No plans to release Black Wolf/Elemental Order separately.

What you are doing is making a distinction regarding the "form" of gambling not the gambling itself. People that "only" want the Elemental costume for instance are gambling that they roll the parts needed and lose if they don't get them. The fact that they get "something" is a qualifier, but it does not erase the gamble.

I make no moral judgments but it is gambling none the less.

I disagree, and will leave it at that. As Paragon seems to think so, too.

Song and Dance was done seven or so months ago.

I shall enjoy my 'gambling', and relish in the goodies!

And the point is that this statement is simply not true. It's entirely possible, and given the continuation of the program into another series, probable that doing what you want would cause the company to lose money.

This x 1000.

NCSoft has chosen a direction. All we can do as players is choose whether or no we want to patronize the business. Arguing about it among each other isn't going to accomplish anything.

I don't use 'junk' in a pejorative sense- the costume stuff is why I bought the packs in the first place. I picked up a couple not knowing anything about them and was pleasantly surprised to get some costume parts- a gun, I think, and a belt. That inspired my continued purchases.

I'm not really interested in merits & certainly don't need the inf.

I dunno, you're cheap and I'm not?

I was a premium player at the time but still like supporting the game so I dropped $$$ on whatever the biggest 'bundle' of super packs is. That plus the handful I'd grabbed before I found out there were costume bits in there filled out the set.

Plus I guess you can use tokens on them, although that strikes me as hunting for rabbits with a bazooka.

You're really going way off the highway here.
I mean, I have a couple of tricked out characters, but it was mostly just to see what they could do. My *most* tricked out, most expensive build is a character I didn't like and hardly play that I spent roughly 5 billion inf on to get to the mythic Ranged Defense Cap hoping it would make him fun to play again. It didn't really, but I'm hopeful that combined with the impending blaster changes he'll get back in my regular rotation.

But I digress.

Again, the reason I bought 30-ish packs instead of two or three was for the costume set.

Which I'm sure was the intent of having a costume set in there in the first place- well played, Paragon Studios!

/edit
and also LOL @ the notion there's any sort of MORAL IMPERATIVE at play here.
I thought Communism was buried in the rubble when the Berlin Wall fell, but you'd never know from some of the "logic" that always crops up in threads like this.

I don't have any moral objection to gambling, I just think it's obviously gambling.

The entire point is: I can't. I can buy a chance to get it. I can buy a really high chance to get it.

But there is no amount of money where we can say "absolutely, 100%, if you spend this much, you will get the stuff you want". Can we think it's awfully likely? Sure. Say I spend $100 on points, and spend 9600 points on super packs. It is very, very, likely that I'll get the costume pieces.

Now, here's the question: Imagine that you were offered a deal. I spend $100 on super packs. If I get all the costume pieces, you get ALL the stuff that isn't the costume pieces. If I don't, you are killed.

Would you take it? I certainly hope not, that would be stupid. There is no guarantee.

I don't think I would be surprised; I've been getting stuff like that in MMOs for a long time. And I never ever use it, which is why I find it upsetting.

Honestly, if Super Packs had some kind of guarantee that, after N packs, you would have all the costume pieces no matter what, and didn't yield some of the weird stuff that cannot be generated through play, I'd probably have gotten N packs.

It's way to deterministic to be considered "gambling".
Once again, with the seeming exception of the black wolf pet.

The way they weighted this thing, you ARE going to get ALL the costume junk without a massive expenditure.

If it were really random, okay you'd be taking an actual chance.
But it's not- the whole thing is weighted fairly heavily in the player's favor.

'word on the street' seems to confirm my personal findings- 30-odd packs, a full set of costume bits. Some folk got it all in fewer, some in a bit more. the impression is that if you buy the 24 pack you're a fair bet to get the entire set, or only be a bit short.

They don't provide a guarantee, but the weighting provides a STRONG LIKELIHOOD. In this context, that's a pretty good deal.

The non-pejorative sense? Of a word without a positive connotation?
You're interested enough to tout them as a major feature of the packs you purchased. If you don't care about them why are you so surprised that I don't either? But at least we've found common ground now.
You've estimated several times in this thread that 25-30 is a reasonable number of packs to obtain the full costume set. That's $25-$30 for a single costume. Which, we agree, is the interesting part of these packs. That's not even remotely a reasonable price based on anything else in the store.
Unrelated, but every time I see comments like this I wonder how much Paragon Studios would make with just a donate button.
So you were buying packs before you knew there was costume parts in them but you were really buying packs because you wanted the costume parts in them.
Can't be that far off. I think it's easier for Paragon Studios to get money out of you so they gate items I like to tempt me while throwing you a bone. Since you were apparently buying the packs before you even learned what was in them I'm probably right.
Except for the packs you were buying before you learned there was a costume in there. Presumably you had some reason for buying them other than closing your eyes and clicking randomly, so it was for the ATOs? To work on your build? Because you've denied it was for merits or inf. And there is no chance you are going to convince me it was for the inspirations.
At least you're taking paying $30 for a costume set well. Um, hooray?

I got more than one part sometimes in a pack :/ so I was kinda lucky... I might do that with this next one.... I do kinda hope they don't put a VERRRY rare drop :|

I use it as a descriptor meaning "in game stuffs of various types" that accumulate as you play. Because none of it's worth anything outside the context of the game- thus, junk.

I don't recall "touting" them as anything- it's just junk I got while collecting costume parts. Reportage, not promotion.

It's a way awesome costume.
*shrug*
Don't like it, don't buy it.

You have your timeline confused.
I bought a handful of packs from the store on spec shortly after re-installing the game- I had no idea how they worked, what they were or what sort of prizes they had. Popped those open, found the costume stuff, nosed around the forums a bit and then later popped for the big bundle.


I do like the game and the company, and if they want to sell me cool stuff I like then yes, I'm inclined to buy it.

Why this bothers you is a mystery.

I picked them up for same reason I do a lot of things in video games- curiosity.

Knowing you're out there somewhere coveting it makes me enjoy it even more. =)

That's not what it sounds like when you post things like
or
Those quotes sound an awful lot like talking about how useful the non-costume parts in the pack are. Promoting them as worth the value, if you will.
It is a way awesome costume. It's just not $30 worth of awesome. If there was a way to buy it without spending a large amount on useless (to me) items, I would fight to be first in line to get it. It's not like I don't know why Paragon Studio isn't ever going to make it available as a stand alone. Even at double the price of a normal costume set I'd still only be paying about a third what the average person who bought it through packs paid. Just because I understand the business decision doesn't mean I can't be disappointed about being on the losing end.
Don't be coy. You're the ideal customer. You don't have to like it to buy it. You don't even have to know what it is that you are handing money over for in the first place.
It honestly doesn't. I'm genuinely happy for the people who enjoyed all the parts of the Super Packs. I'm even happy that buying things without knowing what they are has worked out for you.

Is there a reason you (not Paragon Studios) are bothered by offering the Elemental Set separately other than an, "I paid $30 for it," mindset? Just cause you're okay overpaying for junk doesn't mean I should have to be too, does it?
You're really late to that party. Go back to post #8. I've known I'd never get the Elemental set since before they even made it to Beta. I'll admit a tiny part of me wanted to see the Super Packs crash and burn upon release so that they wouldn't stick with the exclusive costume business plan, if that helps your schadenfreude any. But nothing related to the Super Packs has been particularly surprising, especially Paragon Studios retaining the Pack only method of obtaining costumes.

When you buy a $1 scratch-off lottery ticket you get a piece of nicely-printed card stock coated with some sort of scratchable surface that would probably cost more than $1 for most people to individually produce. Ergo, it doesn't matter whether you win or not with such a ticket - you haven't gambled because you got *something* that was worth the money by a personally meaningless metric.

Now, I think it is pretty clear the super-packs are a game of chance and we get various items or "stakes" at the end, therefore they are "gambling".

But, either way, it doesn't matter, there's is absolutely no meaning in proving that the super-packs fit a definition we've chosen to assign to the particular arbitrary string of letters that is the word "gambling".

One side might be "right" and it is gambling or the other might be "right" and it isn't gambling, but so what? What does either side stand to gain from being "right" about this? Proving the super-packs do, or don't, fit a particular word doesn't change the super-packs in the slightest, they are still what they are, a pack of 5 random virtual items with varying probabilities of occurring.

Yes it was. Arbitrary symbols placed into strings that we agree to apply meaning to, which I then arranged to convey a specific meaning of my choosing.

But, when we don't agree on if an arbitrary string of symbols apply to a meaning or not, what is gained by either side "winning" one way or the other?

They did - I asked and Zwill confirmed on Wednesday's Twitch Broadcast.

Originally Posted by Shubbie Im very good at taking a problem and making it worse.

They could do it how CO do their super packs?

The costumes are actually an item, you right click it you bind it to your account and unlock the costume piece, alternativly you can sell the piece on the market, trade with other players for a piece you do want.

Rather than it be "Did you get what you want? No, buy another pack." repeated until you get lucky.

That girl is not pregnant she is six months pregnant....

The "string of abitrary symbols" aspect of the thread need not be continued.

She's not pregnant, she just put on a lil belly weight.