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I don't know about anyone else but I use to buy gems just so I could open the boxes for a chance at an Angel Gate, Frozen Manor, Bone Church etc. BB ruined the boxes for me by taking the decent things out of them. How many of you agree with me? GIVE THEM BACK!
What is in them now? Never been a fan, in any case, but...
Was the Angel Gate or Bone Church ever in a box? By the way, the Frozen Manor is in the upcoming Christmas Box.
bone church was in the Paula's surprise box, and this years box is expensive and chances of getting your gems worth from them is lowQuote:
Originally Posted by SweaterPuppies
It's pretty interesting. They essentially make the boxes so bad for every event that it's a complete waste of time. I can't imagine that makes them any money. I just don't understand it. Every single one of the gem items in there are at such bad odds that you are much better off just buying the item for the gems it costs in the merchant. And things like manors or the gingerbread at house are offered somewhere around 1% or worse. It's just silly. They don't need to go full on Xmas 2013 here. But atleast make them worthwhile And make them giftable again. The strategy right now just seems to be catching people at the beginning of events who have no idea how awful the boxes are. It seems like they'd make more money by actually making the boxes worth buying.
I have to agree with Methius about the catching of the newer players to buy the boxes. They are not worth the time and effort as they are right now. I have to wonder how many boxes it took to get the Frozen manor at the test site for the up coming Christmas event. At one time you could stand a good chance at getting something in Paula's surprise box and even the first Christmas event that the Frozen Manor was in the boxes. It would make better business sense to offer something that would induce the players that have shown that they are in the game for the long haul and are willing to spend money on the gems, into buying the boxes. But the people that seem to run BB have not shown to me at least, that they have that kind of sense.
Well I find it interesting that the new focus on BB's part is to make money off of the game, and again clearly they could if they made the boxes more interesting to the players, but they haven't done that. Now my higher education wasn't in business but still I don't see the sense in offering a useless item like the surprise box. Offering it indicates that they want us to buy it; but anyone with any sense surely can see it isn't worth it as it stands. What is BB giving away when they put things in the boxes that the players want anyway? A few pixels on the game map? Seems to me that if they offered items we wanted we would buy them, and if we bought them they would in turn make money. That would be a win win for the company and the players. I say BB get smart and add something to the boxes that we want.
I spent about 35,000 gems on test.
11 silo
6 ish
3 gingerbread house
trash
Seriously this is a joke
agree I spent all the gems they gave on the test on boxes, what a complete waste. I never got a gingerbed house either
test server results (I kept buying the boxes until I got a gingerbread house):
boxes purchased: 372
gems spent: 130,200
silo: 34
imp storehouse: 18
imp silo: 4
frozen manor: 1
gingerbread house: 1
Wow I like that SirSitzalot had some actual figures for it. Now what would really be interesting would be to compare the ratio of players to the number of boxes sold when they offered something decent in comparison to the last couple of years. I bet those numbers would be interesting as well. Too bad that BB would never share that information but you would think someone would be looking at that, but then again maybe not.
Upjyb had some good numbers that were very telling as well.
Reading posts like these can be really informative and helpful to newer players especially the ones that don't go to the test site to try out the new versions. What an eye opener the figures that were posted were to me. After reading about what use to be offered in the boxes I know I won't be spending my gems on them this event.
Tbh the price of those boxes should be lowered to 50 - 100 gems. Still not fair per se, but at least worth gambling on.
Hope BB is reading this..Quote:
Originally Posted by FaithDixie
So another year where I spend $0 on boxes, vs the $100 or so the year FM's were dropping pretty regularly.Quote:
Originally Posted by SirSitzalot
Your reports make this box appear ridiculous to buy. Thanks for the advance warning!
i was here the year they had the master arcitech boxes they had bone churches frozen manors and pirate residents and x-mas tree and rabbit and they gave a good rate of drops this year i was on the test server and bought 200 of the new boxes and on them most where the decoration or rabbit only 1 frozen manor out of all of them i would not spend my gem on them the nice thing about the master arcitech boxes to they where giftable wish they would return to those gift boxes lol
I bought many of those boxes, too. I bet there was a lot of gems spent back then.
As someone who does not tend to spend money in game (I'm broke) I always wonder about things like the boxes you buy with gems and why those things wouldn't be more generous in the payouts.
Seems that if you want people to spend their cash on items in the game you would make it worthwhile by giving them good chances to get nice things.
Or is the thought process that certain people will keep spending until they get what they want and that those spenders money spent exceeds the more conservative spenders would contribute if they were enticed into spending? Surely there is some method to the balance of items in the boxes, right?
Since I'm not in the pool of spenders at all I'm mainly posting on the topic because I'm concerned whenever I hear lots of complaints from other players about poor payouts, treatment, etc. Anything that sounds like a player isn't having fun, in short. Cause lack of fun will kill a game more thoroughly than lack of funds. And I like the game so I'd like for it to continue to do well.
Back in the days. The Mystery boxes were 95gems a box. Which I thought was fair. Frozen Mansions popped out about every 4-10 boxes opening.
People complained back then about this ruining the game. I argued that it really won't matter.
Look at it today. Has it ruined the game? Not at all. In fact all those mansions bought then are like super expensive now.
The boxes were great back then and it was truly a merry Christmas event. Best event ever. Gold tower for reward. Oh yea.
No Christmas has been as awesome since.
They need to bring back the awesomeness.
100% agree on that xmas (2013). Though as I recall the boxes dropped good for about 2 weeks, then was 'nerfed' into poor rewards. If you purchased early in event, you came up, if not SOL. All in all, though, that event was the best. (IMHO).Quote:
Originally Posted by RonEmpire
I completely agree.Quote:
Originally Posted by Raubhautz
Well I tried 70 Boxes. I feel like it was wasted myself.
Crap 22
Deco 21
Gingerbread 1
Imp Farm 4
Iron Mine 4
White Castle 7
Imp Water 1
Imp Storehouse 5
Watermill 2
The Frozen Manor 1
Silo 2
bought 3 -- 1 fish farm - 2 trash -- gave up... (arctic is trash in my opinion).
From this list:Quote:
Originally Posted by Revelion
Improved Farm: 845 gems x 4 = 3,380 gems
Arctic Iron Mine: (295 presents @ 300 gems/100 presents) 885 gems x 4 = 3,540 gems
Improved Watermill: (595 presents @ 300 gems/100 presents) 1785 gems x 1 = 1,785 gems
Improved Storehouse: 750 gems x 5 = 3,750 gems
Watermill: 895 gems x 2 = 1,790 gems
Silo: 750 gems x 2 = 1,500 gems
Total = 15,745 gems
Gems Spent = 24,500 gems
The decorations do cost presents, with the christmas trees between 40 and 60 presents if you were to buy, with 3 in a pack of decorations. The store value would be about 150 presents, or 450 gems, and with 21 of them would add another 9,450 gems. This would push up the total to 25,195 gems and already exceed what was spent to get 70 of the boxes. The Gingerbread house, the Frozen Manor, and the 7 White Castles are just bonus if you include the decoration cost.
Since we would not buy the decorations, the 9 population builds were gained for the difference of 8,755 gems. The only reasonable data I can take from the market is 20,000 gold for the white castles, which even using a 10:1 coin:gem ratio puts the player ahead on the white castles alone (14,000 gems), with the extra gingerbread house and frozen manor just being the bonus.
Generally, it looks like they just set the prices to put the players somewhat ahead by buying the boxes. It is not the killing that happened with the lower priced boxes, but it is hard to call them a 'rip off' with the returns being reported.
I think a better representation of the opinion I hear about the boxes from almost everyone is:Quote:
Originally Posted by Aurboth
"It's not a clear win for me to spend money on something like that because I'm not clearly getting a great value out of it. I'm not sure that I'll get anything I do want and I don't care about getting the things I don't want, no matter what they cost in gems. No sale."
Quite honestly I would agree Ciaira_Belle with putting the Arctic in the trash pile but in my personal list I gave them a 225 gem evaluation as I did sell them for 75 presents each. For your evaluation of the White Castles based on current Markets gems were valued at 37.5:1 coin:gem (Value was taken from recent Gem Auctions) bringing that value closer 3750 Gems. I had them placed at 295 each in my list so I under estimated them (total 2065). I actually gave these away to several people who needed something a little nicer looking on there islands. For the decoration I marked them as 0 didn't want them and too many of them to toss on the TO.Quote:
Originally Posted by Aurboth
clearly they're worth more on zeus - on ares you cant give them away (arctic mines) :)
You sound like a bunch of people in a casino complaining that the house always wins.
lol, Yeah, I laughed out loud and almost choked on my coffee when I read that someone actually rated the Arctic mine as 885 gems - NOONE I know of in-game has purchased an Arctic Mine from the merchant in well, over a year - at least; and selling them in TO - you are correct, have to give them away, unless you get a nibble from some noob. I like to use them as free lvl5 mines on my island, I get enough to mix with my iIM and kick up production... let it expire or fill if I have extra fills. And Water Mill too, really. With release of the iWM, why bother with an oversize building in the first place.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ciara_Belle
Good point. And a reason I do not visit joints like Atlantic City and LV (I do hit Laughlin, however... have good shows and got family near-by)... I don't gamble with my $ or those stinkin' boxes. :DQuote:
Originally Posted by EpsilonSilver
I'll NEVER Spend money on Gems because of they way BB seems to screw over these types of things. Bought a few Boxes and ONLY Decos. 2 Pavilions, 1 Rabbit, 5 Trees and a Snowman...complete waste. The decos or anything that can be purchased with the Event Resources should not even be in the Boxes. If I wanted those, I would have just used Presents to procure them.
Thank You again BB for ruining another Event. And Alienating another buyer. Cheers
after I opened 3 boxes, I found how terrible they are. From the 3 boxes: 2 rabbits and a pavilion. Gems wrongly spent :(
When boxes where only 95 Gems a box I bought a ton of them, this was 2 years ago. Lots of cash left my bank account and I was fine with it cause I got lots of nice stuff. Last year they raised price to 300 Gems a box, guess how much cash left my bank account this time......ZERO. This past Xmas event they had the nerve to raise it again to 350 Gems a box and I am sure you already know I did not buy a single box, and I never will at these prices.
And to top it off they raised the cost of buying Grout with the event collectible to 200 when it was only 60 before. And buying the package to get more collectibles if you wanted was a ridiculous high price also which I would never do now, but did in the past when it was reasonable.
Not to mention they destroyed the chance to get good POP buildings in the boxes. So not sure what they are thinking when they do stuff like this. Seems it hurts their bottom line more then raising prices and getting fewer people buy them that are obviously high on medical marijuana :)
Thank you for convincing me NOT to buy boxes.
were you even around for the event ES?Quote:
Originally Posted by EpsilonSilver