Overcoming Guild Wars 2 Expensive Random Mount Skins Controversy

What Defines a SKIN? (How to Spot the Items Worth Buying)

First of all, I have the utmost respect for all artists, on physical and digital media, especially to the artists that designed this game. This is my feedback on creativity partially bias towards the player POV since I am one of them.

Familiar Experience
Upon the opening of Black Lion Stables, the Mount Adoption Licenses received negative feedbacks. Many are concern about the RNG, duplicates and ultimately the pricey equivalent of the "new" mount skins. I may also have the same feeling but I have a different concern. GW2 PoF is a good game and great value, cheap as per content/experience compared to the current gen games. As a long time PC gaming purist, I am one of those players who dove deep in the lore, became passionate about the gaming experience, follow the franchise and support the hype.

In rare cases boycotted some games/products due to repetitive use of gameplay, story, skin, mechanic, and the re-releases that similar product as sequel yearly with familiar experience milking the brand every time. There are so many of us Gamers and fans share the same sentiment, we base most of our reactions on our previous experience, some of us are vigilant and can easily recognize rehashed creativity diminishing the experience of the game. Don't get me started on Sports and FPS games.

Buying the worthy "NEW SKIN
So what is a skin? Spending my hard earned gold or real money in-game is a big deal, but how do I spot a skin worth buying? I am less concerned about weapons or outfits, and the most beautiful ones are already in-game, so I will only include some Mount skins and Gliders at this point. I will try to make this short.

Glider skins are the best example at this time since mounts are still new. For me, I would consider a new skin upon comparing it to the default, visually and the experience has to be different, coupled with unique animations and design. From the gallery, The Heart of Thorns exclusive glider is marked as X because its just the default skin with a different color with added effects. The Black Wings is a Question mark because there are so many gliders like it with different colors and slightly changed form, totally the same thing. Compare that to the rest with the check mark that are totally unique skin worth classifying as NEW. IMHO. I think the black wings, bat wings and all wings skin are all the same, I wish they could part of a package and be given as free variants of that same form or let buyer decide to add more gems to get that particular variant and so on. White wings and black wings skins as two items with color as the only difference, why not just make it dyeable?

This gallery is disappointing to see, this set of Raptor skins are just recolored variants of the default, the one marked with "?" has just some added effects and made dyeable.

The same with the bunnies, this set of Springer mount skins are recolored versions of the default with varied patterns and made dyeable. The ones marked with "?" have a different head feature but not unique in its entirety.

Although I love the trail effects of the new Skimmer, it is not much different to the default. I know skins are literally skins but in comparison to glider skins, these skins are more like patterns/textures not "skins".

Where is that dragon skin I am saving my gems for? Having the flaming effects and different opacity from the default skin does not make it much different so all the Griffon skins have my thumbs down.

Look at that Reforged Warhound, this is a NEW SKIN. not recolored, not different texture or pattern, entirely new. But for 2,000 gems, that is very expensive. I considered the Crowned Ancient and Twin Sands a new skin for I'm a sucker for dinosaurs and huskies. These two skins could have been worth 400 gems each we are able to choose it not random. These galleries may be disheartening, most of the new skins lack uniqueness and creativity compared to what we have from the unique glider skins.

So next time there's new item in Gemstore, the ultimate trick is to compare it to the default skin, in form, design and experience, that is how I would choose a new skin. otherwise I would save my gems for something else rather than regret later. I am still expecting to see totally new unique skins like Vlast or Aurene for Griffon or Temar/Tegon for Jackal.

For Now all I got from the 10 tickets I purchased are these:

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