Ha ha, now I can log into your account and steal your loot.
Kidding! You’re added to the guild.
-Tom
Reemul
5602
If anyone wants to log in and level my Ranger for a bit thats fine, if you dont mind the pink gear ;)
robc04
5603
I pulled the trigger on this too and would like an invitation to the guild when you have the chance please. I am RobC.3780. I’m in the middle of Borderlands 2 right now, so it may be a little while before I play GW2 for any significant amount of time. Thanks! I have no loot to steal :-)
Kadath
5604
Opinions on this? I bought GW2 at launch and didn’t stick with it, but I think this would kill it for me:
http://www.zam.com/story.html?story=32665
Wolff
5605
Really the boxes you can freely ignore that have no impact on gameplay would be it huh?
KevinC
5606
I don’t understand why, it’s not like they have powerful stuff in them, just cosmetics mostly (taking a skin off of armor and applying it to another piece of armor,). Sometimes I’ve found a mining pick or whatever, no big deal.
I’ve never bought a key although I’ve found some in-game. I probably still have a couple on me that I haven’t used… because I care more about my lack of inventory space than I do the items in those boxes, for the most part. And if I really wanted inside those boxes? That’s the whole idea of not paying $15/mo. Since I’m not shelling out that money to keep access to my character open, I see nothing wrong with tossing a few bucks their way for knickknacks or other trivialities.
Phred
5608
I’d just like to post here to say to all you people who just can’t resist buying keys to open those lockboxes. THANK YOU for the free game. :)
Ok, I’d forgotten how much fun this game is.
Oddly, this is the part that gets me. Yeah, unless you have a gambling problem, they are pretty ignorable. If I get a key drop in game I’ll open one (and the boxes themselves used to drop keys … so more than one … but that mechanic as well feeds the addiction rush for addicted). Usually I stack them in the bank, and when the stack gets big, I sell them on the in-game AH.
But, sometimes I destroy them too. The sell for 1c iirc, but it does add up w/large stacks. I then feel guilty I’m enabling addiction. I areas where I volunteer I’d actually get a “how could you” from some of the volunteer therapists. So yeah I do feel bad. And the “its just a game” doesn’t work, as they are starting to use games (with positive reinforcements) to help on a lot of things therapeutically. (Which is another nice topic!). There are plenty of other game mechanics that are hell traps for people with addictive personality issues too. This one just makes the mechanism crystal clear.
If much of GW2s monetization really is from this, then they’re just a prettier farmville? I hope it isn’t. Non-p2w cosmetics, that you buy directly in a cash shop - and they have plenty - as well as the bank and extra char slots I tolerate well from both on player fairness and my version of moral squeamishness. Besides, if I want the cute plush backpack let be go buy it, not buy packs of keys (which give you other junk items). If you don’t just delete the items every box they take up bank inventory. And when you have to buy extra its blatant ploy for more cash (LotRO I’m looking at you here too in some phases).
So you don’t have to gamble at all to play or win. But if someone has to be exploited so I can, yeah … hmmm.
I seriously doubt lockbox keys are a main source of income for GW2. I never touch them, but I’ve spent easily the equivalent of a subscription over the the time I’ve been playing GW2, on unlocks, transmutation crystals, costumes, etc. For me, it’s pitched about right - useful QOL unlocks like extra bank space cost, and I think that’s fair enough, since you only need the extra bank space if you’re starting to play a bit more intensively.
Sure, some people, those with a tendency to gamble, are being exploited. But I don’t think it’s going to make gamblers out of people who aren’t already gamblers.
Wolff
5612
So trying to nab wings before dragon ash ends…grinding for cheevos is stupid.
Phred
5613
Ya I must admit. In the early days of the game I bought some gems for character slots and bank space. I just regard those lock boxes like I do lottery tickets. A tax on people who failed math. Once I got enough gold built up I bought gems with gold in game for the rest of the bank slots/character slots I needed. I believe it was Tom who pointed out back when gems were like 30g/100 that that deal would likely never be seen again. It hasn’t.
You know its cheaper to buy the wings off the TP than using candies, right (alternately, sell the candies, buy the wings, have more money).
EDIT: Realized you were talking about the achievement set of wings, not the one that drops/buyable with candy.
I can afford neither. Well done sir, you raised my hopes and dashed them expertly.
I think you can still get the achievement set (until next Tuesday, I think?) - you need 8 of them.
[ul]
[li]1x 250 Zhaitaffy costing ~ 10s[/li][li]5x Story that appear to be still obtainable Ceremony and Acrimony -> Hard Boiled -> Every Piece Matters -> No More Secrets -> Case Closed[/li][li]1x Not sure about Meet the Hosts, if so that’s another[/li][li]1x Idle in dragonball for 20 rounds if you don’t feel like playing (~1 hour). [/li][li]3x Grind out the fireworks, pinatas, or effigies. These are per character per server per day, so you can grab more than you think. Its a really stupid and boring grind though. But ANet seems to love these. There’s not an event that goes by that doesn’t have you running around hitting F a couple hundred times.[/li][/ul]
rei
5617
Are bank/bank slot expansions account wide or per character? Are there any essential things one “should” buy?
Banks slots are account wide. All your characters share the same bank. The only things I’ve ever needed to buy are bank slots, and I was able to do that by converting ingame gold to gems without missing out on any essential gold sinks, as far as I could tell. In other words, it didn’t interfere with getting a mount or anything. In fact, the only essential gold sinks are the trait manuals, which seem trivially easy to afford whenever you get to the required level.
The only other thing I’ll eventually want to buy are additional character slots. You get five, but there are eight character classes. I’ve only spent meaningful time with three characters, so that leaves me two slots worth of characters before I’ll need to buy an additional slot. At this point, Guild Wars 2 is a ridiculously generous bargain for the $40 cost of entry. Thanks to those of you who subsidize my online time by buying yourselves consumables and whatever purchase-only costume bits you’re wearing!
Also, no matter what, no one tell me the /played command in this game! Whatever my time /played is, I don’t want to know.
-Tom
/deaths can be amusing though.
On exchanging gold for gems. The conversion rate is kind of predictable. Generally the price is around 3g -> 100 gems for the last 3 or 4 months (up from 30 silver a month after release), spiking on releases of new (temporary) store content and drawing back down before the next release. They are generally cheaper midweek (but oftentimes this is offset by releases happening midweek) and around midnight Eastern. I’d wait for a conversion rate of <3g if I wanted to convert these days, which seems to occur fairly often.
A cheaper alternative for those of you not maxed on guilds is to start your own guild and buy influence until you can afford the 50 slot guild bank. Comes out to about 5 gold, the only downside is that account bound items can’t be stored there.
