The way things are going, they are going to have to release the statistical probabilities for getting what they call "the grand prize" (Basically, they admit it's a lottery), if they want to continue operations in the EU, since more and more EU countries, including Denmark and Belgium are looking into determining if Lottery-boxes are within the terms of lotteries.
However, it has in the past been indicated that it would be more beneficial for PWE to simply withdraw from the EU, rather than the discontinuing the boxes / releasing the stats, so that is a more likely fallout.
Don't look silly... Don't call it the "Z-Store/Zen Store"...
The way things are going, they are going to have to release the statistical probabilities for getting what they call "the grand prize" (Basically, they admit it's a lottery), if they want to continue operations in the EU, since more and more EU countries, including Denmark and Belgium are looking into determining if Lottery-boxes are within the terms of lotteries.
However, it has in the past been indicated that it would be more beneficial for PWE to simply withdraw from the EU, rather than the discontinuing the boxes / releasing the stats, so that is a more likely fallout.
Discontinue lockboxes...yeah I can see PWE willing to cut off EU over that. However over having to list the odds?!? That seems idiotic. Lotteries and casinos the world over post odds and nobody bothers to read them. PWE can post the odds somewhere in the website and nobody would read it or care and it would be buisness as usual.
Maybe, but while it will not stop the sales entirely, there would probably be a noteable drop world-wide.
After all, I am fairly sure most people would not play lotteries if they knew and understood the odds.
Don't look silly... Don't call it the "Z-Store/Zen Store"...
If some stupid politicians demand they post the odds somewhere, then they will. Almost nobody will read them, even fewer understand them and only the complainers will care. Stupid politicians get to pat themselves on the back for "doing something" and life goes on.
People who don't understand probability will still post their whine threads about opening X boxes and not getting a ship, some people will still preach against evil "gambling" while suggesting you sell keys for others to "gamble" with, others will still gloat at winning on their 3rd box and the "ferengi" will still open boxes en masse and sell the contents for profit. Nothing changes. At all.
This issue has nothing to do with anything about the odds being public knowledge. Instead it is about somebody somewhere having a lack of self discipline regarding loot boxes. Or in the case of children, a lack of good parental supervision. These same people aren't asking to know what the odds are publicly in loot boxes.
They are asking for an outside agency to place controls on their own (and other people's) impulsive behaviors. So they can then feel better about their own lack of self control.
Will this stop them from chancing loot boxes in any game? Nope. They'll still be as impulsive and complain as much as they do now. Except they will no longer be held accountable for their own actions. Which is what they're really after in the first place. They are completely okay with it being someone'else's fault when they spend the rent money on a video game. As long as they get to complain about how unfair it is they only got a ___% chance at the Shinee in the box.
Another thing people want is a guaranteed Shinee from the loot box. "I spent the Birfday Monies my Gramma gave me on you! I deserve my Shinee!"
The easiset thing for Cryptic to do to avoid the issue of "Lockbox Odds MUST BE Published Or Else You're EBIL!" would be to discontinue them. It is what I would do. No LockBoxes. No compaints about Lockboxes. However this makes a hole in the revenue stream the game must generate to pay the salaries of the staff, the bills for the server space, and so on. The easiest way to make up this lost revenue would be to raise the price on Zen and place the items people want from the LockBoxes in the C-Store. But how to make up the rest of the lost revenue from the removal of the LockBoxes?
Make everyone pay more for the ships in Lockboxes Which is also one of the things this is really about. I'd start them at US $120.00. Other items are in the C Store at the same price point. People purchase these so it is good start point. US $20.00 purhasing only 1,500 Zen instead of 2,000 would also be a way to increase revenue. I'd also eliminate the Bundles. I'd also move Lobi Store ships and items over to the C Store. Perfect world could ask for US $120.00 for these as well
Make no mistake. There is no way Perfect World is going to deliberately set out to lose money on STO on purpose. In fact, if asked, I would recommend the above courses of action be implemented as soon as possible. To avoid any legislative or legal difficulties. Would this kill this game off? Probably. But Perfect World has a raft of other games, so it is one loss out of many.
How unfortunate the few will loudly dictate to the many and cost everyone a decently pleasant Star Trek experience.
A six year old boy and his starship. Living the dream.
And that is the worst idea on prices of C-Store Ships, sorry.
'But to be logical is not to be right', and 'nothing' on God's earth could ever 'make it' right!'
Judge Dan Haywood
'As l speak now, the words are forming in my head.
l don't know.
l really don't know what l'm about to say, except l have a feeling about it.
That l must repeat the words that come without my knowledge.'
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch." "We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
Passion and Serenity are one.
I gain power by understanding both.
In the chaos of their battle, I bring order.
I am a shadow, darkness born from light.
The Force is united within me.
Odds for STAR TREK ONLINE LOCK BOX IS 100% chance you will get 5 or 6 silly Lobi crystals
The min is 4 and max is 10 FYI. You generally get 5 to 6 however...so I suppose you can be forgiven for not knowing the exact details. And lobi are not silly. Some of the best consoles are in the lobi shop.
The way things are going, they are going to have to release the statistical probabilities for getting what they call "the grand prize" (Basically, they admit it's a lottery), if they want to continue operations in the EU, since more and more EU countries, including Denmark and Belgium are looking into determining if Lottery-boxes are within the terms of lotteries.
However, it has in the past been indicated that it would be more beneficial for PWE to simply withdraw from the EU, rather than the discontinuing the boxes / releasing the stats, so that is a more likely fallout.
Discontinue lockboxes...yeah I can see PWE willing to cut off EU over that. However over having to list the odds?!? That seems idiotic. Lotteries and casinos the world over post odds and nobody bothers to read them. PWE can post the odds somewhere in the website and nobody would read it or care and it would be buisness as usual.
Maybe, but while it will not stop the sales entirely, there would probably be a noteable drop world-wide.
After all, I am fairly sure most people would not play lotteries if they knew and understood the odds.
Lotteries post their odds the world over...and yeah hundreds of millions of people still play it. The same with casinos. Hell, people who KNOW the odds still play them. So...yeah nope, will not make one bit of difference.
"Most" and "Knew and understood" were the keywords there.
For example, the general "agreement" is that there is a 0.5% chance that you get the lottery prize in STO.
Somehow a S*itload of people understand, that if they buy 200 keys, they will get a ship...
That is obviously wrong, as it means that every time you open a new box, there is a 1:200 chance that you get a ship... It resets every time (basically).
You and I may understand this, but there are a frightening amount of people in STO that don't.
Don't look silly... Don't call it the "Z-Store/Zen Store"...
What, you don't get a Ship each time you open a Lockbox!!??
Some people would complain that they did NOT get Lobi in the Box that they won a Ship. Oy.
'But to be logical is not to be right', and 'nothing' on God's earth could ever 'make it' right!'
Judge Dan Haywood
'As l speak now, the words are forming in my head.
l don't know.
l really don't know what l'm about to say, except l have a feeling about it.
That l must repeat the words that come without my knowledge.'
It ain't a lottery anyway...it is a tombola, since every box wins something...hence, strictly speaking, the rules and laws for lottery-like gambling don't really apply.
First of, we already have the odds for almost (if not) all the boxes, also let's be real, no one buys keys just for the chance to get the jackpot, we all buy them for the fun of the thrill and for the loby crystals. Furthermore by checking several loot box systems on several mmo's STO is by far the most generous and fair. Lastly it's my belief that all these will be blow out in a couple of months and once more all the games will have the loot boxes systems online and working without anyone complaining any more, not because anything changed but because it got forgotten, it wouldn't be the first nor the last time!
Lastly it's my belief that all these will be blow out in a couple of months and once more all the games will have the loot boxes systems online and working without anyone complaining any more, not because anything changed but because it got forgotten, it wouldn't be the first nor the last time!
Even if regulations are imposed, whether by governments or by corporations like Apple, Sony, and Microsoft, they might turn out to be toothless, at least initially. There will no doubt be some game developers who comply with the letter of the law, but not the spirit. It will probably take some time to make the rules specific enough and to iron out the loop holes. (That said, I personally believe they should publish the odds.)
China began enforcing similar rules for online game operators in May of this year. At that time, when popular game makers like Blizzard complied, they showed how vaguely written rules about loot-box odds can be taken advantage of to leave players in the dark. In Blizzard's case, the company simply announced that each of its loot boxes is guaranteed to contain one "rare"-class item, while players have a 1-in-5.5 chance to earn "epic"-class items or a 1-in-13.5 chance to earn "legendary"-class items.
My statistics teacher in high school played the lottery every week...back when it was only once a week. Don't tell me that he did not know and understand the math behind the lottery and his chances of winning it being pretty much nil. He would buy a ticket the day after the drawing however. The reason? Because for one dollar, he would get hours of fun playing the what if game for a week. To him, that was a dollar well spent on entertainment. So like I said, even people who understand the odds still play these things. I still play the casino game with dice (because the name will get censored) because I find it fun. If I wanted to win money, I would play blackjack and count cards.
Despite of course you'll lose money on average on lotteries, which makes some deride them as a "stupidity tax", it's not only entertainment and/or thrill which can make it sensible to play. Normally many people are able to pay their bills and have a few bucks left which they can easily spare, giving them a (very long) shot at changing their monetary life in a way they cannot achieve by other means. As long as you can spare the money and don't expect anything out of it, this is perfectly rational. (For the record: I fall into the category mentioned and don't play the lottery).
Incorrect. There has been no offical data or statistics made available regarding this.
While true, this doesn't change the fact that we do know the odds well enough from experimentation to work with it. If something doesn't drop with 1% but with .997%, we will probably never find out without official statements, but this is not a difference with any real consequences.
He already said that there would be legal issues involved. Not only that... it is easier to just have a fixed set of odds across the board rather than a complicated system to try and mod the odds on a per player basis based on some set of variables.
So... the odds of getting anything are locked at the same % for EVERY lockbox. Odds do NOT improve based on the number of lockboxes opened. For example, if it is a 1% chance, then it is a 1% chance for EACH lockbox as each one is an independant entity.
Evidence?
Arguably there isn't evidence for it, since nobody (posting here) knows the code. But there's also no sufficient evidence against it that I know of. Every post I've seen so far explaining how you can choose certain times of day or bulk openings or similar to better your odds were unsound, either statistically or by lack of knowledge of how RNGs work. Not saying it isn't possible, but everything I read so far was on the level of throwing chicken bones to predict the lottery, only more convulated.
So, unless any evidence comes along, the scientific approach is usually Occam's Razor and go with whatever requires less information and complication. And while changing odds aren't difficult to implement, fixed odds are even easier - and offer less risk to TRIBBLE them up one way or the other, because any system changing odds may run the risk of being open to abuse/exploit.
Also, for the purposes of this thread, if hypothetically Cryptic somehow did not program the whole thing thoroughly, this wouldn't affect the stated odds. If they planned it as 1% and you could raise it to 1.05% or even 5% with certain techniques, they would still give the odds at "1%" since that is the way they (think they) implemented it. So even then, "livetracking odds" wouldn't happen.
As for "they'd rather cut off the EU than discontinue lockboxes": probably true, but it would also mean a huge part of their playerbase gone and could spell severe difficulties. My money here would be on "they'd just release the odds". If this is indeed a dilemma to be solved, because few things are less understood by the general public than EU regulations. My guess would be string theory isn't one of them. But they can be (wrongly) shortened to a newspaper headline way more easily, so many people think they know what's happening.
My mother was an epohh and my father smelled of tulaberries
Apple has required all games that have loot boxes to disclose odds for all items on their platform (phones).
Think this trend will continue and become industry standard?
Apple are doing it probably as a precaution so they don't get caught out (and a minor publicity stunt to look good). better to lose a little and keep going than get caught off guard later on and paying the price for it.
as for industry standard? The industry won't change so long as there is nothing to smoke them out no matter what happens with one isolated incident.
T6 Miranda Hero Ship FTW. Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
Apple has required all games that have loot boxes to disclose odds for all items on their platform (phones).
Think this trend will continue and become industry standard?
Apple are doing it probably as a precaution so they don't get caught out (and a minor publicity stunt to look good). better to lose a little and keep going than get caught off guard later on and paying the price for it.
as for industry standard? The industry won't change so long as there is nothing to smoke them out no matter what happens with one isolated incident.
One incident and yeah they could have gotten away with it.... EA however is showing off that they aren't going to make it one incident since their latest UFC game is gonna have the lockbox system. Just months after the whole battlefront issue. Before that died down and they could have slipped this in. Nope. The stupidity of the EA execs seems to know no bounds. They have gotten so big that they think they can't be taken out. They are at this point daring the consumers and politians to see who is more stupid. Because that always ends well...yeah....
Securom and court case back when Spore was a thing.. it seems EA execs have short memory.
T6 Miranda Hero Ship FTW. Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
Comments
However, it has in the past been indicated that it would be more beneficial for PWE to simply withdraw from the EU, rather than the discontinuing the boxes / releasing the stats, so that is a more likely fallout.
Maybe, but while it will not stop the sales entirely, there would probably be a noteable drop world-wide.
After all, I am fairly sure most people would not play lotteries if they knew and understood the odds.
People who don't understand probability will still post their whine threads about opening X boxes and not getting a ship, some people will still preach against evil "gambling" while suggesting you sell keys for others to "gamble" with, others will still gloat at winning on their 3rd box and the "ferengi" will still open boxes en masse and sell the contents for profit. Nothing changes. At all.
They are asking for an outside agency to place controls on their own (and other people's) impulsive behaviors. So they can then feel better about their own lack of self control.
Will this stop them from chancing loot boxes in any game? Nope. They'll still be as impulsive and complain as much as they do now. Except they will no longer be held accountable for their own actions. Which is what they're really after in the first place. They are completely okay with it being someone'else's fault when they spend the rent money on a video game. As long as they get to complain about how unfair it is they only got a ___% chance at the Shinee in the box.
Another thing people want is a guaranteed Shinee from the loot box. "I spent the Birfday Monies my Gramma gave me on you! I deserve my Shinee!"
The easiset thing for Cryptic to do to avoid the issue of "Lockbox Odds MUST BE Published Or Else You're EBIL!" would be to discontinue them. It is what I would do. No LockBoxes. No compaints about Lockboxes. However this makes a hole in the revenue stream the game must generate to pay the salaries of the staff, the bills for the server space, and so on. The easiest way to make up this lost revenue would be to raise the price on Zen and place the items people want from the LockBoxes in the C-Store. But how to make up the rest of the lost revenue from the removal of the LockBoxes?
Make everyone pay more for the ships in Lockboxes Which is also one of the things this is really about. I'd start them at US $120.00. Other items are in the C Store at the same price point. People purchase these so it is good start point. US $20.00 purhasing only 1,500 Zen instead of 2,000 would also be a way to increase revenue. I'd also eliminate the Bundles. I'd also move Lobi Store ships and items over to the C Store. Perfect world could ask for US $120.00 for these as well
Make no mistake. There is no way Perfect World is going to deliberately set out to lose money on STO on purpose. In fact, if asked, I would recommend the above courses of action be implemented as soon as possible. To avoid any legislative or legal difficulties. Would this kill this game off? Probably. But Perfect World has a raft of other games, so it is one loss out of many.
How unfortunate the few will loudly dictate to the many and cost everyone a decently pleasant Star Trek experience.
l don't know.
l really don't know what l'm about to say, except l have a feeling about it.
That l must repeat the words that come without my knowledge.'
#LegalizeAwoo
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch."
"We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
I pulled 50 just recently from an infinity box
"Most" and "Knew and understood" were the keywords there.
For example, the general "agreement" is that there is a 0.5% chance that you get the lottery prize in STO.
Somehow a S*itload of people understand, that if they buy 200 keys, they will get a ship...
That is obviously wrong, as it means that every time you open a new box, there is a 1:200 chance that you get a ship... It resets every time (basically).
You and I may understand this, but there are a frightening amount of people in STO that don't.
Some people would complain that they did NOT get Lobi in the Box that they won a Ship. Oy.
l don't know.
l really don't know what l'm about to say, except l have a feeling about it.
That l must repeat the words that come without my knowledge.'
Oh?
Nope..
...and nope.
I see...
https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2017/12/apple-now-requires-app-store-games-with-loot-boxes-to-list-odds/
Some text for the post-eating spam filter
Despite of course you'll lose money on average on lotteries, which makes some deride them as a "stupidity tax", it's not only entertainment and/or thrill which can make it sensible to play. Normally many people are able to pay their bills and have a few bucks left which they can easily spare, giving them a (very long) shot at changing their monetary life in a way they cannot achieve by other means. As long as you can spare the money and don't expect anything out of it, this is perfectly rational. (For the record: I fall into the category mentioned and don't play the lottery).
While true, this doesn't change the fact that we do know the odds well enough from experimentation to work with it. If something doesn't drop with 1% but with .997%, we will probably never find out without official statements, but this is not a difference with any real consequences.
Arguably there isn't evidence for it, since nobody (posting here) knows the code. But there's also no sufficient evidence against it that I know of. Every post I've seen so far explaining how you can choose certain times of day or bulk openings or similar to better your odds were unsound, either statistically or by lack of knowledge of how RNGs work. Not saying it isn't possible, but everything I read so far was on the level of throwing chicken bones to predict the lottery, only more convulated.
So, unless any evidence comes along, the scientific approach is usually Occam's Razor and go with whatever requires less information and complication. And while changing odds aren't difficult to implement, fixed odds are even easier - and offer less risk to TRIBBLE them up one way or the other, because any system changing odds may run the risk of being open to abuse/exploit.
Also, for the purposes of this thread, if hypothetically Cryptic somehow did not program the whole thing thoroughly, this wouldn't affect the stated odds. If they planned it as 1% and you could raise it to 1.05% or even 5% with certain techniques, they would still give the odds at "1%" since that is the way they (think they) implemented it. So even then, "livetracking odds" wouldn't happen.
As for "they'd rather cut off the EU than discontinue lockboxes": probably true, but it would also mean a huge part of their playerbase gone and could spell severe difficulties. My money here would be on "they'd just release the odds". If this is indeed a dilemma to be solved, because few things are less understood by the general public than EU regulations. My guess would be string theory isn't one of them. But they can be (wrongly) shortened to a newspaper headline way more easily, so many people think they know what's happening.
Apple are doing it probably as a precaution so they don't get caught out (and a minor publicity stunt to look good). better to lose a little and keep going than get caught off guard later on and paying the price for it.
as for industry standard? The industry won't change so long as there is nothing to smoke them out no matter what happens with one isolated incident.
Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
Securom and court case back when Spore was a thing.. it seems EA execs have short memory.
Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.