test content
Logo
What is the Arc Client?
Install Arc
Why Lockboxes are not tolerable
rikev
Member Posts: 0 Arc User
Ten reasons why they are a scam and PWE are taking you for a ride: http://massively.joystiq.com/2012/05/17/the-perfect-ten-the-truth-about-lockboxes/
Also I don't really care that someone has thrown money into these things and won a ship. Stop spamming my screen with messages. Thank you.
Also I'd like to draw your attention to http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2005/19/section/173 since you have UK customers. I pose this question to you PWE, do you hold a valid Casino Premises Licence or a valid Betting Premises Licence since reading this in the Gambling Act 2005 implies that you need one or the other to operate virtual gambling schemes?
I await your response...
Also I don't really care that someone has thrown money into these things and won a ship. Stop spamming my screen with messages. Thank you.
Also I'd like to draw your attention to http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2005/19/section/173 since you have UK customers. I pose this question to you PWE, do you hold a valid Casino Premises Licence or a valid Betting Premises Licence since reading this in the Gambling Act 2005 implies that you need one or the other to operate virtual gambling schemes?
I await your response...
Hi, my name is Nigel. I'm your group's healer.
Post edited by rikev on
0
This discussion has been closed.
Comments
Personally, I've never opened a lock box and delete every one I pick up.
Plus, the law specifies gambling as a game which awards money, or "money's worth".
It doesn't pay out in real world money, so, I guess it depends on how much the Crown of the United Kingdom values imaginary spaceships.
Since this article was posted on massively, Cryptic has done a poll which was accesible to all players of the game via an online link. The poll/survey was all about lockboxes and how to make them more tolerable, etc etc.
AND surprise ... they actually listened. The latest lockboxes , the Tholian ones, are a thousand times better than even the Ferengi ones were , compared to the earliest iterations of the lockboxes , these new ones are downright cool.
We are playing a game that is F2P. Cryptic and PWE need to do something to be making money, and dozens of people can post and screech on the forums about how they have the perfect way to make it happen, but at the end of the day, the lock box promotion is a tried and true source of a whole lot of income for MMOs. They would be morons not to use it.
We should be thankful that the Devs of our preferred game care enough to survey us and try and make them better.
Yes, lock boxes suck, for any of a thousand and three reasons discussed at length elsewhere in the forums. Regardless, the lockboxes are here to stay.
Live with it.
Out of context this could become an amazing line in a Doctor Who episode.
Lockboxes are tolerable. Also, while you may not like lockboxes, they are not a scam.
You get a known, gauranteed payout with every box you open. Anything beyond that is a bonus. If it isn't worth the cost of a key to you to buy the known quantity in the box and maybe get something else as well, then don't buy the key.
How is exercising your own free will a scam?
If they advertised 200 lobi per lockbox and you only got 2 lobi per box, that would be a scam. See the difference?
I don't agree with the lock box practice at all and never will. If PWE want to take my money they can, but only if I know I am getting something good in return. Give me awesome ships, really good costume pieces, fun extras that make the game enjoyable but don't hide loot behind a guess what you get pay system. Want my 4 quid? I'll take that uniform set or ship. You want 4 quid for a set of keys and probably a bunch of TRIBBLE items? Forget it.
I'm a returning player and the game has made enough advances to catch my attention again, I even picked up a Ferasan just because they look pretty awesome. I'm willing to pay, not willing to be taken for a ride. If I wanted to gamble I'd walk down the road to Ladbrokes (and even they insist on 18+...).
Either way I'm now paying as little as I can due to this stupid system and putting the boxes on the exchange for some other poor sucker to pick up.
"My mind is made up and now completely closed no matter how reality changes!" is not really a good way to start a conversation. I don't want everything in a lockbox either, but that doesn't mean all lockboxes are automatically ripoffs.
You can get doffs for starbase projects far cheaper by opening boxes than buying DOFF packs, there are good middle tier rewards like the mirror ships, very rare items drop very extremely often (you can get decent phased tetryon pistols off the exchange for pocket lint). Fleet credit boost drops helped pay for my shiny new ultra-rare gear, of which I already have 3 pieces.
None of those things is a bad payoff for a couple days' dilithium grind.
This is a huge change from the packs of consumables and commodities with a single lobi that made everyone so mad at the previous lockboxes. It's still not perfect, but a massive improvement.
I will translate it and put it in to our Fleet website.
Thanks!
www.divisionhispana.com
Np, glad raising the issue again has helped someone. ^_^
I didn't. You said your mind is made up. So be it, but I don't see what you're complaining about, since you have never opened one and never will and nobody's forcing you to. In fact, if you're selling them, you're actually profiting off the system, so it's been good for you I guess?
See, I feel like I do have a reason to complain, because I did open the ones that had consumables and a single lobi more often than not. Those were not giving me my money's worth (when I actually paid anything for them, because again it's not like it's any trouble to get them for free).
They listened to my feedback and changed them, however, and now? I'm fine with it.
And if they do spread to other games, you still won't open any. So . . . yeah, I got nothing.
So apparently they aren't totally intolerable, since you seem capable of selling them to other poor suckers as you describe them. Can't cry FOUL , THESE ARE INTOLERABLE !!! , LOCKBOXES ARE THE WORST THING EVER !!! and then turn around , and use them in any way , that includes selling them for your own personal gain.
Just a little definition for you.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypocrisy
Hypocrisy is the state of promoting or administering virtues, moral or religious beliefs, principles, etc., that one does not actually have or is guilty of violating.[1] Hypocrisy often involves the deception of others and thus can be considered a kind of lie.
But seriously, if raging about a months dead topic, on which you have no "right" of it, just your rage, makes you feel better. Go right ahead. I'll just sit over here and enjoy the game I mostly get to play for free , partially because of lockbox/key promotions.
Keep telling us how bad they are, while using them yourself.
if you were serious about all this, you wouldn't even pick them up.
Shall I link Hypocrisy again ?
Though I don't mind the lock boxes themselves, I do mind the rate at which they get dropped.
I had rolled up a new toon, and for kicks started him on the Azura mission, the first four drops by NPCs were lock boxes
But, all in all, I don't mind. i either leave them there or pick them up and hold onto them for whatever.
I would be interested in knowing how to turn off the announcements that someone has won a Tholian this ship, or a Tholian that ship.
Thanks! :cool:
drop down menu on the lower right of the mini map.
Notifications
Uncheck Flyby for gameplay announcements
Money for PWE = Keeping STO Servers Online
I'm okay with this....
It's also optional... nobody has a gun to your head to open a box.....
Sure they get dropped, but remember, and this was said by the devs themselves (I can't find the quoted post): The lockboxes do not and will not take the place of regular loot.
Lockboxes operate on their own, separate loot table that exists independent of your regular drops. You are gaining lockboxes, not losing loot.
Are lucky bags prohibited in Uk?
Because that is what the locked boxes are for me.
Cryptic seem to have the balance right with the drop rate and the loot inside, although I've opened enough now to tell that the content is biased towards fleet bases (doff reward packs, fleet credit boosts, etc). I'm fine with that though, the bases need it.
If you dont like them then dont pick them up. No one is putting a gun to your head to do so.
At least the drop rate, to me at least, seems to have been reduced to an acceptable level. No more "ooh I just destroyed a plasma torpedo...poof...lockbox!"
Have you bred a tribble that eats them instead of eating your food? :P
Oh gee yeah....I can sell them for just enough to replicate some field rations.
Please don't get me wrong... I don't mind them in the least. In fact, I do like opening them on occasion and seeing what's inside. Feels like Xmas.
If I get something I don't like or need, I'll usually sell it on the exchange. I really want the DOFFs and point increases. Lobi's... eh I can take them or leave em.
Tholian ships, do not want them. Galor, Ferengi marauder, do want either.
That's just my outlook on them...:cool:
This being said I would predict California or Arizona to look at first due to consumer complaints as intent to defraud consumers. Usually it takes only the consumers feeling of being defrauded, because it is the Sellers to spell out the terms and conditions of the sale to expressly advise consumers as to what and how they are buying, without such terms spelled out to be easily interpreted up on sale the seller may be held liable for any confusion or misunderstanding of terms of sale.
Just saying....
Don't know about anyone else, but I'd rather see better quality content in the store then the company relying on a random lock box gimmick that gets swept away by some politician's election promises in a year's time. Had another browse through the C-Store yesterday, nothing of interest for my Ferasan at all.
Here we go again....
No State Attorney General is going to touch this. Know why? Because unlike you, they are actual attorneys and know how to read and interpret laws.
Let me break a few things down for you (again) because you still seem to not understand how lockboxes work and why they are perfectly legal.
1.) Courts don't decide cases based on the "spirit of the law." they decide cases based on the law as written and the facts presented to them.
2.)
Not even close to reality. Consumer protection laws in most states require the consumer to demonstrate actual harm from a fradulent sale, not some vague feeling of being defrauded. If some vague feeling of being defrauded was the determinant, Starbucks would have been sued out of existence years ago because hey - $7 for a cup of coffee sure feels like a rip-off to me.
3.) You buy a key to unlock the box and you know exactly what the contents of the box are going to be before you open it: The box will contain at least X and Y, and also a very small chance that it will contain bonus Z.
Since you are gauranteed X and Y, then you got exactly what you paid for. If you are super lucky and also get Z, well - great. But you were told you were only gauranteed to get X and Y. You buying the key and then opening the box was your decision, based on your own economic analysis. No defrauding took place. No one made you purchase a key based on the promise of getting Z.
In every single lockbox thread you bring these crazy legal arguments up that have no basis in reality. Forum lawyers are hillarious.