109 replies to this topic

[MoonJoo]

I can see Gravity selling a scroll that would warp you to a map full of special prizes for 300KP ea.

They had those during pRO days where if you’re VIP, you can proceed to item mall map which sells old lucky scrolls/boxes/mvp cards.

[ZeroTigress]

There are plenty of ways to circumvent the legal definition so the End_Result of loot boxes to both the game company and the consumer will not change.
 
It's not a loot box if a game company does something to break the legal requirements of what gambling is.  Fighting a field of monsters for a chance of a dropped item is not gambling.  Neither is buying a consumable item that can be used upon a monster that gives special experience points.    So, the game company can simply sell Groovy Box Bubblegum or Overseas Flavor Bubblegum.   That lasts 30 minutes and makes it possible for certain monsters to drop one of the "special items" whereupon the power in the gum is used up and it can't drop anymore.  But the buffing stats effect lasts the full 30 minutes to ensure there is no variable time. 
 
If the company wanted to taunt the regulators yet make it very clear playing skill and not gambling RNG is involved, each minute of chewing the gum brings up the animated slot machine similar to the taming item slot machine.  During that minute, the player must kill a monster that is different from any previously killed monster during the gum interval.  If the player runs out of time, that's one minute wasted.  Theoretically, the skilled player could have 30 different monster kills in the 30 minutes.  But the killing spree ends as soon as an identical monster is killed whereupon it drops an item from the second group.   If the player takes it to the end, one of the items from the top tier list can drop.  Or a lump of charlie brown coal.
 
The above are not "loot box" but still allow a game company to provide chance results or even allow player skills to increase or decrease the chance of results.

This is why so many gaming companies have turned to loot boxes.

Just think, you sink hundreds or thousands of dollars into the cash shop for the chance to get certain items. But if the game shuts down one day, what did all that money REALLY get you? Nothing. Kind of like how a casino works when you lose, no?

[ChakriGuard]

This is why so many gaming companies have turned to loot boxes.

Just think, you sink hundreds or thousands of dollars into the cash shop for the chance to get certain items. But if the game shuts down one day, what did all that money REALLY get you? Nothing. Kind of like how a casino works when you lose, no?

 

I've spent quite a lot in iRO and I'm always aware that when iRO shuts down, all the money I've spent doesnt get me anything. This is because iRO is a service. iRO doesnt sell goods. I think this comes down to individual preferences how they want to spend money.

 

For example, I wouldnt want to eat expensive wagyu rib eye or any other expensive food like Alaska king crab or shark fin soup or abalone. I prefer to eat street BBQ beef in Bangkok for just $3-$5. In the end, they're both meat and you poop them out tomorrow morning     

[KingOfBabylon]

Out of all the frivolous things to waste tax dollars on, creating legislature to fight the "threat" of loot boxes in online video games is the most frivolous

[Fuuton]

make the game pay 2 play again

 

problem solved
 

 

i support this, always have. pay to win is what ruined the game in the first place and caused many morally legit players to leave. because they left, there became less teachers to show the newer generations how to properly do things and how not to be @$$hole gamers. oldschool players f'n hated botters/dupers/no-delay users/KSers etc, and so did GMs. the GM teams of old actually worked with players more harmoniously to weed out those types of people. when WP bought RO from gravity they f'n destroyed its family style concept with its p2w BS and opened the door for all of those ill-mannered players with its free servers.

PROBLEM IN A NUTSHELL (pay close attention GMs): botters/dupers want to make money. if you have a pay to play server, no botter/duper will risk spending money on a monthly basis just to risk getting caught for cheating and ultimately lose money. its obviously bad business for them. people did it back in Gravity era, sure, but they were caught left and right and actually stuck on a website banlist completely viewable to every single person, SOMETHING THAT CURRENT WP STAFF IS TOO F'N SCARED TO DO WHICH PISSES ME OFF, YOU NOOBS.

but the moment those unintelligent game designers decided to open the doors to free-to-play servers back in ymir/ygg/valk server era, it brought in every single type of cheater imaginable. most of the time they're using accounts which have absolutely no value because all they do is bot/sell and the zeny is sent off to other accounts. if they get caught, all they have to do is make a new account. and guess what? WP cant stop them at all because the f'n servers are free to play. way to go noobs. seriously.

gonna stop this rant now because it's irritating to have witnessed your stupidity all throughout these years and how you've gradually ruined the game with money-hungry mistakes that were really just poorly thought out business plans in disguise, warp portal.
 

[ZeroTigress]

when WP bought RO from gravity

Uhmm...

Edited by ZeroTigress, 08 October 2018 - 12:56 AM.

[Erlak]

PROBLEM IN A NUTSHELL (pay close attention GMs): botters/dupers want to make money. if you have a pay to play server, no botter/duper will risk spending money on a monthly basis just to risk getting caught for cheating and ultimately lose money. its obviously bad business for them. people did it back in Gravity era, sure, but they were caught left and right and actually stuck on a website banlist completely viewable to every single person,

 

 

in fact it is not so, in Bro has a server pay-to-play and on this server there are a lot of bots. emphasis on "a lot of bots"

 

and in fact it's a simple calculation, they make more money than they lose when they have a bot banned.

Edited by Erlak, 08 October 2018 - 04:37 AM.

[LordYggdrasill]

Yeah, RO used to be pay to play in the old classic days, and yet bots were still dominant. This is partially due to the fact that grinding on the old server was extremely tortuous, but clearly there were item/zeny bots too which did not fall into this category. 

[Fuuton]

i remember those bots too for sure. not saying that there werent a lot of them (there always will be; its probably inevitable) but i do strongly feel like p2w has created a larger door for those types to walk through especially in this game since the coding is so old. its much easier. sure, there are the ones who will take risks no matter what the 'rules'.. but i think they came out in full force the day the f2p servers were opened.

any of you older gens that are still here after experiencing that era know full well how the communication between player & GM has greatly fallen, too. its not like it was all buddy-buddy system hardcore or anything back then but there was definitely more of an emphasis on communication. gm's directed the game, but players felt like they were a part of that direction even without controlling any of its aspects. that feeling does not exist anymore since, over the years, gm's began taking a stance where they felt more inclined to do things behind closed doors in certain areas of the game (subtle coding, description changes [before nirv and others], etc.) its like gm's began taking that 'hush-hush' stance where we just find out about shiz after money has already been collected.
 

 

Uhmm...

 

i see you /fsh'ing over there meows lol, so i'll amend that statement to "when the ownership of RO changed hands" (you know what i mean: gravity V WP)

 

Edited by Fuuton, 08 October 2018 - 09:16 AM.

[LordYggdrasill]

If the benefit of botting far outweighs the risk/cost of getting banned, you will see bots even on p2p servers. The grinding bots are one such examples on old classic servers, many ppls risked getting banned to put up grinding bots since doing it manually would've taken half a year to max. For farming/zeny bots, I aint sure how much profitable it would be.

[ZeroTigress]

i see you /fsh'ing over there meows lol, so i'll amend that statement to "when the ownership of RO changed hands" (you know what i mean: gravity V WP)

Might want to scroll down to the copyright information on the iRO website if you think iRO has changed hands at all.

[BlackMeow]

they were caught left and right and actually stuck on a website banlist completely viewable to every single person, SOMETHING THAT CURRENT WP STAFF IS TOO F'N SCARED TO DO WHICH PISSES ME OFF, YOU NOOBS.

 

 

 

there used to be a "hall of shame" thread in forums as per cinnamon. but it was not "healthy" as they said.

 

lol i want to have that back. we should treat cheaters as criminals. 

[ChakriGuard]

The problem probably was not shaming cheaters, the problem was there was a chance it is a false call and that could ruin one's reputation.

 

How many times have we seen a WoE thread to call out cheaters? Cheaters would always defend themselves and it would always end up with -_- talking from both sides lol

 

 

[Fuuton]

Might want to scroll down to the copyright information on the iRO website if you think iRO has changed hands at all.

 

gravity running RO versus warpportal running it. i dont know the legal terminology for how to describe that other than "changing hands" lol. you can hit me with the technical shiz and likely win that debate since im not up to par on all that legal boring knowledge, but its pointless for this since im using that only as an example to describe one era against another.
 

[ZeroTigress]

gravity running RO versus warpportal running it. i dont know the legal terminology for how to describe that other than "changing hands" lol. you can hit me with the technical shiz and likely win that debate since im not up to par on all that legal boring knowledge, but its pointless for this since im using that only as an example to describe one era against another.

People referring to Gravity Interactive as WarpPortal is like people referring to Blizzard as Battle.net.

The cash shop came to RO around 2007, which also started up the age of loot boxes in RO. The greed has always been there and people have always sunk money into it. (Recall legendary Tychon who admitted to spending $1000 in the cash shop.) GRAVITY and Gravity Interactive (whom people just love to refer to as WarpPortal) have been making bank since the cash shop was introduced and yet the bot problem hasn't changed through the years very much. The only real difference between now and then is that iRO's staff has shrunk significantly, causing a lot of work to fall solely on Campitor's shoulders.

[ChakriGuard]

People referring to Gravity Interactive as WarpPortal is like people referring to Blizzard as Battle.net.

The cash shop came to RO around 2007, which also started up the age of loot boxes in RO. The greed has always been there and people have always sunk money into it. (Recall legendary Tychon who admitted to spending $1000 in the cash shop.) GRAVITY and Gravity Interactive (whom people just love to refer to as WarpPortal) have been making bank since the cash shop was introduced and yet the bot problem hasn't changed through the years very much. The only real difference between now and then is that iRO's staff has shrunk significantly, causing a lot of work to fall solely on Campitor's shoulders.

 

Tychon? $1000? 

[lorenz1375]

+1 to hall of shame

Make em walk naked all over the forums visible to everyone

[Fuuton]

People referring to Gravity Interactive as WarpPortal is like people referring to Blizzard as Battle.net.

The cash shop came to RO around 2007, which also started up the age of loot boxes in RO. The greed has always been there and people have always sunk money into it. (Recall legendary Tychon who admitted to spending $1000 in the cash shop.) GRAVITY and Gravity Interactive (whom people just love to refer to as WarpPortal) have been making bank since the cash shop was introduced and yet the bot problem hasn't changed through the years very much. The only real difference between now and then is that iRO's staff has shrunk significantly, causing a lot of work to fall solely on Campitor's shoulders.

 

well now im confused. why exactly did the name switch from gravity to warp portal then? is it because of the owner/businessman guy that got caught swindling $ or w/e? or for some other reason? also does ragnarok own both gravity/WP? or are they their own separate entities?
 

[ZeroTigress]

well now im confused. why exactly did the name switch from gravity to warp portal then? is it because of the owner/businessman guy that got caught swindling $ or w/e? or for some other reason? also does ragnarok own both gravity/WP? or are they their own separate entities?

WarpPortal is just the name of their account system, the company is still Gravity Interactive on paper. But because Gravity Interactive kept pushing the WarpPortal brand everywhere, people started making the network name synonymous with the company. Reason for the network introduction was because GRAVITY (kRO) introduced their GnJOY account system for their games, which Gravity Interactive (for some reason) was unable to use so they came up with WarpPortal for their account system.

Interestingly enough, the new Taiwan RO (twRO) uses their own version of GnJOY for their accounts because they're being managed by a branch of GRAVITY. Yet Gravity Interactive, the North America branch of GRAVITY, was denied the use of GnJOY. Makes you wonder as to the fate of Gravity Interactive since they're a branch of GRAVITY, but treated like a third party publisher like Level Up! for some reason.

[Fuuton]

WarpPortal is just the name of their account system, the company is still Gravity Interactive on paper. But because Gravity Interactive kept pushing the WarpPortal brand everywhere, people started making the network name synonymous with the company. Reason for the network introduction was because GRAVITY (kRO) introduced their GnJOY account system for their games, which Gravity Interactive (for some reason) was unable to use so they came up with WarpPortal for their account system.

Interestingly enough, the new Taiwan RO (twRO) uses their own version of GnJOY for their accounts because they're being managed by a branch of GRAVITY. Yet Gravity Interactive, the North America branch of GRAVITY, was denied the use of GnJOY. Makes you wonder as to the fate of Gravity Interactive since they're a branch of GRAVITY, but treated like a third party publisher like Level Up! for some reason.

 

this clears up so much confusion omg thank you tig. let me ask though, was the gnjoy system used/introduced specifically to host the cash shop stuff? i dont understand why gravity didnt just keep pushing 'gravity' instead of sub-names? why did an extra name have to appear out of thin air?
 

[ZeroTigress]

this clears up so much confusion omg thank you tig. let me ask though, was the gnjoy system used/introduced specifically to host the cash shop stuff? i dont understand why gravity didnt just keep pushing 'gravity' instead of sub-names? why did an extra name have to appear out of thin air?

No, it was part of a master account movement that every MMORPG was doing and now is the standard. In the early years of the MMO, companies expected each player to only use one account each. (Tabletop RPG mentality of only playing one or two characters during a campaign.) As time went on, they realized that more and more players were creating multiple accounts for some reason, so their response was to make a master account system that would allow you to manage multiple game accounts more easily instead of having to log in and out of each individual game account to pay for stuff. That was when GRAVITY came out with the GnJOY account system and Gravity Interactive introduced the WarpPortal account system.

As for the branch office names, who knows why they do that. Doesn't make sense as other companies keep their names consistent in other countries. Even Nexon doesn't do that despite their reputation.

GRAVITY (kRO)
Gravity Interactive (iRO)
Gravity Communications (twRO)

Gravity Europe was another branch office, but they were severed from the company, so now they're known as WhyBe Online. It's a little worrying that they can just cut off a branch office like that.

[Fuuton]

No, it was part of a master account movement that every MMORPG was doing and now is the standard. In the early years of the MMO, companies expected each player to only use one account each. (Tabletop RPG mentality of only playing one or two characters during a campaign.) As time went on, they realized that more and more players were creating multiple accounts for some reason, so their response was to make a master account system that would allow you to manage multiple game accounts more easily instead of having to log in and out of each individual game account to pay for stuff. That was when GRAVITY came out with the GnJOY account system and Gravity Interactive introduced the WarpPortal account system.

As for the branch office names, who knows why they do that. Doesn't make sense as other companies keep their names consistent in other countries. Even Nexon doesn't do that despite their reputation.

GRAVITY (kRO)
Gravity Interactive (iRO)
Gravity Communications (twRO)

Gravity Europe was another branch office, but they were severed from the company, so now they're known as WhyBe Online. It's a little worrying that they can just cut off a branch office like that.

 

This makes a lot of sense considering the time they did it around. I spent about 1-2 years playing 1 account only but its like just as i got the idea in my head to mass create multiple farmers, so did everyone else including the company, and boom suddenly gravity is WP. change their website, layouts, game structure, everything. it was for these reasons that i was legitimately under the impression that gravity had actually changed ownership hands. but wow. im kinda blown away by this reasoning (even though it makes perfect sense).

the truth sure is peculiar lol. thank you much for de-classifying this age-old mystery tig. appreciate it much.

[Boyeteers]

It’s funny the thread’s been like 1 month since posted but did not get even a single response from CMs. Or I’m just not payin attention coz it’s tldr.

[ZeroTigress]

It’s funny the thread’s been like 1 month since posted but did not get even a single response from CMs. Or I’m just not payin attention coz it’s tldr.

This is a business decision that people on the lowest rungs of the company ladder (CMs, GMs, etc.) wouldn't really know about, so I don't expect an official response on it.

[ZeroTigress]

And here we go.