Guild Wars 2

TJgalon.5012:

I guess a way to look at it also is this, if you were going to buy the game, you have by now. Nonthing really going to make it easy for new people to go, I should get this over this. So Anet giving them a water down, heavy restricted version, to try it. If they like it, they can upgrade to a pay account, if not, at least they try it, and know now for sure they wont buy it.

Pretty much.

FtP is a means of generating revenue from people who just werent going to buy the game. Sure it provides access to people who still wont spend any money but as long as some FtPers spend enough to offset server costs (etc) for all FtPers its a net gain. Of course even those not paying are keeping maps full, filling dungeon groups, making friends, etc. This can be especially important if many veterans move on from core game maps with the expansion.

I`m quite pleased with the model being used and the way this is being done. It’s good for the game and getting people into it.

GW2’s F2P model is still too restrictive. There’s no point restricting players from going to Lion’s Arch or Divinity’s Reach by level. Gold spammers can’t use map chat anyway.

nexxe.7081:

GW2’s F2P model is still too restrictive. There’s no point restricting players from going to Lion’s Arch or Divinity’s Reach by level. Gold spammers can’t use map chat anyway.

It’s to slow down RMT spammers from going to locals full of players at specific locations. They can’t roll a character, run into the race city to the TP or Bank and start spamming in local. Sure it doesn’t take long to get to 10 from scratch but it is yet one more way to make it less trivial to crank out another RMT spammer who will get shut down within minutes of spouting.

All I see here is a “built for gold spammers” free trial of all the old content….and a bunch of people crying that they got a raw deal because they paid $50 three years ago and now they need to pay again for the new stuff.

By built for gold spammers I mean it seems tailor made to create a nightmare for gold spammers, who will no doubt circumvent the restrictions some how.

I’m sure the devs would have loved to continually work for kitten payment you made three years ago but reality sets in and you realize you pay for a game you like or you wait another few years and hope they make HOT free for you..

This is coming from someone who saw the rumors and paid $50 for the expansion. Because I knew there would be a whole boatload of new players coming in, and I really didn’t want to pay for a three year old game and have it turn out theres just a few people rolling alts and me being new.

Want your beloved game to thrive? Have to remove the paywall. You have any idea how many “low budget” free to play gamers are out there looking for a good pvp game who are willing to spend $50 but not much more? You realize a lot of free to play games make it a wallet fight and people who spend a few hundred get stomped on by the people spending thousands on the game….

So appealing to people who want to play it a good bit first then possibly make a payment for it all…really blows away every other free to play model….it in fact takes the best aspects of free to play and mixes it with the great concept of buy to play.

StrangerDanger.3496:

All I see here is a “built for gold spammers” free trial of all the old content….and a bunch of people crying that they got a raw deal because they paid $50 three years ago and now they need to pay again for the new stuff.

i bought the game 1y ago for 50bucks i missed out on the so called 40 additions ie SAB/LS1 and now i had to pay again, dont tell me about 3years becuse not all were here for 3 years

Lets call this for what it is, an attempt to lower the que time in PvP (and trying to make e-sport out of GW2), so once again PvE suffers to they can try to keep PvP junk alive, at this point I wish Anet would abandon the PvP and Iggy (he tried his best to kill PvE in Guild Wars 1)

Why Anet didn’t just restrict the free account to PvP I will never understand. Well the nicest RPG community I have ever had the great pleasure to be a part of just took a dive. Thank Iggy for another bad decision and a big dump on PvE.

The things I’ve read the past few days….

Amazing. Every time I see these posts I lose a little hope for humanity.

It’s free to play the game, you just need to buy the account upgrades to fully unlock everything. So, it’s Free to Play the game… Why don’t they just say it straight forward and skip overall all the subterfuge with the wording? This isn’t Buy to Play anymore. The core principles and idea behind b2p is gone. You’re just not entitled to account upgrades… with out paying real money…

Value for your money is an entirely different discussion. At least Anet has all the pre-order money before they let people know they were changing their buy to play model.

It’s still buy to play for the expansion. It’s still buy to play for unrestricted core access. It’s F2P for anyone who don’t mind the restrictions or was unwilling to pay fifty dollars to see if they like it.

Vets will always burn out and leave an MMO, even if it’s only until the next expansion. No amount of new content can prevent that. But a feature of every MMO is an engaged player base. Nobody is willing to play an MMO with low population maps. Unless is suppose to be post-apocalyptic and almost everyone is suppose to be dead.

So you have to keep bringing in new players. MMO player churn is a recognized phenomenon which was why Sony came up with the station pass for their subscription games. You get tired of one, move to another. So what’s the barrier to entry for new players, besides the time commitment? Cost. That’s where F2P succeeds.

Now unlike most F2P dren out there our game doesn’t cripple access to content, professions, level cap or bank. This makes it very attractive to give it a try. Sure limited character slots, bag slots, chat limits and TP trading restrictions should be enough to encourage purchase while not so restrictive that it’s aggravating.

But if you want to play the “new” version of the game aka HoT, then you have to buy to play it. And between the F2P limits and the additional features that the expansion has that should be enough to make sales from this influx of players looking to try it out.

This is just a glorified free trial, you would have to be some kinda of nut to play this game for free with those kinda of restrictions for a long period of time, NCsoft wants to push for more sells of HoT and it’s a good idea as many have done it before. The same happen to me for SWTOR, as I played for free for a while I started liking the game so I subscribed, same concept.

Behellagh.1468:

nexxe.7081:

GW2’s F2P model is still too restrictive. There’s no point restricting players from going to Lion’s Arch or Divinity’s Reach by level. Gold spammers can’t use map chat anyway.

It’s to slow down RMT spammers from going to locals full of players at specific locations. They can’t roll a character, run into the race city to the TP or Bank and start spamming in local. Sure it doesn’t take long to get to 10 from scratch but it is yet one more way to make it less trivial to crank out another RMT spammer who will get shut down within minutes of spouting.

Thing is, this may actually make it worse. By making it free to play, botters/spammers/RTMs (they’re all the same, really) can make literately thousands of accounts, bot them up to lvl 10/35/60/80, go to la, and start spamming the crap out of local chat in a few spots (tp, bank, mystic forge). They’ll put a few bots in the highly populated areas. Sure they may get shutdown within minutes, but they have so many burner accounts, it’s trivial for them. They may even find a way to transfer gold via the TP.

Scripting this kind of stuff is easy. Anet took away the biggest barrier to entry for gold spammers – paying for the game.

A couple of questions for anet, if I may:
- Do free to play accounts get deleted if you don’t login after X months?
- Is free to play a limited time promotion?

captainteemo.6537:

So, it’s Free to Play the game… Why don’t they just say it straight forward and skip overall all the subterfuge with the wording? This isn’t Buy to Play anymore. The core principles and idea behind b2p is gone.

(…)

At least Anet has all the pre-order money before they let people know they were changing their buy to play model.

Truth be said, they were probably hoping the presales would give them enough money so they wouldn’t have to go free to play. When that failed, they threw the towel, turned into free to play and finally announced how little content HoT will have (only 4 maps, only 4 armors, only 5 weapon sets, and so on).

Behellagh.1468:

It’s still buy to play for the expansion. It’s still buy to play for unrestricted core access. It’s F2P for anyone who don’t mind the restrictions or was unwilling to pay fifty dollars to see if they like it.

That’s how everyone does F2P. The Old Republic, a MMORPG that was infamous as being a massive disaster, when into the same free to play model when it left its pay to play original strategy – you can go F2P if you don’t mind the restrictions and if you don’t want to buy the expansion(s). I wonder if GW2 has failed as much as TOR has, for ArenaNet to decide that going free to play was the best option for them.

So,
i created two F2P accounts for RP reason, and also wanted to see how a new player see’s GuildWars2 upon his first few hours during play.

From a combat/questing/event view, it is the same as regular player

Now things that Bothered me. I know they are in action to stop any gold sellers, spammers and exploiters and the like, yet for an new player it is really bad experience

No Map Chat
While i can understand that restriction, for a new player who has many questions this is the worst. He got so many new things but can’t ask anyone for help or advise.
I would say remove the block from the starter zones at all, but keep them in effect in other zones until they reach a level matching the zone, so when they reach lvl 80 they should be allowed to use the map chat like any other player

Leveling
While the PvE Leveling is the same there are a things that really is bad as a new player.
You can’t enter any Capital until you are lvl 10 and Lions Arch until you are 35. Also you can’t just run through the higher level zones
Not a big deal? Well, it is, since if you level by hearts and map completion, with events on the way you don’t reach lvl 15 until you are done with the starter zone, which means they are under leveled for the next zone. But they can’t go the another starter zone ether, so they have to grind events. Later on it doesn’t matter that much, as you get access to more zones. But for a newbie just starting, it is!

Or if two new players want to start together in GW2 but create different Races? well, they are separated for 25 Levels before they can play together in Gendaren Fields (only if one is a human, Asura or Sylvarie and the other is a Charr or Norn, for races next to each other its still lvl15)
You get every first waypoint of all starter zones, so this is alright. thanks to Teleniel.1809 to pointing this out

this are my current problems with the F2P restrictions.

Tell us what you think about it.
Did you also tried the new experience as a F2P Player, share your Feedback

Starter zones are meant to be level 1-15, with the next zones being 15-25.

It’s actually harder not to hit level 17-18~ in the start zones since the NPE.

Ykfox.3825:

Starter zones are meant to be level 1-15, with the next zones being 15-25.

It’s actually harder not to hit level 17-18~ in the start zones since the NPE.

i usually end with 13 or 14, including the exp from the lvl 10 story step.

Do you skip a lot of stuff, or what? Because just doing a black lion key farm in Queensdale I usually hit level 13 with only about half the map completed….

zerocool.9842:

Behellagh.1468:

nexxe.7081:

GW2’s F2P model is still too restrictive. There’s no point restricting players from going to Lion’s Arch or Divinity’s Reach by level. Gold spammers can’t use map chat anyway.

It’s to slow down RMT spammers from going to locals full of players at specific locations. They can’t roll a character, run into the race city to the TP or Bank and start spamming in local. Sure it doesn’t take long to get to 10 from scratch but it is yet one more way to make it less trivial to crank out another RMT spammer who will get shut down within minutes of spouting.

Thing is, this may actually make it worse. By making it free to play, botters/spammers/RTMs (they’re all the same, really) can make literately thousands of accounts, bot them up to lvl 10/35/60/80, go to la, and start spamming the crap out of /s in a few spots (tp, bank, mystic forge). They’ll put a few bots in the highly populated areas. Sure they may get shutdown within minutes, but they have so many burner accounts, it’s trivial for them. They may even find a way to transfer gold via the TP.

Scripting this kind of stuff is easy. Anet took away the biggest barrier to entry for gold spammers – paying for the game.

Except for the very small amount of bad apples, they can only send a whisper once every 30 seconds and can’t use map chat. A few reports and block and bam, that chacrter done and the can’t even do it as well as a hacked account or what ever. On top of how ever that, i bet if a free account gets a few report, the system automactally takes care of it.

But in SWTOR you couldn’t do anything without being wacked in the head with a pay wall. That doesn’t exist here. You aren’t accosted by the cash shop because you want to be another race or a particular profession or to bypass something that a fully paid account doesn’t have to deal with. That’s a big difference.

I play three other MMOs as F2P and the restrictions are oppressive not to mention P2W power boosts and extreme quick leveling. All those games have a subscription like VIP level that allows you to bypass most of that crap. Big difference.

Actually, no.
full map completion of the Starter Zone+Capital+lvl10 story
although you can get more exp if you do all Events that pop up on the corners of your mini map

If you complete a starter zone without skipping stuff, you’ll reach the levels easily. As for map chat – no. No, no, no, no, no! This will just lead to gold seller spam in any area they’re allowed to talk. It’s not perfect, but there’s a reason why we can’t have nice things – gold sellers ruin games, simple as.

So arena net did it different from what ever SWTOR is. As you can see, this game is gw2, not that, and they decided to treat the free user different, and who knows, that kindness may in tern, be new sales. I for one, am glad to not have the restrictions, as it would make it less enjoyable to me.

Honestly I’d rather they introduce a new ‘map’ chat equivalent specifically for them. That way if you want to hear the new players ‘map’ chat, you can enable it, or leave it disabled.

Ykfox.3825:

Honestly I’d rather they introduce a new ‘map’ chat equivalent specifically for them. That way if you want to hear the new players ‘map’ chat, you can enable it, or leave it disabled.

That’s a good idea and could tie in with the pact commander mastery line, that is specific for people who want help new players.

TJgalon.5012:

.. they can only send a whisper once every 30 seconds and can’t use map chat…

I know, but they can still use local (/s) chat. I’m just thinking about this from a technological prospective and how I would get around these restrictions if I were a gold spammer. I’m sure they already have 100,000 f2p accounts (and counting) that they can use =P

They do not need map chat. They can still use say and talk to people in the area

I don’t know if this thread qualifies for merging with the main one, if that is the case please feel free to merge it.

First i’d like to congratulate the Anet team for this great choice of making the game F2P with restrictions.

And in this case after some testing i can say that Anet did good. Allowing new players to play the game for free is a great idea to push the community and the game.
At first i was worried about bots and gold sellers but after reading the faq and some test i can say Anet gave a long thought to this option. As F2P:

• There is no chance the gold you earn you will be able to directly move it between accounts.
• There is no chance you can spam other ppl with RTM in mapchat.
• F2P will be able to enjoy the game to it’s fullest. Other than some limits about the areas you can go depending on your level there is no other real limitation.
• Whisper will only be allowed if you and the F2P account have each other as a friend, so no spam allowed.

So there is not actually a real reason why other players would complain about this decision other than greed and try to push the company to give discounts or goodies. Ok i would say but that’s low for my standards.

Now some concerns that i have about the F2P accounts and TP.

• Is is possible to sell mats for a fixed price and then buy them with a paid account?

For example: powerful blood mat T6 is about 80 silver. Minimum price is 16 copper.
So in my paid account i order 999 of those at 45 copper, a random number to make it difficult to coincide with other buyers.
Then my free account sells those mat for that exact price so i get them really cheap and sells them later for more adequate price to get profit.

I mean, with free accounts something that usually happens is the proliferation of bots something that may or may not be easily spotted. Someone could have like 7 bot accounts just farming and 1 paid account to get the profit.
Although that wouldn’t affect much in short term, in long term would make the instances crowded with bots that wouldn’t help with the dynamic content or the community-

Would be possible to play the system this way? if that so, would could it be possible to avoid?

Thanks Arenanet. I really do feel loved as an old player knowing all I get is some mediocre looking armor. I payed a lot of money for my copy of GW2 and even bought gems to aupport you guys because of your pay model but no more. This is a huge slap to the face of any GW2 player who bought the game and like others have said not even a discount on the hot expansion, seriously I am not funding your game anymore, complete disrespect…

Enrif.7359:

So,
i created two F2P accounts for RP reason, and also wanted to see how a new player see’s GuildWars2 upon his first few hours during play.

From a combat/questing/event view, it is the same as regular player

Now things that Bothered me. I know they are in action to stop any gold sellers, spammers and exploiters and the like, yet for an new player it is really bad experience

No Map Chat
While i can understand that restriction, for a new player who has many questions this is the worst. He got so many new things but can’t ask anyone for help or advise.
I would say remove the block from the starter zones at all, but keep them in effect in other zones until they reach a level matching the zone, so when they reach lvl 80 they should be allowed to use the map chat like any other player

Leveling
While the PvE Leveling is the same there are a things that really is bad as a new player.
You can’t enter any Capital until you are lvl 10 and Lions Arch until you are 35. Also you can’t just run through the higher level zones
Not a big deal? Well, it is, since if you level by hearts and map completion, with events on the way you don’t reach lvl 15 until you are done with the starter zone, which means they are under leveled for the next zone. But they can’t go the another starter zone ether, so they have to grind events. Later on it doesn’t matter that much, as you get access to more zones. But for a newbie just starting, it is!

Or if two new players want to start together in GW2 but create different Races? well, they are separated for 25 Levels before they can play together in Gendaren Fields (only if one is a human, Asura or Sylvarie and the other is a Charr or Norn, for races next to each other its still lvl15)

this are my current problems with the F2P restrictions.

Tell us what you think about it.
Did you also tried the new experience as a F2P Player, share your Feedback

In fact you can tp to any other starter race zone, thats nice… And, I really understand the map problem, but theres people in the start zones that offers themselves to help new players, so they can whisper them

Sylent.3165:

They do not need map chat. They can still use say and talk to people in the area

the problem is, most people in there area are also new players who don’t know anything.
and the /say area is not that big
Many Vets only enter those zones for Shadow Behemoth/Fire Elemental/Jungle Worm/Svanir Shaman and Dungeons.

Eh, I welcome new players into the fold.

Ykfox.3825:

Honestly I’d rather they introduce a new ‘map’ chat equivalent specifically for them. That way if you want to hear the new players ‘map’ chat, you can enable it, or leave it disabled.

Agreed. This seems like the best option. It’s possible that that chat channel might occasionally devolve into pure spam, but it would be possible to turn it off.

Krysard.1364:

In fact you can tp to any other starter race zone, thats nice… And, I really understand the map problem, but theres people in the start zones that offers themselves to help new players, so they can whisper them

Oh, you are right, there is indeed every first Waypoint of the start maps available, i just overlooked them (may be true for new players also?)

Problem with Whispers is, what if 20 players at once whisper you? can you manage to respond to them in person, not mixing them up? or do you just reply to the map chat?

Malkavian.4516:

Eh, I welcome new players into the fold.

I’m brand new, so I’m so glad not all players are losing their minds over the Play for Free transition. I love your attitude!

After testing all classes, I decided that restrictions were a bit annoying, so I purchased the game. So it worked! LOL.

I don’t want to see F2P accounts with map chat access, however it would be nice if there was a F2P guild in the opening information.

They could use the guild chat to ask questions (and get spammed by F2P gold spammers) without needing map chat access, or a full-access guild.

Enrif.7359:

Ykfox.3825:

Honestly I’d rather they introduce a new ‘map’ chat equivalent specifically for them. That way if you want to hear the new players ‘map’ chat, you can enable it, or leave it disabled.

That’s a good idea and could tie in with the pact commander mastery line, that is specific for people who want help new players.

Hehehe y , this is nice
Or implanting a wooden board next to the first waypoint , where new ppl can submit their questions and the pact commanders can answer them and send they response via mail

And if the answer was ’’satisfing’’ and that accounts manage in the future to reach 30 lvl , the pact commander get some tokens for a cosmetic gear

I personally haven’t created a free to play account yet, almost did but put it off since I really have no need for one. However I talked about 7 friends into trying the game (and they’ve brought a couple more), and me having played for a while was helping them.

Personally I’d like to see more of the restrictions go away once a character has hit level 80. For instance:
-Map Chat Restriction, if they’re level 80 they committed time to the game to get there, they should be able to help other new players at this point.
-Authentication before mail even after fully purchasing the game, this would annoy me to have to authenticate every single time I sent a mail.
-Gold to gem’s exchange lock seems pointless. Though I doubt any F2P accounts are going to get to that point.

Things I think need to be looked at even for the early levels:
-Starter zone/capital city/LA lock off levels. Every single person I talked into playing the game wanted to play a different race. And with no easy way to get them together is rather disappointing. I’d like to see new players be able to go to LA at level 10 atleast (which was my initial impression before reading all the restrictions). We wound up running the human down to the slyvari area at level 10, and the asura over to slyvari area. The norns are SOL for the time being.

My thoughts from the outside.

Edit: Looks like the OP is indicating you get every first wp of starter zones, I guess i should’ve had the F2P’s look for that. >.>

Woof.8246:

Enrif.7359:

Ykfox.3825:

Honestly I’d rather they introduce a new ‘map’ chat equivalent specifically for them. That way if you want to hear the new players ‘map’ chat, you can enable it, or leave it disabled.

That’s a good idea and could tie in with the pact commander mastery line, that is specific for people who want help new players.

Hehehe y , this is nice
Or implanting a wooden board next to the first waypoint , where new ppl can submit their questions and the pact commanders can answer them and send they response via mail

The Board sound good at first, buuuut it could also be used to spam to all commanders. Instead an FAQ board would be ok

You leave a message on the board (invisible to other low lvl players):P
It doesnt go directly to the commanders :P
If the commanders have time, they will open and read :P

Edit nvm …. commanders have to be near the post all the time

Woof.8246:

You leave a message on the board (invisible to other low lvl players):P
It doesnt go directly to the commanders :P
If the commanders have time, they will open and read :P

and then the commanders will see all the spam/goldseller mails

Behellagh.1468:

But in SWTOR you couldn’t do anything without being wacked in the head with a pay wall. That doesn’t exist here.

Sure.

Unless you want to ask in map chat for help.

Or enter the big city right behind you when you create a new character.

Or actually go explore the rest of the world when you reach the border of a starting map.

Or make more than 2 characters.

Or have more than 3 bags.

Or trade with someone.

Or get those laurels people talk about.

Or talk in the official forums.

And so on, and so on.

Those restrictions, especially those regarding number of available characters and number of bag slots, are very similar to those seen on The Old Republic or any other cheap free to play game.

Test.8734:

Sure.

Unless you want to ask in map chat for help.

Or enter the big city right behind you when you create a new character.

Or actually go explore the rest of the world when you reach the border of a starting map.

Or make more than 2 characters.

Or have more than 3 bags.

Or trade with someone.

Or get those laurels people talk about.

Or talk in the official forums.

And so on, and so on.

Those restrictions, especially those regarding number of available characters and number of bag slots, are very similar to those seen on The Old Republic or any other cheap free to play game.

None of the F2P games ive played have those. WoT, WoWsp, Mabinagi(spelling?) Maple story, for examples(those arent all of them of course, just the ones i could think of without searching around.)

At least its better to have the goldsellers in that rather in the mapchat , or commends like ‘’this game sux’’

But in other hand you :
a) can limit the messages in the board for every 1 hour and each 5 lvl , the cd is reduced
b) at the bottom first mail , if the comander answer your question there would be a automatic message at the bottom of the leter , where it say ‘’you can /friend me for more informations’’

Edit: Or if you 1 lvl and make a message on the board and then loagout > then the message will last for 10 before its temponary goes invisible
If you are 3 lvl then the message will last longer etc , in order to prevent bots

Back when the game went on sale I purchased a copy to save until my daughters birthday in September. I have never set up an account to go with it so right now it sits in my email as essentially nothing more than a cd key.

I find myself wondering how are new account creations being handled. If we create an account now to go with this unused Key will it be given the privileges of a full account even tho it does not have HoT

StrangerDanger.3496:

Want your beloved game to thrive? Have to remove the paywall. You have any idea how many “low budget” free to play gamers are out there looking for a good pvp game who are willing to spend $50 but not much more? You realize a lot of free to play games make it a wallet fight and people who spend a few hundred get stomped on by the people spending thousands on the game….

I must call bull on this assertion. World of Warcraft still thrives, even though it continues behind a subscription. After almost 11 years, it awaits its sixth expansion pack.

EverQuest still survives, and it only offered a crippled F2P option a couple years back… after 13 years of pure subscription service.

Subscription games can and do survive and thrive, because the successful ones invest in the retention of current players and long-term customer satisfaction. These F2P business models, like GW2 has just converted into, always degenerate into troll-infested cash-grabs with B2W (buy-to-win) gameplay mechanics that encourage impulse purchases for in-game advantage.

I’m really glad I held off on pre-purchasing this expansion pack. Let’s see what happens to the game in the next few weeks when the F2P players make it to Lion’s Arch, PvP, and WvW.

Yes, it should be a full account if you purchased it.

I’m pretty sure the key code itself contains a string of characters that lets the game know what kind of account it is.

That being said, F2P accounts don’t even have a key, so there won’t be any confusion there!

But no, the account will not have HoT as you need to have purchased the HoT edition to obtain that. You will need to upgrade the account if your daughter wants to play HoT.

Yes, it will be given the privilege of a full account with no restrictions like the free accounts have.

Yes, it will be just like any regular account that hasn’t prepurchased HoT yet.

You can only sell to the highest buy price which is currently 53 silver. So if put a bid in at 45 copper you would have a long wait till your other account made it down to you.