Curse

Sentinel · Sep 12, 2005, 02:46 PM // 14:46

Quote:

Originally Posted by Snowman

How could you have possibly known that it had your perfect weapon in it?

lol...can't believe someone fell for that one....

Here I go.....

How could you possibly know it wasn't!!!

Snowman, I was just making a point that it didn't feel right to have a chest in front of me and not being able to open it. I could have said it just like that but where is the fun in that??

Sent.-

Albino Chocobo · Sep 12, 2005, 02:50 PM // 14:50

That's the whole point. He could not open this chest, there will always be a nagging suspicion. The gold sink effect will actually work for some people. I tend to buy keys too, cause I have some gold, and I'm not planning to save for a Fissure/whatever armor, so why not.
Actually, I tend to go back in Sardelac Sanatarium, and give away items to low-level characters.

Snowman · Sep 12, 2005, 02:50 PM // 14:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by sidepocket13

i havent bought any items off of anyone since the keys have come out. I love to gamble, i like to take a risk and see what i can get. i think its a great idea for a gold sink

lol, this is more like it...

when you think about it, everything you do in Guildwars is a gamble!.. i think thats why Koreans love it so much.

Even activating a skill is a gamble.. you dont know for sure if its going to land or get counterd.

Salvaging is a bit of a gamble now.. especially with superior salvage, the extra cost means that your not guaranteed to win.

and chests.. the only way to NOT gamble with these 'one arm bandits in the snow' is to never buy a key!.. and as everyone buys a key at least once to try it.. then everyone who plays Guildwars has gambled!

Ironic when you consider they stopped the casinos due to gambling concerns...

Sandman Uk · Sep 12, 2005, 02:52 PM // 14:52

/Praise

I have no issues with this regarding Unlocking items. I have purchased about 20 keys in total and unlocked about 9 items. Had some nice staffs that i have used with gold to purchase my ideal items. And you have a choice about buying them.

The drop rate is still the same with normal drops but you have the option to possibly get a rare with a key.

/Thumbs Up

Racthoh · Sep 12, 2005, 02:57 PM // 14:57

I like the sensation of finding gold items, and the odds are much better simply by dishing out the gold I get on farming runs that otherwise didn't produce those lovely items.

I like how FoW added the chests, while keeping the original ones in there. Sure the keys are 1.5k each, but I have yet to get a non-gold item from one. Problem is I usually cover the entrance fee so I'm spending quite a bit to begin with.

Sentinel · Sep 12, 2005, 03:06 PM // 15:06

Quote:

Originally Posted by Racthoh

I like the sensation of finding gold items, and the odds are much better simply by dishing out the gold I get on farming runs that otherwise didn't produce those lovely items.

I like how FoW added the chests, while keeping the original ones in there. Sure the keys are 1.5k each, but I have yet to get a non-gold item from one. Problem is I usually cover the entrance fee so I'm spending quite a bit to begin with.

Haven't been in fissure since the update. Racthoh, are you getting items mormaly found in fissure in those chests (chaos axes, shadow stuff etc) or other items as well?
1.5k you say??...Suddenly 400 or 650 looks like a bargain

Sent.-

Calimar · Sep 12, 2005, 03:32 PM // 15:32

You know, GW was advertised as a casual gamer's game. I know it's a dead horse, but it really is what it all boils down to. I spend, say 10-12 hours a week on GW, and that's overestimating. I have never found a black dye, found one glob of ecto and one gold drop before Furnace. The one superior rune I unlocked was through pvp faction.

Now, in the last week I unlocked 2 superiors and a major rune, I've found all in all I think 5-6 gold drops. Makes it worth the while to me. Most of them were from chests.
The fact that after 400-500 hours of playing you feel like you don't have anything else to do is.... well, not surprising. I'd take a year to do that much, probably more. Still, I never get tired of PvPing, there's always a new build to try or a new build to counter.

I'm for chests... but I wouldn't like it being ONLY closed chests. Leaving some "open" would be good. IMNERHO.

MSecorsky · Sep 12, 2005, 03:42 PM // 15:42

You all need to forget about what costs what and what whats worth. Buy your keys, kill you way to the chests, pick up all your drops. See what you get from the chests, keep what you like, sell the rest to the merchant. Enjoy the challenge. Simply enough, your gold will still go up. Even the whites will sell for better than 50g in the war camp.

Can you believe some guy in a PuG called me cheap because I picked up all my drops? I hope he invested in a tin cup for his monkey.

Seriously, forget about the value of keys vs the value of items and just play the game. Just doing the quests in PuGs has been proven to be profitable, and that includes buying keys and popping chests.

wiz12268 · Sep 12, 2005, 03:46 PM // 15:46

I have been rather lucky thus far. I bought 50 keys so far. I have used 40 or so. I have gotten a lot of armors(runes) probably 15 or so, I have gotten 8-10 purples, and 12-15 golds weapons.

Of those the purples were basically usless. I did get a wand that was +2 energy while enchanted but nothing special. I sold theothers. The aromors stank except for a superior div favor, and that is only about 3500 now to sell to trader.

But I have gotten several decent gold weapon upgrades. The base weapons stank, with mods for several classes, or cross skills of the same class. BUt I have gotten a +29 hale head, and a couple +4 insightful heads, and a few +5 heads and wraps. (some of the upgrades on the same weapon).

But itmakes sense that the chests are dropping weapons that aren't great. That keeps it "fair". If the chest dropped nice weapons all the time, that would definately "kill the economy". At least this way it keeps the perfect mods worth something, and those base weapons with very nice mods valuable as well.

At first I was nervous that the chest would make it extremely easy to get perfect wepsons and perfect upgrades very easilly. But I am thinking you have a 1-2% chance to get a VERY good upgrade or weapon. And a 5-10% chance to get perfect upgrades that aren't so highly sougt after.

But 75%-80% of the time you are getting something worht a lot less than the 600-700 you spent the key on. Which does in fact keep a balance with the perfect upgrade, and better base weapons avaialbility.

DiAnna · Sep 12, 2005, 03:55 PM // 15:55

When I heard about the key/chest thing, I was excited... until I saw how much the danged keys cost. Between 600 and 750g for a Shiverpeaks and Mine key respectively, and after biting the bullet and buying 3 each, I ended up with 6 purple items, the total value of which was worth less than the cost of one key (unless I spent a couple of hours trying to hawk them to n00bs in Ascalon, which I am not inclined to do). I'm one of those folks who, after nearly finishing one character and spending 300+ hours in the game have less than 40g in total, so no way can I afford those keys.

But they drop from bosses too... right? So I spent about 5 hours in Grenths/Sorrows Furnace yesterday, and did two of the missions. I did not find a single, solitary key despite having killed a couple dozen bosses, and hundreds of underlings.

Gold sink indeed. It gives those who have a million in gold yet another advantage, in that they can afford to open all those luscious chests while we peasants must pass them by. I used to love opening chests and hidden stashes. Now that pleasure is gone too.

So no, I'm not happy with this because I cannot afford to be happy with it.

Please lower the cost of keys so that the items in the chest will cover our purchase at least most of the time (selling to NPCs). I will give ANet my first-born if they will grant me this teensy favor!

The Pain Killa · Sep 12, 2005, 04:34 PM // 16:34

Quote:

Originally Posted by Calimar

You know, GW was advertised as a casual gamer's game. I know it's a dead horse, but it really is what it all boils down to. I spend, say 10-12 hours a week on GW, and that's overestimating. I have never found a black dye, found one glob of ecto and one gold drop before Furnace. The one superior rune I unlocked was through pvp faction.

Now, in the last week I unlocked 2 superiors and a major rune, I've found all in all I think 5-6 gold drops. Makes it worth the while to me. Most of them were from chests.
The fact that after 400-500 hours of playing you feel like you don't have anything else to do is.... well, not surprising. I'd take a year to do that much, probably more. Still, I never get tired of PvPing, there's always a new build to try or a new build to counter.

I'm for chests... but I wouldn't like it being ONLY closed chests. Leaving some "open" would be good. IMNERHO.

I think you are right and it does boil down to the fact that anet set out to, and have succeeded in creating a casual MMORPG (or hybrid of) that does not reward hours played.

I do accept this and as such am not going to rant / throw toys out of pram etc. However I am simply a little sad that this wonderful (imho) WoW beating engine and tech doesn't cater to all tastes.

I think what GW and anet have proved to the dev community is that PvP and PvE are at best highly problematic and at worst almost impossible to blend together into a single homogenous game. Each suffers for trying to be too closely intertwined with the other and conflict of interests arise.

Don't get me wrong I think the game is awesome, and I have gotten my moneys worth many times over from it, but I wonder whether by creating such a skew towards PvP and against farm/grind/item hunt anet will eventually find they have undone themselves.

Yes after 500 hrs there is nothing left to do, yes this might be what they intended, but it is (once again imho) the hardcore of people like me who keep the game ticking over for the other half of players who only want the casual gaming experience.

The whole chest/key is for me a paradigm example of the schism between in GW PvP and PvE.

/discuss

Blue Steel · Sep 12, 2005, 05:03 PM // 17:03

Chests and keys do sum up a lot of the philosophical issues in the game, but I am one who hated the changes at first (maybe because I lost tens of millions of "net worth" in the change?

) and yet now believes that Anet knows exactly what they are doing, and that wealth creation is no longer mindless chest runs for crystallines, botting tengu, or exploitimonk soloing the underworld. I am now a believer (maybe because I still have tens of millions of net worth left, and never farmed a minute in my life in the first palce). The market will self-correct and we will continue to value stuff that is rare; if certain greens end up being kind of rare, we will value them, and if certain styles of weapons are great looking and rare, we will value those highly, regardless of the cheap green alternatives. Here is a post of mine from another thread on all these economic and grind issues:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Blue Steel

I personally believed that the update destroyed the economy, but have since had a change of heart. I think most of the less than perfect stuff and even a lot of the perfect stuff was declining in value pre-patch as hardcore collectors had completed their collections and overfarming of the underworld by solo exploitimonks and tengu/griffons/trolls/what-have-you by botters and people with way too much spare time had flooded the market.

Now I am kind of convinced that the economy is actually more fair to everyone and healthy in general. There is less need to grind or play the market for ages to get great items, there is a place specifically for farming (the Sorrow's Bosses) and the farming is not mindless, so it requires a team and time. The market will dictate whether it is worth while to continue to farm the area (once there are so many greens that people can only sell the sephis axe, swords, and 45/-2 enchanted shield (the most sought after greens) for 5 to 10K, people will decide it isn't worth the time and effort to organize a party and head pretty deep into the furnace (the good stuff isn't in the footprint . . .), so prices should stabilize and new supply will only trickle into the economy.

Anet did a decent job of making the farming require a little bit of skill, teamwork, and thought now, and it makes more sense, anyway. Shouldn't the best stuff come from bosses? Wouldn't the leader of the enemy take time to make a great weapon, just like players do?

The only people who lose in the update are botters and chest runners and people who had converted their existing wealth into golds that are easily replaced by greens. I am saddened that cheap green items will flood the battlefields in place of truly unique things like my tall shield +45/-2 enchanted, but in the end that really is more fair to everyone [and I still see my tall shield as priceless, anyway].

So, final conclusion: updates were a good thing, golds and upgrades will continue to drop in price; greens will drop some more but stabilize (probably 5K for super common footprint type items, 10K eventually for items in the furnace that are not as popular, and 15-25K for the good green items like the axes, swords, and certain shields, holy rods, and focii), and some rare items that come from chests (crystalline swords), are no longer available (always damage mods with no penalties), or are back to their proper difficulty in obtaining (ecto) will continue to climb in price.

For what it is worth, I will never buy a key. I bought a few the night of the update, and saw immediately that it wouldn't be worth it in the end. It is kind of sad to be in a party and all of them are looting a chest, and you can't participate in their fun, but that is the price you pay for being smarter than other people.

sixdartbart · Sep 12, 2005, 05:38 PM // 17:38

Very well stated opinion Lady Blue Steel. You are one of the great examples for all the people that complain that it is unfair that someone has millions and they do not. *note to those people* all of us who have aquired large amounts of gold or items that are valueable are not farmers, some are but you must realize that just as in the real world there are people that come up with creative ways to make money and will always do so reguardless. I beleive that the gold drops from the chest will damage the value of items that were once considered rare. That will never alter the fact that some people are better at some things than others are and those of us that choose to spend our time in the game making wealth do not harm any of you in any way other than your petty jealousy which should mearly be disapointment with yourselves for not coming up with an idea for an elite running service or the like.

Sentinel · Sep 12, 2005, 05:53 PM // 17:53

Quote:

Originally Posted by Blue Steel

For what it is worth, I will never buy a key. I bought a few the night of the update, and saw immediately that it wouldn't be worth it in the end. It is kind of sad to be in a party and all of them are looting a chest, and you can't participate in their fun, but that is the price you pay for being smarter than other people.

ohh man.... I read that and i felt pretty sorry for you Blue Steel. Here are your teammates having fun looting the chest and you in the corner feeling smart about something all by yourself..... Pretty sad picture if you ask me.
Like going to a bar with your friends and not having a drink because alcohol is bad for you

Especially since you say you 'worth' millions. But, whatever...... If that's how you play the game then that's how you play the game. I'd rather be dumb and spend a fraction of my 'millions' in keys and have fun opening chests than feeling smart for not spending make belief money.

And +45/-2 enchanted collectors shield FTW! oooo...my bad...that's not priceless

Sent.-

tuskenraid · Sep 12, 2005, 05:57 PM // 17:57

I guess I am really amazed that people can whine about everything. Personally, not just the chests, but everything done in this patch/update/minor expansion has been awesome. I cannot find one thing to complain about.

I am a casual gamer, mayber 8-10 hours a week playing, and I was so tired of never being able to buy the things I wanted for a reasonable price. Pretty hard for a casual player to afford an item selling f0r 100K + 4 ectos. I feel a certain amount of exhiliration when I get a good drop. Excited; can't wait to ID it and see what I got. Sometimes I sell it off if I'm desperate for cash, sometimes I give it away in the low-level Ascalon area.

Chests have saved my interest in this game. I no longer have to be at the mercy of some psycho-farmer who's trying to make a million plat. I spend a couple K, get a few keys, grab some henchies and explore shiverpeaks. I'm honing my skills, and when I finally stumble on a chest, at the very least, I unlock something for PvP. Yeah, so what if the item is crap? If it unlocked something fantastic. So far, I've been pretty lucky with my chest drops. Lots of high quality "keeper" gold and purple items.

Plus, I think Anet is trying to show us what things should cost. Nothing in the game is worth more than 10K. Now I spend 600, and have a chance of getting something I really want. Yeah, it's a gamble, but I've never spent more than 1800 to get something I want to keep. So let's see, I paid 1800 for the same item someone else was trying to sell to me for 50K. I win. I get to play the game the way Anet intended me too. I enjoy myself, and I am not at the mercy of the filthy rich, or the so-called "collector addicts" (read, mostly rip-off farmers).

3 cheers for Anet.

sixdartbart · Sep 12, 2005, 06:39 PM // 18:39

Quote:

Originally Posted by tuskenraid

I am a casual gamer, mayber 8-10 hours a week playing, and I was so tired of never being able to buy the things I wanted for a reasonable price. Pretty hard for a casual player to afford an item selling f0r 100K + 4 ectos.

Chests have saved my interest in this game. I no longer have to be at the mercy of some psycho-farmer who's trying to make a million plat.

Plus, I think Anet is trying to show us what things should cost. Nothing in the game is worth more than 10K

point #1 who ever said you needed a max gold weapon that will cost over 100k? you said it yourself "wanted" if you are mearly a casual gamer that is fine and that is why they put in collectors that have weapons with perfect stats. you can play the game with no disadvantage and the rest are only vanity items...... Point #2 nobody is forcing you to deal with The "psyco-farmer" see point #1.....Point # 3 all of the trades that you seem to be talking about are in a player based market that was made by the players and does not go through the trader system in the game. If you beleive that nothing should cost more than 10k I would suspect that is because you don't have more than that because you were or are not as interested in gaining wealth as others, but I don't understand the interest in making sure that they do not have the right to decide for themselves the value of the items that they might "WANT". This whole arguement from the people that don't like someone having more than they do is silly. And as I have already stated in this thread what I may or may not have does not affect your gameplay in the least so please stop bitching about (someone has more shinny stuff than I do)!

Blue Steel · Sep 12, 2005, 06:40 PM // 18:40

Quote:

Originally Posted by Igedit

lol,

It sounds like the people having fun are a lot "smarter".

Igedit and Sentinel,
Try to appreciate the double winks, and try to understand that people have fun in different ways. There is absolutely nothing fun for me about waiting in a literal line to open a chest for garbage worth a sixth of what you paid for the key to open the chest in a gaming gold sink.

But some people enjoy it, and I enjoy seeing people having fun. Some folks love NASCAR and demolition derby and monster truck rallies, and I enjoy the fact that they are having a great time paying a lot of money to watch things go around and around and occassionally break. For some people gathering around the television to watch the lottery numbers be called out is the highlight of their week. That seems sad to me, but I won't question their form of fun (well, maybe a little bit

). Other people have a lot more fun at a symphony orchestra concert with a beautiful a woman and expensive food. Others would rather sit by a river and read philosophy texts. If buying keys and opening chests is fun for you, go for it. I will cheer with you and congratulate you if you are in my party and happy with what you found. My fun is helping people in my party have fun. As for me personally, there isn't anything that could possibly drop from that chest that I haven't seen a thousand times and actually possessed a hundred times.

But don't get me wrong: the game itself is still fun; the moment the game is not fun, I won't be there. But chests are a waste of money and far more importantly, a waste of my precious time . . .

Igedit · Sep 12, 2005, 06:50 PM // 18:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by Blue Steel

But don't get me wrong: the game itself is still fun; the moment the game is not fun, I won't be there. But chests are a waste of money and far more importantly, a waste of my precious time . . .

To each his own, I suppose.

But accumulating money in this game is what I would consider a waste of time.

The Pain Killa · Sep 12, 2005, 07:03 PM // 19:03

Quote:

Originally Posted by Blue Steel

Igedit and Sentinel,
Some folks love NASCAR and demolition derby and monster truck rallies, and I enjoy the fact that they are having a great time paying a lot of money to watch things go around and around and occassionally break.

Ahhh class, I think I just wet meself

Sentinel · Sep 12, 2005, 08:05 PM // 20:05

Quote:

Originally Posted by Blue Steel

Igedit and Sentinel,
Try to appreciate the double winks, and try to understand that people have fun in different ways.

I agree with you 100%. What got me going in your post was that 'smart' remark. I just couldn't see past that and all the way to your double winks...

Like you say and to expand on it, there as many ways to have fun playing this game as people playing it. Bar a few extreme cases there is no right or wrong way to play it.

But then you continue and you write the following....

Quote:

Originally Posted by Blue Steel

There is absolutely nothing fun about waiting in a literal line to open a chest for garbage worth a sixth of what you paid for the key to open the chest in a gaming gold sink.

Well, which one is it?? Do we accept that people have fun in different ways and call it a day or not? And you say garbage?? I have a gold smiting rod with +5 energy, a superior healing rune, several insighfull staffs with at least a +3, and a few other weapons with perfect mods that came out of those chests that don't look like garbage to me.

Yeah most of the time I get 'garbage' but that again depends on who is looking. That purple max fiery dragon sword with a couple of decent mods that looked like garbage to me it was the best thing ever to a friend of mine and his level 12 warrior. I dropped it at his feet and he said 'ty' 3 times in 3 different lines..

That made my day and it was worth every gold coin that went to that key that opened that particular chest.

Different people have different ways. But thinking that 'my way' is the smartest is just wrong... double winks or not