Guild Wars 2

Simple question.

Do you spend more in gemstore than you would have done on a monthly subscription? Less? The same?

I’ve spent more. Most of it on things I should have. Most. Twenty years ago I wouldn’t have had the means. Go go aging process!

I spent considerably more on gems than I would have on sub fees over the first few months, establishing extra bank slots and character slots, but then my buying slowed considerably, so over the first year I spent well less than on a sub-based game. I am likely to buy a bunch of random stuff by the end of the year though, just because I think they’ve earned it.

No.

No. I have self control.

I give myself 15 bucks a month to spend on gems. Pretty much the same as a subscription.

I’ve spent about 1/2 what a sub would have cost. Not that I needed the gems – I’ve always been able to convert ingame gold to gems for anything I wanted from the gem store, but because I want to show my support to the devs for making such a great game and updating it so often.

I’ve considered actually essentially purchasing gems like a sub anyway if i can because its a good way to donate and fund the development of the game that and i might have an over-abundance of gems to use for gold/new items… Is there a Gem Cap currently?

nope. not at all. gems aren’t a required purchase to play the game either.
guild wars 1, WoW 0.(doesn’t wow have a cash shop too?)

I’m sure… lots more, though I’ve never played any game where there was a sub fee. As I’ve stated many times in different threads, I have a good job that pays well and this is my only game/entertainment. I can afford it and I enjoy the game.

I probably pay, on average, twice a typical subscription fee. Like others here I find cash shops wonderfully freeing since I don’t pay for gems until there is something I want to purchase.

Also, I find the ability to convert gems to gold an incredibly satisfying way to get my cultural armors.

Oh sub meaning subscription for a second i thought you ment nuclear an i was like of course .

Jski.6180:

No. I have self control.

That’s funny because self control is one reason I can afford to toss money into a goofy game a few times a month.

I’ve spent a lot less. As a very rough estimate about 1/2 what a subscription would have cost me.

I’m quite fortunate in that I can afford to buy gems pretty much whenever I want. (Especially given the timing – pre-purchase was announced the same week I got a big refund on my taxes and got accepted for a full-time summer job. Then the game was released the same week as I got told I’d be staying on in that job permanently.) But, probably because I was broke for a long time relatively recently, I’m wary of any non-essential purchases so I don’t buy gems unless there’s a specific item in the store that interests me and I’m sure I actually want it.

Which in practical terms means I buy mini packs and occasionally other things that interest me – I got a 6th character slot when they were on sale, the infinite gathering tools the second time around, and I’m waiting for bank tabs to go on sale so I can get a second one of those.

$10 per month, no more… most months zero.

I recall reading somewhere that something like 75% of the player base in a F2P MMO will never spend a dime on the game, no matter how hard you try.

20 % will occasionally invest in some very targeted purchases but 5%…..the ones with a complete lack of self-control, the “Whales” as they are referred to, contribute something like 60% of the revenue.

So the Lion Share of content that is created is aimed at these “Whales” because they spend by far the most money.

Yeah, at the most I average out to $5-10 a month.

No, I would never play a game that required a sub. I happen to like the gem store, it’s there IF I choose to purchase anything. Also with the Gold to Gem and Gem to Gold exchange you don’t HAVE to spend any real cash if you farm gold. I like the options that Anet offers with their cash shop.

No, but even if I did it wouldn’t matter. In gw2, you pay and get stuff in return. In sub based games you pay just to be able to keep playing. Big difference.

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

No, but even if I did it wouldn’t matter. In gw2, you pay and get stuff in return. In sub based games you pay just to be able to keep playing. Big difference.

You get what you pay for in GW2. In sub based games, you pay and you get much better, bigger updates than you would get in GW2. Not to mention in sub-based mmo’s, you also get new armor released practically every week. I don’t pay for armor skins in Guild Wars 2, I don’t get armor skins. I pay for everything in sub-based games, and new things aren’t withheld from me like in GW2.

Galtrix.7369:

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

No, but even if I did it wouldn’t matter. In gw2, you pay and get stuff in return. In sub based games you pay just to be able to keep playing. Big difference.

You get what you pay for in GW2. In sub based games, you pay and you get much better, bigger updates than you would get in GW2. Not to mention in sub-based mmo’s, you also get new armor released practically every week. I don’t pay for armor skins in Guild Wars 2, I don’t get armor skins. I pay for everything in sub-based games, and new things aren’t withheld from me like in GW2.

Out of interest which MMOs do this? I’ve heard a few people on this forum say that sub-based MMOs regularly release new armor sets for free (although I assume you have to buy/earn them in-game), at least one person said it’s normal to get 1 set every week or two, with unique artwork for each race/gender combination. But I’ve never been able to find out which games they’re talking about.

Possibly because the only one I can find reliable info on is WoW, which apparently last had new content of any kind (not counting bug fixes) added back in September and before that it was May.

(On an unrelated note personally I’d rather pay and get what I paid for than pay in advance and get what I’m given whether I want it or not. Especially when I have the option to not pay, get nothing new and keep playing what I’ve already got. Whereas with a sub game if you don’t pay you can’t even play the content you’ve already purchased.)

Dee Jay, it’s not lack of self control in some cases. It’s disposable income. I don’t change size enough to need new courtroom attire all that often, I don’t have kids, I’m not into buying all the latest fashions and goods or traveling the world, and most of my movies are NetFlix rather than in the theater. My money can sit in my bank, or I can buy fun things with it, and the fun things I choose right now happen to be in GW2.

I still have enough to help friends with rent and car repairs when they are desperate, and to eat well, so why not splurge small amounts (small for me) on my entertainment? I don’t buy every single thing the gem store has, but when something catches my eye, I am at a happy stage of life where I can afford it.

I remember the lean years, two years volunteering before I got a dime of salary in my current career, and I refuse to be a miser now.

Galtrix.7369:

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

No, but even if I did it wouldn’t matter. In gw2, you pay and get stuff in return. In sub based games you pay just to be able to keep playing. Big difference.

You get what you pay for in GW2. In sub based games, you pay and you get much better, bigger updates than you would get in GW2. Not to mention in sub-based mmo’s, you also get new armor released practically every week. I don’t pay for armor skins in Guild Wars 2, I don’t get armor skins. I pay for everything in sub-based games, and new things aren’t withheld from me like in GW2.

I haven’t seen anything like that but then the only sub fee game I ever played was WoW. They released an armor set with every raid tier, typically 2x a year. Then you had to raid it forever to get a set which was locked behind these really terrible drop rates that you had to roll against your mates for. 6 month sub – $90 for 1 armor set (no ingame gold option). Here in GW2 – $10 (or 64g ingame gold)

No, nowhere near.
However, I don’t think the amounts is even the point of comparison. A subscription based games creates a feeling of obligation. That I’m paying for something monthly, so I should use it to make sure I get my monies worth.
Even if I spent more than a subscription on a free-to-play game, there’s no sense of obligation. I’m free to buy whatever luxuries when or if I want, or the opposite is true if I don’t want to spend a dime on it, and regardless of which I do, the game is always there for me to play with no regard to what I have and havent spent. Whereas a subscription you are being forced to pay each and every month just to have access to play.

Yes, I’ve definitely spent more in gems.

Danikat.8537:

Galtrix.7369:

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

No, but even if I did it wouldn’t matter. In gw2, you pay and get stuff in return. In sub based games you pay just to be able to keep playing. Big difference.

You get what you pay for in GW2. In sub based games, you pay and you get much better, bigger updates than you would get in GW2. Not to mention in sub-based mmo’s, you also get new armor released practically every week. I don’t pay for armor skins in Guild Wars 2, I don’t get armor skins. I pay for everything in sub-based games, and new things aren’t withheld from me like in GW2.

Out of interest which MMOs do this? I’ve heard a few people on this forum say that sub-based MMOs regularly release new armor sets for free (although I assume you have to buy/earn them in-game), at least one person said it’s normal to get 1 set every week or two, with unique artwork for each race/gender combination. But I’ve never been able to find out which games they’re talking about.

Possibly because the only one I can find reliable info on is WoW, which apparently last had new content of any kind (not counting bug fixes) added back in September and before that it was May.

(On an unrelated note personally I’d rather pay and get what I paid for than pay in advance and get what I’m given whether I want it or not. Especially when I have the option to not pay, get nothing new and keep playing what I’ve already got. Whereas with a sub game if you don’t pay you can’t even play the content you’ve already purchased.)

Believe it or not, WoW actually did release new armor sets every week for quite awhile, though I don’t remember the exact date that they started and the date they finished adding armor.

Rift also did it pretty frequently, but they’ve stopped creation of new armor at the moment, and are instead favoring new weapons/dungeons/mounts and such. Runescape did it, Runes of Magic is currently doing it (if what my friend said is true), SWTOR tried to do it, but gave it up when they went free-to-play, Talisman Online is currently doing it, and Perfect World did it for a very short amount of time.

My opinion is that I pay 15 dollars per month and get 4x the amount of content that I get from playing a free-to-play or buy-to-play mmo. I get armor, new weapons, new mounts, and to top it off, content on top of that. I feel like 10 dollars per costume in the gem store is a little high considering 15 dollars a month in a sub-based mmo will get me like 3 new armor sets, weapons, AND content. If the costumes in the gem store were, say, 3 dollars, then my opinion would be different.

No, I never bought gems with real money, the only item I would like to buy is Dreamthistle Staff skin but it’s acquirable only by tickets and I don’t gamble with real money

Galtrix.7369:

Believe it or not, WoW actually did release new armor sets every week for quite awhile, though I don’t remember the exact date that they started and the date they finished adding armor.

I played it for almost 4 years and never saw anything even approaching that. The most I ever saw was 2x a year. And you couldn’t even dye it.

Plus they have a cash shop also, they sell mounts and pets and recently started selling armor skins. On top of the sub fee and you cannot use ingame gold for it either.

Karizee.8076:

Galtrix.7369:

Believe it or not, WoW actually did release new armor sets every week for quite awhile, though I don’t remember the exact date that they started and the date they finished adding armor.

I played it for almost 4 years and never saw anything even approaching that. The most I ever saw was 2x a year. And you couldn’t even dye it.

I’m speaking about the very beginning of WoW. They released new armor every week for a couple of months and then suddenly stopped. It was like a 3 or 4 months after the initial release that this occurred. Yeah, Blizzard really dropped the ball on the new armor sets. I was disappointed because I expected so much after what they tried to accomplish.

Galtrix.7369:

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

No, but even if I did it wouldn’t matter. In gw2, you pay and get stuff in return. In sub based games you pay just to be able to keep playing. Big difference.

You get what you pay for in GW2. In sub based games, you pay and you get much better, bigger updates than you would get in GW2. Not to mention in sub-based mmo’s, you also get new armor released practically every week. I don’t pay for armor skins in Guild Wars 2, I don’t get armor skins. I pay for everything in sub-based games, and new things aren’t withheld from me like in GW2.

Guild Wars 1 disagrees with you. Anet could easily give use large and epic expansions (like with gw1) but instead they decided to go with Living Story. This is a (bad) design decision, not a shortcoming of B2P games.

I pay more than I would for a sub game…but since I’ve never enjoyed a sub game for any length of time, that money ended up being a waste.

Where as here, I spend money to support a game I enjoy. And it’s not like some games where they have both a sub AND charge you for really cool cosmetic stuff as well. Anyone want a sparkle pony?

Vayne.8563:

I pay more than I would for a sub game…but since I’ve never enjoyed a sub game for any length of time, that money ended up being a waste.

Where as here, I spend money to support a game I enjoy. And it’s not like some games where they have both a sub AND charge you for really cool cosmetic stuff as well. Anyone want a sparkle pony?

I thought you vowed to stop spending money after that server transfer button incident.

I haven’t spent a dollar on the game besides the box fee. I’m just not really interested in going the cash route for things; once I do that, I’ll do a lot of it, which I would really like to avoid.

I did. Then ascended killed off most of my alts and the ones I do maintain already have gem store or cultural skins on and I’m not throwing out that work to buy new skins. So the last three months I think I’ve spent $10

Initially yes.

Now, no.

Galtrix.7369:

Karizee.8076:

Galtrix.7369:

Believe it or not, WoW actually did release new armor sets every week for quite awhile, though I don’t remember the exact date that they started and the date they finished adding armor.

I played it for almost 4 years and never saw anything even approaching that. The most I ever saw was 2x a year. And you couldn’t even dye it.

I’m speaking about the very beginning of WoW. They released new armor every week for a couple of months and then suddenly stopped. It was like a 3 or 4 months after the initial release that this occurred. Yeah, Blizzard really dropped the ball on the new armor sets. I was disappointed because I expected so much after what they tried to accomplish.

So obviously it didn’t work out as plannend or was only intended for a couple of months. That’s actually a good arguement against subscription fees ….

OT:
In the first MMO I played for about five years. I probably spent 1.500-2.000,-€ on this sub-free game. (It was one of those games where you couldn’t really get around not buying CS items). Quite a waste of money in the end ^^

After that I played AION. I got bored after a while and stopped … but still had to pay 6 months more.

I decided not to p2p and not to play a f2p game with a CS you can hardly avoid.

Meanwhile i’ve gladly spent ~60€ on GW2 for character slots and gathering tools. That’s around 4,50€ a month. I’ve had 800 gems for months now (experience reward) and nothing has really interested me. So I can’t imagine me spending more money in the future (unless a new race or class is introduced).

I have not spent any money on GW2 after purchasing it and initially getting a few extra character and bank slots.

With the current sale then on sunday I was very close to actually pulling my credit card out, considering I have played this game for over a year now it seemed more than ok to give some cash in return.

Until I played pvp that is. Out of 3 played games, two were plagued (again) with afkers on my side, bumping me down from a nice above 460ish rank into 75%. I don’t care for the ranks as such. I do care that after being in a bracket with players who actually put effort into having their team win, and thus making matches fun I am now back in scrubland with people leaving at the first sign of their side falling back in points, instead of trying to pull things around.

So I went and converted in-game gold to get a few more bank slots. Sorry, but no money from me until severe and very longstanding issues like that get fixed.

Did it once.
Now, i may or may not spend max 10€, and only when there’s some useful item in the BLTC

I spend way more on gems than i would have on a sub. In the last year i have spent about 250 dollars

Initially a lot more, now only about 10€ every 2 months.

At minimum I spend $20/mo on gem store. So, yes, I do spend more per month than a sub. I enjoy this game more than current subbed games, though. When/if a new subbed MMO comes out that is actually worth playing, I would consider that. ESO isn’t cutting the mustard for me, we’ll see about EQN, but I have a feeling it is going to get pretty old pretty fast unless they have some paradigm shifting features.

Alas, yes. I have spent a lot more on gems than I would have if the game had a subscription.

I spend only game gold on gems, and I would not even consider playing a game with a subscription.

shadowsoul.2134:

No, I never bought gems with real money, the only item I would like to buy is Dreamthistle Staff skin but it’s acquirable only by tickets and I don’t gamble with real money

I don’t know about the Dreamthistle set specifically but I know a lot of other sets available with Black Lion Tickets are also sold on the TP. You have to search for consumables rather than weapons (because they’re skins) and they’re not cheap but it is another option. (And to be honest probably not far off what you’d spend if you converted gold to gems to gamble with.)

Donari.5237:

Dee Jay, it’s not lack of self control in some cases. It’s disposable income. I don’t change size enough to need new courtroom attire all that often, I don’t have kids, I’m not into buying all the latest fashions and goods or traveling the world, and most of my movies are NetFlix rather than in the theater. My money can sit in my bank, or I can buy fun things with it, and the fun things I choose right now happen to be in GW2.

I still have enough to help friends with rent and car repairs when they are desperate, and to eat well, so why not splurge small amounts (small for me) on my entertainment? I don’t buy every single thing the gem store has, but when something catches my eye, I am at a happy stage of life where I can afford it.

I remember the lean years, two years volunteering before I got a dime of salary in my current career, and I refuse to be a miser now.

Exactly!

I’ve no idea what the average sub price is (10-15 euro?). If that’s the case, I’ve spent more and I’ve spent less. It all depends what’s on the store.

No, because I am an oldschool GW-player.
I played GW1 because it cost nothing, I play this game because it cost nothing.
I did not, do not, and for some time will not have any money spend on gems, nor does anyone in my country have the credit card required to get them.

So I have to grind my 30 hours to acquire the gems I need for character slots.

Nope, I bought that flamed-kissed armor with real money-look how that turned out :/
I also bought some storage slots last year on black Friday because I was short on gold.

I my opinion Anets focus on micro transactions only make the game worse so buying gems helps to make the game worse so no I will never ever spend a cent on gems. I had hoped Anet would focus on expansions to generate income (like they did with GW1) that would have made the game so much better.

However exactly this thread does already exist. So please merge it instead of having exactly the same thread multiple times.

Here it is: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Paid-more-for-gems-than-a-sub-fee-this-year/page/4#post2971603

Initially I went on a spending spree. Extra character slot, extra bank tab, an armor skin, a three-pack of minis, a self-style hair kit, a name change contract, and a modest in-game cash infusion. Maybe something else I can’t remember. Then when I heard about Ascended I decided to protest in the best way I know how. ArenaNet hasn’t seen a coin of real cash ever since. Now I am frugal and convert in-game money to gems. Last purchase was a 25-pack of Transmutation Crystals.