SmirkDog.3160

Increasing the level cap means extending the gear treadmill. Just thinking about it ages me.

Before you just read the title and decide to reply -- Yes it still counts if I have to scrape together all my gold to convert it to gems just to buy one skin.

I bailed after the disaster of the mount skin gambling after playing since the closed beta 5 years ago, because that felt like the straw that broke the camel's back for me. I'm tired of microtransactions. Anyway, it's been a few months, and I thought I'd come back and see if anything has changed. I saw dozens of mount skins that could be unlocked, but not a single one seems to be obtainable by doing an achievement or something. Maybe I missed them? It looked like they were all gem store only. Not a single one that doesn't cost money?

PoF felt like a good expac to me, but left a bad taste in my mouth when every new thing after it launched had to be bought from the gem store. I had hoped that would change after a few months.

"We made a mistake but we won't fix it, we'll just plan to make less mistakes in the future."

Two steps forward and one step back, ANet. I'm still taking my money (and time) elsewhere for the time being.

> @Malafaia.8903 said:

> I guess almost 3k posts speaks for a lot of people, aye?

> Still waiting for some kind of statement from Anet.

Don't expect much.

> @pah.4931 said:

> What if you could trade any five skins for one of your choice?

That would still require you to spend at least 2000 gems for one skin (I mean, what if you got 5 but liked one? You'd have to get another), which is already too much for one mount skin.

> @Jaskar.3071 said:

> Agreed

> The RNG is the problem

> I am absolutely sure this outrage wouldnt have happened without it

I might've bought a skin if they were sold individually. I like some of the Jackal ones, and it's my most used mount. Now they have none of my money, and they've turned me away towards other games that don't sell loot boxes.

> @"Ayumi Spender.1082" said:

> I guess another 9600 for gliders and another 9600 for weapons?

Of course. That's the most financially efficient way.

> @"Ayumi Spender.1082" said:

> I don't know about the wedding at all as I never looked at it except once, but isn't the Chef the same on everyone except Sylvari?

Nah the charr have a different design with that outfit.

For 400 gems you can get the option to turn off a random skin, or for 9600 you can disable all mount skin effects.

Which merchants?

Or at least put in some invisible walls, so it's physically impossible to go out of bounds. That would solve literally all of the problems associated with this.

> @TitaniumBovine.9674 said:

> A visual timer on the hotbar for trait/sigil/rune effect procs on cooldown would be top. Can't tell ya how often I summon an illusion for SOI and go "Hm, boy, I hope that did anything."

I know that at least Herald has a thing on the hotbar that shows when Crystal Hibernation is available to activate. It's definitely a thing they put in the game.

For the same price as all these skins I can buy the new expac for FFXIV for me and my partner and a month of game time each. Guess what I'm doing until ANet fixes their mistakes.

> @pah.4931 said:

> They are trying to make MORE money. Which isn't inherently evil by itself. That is what I am saying.

Sorry to dispel the illusion for you here, but greed isn't exactly _not_ evil.

> @pah.4931 said:

> Is it immoral for Anet to make more money so they can pay their employees living wages? Or so they can even prevent themselves from getting shutdown??

>

> Is it immoral for you to ask for a raise at work? Or to demand money at all for your work?

>

> Calling this immoral is laughable. "It's not right" is a terrible, emotion-based argument.

>

> Is it immoral to sell cigarettes? People know what they are (and that they kill you) so who takes the blame? I'll answer for you. When they lied and covered up the truth, it was the company. When its full knowledge of the product, it's the buyer. You know exactly what you are buying. Just because YOU don't enjoy the randomness of it, doesn't mean it's wrong or immoral.

People love to say they're just trying to make money, but they can make money by just selling the skins. Sell them individually, and people will buy them. Hundreds of people in this thread have said they wanted at least one skin but didn't want to pay the extra money and deal with the RNG. It's a scam. Plain and simple.

And why do people keep bringing up cigarettes......... I don't smoke. I have asthma, so it's double unhealthy for me. So I just don't. That means nothing. You're right, I do know what I'm buying. And that's why I'm not buying it. _Duh._

Oh and, you're right. It's not immoral to demand money for my work. So from now on, if people want to buy any of my designs or photos, they can pay $20 for a random one, and $300 for all of them. Just biz, y'know.

> @troops.8276 said:

> Your conflating the guy at the point of sale with the actions of the company. All the industries you listed have been in trouble with legislators for shady business practices at one point or another.

I spent all that time typing a counterpoint, but what you said right here is very accurate.

> @Lilyanna.9361 said:

> Then hoo boy, you'd be pissed at a lot of your phone companies, insurance companies etc. If you get offended here, how would you take it in the real world?

>

> People have a job to do. Are you gonna scream at casinos? Are you gonna scream at the guy that sells you smokes? Or the person that sells you tantalizing material? Are you gonna be mad at your doctor for giving you them oh so bad medicines that may save your life? Everyone has a job to do.

>

> And by human morality the things we SHOULD be worrying most is things like censorship and other topics I'm not bothering to mention because they don't matter. The point is, they have a job to do just like we do. A lot of these so-called immoral practices as you put it, occur in your everyday life, yet you want to scream when it comes to entertainment, something that is optional compared to our necessities. That's the amusing part about all of this.

>

> But again, as someone said above, this is arguing semantics and that post was specifically for folks that were trying to out their oh-so precious law knowledge out there and claiming: 'Oh the children.'

>

> It's not a business's to look out for children.

I like that you insist I must be SO OFFENDED and not just disappointed.

Let's break down all your Great Points here:

"Are you gonna scream at casinos?" No, because I don't go to casinos, because I refuse to gamble when I can avoid it. They only want my money, and will try to trick me into spending more. This isn't news. As well, I already said I'm prone to addiction, so I avoid gambling in order to avoid making a big mistake. Hence why I'm also not buying into ANet's loot box game.

"Are you gonna scream at the guy that sells you smokes?" No, because I don't smoke, and I don't know how it is in other countries, but here in Canada cigarettes can't be sold in most stores that also have a pharmacy or for other reasons, so you only go to a shop that sells cigarettes or other smoking-related items if that's what you're going there for. As well, on cigarette packages they're required by law to tell you that they can give you cancer and kill you, among other things. So as a non-smoker, many of those things deter me from falling victim to their business practices.

"Or the person that sells you tantalizing material?" I literally have no idea what this means. Does this mean like 'adult content' or something? Regardless, I have a habit of being an impulsive shopper, so I do my best to not be tempted by 'tantalizing material', and will try to wait and decide if I really want or need the item.

"Are you gonna be mad at your doctor for giving you them oh so bad medicines that may save your life?" This is completely unrelated to both the subject at hand as well as your previous examples. Medicine at its core should not be harmful, and is intended to help you. However, this is also an ineffective example because a) I don't have a doctor mainly because I currently don't have health insurance (so that also ruins one of your earlier points), and b) my partner takes medication for seizures but as a side effect they give him really awful migraines. So should he keep taking them even if the side effect is worse than what they're supposed to fix?

And I don't know why you keep going "children this, children that", since I never mentioned children at all. Unless that's your way of trying to infantilize me, which is kind of pathetic. For some reason you seem to think I only care about 'entertainment', as if this forum is the only place in which I voice my concerns about immoral things. You don't have all the information here.

**tl;dr** Just because lots of people do a bad thing, doesn't mean it's okay to continue doing a bad thing. We should be examining all of those examples you provided and holding them accountable for any scams or exploitative behavior that they're guilty of. And at the moment, we're addressing the exploitation of people's desires by making them spend more money than they would need to in order to get the thing they want.

> @Lilyanna.9361 said:

> For the people who who trying to put law or just trying to put some sort ruling against lootboxes:

>

> What is your defense?

> How would you make the judges pay attention?

> How would you make it to some form of court?

> Would this even go past civil court?

>

> If you do not have a sufficient answer to any of these questions, lootboxes will never be illegal. The judges would toss this case faster than you can blink and move. Just thought I'd out there for those who were attempting to bring some sort of court against this business practice.

Y'know, something doesn't have to be illegal to for you to not do it. It's immoral, regardless of the legality. So they shouldn't be forced to stop by a judge or something, they should just stop because it's not right.

> @Bunter.3795 said:

> The amount of overdramatic responses to the concerns people have about these new skins is almost beyond belief. I have no problem with people having an opinion and posting it but the sheer amount of hyperbole and dramatization makes it hard to take what people are saying seriously.

>

> The 2 biggest offenders I've seen posted are that Anet is evil and preying on it's customers and that this new skin acquisition method is gambling and preys on those with gambling addiction/weakness.

ANet may not be Evil and it may not technically be gambling, but it's not unreasonable to want to be able to get what you want without being ripped off. Why make me pay $120 USD to be guaranteed the skin I want? What if I've been saving for weeks and only have $30 to spend on the game, and I blow it all on the skins and don't get any of the ones I want? Why is that their business model? Because they don't care if you get what you want, they only care that _they_ get what _they_ want, which is your hard earned money. Want to make sure you get the one you want? Better pay a ridiculous amount of money for it.

And yes, it does prey on people with gambling addictions. I'm very prone to addiction myself, and if I really wanted a skin from that pack, I could very easily see myself buying one, not getting the one I want, then doing the Ol' Just One More™ until I've spent $20, $30, $60, etc... and then I finally get it after spending $120 and all I have is one skin I want, 29 I don't, and no money.

> @Shirlias.8104 said:

> If you are leaving, the reason is more likely that you don't like the game anymore.

>

> And i am not defending or accusing ANET about the recent mount bundle, but if you have fun in a game and you drop that game because you can't have some skins in a fair and proper way, well... that speaks for itself.

I think that's a bit presumptuous. I like the game. I've been playing since it came out, and I really enjoyed the PoF story and the content that was added along with it. However, I'm still a person that deserves respect and should be valued for more than just my wallet. If a company just sees me as a source of income and doesn't actually appreciate me, then I can choose to take my business elsewhere.

This kind of stuff preys on people liking the game, because they know those players will be too invested and """loyal""" to quit. I have integrity and dignity, and I know what i"m worth. If I'm going to be treated like garbage just to make more money then it doesn't matter if I like the game.

Another chance to get people to spend more money instead of playing the game? They're probably already working on it, my friend.

> @Wolfheart.7483 said:

> > @SmirkDog.3160 said:

> > Suck up to them more, please. Have you bought all the skins yet, or are you just missing one or two?

>

> Your response to his post means nothing.

You're right, I was just being redundant again.

> @pah.4931 said:

> Quoting 1,000 people in a game that has hundreds of thousands isn't a great argument. Try again.

>

> (A great majority of players never go to forums)

Okay well, there are people who are coming to the forums to both praise it and complain about it. Of those that care, most hate it. You can move the goal posts all you want, but it's a fact that this has pissed players off more than anything they've done in a long time.

> @Aya.6321 said:

> So are we going to get any news or feedback from ANET about the atrocity of this or are we just going to let them watch us mangle each other and wait for it to blow over? THIS IS BS. Why can't they ever just talk to us. Coddle us. Explain to us the situation. Come up with a solution.

>

> None of that is happening. When there is quite a kitten storm right in front of them and they're going to just pretend it's not happening.

> They don't care. They're ignoring us all the way to the bank.

They have, however, [argued on a different thread because I made a joke about one of them saying our comments were redundant](https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/comment/249282#Comment_249282 "argued on different threads because I made a joke about one of them saying our comments were redundant"). They're handling this whole debacle as best they can.

> @pah.4931 said:

> Go to Lion's Arch. People obviously don't mind this "cash grab" (read: business trying to make money from customers FOR SHAME) as much as you think.

Actually they do mind as much as I think, because this thread (or these merged redundant threads) blew up and all the polls have at least 80% of voters saying 'no' or 'take out the RNG'. The only people you'll see in Lion's Arch showing off their mounts are the gullible whales that will buy any and every item from the gem store because they want it first and want to feel special. There will always be mindless supporters who never stop to think, but it's pretty clear that the majority of players are extremely displeased.