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Slot Machines in Middle Earth? A new low in MMORPGs...
trancejeremy
Member UncommonPosts: 1,222
Now when you log in, you are presented with "free" hobbit presents, which are essentially a spin on a slot machine (or perhaps more accurately, a Wheel of Fortune).
Want more spins? Pony up money via purchasing Mithril Coins.
I thought gambling boxes were bad, but this, this is a new low. You can't escape them. And oh, you say, just use willpower to avoid them. Well, yeah, many people can. But let's not pretend that there isn't a brain chemistry reason that gambling is exciting and that many aren't able to cope with it well.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dopamine_dysregulation_syndrome
R.I.P. City of Heroes and my 17 characters there
Comments
I still don't understand how companies which do things like this can get around the rules & regulations regarding gambling. Perhaps it's because you technically can't 'lose', since no matter what you receive something, even if the quality and / or usefulness of what you receive is low. That's about the only way I can think of.
It's a sad day indeed when a family is too afraid of reprisals to publicly thank somebody for saving their lives.
It's pretty much the same as the gambling boxes imo.You don't need to spend anything.
As a vip I logged in on my 36 hunter/archer and received a decent power/heal potion,but the real winner was my gold box,which was lvl 30 med armor blue quality head piece.It blew away the green lvl that I had.
It's no worse than the gambling boxes in other games.
Some day I'm going to put a sword through your eye and out the back of your skull!
Arya Stark
I am not a lawyer but as I understand it as long as the prizes are greater in "value" than the cost of the spin it's not considered gambling which is easy to do when you can set the value of the items. That's why you always get something out of those boxes which will be valued at least the cost of the spin.
Oh well guess I'll remove LOTR and soon DDO from my list of good F2P cash shops. That pretty much leaves TSW.
There is no monetary value to the items you gain. A game of chance with no monetary value to the prize is not considered gambling as far as most laws are concerned. To be clear, I'm not saying it's right or wrong to have it in the game, and I'm not saying it's good or bad to have it in the game. I'm just explaining to you why it isn't considered gambling and thus not illegal to have.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
Turbine added this gambling even to LotRO's sibling DDO. What is most irritating is that the company spends dev time to add such features instead of fixing bugs and delivering new content.
I have played 30 year old single player CRPGs that had gambling integrated. You could play black jack and other mini-games. But you would only bet in-game money. That was a nice little addition. Similar to Pazaak in Kotor.
But those new gambling elements for real money are best avoided. Don't use those feature and show the company that they delivered something that people don't use. I hope that not too many players are gullible enough to gamble.
This feature has been in a lot of korean F2P games. In maplestory it is called Gatchapon, they also have it in Runescape I can't remember the name but you spin a big wheel and a gnome flies into it but at least in runescape you get free spins all the time and quests give you it as rewards. In other games it's usually a box that can randomly give you an item, they have it in Dota 2, in team fortress 2, in atlantica online, plenty of things have it. I can't see why it's such a big issue when from what I've heard LOTRO already sells power in their shop.
Honestly in my eyes if people really want to spend money to attempt to get something good from virtual gambling then more power to them. The companies will probably make a lot of money off of it.
It is a wrong move by Turbine and many players in their forums (me included) are asking one of two things:
1) Have an option to sign off "wheel of fortune" or
2) make it less lore-breaking (like optional visiting some NPC in Bree).
However, I do not agree with radical approach like "Lotro is off my list of mmorpgs" due to this mistake. Everyone can be mistaken, be it a person or a company. We just have to look if Turbine makes conclusions.
http://www.mmoblogg.wordpress.com
Exactly. It's all to common for gamers to ragequit and then complain about what MMOs offer. Turbine has in the past changed/removed content they put out when players gave their feedback. There's no reason to think they won't work with the community again this time.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
I gave up on this game long ago. My list of grievances is endless so I will sum it up as this:
1) Fugly character models.
2) Quest Storyline=Stryder and the Hobbits are in danger! We need you to darn their socks so they can continue saving the world!
3) Character models are fugly.
4) I found the game amazingly easy mode. Like I could play it by mashing keys with my face and still easily win fights.
5) The character models, they are fugly.
I loved the hobbit houses,though.
Yet. There were already rulings in few countries concerning virtual items. Some of court rulings were about one person stealing other person virtual items in game (by using real world pressure or deception) and line of defense was that those items were not of real value, yet courts rejected that claims and ruled that they do have value and so cort rulings said it was indeed a steal thus indirectly ruling that virtual items do have value. Court cases in UK, Netherlands and Poland as far as I remember.
World is changing and monetary value will be attached to virtual items sooner or later by the law. Also because revenue from selling virtual items with 'no monetary value' is producing bigger and bigger monetary value after all
Game companies across whole genre are systematically introducing gambling, p2w, advantage and all possible microtransactions yet players are still playing and paying. Players including you - make alot of threats. Game companies said "check!" and at least until now you're bluffing. Empty threats.
Games are going to be even more terrible.
This is the ultimate fate of F2P games. Everyone thinks they'll just pay their bills with cosmetic stuff and call it a day, but this is the real truth of it.
You make me like charity
We can't handle the truth.
We can, they can't. I prem my accounts every time I play but I'm not blind. The Premium elements of LotRO are designed for leveling, not level capped and everyone in LotRO is level capped. There is no reason to stay premium.
Old Ladies Weekly Bingo Game, a fine American tradition.
There aren't many states left that still stand firmly against gambling. They just tax, regulate, and control it. The Bread and Circuses that Americans seem to want, it can't really be so surprising or morally outrageous in video games. The Lottery Line forms at my local gas station every Weds and Sat.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
Only Hawaii and Utah still oppose it. I will repeat, I hate the corrupt gambling industry.
Boobs are LIFE, Boobs are LOVE, Boobs are JUSTICE, Boobs are mankind's HOPES and DREAMS. People who complain about boobs have lost their humanity.
The only thing the Government would do about it is force the companies into a position of vying to make more money than they're paying out to said legislation.
Edit- in other words, we the consumer would be no better off.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Why Bree? Shire, Party Tree, where the hobbit food race is happening during the festival
Turbine could've put a birthday party in the middle of the course, that's an unused area anyway, which party is going on 24/7 (since there's a hobbit birthday every day indeed), and players who cheer the birthday hobbit (it could even rotate every day to a different npc among the party-goers) could take a present from the heap for him/herself.
(not my idea, Cryptic does that all the time, in STO obviously Q giving out presents, in CO there was a huge christmas tree in the middle of Millennium City and everybody could take a box every day from under it)
Or if they insist to the slotmachine look, at least give us a switch-off option, I've never used the lotteries either and I don't like the announcement icon pop up every login...
Edit: but ofc they won't do it, since it's not about immersion or giving out freebies, it's only about mithril coins sadly, and its effectiveness requires to shove it into everybody's faces at login.