Guild Wars 2

This is only an idea so do not take it to heart just another speculation for the announcement.

Guild wars 2 is a buy to play game always has been. It is not a free to play game like some like to say it is. Look at some of the free to play games out there like World of Tanks, and even the Candy Crush series of games. They have been very successful pulling enormous amounts of people that even WoW has never seen. One thing they have going for them is they are free to download and free to play. You can purchase help for the Candy Crush or purchase better tanks for World of Tanks. Yes this is a pay to win system.

Pay to win is something Anet is against, but maybe Anet is not against a completely free game Free to download and free to play keeping the Gem Store as their main source of income. The Gem store can still stay a gold to gem system and still make money.

Again this is another speculation on what the announcement can be.

Lord please no. We get spammed enough as it is with gold sellers.

Do you think they plan on refunding everybody who bought the game before?

The announcement is pretty definitively going to be the “expansion-sized content” they’ve talked about working on “in the background” for so long now. I’ve heard a good argument for why it might actually be a free expansion, resold in stores with the original game included, for the original price. This way would get both the revenue and publicity of a traditional expansion, without splitting the player-base in two.

One thing they could do is giving the expansion for free so there is not a split in the community (like a map that can only be access by ppl that have the expansion). But they would still need an increase of income from that expansion. It could be gem store based but only to unlock some specific feature, not for the content itself.

It’s hard to come up with a list of stuff that would be buy to win. For example, new weapons or profession shouldn’t be on that list since they could be part of a meta and discrimination could happen to ppl that didn’t bought it. It should mainly be customization option and for looks.

- Unlocking a new race is the obvious one. It doesn’t grant any advantage, its only cosmetic.
- Maybe a new item needed to craft the new generation of legendary or for precursor crafting.
- New armors and weapons skins.
- New characters creation options.
- The season 1 repeatable like season 2.

And of course a bundle price for everything.

Don’t know, but it seem like an acceptable option to new split the community and giving a good income to Anet to fund the expansion itself.

Have you ever read the Archeage forums? That has a free to play option. The bot problem is bad. Gold seller spam in chat is bad, to the point chat is unusable because gold selling messages scroll so fast. Anyone who wants to run bots or sell gold can make a free account and do so. Ban them and they make another free account. Gold sellers (and sellers of other items, such as sex aids) even spam the official forums because they can make a new account minutes after they are banned.

There are reasons why MMOs restrict free and new paid accounts.

GW1 is dead and it is still not F2P.

Andred.1087:

Do you think they plan on refunding everybody who bought the game before?

The announcement is pretty definitively going to be the “expansion-sized content” they’ve talked about working on “in the background” for so long now. I’ve heard a good argument for why it might actually be a free expansion, resold in stores with the original game included, for the original price. This way would get both the revenue and publicity of a traditional expansion, without splitting the player-base in two.

Dude you are aware if that if they sell something in a retail store it will cost money right? I mean you say that “actually be a free expansion, resold in stores with the original game included, for the original price”, like did it even come to your mind that even if you then had the original game you’d still have to pay for yet another game and that would lock your current account out of the cycle? And btw it will not be free for anyone, new players would pay the original game price, and the current players would also pay for that exact same thing.
It’s not like just cus you have the game already the retailer will go like “hey nvm just take this xpac for free, ill break it out of the bundle, its np”.

Moldur.6275:

Andred.1087:

Do you think they plan on refunding everybody who bought the game before?

The announcement is pretty definitively going to be the “expansion-sized content” they’ve talked about working on “in the background” for so long now. I’ve heard a good argument for why it might actually be a free expansion, resold in stores with the original game included, for the original price. This way would get both the revenue and publicity of a traditional expansion, without splitting the player-base in two.

Dude you are aware if that if they sell something in a retail store it will cost money right? I mean you say that “actually be a free expansion, resold in stores with the original game included, for the original price”, like did it even come to your mind that even if you then had the original game you’d still have to pay for yet another game and that would lock your current account out of the cycle? And btw it will not be free for anyone, new players would pay the original game price, and the current players would also pay for that exact same thing.
It’s not like just cus you have the game already the retailer will go like “hey nvm just take this xpac for free, ill break it out of the bundle, its np”.

Living story episodes are free for people who play but sold to people who don’t log in. It’s certainly possible to give the expansion away for free to players and sell the original game with the expansion after the fact.