Guild Wars 2

I have a friend who is doing F2P but unfortunately he cannot afford the full HoT price. I think there should be either a token or a way to “upgrade” him from a F2P to Core game, without having to buy the expansion. You could even put it in the in-game store for 800 gems or say if you buy gems on your account it lifts the F2P restrictions. I would personally be glad to buy the token to lift the F2P restrictions. As we are playing, I keep hearing, “I can’t do this, or that” from him and as annoying as it is to him to not be able to sell certain items or make more characters, or have enough storage, I really want him to enjoy the game so that when time comes that he can afford to buy the expansion, he does.

The core game is on sale at places like Amazon.com for about $21. He could get that.

The whole idea behind having HoT as the core game from Anet was to avoid the “pay $/£ for core PLUS $/£ for HoT” so instead now for new accounts, it’s one price instead of two paywalls.
It’s not too hard to save £35 though in 1/2/3 months.

Not sure if relevant, but some of the new account restrictions are on timers, and not to f2p exclusive, meaning every new account goes through these (https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Account).

Quote:
Character level requirement

Some content is restricted until at least one character on the account has reached the minimum level requirement, after which all characters in the account have access, regardless of level.

Cannot compose mail until level 6, but may receive mail.
Cannot leave starting areas (except for entering cities) until level 10, but one waypoint in every starting area is available.
Cannot enter Lion’s Arch until level 35.

User interface

WvW Menu Bar icon.png World versus World icon — hidden until level 18
PvP Menu Bar icon.png Structured PvP icon — hidden until level 22

These game modes can still be accessed through the asura gates in Lion’s Arch or key binding the panels.

Daily achievements

1 achievement per category — unlocked by default
3 achievements per category — unlocked at level 11
4 achievements per category — unlocked at level 31

Time requirement

Some content is restricted until sufficient real-world time has passed. Use the Chat command “/age” to display: the number of days since account creation, the number of hours played by all characters and the number of hours played by the current character.

Three Day

There is a 72-hour restriction on:

Currency Exchange in the Gem store after account creation to combat botting and scams.
All deposits and withdrawals to the Guild Vault after joining a guild. The time remaining is shown on the Guild Vault display and the entire vault is “grayed out”. This timer is reset if you leave and rejoin a guild. It is not affected by either Guild Rank or Vault permissions.

First Month

The first 30 days following creation, a new account is limited as follows:

Amount of coin that can be mailed. However, any amount can be received.
Value of items both deposited into and withdrawn from a Guild Vault.

im unemployed(and looking for work) but managed to save for 2 HoT purchased did that by making surveys like crazy on couple sites that pay for thoes things, so u can if u want.

Haurt.6420:

I have a friend who is doing F2P but unfortunately he cannot afford the full HoT price. I think there should be either a token or a way to “upgrade” him from a F2P to Core game, without having to buy the expansion. You could even put it in the in-game store for 800 gems or say if you buy gems on your account it lifts the F2P restrictions. I would personally be glad to buy the token to lift the F2P restrictions. As we are playing, I keep hearing, “I can’t do this, or that” from him and as annoying as it is to him to not be able to sell certain items or make more characters, or have enough storage, I really want him to enjoy the game so that when time comes that he can afford to buy the expansion, he does.

Technically, your friend has the core game. What he lacks are the unlocks. Those are there to (a) provide part of the substantive difference between paid and unpaid accounts and (b) to restrict gold sellers from exploiting play-for-free.

Allowing people to upgrade without paying cash negates both of the above. Losing the first hurts ANet’s bottom line (and would anger some customers that paid with real money). Losing the second hurts the economy.

Do you have a way to address either/both in a different way? I don’t see ANet changing the system otherwise.

The limitations he is facing are not level unlocks, they are just LOCKED because he is F2P. He is limited on what he can buy and sell on the TP. It seems everything he can sell for anything substantial is blocked. He is limited to 2 character slots, he has very little bag space. The list of real restrictions for F2P just keeps going on and on. I clearly stated that I didn’t intend for it to be free, 800 gems or roughly $10 is the lowest I saw the game at one point. Most MMO games with a F2P model have a “Premium” status that you get for buying the currency. I understand they need to keep botters, goldsellers, and the like from being able to just use disposable accounts. But I’m sure he could pop for like $5 worth of gems just to get those restrictions lifted. Putting a gem cost on the unlock would mean, EVENTUALLY F2P players could unlock the full account (minus the expansion of course) as by 5,000 achievement points I’m highly doubtful a bot or gold seller would bother that much. It could even be that after certain milestones, you get F2P restrictions lifted. After say 1000 achievement points you get the bag spaces unlocked, after another 1000 you get your TP restrictions lifted, etc…

People who complain about the restrictions of F2P are looking at it from the wrong perspective.

When you try something out for free, ask yourself, do I enjoy this thing? Would I enjoy the upgrade/is it worth it to me?

Not, for instance: This free thing that I am trying out, it’s really limited. But I don’t have/want to spend money on it because I don’t like it that much. How can I get the restrictions lifted for free, or as close to free as humanly possible?

Anet didn’t start to allow F2P as a charity for those who don’t “have” money for gaming. They did it to give people who don’t drop money on games upfront, the chance to try it out and hopefully like it enough to justify buying it.

paintpixie.7398:

People who complain about the restrictions of F2P are looking at it from the wrong perspective.

When you try something out for free, ask yourself, do I enjoy this thing? Would I enjoy the upgrade/is it worth it to me?

Not, for instance: This free thing that I am trying out, it’s really limited. But I don’t have/want to spend money on it because I don’t like it that much. How can I get the restrictions lifted for free, or as close to free as humanly possible?

Anet didn’t start to allow F2P as a charity for those who don’t “have” money for gaming. They did it to give people who don’t drop money on games upfront, the chance to try it out and hopefully like it enough to justify buying it.

I was thinking like that for buying a swtor to have some restricitons lifted of me as I play it from time to time but then again I thinked it over and decided not. Thats a very good thing Anet done and i support them in it.

As pointed out, if only want the core game, can still find it for very cheap price from retailers. Anet doesn’t sell only the core anymore, Guild Wars 2 price is now USD49.99 and any suggestion have to be based on that.

Doesn’t make sense to charge 800 gems from free accounts to upgrade when the other costumers need to pay full price.

Only way I can see this to be relative fair is to give an option to free accounts to upgrade to HoT for 4000 gems, personal purchase, no gifts. However will be likely a waste of time and resources since will be the same gems/price for both products (4000 gems = USD50.00).

paintpixie that is a valid way of looking at it and I agree that may be the perspective they intended. What I’m suggesting is basically keep the basic game available for purchase at it’s lowest sale price, which was $10, that I saw. Make it GIFTABLE in game via gems. I don’t think allowing this would hurt anything or anyone. I have preordered the expansion so I am not a F2P myself. It’s just I can understand being a gamer with a limited income and/or not having access to funds to buy said game. If I had chosen not to buy the expansion, I would still have the same exact game that I paid $10 for which is basically what I’m proposing be allowed to be purchased. And yes what they have given free players is charity, in fact I think it’s one of the best F2P models I’ve seen from a former paid game.

EDIT: I posted before I read yours azyume. Yes you can still buy the core game online but the businesses I trust, have it for full price, and at that, you might as well buy the expansion. I never suggested they allow 800 gems to upgrade you to the expansion or anything like that. Just that it could upgrade you from free to paid core game. If the remaining posts are all against as I have been feeling I guess I will just drop it altogether. I rather not get something bad started. Have a good day guys.

ANET only needs to do two things to make Guild Wars 2 truly free to play*:
– Allow F2P players to buy gems with gold
– Place HoT in the Gem store.

If a player wants to remove the F2P restrictions, they need to grind up enough gold to buy the gems. ANET gets the money from an HoT sale (maybe more, depending on the gem cost of HoT), they just get it from people other than the person who now has it.

*By truly free to play I mean that someone can access all game content without spending a cent on the game. Paying money only speeds up access to content.

Cheapest I have seen lately is $15.99 for GW2 Core Heroic Edition at greenmangaming.com, in the VIP sale section. They are a legitimate online retailer.

I bought it that way, didnt want to waste $50 on an expansion before I even played the core game. I’m in no hurry for the expansion,. I’ll get it when its on sale some day.

Anet obviously does not want to make a cheaper option available when they can use the F2P trial to coerce new players to buy a full price expansion instead.

Snoring Sleepwalker.9073:

ANET only needs to do two things to make Guild Wars 2 truly free to play*:
– Allow F2P players to buy gems with gold
– Place HoT in the Gem store.

If a player wants to remove the F2P restrictions, they need to grind up enough gold to buy the gems. ANET gets the money from an HoT sale (maybe more, depending on the gem cost of HoT), they just get it from people other than the person who now has it.

*By truly free to play I mean that someone can access all game content without spending a cent on the game. Paying money only speeds up access to content.

Yeah, that’ll keep the lights on and the devs fed.

The Internet has made it so everyone wants everything for free with no restrictions. Not everyone or everything is paid by Patreon or donate buttons.

Angus.5961:

Cheapest I have seen lately is $15.99 for GW2 Core Heroic Edition at greenmangaming.com, in the VIP sale section. They are a legitimate online retailer.

I bought it that way, didnt want to waste $50 on an expansion before I even played the core game. I’m in no hurry for the expansion,. I’ll get it when its on sale some day.

Anet obviously does not want to make a cheaper option available when they can use the F2P trial to coerce new players to buy a full price expansion instead.

Maybe it’s because they are a company, not only with bills to pay but with stockholders who need to see that the expansion is bringing in the sales. The trouble with using gems is that gems bought before a quarterly report’s time period can’t be counted towards current sales. Let’s say a significant number of people buy the expansion with “old” gems. All those gems have been reported already and all the expansions sold that way don’t count towards that quarter’s finances. It hurts ANet’s financial records and makes the expansion look like it’s not selling well.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Angus.5961:

Cheapest I have seen lately is $15.99 for GW2 Core Heroic Edition at greenmangaming.com, in the VIP sale section. They are a legitimate online retailer.

I bought it that way, didnt want to waste $50 on an expansion before I even played the core game. I’m in no hurry for the expansion,. I’ll get it when its on sale some day.

Anet obviously does not want to make a cheaper option available when they can use the F2P trial to coerce new players to buy a full price expansion instead.

Maybe it’s because they are a company, not only with bills to pay but with stockholders who need to see that the expansion is bringing in the sales. The trouble with using gems is that gems bought before a quarterly report’s time period can’t be counted towards current sales. Let’s say a significant number of people buy the expansion with “old” gems. All those gems have been reported already and all the expansions sold that way don’t count towards that quarter’s finances. It hurts ANet’s financial records and makes the expansion look like it’s not selling well.

I didnt say anything about using gems. I dont think its right, however, to force new players to buy an expansion when the full core game was being sold by Anet for $10 just a few months back. They seemed to be paying the bills just fine then.

After re-reading what Haurt posted, I think I agree with him, and I think many people are misunderstanding him.

I agree that ANet should implement a method to lift to free account restrictions without requiring a full purchase of the Xpac. Something like upgrade a free account to a full (non-Xpac account for 10-20 bucks) then later using the gem store you can upgrade to a full account with Xpac.

This system is already in place for upgrading from standard accounts to deluxe accounts in the gem store, Why not allow free account to be upgraded in the same manner to lift restrictions?

Angus.5961:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Angus.5961:

Cheapest I have seen lately is $15.99 for GW2 Core Heroic Edition at greenmangaming.com, in the VIP sale section. They are a legitimate online retailer.

I bought it that way, didnt want to waste $50 on an expansion before I even played the core game. I’m in no hurry for the expansion,. I’ll get it when its on sale some day.

Anet obviously does not want to make a cheaper option available when they can use the F2P trial to coerce new players to buy a full price expansion instead.

Maybe it’s because they are a company, not only with bills to pay but with stockholders who need to see that the expansion is bringing in the sales. The trouble with using gems is that gems bought before a quarterly report’s time period can’t be counted towards current sales. Let’s say a significant number of people buy the expansion with “old” gems. All those gems have been reported already and all the expansions sold that way don’t count towards that quarter’s finances. It hurts ANet’s financial records and makes the expansion look like it’s not selling well.

I didnt say anything about using gems. I dont think its right, however, to force new players to buy an expansion when the full core game was being sold by Anet for $10 just a few months back. They seemed to be paying the bills just fine then.

No one is forced to buy the core game. The US$10 price for the game was for limited amounts of time; the price went back to ‘normal’ and there were also smaller discounts.

Again, if you want or hope for ANet to change the current policy, you need to help them address these issues:

• Ensure that there is a meaningful distinction for paid accounts vs unpaid ones.
• Ensure that ANet has an equivalent revenue stream to make up for the lost income.
• Ensure that gold sellers, gold farmers, and account thieves aren’t able to take advantage of the system, which would hurt the entire community in several ways.

Limited access to certain features is certainly the easiest approach. It might also be the “best”, in terms of costs (both to ANet and its players) and benefits (both to ANet and its players).

Behellagh.1468:

Snoring Sleepwalker.9073:

ANET only needs to do two things to make Guild Wars 2 truly free to play*:
– Allow F2P players to buy gems with gold
– Place HoT in the Gem store.

If a player wants to remove the F2P restrictions, they need to grind up enough gold to buy the gems. ANET gets the money from an HoT sale (maybe more, depending on the gem cost of HoT), they just get it from people other than the person who now has it.

*By truly free to play I mean that someone can access all game content without spending a cent on the game. Paying money only speeds up access to content.

Yeah, that’ll keep the lights on and the devs fed.

The Internet has made it so everyone wants everything for free with no restrictions. Not everyone or everything is paid by Patreon or donate buttons.

You don’t understand how the gem store works. For a gem to be available for someone to buy with gold the gem first needs to be purchased by someone with real money. That is where ANET gets paid.

Once someone has purchased gems with cash, ANET doesn’t have any reason to care who spends the gems as ANET has already been paid.

So if HoT is available in the gem store and someone uses gold to buy gems, then gems to buy HoT, then ANET was paid when the gems were purchased by the person that purchased them. Sure, ANET wasn’t paid by the person who now has HoT, but why does that matter when they were still paid ?

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

No one is forced to buy the core game. The US$10 price for the game was for limited amounts of time; the price went back to ‘normal’ and there were also smaller discounts.

Thats not what I said. If they want to remove the restrictions, they are “forced” to buy the full expansion even if all they want is the core game.
Of course nobody is forced to buy the core game, they aren’t even allowed to buy it any more without searching out an old copy.

Snoring Sleepwalker.9073:

Behellagh.1468:

Snoring Sleepwalker.9073:

ANET only needs to do two things to make Guild Wars 2 truly free to play*:
– Allow F2P players to buy gems with gold
– Place HoT in the Gem store.

If a player wants to remove the F2P restrictions, they need to grind up enough gold to buy the gems. ANET gets the money from an HoT sale (maybe more, depending on the gem cost of HoT), they just get it from people other than the person who now has it.

*By truly free to play I mean that someone can access all game content without spending a cent on the game. Paying money only speeds up access to content.

Yeah, that’ll keep the lights on and the devs fed.

The Internet has made it so everyone wants everything for free with no restrictions. Not everyone or everything is paid by Patreon or donate buttons.

You don’t understand how the gem store works. For a gem to be available for someone to buy with gold the gem first needs to be purchased by someone with real money. That is where ANET gets paid.

Once someone has purchased gems with cash, ANET doesn’t have any reason to care who spends the gems as ANET has already been paid.

So if HoT is available in the gem store and someone uses gold to buy gems, then gems to buy HoT, then ANET was paid when the gems were purchased by the person that purchased them. Sure, ANET wasn’t paid by the person who now has HoT, but why does that matter when they were still paid ?

The when they were paid matters on the quaterly reports. I gave the example on a previous post, but to repeat, let’s say a substantial number of people buy the expansion with “old” gems, gems that were bought before the previous quarterly report’s time frame. Those sales don’t count in the report and it makes it look like the expansion isn’t selling well if the amount of profit doesn’t rise by that amount. It hurts ANet’s stock and image if the expansion sales are underreported in this manner.

Angus.5961:

Cheapest I have seen lately is $15.99 for GW2 Core Heroic Edition at greenmangaming.com, in the VIP sale section. They are a legitimate online retailer.

I bought it that way, didnt want to waste $50 on an expansion before I even played the core game. I’m in no hurry for the expansion,. I’ll get it when its on sale some day.

Anet obviously does not want to make a cheaper option available when they can use the F2P trial to coerce new players to buy a full price expansion instead.

Yes, this is the one I just bought. GMG are a good shop. They are not shady or whatever. I have got games from them for a long time now. Very reasonable.

Just out of interest did your account have restrictions? I have found that mine has some of the restrictions, but not all. Like I am only level 11 so far (guardian) but can go to lions arch. Even though the rules say level 35. However the trade shop is blocked of some items and it says wait 4 days (that’s fine). But it also says upgrade to heart of thorns. We will still be able to do normal account stuff yes, after the 4 days? Just not play the new area and things? That’s ok too, but bag space is a pain – I had to keep throwing away items as I could not sell them. I’m not too worried on waiting a bit. Thier is plenty to explore.

I had a thought that it would be cool if any P4F account got an automatic upgrade to the full (base) game if they bought gems. In that the gemstore items don’t cost Anet any money, it can only give them added revenue, and could incentivise the buying of gems by the new players.

This is a game and a game does is business.

free to play is a teaser to lead somebody to pay for HoT. If your friend cannot afford to buy just play for free until it is affortable. look for a part time job to pay for the game which is super easy.

Snoring Sleepwalker.9073:

Behellagh.1468:

Snoring Sleepwalker.9073:

ANET only needs to do two things to make Guild Wars 2 truly free to play*:
– Allow F2P players to buy gems with gold
– Place HoT in the Gem store.

If a player wants to remove the F2P restrictions, they need to grind up enough gold to buy the gems. ANET gets the money from an HoT sale (maybe more, depending on the gem cost of HoT), they just get it from people other than the person who now has it.

*By truly free to play I mean that someone can access all game content without spending a cent on the game. Paying money only speeds up access to content.

Yeah, that’ll keep the lights on and the devs fed.

The Internet has made it so everyone wants everything for free with no restrictions. Not everyone or everything is paid by Patreon or donate buttons.

You don’t understand how the gem store works. For a gem to be available for someone to buy with gold the gem first needs to be purchased by someone with real money. That is where ANET gets paid.

Once someone has purchased gems with cash, ANET doesn’t have any reason to care who spends the gems as ANET has already been paid.

So if HoT is available in the gem store and someone uses gold to buy gems, then gems to buy HoT, then ANET was paid when the gems were purchased by the person that purchased them. Sure, ANET wasn’t paid by the person who now has HoT, but why does that matter when they were still paid ?

But the cost of the primary development is paid for buy the “box” price. Hence Buy to Play. They game is still Buy to Play. Every expansion will be Buy to Play.

The Play for Free is an unlimited trial version of the game with restrictions to hamper RMT and bots. That’s why there is no Gold to Gems in the P4F trial. The game is still Buy to Play.

Angus.5961:

If they want to remove the restrictions, they are “forced” to buy the full expansion even if all they want is the core game.

How else should it work? If permissions are locked behind the pay wall, then you have to pay to unlock them.

Or do you have a Plan B for maintaining ANet’s revenue stream, finding other things that distinguish cash accounts from non-cash, and protect the community from gold traders/bots/etc?

Let me clarify what I’m saying. Basically ALL I’m saying is there should be a middle ground for a “free” player to lift the restrictions to the BASE game, without having to buy the expansion. There are currently 3 types of accounts, Free, Core, and Expansion. Unless you have the Core game already OR you find an old copy somewhere, you cannot upgrade to Core. I just think they should still allow some way to upgrade from Free to Core. Like $10-20 to upgrade to Core then if you choose to upgrade to the expansion knock that cost off the purchase price. I’m not saying they HAVE to, I just think that it would be a nice addition. It would still be the same hamper to RMT and bots that it was in the past.

Snoring Sleepwalker.9073:

You don’t understand how the gem store works. For a gem to be available for someone to buy with gold the gem first needs to be purchased by someone with real money. That is where ANET gets paid.

You’re correct that any gems exchanged for gold are there because someone else is exchanging them for gold. However, you’ve assumed that that’s all the cash that people would have spent. The way it works now: ANet gets cash for the gems and they get more cash when people buy HoT. (Or when Amazon buys copies of the core game to sell to folks.)

Snoring Sleepwalker.9073:

Once someone has purchased gems with cash, ANET doesn’t have any reason to care who spends the gems as ANET has already been paid.

Except ANet has already been paid only for the gems; they haven’t also been paid for the expac or the core game.

Or put another way, the equivalent scenario would be that Player A buys the core game for cash and then puts that on the exchange (in return for gold). Then Player B would exchange coin for that Core Game unlock. I guess ANet could do that; it’s just easier to ask everyone to pay for their own unlocks.

Haurt.6420:

Let me clarify what I’m saying. Basically ALL I’m saying is there should be a middle ground for a “free” player to lift the restrictions to the BASE game, without having to buy the expansion. There are currently 3 types of accounts, Free, Core, and Expansion. Unless you have the Core game already OR you find an old copy somewhere, you cannot upgrade to Core. I just think they should still allow some way to upgrade from Free to Core. Like $10-20 to upgrade to Core then if you choose to upgrade to the expansion knock that cost off the purchase price. I’m not saying they HAVE to, I just think that it would be a nice addition. It would still be the same hamper to RMT and bots that it was in the past.

When I bought the expansion I had the core game and I had to pay full price for the expansion. Why should f2p payers get a discount on the expansion when the veterans didn’t get one?

(If anyone thought the price of the expansion was controversial, try giving the f2p players a discount, and see the forums explode).

Snoring Sleepwalker.9073:

Behellagh.1468:

Snoring Sleepwalker.9073:

ANET only needs to do two things to make Guild Wars 2 truly free to play*:
– Allow F2P players to buy gems with gold
– Place HoT in the Gem store.

If a player wants to remove the F2P restrictions, they need to grind up enough gold to buy the gems. ANET gets the money from an HoT sale (maybe more, depending on the gem cost of HoT), they just get it from people other than the person who now has it.

*By truly free to play I mean that someone can access all game content without spending a cent on the game. Paying money only speeds up access to content.

Yeah, that’ll keep the lights on and the devs fed.

The Internet has made it so everyone wants everything for free with no restrictions. Not everyone or everything is paid by Patreon or donate buttons.

You don’t understand how the gem store works. For a gem to be available for someone to buy with gold the gem first needs to be purchased by someone with real money. That is where ANET gets paid.

Once someone has purchased gems with cash, ANET doesn’t have any reason to care who spends the gems as ANET has already been paid.

So if HoT is available in the gem store and someone uses gold to buy gems, then gems to buy HoT, then ANET was paid when the gems were purchased by the person that purchased them. Sure, ANET wasn’t paid by the person who now has HoT, but why does that matter when they were still paid ?

Like you said, the gem purchase with real money, Anet already get paid up front no matter you spend the gem or let it riot in your account wallet. So why do they want you to spend gem instead of cash to buy HoT to receive much less income?

Like i said, game developer is a business, they want our money by providing entertainment, all business wants to increase income not to cut down income.

You were given a free character slot as a veteran. Not saying it’s fair or equal but that’s what you got. I got a refund. First off the idea of a discount is not at all what I’m saying. I’m just saying it would be a way for a “free” person to go from Free to Core, say for $10 then when they upgrade to the expansion, they pay $40 dollars. They are still paying the total of $50 in the end for the expansion it would just be in two different payments. Heck even if they didn’t add the discount, it would still be nice to be able to upgrade from Free to Core. I think the absolute best way would be to just have the restrictions lifted if you bought gems, then you are still able to buy the expansion at $50.

Haurt.6420:

You were given a free character slot as a veteran. Not saying it’s fair or equal but that’s what you got. I got a refund. First off the idea of a discount is not at all what I’m saying. I’m just saying it would be a way for a “free” person to go from Free to Core, say for $10 then when they upgrade to the expansion, they pay $40 dollars. They are still paying the total of $50 in the end for the expansion it would just be in two different payments. Heck even if they didn’t add the discount, it would still be nice to be able to upgrade from Free to Core. I think the absolute best way would be to just have the restrictions lifted if you bought gems, then you are still able to buy the expansion at $50.

If they are still paying $50 then maybe they could first save up $10 and then $40 and buy the expansion.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

If they are still paying $50 then maybe they could first save up $10 and then $40 and buy the expansion.

I’m not saying that they have to buy the expansion you are totally missing the point of what I’m saying. The $10 is to upgrade to core. If they enjoy the game enough to want the expansion they then can pay $40 MORE to upgrade. Or forget the discount altogether. Just offer the Core game for $10 so that people who want to lift the restrictions of F2P can.

Haurt.6420:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

If they are still paying $50 then maybe they could first save up $10 and then $40 and buy the expansion.

I’m not saying that they have to buy the expansion you are totally missing the point of what I’m saying. The $10 is to upgrade to core. If they enjoy the game enough to want the expansion they then can pay $40 MORE to upgrade. Or forget the discount altogether. Just offer the Core game for $10 so that people who want to lift the restrictions of F2P can.

Everyone is paying at least $50 for HoT, free acc, new acc or veteran acc.

What is the logic behind to allow anyone the privilege to purchase the expansion for $40?

It is very clear that, the release of HoT, Anet’s policy is to make sure they get at least $50 for each HoT access, this is already made baseline since prepurchase.

Haurt.6420:

You were given a free character slot as a veteran. Not saying it’s fair or equal but that’s what you got. I got a refund. First off the idea of a discount is not at all what I’m saying. I’m just saying it would be a way for a “free” person to go from Free to Core, say for $10 then when they upgrade to the expansion, they pay $40 dollars. They are still paying the total of $50 in the end for the expansion it would just be in two different payments. Heck even if they didn’t add the discount, it would still be nice to be able to upgrade from Free to Core. I think the absolute best way would be to just have the restrictions lifted if you bought gems, then you are still able to buy the expansion at $50.

I thought one of the reasons for the core being bundled was to remove divisions in the game, so why would they do something that adds to division? Their whole business model going forward is to remove player tiers.

Behellagh.1468:

But the cost of the primary development is paid for buy the “box” price. Hence Buy to Play. They game is still Buy to Play. Every expansion will be Buy to Play.

The Play for Free is an unlimited trial version of the game with restrictions to hamper RMT and bots. That’s why there is no Gold to Gems in the P4F trial. The game is still Buy to Play.

If HoT is in the Gem store then ANET still gets the box price. Because the money spent to buy the gems is still money that goes into ANET’s pockets.

As for restrictions that hamper RMT, one way to fight it is to lower the price they can charge for their gold. Since buying from a gold seller risks a ban, the gold sellers have to offer gold cheaper than the gem store does. I’ve seen that referred to as a Hazard Discount. The lower the price for gold is on the currency exchange, the worse things are for the grey market gold sellers.

Players wanting to trade gems for gold are providing the demand for gold. The more of them there are, the higher the price of gold is. Players wanting to buy gems with gold are providing the supply of gold. The more of them there are, the lower the price of gold is.

In other words, the direction that increases the gold price and helps the grey market gold sellers is the only direction ANET allows F2P accounts to trade in. The direction that hurts them is the direction that is forbidden for F2P accounts.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

The when they were paid matters on the quaterly reports.

Do you have any proof showing that it really matters ?

Are there really players with a large stash of old gems ?

What I’m expecting to happen if my suggestion is implemented is that F2P accounts surge forth to buy gems with their gold. This increase in supply of gold causes the price of gold to go down significantly. Now other players see this drop in the price of gold and decide that it’s time for them to spend cash buy gold via gems. Sending the price of gold back up and a surge of cash into ANET’s pockets.

So I’m not sure how many old gems will be used compared to the number of new gems.

Snoring Sleepwalker.9073:

Behellagh.1468:

But the cost of the primary development is paid for buy the “box” price. Hence Buy to Play. They game is still Buy to Play. Every expansion will be Buy to Play.

The Play for Free is an unlimited trial version of the game with restrictions to hamper RMT and bots. That’s why there is no Gold to Gems in the P4F trial. The game is still Buy to Play.

If HoT is in the Gem store then ANET still gets the box price. Because the money spent to buy the gems is still money that goes into ANET’s pockets.

As for restrictions that hamper RMT, one way to fight it is to lower the price they can charge for their gold. Since buying from a gold seller risks a ban, the gold sellers have to offer gold cheaper than the gem store does. I’ve seen that referred to as a Hazard Discount. The lower the price for gold is on the currency exchange, the worse things are for the grey market gold sellers.

Players wanting to trade gems for gold are providing the demand for gold. The more of them there are, the higher the price of gold is. Players wanting to buy gems with gold are providing the supply of gold. The more of them there are, the lower the price of gold is.

In other words, the direction that increases the gold price and helps the grey market gold sellers is the only direction ANET allows F2P accounts to trade in. The direction that hurts them is the direction that is forbidden for F2P accounts.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

The when they were paid matters on the quaterly reports.

Do you have any proof showing that it really matters ?

Are there really players with a large stash of old gems ?

What I’m expecting to happen if my suggestion is implemented is that F2P accounts surge forth to buy gems with their gold. This increase in supply of gold causes the price of gold to go down significantly. Now other players see this drop in the price of gold and decide that it’s time for them to spend cash buy gold via gems. Sending the price of gold back up and a surge of cash into ANET’s pockets.

So I’m not sure how many old gems will be used compared to the number of new gems.

If gems and money were the same to them, don’t you think they would allow the expansion to be purchased with gems? The fact that they don’t allow the expansion to be purchased with gems shows that they don’t consider them the same. The very fact that gems from previous quarters would skew their numbers showing how many expansions were sold would be the main reason they disallow it. Or can you think of another reason why they don’t allow the expansion to be bought with gems?

Haurt.6420:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

If they are still paying $50 then maybe they could first save up $10 and then $40 and buy the expansion.

I’m not saying that they have to buy the expansion you are totally missing the point of what I’m saying. The $10 is to upgrade to core. If they enjoy the game enough to want the expansion they then can pay $40 MORE to upgrade. Or forget the discount altogether. Just offer the Core game for $10 so that people who want to lift the restrictions of F2P can.

Think about what that would do for gold sellers. With the current restrictions they have to pay the full cost of the expansion to replace a banned account. If there is a cheaper way to remove the trade and chat restrictions, then the cost for a gold seller to replace their account is also reduced.

My suggestion would require a significant time investment from the gold sellers. Lets do some math:
– HoT costs $49.99 US.
– GW2Spidy puts gems at $1.25 per 100.
– This means that HoT would cost 3999.2 gems in the gem store if ANET matches the price*. Lets call that 4,000 gems.
– 100 gems costs 21 g 88 s to buy. Thus 4,000 gems would cost 897 gold.

How long would it take for a new account under the F2P restrictions to acquire that much gold ?

If the gold sellers transfer the gold from one of their full accounts then that’s a link ANET can follow to ban both once they see that one belongs to a gold seller.

*ANET has no reason to match the price. They could charge more for the gem store version.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

If gems and money were the same to them, don’t you think they would allow the expansion to be purchased with gems? The fact that they don’t allow the expansion to be purchased with gems shows that they don’t consider them the same. The very fact that gems from previous quarters would skew their numbers showing how many expansions were sold would be the main reason they disallow it. Or can you think of another reason why they don’t allow the expansion to be bought with gems?

Good question. I can think of three possibilities:
– ANET might not have through it through. I’ve already said why I think the currency exchange restriction doesn’t make sense.
– Implementing the HoT preorder in the gem store could have some bugs. Wait until it’s launched and those bugs go away.
– They are afraid of its flow on effects on the game economy.

Snoring Sleepwalker.9073:

Behellagh.1468:

But the cost of the primary development is paid for buy the “box” price. Hence Buy to Play. They game is still Buy to Play. Every expansion will be Buy to Play.

The Play for Free is an unlimited trial version of the game with restrictions to hamper RMT and bots. That’s why there is no Gold to Gems in the P4F trial. The game is still Buy to Play.

If HoT is in the Gem store then ANET still gets the box price. Because the money spent to buy the gems is still money that goes into ANET’s pockets.

As for restrictions that hamper RMT, one way to fight it is to lower the price they can charge for their gold. Since buying from a gold seller risks a ban, the gold sellers have to offer gold cheaper than the gem store does. I’ve seen that referred to as a Hazard Discount. The lower the price for gold is on the currency exchange, the worse things are for the grey market gold sellers.

Players wanting to trade gems for gold are providing the demand for gold. The more of them there are, the higher the price of gold is. Players wanting to buy gems with gold are providing the supply of gold. The more of them there are, the lower the price of gold is.

In other words, the direction that increases the gold price and helps the grey market gold sellers is the only direction ANET allows F2P accounts to trade in. The direction that hurts them is the direction that is forbidden for F2P accounts.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

The when they were paid matters on the quaterly reports.

Do you have any proof showing that it really matters ?

Are there really players with a large stash of old gems ?

What I’m expecting to happen if my suggestion is implemented is that F2P accounts surge forth to buy gems with their gold. This increase in supply of gold causes the price of gold to go down significantly. Now other players see this drop in the price of gold and decide that it’s time for them to spend cash buy gold via gems. Sending the price of gold back up and a surge of cash into ANET’s pockets.

So I’m not sure how many old gems will be used compared to the number of new gems.

If the game never provided the gold convert to gem feature since launch, then yes, gem = money. But its too late now, there are hundred to thousands of players that never pay real money for gem and they have thousands or millions of gems rioting in their account wallet now.

Haurt.6420:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

If they are still paying $50 then maybe they could first save up $10 and then $40 and buy the expansion.

I’m not saying that they have to buy the expansion you are totally missing the point of what I’m saying. The $10 is to upgrade to core. If they enjoy the game enough to want the expansion they then can pay $40 MORE to upgrade. Or forget the discount altogether. Just offer the Core game for $10 so that people who want to lift the restrictions of F2P can.

There is no “core” for ~10$. There is not a different way to upgrade. There only exist two important versions: first is the f2p version, which needs some more restrictions. Second is gw2 for ~50$.
Simple thing is, either play for free or pay for the game.

And no there is no core and no HoT version. While veterans were angry because they had to pay againg full game price for the addon anet stated clearly that this way of thinking is wrong. The 50$ version is not HoT, it’s the ever ongoing price for gw2.

So most simple way to explain: use the trial to test the game and gw2 = 50$.

Snoring Sleepwalker.9073:

If HoT is in the Gem store then ANET still gets the box price. Because the money spent to buy the gems is still money that goes into ANET’s pockets.

You keep saying this and it’s still not true.

• ANet gets the cash for purchased gems.
• In the current situation, they also get cash for the cost of the game; in your scenario, they don’t.

Unless you think that people will spend just as much on gems as they would on the game itself — and if that were true, ANet would never have needed to have an expac; the gem shop alone would have paid for the same features.

tl;dr ANet gets more money because they lock certain privileges behind a pay wall and enough people are willing to pay to remove the restrictions. (Or just buy the expansion pack.)

Roundabout.1752:

Haurt.6420:

You were given a free character slot as a veteran. Not saying it’s fair or equal but that’s what you got. I got a refund. First off the idea of a discount is not at all what I’m saying. I’m just saying it would be a way for a “free” person to go from Free to Core, say for $10 then when they upgrade to the expansion, they pay $40 dollars. They are still paying the total of $50 in the end for the expansion it would just be in two different payments. Heck even if they didn’t add the discount, it would still be nice to be able to upgrade from Free to Core. I think the absolute best way would be to just have the restrictions lifted if you bought gems, then you are still able to buy the expansion at $50.

I thought one of the reasons for the core being bundled was to remove divisions in the game, so why would they do something that adds to division? Their whole business model going forward is to remove player tiers.

you are correct, which is why HOT is the new core game, there only is free to play and HOT

what you’re asking for is to add in a permanent third tier, which would in fact divide the game more (especially over time)

Right now there still is a permanent 3rd tier. If I had not upgraded the game to the expansion I would still be in the Core tier. I understand that they do not want to have players with different versions, but fact is there will be a new tier every time they add a new expansion, unless when the newest expansion comes out 1 of 2 things happens. Either they give the previous expansion to the F2P and Core game owners, or two just give the expansions to those who have bought the previous expansion. I know many people who bought spare accounts when it was $10 JUST for the daily rewards and will probably never upgrade them.

Think of it this way F2P and Core are technically the same type of account, the F2P is just a Core game with restrictions. All I’m saying is they could offer a way to lift the restrictions of F2P on the Core game.

EDIT: I feel like I’m just writing in circles I don’t see HOW people don’t understand what I’m saying. This is just an idea I had, Anet may like it, hate it, or just down right ignore it.

They do offer a way to lift the restrictions: Purchase Heart of Thorns, or find one of the remaining ‘Core’ editions of the game from a retailer.

I’m sure ArenaNet has pondered this long and hard. Some interesting tidbits of information we learned during TwitchCon was that they have been working on this expansion for 2 years. Plenty of time to consider all marketing strategies.

Good luck.

Haurt.6420:

EDIT: I feel like I’m just writing in circles I don’t see HOW people don’t understand what I’m saying. This is just an idea I had, Anet may like it, hate it, or just down right ignore it.

we all understand what you are saying, you just seem to refuse to accept what we are all saying as to why this will never happen.

imo the answer is that ANet doesn’t want people as core only. The f2p players are expected to either upgrade to expansionplus or stop playing. The people who are core and not upgraded are expected to upgrade at some point or stop playing. If so, the reason they don’t offer the core separately is to keep the ones who are paid and core to the absolute minimum. This way they keep the division among players at a minimum.

zxstanyxz.8769:

Haurt.6420:

EDIT: I feel like I’m just writing in circles I don’t see HOW people don’t understand what I’m saying. This is just an idea I had, Anet may like it, hate it, or just down right ignore it.

we all understand what you are saying, you just seem to refuse to accept what we are all saying as to why this will never happen.

Never say never, and you are not “all” saying it, it is a few of the same people who just keep saying the same thing. I’m done for now, I’m tired and going to bed. I don’t know what I even hoped to accomplish with this thread now anyway. Kind of feel like I should have just done /feedback now…

Angus.5961:

Cheapest I have seen lately is $15.99 for GW2 Core Heroic Edition at greenmangaming.com, in the VIP sale section. They are a legitimate online retailer.

I bought it that way, didnt want to waste $50 on an expansion before I even played the core game. I’m in no hurry for the expansion,. I’ll get it when its on sale some day.

Anet obviously does not want to make a cheaper option available when they can use the F2P trial to coerce new players to buy a full price expansion instead.

Coerce? This kittening guy right here…

F2P = Restricted to Core only.

HoT = The whole game.

There are people stuck in the middle as they have bought GW2 but not yet HoT. Since release of pre-purchase of HoT non HoT-owners are kinda F2P and it is meant for them to buy HoT too someday becouse those who are stuck between needs to be decreased not increased.