Guild Wars 2

I was talking to a friend about the how to make the gemstore more fair to both the players and Anet, and the idea of having specialized DLC (Downloadable content) as gemstore-purchased account unlocks came up.

Some ideas tossed around were selling gemstore unlocks of new-zones and new dungeons. I see alot of pros and not really alot of cons in this idea as the base game already gives us alot to do. And having more monetary value associated with new content would give the devs more incentive to develop the type of content the player-base desires.

Would you pay gems for an account wide unlock of a new zone?

Would you pay gems for an account wide unlock of a set of new dungeons?

I know I would (if the unlocks were reasonably priced), but what do you guys think about this?

I would pay an expansion’s worth of money for an expansion’s worth of content. It wouldn’t matter if it were pro-rated or not.

sure, this is pretty much the way they will handle expansions here i think, also new races and classes I guess. Most microtransaction games do.

No. I know it’s odd but it just feels like being ripped off when company sells you one map at a time. I’m against small DLCs having in mind that they normally overcharge you. Then some DLCs are expansions in digital form and I don’t mind that. In other words I’m okay with paying for expansion’s worth of content and paying as much as expansion normally is worth at retail price (compared to other MMOs expansion price), I’m not okay with paying several pounds for every single dungeon, jumping puzzle, new map, etc.

But let’s say that there are more account wide unlocks of a particular type of content as opposed to another type of content (ie: dungeons vs new zones), wouldn’t that give the devs more information on the type of content that people actually want?

I mean, like everyone else I wouldn’t want to be ripped off, but if the pricing is fair wouldn’t this make the playerbase happier?

Mirta.5029:

No. I know it’s odd but it just feels like being ripped off when company sells you one map at a time. I’m against small DLCs having in mind that they normally overcharge you. Then some DLCs are expansions in digital form and I don’t mind that. In other words I’m okay with paying for expansion’s worth of content and paying as much as expansion normally is worth at retail price (compared to other MMOs expansion price), I’m not okay with paying several pounds for every single dungeon, jumping puzzle, new map, etc.

aocypher , Anet already has the technology to monitor what players want. It is called heat maps which show where players are in the game and what they are doing the most. Based off of this information and feedback from the forums anet should have no trouble deciding on what type of content to bring to the table.

aocypher.9172:

But let’s say that there are more account wide unlocks of a particular type of content as opposed to another type of content (ie: dungeons vs new zones), wouldn’t that give the devs more information on the type of content that people actually want?

I mean, like everyone else I wouldn’t want to be ripped off, but if the pricing is fair wouldn’t this make the playerbase happier?

Not really. Look at DLC games (like for example Call Of Duty), when it’s a DLC and not a full expansion less of the game population will buy it. What will happen is that a small percentage of players own the ability to enter each new dungeon. Because it’s not an expansion most people will go “Oh I like that dungeon, but not buying that one, because I don’t like this theme of it”, meaning that let’s say 6% of the population has access to a new specific dungeon. How will LFGs go for them?

Mirta.5029:

aocypher.9172:

But let’s say that there are more account wide unlocks of a particular type of content as opposed to another type of content (ie: dungeons vs new zones), wouldn’t that give the devs more information on the type of content that people actually want?

I mean, like everyone else I wouldn’t want to be ripped off, but if the pricing is fair wouldn’t this make the playerbase happier?

Not really. Look at DLC games (like for example Call Of Duty), when it’s a DLC and not a full expansion less of the game population will buy it. What will happen is that a small percentage of players own the ability to enter each new dungeon. Because it’s not an expansion most people will go “Oh I like that dungeon, but not buying that one, because I don’t like this theme of it”, meaning that let’s say 6% of the population has access to a new specific dungeon. How will LFGs go for them?

like in every other game that feature b2p quests. Player enters party, 5 minutes tumbleweed. “Are you on your way?” “Where quest?” 2 minutes crickets´ chirping. “What´s up?`” “Cannot enter” “the quest is not f2p, did you buy it?” “Wut is f2p?”…

aocypher.9172:

Would you pay gems for an account wide unlock of a new zone?

Would you pay gems for an account wide unlock of a set of new dungeons?

No. If anything I’d quit using the gemstore alltogether, I would rather deprive myself of things I want in the gemshop than invest money on ‘content’ that should be free.

It depends on how much it costs. I’m not opposed to buying expansions either as one pack or individual pieces but I’m always wary of microtransactions because they’re usually over-priced.

No
Apart from the fact that it goes against the idea of a cosmetic/ convenience gem-shop,
it will also split the players
- this is why they said they did not want to go with the same model as GW.

if they charge for dlc content in the store- what would happen if you do not have x land or y dungeon but your party does?
DDO says hello

Chewablesleeptablet, thanks for your discussion on the heatmap.

Mirta & Algreg & co, thanks for your discussion on DLC.

Although I didn’t explicitly state it, I was hoping for a system in place so the devs can compare the current gemstore offerings (ie: boosters, gemstore armor) with things like dungeons and new zones.

edit: added a “& co” to capture people who talked about DLC as I was typing.

Let’s leave the current gemstore offerings out of this, I would rather see a jump puzzle on the gemstore than another gathering booster.

aocypher.9172:

I was talking to a friend about the how to make the gemstore more fair to both the players and Anet, and the idea of having specialized DLC (Downloadable content) as gemstore-purchased account unlocks came up.

Some ideas tossed around were selling gemstore unlocks of new-zones and new dungeons. I see alot of pros and not really alot of cons in this idea as the base game already gives us alot to do. And having more monetary value associated with new content would give the devs more incentive to develop the type of content the player-base desires.

Would you pay gems for an account wide unlock of a new zone?

Would you pay gems for an account wide unlock of a set of new dungeons?

I know I would (if the unlocks were reasonably priced), but what do you guys think about this?

NO to all the questions. DLCs are and will always be a ripoff. You don’t work for a couple of weeks make a new dungeon and put in a shop for 5 bucks. You work for 6 months, make 2 dungeons, 2 or 3 maps, a bunch of skills and npcs. AND then you can sell it to me.
I never bought a DLC in my life.

I would like to see DLCs in the gem store. It would create the possibility to offer expansions as modules. You could buy what you like and neglect what you dislike. DLCs would also give players the opportunity to purchase them with gold.

The argument of dividing players by DLCs would also be valid for an traditional expansion with costs.

I already see all those people cry “P2W” if this happens.

Why ? Because to make new content interesting to play for longer, there need to be a good farm .. and the clockwork pick has very well shown that some people here think thats P2W if you pay 100 gold and that will bring you 1 Gold profit after a year of playing.

It’s not a terrible idea on its face, but it has some potentially big hidden problems:

- Fragmented player population, where many people have differing access to maps, items, dungeons, etc. Nobody’s on the same page, and the more you break up content like this the more players will be like “Well, I will buy this map, but not that one…”

- The more frequently ArenaNet introduces piecemeal content purchases, the more players will feel harassed about constantly having to buy things in the Gem store. And considering content updates have always been free thus far, smaller purchases like these will feel unjustified in context. The feeling of “This stuff should be / used to be free,” is really not good. And you don’t want players who opt out of these purchases to feel like the game is leaving them more and more behind every time they don’t buy something.

- People are actually willing to plunk down real money for expansions, but only occasionally, and in a way that puts everybody on the same page. If it’s on the Gem store, you will have people trading gold for Gems to pay for it or discount it — thus defeating its purpose as a revenue stream, affecting the in-game economy in a way it probably shouldn’t, and rewarding goldfarmers/grinders more than everybody else. And the smaller the expansions, the more likely this will happen.

The advantage of smaller, more frequent, DLCs is that it’ll smooth out Anet’s revenue stream. It doesn’t have to be as excessive as them making and selling a single dungeon for $5. For instance, Anet could make a sell a series of zones in the Woodland Cascades, Far Shiverpeaks, or Charr Homelands (the equivalent of a major zone like Ascalon or Kryta for GW2 ppl) with the appropriate dungeons included.

I think its a super idea in that you could get more content of the type you like and support the game whilst doing so, it could be more in the way of world map and bosses for train runners or more structured content by way of dungeons.

Perhaps even pay to enter dungeons like uw or fow etc, idd you could pay to enter areas for specific champs or battlegrounds a win with some reward and your team moving onto the next round with rewards getting better the more you win, idk rly but the list could be endless, but yes i like the concept of we can choose what we want and any new content cant be a bad thing can it?:)

May I drop a suggestion :

Being able to buy an expansion by using gems.

When ArenaNet finnally decides it is time to release an expansion worth of content in one go and ask money for it you are also able to buy it using gems. So next to buying from your retailer or online from the website you are able to buy it ingame using gems just like the upgrade to digital collector’s edition.

I don’t know what prices they would ask for content described above ( a new zone, a new dungeon) but you have to keep in mind they ask 1000 gems for a infinite gathering tool. And my gues is they will ask a bit more for a new zone then for a infinite gathering tool.

Paywalls are bad. It divides the player base into haves and have nots. This isn’t some F2P Turbine game (“Please insert $5 to unlock this dungeon.”). Rather buy all my expanded content as an expansion than being nickled and dimed for each little bit of it.

Behellagh.1468:

Paywalls are bad. It divides the player base into haves and have nots. This isn’t some F2P Turbine game (“Please insert $5 to unlock this dungeon.”). Rather buy all my expanded content as an expansion than being nickled and dimed for each little bit of it.

oh, a fellow veteran? Well, they do both – and even let you pay a subscription for good measure :P

They wont ask for gems to unlock new areas, thats to greedy, im willing to pay but, they will prefer the option of making the zones and dont charge nothing. i would be happy if they make new zones and i think its the opinion behind this topic. if we dont get new areas, then we can pay for it?

sounds like there’s not alot of trust for anet. ^^;

There shouldn’t be any reason why anet can’t price an expansion in gems. It doesn’t matter if someone farmed gold and converts it to gems. Ultimately, those gems came from someone who spent RL money on them.

ThFH.6048:

May I drop a suggestion :

Being able to buy an expansion by using gems.

When ArenaNet finnally decides it is time to release an expansion worth of content in one go and ask money for it you are also able to buy it using gems. So next to buying from your retailer or online from the website you are able to buy it ingame using gems just like the upgrade to digital collector’s edition.

I don’t know what prices they would ask for content described above ( a new zone, a new dungeon) but you have to keep in mind they ask 1000 gems for a infinite gathering tool. And my gues is they will ask a bit more for a new zone then for a infinite gathering tool.

Rho.1923:

The advantage of smaller, more frequent, DLCs is that it’ll smooth out Anet’s revenue stream. It doesn’t have to be as excessive as them making and selling a single dungeon for $5. For instance, Anet could make a sell a series of zones in the Woodland Cascades, Far Shiverpeaks, or Charr Homelands (the equivalent of a major zone like Ascalon or Kryta for GW2 ppl) with the appropriate dungeons included.

Good to see some other people finally realizing the ability to convert F2P currency to P2P currency isn’t such a great idea. There’s no fix for it unless Anet creates yet another currency, but wait. We have so many to choose from, karma? no maybe laurels? How about dungeon tokens?

Algreg.3629:

Behellagh.1468:

Paywalls are bad. It divides the player base into haves and have nots. This isn’t some F2P Turbine game (“Please insert $5 to unlock this dungeon.”). Rather buy all my expanded content as an expansion than being nickled and dimed for each little bit of it.

oh, a fellow veteran? Well, they do both – and even let you pay a subscription for good measure :P

Quoted for truth-

IMO, Laurels would be the best choice.

Silent The Gray.3091:

Rho.1923:

The advantage of smaller, more frequent, DLCs is that it’ll smooth out Anet’s revenue stream. It doesn’t have to be as excessive as them making and selling a single dungeon for $5. For instance, Anet could make a sell a series of zones in the Woodland Cascades, Far Shiverpeaks, or Charr Homelands (the equivalent of a major zone like Ascalon or Kryta for GW2 ppl) with the appropriate dungeons included.

Good to see some other people finally realizing the ability to convert F2P currency to P2P currency isn’t such a great idea. There’s no fix for it unless Anet creates yet another currency, but wait. We have so many to choose from, karma? no maybe laurels? How about dungeon tokens?

Tee gem store should only have cosmetic and QoL items in it. To gate an entire zone or section of story behind it is ludicrous and contrary to Anet’s design of the gem store. If they did it, I would feel obligated to buy it just so I could enjoy new content. That’s not good imo.

I know people are willing to spend real money for new permanent content, but that’s due to a desperate longing for it, not because they feel expansions should be gem store items. It’s the traditional view of expansions costing money. And despite Anet’s claims of “expansion worth of content” in patches, we’ve yet to really see it.

I would say yes but only in the same regards as the digital deluxe edition. Sort of like in GW1 where the shop sold expansions as well but they were just digital upgrades instead of a disc that installed the data. I think they should give up on their previous desire to not release expansions and just make an expansion for this game. Everyone who would complain about a proper expansion and new content clearly has no idea how much it costs to design something so big.

aocypher.9172:

Would you pay gems for an account wide unlock of a new zone?

Would you pay gems for an account wide unlock of a set of new dungeons?

No I would not pay for one zone.
No I would not pay for new dungeons.
If I wanted to pay for content to play, I would be playing LotRO or DDO, or one of the millions of identical FPS releases with 4 maps for $10 DLC garbage that they do.

Now, if they made a full blown expansion with multiple zones, dungeons, possibly races/classes and all the other general expansion inclusions, then yes. Just because upgrading my account in-game would be extremely convenient.

It would be a terrible mistake to go the DLC route right after the launch of TESO and close to the Wildstar one. It’s probably now when the B2P can really make a difference.
DLCs might be viable on a different situation, but I would really prefer a true expansion over them.

aocypher , Anet already has the technology to monitor what players want. It is called heat maps which show where players are in the game and what they are doing the most. Based off of this information and feedback from the forums anet should have no trouble deciding on what type of content to bring to the table.

Rewards (gold, achievements, …) play a HUGE role on what the playerbase does, so this kind of metrics usually deliver a completely biased information and should be analyzed very carefully.

I’d prefer a buy-it-once-get-it-all expansion over a nickel-and-dime style expansion. Plus if you call it microtransactions the internet will blow up whereas if you call it an expansion everyone will flock to you. EDIT: Maybe like SWTORs digital smaller expansions. $20 and you get 5 new zones, 1 new weapon type, 3 new skills per class, and 2 new dungeons. I’d buy that day one. Not “400 gems for the next zone” style DLC. I can get behind digital expansions though.

I rather pay for a full price expansion (through gem store or web, I don’t care) that having terrible f2p design fueled by a not-so-micro transaction store full of rubbish.

Donari.5237:

No. This game was designed, marketed, and sold as one where you don’t have to pay to play or to see all the content. What you suggest goes against its core philosophy. The gem store is for fluff and convenience, not for content, and changing that would likely gut their player base far more than they’d gain in content sales.

edit: Yes, I’d pay for an expansion. But not nickel and dimed in.

Well your fluff is my content. I love to go into the world and play to get mini’s but thats completely monitized in this game making it a gold-grind or buy item and in effect removing that content from the game. So making it fluff does not make it any better.

However I also don’t agree with the OP.

They should get rid of the cash-shop as they shown they can’t handle that without compromising the game. In stead they should indeed release expansions. Those I will buy.

Realistically, they should go back to the GW1 model.

The Secret World, does something like this, but far as I know, unlike Guild Wars 2, and Neverwinter, there’s no way to trade in game money, for Store money.

But as this is Arena Net, they will likely do what they did with Guild Wars, and release a hundred expansions, that you have to buy.

Donari.5237:

No. This game was designed, marketed, and sold as one where you don’t have to pay to play or to see all the content. What you suggest goes against its core philosophy. The gem store is for fluff and convenience, not for content, and changing that would likely gut their player base far more than they’d gain in content sales.

Exactly, and thanks to that business model we got all awesome content, new races, and classes, and cantha…. instead of weak bi-weekly theme park content….

The bi-weekly theme park content is needed to keep people logging in. There’s no subscription fee “forcing” people to play, there’s no title tracks that people can advance on (ala GW1), and there’s no objective in-game measure on how well people run dungeons and frac (people completing a frac 50 in a 30 mins being an “S” rank, 1 hour “A” rank, 5 hours “F” rank, etc…)

Edit: title track that shows a cool title per tier of achievement. Not something crazy like Ultimate Liberator as the only title (they should have partial title tracks like Apprentice Liberator, Journeyman Liberator, etc…)

Soulstar.7812:

Donari.5237:

No. This game was designed, marketed, and sold as one where you don’t have to pay to play or to see all the content. What you suggest goes against its core philosophy. The gem store is for fluff and convenience, not for content, and changing that would likely gut their player base far more than they’d gain in content sales.

Exactly, and thanks to that business model we got all awesome content, new races, and classes, and cantha…. instead of weak bi-weekly theme park content….

I could understand if an entire expansion upgrade was sold via the gem store, along with having a boxed edition. (Some people don’t care about the box) Some people would buy it with money, some would buy it with coin (cause they have that much). Of course offering it that way reduces their profits potentially. Some people would opt not to buy it at all.

I don’t agree with having to purchase it piecemeal though. All or nothing.

Hmm what i would like to see is a bigger catalogue/selection in the gem store. Weapon skins, armor skins and more cool stuff. I know skins already exist in the game but there isn’t many in the gem store and not so many attractive weapon skins. I feel there is lack of variety in the store, it’s very small and by adding a catalogue with tons of stuff i’m sure i will spend £80 on gems instead of £30 per month. Just my opnion.

No. I would walk away from it.
I am all for supporting games and developers, but the DLC system is leeching the life out of gaming. Half finished games being released with the other half being released as paid DLC.
Expansions or patches (like todays) are different.
An expansion is like a second game, adding on so much content at once and a fee I don’t mind paying for, and they are also generally limited to maximum once a year or more in between them.
DLC lets developrs leech the playerbase for all they’re worth. A map here, a dungeon there. It would be like paying $10 a pop for each living story installment.

Would you have paid for any installment of the “Living Story”? Don’t think I would have. So ultimately, not very fond of paying trickled in content because it almost never adds the feeling you get when facing an expansion or the overall depth and changes that come with one.

DCUO is huge example of that format and I’m not a huge fan of it.

aocypher.9172:

Would you pay gems for an account wide unlock of a new zone?

Would you pay gems for an account wide unlock of a set of new dungeons?

I know I would (if the unlocks were reasonably priced), but what do you guys think about this?

I would pay for DLCs, but only if they’re reasonable. I can understand if Anet tries to avoid expansions, since it is a barrier for new players to join the game. I think this was one of the reason why GW2 was developed. Back in GW1 new players had to buy 3 full games and 1 add on to be competitive in PvP or PvE. It is not a good business model in long term.

So what is okay, if e.g. all new additional skills, traits, classes or races are free, but only new maps which include dungeons, are added via the gem store. So new players only need to buy the basic game to have all varieties of builds, which keeps the game attractive also in later years.

aocypher.9172:

I was talking to a friend about the how to make the gemstore more fair to both the players and Anet, and the idea of having specialized DLC (Downloadable content) as gemstore-purchased account unlocks came up.

Some ideas tossed around were selling gemstore unlocks of new-zones and new dungeons. I see alot of pros and not really alot of cons in this idea as the base game already gives us alot to do. And having more monetary value associated with new content would give the devs more incentive to develop the type of content the player-base desires.

Would you pay gems for an account wide unlock of a new zone?

Would you pay gems for an account wide unlock of a set of new dungeons?

I know I would (if the unlocks were reasonably priced), but what do you guys think about this?

Meh I see this as a dagger to the game…. they just need to make an expansion which I’m sure peeps wouldn’t mind

no. i will pay for full expansion, not some part of it.