Forever Unlocks

December 15, 2014 at 4:32 pm | Posted in Gem Store, Guild Wars, mmorpg | 2 Comments
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So as a follow up to what I was saying in my last post about boosters, I think I was getting at in the end is that nobody wants to spend money on something that only lasts an hour. Or 24 hours, or even 2 weeks. People want account unlocks that they can use on every character… forever.

Which is part of why I really like the new mail carrier skin (looking forward to more in the future) we can buy, you can put it on every character. That’s part of the reason I bought a Finisher even though I rarely get to use it, it will always be there and enabled on every character. The one thing I’ve bought the most of in Guild Wars 2 is probably bank slots, and character slots. Account upgrades are what most people are looking for.

I don’t know if armour sets and mini sales have gone up since they were made account wide but they’re certainly a more attractive option for me. I imagine if they had a positive effect on sales we’ll be getting more account wide stuff. *holds breath*

I admit to having bought a Copper-fed Salvage-o-matic, a Royal Terrace Pass, and the odd item here and there, but I can count on my fingers what I’ve bought that wasn’t account wide. I wonder what ungodly amount of money I might have spent if everything were an account wide unlock.

Would I have bought dye kits? Dye kits as they are now are stupid. They are an RNG rip-off and anybody who spends money on them should be ashamed of themselves. If Arenanet wants to sell us dye options then why not sell us the exclusive colours directly? Why should I pay real money for something I can get for a couple silver on the auction house? Ridiculous. There is some poor sap dye collector out there spending hundreds of dollars and gold just trying to pick up an awful, yet exclusive, puke green.

And then there are the weapon sets as well. Black Lion Keys are, simply put, a casino. I find them immoral and shameful. I’m sure they’re the most profitable thing Arenanet has in the Gem Store and thus something they can’t justify removing, but I urge them to do so. Players should be able to just buy a Black Lion Claim ticket directly. Anything less is just down to one pure motive, greed.

I guess you could argue the RNG aspect is fun? A lot of people have fun gambling, but the one thing just about every lottery, every craps table, every card game, and every raffle have in common is that you lose more often than you win. Way more. Losing isn’t fun. And gambling shouldn’t be in Guild Wars 2.

Don’t get me wrong, I highly appreciate that skins are account bound now, that dyes are account bound, but why isn’t pretty much everything? You know what would spike the sales of the Royal Terrace Pass and the Copper-Fed? Making it so each character can pick up a copy from an NPC. Or how about a riding broom, or a harp, or a home portal stone.

Frankly what is the point in having most of the stuff on the gem store only on ONE character?

PS: Upgrade Extractor is still the worst thing on the gem store outside the RNG boxes.

A Booster Post For Some Reason

November 23, 2014 at 2:19 pm | Posted in Gem Store, Guild Wars 2, mmorpg | Comments Off on A Booster Post For Some Reason
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I’ve been meaning to post about the gem store for ages, and I probably have more than one post in me about it. But it changes so often and I’ve said so much about it in the past that it’s hard to find the motivation. I’ve talked my arse off about this game over the past few years, it’s hard to say anything I haven’t said before, even if it’s about new content. And frankly it makes no sense to talk about the gem store when I haven’t made a single post about Dry Top or the Silverwastes and what I like and dislike about them.

But here we go.

I don’t understand what they’re doing with boosters. I haven’t since launch. I’ve probably talked about it before.

They give them out for free all the time. Achievement chests mostly, the odd reward here and there. I’ve built up my supply of boosters from Black Lion Chest farming so I probably have more than most. I have plenty, but, I still think they’re overpriced on the gem store.

The main thing is they only last an hour, and a lot of their benefits are not that great considering their cost. They have varying levels of usefulness and cost effectiveness. Some are downright useless, some I highly recommend having on hand.

Boosters that give experience are, in my opinion, not a good use of a booster. Experience is plentiful and easy to come by in Guild Wars 2 so if you’re going to use one make sure you are downright desperate for XP. Would I pay for an XP booster, a crafting booster, a killstreak booster? Never. Not at their current gem cost. An hour of 50% XP for 20g or almost 2 dollars? No thanks.

A karma booster costs 75 gems (half the cost of a crafting booster or a magic find booster) and is the same cost as a swimming speed booster. Huh? I don’t understand that. And I don’t understand you can justify 10g for 1 hour of swimming speed, it’s absolutely awful.

I think what I’d do to improve boosters is to reduce their cost or increase their duration. Why would anyone spend money on something that only lasts an hour? Keep giving out your 1 hour boosters but start selling boosters that last a day, or no screw that, make them last for a week or two weeks. People would actually pay money for that.

I like using Karma boosters, I use Magic Find boosters more than any other and I would highly recommend to anyone that if you go into WvW to use a World XP booster, but I can’t recommend buying any of these. I hate to cut myself off at the legs but we get so many boosters for free you’d be a bloody (rich) fool to buy any. Which seems like a shame. I mean I want to support the game, I want the game to have viable sources of income, and boosters are just not one of those.

Boosters have their own panel in the gem store but I bet they’re the lowest selling items there.

Finish Him!

March 10, 2014 at 6:06 pm | Posted in Gem Store, Guild Wars 2, mmorpg, PvE, PvP, WvW | 2 Comments
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I’ve had a lot of complaints about Guild Wars 2’s gem store over the past year and a half. There’s the weird pricing structures, expensive temporary items, and the potential power creep of some items becoming more useful than comparable older items. One thing I’m becoming more and more tempted by however are the finishers.

Finishers are mostly for PvP. It’s basically a little animation when you stomp someone in WvW, Structured PvP, and increasingly in PvE as well. There are 12 available in the gem store ranging in price from about 500 gems to 800. And I really want to buy one.

I have some temporary finishers ready to go, 10 or 20 collected from festivals and other rewards from playing the game. Not to mention the default finisher which is basically just a spear driven into the ground, and my PvP rank finisher which is just the cutest wittle bunny wabbit family hopping around a banner. None of the temporary ones would really last long, certainly not in WvW, so I’m definitely looking at something more permanent.

With the Toxic Alliance living story arc however a lot of PvE mobs suddenly had a downed phase. I don’t know if that was specifically put in to drive up the sale of finishers but it has certainly worked on me. I’ve been looking through youtube trying to figure out which finisher is best finisher.

For instance, while I find the Permanent Quaggan Finisher (see video below) amusing, I don’t think I want a permanent one. A lot of the finishers are pretty cool, and there a number of them that aren’t currently on sale like the Permanent Super Explosive Finisher, and numerous festival-related finishers.

Anyway I just thought I’d give credit where it’s due, finishers are a great cosmetic item in the gem shop. Now I just have to figure out which way I want to send players and mobs into the mists. Whumped by a giant maybe? Straddled by a spectre of death?

Let’s see more PvE downed state guys.

Ephemeral Transactions

December 18, 2013 at 8:13 pm | Posted in Gem Store, Guild Wars 2, mmorpg | 1 Comment
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I’m much better at complaining about things than celebrating them. So, while I could spend my time defending Scarlet from the hate she’s been getting or more thoroughly examining and dismissing overheard opinions from twitter or map chat, I guess I’ll take the time to whine about the strange pricing and terrible products from the gem store.

For me, my biggest gripe with the gem store these days is the temporary nature of the items. If I’m plunking down cash with Arenanet it better be for something I can enjoy permanently. I’m not a fan of something that has limited uses or becomes useless once I tire of it.

Therefore I am not a fan of the gem store armours. Oh some of them look good, damn good, but can I move them around from character to character? No. So once I’m bored with Magitech on my engineer and decide to go with another look, that’s 10 bucks down the tubes. Another 10 bucks if I change my mind, or another 10 bucks if I want it on an alt character.

But this is an old argument. People want a skin wardrobe. People are unhappy with town clothes. Hardly a new argument coming from me.

I will take this moment to complain about their pricing models however. Sets of armours, boots, legs, gloves, coat, shoulders, helm, typically cost 800 gems. It’s a price that is a little high for my taste but hey, they have to make money, fine. What really irks me though are special armour pieces like a helm for 500 gems, or gloves for 300. I can’t be convinced that those are fair prices. It’s as if they’re inflating the price of these items just so they can price people out of the gem exchange. So maybe we’re not supposed to be able to get any gem store item in game after all.

Unfortunately armours are hardly my only concern. Take for instance the Instant Trait Reset consumable. I’ve been thinking of it as the most foul ripoff of a cash shop item that Guild Wars 2 has. What would cost you 3s at an npc in any city, costs you 70 gems (which is around 5.5g on the exchange) at its base price. Even if I bought the Grandmaster’s Training Manual as a workaround reset to carry with me (does that even work? I’m not sure) I’d still only be paying 2g a pop. And to add insult to injury, it’s pretty much a slap in the face to original Guild Wars fans. Being able to change our builds on the fly was an amazing feature in the original Guild Wars, and I’m not saying Guild Wars 2 should be exactly the same, but surely the Instant Trait Reset item as it exists now is extremely exploitative. Especially when considering fans have called for this ability to be attached to the trait menu window, gold sink attached or not.

The Royal Pass, for me, is also quite disappointing. At first glance it is something I might have actually liked. Access to the Royal Terrace, a bank, trading post, crafting stations, mystic forge and merchants all tightly located in a small area. Except it only lasts 2 weeks. 2 weeks for 300 gems or very rarely from drops. Such a finite period of time, I can hardly believe anyone would bother to buy it. If it were permanent and 800 gems, I’d buy it in a heartbeat.

I could go on I suppose. I dislike that some faces and hair are exclusive to the makeover kit, those should be in character creation. I dislike the insane pricing on the Upgrade Extractor/Transmutation Splitter, 5000/6000 gems for just 25 uses? What? That’s like 60 bucks! And how are infinite gathering tools now 1000 gems now being account bound, when they should have been account bound to begin with. I don’t understand how that’s justified and not just greedy.

It saddens me that many of these items would be so much better, so much more functional and desirable if they were just account bound and permanent. Armour sets, Royal Passes, and yeah, if you’re going to charge 5000 or 6000 gems, those items should be permanent too.

Arenanet has to make money, sure. I just think more people would spend more money with them if their products weren’t so fleeting. What am I spending my money on here? It certainly isn’t anything enduring, which is kind of what I’m looking for, and I think what most people are looking for, in MMO items.

The World of Tomorrow

June 15, 2013 at 12:54 pm | Posted in Gem Store, Guild Wars 2, mmorpg, PvE | 14 Comments
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Amongst all the Dragon Bash goings-on several things about the next update have begun to leak. Aside from the main theme of what’s coming up, steampunk, the most interesting update for me and my friends will likely be the new sets of armour.

The first new sets of armour since launch.

This is something that I know a few people have been waiting on for quite some time though I myself have been mostly content. I say mostly content because there are of course a few valid complaints about armour.

Too many medium sets have trench coats. I’m sure you’ll be disappointed to know that trend does not stop with these new sets.

All head wear makes you bald. I’m not sure what they could do about this exactly but I admit it looks odd.

Not enough variety in style or design, something I’m happy to say these sets add to.

Anyway here are some previews using some of the codes that have spread amongst the gaming populace. Keep in mind it’s possible these sets are not done, though I’d wager they’re close to it.

Light

Light

Something strange people immediately started to notice with these new sets, the genders vary more wildly than with most other armour sets. They don’t look much alike at all, as you can see.

I really like the male vest, tie, gears and straps on the male version here. It’s just too bad that it doesn’t seem to match the rest of the set. One of the best single pieces in the game in my opinion.

The female helm is strangely reminiscent to me of a rastacap. I wonder at it’s actual inspiration.

The male light set seems to be aristocratic or scientific in nature. The female set seems more adventuresome, less nerdy to me.

Medium

Medium

Don’t get me wrong, it’s one of the best trench coats in the game, well done, stylish and looks good. But it’s a trench coat. We already have a few in the game for medium classes. Personally I would have much preferred the male vest for light to have been a medium coat.

The female medium goes back to a very classy feel, right in the thick of steampunk. The helm speaks of baldness, as I attempted to note earlier.

Both medium sets are very pilot-like, but I think the male is more of a fighter pilot set and the female more of an officer on a ship.

Heavy

Heavy

For me the male set somehow reminds me of Elder Scrolls dwarven mechanical contraptions. Right down to the gears and feather plumes IIRC.

They’re very toy soldier-esque and different from most other heavy sets but from my perspective the female set is quite an oddity. Almost every heavy set tries to show off the defensive nature of the armour, a heavy metallic look and feel (or, barring that, how big the boobs of the female character are) that this armour doesn’t seem to have. A bit refreshing actually.

So yeah. New armour incoming apparently. Which only leaves one question. How will these armour sets be obtainable?

I’m not really looking forward to the options here. So far Arenanet have dropped skins mostly in two ways. Gambling or bought on the auction house. Black Lion Chests, Consortium chests, Dragon Coffers, whatever, you have to buy them or buy keys for just a chance, a terribly poor chance, of getting them to drop. Or you can spend hundreds of gold at times to buy a skin on the auction house.

Neither in my opinion are fun or necessary to fund Arenanet through the gem store.

I haven’t managed to get wintersday skins, sclerite skins, jade skins, Halloween skins or any other special skins for that matter through naturally playing the game. But I’m not bitter.

These are full armour sets however, a far cry from weapon skins. Perhaps they will be introduced in another manner, for example directly from the gem store. To me that would be a whole lot more acceptable than this insane random number generator bullshit Arenanet seems to love so much.

Or at least it would be more acceptable if I could buy a skin from the gem store and have it permanently available to me. The current system of having to buy the same skin again if it’s destroyed is a little backwards considering the original Guild Wars had better functionality but I guess that leads into a discussion of just how much town clothes are broken and why I can’t wear town clothes in battle (because it would break immersion it’s said, but then shortbows that shoot rainbow unciorns, cargo short hotpants, and aviator sunglasses, those don’t break immersion at all) and then we’re really off on a rant here.

Best just to finish up and move along. To the world of tomorrow!

Halloween Trailer

October 19, 2012 at 1:26 pm | Posted in Gem Store, Guild Wars 2, mmorpg, PvE | 1 Comment
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They’ve been planning this Halloween thing for a long time.

New Halloween themed music, a Halloween promo with professional voice acting, and apparently Mad King Thorn will be voiced as well. That’s a lot more money than was ever pushed into the original Guild Wars festivals. Gives me a lot of hope for the future.

There are a few new notes on the trailer’s webpage as well. Black Lion chests will be upgraded to include Halloween items like 6 exclusive weapon skins.

The price of the previously worthless chests shot up to 60 copper a piece from about 30. Don’t worry, they’re back down to 31 copper right now. With damn near 100k on the Auction House any sort of new demand wouldn’t increase the price for long.

We also get a glimpse of the jumping puzzle, which apparently is directly over the mystic forge. Not to mention a few views of locations I don’t recognize, can’t wait for that.

Oh and I forgot to mention that I read recently that new gem store items have been datamined out of the updates. Various makeover items and assorted convenience type stuff. Incoming with Halloween perhaps?

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