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It's been a long time since I play Guild Wars 2. Only loot boxy thing was dye chests(?) can anyone enlight me?
The real offender is the Black Lion chests.
Personally, I don't care. BL chests have never had a notable impact on my play experience, and I'm interested in seeing how they will redesign their business model if they are eventually forced to drop them.
I think the whole issue stems from their Gem / Gold conversion. The primary issue if this were true would probably be what the redditor said. The ecto gamble could potentially increase your profit of gems that you put in at first through the gold transfer, but the same can be said for the BL chests as the majority of items from the BL chest can be sold on the marketplace. Therefore, you can earn gold from the chest in which you can trade for gems again. Pretty much gambling at that point.
I doubt that they were being analyzed as deeply as the ecto gamble. That's a pretty obscure game mechanic and the general casual player is unlikely to even know about it.
Also, from personal experience, black lion chests aren't generally an efficient money maker unless the player is willing to hold onto the exclusive skins until their value increases. Certainly, for the regular user, it's far, far cheaper to buy the skins of the trading post than to convert gold to gems for chests.
The thing is. They still exist. Even if the majority of players don't know it's there. The issue is that the opportunity is there. Imagine an Arcade. The majority of the arcade are games like pacman and what not, but it does have one or two slot machines. What your essentially saying is that it's ok because its minor. Either way, the mechanic exists and can be abused.
As for black lion chests, the value of the skins as they are released are worth more than what you put if you are lucky. A single black lion key is like what.. 125 gems or $1.50 USD roughly. Say you get lucky and get one of the new skins. Average price for a skin is about 75 gold. You then trade that gold back into gems. Just for that 75 gold alone, you'd get 249 gems or roughly $3.11 USD. You CAN profit from the Black Lion chests if RNG blesses you. So the gambling potential is clearly there. You spent $1.50 for a chance at $3.00 back. That is if you don't sit on the skin for it to gain value.
No matter what, the gambling is present in Guild Wars 2.
I've never seen a slot machine at an arcade in my life. What would it even give, candy? But You really got the noggin joggin with this comment, really activated my almonds. Since gambling is at the forfront can we talk about those token machines and other games similar to a crane grab. They are basically rigged games that make it so kids pester their parents for more money so they can finally grab that teddy bear.
I'd assume Mike O'Brian the head of arenanet ant the one responsible for the shitty state the game is in. GW1 was way better when the other founders were still in the boat.
At one point in Guild Wars 1, when some particular region implemented some new regulations, ArenaNet blocked transfers to and from that region for a while until they could implement a more permanent fix to comply with the regulations. Games might do something like that with loot boxes.
People say that 15 countries are looking into banning loot boxes. But you can't have a ban on something as vague as "things that you personally would call a loot box". The details of the regulations matter, and they might be able to make minor tweaks that make their game compliant with regulations while gamers see the changes as meaningless.
You can also bet that game companies are not keen in making it so that people in regions that ban loot boxes have an advantage over people in regions that don't. The details of what they'll do about this will vary from one game to the next, of course.
I wonder what the people who want to buy loot boxes from countries that outlaw them will do? It was stated above a VPN didn't work. So all you'll need is an address to skirt it? Or does it have to be a billing address?
I'm not a loot box guy (I have bought some XP gem lootboxes in DDO though), but if the US made it illegal to buy something in a game I would probably do it out of spite. I absolutely hate cosmetic items and would never pay money for any - unless my government said I couldn't.
The EU will probably rule that those RNG lootboxes will be seen as gambling, so you can expect that certain developers will stop selling them for real money to players.
But in the case of GW2 (and maybe other MMORPG's) you also have the option to buy gems for ingame gold. I am pretty sure that buying Black Lion chests indirectly with ingame gold (ingame gold -> gems ->BL chests) is not seen as gambling according to those rules, when there is no real money involved.
I don't see it happen that Anet will make that distinction. This would require a complete automated check (to check of gems were bought with rl money) of purchase history to go through, which is not worth it trying to implement. Which is a shame, because it will prevent players from the affected countries also from buying BL chests by slowly farming ingame gold.
So I hope that at some point Anet will move towards complete direct purchases in their store and get rid of the BL chests. But I am not sure if the EU player base is big enough (with purchases) to have this impact.
Can always buy gold from those gold sellers and turn that gold into gems and then buy keys.
Probably get an account ban though, but hey. There is always a way to get keys. :P
Can always buy gold from those gold sellers and turn that gold into gems and then buy keys.
Probably get an account ban though, but hey. There is always a way to get keys. :P
You 100% get an acc ban.. even if its from unknown traders. As soon as something over 100g is sent it flags their system. Items in bulk do count aswell as do legendaries.
This is a bug, so why is it being reported as otherwise? Conjecture journalism is the worst. 0/10. You guys are incredibly desperate to spin this into a story about gambling.
Apparently it isn't a bug, so it seems this is an open mouth, insert foot situation.
UPDATED with a statement from ArenaNet on the inability of players in Belgium to purchase gems. It is NOT a bug.
Update on the Purchase Status for Belgium
In order to conform to changes in Belgian law, purchases of gems, the Ultimate Edition, and the Ultimate Edition upgrade have been disabled for residents of Belgium. We are continuing to investigate more flexible solutions. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause our players.
Yeah GW2 has had loot boxes for a long time, there's quite a few double standards when it comes to who people point fingers at, GW2 has quite escaped that but the whole black lion chests do clash with the gambling regulations that we're starting to see.
This is a bug, so why is it being reported as otherwise? Conjecture journalism is the worst. 0/10. You guys are incredibly desperate to spin this into a story about gambling.
Apparently it isn't a bug, so it seems this is an open mouth, insert foot situation.
This is a bug, so why is it being reported as otherwise? Conjecture journalism is the worst. 0/10. You guys are incredibly desperate to spin this into a story about gambling.
Why did you not check the facts before making accusations and being completely wrong in the end. No apology either.
It's about time! Someone should have done this years ago! We need that here in the US and over there in the UK because what will happen is there will be a huge drop in players. The reason for this is simple. Gems can be converted into gold which is then spent in the auction house.
It's an incidious system designed to fool the outsider into thinking that it's okay to pay for something that can be converted into in game currency so that players can buy virtual items that are ever increasing in price in the virtual store that isn't immediately apparent to the non-gamers who make the business laws.
It's different of course than the purchasing of boxes in that it's different but it's just as incidious as the gambling system in the form of buying boxes with real life money or keys for boxes with random items.
In any of these three systems the players are always the losers.
This is a bug, so why is it being reported as otherwise? Conjecture journalism is the worst. 0/10. You guys are incredibly desperate to spin this into a story about gambling.
IF you had bothered to read the entire article, it specifically says that this is likely a bug. Information is your friend!
If you bothered to write that, why would you speculate opposite that with no evidence? Are you and bill out to get MO? Makes me wonder with bill's last smear of MO saying that he is horrible to work for, and now this bug that you use to report gambling issues.
Terrible journalism, if you can even call it that.
This is a bug, so why is it being reported as otherwise? Conjecture journalism is the worst. 0/10. You guys are incredibly desperate to spin this into a story about gambling.
Apparently it isn't a bug, so it seems this is an open mouth, insert foot situation.
Thanks for saying that. </div>
You are welcome
Despite what people like that may say, A LOT of us appreciate being informed of situations like this. Even if it had turned out to be a bug, keeping informed in the gaming community is boon to see if any future changes or potential problems may be coming in the games we enjoy and invest our time in.
So for every person who makes comments like this person did know that there are several more who appreciate the work you do in keeping the community informed.
UPDATED with a statement from ArenaNet on the inability of players in Belgium to purchase gems. It is NOT a bug.
Update on the Purchase Status for Belgium
In order to conform to changes in Belgian law, purchases of gems, the Ultimate Edition, and the Ultimate Edition upgrade have been disabled for residents of Belgium. We are continuing to investigate more flexible solutions. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause our players.
I have an issue with their statement. The last sentence should, instead, read: "We apologize for any convenience this may cause our Belgium players."
This is a bug, so why is it being reported as otherwise? Conjecture journalism is the worst. 0/10. You guys are incredibly desperate to spin this into a story about gambling.
Apparently it isn't a bug, so it seems this is an open mouth, insert foot situation.
You mean that now mmorpg can do a story because they have facts? Why stop doing stories before we have the facts, now, though? Keep it up and mmorpg will be no better than a tabloid. Or maybe they aren't any better right now!
Are you kidding me? Do you guys really played this game? Even me SlowpokeMcSlowerson know how Bugnet reduced ability to acquire free keys for those chests in the game. Because people farmed em.
At first they give free key at level 3 i think. Then they moved it to lvl 10. last time i played it was limited to 5 keys (one for each race) per week.
They had facts earlier. People from Belgium were (and still are) unable to buy gems with cash. The only issue I’d have with the story is the statement that it is obviously a bug. Especially considering they then went and mentioned Belgium and it’s stance towards online gambling in games. They should have said may or possibly. But they did mention having heard nothing ArenaNet yet. You would need to get pissed at every news source, as well, if speculation being included sets you off
Comments
My SWTOR referral link for those wanting to give the game a try. (Newbies get a welcome package while returning players get a few account upgrades to help with their preferred status.)
https://www.ashesofcreation.com/ref/Callaron/
I've never seen a slot machine at an arcade in my life. What would it even give, candy? But You really got the noggin joggin with this comment, really activated my almonds. Since gambling is at the forfront can we talk about those token machines and other games similar to a crane grab. They are basically rigged games that make it so kids pester their parents for more money so they can finally grab that teddy bear.
Who or what is MO?
@Slapshot1188
I'd assume Mike O'Brian the head of arenanet ant the one responsible for the shitty state the game is in. GW1 was way better when the other founders were still in the boat.
People say that 15 countries are looking into banning loot boxes. But you can't have a ban on something as vague as "things that you personally would call a loot box". The details of the regulations matter, and they might be able to make minor tweaks that make their game compliant with regulations while gamers see the changes as meaningless.
You can also bet that game companies are not keen in making it so that people in regions that ban loot boxes have an advantage over people in regions that don't. The details of what they'll do about this will vary from one game to the next, of course.
I'm not a loot box guy (I have bought some XP gem lootboxes in DDO though), but if the US made it illegal to buy something in a game I would probably do it out of spite. I absolutely hate cosmetic items and would never pay money for any - unless my government said I couldn't.
Probably get an account ban though, but hey. There is always a way to get keys. :P
Apparently it isn't a bug, so it seems this is an open mouth, insert foot situation.
UPDATED with a statement from ArenaNet on the inability of players in Belgium to purchase gems. It is NOT a bug.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Thanks for saying that.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
It's an incidious system designed to fool the outsider into thinking that it's okay to pay for something that can be converted into in game currency so that players can buy virtual items that are ever increasing in price in the virtual store that isn't immediately apparent to the non-gamers who make the business laws.
It's different of course than the purchasing of boxes in that it's different but it's just as incidious as the gambling system in the form of buying boxes with real life money or keys for boxes with random items.
In any of these three systems the players are always the losers.
You are welcome
Despite what people like that may say, A LOT of us appreciate being informed of situations like this. Even if it had turned out to be a bug, keeping informed in the gaming community is boon to see if any future changes or potential problems may be coming in the games we enjoy and invest our time in.
So for every person who makes comments like this person did know that there are several more who appreciate the work you do in keeping the community informed.
You mean that now mmorpg can do a story because they have facts? Why stop doing stories before we have the facts, now, though? Keep it up and mmorpg will be no better than a tabloid. Or maybe they aren't any better right now!
Take the Magic: The Gathering 'What Color Are You?' Quiz.
At first they give free key at level 3 i think. Then they moved it to lvl 10. last time i played it was limited to 5 keys (one for each race) per week.
Black Lion Chests, Dye Boxes, Mount Boxes (RNG as well)