Guild Wars 2

 
While the video is about f2p games GW2 is very much alike f2p games due to how the long-term business model is constructed. GW2 is very clearly catering to new players and ‘whales’ and not much to anyone else. All the armor skins since launch (except ascended) and most of the weapon skins are gemstore exclusive. Gemstore stuff is pretty much all the content we are getting these days and it’s hurting the game. Veteran players quitting because there’s no reason to stay, majority of the updates are catered to new players and players with lots of extra money to put on the game every month.

Just watch the video and you can see how it applies to this game and how harmful it is. Sure GW2 is not nearly the worst offender in this regard but its still more predatory of your money that many actually f2p games are. A person who bought this game after fractals were released has barely gotten any worth of their money in post-purchase development unless they particularly enjoy the living story which I find very sad. GW2 was supposed to be the MMORPG that proves that you don’t need a subscription-model to provide quality content…

They still don’t need to be sub based to provide quality content, they just choose to put out the LS which many people find to be bad. They put time and effort in and, some times they even get it right. If they did away with the LS and focused more on feature updates (ones we actually need), bug fixes and repeatable content, I think they could still make money and keep the gem store.

I know some people like the LS, but to me that is their biggest mistake. I would even venture to say people who do like it would appreciate other, better content even more.

Personally I don’t see anything wrong with content being introduced via a story. Putting writing quality discussion aside (no more infraction points please), we aren’t getting much gameplay with it. There’s no real reason not to tie the story into already existing methods of storytelling like dungeon story modes while also providing a new set of dungeon armor, weapons and some more difficult explorable dungeons for those interested in endgame stuff. The way the content is delivered now is dialogue boxes, gemstore armor and nothing in terms of gameplay. I’d gladly wait a month or two for stuff like this instead of getting disappointed every two weeks.

What we are getting now:
-Story updates frequently
-Gem store items frequently
-Feature packs infrequently
-Balance patches very infrequently
-Content patches never

I honestly don’t mind the concept behind Living Story, but it should be in addition to frequent patches, not in lieu of them.

EDIT:

Sorry people will misunderstand my term of patches. I mean content, update, balance, and feature patches.

While there are a few similarities to the F2P model, NOTHING in GW2 requires gems to play the game (ok, you can argue storage IS a must have).

As a player, I do not feel Anet has “crossed that line” the video discusses. I do NOT think the Devs have conversations about how to milk players of money rather than make a fun game. If you do not agree with THAT belief (you think Anet is intentionally doing everything they can to MAKE money with no regard for anything else), why are you still here?

(Note that last question was not directed at the OP, but every player that is posting in these doomsday threads).

I feel like a lot of the problems are actually with management and not the devs. I’d hope that the devs love the game and want to do their best to improve it, but I could be wrong…

This thread should be merged with the many other threads on the same topic.

Here’s one on the first page of this very sub forum:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/bltc/The-Gem-Store-It-has-contaminated-GW2/first#post4357520

In regards to the OP, Anet needs to have cash inflow to support their operations. Selling boosts and other random consumables will not do that. They are also a for-profit company so they cannot operate at cost. So as a result, they create various skins and other convenience items for players to purchase with cash or gold. These are all completely optional and have no impact on the game play.

Also be aware that you paid for the game as it was when it was released. You did not pay ~$60 for the entire game and all future content updates. I did not buy Assassin’s Creed and expect to be given all of the additional DLC’s for free. These had to be paid for just as all of the continued support from Anet and the numerous content updates that we get. Those who play the game for free (don’t support Anet through gem purchases) have their content updates to the game subsidized by paying players.

It’s entitlement to think you should get free content beyond what a game originally provided at the expense of the developer. Games originally had subscriptions so that everyone pulled their weight for supporting the game’s operations. In this game, you don’t have to commit a single dollar after your initial purchase and instead get everything because of paying players.

Essentially, you get what you paid for.

People should stop complaining and speak with their feet. No seriously … if you don’t like the business model, just move on because it’s the only method that truly sends a message to Anet and the industry that the model isn’t what players want.

Ayrilana.1396:

This thread should be merged with the many other threads on the same topic.

Here’s one on the first page of this very sub forum:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/bltc/The-Gem-Store-It-has-contaminated-GW2/first#post4357520

In regards to the OP, Anet needs to have cash inflow to support their operations. Selling boosts and other random consumables will not do that. They are also a for-profit company so they cannot operate at cost. So as a result, they create various skins and other convenience items for players to purchase with cash or gold. These are all completely optional and have no impact on the game play.

Also be aware that you paid for the game as it was when it was released. You did not pay ~$60 for the entire game and all future content updates. I did not buy Assassin’s Creed and expect to be given all of the additional DLC’s for free. These had to be paid for just as all of the continued support from Anet and the numerous content updates that we get. Those who play the game for free (don’t support Anet through gem purchases) have their content updates to the game subsidized by paying players.

It’s entitlement to think you should get free content beyond what a game originally provided at the expense of the developer. Games originally had subscriptions so that everyone pulled their weight for supporting the game’s operations. In this game, you don’t have to commit a single dollar after your initial purchase and instead get everything because of paying players.

Essentially, you get what you paid for.

I’m not sure what you are talking about. The video never says players should be able to play for free.

What they are discussing is what we discussed last time. Many F2P games seemed to focus on this whales. You are telling me you think most transactions are from many players with small payments over times. But the video says many of this F2P games have 10% of the players paying 90% of the money.

I think there is some truth is both. It depends on how the cash shop and economy is designed.

My personally feeling with GW2 is since there are gem exchange system, and no power creep, it is very unlikely for a person like me to buy gems.

The OP seemed to feel GW2 is moving further away from the average gamer, and focus the game purely for whales and new gamers.

You obviously have your own personal feeling about the game.

Actually the point in the video about making the player be excited about the purchase rings very true in this game. Why do we buy skins? It’s because we like the look. Gathering and salvage tools? Because we like the convenience.

The game has no paywalls. So I don’t understand why people think the cash shop in this game is so bad.

Most of the complaints seem to be from the notion of how it’s getting more difficult to not pay for an item from the cash shop with cash.

Edit: Sorry, got interrupted when I was first penning this post.

laokoko.7403:

Ayrilana.1396:

This thread should be merged with the many other threads on the same topic.

Here’s one on the first page of this very sub forum:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/bltc/The-Gem-Store-It-has-contaminated-GW2/first#post4357520

In regards to the OP, Anet needs to have cash inflow to support their operations. Selling boosts and other random consumables will not do that. They are also a for-profit company so they cannot operate at cost. So as a result, they create various skins and other convenience items for players to purchase with cash or gold. These are all completely optional and have no impact on the game play.

Also be aware that you paid for the game as it was when it was released. You did not pay ~$60 for the entire game and all future content updates. I did not buy Assassin’s Creed and expect to be given all of the additional DLC’s for free. These had to be paid for just as all of the continued support from Anet and the numerous content updates that we get. Those who play the game for free (don’t support Anet through gem purchases) have their content updates to the game subsidized by paying players.

It’s entitlement to think you should get free content beyond what a game originally provided at the expense of the developer. Games originally had subscriptions so that everyone pulled their weight for supporting the game’s operations. In this game, you don’t have to commit a single dollar after your initial purchase and instead get everything because of paying players.

Essentially, you get what you paid for.

I’m not sure what you are talking about. The video never says players should be able to play for free.

What they are discussing is what we discussed last time. Many F2P games seemed to focus on this whales. You are telling me you think most transactions are from many players with small payments over times. But the video says many of this F2P games have 10% of the players paying 90% of the money.

I think there is some truth is both. It depends on how the cash shop and economy is designed.

My personally feeling with GW2 is since there are gem exchange system, and no power creep, it is very unlikely for a person like me to buy gems.

The OP seemed to feel GW2 is moving further away from the average gamer, and focus the game purely for whales and new gamers.

You obviously have your own personal feeling about the game.

It was a response to the OP and not the video itself.

As far as percentages, I referred to many as simply a placeholder as there’s really no way to know without the data being released. I was not referring to a large percentage but was definitely referring to more players that was implied in the previous thread as buying tons of gold. The many was simply to separate out the fact that those that buy tons of gold are far fewer than those that do it at the spur of the moment when something new is released or there’s a sale.

I’ll probably get accused of fanboy-ism, but I rather see ANet as a positive example within the F2P field. The Gem store items are utterly unnecessary to enjoy the actual game, not possessing them neither costs you time, success nor prestige.

For the incriminated whale hunting (→vid), well, look into other F2P mmo’s micro transaction stores and compare. You’ll find time savers, prestigious objects and real advantages like stronger items, classes, races, abilities etc, often combined with lock boxes, into which you can literally sink thousands of dollars (or equivalents).
That are the whale baits the video criticizes for good reasons.

Your feeling of lacking content and satisfying endgame stems from the inherent dilemma all theme park MMOs suffer from. Instead of the sandbox’s approach of delivering you sand and tools to build your own sandcastles, a theme park MMO relies on the developer’s putting up new show booths. While the player’s get weary and bored of those already standing.
That’s a constant race against the clock. Apparently even with the resources Blizzard-Activision has that races is hard to master.

Behellagh.1468:

Actually the point in the video about making the player be excited about the purchase rings very true in this game. Why do we buy skins? It’s because we like the look. Gathering and salvage tools? Because we like the convenience.

The game has no paywalls. So I don’t understand why people think the cash shop in this game is so bad.

Most of the complaints seem to be from the notion of how it’s getting more difficult to not pay for an item from the cash shop with cash.

Edit: Sorry, got interrupted when I was first penning this post.

its not about the cashshop is bad its is about EVERYTHING they release is only cashshop

Basically what anet did is pretty brilliant in a businessman’s perspective.

When they introduced the game, everything in cash shop can be obtained in game without forcing us to use gems.

Dyes are available from mobs, boosters are obtained from rewards, black lion keys are everywhere and transmutation stones arw abundant, new weapon skins are obtained via crafting or dungeons.

However as the game ages, they became greedier and removed everything to force people into using gems to purchase these items.

Its a good strategy to let the players taste the food first before removing it off the menu to make them crave for it.

Either that is their plan the whole time or they suddenly lost their budget and resorted to this method to milk the players and fund the game.

Behellagh.1468:

Actually the point in the video about making the player be excited about the purchase rings very true in this game. Why do we buy skins? It’s because we like the look. Gathering and salvage tools? Because we like the convenience.

The game has no paywalls. So I don’t understand why people think the cash shop in this game is so bad.

Most of the complaints seem to be from the notion of how it’s getting more difficult to not pay for an item from the cash shop with cash.

Yeah. I see it everyday…
I buy gems from time to time and sometimes I buy them with gold and it’s getting harder and harder. So people that want everything for free will attack the gem store which is really nice (except from easy cash-ins that happened like reskins more than 6 months ago but that was another story).

For me ANet does really good job with gemstore.
I will admit that we should have a bit (only a bit) more new skins in game without gemstore, but lets face it – you don’t have to have them to enjoy the game. You don’t need capitan pases, unlimited gathering tools, or boosters for your games.
I will say more You don’t need more than 1 min (easily bought by gold) per character.
So what are you all so angry for on the gemstore?

You all should enjoy the content and there are no pay walls in this game and for a lot of things that you get for free most game would charge you: wardrobe, wallet, any access to bank, more than 2-3 slots for characters.

Man, reading those threads shows me how much people ungrateful of what we get.

I wont even mention Living Story which is lately really good and the fact you can log in every month without paying a cent.

I know that a lot of people miss replayable content, but I really hope that after making very good LS, devs focus will switch to PvP and WvW more and then come back to Dungeons/SAB.

Sadly most people in this forums think that ANet can really well focus on many game aspects but reality shows that is somehow not the case and ACCEPT IT FINALLY!

gobax.6185:

Basically what anet did is pretty brilliant in a businessman’s perspective.

When they introduced the game, everything in cash shop can be obtained in game without forcing us to use gems.

Dyes are available from mobs, boosters are obtained from rewards, black lion keys are everywhere and transmutation stones arw abundant, new weapon skins are obtained via crafting or dungeons.

However as the game ages, they became greedier and removed everything to force people into using gems to purchase these items.

Its a good strategy to let the players taste the food first before removing it off the menu to make them crave for it.

Either that is their plan the whole time or they suddenly lost their budget and resorted to this method to milk the players and fund the game.

Except dyes are now account wide. And you can still craft them. The Dye Kit has been in the gem shop since the beginning. While they did up the price on laurel bought unidentified dyes by 10x, it’s in part due to the fact that true demand isn’t as high as it was with possibly the exception of the “pure” colors. Actually most prices for dyes are still bellow where they were in February.

Sure they added RNG Gem Shop event specific dyes. But they are new dyes above the 400+ we got when the game went live.

As for skins, having RNG skin tickets is nasty but they made these and the RNG dyes tradeable at least and their prices right now are cheaper in gem converted gold than the gem cost for enough keys to earn enough tickets to purchase one.

So I disagree, they didn’t move items from in game to the gem shop. They introduced additional items to the ones we got when the game went live. And while you may dislike the skins they did add to the game that you can earn, you can’t say they’ve only added exclusively to the gem shop.

Lastly they haven’t inflated the cost in gems for any item unless they changed it, gathering tools for instance. And the cash cost of gems hasn’t changed either since game launch. 800 gems is still $10, 10€ or £8.50.

I wouldn’t say the Gemstore is bad as much as it is Anet’s attachment with the gem store that’s the problem.

Id suggest no one quote this as I’m actually going to watch the video shortly, but I just wanted to get that base feeling out. I’ll edit this later to share my feelings on the video.

Uuni.6091:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FwI0u9L4R8U

While the video is about f2p games GW2 is very much alike f2p games due to how the long-term business model is constructed. GW2 is very clearly catering to new players and ‘whales’ and not much to anyone else. All the armor skins since launch (except ascended) and most of the weapon skins are gemstore exclusive. Gemstore stuff is pretty much all the content we are getting these days and it’s hurting the game. Veteran players quitting because there’s no reason to stay, majority of the updates are catered to new players and players with lots of extra money to put on the game every month.

Just watch the video and you can see how it applies to this game and how harmful it is. Sure GW2 is not nearly the worst offender in this regard but its still more predatory of your money that many actually f2p games are. A person who bought this game after fractals were released has barely gotten any worth of their money in post-purchase development unless they particularly enjoy the living story which I find very sad. GW2 was supposed to be the MMORPG that proves that you don’t need a subscription-model to provide quality content…

It really feels like you watched the video, saw that it talked about f2p and wrote the post. Because it really seems like you missed the whole point of the video. There were basically two points in the video, neither of which apply to GW2:

1. F2P that is designed so that you have to spend hundreds or thousands of dollars to get the “good stuff” is bad. This clearly does not apply to GW2, since all of the outfits in it are very cheap. The only “good stuff” that is expensive would be the convenience items that are in the Black Lion Chests. But those are just that: convenience items. They’re not something you expect nor plan to sell a lot of. And in the case of GW2, those items have to be rare because they allow infinite usage of other Gem Store items.
2. F2P that is designed for the whales is bad because it results in the free players leaving due to the whales being far, far superior in in-game power and thus screw up PvP combat. This clearly does not apply to GW2 because there is no power sold in the Gem Store.

I have played a game (Perfect World International) that is exactly what the Extra Credits video is all about. In PWI, the best gear in the game is sold in the boutique for literally hundreds of dollars in total. This gear can then be upgraded twice via in-game measures to a point where any other set of gear is not even remotely comparable in PvP.
Also, there’s a mechanic to upgrade the stats on your gear that ridiculously favors spending real money in the game: it costs hundreds of dollars to fully upgrade a single piece of gear (and there’s 11 pieces of gear you can upgrade), but trying to do it without spending money literally has odds worse than winning a lottery.
Did I mention that while you can in theory buy all of that with in-game effort (because you can buy the cash currency with in-game gold), it would take years of farming?
And all forms of PvP combat in PWI are dominated by these players: they number in the hundreds per server.
As for what the 5-10$ would get you in PWI? Well, it might get you a mount, if you invest that money while the mounts are on a sale and there’s a simultaneous bonus sale on the cash currency. Mind that the prettiest, fastest mounts (both land and air) are behind a wall similar to the Black Lion Chest, except with much worse odds.

Olba.5376:

F2P that is designed for the whales is bad because it results in the free players leaving due to the whales being far, far superior in in-game power and thus screw up PvP combat. This clearly does not apply to GW2 because there is no power sold in the Gem Store.

That’s not the whole point, that is just an example of a poor business model they gave. In an MMO continuous post-launch developement is an extremely important aspect of keeping people playing. Arenanet is focusing a vast majority of their efforts in keeping whales playing with gemstore stuff and new players coming in with marketing. They have no interest in keeping long-term players that might spend just 10 bucks every few months playing because the game is absolutely devoid of new endgame content ever since fractals got released, there’s no reason for a player that only buys a new skin every few months to keep playing the game after he or she has done everything. If they are really working towards a fun and challenging gameplay experience for everyone involved, they would be catering to people that actually want to play the game too, not just new players and casual players with a lot of extra cash.

Veteran players keep leaving because there’s nothing more to play. The only updates that have even remotely new gameplay are the story updates that pose absolutely no challenge and are just there to drive the story forward. You can’t even kill yourself in the story by jumping off a cliff, that’s how easy and casual-friendly that is. I got no objections in casual friendly stuff, keeping the story accessible is just fine, forgetting everyone else is not fine. Anyone that’s not part of their small little demographic of casual gamer with a lot of spare income is not getting any attention from the devs and this is driving the non-whale part of the playerbase away slowly. They are dependent on keeping new players coming in order for this game not to turn into a ghost-town for the whales, this is already happening however tinfoil-hat-apocalypse it might sound — just like described in the video

Lets take a look at a set of few goals people have in GW2 and see what effect spending $ has.

Some want to have best gear by getting a full set of ascended armor and a legendary. They can then either go out and farm for years, or send anet a few hundred bucks and buy it directly from the tp. Without exception, the price needed in $ has gone down, while the time required in farming has gone up.

Best gear might not be everyones cup of tea, so lets look at skins. People can either farm for years to buy gems in order to unlock any of the new skins since release, or spend the $ to do so instantly. New skins has been almost exclusivly gem-based.

Others want WvW rankings. You can then either do it slow lane speed, or get fast lane option of 150% by gem purchases. you also can get competive advantages, like 5% damage and 5% defence. If you include those who tactically do server transfers, $ has an additional impact.

For those who goes after achivements, some points is to be gained from gem items (mini pets to mention one of them), but it is less of an issue if you are in a larger/richer guild.

Is this enough for a conclusion about the design of GW2? Everyone is of course free to their opinion, but the facts are stacking up.

It does not take years to farm for legendaries and/or ascended. Please don’t intentionally distort that in an attempt to make your argument appear to be more correct.

The standard farm is 5 gold an hour. Two hours a night over a two months will get you enough for a full set of ascended armor and at least two ascended weapons. Legendaries will take up to 9 months assuming no materials are farmed. Earning 10 gold a night is very easy to do in this game. You can even do it without farming.

Point is, if we think in long terms, even the last fanboy who is ‘happy with LS’ will stop playing the game or at least a lot of people are leaving. So this means if they have long term goals, they HAVE to release an expansion (this doesn’t mean as a physical copy, it can come as a huge update as well, mark my words :-)).

It’s business and that’s the nice balance of free market. If the customer doesn’t like it anymore either the market will change according to the customers’ needs or it will be taken from the market.

ProtoGunner.4953:

Point is, if we think in long terms, even the last fanboy who is ‘happy with LS’ will stop playing the game or at least a lot of people are leaving. So this means if they have long term goals, they HAVE to release an expansion (this doesn’t mean as a physical copy, it can come as a huge update as well, mark my words :-)).

It’s business and that’s the nice balance of free market. If the customer doesn’t like it anymore either the market will change according to the customers’ needs or it will be taken from the market.

No. That would not keep players and you likely haven’t realized what it is that keeps players playing MMO’s long after content updates (such as expansions) which this game has relatively little of.

Romek.4201:

its not about the cashshop is bad its is about EVERYTHING they release is only cashshop

Yeah.. except the fact that it isn’t.
We got multiple new skins released in-game. Champion box weapons and Ascended sets for one.

We also have gotten loads of new stuff overall that have nothing at all to do with the cash shop, such as new maps, new events, new dungeon, new systems and so on.

Ayrilana.1396:

It does not take years to farm for legendaries and/or ascended. Please don’t intentionally distort that in an attempt to make your argument appear to be more correct.

The standard farm is 5 gold an hour. Two hours a night over a two months will get you enough for a full set of armor and at least two weapons. Legendaries will take up to 9 months assuming no materials are farmed. Earning 10 gold a night is very easy to do in this game. You can even do it without farming.

Anyone want to stop and see what happens if you set your sights on Karma armor from the temples? Or if you craft your own? Because I have the suspicion crafting your own exotic armor and weapon sets is cheaper than 10 Gold / day over 2 months. Especially when most weapons aren’t 10 Gold, last I looked. (Save for greatswords, maybe.)

Ayrilana.1396:

The standard farm is 5 gold an hour. Two hours a night over a two months will get you enough for a full set of armor and at least two weapons.

Please don’t intentionally distort that in an attempt to make your argument appear to be more correct. You can not make a full ascended armor and two legendaries from 600 gold, and that assuming people would farm 7 days a week for 2 hours. Spending what basically is two work days per week on farming is not everyones cup of tea.

Lets pick a player who want to max a Mesmer. They want armor and a greatsword. The armor will cost around 600 gold by iteself, which already there is the whole aloted money with no weapon to speak off. Then there is the legendary, which is between 3000-4000g. Assuming a generous 250g per month (which is extremly above the average income per player), and you end up with 16 months or 1.5 years amount of farming. If you make the legendary yourself, the cost will slightly decrease, and you might be able to do it in less time.

Yes, you could change the variables and get a rangers that wields an underwater legendary, but we are talking about common goals which people actually has. Those goals are not achiveable by 2 months of farming.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Ayrilana.1396:

It does not take years to farm for legendaries and/or ascended. Please don’t intentionally distort that in an attempt to make your argument appear to be more correct.

The standard farm is 5 gold an hour. Two hours a night over a two months will get you enough for a full set of ascended armor and at least two ascended weapons. Legendaries will take up to 9 months assuming no materials are farmed. Earning 10 gold a night is very easy to do in this game. You can even do it without farming.

Anyone want to stop and see what happens if you set your sights on Karma armor from the temples? Or if you craft your own? Because I have the suspicion crafting your own exotic armor and weapon sets is cheaper than 10 Gold / day over 2 months. Especially when most weapons aren’t 10 Gold, last I looked. (Save for greatswords, maybe.)

I edited my post and the my quote in this post. I meant to say ascended but didn’t. Sorry for the confusion.

Belorn.2659:

Ayrilana.1396:

The standard farm is 5 gold an hour. Two hours a night over a two months will get you enough for a full set of armor and at least two weapons.

Please don’t intentionally distort that in an attempt to make your argument appear to be more correct. You can not make a full ascended armor and two legendaries from 600 gold, and that assuming people would farm 7 days a week for 2 hours. Spending what basically is two work days per week on farming is not everyones cup of tea.

Lets pick a player who want to max a Mesmer. They want armor and a greatsword. The armor will cost around 600 gold by iteself, which already there is the whole aloted money with no weapon to speak off. Then there is the legendary, which is between 3000-4000g. Assuming a generous 250g per month (which is extremly above the average income per player), and you end up with 16 months or 1.5 years amount of farming. If you make the legendary yourself, the cost will slightly decrease, and you might be able to do it in less time.

Yes, you could change the variables and get a rangers that wields an underwater legendary, but we are talking about common goals which people actually has. Those goals are not achiveable by 2 months of farming.

Um, wow. How about you not distort my post and quote the very next line that you left out. You’ll see that the 600 gold was just for ascended armor and weapons. The sentence you purposely left out was about legendaries.

Also, please do the math for ascended armor before you make up random numbers. I’ve been tracking the costs and it’s around 450 gold now. The most expensive legendary to make is roughly 2,800 gold.

Romek.4201:

Behellagh.1468:

Actually the point in the video about making the player be excited about the purchase rings very true in this game. Why do we buy skins? It’s because we like the look. Gathering and salvage tools? Because we like the convenience.

The game has no paywalls. So I don’t understand why people think the cash shop in this game is so bad.

Most of the complaints seem to be from the notion of how it’s getting more difficult to not pay for an item from the cash shop with cash.

Edit: Sorry, got interrupted when I was first penning this post.

its not about the cashshop is bad its is about EVERYTHING they release is only cashshop

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/bltc/New-Items-since-release/

lordkrall.7241:

Romek.4201:

its not about the cashshop is bad its is about EVERYTHING they release is only cashshop

Yeah.. except the fact that it isn’t.
We got multiple new skins released in-game. Champion box weapons and Ascended sets for one.

We also have gotten loads of new stuff overall that have nothing at all to do with the cash shop, such as new maps, new events, new dungeon, new systems and so on.

champion box weapons 1 year ago, ascended armor (UGLY!) 9 months ago, fossil weapons a few months ago….that’s it – now how many armor sets and RNG chest weapon sets have been added to the store? about 5x as many. This is the issue…it should be 75% IN GAME, 25% in store – yet is is the opposite. I should also mention that 95% of all good looking medium armor for females is from the store unless you are a norn or human…then it’s 80%. I think what upsets me the most is the only armor sets that have been added in game in TWO YEARS have been the hideous ascended sets… oh, unless you tPvP in the official tourney’s which many people don’t.

azzy.6485:

lordkrall.7241:

Romek.4201:

its not about the cashshop is bad its is about EVERYTHING they release is only cashshop

Yeah.. except the fact that it isn’t.
We got multiple new skins released in-game. Champion box weapons and Ascended sets for one.

We also have gotten loads of new stuff overall that have nothing at all to do with the cash shop, such as new maps, new events, new dungeon, new systems and so on.

champion box weapons 1 year ago, ascended armor (UGLY!) 9 months ago, fossil weapons a few months ago….that’s it – now how many armor sets and RNG chest weapon sets have been added to the store? about 5x as many. This is the issue…it should be 75% IN GAME, 25% in store – yet is is the opposite. I should also mention that 95% of all good looking medium armor for females is from the store unless you are a norn or human…then it’s 80%. I think what upsets me the most is the only armor sets that have been added in game in TWO YEARS have been the hideous ascended sets… oh, unless you tPvP in the official tourney’s which many people don’t.

Esplen.3940:

Romek.4201:

its not about the cashshop is bad its is about EVERYTHING they release is only cashshop

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/bltc/New-Items-since-release/

azzy.6485:

champion box weapons 1 year ago, ascended armor (UGLY!) 9 months ago, fossil weapons a few months ago….that’s it – now how many armor sets and RNG chest weapon sets have been added to the store? about 5x as many. This is the issue…it should be 75% IN GAME, 25% in store – yet is is the opposite. I should also mention that 95% of all good looking medium armor for females is from the store unless you are a norn or human…then it’s 80%. I think what upsets me the most is the only armor sets that have been added in game in TWO YEARS have been the hideous ascended sets… oh, unless you tPvP in the official tourney’s which many people don’t.

Even if it would be 99% cash shop the statement about EVERYTHING being added via the cash-shop is 100% incorrect, which was what I was pointing out.

You also have to keep in mind that looks are rather personal. Some people find the Ascended set much better looking than any gem-store skin and so on.

Brother Grimm.5176:

While there are a few similarities to the F2P model, NOTHING in GW2 requires gems to play the game (ok, you can argue storage IS a must have).

As a player, I do not feel Anet has “crossed that line” the video discusses. I do NOT think the Devs have conversations about how to milk players of money rather than make a fun game. If you do not agree with THAT belief (you think Anet is intentionally doing everything they can to MAKE money with no regard for anything else), why are you still here?

(Note that last question was not directed at the OP, but every player that is posting in these doomsday threads).

Hate to break it to you, but of course the… “will this make money?” conversation with the devs (and the bean counters) happens … it has to, because the key to their business model is making money and the only way it tends to make money is if it is fun for us.. .. ANET/NCSoft aren’t in this for the charitable publicity.
But that said.. there is nothing wrong in what they are doing and I agree very little of what is available via the TP is actually needed to play the game, no one is forcing the OP or anyone to buy gems to get some new shiny fluff and the things that might be useful, like Storage can merely be earned in game with a little time and patience.

So OP… I think you miss the point of how GW2 and traditional F2P models differ… many F2P models actually block your progress through their game content/features etc, etkittenil you buy an unlock or similar.. so let’s not even give them any ammunition.

The point of the video is that it is bad if F2P games cater content development to big spenders to the exclusion of average players. They are primarily talking about the facebook and mobile games we see trying to reach into everyone’s wallet (they even say those are the main culprits in the video itself).

Guild Wars 2 does not do that – in any way.

There is nothing to discuss here.

And of course, GW2 is looking for money from players and adds extras into the game to make that happen. That wasn’t the point of the video the OP linked – AT ALL – in fact, they specfically said they are fans of F2P models if they are done correctly and honestly (which I think GW2 does – again the culprits are the nasty little browser and mobile games that keep cropping up).

gobax.6185:

…..
However as the game ages, they became greedier and removed everything to force people into using gems to purchase these items.

Its a good strategy to let the players taste the food first before removing it off the menu to make them crave for it.

Either that is their plan the whole time or they suddenly lost their budget and resorted to this method to milk the players and fund the game.

^^ THIS ^^ is the attitude that I fail to understand. If you TRULY think ANet is a bunch of money grubbing profiteers just out to “milk” players of money….WHY ARE YOU STILL HERE!!!! Move on already…..do you think they are going to change (if they are truly EVIL)?

post 1 of 3

Bloodstealer.5978:

Brother Grimm.5176:

While there are a few similarities to the F2P model, NOTHING in GW2 requires gems to play the game (ok, you can argue storage IS a must have).

As a player, I do not feel Anet has “crossed that line” the video discusses. I do NOT think the Devs have conversations about how to milk players of money rather than make a fun game. If you do not agree with THAT belief (you think Anet is intentionally doing everything they can to MAKE money with no regard for anything else), why are you still here?

(Note that last question was not directed at the OP, but every player that is posting in these doomsday threads).

Hate to break it to you, but of course the… “will this make money?” conversation with the devs (and the bean counters) happens … it has to, because the key to their business model is making money and the only way it tends to make money is if it is fun for us.. .. ANET/NCSoft aren’t in this for the charitable publicity.
But that said.. there is nothing wrong in what they are doing and I agree very little of what is available via the TP is actually needed to play the game, no one is forcing the OP or anyone to buy gems to get some new shiny fluff and the things that might be useful, like Storage can merely be earned in game with a little time and patience.

So OP… I think you miss the point of how GW2 and traditional F2P models differ… many F2P models actually block your progress through their game content/features etc, etkittenil you buy an unlock or similar.. so let’s not even give them any ammunition.

Examples of popular games from different genres across a “similar” system (not really, but we’ll go with it because apparently b2p is f2p when it comes to this):
Guild Wars 2:
Money makes things easier to obtain what you want, but not what you need. In some cases it can give you an advantage, but never prevents you from doing something.

• Buying Home Nodes allows players easy access to nodes. Long term investment for hardcore players and nice, fun thing for casual players. RP’ers may opt to get these for an added “feel” to their Home Instance, although I doubt that’s the case.
• Unlimited Tools are all cheaper than their in-game brethren (bar 250 use Gathering and Salvage tools [talking about Dissassembler + other Lyns goods, not Mystic Kit] and Silver Fed Rip-Off O-Matic) but more than make up for that cost with a steep Gem price (originally $10, now $12.50). The only exception is Watchwork Mining Pick that offers Watchwork Sprockets. However, since it’s possible to obtain Watchwork Sprockets through other, non-gem store means (and it’s not unreasonable obtaining them), this is not Pay to Win (it is, however, close).
• Boosters do not make up a paywall entrance for this game. While boosters are convenient, particularly the Crafting and Gathering Boosters, they are also attainable free™ through ingame methods. The ingame acquisition, however, is so low that it would be considered p2w if these items were significant in progressing through the game.
• Transmutation Charges are in no way, form, shape, or method Pay to Win.
• Skins… see Tranny Charges.
• Finishers… see Skins.
• Consumables, such as Black Lion Kits, Revive Orbs, etc, are all convenience items. Revive Orbs can be used to maintain a boss fight (however, it does require coordination and awareness to pull it off), but is not necessary to complete the game. It does not make the game any easier, and does not give you an advantage over players without one (but I’m ALIVE, yeah, and you have 1000 HP while moving as slow as an NPC). Black Lion Kits and other consumables are attained through Daily and Monthly rewards in addition to Black Lion Chests, meaning they are easily acquired (moreso than Boosters, at that).

Continued from previous post (2 of 3)

• Upgrade Extractor this bad boy gets his own section. Why? Because he sucks. He’s not cost effective at all. If an upgrade and item are both worth >$4.75, then sure, use this. But there are very few items and upgrades that are both worth >$4.75 (looks at my Exotic Valkyrie Pearl Sword of Generosity, 2g item with a >75g upgrade. 75g is enough to make it worth it to use the Upgrade Extractor, but the actual weapon is worth 2g. Since the weapon isn’t a Karma/WvW weapon, I can use a Salvage Kit, therefore Black Lion is much more cost-effective. An example where this is useful is if you have a Superior Sigil of Generosity and an Ascended Weapon. However, even then you might be better off just making another Ascended Weapon unless you want to sell the Sigil.)
• Home Instance Node… don’t make me slap you. This thing sucks unless you’re a Human, Charr, or Norn. Also, you can just press B and get the same thing without spending $11.25
• Bank tabs, collectible expander, and inventory expansions do not turn into pay to win. You do not need them to succeed at the game. If you do, however, play the game seriously, they are good investments (to the point where at times you might think you need them), but they are not necessary in any way. You might have to change your playstyle if you don’t want to get them, but that’s a cost you have to deal with. Additionally, you can make personal bank guilds which contain 200 slots for 105g, which is less than $10 if you were to use that to make gems. Inversely, if you were to make a personal bank guild with gems to gold, it would cost you roughly $14.50 for 200 slots versus spending $10 for 30 slots. The difference is that one lets you use account bound things, the other doesn’t.
• Character slots are also not necessary to “win”. Additionally, these can be seen as inventory slots, which is more cost effective than getting a bank tab or inventory slot, potentially more (in some cases less) cost effective than getting a collectible expander, and definitely still less efficient than getting a personal guild bank.

Moving onto other games, let’s look at League of Legends.

This game is free to play, caters to whales, and still doesn’t implement pay to win. It’s entirely possible to obtain everything (bar aesthetic inclusions) for free through sheer dedication. It isn’t rng drops that are skipped through wallet tossing, but it is a slow process. However, paying for things does not inherently make you win and in most cases doesn’t do anything at all except allow you to enjoy variety at your own pace (instead of the weekly pool of free champions). If you are going to say that it’s possible but not plausible to obtain everything in League of Legends for free, I would like to disprove you and say I have every champion, 20 rune pages, and pretty much every rune I could possibly want and do not toss my wallet at the game. I did used to buy skins that I enjoyed and did splurge on a few of the champion release packs, but 95% of non-“gem store equivalent”-only items I have are attained through IP (aka ingame currency).

And no, I don’t play it that actively. And yes, I’m able to buy each new champion as they’re released even at their increased first week price.

Continued from previous post (3 of 3)

And then to an actual pay to win game that caters not only to casual whales but also hardcore whales. Maplestory.

Sure, you might say that Maplestory isn’t a pay to win game, that you can get entirely to endgame without being “funded” (not entirely true, as long as we’re talking about GMS, and yes I have played on KMS where it isn’t pay to win).

The reason why Maplestory is pay to win is because after a certain point, to improve, you must spend real money. It is technically possible to improve through drops, however you’re relying on RNG drops that are intentionally low to the point of non-existent bar that one guy everyone is yelling at, to have a chance, just as low, of improving your items.

The reason why not all Maplestory official servers are pay to win is because in KMS (I have not played JMS or TMS or EMS or MSea, although I hear bad things about TMS, EMS and MSea) basically every event shop comes with these pay to win items, meaning it’s entirely possible to “create” a godly weapon over time. It’s not reliant on super low RNG (although it technically is, since you are still re-rolling your stats, but so are the people that pay real money) and it isn’t unreasonable to obtain.

And for the casual whales, they have “gem store outfits” which you can put on over you clothes to improve you visuals. There are some items that give stat advantage or gameplay advantages, such as pets who can loot, buff, and even use potions for you. However, they are also attainable ingame as drops. In KMS, the outfits are permanent (bar the ridiculously cheap sales which are about 1/10 of the price and last for 365 days). In GMS, the outfits last 3 months (last I checked) at the same price. Additionally GMS used to (still does, maybe?) have skill books that required you to use the gem-store equivalent to purchase them as certain classes, meaning that if you were playing those classes you could not progress your skills past a certain point, thereby creating a paywall. In KMS, the skill books were not implemented in the gem store and were released as boss drops.

Do note that KMS came out before GMS and is the furthest out of all Maplestory servers. It has also been the most fair of all Maplestory games, even though Nexon has a lot of sneaky schemes with the game. A LOT. I can keep going on about how Maplestory is bad (even KMS has bad, I just didn’t touch on it).

Tl;dr: GW2 is not P2W, not even with the Watchwork Mining Pick. I bought one and while I do admit that it is silly that it has an advantage over all other mining picks, it isn’t pay to win. If they change it, I will be fine, although I would like to ask for a refund because I bought it specifically for the fact that it has an advantage since I have a legacy Molten Pick. Just my few cents… or dollars, I guess..

The only thing Whales can do is buy gold and keys in bulk. Sure they can instantly buy every skin, convenience item and have transmutation charges coming out of their … neither regions but that doesn’t give them a major advantage in game play.

And them buying gold so they can buy a legendary helps the exchange by countering the buying of gems. Sure $700 ($1300 last Sept.) for a virtual weapon that is mostly cool looking seems like a waste to most of us but so is a Porsche over a Honda. Or fashion label Vs store brand. But it’s not game breaking and that’s where the catering to Whales point is emphasizing.

with the current gem price, I probably buy some gem my self with my credit card.

So the higher the gem cost, the lesser the game is reliance on whales.

the only exploitive item on the gem store are the key to open the (Black lion) gamble chests. Gambling is extremely addictive and exploiting that facet of human psych is pretty easy and very lucrative.

Other than that the game isn’t really designed round whales, but more around the average casual player that spends less than 10 hours a week playing and about 10 dollars a month on new skins. None of which are necessary to access content.

It is the shift away from rewards for the players that choose not to pay with real money that has that part of the population upset. But if there are enough moderatly paying players to populate the game then, the non paying players aren’t really a priority. Access to content is not limited as a form of marketing but rewards are limited to promote gem sales.

While technically there is value to the developer in a potential future sale, the majority of those complaining in the forums tend to be those who will never spend additional money on the game (because of financial reasons or just moral objection), and are typically ignored

The game that I bought back in 2012 was very much worth the money. I still get enjoyment from it from time to time. That does not mean I am entitled to anything beyond access to the game based on my original and early gem purchases. What’s been added since is not worth continuing to support the company, imo. So, I don’t support it. However, it’s also a good idea to let the company know what you’d like when you say you’re not buying because you don’t like X. My belief on this is that a game company is going to be more willing to listen to suggestions about content than demands they change their business model.

IndigoSundown.5419:

The game that I bought back in 2012 was very much worth the money. I still get enjoyment from it from time to time. That does not mean I am entitled to anything beyond access to the game based on my original and early gem purchases. What’s been added since is not worth continuing to support the company, imo. So, I don’t support it. However, it’s also a good idea to let the company know what you’d like when you say you’re not buying because you don’t like X. My belief on this is that a game company is going to be more willing to listen to suggestions about content than demands they change their business model.

similarly the game i bought in 2012 was worth it, but the game i have now is not worth playing any more, and thus i have no reason to buy anything.
Not saying anything is wrong with the game if you are new, other than the post game development not looking to promising.

excellent intial buy, long term development fairly weak in terms of entertainment, though they have added many amenities.

Its like a movie theater that shows the same movies, but gets better seats, bathrooms, and concession stand items.

Dont expect me to go to the movie theater for the concession stands, and bathrooms, its nice, but thats not why i really go to the movies.

Movies, mostly, aren’t participatory. It’s more like getting your workspace refurbished. And a better selection in the snack room.

Behellagh.1468:

Movies, mostly, aren’t participatory. It’s more like getting your workspace refurbished. And a better selection in the snack room.

Yeah i would probably quit my job if i found any place that paid better and was less boring, regardless of new snacks and workspace refurbishing.

but regardless problem with the analogy to workspace, is the game isnt paying you.

It would be similar to a job you dont get paid for that you do strictly for entertainment, when the job gets boring, no snacks or refurbishing will save it. They need to work on making the game overall more interesting/new/fun.

They have not created a sandbox game, the amount of entertainment people get from it, is going to based mostly on the content they build. They need to build substantial new content.

either that, or they have a life expectancy per player, and assume everyone will quit, and just keep getting new players, but thats a losing strategy there are less and less players who are interested who havent already tried or heard about GW2 with every passing moment.

Then the question is whether there is a place you can go to spend your time with the same barriers of entry, where you would enjoy your time?

ANet created a hybrid sandbox game. They provide a lot of pre-made activities but you can go anywhere and do them in whatever order you want, baring level, or you could simply stray off the beaten path to smite critters found there. No big flashing arrows leading you about. No pushing you out of areas because you are too high of a level. No formal “end-content” where everybody ends up.

Conversely a true sandbox gives you some basic rules, a few basic activities and tells you to go have fun.

Here’s my take.
In regards to Guild Wars 2… It feels inconsistent… Sometimes they get it right and sometimes they get it wrong. I usually purchase finishers or “piece” skins cause I believe they get those right. The Black Lion Keys and the new fangled Silver Fed Salvage o’ Matic… Clear misses imo.
Overall, I don’t think Guild Wars 2 is doing too bad with the gem store. The only way to really win at this game is by being a TP baron afterall. Even if you converted $1000 worth of gems to gold, it’s still fairly useless if you don’t know what to do with it beyond sinking it for pretty skins.
If you want to look at a real broken cash shop look to AA…. Smh… That’s a real cash grab mmog catering to whales and only whales.

Whales whales whales!!! I love saying that now!!!

Edit:
Still we’re pretty starved here in WvW/PvP… That’s been my main gripe since I only PvE to grind my head into bits and pieces of flesh and bone and level.

i like the living story i just think there needs to be a better balance between the gem store and other methods of acquiring new skins

GW2 has it’s problems, and there are a lot of things that I wish they would do, and I would even pay for a retail-level expansion for the game every year or so, but I would never want this game to go subscription-based or based on constant paid DLC content (where for example you might have to buy each LW update for $2 or so, instead of auto-unlocking them).

If the game we’ve got now is the inevitable cost of keeping the game B2P? I’ll take it.

@bloodstealer – I never said they wouldn’t discuss if something will make money. Of course, they have that discussion…it’s a business and they need to keep the Servers running. What I mean is that I don’t think Dev conversations START with, “how can we bilk more cash from these players!??”.

The poster I was responding to appeared to seriously believe that the Devs have a singular Evil intent behind everything they did….find ways to take our money. My point was that if you REALLY believe this, why are you in any way still associated with this game?