SoE - Robbing Bastards (LoN)

[Flight]

One of the things I was really looking forward to when I got back into EQ2 was the card game - Legends of Norrath.

On the bright side, I really like the game. Some of the in game loot cards are pretty cool. I like the interface, trading is well managed.

On the downside, I'm the sort of schmuck that gets hooked by a CCG and will buy cards by the case. Add that to the fact you can instantly buy these things and take instant delivery anywhere in the world and I'm like Elvis managing a McD's.




The point of the thread - the big attraction with the game is the online tournaments and promotion. Good fun, nice prizes, collectibles just for entering etc.


Nowhere does it tell you that some States and Europe are restricted from entering these tournaments. Robbings bastards. They'll happily sell you a few hundred $'s worth of binary cards, without mentioning they will be next to useless.




I believe that SoE have even managed to go this long without explaining this or commenting on it ? There are various assertions about this being due to gambling laws, but they have all been put forward by players and adopted as policy by forum goers.



Sadly the new expansion is out next week (19th) and I'll still buy a few cases (and, damnit, we Europeans get hit for an additional 17.5% tax).


For anyone interested, couple of links follow.


Official LoN Forums


See the New Expansion Loot Cards

[Goliath]

That blows.

Go to a card shop and play with real people and have real physical cards? Is the EQ card game even good anyways?

[The Hiram Key]

Originally Posted by Flight

One of the things I was really looking forward to when I got back into EQ2 was the card game - Legends of Norrath.

On the bright side, I really like the game. Some of the in game loot cards are pretty cool. I like the interface, trading is well managed.

On the downside, I'm the sort of schmuck that gets hooked by a CCG and will buy cards by the case. Add that to the fact you can instantly buy these things and take instant delivery anywhere in the world and I'm like Elvis managing a McD's.




The point of the thread - the big attraction with the game is the online tournaments and promotion. Good fun, nice prizes, collectibles just for entering etc.


Nowhere does it tell you that some States and Europe are restricted from entering these tournaments. Robbings bastards. They'll happily sell you a few hundred $'s worth of binary cards, without mentioning they will be next to useless.




I believe that SoE have even managed to go this long without explaining this or commenting on it ? There are various assertions about this being due to gambling laws, but they have all been put forward by players and adopted as policy by forum goers.



Sadly the new expansion is out next week (19th) and I'll still buy a few cases (and, damnit, we Europeans get hit for an additional 17.5% tax).


For anyone interested, couple of links follow.


Official LoN Forums


See the New Expansion Loot Cards

On a releated note, while I agree with your assesment of the game itself, its fun, the artwork is amazing, the interface is good, and the ability to buy, recieve and play at anytime, anywhere in the world (in and out of game is great) I have to throw a comment out there about the drop rate on LoN items in game.

I spent countless hours across multiple characters and I never once, not a single time EVER, FUCKING EVER, saw an LoN item drop. That's not just me not winning, thats period. Never. Of course, you can find any number of Joe Sixpack's to tell you about how they take showers in LoN drops every day of the week, but for me ? Nothing. And I bought several hundred in booster packs as well, building up my mage and scout decks, those were the only loot cards I ever saw. Additionally, the only loot cards I actually got out of the booster packs I purchased came during beta for LoN. I want to say I got 1 loot card in live ? 2 ? And I bought dozens of boosters.

Fucking shitty luck on my part, or fucking sham on theirs I cannot know for certain, all I DO know is that it soured me on LoN in a big hurry.

[Zarcath]

Originally Posted by Goliath

That blows.

Go to a card shop and play with real people and have real physical cards? Is the EQ card game even good anyways?

it's alright once you get used to it.

and it's a great example of what Blizzard should be doing with it's TCG.

[Sneaky]

Europeans can't take part in the tournaments?

Uh, realy, I'd ask for my money back, that's a total ripoff. 2nd rate customers and such, had it happen to me too often.

[Flight]

Originally Posted by The Hiram Key

On a releated note, while I agree with your assesment of the game itself, its fun, the artwork is amazing, the interface is good, and the ability to buy, recieve and play at anytime, anywhere in the world (in and out of game is great) I have to throw a comment out there about the drop rate on LoN items in game.

I spent countless hours across multiple characters and I never once, not a single time EVER, FUCKING EVER, saw an LoN item drop. That's not just me not winning, thats period. Never. Of course, you can find any number of Joe Sixpack's to tell you about how they take showers in LoN drops every day of the week, but for me ? Nothing. And I bought several hundred in booster packs as well, building up my mage and scout decks, those were the only loot cards I ever saw. Additionally, the only loot cards I actually got out of the booster packs I purchased came during beta for LoN. I want to say I got 1 loot card in live ? 2 ? And I bought dozens of boosters.

Fucking shitty luck on my part, or fucking sham on theirs I cannot know for certain, all I DO know is that it soured me on LoN in a big hurry.

Yeah, I love the artwork. The 'Paintings' are my favourite loot cards; the new Naggie one looks really nice.

Similar story here on drop rates in game. Only ever had one booster drop. The promotional weekends are a major sham. They double the drop rate. Double nothing is still nothing, though.


Have to say you've been very unlucky on loot. I've bought three cases and averaged a loot card for every 8 booster packs.

[Kodylan]

Originally Posted by Sneaky

Europeans can't take part in the tournaments?

Uh, realy, I'd ask for my money back, that's a total ripoff. 2nd rate customers and such, had it happen to me too often.

It has nothing to do with being a "2nd rate customer," and everything to do with the fact that there are gambling rules that disallow participation if you live in certain territories.

[Bongk]

I had about 7-8 special cards drop on some weekend event I forget their names. Had 2 starter packs and 4 boosters drop in EQ1. (yes I was cheating with Slayer and wiping entire zones, but they did drop). One of the boosters had some clicky water elemental illusion items inside the buyer showed me.

In about 1 hour total played in eq2 since the card game came out I also had a booster pack drop there in a noob zone on a lvl 5 char.

Just like anything it is random, just because for you they do not drop for you doesn't mean they do not drop or should drop more often. If they rained from the skies everyone would have all the cards and it would be pointless.

[The Hiram Key]

Originally Posted by Flight

Yeah, I love the artwork. The 'Paintings' are my favourite loot cards; the new Naggie one looks really nice.

Similar story here on drop rates in game. Only ever had one booster drop. The promotional weekends are a major sham. They double the drop rate. Double nothing is still nothing, though.


Have to say you've been very unlucky on loot. I've bought three cases and averaged a loot card for every 8 booster packs.

I think how the program or algorithym (spelling) works is, your chance to get a loot card is relative to how many cards are in question / how many boosters you buy. Friend of mine bought 4 cases, not boosters, CASES and his average turned out to be 1-6 boosters ish. The key point though, is how many boosters he ended up opening before he actually saw a loot card.

Answer ? One and a half cases worth of boosters opened before a loot card showed up. Now if you take that number and figure out the average, its a hell of a lot more shitty then 1-6 or 1-8 but OVER TIME it evens out.

So essentially, thanks to the RNG not being random at all, and being a buggy, streaky pile of shit, all the way back to 99 (why not use the same baseline program, it worked so well !) you need to purchase large blocks at a time to see those kinds of numbers, and even then, you are guaranteed nothing.

If you purchase your booster packs, say one at a time, per day or even per week, it would be a long, long fucking time before you ever saw a loot card, unless of course, the RNG gods smiled upon you, like they do with Joe Sixer. Imo, its false advertising to say "1 in 6" or whatever number when clearly that is not the case in practice, there are "conditionals" that have to be considered (big blocks, not one at a time) and you may streak, indefinately without getting a loot card of any kind.

I know it seems off to be pissy about loot cards and their drop rate, I know, play the CG for the CG, check. Still, when the drop rate for LoN stuff in game turns out to be a fucking lie, and the actual loot card drop rate within the "pay real money for aritifical goods you can't ever take home" turns out to be another lie, then you have a pattern.

A pretty clear pattern to me anyway.

[Bongk]

Wait a minute, becuase you and one other guy have had some bad luck, sony are lying and scamming? Come on man...

[The Hiram Key]

Originally Posted by Bongk

I had about 7-8 special cards drop on some weekend event I forget their names. Had 2 starter packs and 4 boosters drop in EQ1. (yes I was cheating with Slayer and wiping entire zones, but they did drop). One of the boosters had some clicky water elemental illusion items inside the buyer showed me.

In about 1 hour total played in eq2 since the card game came out I also had a booster pack drop there in a noob zone on a lvl 5 char.

Just like anything it is random, just because for you they do not drop for you doesn't mean they do not drop or should drop more often. If they rained from the skies everyone would have all the cards and it would be pointless.

They advertise a specific drop rate average, and if you do a little research / poking around, you will find that it has no basis in reality. Large swaths of the population have seen nothing, even on "super weekends". It's the same bullshit as camping Raster for 96 hours. You can, it's a trial to be sure, but why make your customers deal with that shit ?

It kills the CG if you guarantee x number of loot cards per case, or bundle your boosters with a guaranteed loot card, or even sell loot cards directly ?

If these guys never said "loot cards drop on average every x packs" then there would be no issue to debate. They opened their big, godamned mouths and shoved their own foot in them.

[Bongk]

Originally Posted by The Hiram Key

They advertise a specific drop rate average, and if you do a little research / poking around, you will find that it has no basis in reality. Large swaths of the population have seen nothing, even on "super weekends". It's the same bullshit as camping Raster for 96 hours. You can, it's a trial to be sure, but why make your customers deal with that shit ?.

Whats even funnier, I got raster in under 20 minutes. He popped second spawn. You really need to learn what random means. Chardok pipe tooks hours = (

It is about th same as buying a scratch off lottery ticket. I have yet to buy any for real life cash, but they seem to drop and drop pretty often in game. While I say I was wiping zones there is no way I killed over 1k mobs and had alot of drops as listed above and in EQ2 I only played around in darklight a little bit and got to lvl 8 and had a booster drop there also, I sold it through auction hosue though no clue what was in it.

You also claim if i poke around I will find the drop rates are not in reality ... am I imaginary? Sounds like you choose to ignore or label anyone who claims they drop as a liar. Have you checked the auction house lately? I couldnt even get 10 plat for my pack there were dozens for sale.

[The Hiram Key]

Originally Posted by Bongk

Wait a minute, becuase you and one other guy have had some bad luck, sony are lying and scamming? Come on man...

Do some homework. Even if it was just me and some guy (which it's clearly not) I would still be comfortable sharing my own, personal experience with the LoN drop rates and frequency of Loot card rewards. Plain and simple, it's not what they advertise, not even close.

I had this arguement a while back with someone on these forums, I can't recall who the person was, but they were only playing EQ1 where the drop rate was rediculously high, and when we tried to point out to him, that it was two different games, he said it was irrelevant.

Just as irrelevant as Joe Sixpack taking a shower in LoN drops daily. One person's experience, does not prove or disprove anything with regards to the drop rates. If the drop rates weren't broken, there would be no reason to "double up" the drop rates on weekends would there ? To generate more interest ? Fuck why ? Thats what the tournaments are for.

It's a viscious cycle and really quite brilliant. You advertise a droprate of lets say for sake of arguement, 1 in 8. In reality, the drop rate is 1-50. Specific areas and conditions apply, level 1-10 content is 1-15, the never bought LoN flag is set = true, it's 1-10 across all content, and so on.

The subscribers take the 1 in 8 number to be real (why would they assume it's a lie ?) and buy 8 boosters and get nothing. They buy 8 more, and still nothing. They play 2 months across all zones, and see nothing drop. Nada, zilch. Ahh, must be my bad luck, I will buy 16 this time. Zilch. Hmm, one more time, 16 more. WTF. That's it, not buying anymore.

Add it up. How much did SoE make of this test case ? $237.60 . And that all can happen in the course of minutes. So you pay 14.99 for 30 days of bandwidth and content, or $237.60 for an hour.

It's fucking genius. If I was Smed, I would close down EQ1 and 2 and just do the CG online. They are making a shit ton of money on LoN, it's obnoxious and they deserve it. That they are lying about it is the issue at hand here.

[The Hiram Key]

Originally Posted by Bongk

Whats even funnier, I got raster in under 20 minutes. He popped second spawn. You really need to learn what random means. Chardok pipe tooks hours = (

It is about th same as buying a scratch off lottery ticket. I have yet to buy any for real life cash, but they seem to drop and drop pretty often in game. While I say I was wiping zones there is no way I killed over 1k mobs and had alot of drops as listed above and in EQ2 I only played around in darklight a little bit and got to lvl 8 and had a booster drop there also, I sold it through auction hosue though no clue what was in it.

You also claim if i poke around I will find the drop rates are not in reality ... am I imaginary?

Neither the Rastor Camp, nor the Pipe in the Docks had an advertised spawn or drop rate. LoN does.

Edit: I don't dispute that the items are dropping, they are obviously. I am disputing the rate. If they want to amend the "1 in 8" to read "1 in 8" for "some people" or "most people" or "if you are lucky" or remove it all together, then I would have to shut up about it. I didn't choose to advertise a drop rate that is fictional, they did.

[Bongk]

Originally Posted by The Hiram Key

Neither the Rastor Camp, nor the Pipe in the Docks had an advertised spawn or drop rate. LoN does.

There is no convincing you so this is going nowhere. In my experience in EQ1 and EQ2 as listed above, I haave had no issues with drop rates being bad or not having loot cards in boosters.

One simple look at the auction house shows all that needs to be said and you cannot argue that. If they do not drop in EQ2 why are they so cheap? I have to pay more for player made shit that can be harvested in an hour.

You can say you wish they dropped more or that you have had bad luck and those would be true. But you cannot simply claim Sony is liars and label people who says they drop for them as liars.