Guild Wars 2

It is pretty sad the way some of these folks are carrying on.

Exactly I am with Op on this one, also a player since beta, give anet a freaking break, its a pretty cheap expansion, why the hell are people getting worked up because new players are getting core game, wtf seriously it’s not as anet is adding a hefty subscription fee….

Why are you crying?

Fiddle Irk.9710:

I’m sorry, but the tantrum is being thrown buy the people crying about the cost. I really don’t care if you buy it or not, I just feel all this whining is pathetic and I believe I made a valid point in; as far as value for money goes, how many hours of entertainment are you going to get for the same $50 elsewhere?

Isn’t that for the person who has $50 to decide?

If you feel the price is worth the value you’re getting – then peachy keen. To others, its not.

Welcome to the real world.

Fiddle Irk.9710:

Is it really too much for Anet to ask, after three years of continuous update and development, that they get a refresh on their capital?

Because ever since the game’s release, they never made a single cent from gems or anything..

What you miss Fiddle Irk, though, is that without the veterans Anet wouldn’t be able to sell / produce an addon because if nobody played their game it wouldn’t be profitable to do so.
I don’t think anybody here is angry that new players get the game for free – but most people here have kept the game alive by simply playing it for years and aren’t rewarded for that but more so punished if you just go after the price of the addon.
Besides, this addon is not a completely new game where they had to invent / create all the graphics and programs but just a follow up of something already existing meaning they didn’t have to spend half of their ressources to produce the addon than they had to for the core game.

It’s not a case about having enough money to pay the 50€ but a case of ‘is it really worth 50€ ?’
The answer to that question depends on the individual.
I guess you, Fiddle Irk, must have played this game for many hours because you gave the example of

As far as the “math” goes, $50 for thousands of hours of entertainment

so this addon might be cheap for you.
But there are many people like myself who only play this game casually and haven’t even invested 100 or maybe 500 hours into the game and for us it can be too pricey considering we only play this game for maybe 6 hours a week ?

You and some others don’t seem to grasp the concept. Calling customers whiners or “crybabies” because we won’t buy something isn’t going to make us buy it. That’s what children do in a store to get what they want, it’s called a tantrum.

Exactly, if ANet gives in to the crybabies having a tantrum about the HoT pricing then it’ll only encourage them.

Ohoni.6057:

You and some others don’t seem to grasp the concept. Calling customers whiners or “crybabies” because we won’t buy something isn’t going to make us buy it. That’s what children do in a store to get what they want, it’s called a tantrum.

Exactly, if ANet gives in to the crybabies having a tantrum about the HoT pricing then it’ll only encourage them.

Ohhh… so that’s how all the bad nurfs came to be over the past years. People having tantrums over melee skills. Lets hope Anet learned a lesson.

Veterans do not get anything? Sure, except 3 years of continues updates. I am sure this will be swept under the radar because it does not help the Internet pitchfork mob argument.

Tranquilnelf.1258:

mrstealth.6701:

Tranquilnelf.1258:

The point , that a lot of people, including myself are making, is that there is a much higher value being offered to brand new players for their $50 spend.

Agreed , that the base game is not being charged, and that the price tag is for the expansion only, but if you consider the value offered to new players vs the value offered to old gamer, there is a huge apparent difference.

It’s a fairly safe assumption to say that the base game is not free. It doesn’t really make any sense to say that Anet, over the course of a single day was willing to change their perceived value of the core game from being $40(or $10) to $0. If they did indeed value their game at $0, they would have no issues with giving that “free” copy to all existing players that buy HoT.

This is true. The current market value of the core GW 2 game is certainly not free. As a separate product it does indeed have a non zero price tag, just that when it comes bundled with HoT expansion it seems to be offered as a massive 100% discount.
It’s good for new players, and I love that ANet is offering such a deal. For the new player, they get all the core game, all the original LS content plus a new expansion all in the same price. For the existing player however it does leave a slight sour taste in the mouth

I just hope there is enough of the expansion to justify the price instead.

‘……….all the original LS content’

wha………. ALL?!

Surely not.

They had a sale for that recently, and some of us mugs paid gems for it.

Chicho Gosho.6507:

Veterans do not get anything? Sure, except 3 years of continues updates. I am sure this will be swept under the radar because it does not help the Internet pitchfork mob argument.

Already paid for with the original purchase.

Chicho Gosho.6507:

Veterans do not get anything? Sure, except 3 years of continues updates. I am sure this will be swept under the radar because it does not help the Internet pitchfork mob argument.

You mean continuous GEM shop updates. Plus Living story “must purchase to play” GEM updates if you took a year off from those updates.

Fiddle Irk.9710:

I’m sorry, but the tantrum is being thrown buy the people crying about the cost. I really don’t care if you buy it or not, I just feel all this whining is pathetic and I believe I made a valid point in; as far as value for money goes, how many hours of entertainment are you going to get for the same $50 elsewhere?

- If you don’t care, why you bother writting against the protests?

- It’s not a “valid point” to call “pathetic” to these players who aren’t agree with the deal.

No more “white knights” trying to save Anet’s face, please. Or they owe you something, and this is why you defend em like this?

Who the f……… Are you to jump in and start judging players for their options or personal feelings regarding this situation.

Everyone has the right to express their thoughts and your just another troll jumping at the chance to interject your bullkitten.

mouse button 3 and your kitten is banished

While I agree the wording is such that this will be locked/deleted and you infracted, mostly from the people claiming to be tough and steadfast reporting you for saying mean things

I’m (kind of) surprised that anet didn’t see this rage coming.

Some of the stuff they are hyping isn’t tied to the expansion: new trait system, new wvw borderlands, …

And on the other hand, there is still a lot of important information that we are still lacking… Like: a release date, what endgame content will be there, (still only current dungeons?), will there be raid instances, what new fractals will we get? How much personal story will be added*? How many new zones (total) will we get? (rumors say 2 or 3, but I’ve don’t think this was already confirmed?)
Will the engine get any updates? You now… stuff like will this game get an actual AI for the enemy/pets/minions? (a.k.a. no more actively running into AoE, flesh golem that’s more usefull then a rock, etc…). Will living world season 2 be included**? How long untill Season 1 will finally(!!!) be available?

What we do know is: we only get very limited amount of new zones 1 new class, 1 specialization for each class, crafting precursors, guild halls,… . This is all awesome by itself but not worth the current price. Especially considering that I payed around 50 euro for this game around 2 weeks after it launched (a.k.a. same price, but a LOT of more content)

Biggest problem (my opionion) is that the info we DO have is too little and too spread around. They made this exact same mistake with the last feature update. Every article contained very little new information just so they could spread the info into more articles).

And since it is/was sold saying it included the base game. you would think that they would give people who upgrade an extra key for the base game that they could use on a 2nd account or give to a friend. Otherwise how about new weapon set were people who upgrade can choose 3 good looking exclusive(!!!) skins (so not obtainable in any other way)? Maybe create the set in a few different color combinations so people can choose between them? (lowest tier could choose 2 weapons, middle tier 3 weapons, highest tier 4 weapons?)

optionally we still need to find out how teq. update tied in with the living world, , who is the ‘mr. E’ and how does it come that he seems to know *everything?
How the ‘fall of abadon’ fractal would have tied in with living world (hey, I’m still curious about that :p )

**Also: still no Living World Season 1

Manasa Devi.7958:

Chicho Gosho.6507:

Veterans do not get anything? Sure, except 3 years of continues updates. I am sure this will be swept under the radar because it does not help the Internet pitchfork mob argument.

Already paid for with the original purchase.

Yes because we will obviously never receive any update ever again. We will no doubt receive many more updates which will hopefully all require HoT to play.

Ragnarox.9601:

Chicho Gosho.6507:

Veterans do not get anything? Sure, except 3 years of continues updates. I am sure this will be swept under the radar because it does not help the Internet pitchfork mob argument.

You mean continuous GEM shop updates. Plus Living story “must purchase to play” GEM updates if you took a year off from those updates.

LS updates are free if you log in just once with any character. That you couldn’t be bothered to do so is your own fault.

CrimsonDX.4821:

The funny thing about all of this is that you people are complaining about Anet betraying you when it is most likely NCsoft, not Anet, are the ones who determine pricing and things like this. NCsoft is a Korean company, and respecting customers is not something they do in Korea.

The irony is, FROM Software is right across the shore, with their release of Bloodborne they sold 1 million copies in 12 days. NCSoft take note, THAT is how you “market” a game.

I think people defending the price point and the content revealed so far have to be very careful lumping people into one group of “haters.”

There are MANY reasons to not want to jump on board right now. Yes, a few of those reasons are incredibly petty and demonstrate that some of the fanbase are genuinely kittenty people (which should come as no surprise). But there’s plenty of perfectly rational reason to say, “I’m not buying this until you sweeten the pot.”

CrimsonDX.4821:

Manasa Devi.7958:

Chicho Gosho.6507:

Veterans do not get anything? Sure, except 3 years of continues updates. I am sure this will be swept under the radar because it does not help the Internet pitchfork mob argument.

Already paid for with the original purchase.

Yes because we will obviously never receive any update ever again. We will no doubt receive many more updates which will hopefully all require HoT to play.

That has nothing at all to do with what you wrote and what I responded to it. The only valid response was: “You’re right”.

21st century rebels…

CrimsonDX.4821:

PorceleinEve.2973:

CrimsonDX.4821:

The funny thing about all of this is that you people are complaining about Anet betraying you when it is most likely NCsoft, not Anet, are the ones who determine pricing and things like this. NCsoft is a Korean company, and respecting customers is not something the do in Korea.

Not the customer’s problem. Customers don’t need to assume responsibility for the choices of a company.

Except it does matter when all of the idiots on this forum going blaming, “Anet this, Anet that” when chances are they have no way of changing anything. If they decision was made higher up the food chain then Anet really can’t do anything about it.

If they can’t do anything then they can do something, come out and say it. As a customer and according to you “an idiot” I don’t care who is the cause of the problem. It’s not my job to solve it, I don’t get payed for that. And the company that tries to sell me the game is Anet, it’s their representatives in here, I “talk” to them. And if their choices of partner is causing issues for them, it’s their job to find a solution. Not mine.

The argument it’s not their fault presupposes that they’re totally helpless and have no control over their own company and its choices, and that they’re just poor victims of the situation. What’s next? the ceo of ncsoft has kidnapped their children and forces them to stick to their guns? Such naivete…

CrimsonDX.4821:

… snip…

Go away fanboi.

Sadly, Arena Nets generous offer toward new players has mutated into this bile filled cesspool of greed, entitlement and miss understanding. Those that cannot understand that this was an act of generosity and not a slap in the face to all existing players are not worthy of any freebies.

Regina Buenaobra.6193:

To clarify: $50 is the price of the expansion. We included the core game as a free bonus to make it easier for new players to get into it.

But that’s the problem. New players pay 50 bucks and get a copy of the core game + HoT.
Veterans pay the same price, only get HoT. That is the problem.

Just because we already own it doesn’t mean a copy of the core game has no value. I can give it to a friend, use it as a mule account, get daily rewards on it. We can benefit greatly from another copy.

Grimm.2685:

Sadly, Arena Nets generous offer toward new players has mutated into this bile filled cesspool of greed, entitlement and miss understanding. Those that cannot understand that this was an act of generosity and not a slap in the face to all existing players are not worthy of any freebies.

It might not be a slap in the face, but it sure feels like one. And you know the saying about a duck.

Grimm.2685:

Sadly, Arena Nets generous offer toward new players has mutated into this bile filled cesspool of greed, entitlement and miss understanding. Those that cannot understand that this was an act of generosity and not a slap in the face to all existing players are not worthy of any freebies.

It wasn’t an act of generosity, it was a cheap marketing scheme and it blew up in their face.

Besetment.9187:

21st century rebels…

yeah, we should be bombing and stabbing people ammirite?

CrimsonDX.4821:

PorceleinEve.2973:

CrimsonDX.4821:

The funny thing about all of this is that you people are complaining about Anet betraying you when it is most likely NCsoft, not Anet, are the ones who determine pricing and things like this. NCsoft is a Korean company, and respecting customers is not something the do in Korea.

Not the customer’s problem. Customers don’t need to assume responsibility for the choices of a company.

Except it does matter when all of the idiots on this forum going blaming, “Anet this, Anet that” when chances are they have no way of changing anything. If they decision was made higher up the food chain then Anet really can’t do anything about it.

Unfortunately, Anet is the company we see behind GW2. As far as GW2 is concerned, when is the last time we’ve heard from anyone from NCSoft? I think they had a some NC people with them at game conventions 1-2 years before release.

Whether this mess is Anet’s fault or not, they are the ones that still have to step and deal with the aftermath. If these decisions were really out of their hands (they’ve always claimed that NC gives them a great deal of freedom), then they can tell us that they had no choice in the matter.

But even if that is the case, I still see it as the “I was just following orders” defense. Doing what you are told does not make it acceptable, especially when what you are doing is breaking consumer protection laws.

I was thinking, they cant change the pricing on the game anymore!

Because if they lowered it or change it, what would happen to the people who already bought it?

So with other words i dont think complaining or discussing would actually work anymore, wich i think is unfortunatly, they should have anounced it sooner to see what we thought about this, this was just a quick solution and still no release date.

But i think when they anounce a new beta weekend/test day alot of people would buy it though

And maybe arenanet didnt do the pricing but NCsoft did? So i dont know if we are compaining to the right people….

And not that i fully agree with the pricing but;

Blizzard montly costs are roughly € 12

Every 2 years there will be an expansion at the cost of € 44.99

So lets do the math 24*12 = €288 + 44.99 = € 332.99 for an expansion …. (it doesnt include a core game though (With wrath of the lich king it did)

The game exists since 2004 (base game + expansions are total costs of €1952.95 if you played since the start)

And they have “ingame” buyable items for roughly € 10 / € 20 each so i guess it isnt that much what anet is asking us….

Grimm.2685:

Sadly, Arena Nets generous offer toward new players has mutated into this bile filled cesspool of greed, entitlement and miss understanding. Those that cannot understand that this was an act of generosity and not a slap in the face to all existing players are not worthy of any freebies.

Why it’s a slap on the face, cause not only does one has to pay 45 euros to get the expansion, but if you don’t want to delete one of your characters you need to spend another 10 euros to get another character slot to play the revenant, which is content you supposedly already bought and payed for with your 45 euros. So new gamers not only get the base game and the expansion, but older players are actively being punished financially for being in the game for too long. The choices we’re getting are, either lose progression (and time and money) on a character delete, or fork another 10 euros, effectively driving the price of the BASE package at 55 euros for many of us.

That’s not an act of generosity, that’s a slap so hard we almost lost a tooth to it.

Once again the point has been missed.

Explodie.9428:

I was thinking, they cant change the pricing on the game anymore!

Because if they lowered it or change it, what would happen to the people who already bought it?

They know exactly who has already ordered it, and are able to refund part of that money to them. If they can offer this ridiculous refund/delete “deal” to people that had recently purchased the core game, they can do partial refunds to all pre-purchasers.

But they should really get this solved before the game goes on sale in retail stores. Handling a price change there would be a multi-company mess that would likely lead to retail stores refusing to carry their products in the future.

Explodie.9428:

And not that i fully agree with the pricing but;

Blizzard montly costs are roughly € 12

Every 2 years there will be an expansion at the cost of € 44.99

So lets do the math 24*12 = €288 + 44.99 = € 332.99 for an expansion …. (it doesnt include a core game though (With wrath of the lich king it did)

The game exists since 2004 (base game + expansions are total costs of €1952.95 if you played since the start)

And they have “ingame” buyable items for roughly € 10 / € 20 each so i guess it isnt that much what anet is asking us….

This isn’t 2000 anymore. And tbh, if they think they got such a great product, I urge them to go ahead and put a sub fee on it. See what happens. We saw what happened on ESO, on wildstar etc. So not having a subscription fee, isn’t a gift to us, but rather a choice they made that kept the game afloat. As of now, only 2 games are sub and are doing fine, wow (which lost 3 mil subs i think once the people consumed the expansion content) and final fantasy 14.

By their own words, they’ve stated that they’re doing fine with the cash shop so, no, that’s not an argument. If they believed even for a second they could charge a sub fee they would. Most mmos are sub free nowadays and that’s the new industry standard. If you want to compare gw2 to another mmo, compare it to one of the other free to play and buy to play mmos.

TL;DR: Prior payment model of the game has no effect on the price-versus-content ratio HoT provides when compared to other games’ expansions.

Grimm.2685:

Once again the point has been missed.

indeed, you keep missing it, we keep explaining it to you, but it’s not working. you just don’t want to understand.

Explodie.9428:

I was thinking, they cant change the pricing on the game anymore!

Because if they lowered it or change it, what would happen to the people who already bought it?

So with other words i dont think complaining or discussing would actually work anymore, wich i think is unfortunatly, they should have anounced it sooner to see what we thought about this, this was just a quick solution and still no release date.

But i think when they anounce a new beta weekend/test day alot of people would buy it though

And maybe arenanet didnt do the pricing but NCsoft did? So i dont know if we are compaining to the right people….

And not that i fully agree with the pricing but;

Blizzard montly costs are roughly € 12

Every 2 years there will be an expansion at the cost of € 44.99

So lets do the math 24*12 = €288 + 44.99 = € 332.99 for an expansion …. (it doesnt include a core game though (With wrath of the lich king it did)

The game exists since 2004 (base game + expansions are total costs of €1952.95 if you played since the start)

And they have “ingame” buyable items for roughly € 10 / € 20 each so i guess it isnt that much what anet is asking us….

Maybe you didn’t know, but now-a-days you can buy game time in WoW with game gold. So you just farm couple hours and get those gold and you have 30 days of game time So you can avoid that sub fee in there too.

But if I go back to the GW2 pre-purchase issue; money is not the subject in here. People are just upset how Anet/Ncsof handle that marketing. They made so many mistakes in here.
1. They put core game sale so close of pre-purchase. Maybe their marketing department was scheduled that sale half a year ago and forgot it. That is bad, because they have to known what kind of bundle they will do with HoT + Core game. No one bother to take off that scheduled sale.
2. They change in silence HoT FAQ (picture included)
3. They are purposly pushing veteran players to delux edition
4. No one knows when game is released
5. No one knows how much content game have
6. No one knows is those events in game like Silverwastes, if they do, it will push away a lot of players.
7. No one knows is expansion story like LS 2 story? So we could call HoT more like LS 3 behind of paywall.

There are many question marks on the air, that people want to wait, until they know more about HoT.

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

Regina Buenaobra.6193:

To clarify: $50 is the price of the expansion. We included the core game as a free bonus to make it easier for new players to get into it.

But that’s the problem. New players pay 50 bucks and get a copy of the core game + HoT.
Veterans pay the same price, only get HoT. That is the problem.

Just because we already own it doesn’t mean a copy of the core game has no value. I can give it to a friend, use it as a mule account, get daily rewards on it. We can benefit greatly from another copy.

This enlightens me as to why this may have been done. I had presumed that the core game with HoT expansion was an either/or …but if you get expansion code separate with the option to apply to either new OR existing account…then this appears to be a way to artificially inflate their user numbers.

I can see gw2 telling investors/press
“HoT expansion draws in 1,000,000 NEW ACCOUNTS”
(while in reality it may be, 25k new accounts and 975,000 mule accounts)

Dated Feb 25, 2014 the website http://2p.com/4680897_1/Interesting-Numbers-about-Guild-Wars-2-You-Might-Not-Know-by-EdwardsLin.htm
shows at that time 5 million copies sold…

Really, what other purpose could there be for this sales technique, then to artificially boost numbers of game sold?

Thoughts? (poof out door to work)

eep edit after shower, had an extra 9 in there…really out door to work now

I see Arena net is avoiding us still.

Almost 90 pages with zero response

Wow players keep yelling we expect entitlements, boy they couldn’t be further from the point. It’s as simple as this a true guild wars loyal fan is someone whom has played for years, and bummed out every time Anet lets them down yet again. They still purchase the product due to love of the game and community. We have just come to expect a little more from Anet, that’s the issue. WE feel they only care about the new player base and forgot about their fan base. We paid $50 to play already, we don’t want core unless it comes with key, Take a little time to see other people opinions before you go yelling entitlements. let me spell it out We pay $50 get HOT and core game no key new player $50 get both games. Hmmm seems a real attention getter if you ask me. So here is the math for you old player $50 core game+$50 HOT= $100 new player same thing $50 that is the issue most players are having. The main thing Anet could do is give vet players a pet rock lol

If I want to play all the content in the expansion I’m going to have to pay $60. Why might you ask, because if I want to play all the content that is going to be released I have to buy another character slot. Don’t come on and tell me, “well you can convert gold to gems!”. All that is saying is Anet doesnt give 2 kittens about my time even though I’m spending $50 on top of the few hundred I invested in the game(gems to gold). And no I didnt need the gold I just wanted to support a company that I thought had the players best interests in mind, which, evidently, is far from the truth.

Gw2 did come out with only 5 character slots but the amount of content that we got justified that. The amount of content we are getting, from what we have seen, is not nearly worth the price tag so we cant compare the two.

We just ask for a character slot… To be able to play with the new class that’s in the expansion we’re going to buy.

T raw.4658:

I see Arena net is avoiding us still.

Almost 90 pages with zero response

Of course. They won’t respond until they’ve had several meetings about it, and with so many of the higher-ups at E3, I wouldn’t expect those meetings to take place until Monday.

Give them a few more days. If the problem hasn’t been addressed by the end of next week, I’ll be unpleasantly surprised.

Yes you mention it in your post, but 140 gold to 800 gems is about a week’s worth of gameplay for the average player and then costs you nothing more in real cash. I’m not aiming this next part to you, but it seems the majority of other complainers have forgotten that gold to gems is a possible conversion in-game.

Edit: Misspelled ‘of’ as ‘if’

Everything that can be said, has been said. The question now is: should we stop posting the same things over and over? I think so. They obviously made a mistake. They can’t change anything this soon. They’re just playing it cool. They still make money off of this… for now. When the money stops, then they will change something.

Alright, I can see the gripe about not getting a character slot with the expansion, considering we are getting a new class.

However, a new slot isn’t a ‘standard’ feature with the base expansion for most games. Take WoW for example, WotLK introduced the Death Knight, but didn’t offer an expansion to the number of characters you could have on a given server (BogOtter brought up this point in his youtube discussion about the expansion price).

Yes, it would be nice if they tossed one in as a ‘bonus’ in the standard pack. They could potentially still do this, but I highly doubt it would happen. There would be even more of a kittenstorm if they did.

ANet never guaranteed to you at any point from whenever you bought the game to now that you’d be able to have characters for all classes at once.
Why would you make that assumption, then?

You want to keep the price tags for expansion editions?
Fine.
But offer something free to your players who already own the core game. Make it as a drop list of choices so everyone will get what they are most interested in.

This will make it fair to veterans and new players too.

Is this so much to ask for?

Acquisitions can be made within the game account so it will be simple to make a date time check to see if the account was created before the HoT pre-purchase relase date
Example: The first thing you will buy in the gem store wil be free, no amtter what you shoose: character slot, name change, costume, etc.

matrix seishin.5312:

Everything that can be said, has been said. The question now is: should we stop posting the same things over and over? I think so. They obviously made a mistake. They can’t change anything this soon. They’re just playing it cool. They still make money off of this… for now. When the money stops, then they will change something.

the more people that voice their concern, the more likely is that the situation will be resolved (also the more media coverage)
otherwise they might think “well, glad this is over” and just go on about their (shady) business like nothing happened

matrix seishin.5312:

Everything that can be said, has been said. The question now is: should we stop posting the same things over and over? I think so. They obviously made a mistake. They can’t change anything this soon. They’re just playing it cool. They still make money off of this… for now. When the money stops, then they will change something.

No we should not. Cause if we do, they’ll keep on ignoring us like they have been so far.

There has been zero, zero communication about this as they’re waiting for this to blow over. Truth is, if we stop now, nothing will happen. They have no reason to change anything if nobody complains. Ideally we should keep posting until we get a reply from someone responsible explaining us what they plan on doing, or not doing and why. Then we can make our own mind.

However, if you find the topic tiresome, you always have the option of not reading it. Just like Anet does

The core game came with more than enough content for the $60 price tag, depending which copy you bought, for me to not complain about not being able to play 3 out of the 8 classes without buying character slots.