Well, that was rough.
The community reaction to bringing back past seasonal skins through the new Opals system was swift and fierce. We’ve been reading every tweet, post, message and email from players on the topic, and we spent pretty much all night discussing how we could try to make this right. First up: For any players who feel betrayed by the return of limited-edition skins, we’re sorry. Mea culpa. Our intent was not to wrong you or renege on past promises; our intent was to give the millions of players who joined the game too late a chance to get in on the fun. We thought the inclusion of “original skin” identifiers would be enough to clearly distinguish the “OGs” from the newcomers and additionally honor those who supported us from the beginning. But many longtime players told it we got it wrong and these identifiers weren’t enough.
So, here’s the new plan …
We’re still implementing the Opals Market and doing the “original skin” identifiers. But additionally, we’re going to make the original skins truly sacrosanct by keeping them unique. Any reissued seasonal skins will be recolored to identify them in game as something new. The particular choices will vary from skin to skin, but the goal is to make reissued skins clearly different.
For example, the reissue of Red Lantern Koshka might have Koshka in a yellow dress in-game and in the splash art instead. (I’m literally making up the skin particulars since we’re making this change on the fly in reaction to the community response.) In this example, if you got Red Lantern Koshka when she first came out, then only you and longtime players like you could play with the Koshka in the red dress. Any newer players would still see that and say, How’d they get that? Where’d it come from? I don’t see that available anywhere. Yeah, newer players could embark on a multi-season grind to collect enough Opals to unlock yellow-dress Koshka, but they’ll never have that red dress, no matter how hard they try or how much they’re willing to spend.
And remember: The Opals grind is long. For a newer player to grind the Red Lantern Koshka reissue skin, it would take two full seasons of matches. The Opals grind for Night Shadow Taka would take five full seasons of matches. That grind could theoretically be shortened through spending ICE on keys and using keys to open Season Chests, but taking those shortcuts would be quite costly.
One more thing …
Each time a reissued seasonal skin comes out, the unlock will be automatically granted to all longtime players who acquired the skin the first time around. To extend the above example, if you got Red Lantern Koshka when it first came out, the day her reissue is released, you’ll find that reissue already unlocked and available to you. So, on Day One, you can pounce, twirl and frenzy in that new yellow skin — or perhaps even better, go out into the Fold in the original red to show off how legit you are.
We hope this decision quells the concerns and alleviates the frustration of our longest and most dedicated supporters, but the truth is, this won’t be our last mistake. We’re making a lot of decisions for the future of the game every day. We’re going to do everything we can to make the vast majority of those decisions good ones, but every now and then, we’ll really step in it. Our promise and commitment is that we will always listen, and if there’s anything we can do, we’ll react swiftly and forcefully.
Thank you for supporting us. This has been, and always will be, a dialogue and partnership in evolving Vainglory into the best game it can be. With your help, the seasons to come will always be better than the last. —PlayoffBeard & SEMC team
