Guild Wars 2

Gotta buy 3 collection expanders? Ohp, 1+1+1 = 3, Half Life 3 Status: CONFIRMED.

In reality: What is your take on it, what do you think this means?

“The Collection Expander is now available in the Gem Store in the Upgrades category for 800 gems each. Each Collection Expander increases the stack size allowed for all collections by 250 to a maximum of 1000.” Do you have to buy 3 to get 1000 in everything? or is it per collection slot type? etc., Discuss.

It’s buy 3 to get 1000 of everything.

Stacks of 1000.

Excuse me please… I’m feeling a little emotional and need a moment.

I like it when the Anet engineers really earn that paycheck.

Great item.

Personally, I think this QoL upgrade should simply be added, but i guess I can understand making people buy it. Not everyone needs to hold more than 250 of a given material, some people don’t use them at all…

Still $30 to bump my collections to 1000? Might be asking a little much of my good will…

A feature involving few number tweaks
QoL asked since long time ago
Stacks instead of single item, overpriced

Alsoknownas: “Cheap Cashgrabbing”

Now that dungeon tokens doesn’t occupy my inventory slots anymore, I can’t really see a reason to pay for this upgrade. And actually, 10 dollars for 250 extra items, that’s so overpriced.
I’d rather pay 10 dollars to get the cap increased to 1000 instantly

I like the idea of them, but I definitely would have preferred it to be the one price (800gems to increase to 1000). Kitten, they could have made it 1000gems to make it 1000 and it still would have been better than making us pay 3x to get the cap.
That said, I’m still gonna buy at least one though. Increased collectibles cap is always good. Not sure I need more than a cap of 500 right now.

$30 to activate a feature that should be standard… yeah… no.

Man, is everything going to be a gem store item? There’s more and more focus on the gem store with every patch. Pretty soon we’re not gonna get anything but balance fixes without paying the gem store.

New character customization? Nah, you can’t have that. Unless you pay the gem store.
Want more material space? Gem store.
Special holiday skin? Yep, gem store.
Snow Globe finisher? You guessed it, gem store.

And to entice players to buy even more gems:
bonuses inside BLC
discounts on items if bought as gift

Seras.5702:

Man, is everything going to be a gem store item? There’s more and more focus on the gem store with every patch. Pretty soon we’re not gonna get anything but balance fixes without paying the gem store.

New character customization? Nah, you can’t have that. Unless you pay the gem store.
Want more material space? Gem store.
Special holiday skin? Yep, gem store.
Snow Globe finisher? You guessed it, gem store.

And to entice players to buy even more gems:
bonuses inside BLC
discounts on items if bought as gift

To be honest, the collections expansion was data mined ages ago and we knew it would be a gemstore item. At the time we were ok with that.

While I would like to see it as a free QoL update, I am still ok with purchasing it. I think it’s just a little pricey though. I would have preferred to see them offer a single collection upgrade item that takes you from 250 to 1000 for $20. I’d have been ok with that.

I’m just wondering if it is permanently in the store. Can’t really afford them now with all the keys I intend on Buying for friends this month.

I like the product but I think having to buy 3 is a bit much. I have enough bank space now that I don’t think I’ll need to purchase anything extra though, so not affecting me personally. I understand ANet needs to make cash. Lots of people will buy this, I’m sure.

Sell off every item of the 250 stack, for 3 times and you will have plenty of gold to buy the gems to get the extra space. Great part about the feature is that you can get it with gold.

EverythingXen.1835:

I like it when the Anet engineers really earn that paycheck.

You mean the ones who artificially limited the stack counter to 250 in the first place, so they could then charge extra for the “feature” of removing that artificial limit?

I suspect you should be “praising” the marketing department, not the engineers.

GW2 has officially become crippleware.

Factotum.2093:

GW2 has officially become crippleware.

They’re allowing for stacks that are four times larger than what they’ve been offering for nearly ten years and you’re calling it crippleware? Do you even know what the term means?

If it weren’t for Bloodstone Dust, I wouldn’t give this a second thought…

The only collectibles that ever go above 250 for me would be bloodstone and empyreal. So to me this is pretty much equivalent to saving 2 bank spaces for 800 gems. I’mma have to pass.

Do people really stack that many materials?

People have been asking for this in the suggestion forum for some time now. I think it’s great. I’ll max out as soon as I can.

nowitsawn.1276:

Do people really stack that many materials?

My husband and I tend to. We’ve actually filled our maxed out guild vault with stack of materials and purchased additional personal bank space to hold stacks.

We’ve been saving materials since…well, since we heard about ascended a year back. We do use the materials while we’re upping our character crafting, obviously. We also share with the guildies that craft, or help out guildies that don’t craft by making them armor/weapons when they need an upgrade.

Glad it’s finally there…peeps have been asking for this for a while.

1000 is useful. but when I go over 250, I tend to go over by 2000+, not 750.
I’ll get it, but there will still be plenty of times 1000 won’t be enough.

Wow, you would think people forgot all about crafting material management in other games.

Game shipped with stack limits of 250. Its an upgrade to go from there. the people complaining about this being in the gemstore probably think the extra character slots is a bogus upgrade as well.

Factotum.2093:

EverythingXen.1835:

I like it when the Anet engineers really earn that paycheck.

I suspect you should be “praising” the marketing department, not the engineers.

Nah. Those guys overpriced it.

Zerole.7306:

Wow, you would think people forgot all about crafting material management in other games.

Game shipped with stack limits of 250. Its an upgrade to go from there. the people complaining about this being in the gemstore probably think the extra character slots is a bogus upgrade as well.

Well, you said it. To some people it’s gonna be bogus cashgrabbing (would never pay extra $ for char slots) to others it’s worth it. As long as it’s worth it enough to make money, opinions really don’t matter.

Being a newer player and coming from games where my bank slots were always filled with nothing but materials, I fail to see the issue here. Just the fact that the GW2 banks have designated slots for materials is good enough for me. I’ll gladly give up a bank slot for any materials I have over 250. In fact, now that I think of it, the last game I played had a max stack size of 20. And I paid a monthly subscription for the last game. I’m content with how things are.

it’s cheaper to buy the gems, convert to gold.then create your own storage guild and then convert the gold into influence to create guild banks.

For those very few collectibles that I want more than 250 of I’ll find space in a bank, vault or toon. No need to spend gems for this. Thanks but no thanks.

Shanaeri Rynale.6897:

it’s cheaper to buy the gems, convert to gold.then create your own storage guild and then convert the gold into influence to create guild banks.

Yep, I think most of us are already doing this and will continue to do so as it’s a cheaper option than even store bought space.

TChalla.7146:

the last game I played had a max stack size of 20.

And how many items, in that game, required over 700 units of any reagent to craft?

Factotum.2093:

TChalla.7146:

the last game I played had a max stack size of 20.

And how many items, in that game, required over 700 units of any reagent to craft?

None as far as I know. My point still stands. I have a bank size around the same as what I had in the last game. The resources had to be placed into that very limited space. As far as I can tell, the bank space I have now is much larger than what was in the game for which I paid a monthly sub.

If I decide that the resource area is not sufficient to suit my needs, I might even spend money to beef it up. It will still be cheaper than the monthly sub.

I still fail to see the issue.

Seras.5702:

New character customization? Nah, you can’t have that. Unless you pay the gem store.
Want more material space? Gem store.
Special holiday skin? Yep, gem store.
Snow Globe finisher? You guessed it, gem store.

I’m fine with them charging for any new content (new faces, new finishers, etc.). In fact, I’d rather they just gave us X gems when we buy the game, and we’d then buy the faces / town clothes / finishers / etc., that we wanted (preferably though an in-game method – like going into a barbershop, not just using a piece of UI).

But I’m definitely not fine with them charging money to remove an artificial limit, while simultaneously inflating the crafting system to make that stack limit more annoying for everyone. I won’t be spending another cent on GW2.

Ridiculously overpriced, like most things in the gem store, but something I want to get eventually, and have been waiting to see in the store since release.

It’s a B2P game. People have been asking for upgrades to material stacks and been saying they would pay gems for it. Here it is. It is an extra and if you want it you can use gems to get it. The great news is you can do so without spending a penny of real world money. Gold to gems. Call it cash grab all you want but Anet/NcSoft is a business and a general rule of thumb for any business is to make money.

It is a great QoL upgrade option. Just because you think it is too expensive for your taste doesn’t make it bad. It just means you think it isn’t fair because you want it but don’t want to buy it via real money or gold to gems. Sorry for your luck. I’m going to max my mat slots out.

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

nowitsawn.1276:

Do people really stack that many materials?

My husband and I tend to. We’ve actually filled our maxed out guild vault with stack of materials and purchased additional personal bank space to hold stacks.

We’ve been saving materials since…well, since we heard about ascended a year back. We do use the materials while we’re upping our character crafting, obviously. We also share with the guildies that craft, or help out guildies that don’t craft by making them armor/weapons when they need an upgrade.

Ditto here. Hubby and I do exactly the same thing…

So they stored the stack counter as a single byte (max value 255, cut off at 250 for a more convenient number), then changed that to two bytes (max value 65536) and sell sections of 250 stack size increments for 10 bucks each. Pure genius.

JustTrogdor.7892:

It’s a B2P game. People have been asking for upgrades to material stacks and been saying they would pay gems for it. Here it is. It is an extra and if you want it you can use gems to get it. The great news is you can do so without spending a penny of real world money. Gold to gems. Call it cash grab all you want but Anet/NcSoft is a business and a general rule of thumb for any business is to make money.

I’m really not opposed to giving Anet money. They’ve had a lot from me :P But their marketing team is pretty terrible at pricing gemstore items meaningfully. I’ve always felt like standard prices are a good 25-50% higher than they ought to be in some cases, when you consider them in terms of how much the full game costs, how many times they can be used, mechanical limitations and general gameplay value.

Feel free to disagree, but just because it’s a luxury item doesn’t mean some thought shouldn’t go into the pricing.

It’s a smart decision, most players will be satisfied with one upgrade, so it’s affordable, while those, who need more than 500 stacks, also probably can afford to spend more. Love it or hate it, the pricing is perfect from marketing stand point.

Faowri.4159:

JustTrogdor.7892:

It’s a B2P game. People have been asking for upgrades to material stacks and been saying they would pay gems for it. Here it is. It is an extra and if you want it you can use gems to get it. The great news is you can do so without spending a penny of real world money. Gold to gems. Call it cash grab all you want but Anet/NcSoft is a business and a general rule of thumb for any business is to make money.

I’m really not opposed to giving Anet money. They’ve had a lot from me :P But their marketing team is pretty terrible at pricing gemstore items meaningfully. I’ve always felt like standard prices are a good 25-50% higher than they ought to be in some cases, when you consider them in terms of how much the full game costs, how many times they can be used, mechanical limitations and general gameplay value.

Feel free to disagree, but just because it’s a luxury item doesn’t mean some thought shouldn’t go into the pricing.

If you consider how much the box price is and how many hours you have played how many other forms of commercial entertainment that also adds constant updates can you get for the same price per hour of entertainment?

And gain those upgrades can be bought via in game gold that is earned from, you guessed it, playing the game.

Seveleniumus.5973:

It’s a smart decision, most players will be satisfied with one upgrade, so it’s affordable, while those, who need more than 500 stacks, also probably can afford to spend more. Love it or hate it, the pricing is perfect from marketing stand point.

The pricing is hardly perfect, but it could be worse yes.

I understand the notion of a company needing to make money. But it seems like some of the items that show up in the gemstore are a little too money-hungry. They could very easily make this 1000gems for 1000 stack, but they’re breaking into 3 purchases. They’re selling full armor skins for 800 gems, and then they sell a single helm for 500gems. They realize their mistake with making the 800 gem infinite gathering tools soulbound so they make the change to account bound…but raise the price to 1000 gems. They sell holiday mini 3-packs, but then force you to flush them down the mystic toilet to acquire the 4th mini, thereby necessitating a duplicate purchase to have them all. It’s a little too money hungry feeling for me. Do I still buy gemstore items? Of course. Am I happy about all of it. Of course not.

ZeroCoolAZ.7810:

Gotta buy 3 collection expanders? Ohp, 1+1+1 = 3, Half Life 3 Status: CONFIRMED.

In reality: What is your take on it, what do you think this means?

“The Collection Expander is now available in the Gem Store in the Upgrades category for 800 gems each. Each Collection Expander increases the stack size allowed for all collections by 250 to a maximum of 1000.” Do you have to buy 3 to get 1000 in everything? or is it per collection slot type? etc., Discuss.

One of these years NCSoft/Anet will understand what MICRO in MicroTransaction means….

TChalla.7146:

I still fail to see the issue.

I would think it would be obvious, but I guess not, so I’ll explain.

Since the sale of this “collectibles expander” is relevant for the company’s profits, the company is under pressure to make people buy it (same as any product). That means making it more desirable. Nothing wrong so far, the same applies to armor skins, mini pets, and so on.

The issue is: how do you make this item more desirable? By inflating the materials required for crafting (which has already been happening, and will get worse). What is the result of that? Inconveniencing every player who doesn’t buy the “expander”.

This isn’t new content, you’re not paying for the development of this “feature”. The “expander” simply changes a variable in the game, removing an artificial limit (that most players considered too low even before crafting became so inflated). You’re paying to avoid a deliberate inconvenience, and that inconvenience has increased (and will continue to increase) because that directly increases the publisher’s profits.

Now do you see the issue?

Aeonblade.8709:

Seveleniumus.5973:

It’s a smart decision, most players will be satisfied with one upgrade, so it’s affordable, while those, who need more than 500 stacks, also probably can afford to spend more. Love it or hate it, the pricing is perfect from marketing stand point.

The pricing is hardly perfect, but it could be worse yes.

I feel it’s perfect from “maximizing the profit” view. Don’t you? IMO the only way it could be better is if they added 50 slot upgrades for 200 gems, for those who can’t afford to spend 800 for one item.

nowitsawn.1276:

The only collectibles that ever go above 250 for me would be bloodstone and empyreal. So to me this is pretty much equivalent to saving 2 bank spaces for 800 gems. I’mma have to pass.

Do people really stack that many materials?

Yes.

This is exactly what I suggested some time ago when the second Super Adventure Box patch was active, where we have seen that anet raised again the maximum counting for spheres from 500 to 750.

That was the moment where it became clear to me, after speding some thoughts about it, that Anet clearly has no problems with raising those 3 simple digits and that they naturally have done it already before with the raise from 250 to 500.

So the question was clear to me,…

When they have done this already for the SAB, what the hell stops Anet then to do this also for the inventory too?

And now its there I’m happy to see my suggestion now live in the game and I totally expected it also to be something for the shop.
Now we can get easily 4 times more of inventory spare and some stacks of items will be lesser blocking off in our inventories more space, than needed.

Imaginos.3756:

One of these years NCSoft/Anet will understand what MICRO in MicroTransaction means…

I doubt it. I get the feeling they weren’t even very sure how the game’s payment model was going to work during development (hence the lack of gem items from in-game vendors).

If they had made haircuts cost 10 gems or so, and made them available directly in-game (ex., from barbers in cities), many players would get them on a daily basis. As it is, a lot of players will never buy a “hair styling kit”, because they think it’s overpriced (and they’re right).

The trick with micro-transactions is making them small enough that people don’t even notice how much they’re spending. In the long run, that’s more profitable.

Anyway, the issue here isn’t the price; the issue is that this kind of thing should not be paid, period. Connecting the publisher’s profits to the desirability of this item means that the company is now encouraged to inflate crafting amounts even more, to increase their sales of “expanders”. When marketing starts to call the shots, design goes down the drain.

Well, we wanted an expand – we got it. Why complain about the price? I’m just glad they finally made that

Mephane.8496:

So they stored the stack counter as a single byte (max value 255, cut off at 250 for a more convenient number), then changed that to two bytes (max value 65536) and sell sections of 250 stack size increments for 10 bucks each. Pure genius.

What makes you think they stored it as a single byte? There’s hardly any advantage, these days, in using integers smaller than 4 bytes. Stacks could have allowed up to 4 billion units without any added costs for Arena Net. The original limit was deliberate, and they spent the last few months inflating crafting (with recipes requiring more than 250 units) to make people pay for this “feature” which is really just a way to negate a deliberate inconvenience.

It’s hardly “genius”, it’s an old (and kind of dirty, one might say) marketing trick.