Guild Wars 2

As the title states. Do you feel pressured to support GW2 via the cash shop? Why or Why Not?

My opinion: In GW1 I was happy to buy extra stuff (costumes/storage/char slots/bonus mission pack) to support ANET, I enjoyed the game alot and was happy to spend my Real Money on stuff to support ANET. There was no pressure to do it.

But, in GW2, there is a feeling of being pressured to support the game by the game design itself. We have to spend gold constantly on everything, yes everything( the only exception is hub travel). For example, do you spend 1 gold on a trait book or a guild emblem. Most people will choose the traits. Everyone would like to display their guild emblem but they cannot afford it, hence you feel the pressure to buy gems and trade for gold to buy the emblem.

I am not going to support GW2 via the cash shop in its current state. I am going to grind the game to purchase slots/costumes/storage instead of spending real money on it. It is nice ANET put that time vs money option in for us. I am going to use it. If the game folds down the road so be it. I do not like being pushed to spend my money by the game design.

I don’t feel any such pressure “from the game design”.

FWIW, I have yet to feel any pressure whatsoever to spend money on the cash shop. I can manage gold just fine, although it does get admittedly tight at times.

Boosts and such? Why pay real money for them when killing a rabbit seems to get me thirty keys and a bazillion chests.

The only thing I’ve seen that might be neat is some of the town clothes stuff, but none of it is really gripping me enough to pay real money for it. Maybe they’ll come out with some more that I might like better?

Not even once….and how can you feel pressured to use a system that they put a work around in for it? You dont want to spent money, great! use gold to buy gems….

nope i am not forced to spend either. The game doesnt’ force you to buy gems, but IF you want the “fast” route (gold buying with IRL Money) then you have the OPTION to buy them from Anet and both support them & be safe that you wont’ be scammed by an unknown site.

Or Else you can go “farm” :p

Not at all, no. I have what I consider to be an acceptable amount of gold, and that’s after spending about 30g on exotics. I don’t farm or grind, I just do what I feel like doing at the time. (Map completions, some Orr events, WvW, dungeons, some jumping puzzles etc – in no particular order.)

Pressured? Nah. Although there was this one time I was looking in the store and suddenly this big Cheshire Cat grin appeared, only it was Colin instead whispering something about gems… I swore off mango and mushroom salsa after that.

Seriously, though, not at all. There’s nothing in the shop that “requires” me to have it and have it now, and I’m making gold in game that exceeds the pace I’m spending it. Sometimes I run a little low, but then I relax, stop buying materials off the TP and go farm my own, or run some events, push my story, etc. I swear I haven’t seen a less intrusive cash shop in a game yet.

The only pressure I feel is that which I exert on myself through my play style:

• I’m a pack rat so I accumulate stuff that others would have long ago vendored = more bank space and more bag space.
• I’m an altoholic = more character slots and, by extension, more bank and bag space.
• I’m a fashionista and can’t stand watching my characters in starter rags = armor sets and dye packs.
• Even when not playing a Ranger, I must have a companion dutifully following me around = pet packs.

Fortunately, I can pay for most of this using gold. Unfortunately, it’s using up most of my gold. But the pressure to buy this stuff is coming from me. Nothing there is really needed, I just want it because my priorities are skewed when compared to the majority.

I’m not sure what you mean. Could you elaborate?

You’re not ‘supporting’ ArenaNet if you don’t give them real money, and there is nothing in the system you can buy with only real money. Are you referring to feeling pressured to use the gem store in general?

If it’s the latter, I can’t say I feel pressured, exactly, but there is definitely a difference to GW1, where the store feels like an extra bonus, not an integral part of the game, which made me feel more relaxed about my decision whether to buy something or not.
(Then again, if it were possible at all to buy things from the GW1 store with platinum instead of real money? I doubt I’d ever have dropped real money on it in the first place. I feel that after buying all their expansions and advertising the company and the game left and right to anyone who would listen (and some who never wanted to listen), I’ve done my fair share of support.)

Pressure? Nope..

Games a month old, actually making gold is so much easier now that I don’t know if dropping real money on the shop is ever going to be needed.. depends what they add on there

I haven’t felt any pressure from the game. I’ve felt pressure from my uncurable case of alt-aholism and my OCD need to have organized separate bank spaces for each of my characters.

lol at this topic

no pressure at all is one of the most amazing games i ever played

I do not feel pressured, I also bought 800 gems so far.

At the same time, I feel there is unnecessary stuff in there. I liked when GW1 had a game mechanic similar to a collectible card game. I do not like the cash-shop exhibiting tendencies of monetization strategies of collectible card games.

I spent $60 on the game. Any other game to charge that much money was Mushihimesama Futari for the Xbox360 and that’s supposed to be an exotic game.

Uh, most games are 60 dollars nowadays.

The only time I feel pressured is when I look at the now 40 (!!!???) black lion chests sitting in my bank…which I would have to spend an inordinate amount of money to open. I’d buy keys and open some of them them except I’m afraid I’d be left with a bunch of useless garbage. I’ve gotten two keys from the personal story quests, and one came out of one of the chests.

I’d buy the keys except almost $2 to open a stupid chest in-game is a mind-blowingly out of balance cost.

Other than that, I don’t feel the need to have anything that’s in the store. $2 for a one hour stat boost is just….stoooopid.

No I don’t feel any pressure at all. I think I browsed the price of the merchandise in the store once and I laughed. No thanks.

No, I don’t feel any pressure at all. I’ve bought the game already, there is no obligation on me whatsoever to support Anet by buying things in the cash shop.

I think the pressure is in the reverse direction – I’ve already shelled out for extra bank and character slots. I refuse to pay for black lion chest keys, however, despite the number of locked chests that are piling up in my inventory.

I don’t feel pressured at all. Honestly, since I am enjoying the game, I actually want to spend money (about a monthly subscriptions worth) so I hope they find neat things to put on the cash shop so I can help em out. Dances would be epic. Things like cow finisher moves, also epic. New clothes and pets. Fun stuff, I don’t support p2w upgrades.

NCSofts greedy mits are all over this game. Lock boxes and the overinflated travel prices and repair costs for starters.

Likewise I haven’t felt pressured to use the gem store at all. I still see everything offered in the gem store as bonus items. I haven’t felt a need to acquire anything offered in it. And when I do get something I know that I can use in-game gold, so it’s all good by me. I feel no obligation whatsoever to spend real money.

I do think the Black Lion Chests could use work, like others I have about 40 sitting in my inventory. I can’t say I feel pressured to buy keys, quite the opposite. I think it’s an issue that I don’t even feel tempted to get keys. And even if I did I can use in-game gold, I still don’t feel pressured to spend real money.

The only item I really like to get from them are fine transmutation stones, though, so I dread opening all 40 of them. Tonics in GW2 don’t have the same “pull” that tonics in GW1 did, to me. While the boosters and repair kits are nice, I’m absolutely fine without them. I would like to see keys drop/be rewarded a little more, and I’d like to see fewer chest drops.

I don’t grok the question: if I like the game, then I’ll feel like supporting the devs via the cash shop (and I have done, to the tune of an extra slot because I wanted to try out an Ele).

But I don’t feel “pressured” to use the cash shop – i.e. I don’t feel like I have to use the cash shop to be viable in the game at all.

I believe OP is referring to the scarcity of gold not to the shop items themselves.

The economy is so tightly controlled because of the gold/gem exchange that its somewhat stressful to play the game. The problem being that if too much gold flows into the economy then Anet can’t make money from the cash shop (everyone would just convert gold for gems).

I don’t mind paying RM for some of the items (in fact I have 3 extras toons and 5 bank slots))but I will not exchange gems for gold because the reason to do it is artificial (all the gold sinks, and difficulty in getting gold, unless you play as a trader in the TP, which is not the reason I play GW for).

Gold sinks are a necessary evil, this is true, but If I start to feel that in order to play the game I need to get gold first then its not a game anymore… its a job. As long as the gold sinks don’t interfere with the ability to play the game then I don’t mind. Running around naked because I can’t afford repairs is one way of not letting me play if I’m broke,.

I know this is the most unpopular, most hated opinion of all but I feel that gold wouldn’t be so hard to come by if there was no gem/gold exchange.

And yes, I know “its to prevent the gold sellers”… except the biggest gold seller of them all is currently Anet, and they also control the gold influx so it’s kind of unfair…

I don’t feel pressured to buy gems at all, but I do buy them sometimes. About the only things I buy gems for would be the Box o’ Fun (drop one in Lion’s Arch, people flock to it, fun is had), Mystic Forge Stones, maybe a few Black Lion Keys, and dyes. They’re nothing I can’t get in other ways, but hey, I’m absolutely loving the game and I’m happy to help support ArenaNet through the item mall. Gold is not an issue.

No, not in the slightest,

Why should I support, and pay the wages of a Dev team that can’t even be bothered to de-bug their Game before release ?

Why should I support and pay the wages of a Dev team that didn’t listen to the Beta testers, and then released a Game that is riddled with problems ?

I’m getting a little tired of this ‘lets feel sorry for the dev team nonsense’

I paid hard cash for SWTOR and watched it fail, because the Dev team were more concerned with what EA wanted, rather than what the customers wanted.

I paid hard cash for Diablo 3 and watched it fail, because the Dev team were more concerned with what Activision wanted, rather than what the customers wanted.

I paid hard cash for GW2……………

lol, you know the rest

I don’t feel pressure.

1g isn’t that much. If you’re that strapped for coin and coin means that much to you, play more…get more loot, sell more garbage, done. Coin isn’t really an issue if you actually play, and luxury items aren’t NEEDED – if they’re wanted, take steps to acquire them, don’t cry about them.

Not really. Most of my friends and guildmates have stated at various times that we intend to spend real money in the cash shop on a regular basis in order to support the game, but that is out of love and appreciation for what Anet has done. Other games would force me to pay $15 for the right to play a product I already bought.

GW 2 allows me to choose when to and when not to support the game. If I stop enjoying the content, get bored or frustrated, I’ll just take a break from the whole thing and not worry about a monthly subscription or 1 year long value-pack going to waste. When I come back I will do so with confidence knowing there won’t be a 6 month long gear progression waiting for me before I can get back into competitive form.

Plus, I get to spend that $15 on anything I like for my character, from gold to aesthetics to farming buffs to little pets. I think it’s a beautiful system. My only issue with it so far, in fact, is that the buying power of in game currency is too strong to really motivate me to purchase gems. I assume that’s because ALOT of people are buying Gold with Gems. But if I wanted an item now, crap, it’s like 25s for 100 gems. What’s the dollar conversion again? I was looking at the primeval armor set and it was going to be like $7-8 I think at the time. . then I realized I could just spend 1g on it instead. Kind of a no brainer.

However, I suspect in the future gems will become more valuable and the buying power of gold will become inverted, at which point I will almost certainly start using a little real money here and there through the shop.

Not feeling pressured at all. Quite the opposite in fact. Anet gave us the option to buy cash shop items through ingame gold because they knew not everyone would want to pay extra but they didn’t want to lock us out of any features because of it.

I’d say that’s a pretty fair deal.

Cancer.9065:

I believe OP is referring to the scarcity of gold not to the shop items themselves.

Understood. But I still see the gem store items as bonus items more than anything else. I don’t see anything in there that is essential for playing. They might be tempting, but not so necessary that there is pressure on me to get them with real money if I can’t generate enough in-game gold.

Gold is scarce, that is definitely true. I might be the minority here but personally I prefer it that way.

(I do wish the armor would just look broken instead of disappearing.. so embarrassing. Luckily that’s only happened once :P)

Nothing worth buying in the gem store atm. Maybe if they add more costumes and actually costumes that looks good, I might buy some gems. But atm, nope. I can buy my bank and inventory slots with gold.

Not in the slightest, actually almost the opposite.
I find the game is so good I want to spend money on it, but having unlocked bank and inventory space, and bought keys by converting gold to gems, I feel a bit of a cheap skate for not having spent cash yet

Cancer.9065:

I know this is the most unpopular, most hated opinion of all but I feel that gold wouldn’t be so hard to come by if there was no gem/gold exchange.

And yes, I know “its to prevent the gold sellers”… except the biggest gold seller of them all is currently Anet, and they also control the gold influx so it’s kind of unfair…

I think this is a valid discussion and if it worked for GW1 I’m inclined to think it should work for GW2, except they’ve chosen a different course. Some call it greedy, others see it as a business strategy or simply a different mindset. I have to say I really do like having the exchange, but I see your point.

(sorry for the second post :/ I don’t know if it’s just me but the edit buttons keep disappearing.)

not at all, I used diamonds on the only thing that seemed important to me: bank slots. And the needed amount was easily obtained by playing, midlevel during the first week if I recall correctly.

Certain areas of the game are definitely designed to encourage cash shop usage (like how a year or so ago they were proud with not punishing people for dying, yet now we have the stupid repair mechanic, dyes were account bound etc.). I bought costumes and the bonus mission pack in Guild Wars 1. However, I am resolute about not spending a single dime on gems just because of the fact that the game was designed to force you into it. Any purchases I make in the cash shop will be with gems traded for gold. And I would never buy gems to trade for gold, ever. Besides, even with their stupid gold sinks and anti-farm code, I’ve still managed to raise some 30gold.

No pressure what so ever. Any gems I’ve bought have been with in game currency. Only pressure is from myself to buy with real world money as I’m digging this game.

I’m happy with the setup – I haven’t as yet encountered anything that feels like pay-to-win.

The only thing I plan to buy is character slots: when my main hits 80 I’ll make my sixth (Sylvari thief!), and I’ll spend my in-game gold if I have enough, and my real-world cash if I don’t.