Free to Play Cast: GW2's Monetization, Loot Boxes and Lawmakers, and Marvel Heroes Once More Ep. 244

A bomb for Guild Wars 2 Not having the best free to play module cause you cant talk to anyone else added as a friend, you cant really help your guild, no talking in world chat even hitting hi levels lol. Fighting awesome have your girlfriend play with you could but then finding out you cant talk to anyone you have no bag room and your limited to crafts you can do and how far you can lvl it, its like Swtor and some parts of Dcuo free to play all over again lol no thank you.
D bomb to Skyforge they fixed a lot of stuff in the game that holy shit the game is fun and you can get the classes easier as a free player then you use to be able to. By the way Monk class is sick.

For the Question of the week:
Well I have to say on the how random loot box thing I have 2 games that I like the way they do the loot boxes one is DCUO and the other is Swordsman Online. I would use both of their ways together to make an amazing money making plan with it that also shows the players we care about them.. First in dcuo you get stab fragments which when u get 10 of them u get a key and you can open a lock box, loot box. You do a quest gives you between 1-5 a day. Also there is a quest once a week gives you 2 keys if you finish it. Then the Swordsman part which gives you boxes free everyday giving u some things making you want more which hey you can buy from cash shop and also from other players who buy them to sell to you. I would make 2 types of currency a main for your game lets call it Coins and one for player trading money lets call it Diamonds. I would make a way in the game were you make Diamonds for doing types of quest and also from crazy hard dungeon or instance runs and you would get them from running it. Like in Swordsman you can buy stuff useing Coins like those loot boxes, and mounts, and outfits and other stuff. It would show players that we care about them but also if you want to you could buy the boxes and open them. I would not sell keys separate tho say you buy 10 boxes you would get 10 keys with those boxes. I would just have my team make more cool stuff for the game like weapon and armor looks, mounts and things like that. I would make it where there is lots you could get and I would set a price to everything its not to stupid but shows that we love the staff and the players. What it comes down to is the love for the produce your making if you love it you will make it better and great for people and people will pay more for it. Just think about it a game where you can get free boxes not like super crazy and make the stuff random what u get make it where players can sell some if they like to other players for in game money, and in the process the company will make tons of money from people loving the product aka being your game. Ya loot boxes have a place in game if people do them right if not please don't add them unless you want a failed game.

Da-bomb to Defiance. The hubby and I were lamenting the lack of co-op in Fallout, when he commented that the closest thing we had was Defiance. Frankly it was something I had been wanting to get back into but I guess that epiphany was the push we needed. I'm having a lot of fun, particularly with sniping and the sawed-off shotgun I got that fires sticky bombs. Actually, I thought I'd be terrible at sniping, but from the raging going on next to me from the hubby because I keep headshotting the thing he's targeting might mean otherwise.

not paid for loot boxes. the loot box in general isn't bad as basically any loot drop is a loot box without the appearance of a box. rng is rng after all. free loot boxes and free keys, if needed, is fine imo. paid for loot boxes is a dirty way to take money away from consumers imo.

if you are going to charge someone for something they should know what they are getting for their money. people wouldn't tolerate it in other aspects of life so not sure why its tolerated here.

devs need to stay in business but its up to them to produce and distribute content or items people are willing to pay for without having to slide in as much "cheating" as possible.

however, if people want to defend this kind of insanity, at least demand that a mount loot box contains nothing but mounts, costumes nothing but costumes, etc. accepting the practice of "here is your 2 potions for 10 bucks, sorry try again" isn't good for the players or the industry as a whole. neither is allowing for duplicates, especially non tradable ones.

Team fortress 2 is also having that problem with loot boxes. I seen a lot of people (raging) for not getting the rare item they wanted in the game. (Most People quitted supporting tf2)

There are a lot of other games in the free to play and buy to play market out there to have had both RNG loot boxes with a chance of a really rare cosmetic item and really expensive cosmetic items on sale in their cash shop market place. While I get that Guild Wars 2 is being talked about because they have usually been much less greedy in their micro-transaction offerings and a lot more customer friendly in their reputation, but for me you really should be talking about other games that do this as well and not just GW2 in that specific market.

While I'm all for deterring the type of RNG items like the mount loot boxes GW2 threw out there, I'm not as critical of them for having a $25 premium mount skin, especially when looking at the other games out there with similar game features, payment plans, and way more atrocious pricing and RNG when it comes to their mount skins.

Two games that specifically come to mind, both of which are instance based fantasy MMORPGs, one that is free to play and the other that is buy to play are Neverwinter and Elder Scrolls Online. Both games have themed loot boxes that come out for a limited time and have a rare chance at specific loot, usually based around whatever the current content release is. If they come out with something to do with dwarves then the loot in those boxes will be dwarf themed, etc. Both games also usually feature mounts or mount skins (some have stats that might be better than a mount you got with in game money) as the major item in those loot boxes, and the RNG on those mounts is usually way worse than it is in GW2 because they pack the boxes with a lot of random crap that you ultimately won't care about if you are after a specific mount. You might easily spend more than $100 before unlocking what you want in these games and Neverwinter will taunt players not buying boxes by announcing that a player has unlocked a mount across the map.

Neverwinter and ESO also have mounts for individual sale (most of them not as flashy as the loot box ones) and the better looking ones can be really pricey, NW has some mounts that cost $40 or more and ESO has mounts that are about $30 maximum.

Both games also have a lot more DLC with extra content for more money than GW2, some of which have playable races and game features locked behind a pay wall, with actual story or game content limited depending on what you buy. If you want to play as the Dragonborn race in Neverwinter it costs around $75, that pack comes with some extra cosmetic and convenience based items like character race change items, extra character slots, a mini pet, etc. But the thing you are basically buying is a racial skin.

ESO is more generous with some of it's packs, as you get new quests along with things like the ability to unlock skills for the Thieves Guild or Dark Brotherhood, and you usually get outfits and mount skins ans such with those packs, you can also subscribe to a premium service that gives you extra bonuses, all the new content and the bonuses increase with each new piece of content they add, really incentivising players who want to pay extra.

Maybe I'm just being a bit defensive of GW2 as it is the main game I play, but I do feel it's getting caught up in the current wave of sentiment against loot boxes and being unfairly maligned while other games that have been way worse for years get a free pass.

Not to offend Troy, but the system they use for loot boxes in Star Trek Online (a cryptic/Perfect world Title :( ) Seems like a nice and fair balance. Sure their Loot boxes are basically gambling but their F2P setup allows for the player to earn keys with out the use of money.

If other gaming companies would at least look at some of the F2P titles out there to see how they make their money it might help with the idea's. I'm sure they could come up with a better way to make the money without mugging their player base.
So you know, I love the show.

(And for any companies that want to look please don't follow their customer support set up) :)

Enjoy all

"We havn't won the war, but we caused EA to back off the battlefront"??? Even I am shaking my head on that one.... lol