lock box debate

This still is a subscription game and will remain a subscription game after the f2p switch. You guys are freaking out about something that you made up in your head. Nowhere does it say you have to buy anything from the store.

Now THIS is just the sort of dog that doesn't hunt, and is a good example of the attitude that is killing MMo's. I will state MY argument, which has more validity than yours...

1) A subscibing player should NEVER have to spend EXTRA cash, over and above his sub for ANY in-game content that is not purely cosmetic. New races, gear, consumables WILL appear on the store, to NOT have them would defeat the object of having a store.....They are NOT going to do all this work just to give players pandas and fairy wings.....

2) All (dont quote me on that one ) the players here telling the truth about the lock-box debate are talking from experience first hand, mine was in STO, SWG (card game) etc and are the best placed to judge.

3) Like it or not, when a software house implements this type of transaction in an MMo, its not long until the subs go through the floor (yes, even more than now) and the game becomes a ghost town aka STO.............

All along, that has been your argument, not mine. You know what's in the boxes, you know what isn't in them. Caveat emptor, there is nothing of value in lockboxes. But reality will tell a different story. Virtual items represent an entertainment value to mmo customers, and whether or not I would ever pay real money for a sparklepony, people buy them and value them.

Trying to say that lockboxes aren't gambling because that value isn't real is just arguing semantics. Semantic arguments may be sufficient to keep this issue out of court, but it doesn't justify the business practice of monetizing art assets through a system whose only purpose is to expoit gambling behaviors on the part of customers.

A masters in business maybe, but apparently not a master in statistics, nor a master in game design. Random in statistics means little more than slot A having an equal probability of being chosen as slot B. In game design this is translated into random number generators, where each number can be read as a slot and based on loot tables developers can asign a single or multiple slots to a certain item.

Everything can be asigned a single slot, with 3000 of which 2980 items are various crappy items for example, or there can be 10 items in the bunch with 8 of them taking up 12 slots a piece for example.

Nothing is guaranteed for the player in such a model. It's all left up to chance.

And if definitely doesn't have to drive people to use them, for example look at GW2. The lockboxes truly don't have a driving force to be used. They're fun if you're already planning on using the boosters anyway to get a shot at a random booster with some bonuses, but it's not something required to play competitive or anything.

There "used to be" a thread called:

"STAR WARS: The Old Republic - I stopped playing sto because [of lockboxes]."

It did contain some semi-official stance from EAware about what they thought about lockboxes. It has undergone forum rendition by the moderators for some reason. The thread was live all last week and was disappeared on 14Oct2012.

If anyone reading this has the "article" (source) with the EA stance on lockboxes and has not done so, please link in this thread.

The bottom line is EA is all for lockboxes and orange modible gear will be in the lockboxes. I no longer have any source to back that up. I am looking for the source interview. Thanks ...

i never said it is guaranteed for the player.... i said the actual model is not "random" it just shows itself to the end user has random.

there is no way a business model like this would work for any company if it was just all random. why take the weeks of man hours to put a item in a lockbox if theres a random chance it will never be seen in game... it doesn't work like that.

why advertise the new latest must have item, if there is a chance no one will ever see it...
You all say it is random for it to be random they has to be a chance of nothing, gaming company's want u to see that new item ingame, they want you to see it and want it, they want you to spend money on it.....

there is nothing random about that.

business models are not based on randomness, and make no mistake these lockboxes are a business model.

I see that guy got a big prize, I'll try my luck kind of thing.

(that is better than anything that can be obtained in game otherwise).

Let's hope it doen't become this. I for one HATE lockboxes. H.A.T.E. them!