Halloween inc! (content update)

[niwaar]

FFXI Sunbreeze Festival 2004 had the Test of Courage. That was pretty ballin back in the day, since you were lvl 1 and exploring areas that most NA players had yet to reach.

That was one of the best festival events I can ever remember. I would also point out that the very first TBC Fire Festival in WoW was a huge deal. We give Blizzard shit about their holidays now, but back when they first started with the current design they were fun and not remotely as tedious and "daily grind" as they are today.

Addendum on the permanent weapons, it's actually worse.
Confirmed to be factual. Effectively 10~15g for a gift and 120~130g for the full weapon. A Halloween event item. L O fucking L. I don't know who the fuck they expected would sink this many resources into these three weapons, of which only the staff is worth any effort whatsoever and even that is iffy compared to the one from chests that you can buy for like 40g.

I actually find this to be utterly ridiculous. I do not mind that they arent cheap to make, but I honestly figured they would try and hit the mark around 20-25g to make the weapons. Not 120g+. Having to use a full stack of Orichalcum and 100 of ANY lodestone was pretty ridiculous, let alone the rest of the recipe. The original "datamined" recipes they had given the databases were much more reasonable in price point.

Edit: Since you posted those numbers Charged Lodestone's have gone up to 1.5 buy order 1.75 sell. Making the bare minimum for the staff to be around 170g if you bought everything.

Don't see why people are defending a 130g grind for Halloween event skins
It wouldn't even be so bad if we were offered something else out of the entire event that we could get without opening our wallets and showering ANet with money, but we don't! We get:

I won't defend the 130g grind for those THREE weapon skins. I will defend their use of the BLTC as a function of the event. We all knew what we were getting ourselves into when we started to play this game. Its a B2P game with a cash shop. We all knew that they would find ways to entice us into the shop. I would remind you of other games where they had RNG based boxes. I can understand people's disdain for not getting any skins with keys they purchased with cash. I for one am having a ball. I used 4 keys and got jack all but karma boosters and tonics. Do I wish I had the money to buy more keys? Yes, but I spent my allotment of cash for the month on the Witch's Costume and I do not regret it at all.

[bluefan]

Got a Deathly Avian Mantle Skin on my 5th chest. Nothing else from the rest with the keys I had

[Kachiko]

Company's just don't get F2P pricing models and the over all image the company projects with it. The costumes/pets are a great example as they are usually things people want. Would you rather 10 people using cash to buy the costumes, at $10 bucks each or would you rather 50 people bought them at $2 each? If you've estimated your player bases interest well enough, you want more people buying items, for a cheaper price over selling fewer items, for a higher price. That way, the community feels they are getting a fair deal and the company is making the same amount of money. If ANET keeps failing at this concept, then the game will fail. Yes, I know you can use gold to get the gems, but that's not the real point. You want to entice your players to use your cash shop, not feel like they got butt raped because there was no level setting of expectations. As was said before, many people got bitten this event and most will be twice shy, for future events, and that is going to be a problem for ANET.

[Rhyis.]

Silly people spending real money on digital prettiness.

[Kachiko]

Money is something everyone wants to be able to spend and enjoy. Personally, I can't gamble, yet plenty of people get an enjoyment out of it, even if they lose money, and I can understand that. People spent a lot of money, on something they thought they would enjoy, and went bust. That's never a good thing.

[Arcana]

The gem store is there to generate profit for the game, i don't get why you're saying that their pricing is too high on the items. the game isn't going to fail based on the gem store costume items because that has no direct correlation to the state of the game. people will always spend money in the gem store when it comes down to events like this, infact you'll get people PURPOSELY spending money weeks in advance to stock up on gems and then trade them for gold when the price is at its best.

[Ambrosia]

I wish the preview window would of been a bit larger, or be able to preview the costumes on your character like The Secret World or TERA. I think the only one I might get is the witch's costume. I think the event could of been handled better (maybe have the temporary stuff last much longer) but overall I don't think the pricing is that high. The costumes are account bound, not character bound which is nice and you can get them via the Gem/Gold trade option instead of forking over money, although the gold grind can be icky.


Thankfully they didn't go the P2P and cash shop route like The Secret World and TERA. The crazy thing about TERA is that every item you want is character bound, not account bound and the weapon skins/costume skins are sold separately. I have 7 characters in Guild Wars 2 and 8 in TERA. A simple example would be the aviator glasses. In Guild Wars 2 they cost roughly $2 and can go on all of my characters. In TERA if I wanted the same effect it would cost me $15 for each. That would be $120 compared to $2. I could give other examples with the costume packages but you get the idea.


Honestly, the only 2 P2P/B2P MMORPGs that I can think of; released in the past 5 years that give away 99% of the items for free through events etc. (excluding collector edition items) are FFXIV and RIFT. I do love FFXIV events, and I surely miss FFXI events.


Anywho here are a couple of videos showing you the costumes. The first video shows you all of them, I think. The second one is the witch costume dyed black.

[Eldelphia]

They've updated a thread on the official forum about the lack of skins from boxes https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/foru...-unique/519963

Hey, everyone. As mentioned earlier in this thread, the team has taken on board your feedback and concerns.
We’d recommend not throwing away or selling the items you’ve been receiving in the Black Lion Chests, as we’ll be providing ways in which those items can be used to obtain Halloween-related items…
We’ll have further updates when they become available.
Thank you again for all your feedback.

[shepardG]

"It's hollo.....I mean, halo.....er..... IT's CANDY DAY!"

[Prothescar]

inb4 100 mystery tonics = a skin. totally ok with that and I respect them for making a move to reimburse the people who spent a ton of money and got nothing out of it

[Kachiko]

The gem store is there to generate profit for the game, i don't get why you're saying that their pricing is too high on the items. the game isn't going to fail based on the gem store costume items because that has no direct correlation to the state of the game. people will always spend money in the gem store when it comes down to events like this, infact you'll get people PURPOSELY spending money weeks in advance to stock up on gems and then trade them for gold when the price is at its best.

It's pretty simple. In one situation you have prices high, and number of sales lower, and the community thinking the gem store is a rip off. In the other situation, you have prices lower, number of sales higher, and the community thinking the gem store is awesome. Currently, the gem store is the first and it should be the latter. The trick is knowing your community and pricing accordingly, and if this forum is an indicator abroad, the evidence is that ANET didn't get it right.

Your point about the Gem to Gold option is not relevant because the gem store is impulse buying, not strategic market playing, and I already specified it's not to be taken into account since ANET is expecting profit from it.

[Prothescar]

$10 for a skin is reasonable. $50 for a low chance at one isn't. That's the issue.

[Shiyo]

I'd pay $10 for a 100% chance at the shield skin from chests. I spend more than $10 on food a day...

[Kuishen]

Are the skins out of the chest like everlasting tonics or one-time use consumables?

[Prothescar]

One time use but can be transmuted

[niwaar]

$10 for a skin is reasonable. $50 for a low chance at one isn't. That's the issue.

That's the real issue here. I would put this mostly on NCsoft and not Anet. They have a love of the "RNG Box" thing in most all of their games. It most definitely is an Asian developer trope. I do not have a problem with it, but they did this wrong. There needs to be a lot of common holiday items, a few rare and then a "Big Daddy" prize that is exceedingly rare. They could have easily pulled this off with the shoulder skins as the common, weapon skins as rare and something like the Gift for the permanent version of the other skins as the Big Daddy prizes.

Instead we got everything as the Big prizes and nothing as the common or uncommon ones. Which just pisses people off.

That being said, I myself am completely enjoying this holiday. The atmosphere in LA is great. The Scavenger Hunt was an interesting piece of Lore. The kids around LA are adorable. I mean Charr as an AC assasin was just great. Let alone the Charr batman and the Quaggan Ghost. I will admit that I was hoping for a "real" questline or something like one. Plus I was hoping for a LOT more decorations, especially in the 5 racial towns, and out in the world itself, but overall the event has been the best MMO holiday event for a while.

Are the skins out of the chest like everlasting tonics or one-time use consumables?

They are like the Hall of Monument skins. You can skin them over another item and then procede to reskin it using Transmutation Stones as many times as you like.

[Amiricle]

ReginaBuenaobra

North American Community Team Lead

“Our Halloween celebrations are in full swing, costume brawls are aplenty and the Shadow of the Mad King is falling across Tyria. Because we are as excited as you are, we will add another opportunity for you to get shiny Halloween goodies.

You will be glad to hear that we are adding recipes to the Mystic Forge that will allow you to throw stuff you get from the Black Lion Chests into it to get a special Halloween chest (no key needed for this one). These chests will include Halloween specific loot and give you a second chance to get one of the terrifying, rare Halloween skins. Here is the recipe we will add:

You need 1 Candy Corn, 6 Mystery Tonics, 1 Boost (any), 1 Boost (any) to get a Mad King Chest.

We hope you like this gruesome addition, we will let you know immediately when they will be in the game – enjoy the celebrations!”

Theres also 2 more acts, so who knows what else is coming.

[Prothescar]

I'm happy with this. Gives a use to the less useful (because I forget to use them) boosts and gives those of us who got shit all a second chance

[Ambrosia]

That's the real issue here. I would put this mostly on NCsoft and not Anet. They have a love of the "RNG Box" thing in most all of their games. It most definitely is an Asian developer trope. I do not have a problem with it, but they did this wrong.

Yeah can't argue there. I hope future events move away from this. I am enjoying the event though, awesome stuff!

[Alderaan]

Let me do the fucking clock tower jumping puzzle without 10 other people on my screen blocking my view.

Thanks.