148739-boss-hunter-challenge-rewards-page-2

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Back when EA was winning the "Worst Company In America" award regularly many of TOR's defenders tried to discredit it by pointing at places like Haliburton and Monsanto.  The thing is that the polling population of that 'award' is made of consumers.  The name itself is a misnomer, it should have been "Worst Customer Service...".  The companies that the defenders complained about have awesome customer relations.  EA?  Comcast?  Prime examples of organizations with high levels of customer contempt.
 
Do their businesses suffer for it?  Absolutely.  Both survive because they are large enough and have enough market lock-in that they can afford to *cupcake* people off.  Given viable competition people would drop them in a heartbeat.	
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			I would have been more interested in buying the items directly from the cash shop- with the option to obtain them from the event as well. I really don't care for the RNG/lock box thing. It leaves a bad taste in my mouth :/	
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8 pages in 2 days.
 
Carbine doesn't even touch on the subject.
 
"Oh shit looks like we *cupcake*ed up again. Let's just ignore it and focus on other insignificant shit until the event ends."	
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5. I do not seriously entertain the possibility that the event promotion's wording was clumsy or an accident any more than Tex does.
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They touched on it during their stream today.. they said that the wording was incorrect and it had been corrected and also that the boxes are part of the event design and cannot be changed.
 
Having to purchase the keys with money is one thing, but then to spend real life money and not get your value's worth is another. Seriously? 5 service tokens? On top of items that are already easily and readily available in game is just plain insulting. 
 
If you're wanting people's money that badly, why don't you give people more reason to buy a sub?	
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Just checked into what you said, Snicker.
 
They swapped the names of the Thayd and Illium vendors apparently, and yeah, you can't even -reach- the coordinates mentioned for Thayd. On map the vendor's at 4195, -2414 according to their system. The Y value is the only thing correct. Following their coordinates would land you on some small island east of Woodhaven, in Celestion. I mean what?
 
Carbine, please, hire someone actually competent to check your info's correct and the post isn't unintentionally misleading. Odd wording that gave wrong impressions is one thing, and one mistake is understandable, it happens... We've not only found bad wording now, we've found outright wrong information in your post. And it happens twice. This isn't even including the fact that you said 'turn in the shiny token for a lockbox' later in the post with forgetting to mention the key the second time you mention it all.
			
				
	Edited January 8, 2016 by Bloodrose	
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Jeff, these are the quotes I was referring to when I spoke of 'individual' respect, and where this line of discussion derives from. You weren't talking about how they treat customers, you were talking quite specifically about how much money you spent and how as a consequence you felt manipulated: "they do not respect my support of the game".
 
My point was that mostly all of us are in the same boat and it doesn't matter what your specific circumstances are as a paying customer, because they're not looking at specific circumstances. though I understand why those circumstances would be important to you, as opposed to important to Carbine/their marketers.
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They touched on it during their stream today.. they said that the wording was incorrect and it had been corrected and also that the boxes are part of the event design and cannot be changed.
 
Having to purchase the keys with money is one thing, but then to spend real life money and not get your value's worth is another. Seriously? 5 service tokens? On top of items that are already easily and readily available in game is just plain insulting. 
 
If you're wanting people's money that badly, why don't you give people more reason to buy a sub?
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Yeah, I just checked and "normally" is still there. That's the thing people keep getting hung up on. Even today I saw somebody ask if the bosses were dropping keys. 
 
Why can't they hotfix the keys to sometimes drop from bosses or maybe sometimes drop an unlocked box? And hopefully not have a terrible droprate like the music from the Space Chase event.  <_<
My excitement for this event plummeted when I saw that you had to pay to receive rewards.  /no  Can we just have some fun events that don't practically beg us to give you money? It's tacky.It makes me want to turn away from it and not give you any money at all. Especially since I already pay a sub, why are you trying to nickel and dime me for everything else every event? We aren't given enough ominibits for all these money-grabbing events back-to-back.
 
I haven't read into it, but I'm hoping Sim Chase isn't another $$$ Chase. I'm not happy.
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It has NOT been corrected.
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Well if you go watch the stream from today. This whole mess was called an oppsie... They are not gonna do anything (and would much rather it get swept under a rug somewhere).
 
Go ahead sweep it devs just know this wallet is closed.	
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			Why won't you just let us buy the things we want straight from the store? WHY?	
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Why won't you just let us buy the things we want straight from the store? WHY?
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Yeah, I have all dyes in the game sans a certain exclusive one, and looks like I'll not be having two dyes. I can't confirm the dye, but I know the Veggie launcher is BoP. A shame.
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ATM all I can hope for is that the Veggie Launcher Toy will go on the store after the event for a short time since from what I've been told it's the only BoP of the unique event rewards. And so we can't buy it 
 
Also wish they can change at least one thing during this go around of the event is that we use the Shiny Tokens to buy the Lockbox and then need a key to open it. Doesn't really change much beside that we can stock up on the Lockboxes and save up Omnibits or when we have money to spend we can get the keys. But I won't get my hopes up for this.
			
				
	Edited January 9, 2016 by dragonkin	
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Dear Carbine,
 2. People who can be incentivized to earn most of the way there through gameplay and spend a bit of convenience cash to get to the end prize are your secondary revenue generator for this kind of event. Every Lopp Luckybox should include a fragment of a "Marshall's Badge" and when you get enough of them, you can redeem them for a guaranteed high-value prize. That way, people know that they won't just spend money indefinitely and never get anything worth having--which will keep them spending money longer.
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Avoiding the "event" but wound up getting a shiny token anyway off a normal creature while leveling an alt. I have a large a mount of omnibits. So, I decided to do one turn in. I got 27 gold. Better than iron ore, I admit, but 27 gold sure isn't worth 40 omnibits. Was almost positive I was going to regret doing a turn in instead of just throwing the token away, and wow, I was right. I'm just glad I didn't get completely hosed like many (most?) players. 
 
On a side note, the CX is full of thousands of shiny tokens. Players would rather try and get a few silver for them than spend money on a chance at garbage. Thousands of them up for sale. That says a hell of a lot about this "event" in my book. 	
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Why won't you just let us buy the things we want straight from the store? WHY?
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Why won't you just let us buy the things we want straight from the store? WHY?
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Selling skins directly in the cash shop is only profitable if a lot of folks buy them; so it works for the likes of GW2 but for the smaller MMOs each skin can actually be a loss (if the Devs are to be believed).
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Carbine really does persist in shooting itself in the foot.
 
A lockbox key is normally used in dungeons and any "instanced end-box" situation to open a chest to guarantee oneself a piece of class-useful gear, or so Carbine says.  In other words, you spend money to get an extra piece of loot that does NOT get dealt out completely by the RNG.  While it is perilously close to "pay to win", and is certainly "pay to get what you should have gotten anyway for your effort to down the boss", it is not just Madam Fay reskinned.
 
Now: granted that these world bosses are just a silly, if enjoyable, zerg.  But to charge for lockbox keys that essentially can give one common rewards that drop from ordinary mobs in PvE is very, very lame and rapacious.
 
Carbine: either take out the key requirement and refund the keys used to date, or set up a vendor that will at least sell some specific event items for varying amounts of shiny tokens.  I know that very literally "playing the lottery" is now an integral concept in all NCSoft games and most eastern ones (Blade and Soul literally has one spin a wheel for non-group PvE boss loot, and bid gold for group loot), but it really makes all of these MMOs feel like a game show intended for rather non-discerning audiences.	
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That's a good question I was thinking about yesterday. The only answer I could come up with is that the game would feel (and maybe legally be treated as) a store instead of an immersive fun environment. Maybe by introducing RNG they think it's a more game-like experience. Or maybe statistically it produces more money.
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I don't know what to say about the event. Personally I couldn't care less about lockboxes... most f2p-games seem to have them so I guess they fulfill some purpose because of that.
What is disturbing is their false advertising, and since they can't update a simple website to correct information, like serious companies do, one can only think it's intentional false marketing as well. 
And what can you say about that? I don't know really. It says something about Carbine, and that something is not good. 	
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I don't doubt that RNG boxes are more profitable than selling skins directly in the store. But selling skins directly can incur a loss? Often these are just reskins or reconfigs of existing art assets anyway, so  it's hard to imagine how this could incur a loss. Do they really sell that few? Do you have any reference links, would like to read more.
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Company size plays a role here. Whilst there's good and bad businesses at all ends of the spectrum it's broadly true that the larger the company or corporation, the more detached it it is from its customers and the less likely it is to treat customers as valued individuals. Mostly for obvious reasons of scale but also call centre business culture and shareholder greed doesn't help either.
 
Most small and medium sized businesses could never survive long without a healthy respect for their customers, good communication and support. And of course, providing a product or service which is simultaneously beneficial for the customer and profitable for the company (these usually go hand in hand).
 
Interesting you mention consumer protection guidelines because this is a big part of the problem with the MMO industry at the moment. There's no real regulation or consumer protection. RNG boxes and all the other F2P monetization methods are not really protected by consumer law in any substantial way. For example, how do you prove that a random item that should drop from a RNG box actually has a realistic chance of dropping? Are the odds a 1% or 0.0001%? There's no published odds, no auditing and who would you complain to anyway if you think it's a scam?
 
Personally I feel it would be a good thing if the MMO industry shrank back to what it once was pre-WoW, with games designed and operated by smaller, often independent studios who put gaming first. 
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I'm just sad that they chose this route after having two holiday events with fun rewards earned by playing the content.  To add insult to injury, my quest log won't even acknowledge that I have killed SW after killing that bird over and over again for a year! >.<  But I digress. 
 
The boss train is fun if you can stand the lag.
 
The coinage gain has been great for a quick influx of money after all the money spent with class set runes and i100 raid gear.
 
That said, the loot drops are only good for salvage fodder or sell at the vendor, unless you get a superb, but even that isn't worth much these days as they aren't even class sets, just general/basic.  (I would love a way to trade in superb major foci for pure at least.)
 
Carbine, I love you, but considering many of us are now paying for signature service, you could do better than this for a massive world event.  We better be getting more world story about the Vault of the Archon soon to make it worth this garbage.
 
And that is my two-copper on the topic.	
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Of course, the elephant in the room is that though their creative team is fantastic, the company's management couldn't organise a p*** up in a brewery, so that might be the main reason why the skins didn't make as much profit as they could/should have... since I agree that it is difficult to believe.
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			Carbine/NC soft, most of your player base is relatively willing to spend money in REASONABLE amounts but I must agree with the masses, this event was very poorly thought out. I can't afford to drop the 200 plus dollars it would take to guarantee I get the items I want. I personally don't disagree with the lock box key purchasing strategy but you can't expect me to spend real money to unlock herbs that I could get on the AH for less than a gold or a 20 minute grind. It hurts and it is insulting. I have now wasted 20 dollars I will never get back without getting a single listed item. (honestly I would have been fine with even just one! The toy, the grinder mount or the dye) But I got rune bags and service tokens. It would have been cheaper for me to spend the twenty dollars in store to just get the service tokens. Please consider offering different options because you basically created a Pay to Win event.	
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			Has ANYONE actually gotten any of the listed ("rare") rewards from this event?  I, personally, have not, neither has anyone in my guild....	
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			I've seen the Lopp Grinders for sale on the AH	
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Has ANYONE actually gotten any of the listed ("rare") rewards from this event?  I, personally, have not, neither has anyone in my guild....
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			So eh if you really needed cash that bad why not just add Account wide Amp/Ability Points/ Reps / Mounts to Signature people.  I would gladly re-sub as none of the other reasons to get signature are even close to what most people actually want...	
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Carbine is located in the US/Pacific timezone so you cannot reasonably expect them to respond outside of 9am-5pm PST.  The lockbox key clarification was timely if poorly socialized.  Anything else would be subject to some lengthy policy discussions. 
 
My expectation is that we'll get radio silence, well other than a chipper "We're discussing it!".  My unreasonable hope is that somebody from CRB will do an event post-mortem with the community.
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what about now? still too early for them to reply?......
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what about now? still too early for them to reply?......
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			I'm pissed at this.  I spent 20 keys, and only got a vegetable launcher, the rest was plat, and high runes.  So a 1/20 chance to get an epic level item is horrible.  I know someone opened up 39 lockboxes to get the mount.  That's all they got.  I'm ok with RNG boxes but if the other stuff in them is not great, than I won't bother with RNG boxes anymore.  	
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Has ANYONE actually gotten any of the listed ("rare") rewards from this event?  I, personally, have not, neither has anyone in my guild....
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			So far, I've seen one item from the "event" in the game. Someone had the veggie launcher. I have not seen anyone on the grinder. I haven't seen anyone with the lopp pet. Considering how many boss kills happened, these things should have been everywhere, and if this had been a even half way decently made event they would have been. 	
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So far, I've seen one item from the "event" in the game. Someone had the veggie launcher. I have not seen anyone on the grinder. I haven't seen anyone with the lopp pet. Considering how many boss kills happened, these things should have been everywhere, and if this had been a even half way decently made event they would have been. 
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Considering how many boss kills happened, these things should have been everywhere, and if this had been a even half way decently made event they would have been. 
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I'd really be interested in how many coins were dropped vs how many coins were turned in for loppboxes.
My PC is housing a temporal rift that turns it into a C64 whenever a WB group is anywhere in the vicinity so all I did for the event was normal questing with a friend, we didn't do anything fancy like killing primes and still got 11 coin drops between the two of us - which was better than I expected - but all of those coins have been destroyed because neither of us was going to buy keys.
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Can I come play Maniac Mansion?
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