This is why I hate flash sales.

[Niteraven.1372]

@SweetPotato.7456 said:Send a customer support voicing your interest in purchasing the pass , it could work. Pretty sure they won't pass up a sale. Good Luck,

PS: don't get annoy. I know that feeling well, it is not good for you.

I tried this one time with something else. They told me I had to wait until it went back on the TP.

[Algreg.3629]

@"Nero DarkSlayer.9206" said:Yeah, the news was posted beforehand, but for the third time. The news published on the 16th. The item was only available on the 16th. And there just so happens to be a global health pandemic going on right now. The government told me I wasn't allowed to work a year ago. I've been sitting here, wasting away in my house for an entire year. I'm sorry if I don't even know what day it is anymore.

And yeah, I know it was my fault for missing the window. I admitted such (albeit briefly) in my initial post. My whole argument is that the window was unreasonably short when compared with how infrequently it goes on sale (24 hours available in a span of THREE YEARS is utterly ridiculous). and that there shouldn't even BE a window because of how psychologically demanding, manipulative and unethical it is to host immoral market models such as exclusive 'flash sales' in the first place. Sure, it is the company's legal right to do so, but it still blows my mind when people defend and endorse this kind of predatory practice. Sometimes seemingly for the sheer sake of gleaning some smug-satisfaction from posturing over someone else's misfortune. I get that impression more in the steam forums than here, but still. My point stands. I'm advocating for a freer, more open and consumer-friendly gemstore for everyone -you included-, so why on earth are you against me here?

because while most people would agree it is a stupid business model (and working in a related field, I still have to see some reliable proof of this model performing better than e.g. offering digital items the whole year around and stimulating interest with an actual limited sale of those), you making this about a grande crusade regarding morals and business ethics and "woe is me" is rather off-putting. But one has to be lenient here, I think the general life situation you describe is straining for all of us mentally. So in essence, yes, the business practice is BS, but hardly justifies moral outrage. Or maybe it does, still, you cannot expect everyone to share your particular values.

[Super Hayes.6890]

For a game supported by micro transactions, I have raised an eyebrow more than once when I had the money but couldn't buy what I wanted. I didn't put that money aside and wait for it to become available either. I simply lost interest and never bought them. My gem store purchases are few and far between because I only buy when I'm in good shape on my expenses and what I want is available. I must be in a minority though as they clearly still run this artificial scarcity model. OP, I'm with you. All items should be available all the time. Artificial scarcity should be created by limited time sales, not availability.

[Astyrah.4015]

@Fuchslein.8639 said:One more reason why the Gemstore should be accessible outside of the game. So you could just look from work, if you have the week no time to play or perhaps had pc problems or so.

i'd honestly love something like this.

like, login to guildwars2.com click that gemstore tab on the header and check what's on sale for %off. the ingame gemstore as it is right now makes use of a modified web browser anyway to display the contents so im pretty sure they can implement something similar on the regular gw2/arenanet website as well.

[Funky.4861]

Hopefully at the end of March they will re-do all the sales for a week; that allows people to buy missed items which they might have heard about from others or from a third-party site such as twitter etc. Flash-sales rely on fantastic communication, which is something we all know anet is weak on.

[kharmin.7683]

@"Astyrah.4015" said:

i'd honestly love something like this.

like, login to guildwars2.com click that gemstore tab on the header and check what's on sale for %off.How is that any different than logging in to the forums and checking this thread?

[blp.3489]

At very least it would be nice if you could "preorder" items, i.e. pay for them now and receive them next time they are on the trading post so you don't miss something you have been wanting for a year just because you weren't near a computer on a particular day.

[Fozzie.5370]

@Nero DarkSlayer.9206 said:Yeah, the news was posted beforehand, but for the third time. The news published on the 16th. The item was only available on the 16th. And there just so happens to be a global health pandemic going on right now. The government told me I wasn't allowed to work a year ago. I've been sitting here, wasting away in my house for an entire year. I'm sorry if I don't even know what day it is anymore.

And yeah, I know it was my fault for missing the window. I admitted such (albeit briefly) in my initial post. My whole argument is that the window was unreasonably short when compared with how infrequently it goes on sale (24 hours available in a span of THREE YEARS is utterly ridiculous). and that there shouldn't even BE a window because of how psychologically demanding, manipulative and unethical it is to host immoral market models such as exclusive 'flash sales' in the first place. Sure, it is the company's legal right to do so, but it still blows my mind when people defend and endorse this kind of predatory practice. Sometimes seemingly for the sheer sake of gleaning some smug-satisfaction from posturing over someone else's misfortune. I get that impression more in the steam forums than here, but still. My point stands. I'm advocating for a freer, more open and consumer-friendly gemstore for everyone -you included-, so why on earth are you against me here?

I can totally understand your frustrations mate. Having played Gw2 for 7 years on & off, I was always intrigued by the exclusive lounge areas: Got Invitation to "Lily of the Elon" when I bought HoT/PoF "no suprises why you get if free" It's very user unfriendly: Crafting stations on upper platform away from Tp/Bank and Mystic Forge floating in the middle of the Abyss: I only use the pass as fast transit to Crystal Oasis Map. Other than that its a headache, if like me you regularly switch between Bank/TP/Crafting/Mystic Forge it's a logistical nightmare.

Bought my 2nd pass based on player reputation: Mistlock Sanctuary Pass which is totally epic and love it , and then bought Armstice Bastion which is really awesome especially if you use the Mystic Forge a lot you literally have Mystic Forge, Merchant, Bank, Trading post in a neat row, and jump over the wall you have all the Crafting stations and yet another Mystic Forge below, even better if you jump in/out of WvW you can see all the chat going on in your WvW Server.

I always wondered why Mistlock Sancturary & Armistice Bastion passes where in Gem Store quite regularly over the last few years I haven been playing very active, and I can't remember a single occasion until this March Sales that i) Lava Lounge Pass, ii) Noble Folly, iii) Captain's Airship were even in Gemstore at original price, neverminded discounted price.

Based on how good Mistlock & Armistice passes are, I foolishly bought all 3, and hell was I dissapointed with them: None of them compared to Mistlock/Armistice. Totally regretted buying them. Ah well, I just chalk them up to my long list of other regrettable Gem Purchases, and will probably dump all 3 passes on some alt that I don't even play as definitely don't want them clogging up my Shared Inv slots, bank or any of my main characters bags. They really aren't worth even the discounted 700 Gem price-point.

My advice to any prospective player considering buying any VIP Lounge Pass: Just go for Mistlock Sanctuary and/or Armistice Bastion Pass ( easily the best 2 by far ), 3rd best for me is Royal Terrace as was a mere 500 Gems at Wintersday and everything is quite accessible, useful for fast transit to DR, Lunar New Year, perhaps helps weekly key-run character too (speculating as I don't do). The rest of the lounges are very sub-standard and I wouldn't recommend.

@Nero DarkSlayer.9206 If there was anyway I could gift you for free the Lava Lounge Pass on my account I would happily do so.

[Astyrah.4015]

@kharmin.7683 said:

@"Astyrah.4015" said:

i'd honestly love something like this.

like, login to guildwars2.com click that gemstore tab on the header and check what's on sale for %off.How is that any different than logging in to the forums and checking

this thread

?

that you can buy directly from the website (like on your phone) instead of requiring the game (some people can't always login to play) to buy what you need

you missed the part of @Fuchslein.8639 's suggestion about accessing the gemstore outside of the game which includes buying things not just seeing what's for sale

[miraude.2107]

@"Adamixos.6785" said:I mean, I don't want to rain on your parade, but this news post here literally listed every sale for the week of March 16-22:https://www.guildwars2.com/en-gb/news/study-the-stars-in-style-with-the-astral-scholar-appearance-package/

There is exactly one day in the week when you should check gemstore updates, and that is Tuesday.

One. Day. A Week.

This really is on you.

Not the OP, however I hate HATE the way they do those posts because just looking at the title, it looks solely about the new appearance package. Anet is the only game company I have ever dealt with that will do a news post like this 'LOOK NEW SHINY APPEARANCE and important announcements that we will bury at the bottom.' They couldn't do a 'NEW APPEARANCE, ASTRAL SCHOLAR AND MORE'? Because seriously, when I saw the post, that's all it looked like to me. The only reason I knew sales were going on is because of their twitter. I do not fault the OP one bit for missing the sales because of the way Anet communicates on the website.And for the OP, sadly whoever operates their twitter account is ten times fucking better than whoever does their news posts for the website and emails (love getting an email after the fact, very rarely do a get the email the day of or before an event). So I'd start following on twitter if you have an account. Whoever runs it actually updates frequently and honestly I check there before even bothering with the main website because of things like this.

[Nero DarkSlayer.9206]

@"Adamixos.6785" said:Btw. you are also completely wrong about the three year thing. The item in the gemstore was the Lava Lounge Bundle, which has shown up 2 times within the past 3 years (3 times including this week). https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Lava_Lounge_Pass_Bundle

You didn't have to wait 3 years, only 1. The last time this was on sale was March 2020. The Lava Lounge Pass by itself will never come back, only the item I linked, as it did this week. And if you have the LS episode unlocked, it costs exactly the same amount of gems as the pass-only version would.

Oh. Huh. Y'know. I was not aware there was a distinction. I was looking at the other page, which didn't have the item listed since 2018. That's useful information to know. At least now I know it generally goes on sale around march of most years. Thank you for that. Really. :)

Though I still maintain my stance that the flash sale system is terrible and unethical. The argument of "luxury items" really gets under my skin. Yeah, it makes sense, and I'm all for the existence of luxury items in a game. Makes the game fun. But when those luxury items are weaponized under high-pressure, time sensitive flash sales, they become something much more shady and poor-tasting.

Imean.. This is a digital storefront. Luxury items are luxury due to scarcity. Scarcity that is 100% manufactured at the arbitrary will of the company. There is no production beyond the initial design of the item. No manufacturing, shipping, packaging, property, no 3rd party distributors or retailers. No materials cost. Nothing. It costs the company fractions of pennies for the electricity that will be spun into the sequence of zeroes and ones that makes up the item's few KB of data on the server. The 'value' is derived solely from the company randomly dictating how "rare" the item is, and how it can be acquired. A game dev could simply take 5 minutes to change the drop rate of an item from 20% to .001% and BOOM. Luxury item. The existence of those items can be a very good thing. They can be rewards for performing in-game tasks or completing challenges; and in many cases, they are exactly that in Guild Wars. That I 100% support. But when those same imaginary luxury items are walled off behind psychologically manipulative paywalls, they go from being compelling gameplay rewards to hostages withheld for no other reason than to coerce even more money from people than A-Net is already making.

A-Net would still turn a profit from selling the item outright, and people would be much happier overall. But A-Net wouldn't be making the absolute maximum amount of money by any means necessary. That is their responsibility as a company to do so, they have a duty to their shareholders after all, but it SUCKS that we have to live under a culture that pathologically prioritizes money over ethics when it is possible to have both; Just not A.L.L. of one or the other. And when people defend these practices for any reason -maybe they like the game, maybe cus the company has the right to do it and people falsely believe that companies are people with feelings, or maybe cus ppl just wanna be bullies-, it makes things worse for all of us because it emboldens companies to go even farther with crummy practices. They know they have support. And as long as they have that support, they will continue to sacrifice even more positive customer treatment in the name of chasing their bottom line. Like... I was heartbroken when mount skins first came out and A-Net had the audacity to shove them in LOOTBOXES. I can only imagine they came out with the mount select license in response to all the backlash. No way they'd have done it otherwise. Lootboxes are astronomically more profitable than even flash sales are. Companies have proven time and time again that there is no low they won't stoop to for money, and it is incomprehensible to me that there are still people out there who haven't realized this yet. I farmed the game for months to unlock the griffin and skyscale, but I refuse to purchase any skins for them (despite how cool they look) because I simply will. not. support. lootboxes in any sense whatsoever.

And by the way, mount skin lootboxes came out right around the height of the controversy regarding Star Wars Battlefront 2 and its malicious lootbox system. Right around the time literal politicians were decrying said practices as unethical and moving to regulate them in some parts of the world. When legit politicians are calling your system unethical, you know you done messed up somewhere. But of course even then there were those who defended such practices for some fantastical reason which I cannot comprehend.

I digress. This got way more off topic than I intended, but it's information I think should be considered.

[TheQuickFox.3826]

You can see them some days ahead at this page:https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Gem_Store/March_Sale

[kharmin.7683]

@Astyrah.4015 said:

@kharmin.7683 said:

@Astyrah.4015 said:

i'd honestly love something like this.

like, login to guildwars2.com click that gemstore tab on the header and check what's on sale for %off.How is that any different than logging in to the forums and checking

this thread

?

that you can buy directly from the website (like on your phone) instead of requiring the game (some people can't always login to play) to buy what you need

you missed the part of @Fuchslein.8639 's suggestion about accessing the gemstore outside of the game which includes buying things not just seeing what's for sale

I was speaking specifically to the point of knowing what is on sale and when. Which can be done now with the friendly help of the thread that I linked. I wasn't speaking to the rest of the suggestion.

[Blude.6812]

@"Inculpatus cedo.9234" said:If you are unsuccessful with your plea to the CS Team, you can find all items available for purchase each day here, in this thread: https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/458/news-gemstore-items-new-returned-sales#latest

If something is really important to you, it only takes a second to check each day's posting.

Also, the News Blog (for the Gem Store) is always updated on a Tuesday.

Good luck.

and follow GW2 on social media. I got a heads up every day about the March sale items.

[Makion.3457]

FYI Theres a wiki with the the whole march sales day by day https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Gem_Store/March_Sale#March_Sale.2C_2021

[Nero DarkSlayer.9206]

@"Altion.9576" said:FYI Theres a wiki with the the whole march sales day by day https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Gem_Store/March_Sale#March_Sale.2C_2021

Another thing I was not aware of. Thank you for the tip :)

Just out of curiosity, when does this wiki update? Because like I said, the news article dropped on the same day as the item. I.E. No forward notice. If the wiki you linked is updated at the same time, my argument (which I will not reiterate again) stands. If that wiki is updated prior to the famous Tuesday gemstore news updates, we can work with that.

[Pacificterror.7805]

@Nero DarkSlayer.9206 said:

@"Altion.9576" said:FYI Theres a wiki with the the whole march sales day by day

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Gem_Store/March_Sale#March_Sale.2C_2021

Another thing I was not aware of. Thank you for the tip :)

Just out of curiosity, when does this wiki update? Because like I said, the news article dropped on the

same day

as the item. I.E. No forward notice. If the wiki you linked is updated at the same time, my argument (which I will not reiterate again) stands. If that wiki is updated

prior

to the famous Tuesday gemstore news updates, we can work with that.

I kind of feel like your argument gets invalidated by the fact that the gem store update is refreshed every Tuesday...so that's basically the only day you'd need to check if you were after something specific.

Yeah, not being able to make it on during a random Tuesday and missing out on something you've been waiting for all year sucks, but then again.....oh well.

[Nero DarkSlayer.9206]

[deleted comment]

On second thought, I'm probably reacting too soon. They probably just closed my new ticket and merged it into the old one which is still open probably. They didn't ignore me.

My bad for jumping the gun like that. Let's give it some time.

[ShadowCatz.8437]

@kharmin.7683 said:

@"Astyrah.4015" said:

i'd honestly love something like this.

like, login to guildwars2.com click that gemstore tab on the header and check what's on sale for %off.How is that any different than logging in to the forums and checking

this thread

?

ANet usually also advertise sales on Facebook, so it is possible to use that channel to also keep an eye for news on items. Just add Guild Wars 2 on FB and "like" or "follow" them to keep tracks of news for GW2.

[Tabula Rasa.6389]

It can be frustrating for sure, however, it must be successful to them, otherwise they wouldn't keep doing it.

[Cadaver Material.3162]

I feel your pain. I went through this years ago over the Storm Bow. As an RN, I work crazy hours and my schedule changes all the time, so keeping up with the store wasn't easy for me. The Bow only hit the store twice a year, and I missed it for two years. I offered twice the amount of gems, twice the amount of money it would cost, I tried offering everything I could think of to the support team to sell me the Bow. They told me under no circumstances would they sell me something outside of it's normal sales times, and that I'd just have to wait for it come around again. I got "lucky" when they put the bow up for black lion statuettes. Very frustrating. Easy to say "you should have watched the news", but sometimes real life has a way of intruding upon your gaming life....

[Luthan.5236]

I understand the problem. I also find it tedious having to check the info on the sales. Though: They seem to post most stuff weekly in the news. (Only few things happened where the news was late. Some special stuff was on sale for 3 days.)d

Aren't there other lounges you can use? Or do you specifically need that one for some reason? (I guess you like the style and how the map looks? Cause functionalities should be similar with other lounges.)

Best solution would be if ArenaNet brought the passes back on sale more regularly. (Or maybe for a high number of statuettes.) For the sale ... it just happens that sometimes you miss stuff. There also might be people that know about it and plan to log in to buy ... where something (accident where you get hospitalized) comes up that makes it impossible for them to be online.

It would not be fair to others if they now decided to sell that lounge pass later on a support request. Support decision here is correctly - to say that they can't help.

[Makion.3457]

@Nero DarkSlayer.9206 said:

@"Altion.9576" said:FYI Theres a wiki with the the whole march sales day by day

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Gem_Store/March_Sale#March_Sale.2C_2021

Another thing I was not aware of. Thank you for the tip :)

Just out of curiosity, when does this wiki update? Because like I said, the news article dropped on the

same day

as the item. I.E. No forward notice. If the wiki you linked is updated at the same time, my argument (which I will not reiterate again) stands. If that wiki is updated

prior

to the famous Tuesday gemstore news updates, we can work with that.

Im not sure but Im betting it will be tomorrow when the whole Black lion market resets.

[Eloc Freidon.5692]

March sales are the worst for this because they make a point to not announce what days have what sales until the very day it happens. The only way for players to know ahead of time is to datamine the game, which is obviously anti customer friendly. I've missed many sales I wanted to partake in because of it and have always left me sour.

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

@"Eloc Freidon.5692" said:March sales are the worst for this because they make a point to not announce what days have what sales until the very day it happens. The only way for players to know ahead of time is to datamine the game, which is obviously anti customer friendly. I've missed many sales I wanted to partake in because of it and have always left me sour.

And yet, ArenaNet has been posting sales one week in advance.

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/march-sales-begin-at-the-black-lion-trading-company/https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/turn-up-the-heat-with-the-volcanic-throne/https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/study-the-stars-in-style-with-the-astral-scholar-appearance-package/