Guild Wars 2

Heya good people,

So earlier today on my break from work i was searching throughout various corners of the internet jus lookin around and on a tangent came up to a list of 10 top healthy mmos, which is great and all but it rlly sparked me to want to hear about your opinions on the whole model of Free to Play, versus Pay to Win versus a good balance because alot of the comments on that article had alot alot alooot of a sentiment of people feeling like their Entitled to play for free and have all the aspects of the game available to them forever. Heres my 2c on the subject:

First and most importantly of all i seriously think people need to calm down on beating down the existence of Cash Shops within MMOs, just because a cash shop exists within a gane doesnt mean it wants your money, its there for ur choosing you can ignore it, or you can buy cool impulse items and whatnot, regardless of your choice the option should always exist IMO so people can help support the developers with small impulse purchases if they like. granted plenty exist that extort the players, but its still your choice, there could always whenever exist the mandate of a monthly sub fee regardless of public opinion. then its not your choice, and with that would be my second point on the subject;

Your NOT Entitled to be able to play any game for free! if they have a F2P model thats awesome heck yea everybody loves that, i love that you love it and even the devs would love it if it was that easy. but game developers need money to be healthy, the servers need money and the employees need money and various other conditions exist that needs money and the economy sucks and money is difficult to acquire and have enough to make ends meet. Altho business models like MMOs arr based around small $ amounts for each player but spread across massive numbers of players.

Where it gets argumentative is definitely in what is being payed for, if cash gets you any advantage at all then IMO its out of balance leaning in favor of P2W of course, but F2P players that are specifically fighting for their “Right” to not pay a dime are doing nothing to help maintain the health of the game. to me F2P is like a demo, you shouldnt just get the full game forever for nothing when the devs have to pay for the cost of maintaining a server your using, albeit a proportionally intensely tiny cost per person and really they will pay that cost regardless. And by F2P i mean not paying anything at all throughout your entire time in game, even just 10 bucks over the course of say a year is pretty solid. If everyone ends up fighting for their “Right” to play entirely for free for months even years on end then it will jus collapse inevitably.

Lemme kno wut you guys think about the subject!

And by all means i love the F2P option for gw2 but after awhile there comes a point where its more of a mooching sorta thing, like playing free for a whole year pretty much everyday; 5 maybe even 10 bucks is nothing compared to the amount of entertainment it brought ya

Playing a video game for eight hours every day is pretty sad, but with that kind of time investment you really should buy the whole game as well as gems every so often since your free time is taken up by it. If we consider eight hours of sleep, eight for work (school for the children) and eight for leisure (commute times and meals don’t even count here let’s keep it simple) then that’s a limited time for playing.

Agreed that playing for free isn’t an entitlement. Stuff cost money, optional stuff too yet people still complain. Heck, you even had people complain that what they wanted wasn’t on sale! It’s like dude come on they don’t owe us a freaking sale!

Agemnon.4608:

Playing a video game for eight hours every day is pretty sad

I play video games 10 hours a day and have no responsibilities or much face-to-face interaction at all. Come, let me feel your full judicious prowess, for your superior lifestyle choices no doubt triumphs anyone else’s.

Whether someone spends their entire day on a game or have time for only two hours, those two hours, for them, is just as valuable as another person’s 8 hours. I think this business model works perfectly for all preferences and varieties of people.

I hate the f2p model. I prefer a subscription. The sub model makes the population smaller but the majority of what you lose is children, gold sellers, and those moochers mentioned above. I prefer having everything in game and not exclusive to a store. The problem with subscription games is that most games on the market just aren’t worth a sub. Guild Wars 2 is a hidden subscription game. If you pay $20 bucks/month on gems for gold and gemstore items it makes all the grinds in the game much more tolerable and makes the entire game more enjoyable. I would prefer a sub and have all the gemstore stuff added to the game in one way or another but this way is cheap and easy for them. Since they don’t have to create any thing in game like a special vendor or new dungeon or whatever other ways you can think of to get a reward in game. It is rather nice that they are finally admitting that GW2 is a f2p game and removing the cost of the base game. Saying it was a buy to play game and then putting everything into a f2p cash store makes people annoyed. They don’t want hybrid payment systems. They want to know what you get for how much money. In guild wars 1 you bought the game and played it with everything unlocked for that region. If you wanted more you bought one of the other standalone/expansions. When you bought one of those you knew you had bought full access to everything in the box. You didn’t have to drop extra cash for the some skin in the gemstore. That’s been one of the biggest issues with GW2 it was a B2P game that didn’t give you everything in the game. At least not everything unless you have the weird view that buying gems with gold is getting stuff in game. So removing the B2P portion is a big step in the right as it removes the feeling that someone deserves everything in game like they had with GW1.

The mind of a free to play player is complex and mysterious.

For many, the goal is to never pay a single dime…ever…

Pay to win is a weapon that these people wield to attempt to bypass any need to support the game they play, for whatever motive or reason they have.

This game has a cash shop that makes me want to spend money, but isn’t one of those situations that most free to play (specifically Korean) games get me into where spending $50 gets me little and theres a never ending hole I can throw money into to gain some advantage, that I will need to have if I want relevance.

For instance most still use the upgrade/fail/break item system. Purchase for $40-$50 enough protect items to prevent item breakage when upgrading past +4. However it still fails…a lot…so that $40 might get me a +7 but spending another $100 might only result in a +8 or +9 and another $1000 might get me +10 which is the highest, now I need to do that for every piece of gear.

So there isn’t an endless hole here. I can spend $50 on the game and get more than id ever get with a free to play game spending the same….and I don’t see a reason to really spend more than $200…though you could….that leaves me feeling good about the money I do spend, knowing there isn’t this feeling that the money ive spent isn’t really going far so I need to spend more.

2 things I’ll say about this as a long time pc gamer 20+ years.

Gw2 is not even close to p2w thankfully. The Anet dev’s seem very very conscious of infuriating the player base by doing any type of p2w model. Gw2 is in fact one of the best “deals” in all of pc gaming next to SMITES 30$ god pack.

The other thing I’ll say is that some games like Heroes and Gererals, World of tanks, Mechwarrior online are pretty much p2w games. The reason for this (from a rational perspective) is that the player bases are smaller and more niche. They need to generate higher levels of revenue per player to pay their staff. That being said I do find certain parts of that business model gross.

The last thing I’ll say is that if you actually think GW2 even approaches p2w you are not a very experienced pc gamer. I’m a real neck beard sorta fellow and i’ve tried every “f2p” game under the sun. Gw2 is a very very good value considering you really dont need to ever actually buy anything.

In a game like Heroes and generals or Mechwarrior online you can easily spend 200$+ just getting your accounted moderately kitted out. Easily.

Yeah. In Wonderland Online for example you’d have an in-game provided bot to level you since it was so grindy. It was turn based and you could harvest and craft different things such as vehicles (required fuel, which could also be crafted) and even healing and MP replenish syrup. Sure the story made no sense, but it did have some amazing anime pictures for cutscenes that I liked.

However, the game was very pay to win and people even created multiple accounts, task switching between screens to party up with each other, then grind as a party to exploit a leveling bug known as “bursting”, which required item mall stuff so of course it didn’t get fixed. There was also lots of gambling and the game considering it looked like it belonged on SNES wound up being very expensive in the long run despite being “free” to play.

No link to the article?

F2P players definitely could help to maintain the game without spending a dime, if Anet allowed them to buy gems with gold.

They could provide a ready market for player bought gems, indirectly supporting the game.

Angus.5961:

F2P players definitely could help to maintain the game without spending a dime, if Anet allowed them to buy gems with gold.

More demand for gems means the price goes up and more people buy gems with cash in order to sell them for gold.

Except that ticks off the established player base with an increase to the exchange rate. As it is P4F players can only lower the exchange rate. And of course they can fix this by paying for the game. In both cases, buying gems with cash or buying the game, it favors ANet. Players get more players to people into the game with P4F. It’s a win/win there.

It’s been three weeks since P4F became a thing and the “dogs and cats living together … mass hysteria” has yet come to pass. Well maybe the hysteria from the P4F naysayers who are trying to lay blame for any changes since then on the necks of P4F players, like the change to the key farm.

Ashen.2907:

No link to the article?

http://massivelyop.com/2015/06/11/perfect-ten-the-top-10-healthiest-live-mmos/

its kinda old hehe n i dont even remember how i wound up there but for the past few days even ive been seein various things about people thinking a game needs to be free and essentialy anything that makes ya pay any amount of money needs to be perfect in every sense :P

anything as in regarding the corr games and purchaseables within*

Aqua Mirrage.3961:

its kinda old hehe n i dont even remember how i wound up there but for the past few days even ive been seein various things about people thinking a game needs to be free and essentialy anything that makes ya pay any amount of money needs to be perfect in every sense :P

June this year is old here?

There are people still posting videos two years before the game was launched as if it was breaking news.

I think this is why Anet made a point of saying they’re not changing their business model when they introduced free accounts, and basically made them into trial accounts.

First let’s get this out the way: ALL games developers are hoping to make a profit from their games, and therefore their players. Even little indie studios who finance and make their own game because no one else will support their ideas. There may be rare exceptions, like people who make educational games for the sake of teaching children and give them away, but I doubt those are relevant here.

Secondly: there is nothing wrong with this. Wanting to be paid for your work is not a bad thing, even if it’s work you do because you enjoy it and would rather do that than anything else. It’s entirely possible for both these things to happen together – to do something you love because you love doing it and want the end result to be available and to want to be paid what it’s worth.

With that out of the way IMO the problem with a lot of (most?) free-to-play games is they rely entirely on the cash shop for their income. Which means they need to do what they can to ensure those sales and a lot of the most effective tactics are not actually good for players. The top two being:

• Pay to win games – where the only way to get the best equipment is to buy it with real money, often an absurd amount.
• Games with crazy mechanics – like buying an armor skin that lasts for 10 days and then you have to buy it again if you want to keep using it. I’m not sure there’s a name for this, I still have a hard time believing it actually exists.

Whereas even after they introduced free accounts GW2’s business model is buy-to-play – a significant amount of their income (maybe even most of it) comes from selling copies of the game. And that requires different tactics. It’s a big enough cost that for most people it’s not an impulse buy like microtransactions are, and you can’t rely on your customers already being hooked on your product when you’re trying to sell to them so you have to make something that at least seems worth the money.

And that means they can afford to stick to non-essential cosmetic and convenience items in the cash shop, because they’re not relying on making enough money from it to keep the company going.

Actually what B2P does is remove the need for the cash shop to also pay off the advance used in creating the game in the first place. They don’t need to hold out their hand at every opportunity if the cost of the initial development gets paid for by game sales. Cash shop then becomes less about collecting tolls and more about useful conveniences rather than virtual mandatory ones.

I am not sure why GW2 and P2W is mentioned in the same sentence? There is absolutly NOTHING in this game that you can buy from the gem shop with real money that is in anyway making you better or even in anyway gets you ready to faceroll something.

You can not win with finsihers, you do not gain stats with wardrobe or skins, you can not kill anyone with magic find food, your mini pet will do nothing but look cute and you can for sure not kill anyone with mining tools. And above this you can even buy gems for ingame currencies so you never ever ever ever have to use any money to get the fluff and the cuteness.

F2P we can discus, monthly fee or not sure go for it, but GW2 and P2W do not go together at all.

Well you could factor in gems – gold, which does enable you to buy equipment with real money. But even then I think you’d be stretching the definition of pay to win.

I’m a casual player – it took me about 7 months to get my first character to level 80 and I had about 1g when I finished level. But I had enough karma to get a full set of exotics from the temples in Orr. So someone who got to level 80 and then used real money to buy gems, converted it to gold and bought a full set of exotics wouldn’t actually get any benefit even over me.

You can’t buy ascended directly, but you can buy the materials to get around the time gating. But again it’s a pretty minor benefit over other players, especially for the amount of money you’d spend.

I love the F2P model. While I never found GW2 to be empty in the slightest, whenever I’m leveling characters these days the zones are as full as they were around launch, a continuous stream of potential new players is great for the overall health of the game.

I’ve played GW2 since the headstart, and I don’t feel slighted in the slightest by the game now being free. I’ve absolutely gotten my fifty bucks of entertainment from it and I think more people able to try it is great! It’s one of my favourite games, so who would I be to whine at players getting to experience it for the first time?

I think the restrictions aren’t even harsh. Sure you get only two character slots (which admittedly, as an altoholic would give me a near seizure lol), but then again you get a high quality game without paying a cent, and if you decide to buy you get the whole expansion on top of it.

It doesn’t even come close to P2W. You can exchange ingame currency, and if you have a max level character and sell crafting mats, it’s not even an endless grind to save up for something. Ha, with the price of low and mid level wood and ore etc. you can have a steady stream of income while leveling these days. I mean even I manage to earn gold with that and that’s saying a lot. :P

I’m just curious to those people who consider, HoT, P2W, have none of you ever bought an expansion before? Like, I’ve read a lot of mind-numbing threads in forums for a lot of games in my life, but complaining about an expansion and labeling it, “P2W”, takes the cake…

I love how GW1 n GW2 have had it set with having full copy available and an in to check out the world within n this was mostly bout the various MMOs and the sentiment to feel that a F2P model is a right to the players, its a gift an awesome one every body loves not spendin money hehe but also how it may translate to what the company needs to do to keep going throughout years and the kinda shadyness :P

P2W implies there’s some sort of something you have to buy in the cash shop in order to win competitively. A great example is like in World of Tanks after a certain level you have to buy cash shop ammo in order to stay competitive. There is none of that here in GW2. You could, very well, compete with any base classes against any Specialization even with HOT.

Expansion prices have been normal since the start of MMO gaming. You either pay or you get left behind. If the expansion model doesn’t work for you, you’re probably in the wrong genre of game.