner. Which achieves your goal of being heard, expressing your ire, and being perfectly within the rules. Its an art form. Too many people just start screaming, rolling on the floor, and demanding people lose their jobs. Fair point, I dont care for the "immoral", and "greedy" arguements popping up here. All the bashing and name calling is uncalled for. They are a business trying to make money, as all business make money. I disagree with their methods, but need we insult them? Completely uncalled for. Are they greedy? Ive never known a business that wasnt, the whole point of a business is to make as much money as possible. Is it immoral for a business to be greedy and try to make as much money as possible? Absolutely not, if it were, then it would be immoral to open a business in the first place, as once again, the purpose of a business is to do just that. Continuing such a debate only derails the thread, makes you appear childish, and causes your original stance/request, what may at first have been amicable, fall on death ears. I'm going to throw 'predatory' into that list, but that's just my opinion. I do concur though; for the most part we seem to be on the same page. As the saying goes "Businesses are in business to make money" That too, didnt intentionally leave it out. Everyone who has ever worked in marketing, knows that everything from the way merchandice is oranized on a shelf, to the color schemes painted throughout the building, and even the genre, pace, and tempo of the music played on the loudspeaker is meant to unconciously comvince you to stay longer, buy more. Spend more money. Business have thousand of marketing technices targeting certain consumers and buying habbits. McDonalds, which is a hamberger place, sells fried chicken in the Philippines, just about every American restraunt does. Even if they are specifically targeting people who "pressure buy" it is simply a marketing technique, one that every single store in the world uses. Seasonal drinks at starbucks, temporary sales and discounts, limited time promotional disney pen that will never be sold again. This is not preditory, its marketing. Or prehaps you could say all marketing is preditory, either way, it is the way of money. And even if it were immoral, it would simply be something every corperation is guilty of.The name-calling is definitely uncalled for, though ArenaNet's marketing is historically rather lamentable.

GW2 I think it's pretty fair if compare to that pile of f2p trash you mentioned. Perhaps I added too many details. The main focus is how there are less items per chest, and that you can pay 40% more to buy a specific item in the chest.

Are you honestly comparing the cash shop of a triple-A MMORPG to that of an indy steam brawler? The dev and art costs are orders of magnitude in difference. If you want to make a valid point you need to compare apples to apples. That would be WoW, TERA, FFXIV, SWTOR, Aion, BDO, etc. Go check out those cash shop prices and let us know what you find. Perhaps the cost of one skin in Guild Wars 2 should be more than that of a 2D game. But the delivery could be the same. Less skins in one box. Don't want to gamble? Buy the skin you want directly for 40% more. It doesn't matter what it costs. Nonetheless, we both know that the development time on these 31 new mounts is not proportionate to their price. If only a hundred people bought them, they're still instantly profitable. What matters is what makes ArenaNet the most profits, and as someone with a wallet I am not interested in these. I did already cite that Blizzard prices online store mounts for WoW at $25 just like ArenaNet does, I checked those, don't worry. ArenaNet doesn't want my money, but those guys want my money even less. Those ones have subscription fees and extreme P2W though. edit:fwiw I have not dropped money on WoW but I have on all other Blizzard games

Another note is that other games almost never make you pay real money for colour/texture variations. You can dye the mounts, sure, but changing the pattern or adding more channels is not a paid upgrade. Model changes only, please.

also why don't you get a deal on gems for buying more at once? seems like it's the only company that does this

fwiw, every time a new one of these is released, there is always a bunch of people who buy them all (US$43+)

Further comparing this to other games, consider Brawlhalla: Free gameHas rotating themed chests of skinsNo duplicatesSkins cannot be traded or refundedApproximately US$3 in gems to open a chestNo gold to gems exchange.The chance of getting the exact skin you want is 1/18 to 1/20You can get the skin you want on the gem store for a cost of about 40% more. (gem cost depends on how much you buy at once)The exception to this is the 2 or 3 skins that are exclusive to the chest.The incentive to buy the chest is that you pay less gems but may not get the skin you want. You might get one of the chest-exclusive skins, though. Perhaps ArenaNet's logic is that a mount unlock is account-wide and should be absurdly expensive. But for those that spent 90% of their time on one character, that doesn't matter.

Also, as someone who takes great pleasure from beautiful and unique GUIs, I'm extremely disappointed that ArenaNet made a brand new interface with animations for this stable thing, but they can't be bothered to make proper menus for gizmos like the portal tome, or unique UIs for interactive puzzles in the open world or instances (like in RuneScape). I don't think making a new animated interface for this will noticeably increase profits, and reusing the Black Lion Chest interface would have worked. Don't waste the dev time of Duncan Kay & al. by making them work on ridiculous marketing additions. This isn't being entitled or nitpicky, I just find it really unprofessional compared to the interface design in MMOs from 15 years ago. It's strange when I would actually pay real money for a new modal window than any mount skin.

I don't get why I've spent $3000 on another game, but 25x less on Guild Wars 2. Why does ArenaNet seldom put anything sought-after on the Gem Store? I have the money, but what's on the Gem Store has generally been super undesirable. While I don't like the look of ANY of the mount skins, here are my thoughts: The price on one mount is too much. 400 gems is too much for a skin that is extremely close to the base model.More people would buy these if it was a smaller set. Rather than one box with 30 options, it should be six boxes with five options. This is how other games do it - also with no duplicates - and no one complains. This would be only be reasonable at current real money prices if Path of Fire was free, though.Alternatively, this will never happen, but ArenaNet could add duplicates and allow players to unbind unlocked skins to sell them on the trading post. Players always prefer when you can sell the old item to replace it with a new item, because you'll essentially never use the old one again. Guild Wars 2 has a lot of collection stuff, but people do prefer the trading in Dota 2 to the cosmetics in League of Legends.

hey that's good enough Nevermind, it seems that that direct embed only works because you used an actual forum asset. My small icon images didn't work. Stephane Lo Presti's main concern with adding anything fun and interesting to the websites is storage space and being extreme with intellectual property :dissapointed: