Guild Wars 2

Metallic Primer
Best Value Cost: 7.69 Gold or $1.31
A food that costs more than 7.69 gold per 12 hours must be found to justify cost.

Basic Ore Node Pack
Cost: 58.56 Gold or $10
Justifiable cost is unthinkable. Waypoint cost alone makes the mind boggle.
__________________________________________________________________
I am a prolific user of the Gem Store, using well over a hundred dollars. The market will speak for itself, and these items will be ousted, but the gall of the man in charge who priced these products is unbelievable.

You are sending a heavily negative message to your consumer. Whoever OK’d this either did not review prices or is horrendous at reviewing. What’s more regrettable is that these improper pricing concerns happen consistently. Please, if you don’t have someone, get someone dedicated to deliberating these prices.

Yay! Another gem buyer who thinks he is entitled to ptw items on the gem store.

Those items are not ment to save you gold in the short run, they are meant to be convenient. And how you can put a price tag on the nodes without knowing the future price of gold and silver ores is beyond me.

Gray Fox.9178:

Basic Ore Node Pack
Cost: 58.56 Gold or $10
Justifiable cost is unthinkable. Waypoint cost alone makes the mind boggle.
__________________________________________________________________

Its mind boggling how you manage to accumulate waypoint costs towards a home instance while its free.

I think these Gem Store items are reasonably priced for the convenience they offer.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

I think these Gem Store items are reasonably priced for the convenience they offer.

I’d love to hear the debate for this, as I truly can’t devise a way the convenience makes any sense.

More to the point, I can’t figure out why anyone would teleport home to get 3 copper, silver, and gold. The TP would give you these items, and it takes literally years to pay off the initial cost.

I may be missing part of the argument, and I’d like to be enlightened on that. Currently, all I see are 3 copper, silver, and gold ores a day for 800 gems.

@ Wanze: The only way I can figure you get home for free is to load the Mists, load Lion’s Arch, load a home city, then load a home instance. These can be very expensive time-wise.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

I think these Gem Store items are reasonably priced for the convenience they offer.

What convenience is that?

(spoilers: I spent 16 gold and got 250 each of gold, silver and copper. Total time to mine this from the nodes? 3 months. Total cost to buy nodes? 60 gold. You make the call!)

Yeah I dunno how they justify the costs of these things. If the metabolic primer was $0.25 I would probably buy them by the bushel and always have one active. I can’t possibly imagine they make more money selling these for $1.31 a pop then they would from the thousands and thousands of more people who would use them if they were more reasonably priced.

I dunno maybe people just spend absurds amount of money on random crap. My money is much too valuable to me to justify the price.

The Ore Node is the closest to a pay to win item in the gem store yet. All people reasoning that gem store items are not worth the gold to convert to gems miss the point entirely as this was never intended.

However, Anet cant or will not control the prices of copper, silver and gold ore making any debate about when purchasing this item becomes profitable when farmed every day obsolete.

Personally, as someone who likes crafting, the Metabolic Primer irks me. I’ve always enjoyed the crafting professions that allowed you to make small sales on a regular basis, as a steady stream of income, due to providing consumables like food and potions.

But now, instead of selling 12 food items to someone, I’ll sell one, but instead BLTC makes a sale for 150 gems just so folks can avoid refreshing their food as often? Am I understanding this properly? If so, seems like a smack in the face to Chefs. Instead should introduce higher quality food recipes or made the primer be a recipe that Chefs could purchase and then craft and sell.

Is there anything in the gem store that specifically reduces the need for a crafted product like that? At least the ore nodes are raw materials. Next closest thing I guess is dye packs, I suppose, but even then with the different color themes and RNG they don’t seem to as directly compete with what Chefs have to offer.

I don’t like it. At all. Sell convenience. Sell minis. Sell cosmetic looks. Sell account upgrades. Sell storage (which, btw, complements but doesn’t erase the need for crafted bags). I don’t mind the gem store and I shop in it fairly regularly to support a game I like. But don’t sell in the gem store something that replaces the need for crafted items!

Very disappointed with the decision to offer this.

(PS. With Daily Gathering and whatnot I don’t see food prices raising to the point were one food item will average 12X more than it does now. Mats will still be gathered, and plentiful, which means if this gem store item is used demand will go down but supply will stay the same. Am I figuring that out right?)

Gray Fox.9178:

Metallic Primer
Best Value Cost: 7.69 Gold or $1.31
A food that costs more than 7.69 gold per 12 hours must be found to justify cost.

Basic Ore Node Pack
Cost: 58.56 Gold or $10
Justifiable cost is unthinkable. Waypoint cost alone makes the mind boggle.
__________________________________________________________________
I am a prolific user of the Gem Store, using well over a hundred dollars. The market will speak for itself, and these items will be ousted, but the gall of the man in charge who priced these products is unbelievable.

You are sending a heavily negative message to your consumer. Whoever OK’d this either did not review prices or is horrendous at reviewing. What’s more regrettable is that these improper pricing concerns happen consistently. Please, if you don’t have someone, get someone dedicated to deliberating these prices.

So, you feel that things are improperly priced very often in the gem store and yet you still spend 100’s of dollars on gems?

Why do you think things are “improperly priced” (read: overpriced) all the time? It’s because people like you keep throwing your money at anet.

Then, somehow, you have the nerve to come here and complain.

cranked.3812:

So, you feel that things are improperly priced very often in the gem store and yet you still spend 100’s of dollars on gems?

Why do you think things are “improperly priced” (read: overpriced) all the time? It’s because people like you keep throwing your money at anet.

Then, somehow, you have the nerve to come here and complain.

As you can see, I make assessment on whether or not something is worth the cost. There are convenience items that fall into acceptable price parameters. This is not one of them.

Gray Fox.9178:

The market will speak for itself, and these items will be ousted, but the gall of the man in charge who priced these products is unbelievable.

You are sending a heavily negative message to your consumer. Whoever OK’d this either did not review prices or is horrendous at reviewing. What’s more regrettable is that these improper pricing concerns happen consistently. Please, if you don’t have someone, get someone dedicated to deliberating these prices.

Gather ‘round, kiddos, it’s story time.

A few years back the people who make EVE Online released a very expensive vanity piece (a monocle, I believe). This item cost those who wished to purchase it a whopping $40. Shortly after this item hit the cash shop an internal memo from one of the company’s higher ups was leaked. In this memo he acknowledged that the item was ridiculously priced and guaranteed to drum up a kitten storm of backlash from their customers.

That’s right…they knew the item was priced way more than it should have been and they knew their customers would be upset over the pricing of such an item. But they did it anyway. Why? Well, as the memo explained, they only needed to sell a few of the items to turn a profit; and they knew there would be a portion of their player base who would spend any amount of money to look unique.

The morale of the story? Developers can and do release highly overpriced items because they know there are players who will pay for them. And because it only takes a few of these items to pay for the development costs, and everything after that is profit, they will continue to do so. That’s just the way it is, and that’s probably the way it will always be.

Becka Williams.4978:

Smooth Penguin.5294:

I think these Gem Store items are reasonably priced for the convenience they offer.

What convenience is that?

(spoilers: I spent 16 gold and got 250 each of gold, silver and copper. Total time to mine this from the nodes? 3 months. Total cost to buy nodes? 60 gold. You make the call!)

Good stuff. Thanks, Evon.

As people stated, they are convenience items. A player who has done some LW stuff and cares enough about the introduced mats already has a character parked at home instance. Now they have even more reason to log in that character once a day to mine the nodes, especially with speculators increasing the price of silver/gold.
Again, they are convenience items (as in “I don’t have to bother with buying these mats for whenever I’d need them + I can get daily gatherer without moving more then 5m, yaay!”) not something that will bring you short term, or maybe even long term profits.

Lastly, goes without saying that if you find the cost acceptable you’ll buy them. If not, you’ll pass them for something that’s more worth your gems. I know I have.

Actually the Monocle was closer to $60 and nearly destroyed the game.

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2011/07/monocles/

At least CCP was straight up with the price and not obfuscated behind scraps of tickets from RNG lockboxes.

darkace.8925:

Gather ‘round, kiddos, it’s story time.

A few years back the people who make EVE Online released a very expensive vanity piece (a monocle, I believe). This item cost those who wished to purchase it a whopping $40. Shortly after this item hit the cash shop an internal memo from one of the company’s higher ups was leaked. In this memo he acknowledged that the item was ridiculously priced and guaranteed to drum up a kitten storm of backlash from their customers.

That’s right…they knew the item was priced way more than it should have been and they knew their customers would be upset over the pricing of such an item. But they did it anyway. Why? Well, as the memo explained, they only needed to sell a few of the items to turn a profit; and they knew there would be a portion of their player base who would spend any amount of money to look unique.

The morale of the story? Developers can and do release highly overpriced items because they know there are players who will pay for them. And because it only takes a few of these items to pay for the development costs, and everything after that is profit, they will continue to do so. That’s just the way it is, and that’s probably the way it will always be.

The thing is, this misses at least four massive factors:

1) The loss of sales at a lower price to more people.
2) The loss of bulk gem purchases (minimum 800 gems) bought to buy the single lower priced item, as well as bulk purchases to “top up” leftover gems.
3) The loss of sales to customers who have got frustrated with the gem store and stopped supporting it.
4) The loss of sales to new customers brought into the game by positive word of mouth.

(3) and (4) represent far more than just purchases of the nodes/primers. Many people buy gems on a regular basis JUST to support the game. The less they feel like valued customers, the less they’ll be inclined to do that. Even those who do can’t go and tell their friends about how much better they get treated in GW2 than they did in EVE.

I mean, I love the game, but its been a long time since I found myself able to sincerely recommend one of my friends spend their money on it.

I also bought the nodes and do not regret it in the slightest. Taking things into consideration like the WP cost (even if it wasn’t free by other means) is silly because there is and will be more nodes to mine.

100 dollars? I’ve spent £60 in January alone and do not regret any of my purchases.

@Wazne I’m not sure why your having a go at very people who allow you to play this game, yes…the “gem store buyer”.

CrashTestAuto.9108:

Many people buy gems on a regular basis JUST to support the game. The less they feel like valued customers, the less they’ll be inclined to do that.

If the rng weapon skin tickets in the Black Lion Chests, the exclusive dyes in the rng dye packs, the ~$7 Mask of the Wanderer (a face tattoo), and the ~$65 for a stack of 25 Upgrade Extractors haven’t turned people off the gem shop by now then nothing will. My guess is the people who decided not to support rng or ridiculous prices came to that decision long ago and everyone else, no matter how much they cry here on the forums, are going to be lined up to throw money at the gem shop the instant something new is added.

I think the metabolic primer has its uses in some way, it can be very frustrating renewing your food whenever you are planning on playing for an extended period of time. As many people said, ANet cannot afford to price their gemstore goods based on gold conversion. They base their prices off gems, and allow us to alter the prices of gems as an economy in order to purchase the goods on the BLTC. However, the mining node is just ridiculous and should be revoked instantly.

I just hope the addition of this item means we’re never going to get a nice, handy “Consumables” slot.

The Metabolic primer strikes me as a bit of a low, as do the nodes. In Spvp glory boosters will stack. So you can, for example, click three in succession and the buff will last three hours. However, it seems that caps at 8 hours based on the following player’s personal experience https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/I-want-my-glory-boosters-back-please

Why all consumables or buffs are not similarly designed (with the exception of why cap the glory booster at 8 hours or have a cap at all?), and haven’t been that way all along, is beyond me.

For the life of me, I cannot understand how 9 measly ores a day you can’t make anything useful with which leaves you in an eternal sinkhole is convenient. With the gold you would get from $10 , you could purchase more ores than you would need in months, if not a year.

“More nodes to mine” isn’t even a feasible argument. You can get ALL these ores faster than going to your home instance by taking a few steps out of your WvW spawn, and get MORE ores.

The only reason to acquire these ores is of a collector-minded nature, which I could understand. The only thing I can theorize as to why Anet wouldn’t bring the price down to increase demand is that they fear too low a price will result in too many gold-to-gem purchases and not enough dollar purchases. This is an understandable concern, but relies on a broken principle that many gold converters will “suck it up” and purchase with dollars. In my experience, the massive majority of free-play minded players stay that way under all circumstance.

As I said in the other topic, the solution to this is add in iron (which I still think was a deliberate exclusion that makes zero sense), make them all rich nodes, and make their placement in the instance more convenient. You will then see LOADS of players buying them up, and far less complaints. Sell an advanced ore node pack with rich platinum/mithril/ori nodes down the line for 1000 or 1200 gems and you’ll be rolling in more money.

The convenience items like this need to actually be CONVENIENT, and worth the money. $10 for 3 each of copper/silver/gold per day is silly. Since these nodes are on a daily cooldown, and not 8-10 hours like normal ones, making them rich nodes should be a complete and utter no-brainer.

Personally, I’m disappointed.

The dye gamble pack, the metabolic primer and the nodes are not a good deal. We’ve done the math, it’s not a good value. It’s frustrating too, because I WANT to support ArenaNet with gem store purchases (and I’ve done so many times when I thought something was worth it) but this is pretty insulting.

What I’d like to see:

• No more dye lottery. Let me buy a set of the 5 new dyes. I will give you my money for nice dyes. I will not give you my money to gamble for nice dyes. There’s enough gambling in the game with money we earn from playing it. I’d rather not gamble with money I earn from my real life job.

• Armor and Weapon skins. I am happy to give you my money for new armor and weapon skins. I do not want to gamble for ticket scraps to assemble a FULL ticket to get a weapon skin. Maybe this system makes you more money, but it feels like you’re trying to milk your players and that’s not a good feeling.

• Stop with the lottery boxes, please. Maybe your economist figured out that’s the best way to make money, but it’s not enjoyable. Personally, I’ve stopped buying them altogether and many of my guild mates have done the same. I’d rather pay money for something I KNOW I’m going to get then something I might (very little chance) get.

Please, give me a reason to spend money.

As I visit my home instance daily for quartz crystals anyway these nodes would be convenient for me, especially as I will be going for level 500 jewel crafting. The west end of Blazeridge Steps will still provide the bulk of my farmed gold, but this would be a nice supplement.

The metabolic primer is more of a convenience tool for WvW.

Wanze.8410:

The Ore Node is the closest to a pay to win item in the gem store yet. All people reasoning that gem store items are not worth the gold to convert to gems miss the point entirely as this was never intended.

However, Anet cant or will not control the prices of copper, silver and gold ore making any debate about when purchasing this item becomes profitable when farmed every day obsolete.

What are you talking about? The Infinite Tools actually save you money if you play at least moderately within a few months. And what are you thinking? Why would COPPER go up in price? If Anet wanted to have a “pay to win” they’d put a Loam on the gemstore that would reduces the cost to make silk bolts by 50%. To that end, I randomly ported into Dredgehaunt and there were 2 silver and 2 gold veins on my screen. Alas, there was only 1 iron.

Toroxus.9256:

To that end, I randomly ported into Dredgehaunt and there were 2 silver and 2 gold veins on my screen. Alas, there was only 1 iron.

Then you are lying, since Dredgehaunt only has iron and gold (no silver) nodes.

I picked up the nodes for the following reasons:

1. I want my home instance to have all possible home instance things, since that’s the closest we are going to get to player housing.

2. On days where I want to quickly get a daily in, I can now hit 75% of my gatherer without moving.

3. With potential Ascended Jewelcrafting right around the corner, it cannot hurt to have some extra ore available.

Those are the conveniences I get from owning this item, and to me they far outweigh the $10.00 it costs to own them.

It took me about 15 minutes to earn $10.00 in real life. I’d say that spending 15 minutes on this today will result in many, many hours of time saved on my daily going forward making this a no-brainer buy item.

Toroxus.9256:

Wanze.8410:

The Ore Node is the closest to a pay to win item in the gem store yet. All people reasoning that gem store items are not worth the gold to convert to gems miss the point entirely as this was never intended.

However, Anet cant or will not control the prices of copper, silver and gold ore making any debate about when purchasing this item becomes profitable when farmed every day obsolete.

What are you talking about? The Infinite Tools actually save you money if you play at least moderately within a few months. And what are you thinking? Why would COPPER go up in price? If Anet wanted to have a “pay to win” they’d put a Loam on the gemstore that would reduces the cost to make silk bolts by 50%. To that end, I randomly ported into Dredgehaunt and there were 2 silver and 2 gold veins on my screen. Alas, there was only 1 iron.

The infinite tools and salvage kit will save you money at some point, yes. But for those, Anet could calculate the amount of uses it will take to break even as prices for consumable gathering tools are set by them.

That is not the case for the ore from the permanent node.

Even though Copper has no high demand for crafting, it has a high value for promoting it to Iron Ingots.

I find the ore nodes very convenient. I often do my daily’s right before I go to work and now this ore pack + the two nodes I already have allow me to get 75% gatherer virtually instantly. I often camp at the Royal Terace (also at any time I can teleport to it for free with the royal pass) and then you can WP to the human starter instance next to it for free.

The Salma District – http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Salma_District

I expect to see more nodes in the home instance as they are trying to find reasons to get players to visit them more often. I view my home instance in GW2 similarly to my HoM from GW1.

mtpelion.4562:

I picked up the nodes for the following reasons:

1. I want my home instance to have all possible home instance things, since that’s the closest we are going to get to player housing.

2. On days where I want to quickly get a daily in, I can now hit 75% of my gatherer without moving.

3. With potential Ascended Jewelcrafting right around the corner, it cannot hurt to have some extra ore available.

Those are the conveniences I get from owning this item, and to me they far outweigh the $10.00 it costs to own them.

It took me about 15 minutes to earn $10.00 in real life. I’d say that spending 15 minutes on this today will result in many, many hours of time saved on my daily going forward making this a no-brainer buy item.

yup, this.

Gray Fox.9178:

For the life of me, I cannot understand how 9 measly ores a day you can’t make anything useful with which leaves you in an eternal sinkhole is convenient. With the gold you would get from $10 , you could purchase more ores than you would need in months, if not a year.

I can’t understand how these measly 9 ores are so important to you that you need to rant about it…Even though you are appalled someone else will think it’s worth it, they’ll buy it, and I can continue to play this game for free. I’m not really seeing the problem here, you don’t like it you don’t buy it.

mtpelion.4562:

I picked up the nodes for the following reasons:

1. I want my home instance to have all possible home instance things, since that’s the closest we are going to get to player housing.

2. On days where I want to quickly get a daily in, I can now hit 75% of my gatherer without moving.

3. With potential Ascended Jewelcrafting right around the corner, it cannot hurt to have some extra ore available.

Those are the conveniences I get from owning this item, and to me they far outweigh the $10.00 it costs to own them.

It took me about 15 minutes to earn $10.00 in real life. I’d say that spending 15 minutes on this today will result in many, many hours of time saved on my daily going forward making this a no-brainer buy item.

I think this pretty well sums up why they’re priced within acceptable limits. I personally find time much more valuable than money, so if the items save me time, I’ll buy it.

It doesn’t hurt that it is also something to stick in the home instance, since there’s not much of any reason to go there otherwise.

OIIIIIO.7825:

I expect to see more nodes in the home instance as they are trying to find reasons to get players to visit them more often. I view my home instance in GW2 similarly to my HoM from GW1.

If they REALLY wanted us in the home instance more they’d have spent alot more time developing player housing.

Magnus Steelgrave.6580:

OIIIIIO.7825:

I expect to see more nodes in the home instance as they are trying to find reasons to get players to visit them more often. I view my home instance in GW2 similarly to my HoM from GW1.

If they REALLY wanted us in the home instance more they’d have spent alot more time developing player housing.

You pass how many houses of the ‘cardboard cut-out’ variety through the home instance. It wouldn’t kill them to make one of them “yours”. The reason they haven’t is that they haven’t developed a way to make good money off of it and there’s no crafting support yet. There’s no furniture crafting, taxidermy, etc in game to support it although.. /sigh… I guess I could accept killing a random bat and it dropping a rare “couch”.

as for the OP- look, I realize you are voicing an opinion and you have every right to. Enough people complain and Anet rethinks some things and redesigns others. At this point though, I think we can all agree that we place different priorities and values on both in game and RL money. If I weren’t married and could work another job, just for this game, I probably would, with the bonus that when this game no longer holds my interest, I can use the RL money for other things too.

I honestly can’t say the gem prices fit into my own paradigm of what I’m willing to spend on, both RL money and in game gold. I watch these items as they pass by and sometimes wave, pondering wistfully of what might have been. Or not. Let those willing to spend more money do what Anet allows them to. Its not pay to win until the only way your are competitive requires a cash purchase, so I think we’re pretty safe here.

Why is everyone acting like the sky is falling? Not everyone will buy these items. It’s not like they are a reward for a meta or something. I got the nodes as I like things in my home instance. But the other things don’t interest me at all. I fanncied giving ANet some cash. That is all.

BrotherBelial.3094:

Why is everyone acting like the sky is falling? Not everyone will buy these items. It’s not like they are a reward for a meta or something. I got the nodes as I like things in my home instance. But the other things don’t interest me at all. I fanncied giving ANet some cash. That is all.

Did you take your name as a Dark Angels reference? Sorry for offtopic lol.

Neoheart.2750:

BrotherBelial.3094:

Why is everyone acting like the sky is falling? Not everyone will buy these items. It’s not like they are a reward for a meta or something. I got the nodes as I like things in my home instance. But the other things don’t interest me at all. I fanncied giving ANet some cash. That is all.

Did you take your name as a Dark Angels reference? Sorry for offtopic lol.

Yes I did. It’s been my gaming name or at lest Belial has since I started PC gaming in 98.

Have you seen the price on food and ‘wrench’ consumables? Most of them are dirt cheap, especially compared to the ingredients to make it. The primer does not help the market any.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

Yeah I dunno how they justify the costs of these things. If the metabolic primer was $0.25 I would probably buy them by the bushel and always have one active. I can’t possibly imagine they make more money selling these for $1.31 a pop then they would from the thousands and thousands of more people who would use them if they were more reasonably priced.

I dunno maybe people just spend absurds amount of money on random crap. My money is much too valuable to me to justify the price.

Gray Fox.9178:

Metallic Primer
Best Value Cost: 7.69 Gold or $1.31
A food that costs more than 7.69 gold per 12 hours must be found to justify cost.

Basic Ore Node Pack
Cost: 58.56 Gold or $10
Justifiable cost is unthinkable. Waypoint cost alone makes the mind boggle.

Your first mistake is trying to equate the dollar cost with the gold cost. Your second mistake is not taking into account the time cost associated with acquiring gold and factoring in whether it is more efficient for someone to “farm” $10 rather than 60 gold. You’ll never be able to come up with a real answer to that however, because everyone values their time and money differently.

If an item in the Gem store doesn’t have a good value proposition for you, don’t buy it. If it’s overpriced for what it is, no one will buy it and maybe the price will drop.

I see some really stupid and overpriced products that I would never buy when I’m shopping IRL. I don’t understand why it would make me angry that they exist. It has absolutely no negative impact on me if other people like and buy them, but it could have a positive impact by keeping the shop in business.

These products are not intended to be economically reasonable purchases. They are, at best, a convenience (metabolic primer), and at worst, preying on people’s collecting nature (gotta-catch-all-the-ore-nodes).

If you do not like the pricing of these items because of their economic impracticality, then don’t get them, but economic practicality isn’t the goal.

Sarrs.4831:

These products are not intended to be economically reasonable purchases. They are, at best, a convenience (metabolic primer), and at worst, preying on people’s collecting nature (gotta-catch-all-the-ore-nodes).

If you do not like the pricing of these items because of their economic impracticality, then don’t get them, but economic practicality isn’t the goal.

Well said. I’ve actually “enjoyed” mining the ore’s every day along with my cob. I hope to see more of these added in the future and yes i will shell out for them.

As long as i play this game i will support it.

At the end of the day, the developer needs to earn cash. Items in the Gem store might not cater to you, but for others they see the value in it.

Coming from games that are Free To Play and Pay to Win, Im happy playing a game like Guildwars2 that only needs you to purchase the game and not be forced to purchase some more in order to be competitive ingame.

AN Should shout out for a trial when prices are mutch less, but people may will buy the same or even more. I believe in this.

Neoheart.2750:

I also bought the nodes and do not regret it in the slightest. Taking things into consideration like the WP cost (even if it wasn’t free by other means) is silly because there is and will be more nodes to mine.

100 dollars? I’ve spent £60 in January alone and do not regret any of my purchases.

@Wazne I’m not sure why your having a go at very people who allow you to play this game, yes…the “gem store buyer”.

What allows all of US to play this game is the fact that WE bought the game. You allow nothing, your are in control of nothing. If this game kittens on its player base you, the gem buyers, (CE owner, 2nd account for my wife, and former gem buyer BTW) will be running around this game solo wondering where everyone went.

Gem sales don’t allow me to play, my purchase of the game did that.

Yes, buying the game allows you to play the game. However the monthly cost of the servers, bandwidth, support, CS and continued development are supported buy the gems that some players pay cash for. If that money dries up, nobody will get to play including you.

That is all fine and well, but if my monthly (real money) gem purchases don’t fund the fixing of bugs that have been with the game since I started playing (or even before, since I wasn’t here since beta; May day 2013 to be precise) no amount of ‘new content’ is going to ‘allow’ me to continue enjoying, and ergo playing, this game. This is by far the buggiest game I have ever had the misfortune of liking enough to continue play (for the most part).

Added to that, the blatant cash grabs (that IMO make up more than 80% of the new releases in the gem store each fortnight; don’t get me started on BLC keys or dye packs or needing gated tokens—I’m looking at you tickets scraps—for so-called ‘horizontal progression’) is just insulting to me as a loyal player/payer. Talk about adding insult to injury.

Yeah, I know that probably sounds either contra or entitled to the rabid fanboys/girls. I don’t care. I bought the privilege to voice my opinion, so you needn’t reply.

Behellagh.1468:

Yes, buying the game allows you to play the game. However the monthly cost of the servers, bandwidth, support, CS and continued development are supported buy the gems that some players pay cash for. If that money dries up, nobody will get to play including you.

I think you’re making a huge presumption that sales of new copies of the game are insignificant. Both sources of income are important, and player population and sentiment are drivers of box sales. My speculation is that the game could survive long enough with no gem sales for ANet to correct any problems and that the release in Asia will bring a nice chunk of operating capital.

Of course NCSoft could look at flat gem sales and cancel the game because it’s not profitable enough, but that’s a risk with any online game. Still I don’t think it’s accurate to say folks buying gems are singlehandedly keeping the game alive.

i bought the crapper nodes. the thing is to me, is with a few more released and a few more like the candy corn LS ones etc, going to your instance will EVENTUALLY be more appealing. like eventually you’ll go there and maybe get full bags of diff kitten. hell, sometimes i dread doing gathering for dailies, sometimes i love it. this will add an increasingly effective method for when i dread it and just feel like pvping. im pimpin’ my crib dude.

thats basically it for me, cept that its nothing for me to throw 800 gems at this or that for a game i love. i’ve spent money(in game and irl) on far more pointless things in my time.

hopefully, in the future we can drop by our instance, fill up on some mats, knock out a daily or two and have some other reasons to go there other than personal story. i like it.

On that note I was surprised to see GW2 19th on last week’s UK PC sales chart. So either it’s a steep curve from 1 to 19 in terms of overall sales or I’ve underestimated the popularity of a 1+ year old game.

Then again it’s the UK. How many PC gamers are there to begin with? :p

http://tinyurl.com/dlfx38

Sorry fir the tiny url, GW2 forum’s redirector scrambles the raw link.