Guild Wars 2

I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw it.
- The amount of players who were happy with the Balthazar armor set just being an outfit in the Gem Store.
(Disclaimer: It seemed to be the understanding that the set was going to be an outfit in the Gem Store. Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong. The thread was named “Balthazar Outfit – Thanks!!!” )

tl;dr:
To summarize:

• Balthazar Armor Set in Gem Store is a waste of potential!
• The armor worn by the Bookah Gods are in the “Legendary” category!
• There is too much awesome lore and potential content, dungeon, boss fight or some other that should be tied to rewards of such magnitude as this!

The Actual Post + rants
Just in general, armor sets that are inspired by the GODS themselves are not Gem Store material.
- That is reward-material after doing some content that proves that YOU have what it takes to receive god-like status.

“Don’t like it? Don’t buy it!” – Yeah, I read those comments.
- Fact is, I like it. I absolutely adore that armor set, and I am an advocate for all the armor sets that are displayed with the gods to make it into the game world, however, the Gem store is not the way to go.
- It tells me that at ANet, they cares less about making awesome content to go with the rewards, than they do about making some easy money. And this is easy money, because it’s the Balthazar armor set! Practically every GW fan would want it.

ANet, I beg of you to do these armor sets justice and make some content worthy of having rewards coming straight from the Godly Armoury!
- Otherwise you’re sucking whatever value there was in these sets out of them.

When I tell my friends how I got an armor set like that, how’d you like me to regale them of such an epic tale?

1. “I vanquished foes of unimaginable power and after overcoming overwhelming odds I was blessed by the Gods with this mighty armor!”
2. “I bought it..? But seriously, guys, there are other ways to get cool armor sets in GW2! … Guys..?”

My friends weren’t GW1 veterans like myself, and so they are not as invested, thus I’ve mostly played by myself and with guilds that simply dried out, sadly.
- My friends have a rekindled interest in the game after the announcement of an expansion came along.

We all agree that GW2 is a game with the potential to be so much more than it currently is.
- The Balthazar outfit incident here has made them and myself question whether ANet is competent enough to be trusted with the future of this game, since the possibility for actual content of epic proportions along with rewards that are just as epic seems to get a Gem Store treatment, when the game needs more content that seriously challenges the players’ ability to work together and rewards them for overcoming said challenges through cunning use of combo fields, skill and teamwork.

- Need I explain to all of you that these amor sets are in the category of “Legendary”
And you just want it as a Gem Store item instead?!? It doesn’t compute!

And you’re better than that, ANet!
- I get that you need to make money, and I’m not an Anti-Gem-Store fanatic, but there is just too much potential for awesome and incredible content tied to these particular sets. It would be a waste to just have them placed in the Gem Store!

If it is your current course of action, please reconsider!

While i’m some times against those requiests for gating certain items only for those that spend a HUUUGE amount of time in game, i do have to admit that this is a fair request.

Even more i’m not one that spends lots of money on Gems for the Item Mall, but if arena net really needs/wants the easy money they still could do it.

Maybe make the armour to be 80% in game content(like bosses, crafting, dungeons) and 20% Gem Items…some special item to buy for Gems, like 200 gems ( I do however buy gems with in game gold, when i really need something)

All i’m saying is that some things are worth working for a little more than just plain out push the buy button.

OP +1

For everything that you do not want in the gemstore someone else wants to exclude something else. If Anet is going to make everyone who wants something out of the gemstore happy they would have to remove everything.

How would YOU personally make up for the loss of revenue if this item was withheld from the gemstore ? Lets say a thousand people would have paid ten dollars each for the set. How would YOU make up the loss of ten thousand dollars ? Not Anet, YOU?

They might be legendary to YOU, but not to everyone. What if one person considers profane armor legendary, and another zodiac, and another flamekissed? So all of these would somehow have to be taken out of the gem store, which would lose money, and more people would have to be hired to create new content for them, which would cost even more money.

Doesnt seem likely to happen unless they put in a monthly sub or something to pay for it all, which is even less likely.

Welcome to f2p gaming.

Ashen.2907:

For everything that you do not want in the gemstore someone else wants to exclude something else. If Anet is going to make everyone who wants something out of the gemstore happy they would have to remove everything.

How would YOU personally make up for the loss of revenue if this item was withheld from the gemstore ? Lets say a thousand people would have paid ten dollars each for the set. How would YOU make up the loss of ten thousand dollars ? Not Anet, YOU?

As I wrote, I get that they need to make money, and I’m not anti-Gem Store.
- The armor set in question is the one that Balthazar is wearing in this concept art of the Gods. If Balthazar’s armor set is in the Gem Store, then if we see the armor sets of the other gods, it will be through the Gem Store.
https://dviw3bl0enbyw.cloudfront.net/uploads/forum_attachment/file/138194/gods_of_tyria__guild_wars_by_RaIKoH696.jpg

If we’re not getting content of a certain magnitude out of such armor sets that seems to demand a certain level of respect, then I do not trust ANet knows how to deal

As for how I’d get that source of revenue, I’d release an expansion… oh wait!
- Seriously though, they could add all sorts of armors and weapons for all I care, but these sets simply deserve better than this.

Sizer.5632:

They might be legendary to YOU, but not to everyone. What if one person considers profane armor legendary, and another zodiac, and another flamekissed? So all of these would somehow have to be taken out of the gem store, which would lose money, and more people would have to be hired to create new content for them, which would cost even more money.

Doesnt seem likely to happen unless they put in a monthly sub or something to pay for it all, which is even less likely.

Welcome to f2p gaming.

If the armor of the Gods doesn’t attain the status of Legendary, I don’t know what does.

They said they wanted to make Legendary Armors.
- These seem like the optimal choice to me.

GW2 has some neat skins, yeah. Infinite Light is a personal favorite and people have said that it almost deserves Legendary status.
- I am aware of the different opinions but these armors are some of the most worthy of them all.
(Although, if I have to give other examples, their concept art for Margonites and the Chronomancers are also some Legendary-worthy designs)

Balthazar texture is an outfit not armor, so it’s a waste of time and money for me. I don’t care if it’s gemstore, since it’s outfit I won’t be getting it even if they put it as an in-game reward.

But I agree this would be a very cool legendary armor or 4th set of human cultural armor. But you can’t monetize content outside of gem store and this is the only reason why we have outfits.

They haven’t put much in the way of armor and weaponskins into dungeons.

Look at the luminiscent armor, that is one out of how many armros in the game that have been added versus put on the gem store? And then it takes a silly amount of grinding an open world area.

I agree with the sentiment… but as others have said: at the end of the day, Anet needs money. Even back in GW1, we had god-inspired armour available in this way. If they make all of the amazingly cool armour available through gameplay only, the sales of the “lesser” gem store armour would be disappointing.

I’d love this to be an armour set where pieces drop from an achievement or boss in some living story about reviving Orr, where we fight some Balthazar-related spirit – but that content would take a lot of work and push the story in a completely different direction. This costs money. Again, that’s what it comes down to.

to be honest, i see gem store equip just like a ingame vendor thats sells them. there is no difference between buying a cultural weapon, karma equip or a gem store item. if you have to do something special in the game for the equip its something different, but most of the armors are just vendor material and the gem shop is just another one. so i got no problem with it

Sinifair.1026:

Ashen.2907:

For everything that you do not want in the gemstore someone else wants to exclude something else. If Anet is going to make everyone who wants something out of the gemstore happy they would have to remove everything.

How would YOU personally make up for the loss of revenue if this item was withheld from the gemstore ? Lets say a thousand people would have paid ten dollars each for the set. How would YOU make up the loss of ten thousand dollars ? Not Anet, YOU?

As I wrote, I get that they need to make money, and I’m not anti-Gem Store.
- The armor set in question is the one that Balthazar is wearing in this concept art of the Gods. If Balthazar’s armor set is in the Gem Store, then if we see the armor sets of the other gods, it will be through the Gem Store.
https://dviw3bl0enbyw.cloudfront.net/uploads/forum_attachment/file/138194/gods_of_tyria__guild_wars_by_RaIKoH696.jpg

If we’re not getting content of a certain magnitude out of such armor sets that seems to demand a certain level of respect, then I do not trust ANet knows how to deal

As for how I’d get that source of revenue, I’d release an expansion… oh wait!
- Seriously though, they could add all sorts of armors and weapons for all I care, but these sets simply deserve better than this.

And yet there might be others who would prefer that those armor options be in the gemstore while items currently in the gemstore be removed and added to the game. Why should the item you want be offered for free but the stuff that others want should not ?

The expansion is in addition to gemstore revenue. The question is how would you personally make up the difference in revenue if the item(s) in question were to be withheld from the gemstore for your preference. Would you pay the $10,000 (per the hypothetical numbers mentioned above). If you are going to ask a company to forgo thousands of dollars of revenue because you would rather get the item without paying for it, are you willing to make up the difference?

Didn’t all the GW1 players (and thus fans) obtain the Human God’s Armor (that was released) in GW1 by purchasing it through the GW1 Online Game Store?

I mean, if we are going to follow precedent, it would seem Gem Store would be the way to go.

Personally, I don’t really have a preference to how it is obtained, as Gems or no, I would not likely purchase it with cash.

Good luck on your suggestion, though. =)

I have found the general thrust of these sort of threads can boil down to:

“I want this, but don’t want to have to pay for it.”

I have to say I love that Outfit but I personally would have liked it to be an armor which would be obtained in a slightly rework of Orr.
Just make it like Silverwastes so you can get special tokens (integrated in the wallet…) for completing events in the Orr zones and then have the tokens be tradeable at the temples (like Carapace Armor) with each temple having the armor of the specific god. Not only would that repopulate Orr bur it would also give new mix & match armor sets which can be earned ingame.
And yes I know this wouldn’t get them the money they get from putting it into the Gemstore but they already released tons of new Gemstore stuff in the last month..
So all in all: I agree it shouldn’t be a Gemstore item + it should be an Armor instead of an Outfit.

Kortas.7345:

I have to say I love that Outfit but I personally would have liked it to be an armor which would be obtained in a slightly rework of Orr.
Just make it like Silverwastes so you can get special tokens (integrated in the wallet…) for completing events in the Orr zones and then have the tokens be tradeable at the temples (like Carapace Armor) with each temple having the armor of the specific god. Not only would that repopulate Orr bur it would also give new mix & match armor sets which can be earned ingame.
And yes I know this wouldn’t get them the money they get from putting it into the Gemstore but they already released tons of new Gemstore stuff in the last month..
So all in all: I agree it shouldn’t be a Gemstore item + it should be an Armor instead of an Outfit.

Please no I never want to go back to orr again.

chemiclord.3978:

I have found the general thrust of these sort of threads can boil down to:

“I want this, but don’t want to have to pay for it.”

actually, if you read the OP, it was more of, this is an item i want to work towards in game, and have some great inpsired means of getting it.

Most likely the OP would not be satisfied with it being an item from a vendor either. He wants it tied to some form of epic adventure.

Content does seem to be coming mainly through the gemstore these days.

My two best arguments to counter the Gem Store

• Fissure of Woe!
• Menzies!
  - Balthazar will grant you this awesome look, but only to those worthy of wearing it! There’s too much potential for content on a whole other level of legendary than we already have! I can’t see why you would choose the Gem Store for this particular item!

Also I am well aware that there were armors inspired by the Gods in GW1 that we could buy, but after three years we also had so much more content in GW1 than GW2 has presented us with – and yes, I know GW2 is a different kind of game.

This armor set is just not something you put in the Gem Store.
- Many of those have been armor sets that haven’t really had any lore relation to the world at all. Sure, we’ve had Rox’s and Braham’s armor sets, but I still consider them to be “skins” or “replicas” of the real ones. I wouldn’t expect a dungeon where I fight Rox and Braham for those, and I’m not going to ask for that.

chemiclord and Ashen – Silly bookahs!
- Fact is that the armor sets already in the Gem Store haven’t had any real lore tied to them, the same way that this set, and all the armor sets of the gods, have.
- Flamekissed? Just some fancy fire effect. Flashy sells! All the armor sets in the Gem Store looks fine. I’ve bought some of them and I am using the Phalanx myself.
- But those armor sets didn’t really have the “This could be an awesome reward for some epic content” the same way that these do.
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Avatar_of_Balthazar

They could make 5 or 10 other outfits or armor sets to put on the Gem Store, and I wouldn’t bat an eye. I’m not against them putting things in the Gem Store!
- But this look right here? Balthazar? A God? It deserves better.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Didn’t all the GW1 players (and thus fans) obtain the Human God’s Armor (that was released) in GW1 by purchasing it through the GW1 Online Game Store?

I mean, if we are going to follow precedent, it would seem Gem Store would be the way to go.

Personally, I don’t really have a preference to how it is obtained, as Gems or no, I would not likely purchase it with cash.

Good luck on your suggestion, though. =)

I know we had those sets (but after three years in GW1 we also had a lot more)
- But then this isn’t the one we could buy, is it? http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Avatar_of_Balthazar

I’ll repeat!

• Fissure of Woe!
• Menzies!

If that isn’t enough to have GW fans say that this armor set is too valuable lore wise, and reward-for-potentially-more-awesome-than-any-content-we’ve-ever-had-in-GW2-wise, then what is?

Fissure of Woe over Gem Store!

You have to learn one thing, GW1 lore made sense and was awesome in GW1 while most of it makes no sense in GW2. Simply because GW2 is another game with the same name and nothing more.

Whilst normally I disagree with these posts, I am agreeing today.Most of the other God armor/weapons can be crafted. This should be no different.

Sinifair.1026:

I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw it.
- The amount of players who were happy with the Balthazar armor set just being an outfit in the Gem Store.
(Disclaimer: It seemed to be the understanding that the set was going to be an outfit in the Gem Store. Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong. The thread was named “Balthazar Outfit – Thanks!!!” )

tl;dr:
To summarize:

• Balthazar Armor Set in Gem Store is a waste of potential!
• The armor worn by the Bookah Gods are in the “Legendary” category!
• There is too much awesome lore and potential content, dungeon, boss fight or some other that should be tied to rewards of such magnitude as this!

The Actual Post + rants
Just in general, armor sets that are inspired by the GODS themselves are not Gem Store material.
- That is reward-material after doing some content that proves that YOU have what it takes to receive god-like status.

“Don’t like it? Don’t buy it!” – Yeah, I read those comments.
- Fact is, I like it. I absolutely adore that armor set, and I am an advocate for all the armor sets that are displayed with the gods to make it into the game world, however, the Gem store is not the way to go.
- It tells me that at ANet, they cares less about making awesome content to go with the rewards, than they do about making some easy money. And this is easy money, because it’s the Balthazar armor set! Practically every GW fan would want it.

ANet, I beg of you to do these armor sets justice and make some content worthy of having rewards coming straight from the Godly Armoury!
- Otherwise you’re sucking whatever value there was in these sets out of them.

When I tell my friends how I got an armor set like that, how’d you like me to regale them of such an epic tale?

1. “I vanquished foes of unimaginable power and after overcoming overwhelming odds I was blessed by the Gods with this mighty armor!”
2. “I bought it..? But seriously, guys, there are other ways to get cool armor sets in GW2! … Guys..?”

My friends weren’t GW1 veterans like myself, and so they are not as invested, thus I’ve mostly played by myself and with guilds that simply dried out, sadly.
- My friends have a rekindled interest in the game after the announcement of an expansion came along.

We all agree that GW2 is a game with the potential to be so much more than it currently is.
- The Balthazar outfit incident here has made them and myself question whether ANet is competent enough to be trusted with the future of this game, since the possibility for actual content of epic proportions along with rewards that are just as epic seems to get a Gem Store treatment, when the game needs more content that seriously challenges the players’ ability to work together and rewards them for overcoming said challenges through cunning use of combo fields, skill and teamwork.

- Need I explain to all of you that these amor sets are in the category of “Legendary”
And you just want it as a Gem Store item instead?!? It doesn’t compute!

And you’re better than that, ANet!
- I get that you need to make money, and I’m not an Anti-Gem-Store fanatic, but there is just too much potential for awesome and incredible content tied to these particular sets. It would be a waste to just have them placed in the Gem Store!

If it is your current course of action, please reconsider!

I agree but that is true for all items, not just these outfits. All items, being it skins or finishers, or mini’s could add o the game-play. But when in the cash-shop they only add to the grind but add nothing to the gameplay. that is the problem with the cash-shop focus. Something you should not have in a B2P game but in a F2P game.

But then again, that is the same I am saying here for like 2 years now and every knows that by now. Still it’d god to see more and more people running into this and so agreeing on it. Of course you look at it specifically for items you care about (those outfits) but for others it might be any of the other items in the shop. What is important for you is personal. That is why I talk in general.

I personal couldn’t give a kitten about lore or about the gods, i care about my character. This is a cool outfit and i’m willing to buy it because it looks cool and you can swap to them AT ANYTIME.

Say you are to receive these skins/outfits after completeting the equivalent to all arah paths in 2 hours without any of your party getting downed, then these skins would be truly legendary.
I doubt 99% of the community could do this but if people work hard and spent insane hours at it like the elite PvE players, it could be achieved.

Or do you want something a lot easier that 99% of the community can complete, given that the game content simply cannot become hard because of the RNG involved in drops already implemented in every form of the game.
What i am saying is, is that the game is casual friendly in terms of difficulty and there is no way to change that except for making something exceptionally difficult.

Humans will always subconsciously go the easier route that rewards the best, or in terms of time spent for the best reward. Your forms of gaining these items would have no RNG related else people would simply not do them if too hard, or it would be too easy and everyone would have the skin.

The only way i see these ‘god’ skins becoming attainable as you would like, is through a quest such as of mawdrey with a difficulty level that requires complete 100% attention and cooperation.

Oh and what about the players who dislike PvE and only enjoy PvP or WvW? Are you now going to limit them doing this difficult feat because they dislike that part of the game?

Panites.6798:

I personal couldn’t give a kitten about lore or about the gods, i care about my character. This is a cool outfit and i’m willing to buy it because it looks cool and you can swap to them AT ANYTIME.

I usually play my games for the gameplay and and the content. Not the cash shop.
- Used to be that your character’s gear would also be a way of showing/reminding you of his/her progression. What they’d gone through. – For others, the character is a wandering trophy.

I’d like to have the Balthazar set as a reminder of having ventured through the Fissure of Woe or of having defeated Menzies.
- I don’t consider simply buying a set for my character to “care” for my character. I’m making him work for it.
To each their own, I suppose. I just don’t get the “I’d rather be shopping than gaming” mindset. Especially since we buy our games to “play” them.

- As said, I don’t mind them putting in armor and weapon in the Gem Store or buying them, it’s simply that they have a setup of lore from GW1 that they could go for along with this set, and I don’t understand why they wouldn’t, if the armor set is coming into the game anyway. We’d get more GW2 along with it.

And Panites:
- First of all, the PvP players have their reward tracks. They can get their dungeon skin by choosing that reward track. It’s been there, still is, so no, no exclusion for the PvP’ers (Balthazar is equal to PvP for many GW veterans).

Secondly, I’d like for the content to strike a nice balance between that difficulty scale. I’d say some form of “dungeon” like content that leads up to it. The Fissure of Woe could be a new open area. As for Menzies, it is unknown where he is exactly, though some theorize that Ravenheart Gloom in the Domain of Anguish is a possiblity, since some of his minions were located there in GW1.

I would like it to be through a bossfight or stuff collected from the Fissure of Woe, but I’m inclined to say that the hourlong hunt/grind through content that only the most hardcore of players enjoy isn’t what I’m after here.
- Rather something along the lines of the dungeon sets, but it should require a bit more from the player than just that.
- Maybe if each boss fight leading up to Menzies, and Menzies himself, had some sort of “defeat without <insert challenge>” that would yield in a special token that would be required to get it.
That way you wouldn’t just go through the dungeon only to fail at the last boss. There’d be potential for each fight to reward you with a token (some challenges easier than others) and thus, if you were “hardcore” you might get all tokens in one go, and be able to buy a piece of the armor. Or, if you were casual, you might get one or two in a run and have to do it a few more times before you got a hold of the entire set.

It would be one way of doing it.

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/File:Agent_of_Balthazar.png
- They could remake and sell this set in the Gem Store. It was the “Balthazar set” in the first game. There are sets for each of the gods. It would be awesome to see those in the Gem Store instead and have the content for the other more detailed ones.

Ashen.2907:

How would YOU personally make up for the loss of revenue if this item was withheld from the gemstore ? Lets say a thousand people would have paid ten dollars each for the set. How would YOU make up the loss of ten thousand dollars ? Not Anet, YOU?

I would make these sets:
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/File:Agent_of_Balthazar.png
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/File:Disciple_of_Melandru.png
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/File:Grenth%27s_Regalia.png
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/File:Vision_of_Lyssa.png
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/File:Dwayna_costume.png
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/File:Augur_of_Kormir.png

And then I’d make content to go with the other ones.

my answer to you, OP:

Why not both?

Sinifair.1026:

Ashen.2907:

How would YOU personally make up for the loss of revenue if this item was withheld from the gemstore ? Lets say a thousand people would have paid ten dollars each for the set. How would YOU make up the loss of ten thousand dollars ? Not Anet, YOU?

I would make these sets:
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/File:Agent_of_Balthazar.png
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/File:Disciple_of_Melandru.png
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/File:Grenth%27s_Regalia.png
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/File:Vision_of_Lyssa.png
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/File:Dwayna_costume.png
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/File:Augur_of_Kormir.png

And then I’d make content to go with the other ones.

I asked how you would make up the difference, not how Anet would. Are you willing to give the company tens of thousands of dollars of your money?

making a new product in the form of sets/content does not make up for revenue lost on a previous costume. Even if Anet did produce additional sets/content they would not have the revenue from the set you are asking them to give for free instead of selling.

Sinifair.1026:

- Rather something along the lines of the dungeon sets, but it should require a bit more from the player than just that.
- Maybe if each boss fight leading up to Menzies, and Menzies himself, had some sort of “defeat without <insert challenge>” that would yield in a special token that would be required to get it.
That way you wouldn’t just go through the dungeon only to fail at the last boss. There’d be potential for each fight to reward you with a token (some challenges easier than others) and thus, if you were “hardcore” you might get all tokens in one go, and be able to buy a piece of the armor. Or, if you were casual, you might get one or two in a run and have to do it a few more times before you got a hold of the entire set.

Has been tried and dismissed as not working. Players as a whole have a tendency to go the path of least resistance. If you allow for every boss to give the same kind of token, people will just figure out the easiest boss, farm the dungeon (or whatever you want to call it) up to that boss, and abandon the rest.

There’s a reason why current dungeons in this game give most tokens (except for an occasional 3 along the way) after finishing the path …

Coming back to the op, I don’t really mind which outfits go into the store and which can be won/purchased/whatever in-game. That will always be subjective, since what to one player is the most legendary outfit (either visual, lore-wise. or both) another player might well be indifferent to.

I enjoy moving along the luminescent collections on my occasional outings into the Silverwastes, or gathering resources for the ambrite weapons when I’m in Dry Top, and hope to see more of this kind of aquisition method (preferably for outfits as well as armor, as I love the freedom of changing my characters clothes on the fly).

I don’t really care if the visuals are based on some human gods or not. As a non-GW1 player and not playing humans in GW2 (asura ftw) I don’t really have any connection to those gods anyway.

Ashen.2907:

I asked how you would make up the difference, not how Anet would. Are you willing to give the company tens of thousands of dollars of your money?

making a new product in the form of sets/content does not make up for revenue lost on a previous costume. Even if Anet did produce additional sets/content they would not have the revenue from the set you are asking them to give for free instead of selling.

I’m asking for them to make the content that these sets are the perfect setup to, and use the ones that we’ve been able to buy before.
- I hope you’re not suggesting that ANet should stop ever making content with some form of cosmetic reward – and the whole “Then pay them all those thousands of dollars, if you don’t like it!”? Just drop it, it’s not an argument (and if you seriously think it is, I’m not going to bother with you – I gave you six other armor sets for the Gem Store and suggest the other six be put in the game. It’s not supposed to all go in the Gem Store. How would you make up for the loss of revenue from the dungeon sets, or the Ascended armor sets? There has to be a balance between what goes in the Gem Store and what doesn’t. Usually, when there is a lot of content potential in items, you’d want to make more content for the players to stick around for).

Producing playable content is also important. If every and all potential content was scrapped, but the reward kept and put in the Gem Store, I wouldn’t be playing this game.
- I don’t buy gems or Gem Store items for them to produce more Gem Store items for me to buy. I buy gems and Gem Store items to support them and for them to expand their world and game, and produce more content for me (and us all) to play.
- They produced content through the Living Story and the feature packs and although it was far from without flaws, I can appreciate when a company tries something new, so I made some purchases in the Gem Store to support them.

As stated, it is not that I’m against them putting armors in the Gem Store or that “I want it for free” – I want it as a reward for the content it would fit so obviously well with. Many of the armors in the Gem Store has no historical value or obvious potential content tied to it, so I don’t mind that in there.
- But where there is potential, I’d like to see that ANet are capable of utilizing it, so I know that the potential that is in the game (because GW2 has so much more potential than what we’ve already gotten – looking forward to HoT) is going to be realized and not just scrapped and put in the Gem Store.

Rasimir.6239:

Has been tried and dismissed as not working. Players as a whole have a tendency to go the path of least resistance. If you allow for every boss to give the same kind of token, people will just figure out the easiest boss, farm the dungeon (or whatever you want to call it) up to that boss, and abandon the rest.

There’s a reason why current dungeons in this game give most tokens (except for an occasional 3 along the way) after finishing the path …

Coming back to the op, I don’t really mind which outfits go into the store and which can be won/purchased/whatever in-game. That will always be subjective, since what to one player is the most legendary outfit (either visual, lore-wise. or both) another player might well be indifferent to.

I enjoy moving along the luminescent collections on my occasional outings into the Silverwastes, or gathering resources for the ambrite weapons when I’m in Dry Top, and hope to see more of this kind of aquisition method (preferably for outfits as well as armor, as I love the freedom of changing my characters clothes on the fly).

I don’t really care if the visuals are based on some human gods or not. As a non-GW1 player and not playing humans in GW2 (asura ftw) I don’t really have any connection to those gods anyway.

Yes, I’m aware of the infinite lazyness of the players here.
- It was simply to throw an idea out there of how it could be done (and there is also designing around cheating ones way through – only one token will be dropped per day by each boss, for instance – but then players would take the few easy ones, leave the rest. Yeah, I hear you).

But let us say that they have some potential content that would tie more into the asurans and their background or their ancient civilization and yield some neat rewards and simply see the rewards put in the Gem Store, then?
- Basically, I just want to be able to delve deeper into their world and lore and find some cosmetic rewards for different content I bump into while searching, which serves as a “souvenir” of “Oh yeah, I went to the Fissure of Woe” or “Oh yeah, I found and explored an ancient underground asuran city” – something that I can take with me from my adventures.
- Not having every last one of those be “Oh yeah, that was in the Gem Store some years back.”

- And yes, by all means, put some armors or weapons in the Gem Store, but save some of the good ones as reward for actual content. Rampart or Phalanx armor? Very neat for my Guardian or Warrior (or Revenant… soon). Sure, I’ll buy!
- But Balthazar outfit in Gem Store and a quaggan backpack for defeating Menzies? I’m not quite there yet.

Hope you get the point, even though you may not agree, mate.
(And read up on Dhuum! He’s an awesome character – Grenth usurped his position, but Dhuum was never defeated. Not to mention the concept art? It’s sweet)

serenke.4806:

You have to learn one thing, GW1 lore made sense and was awesome in GW1 while most of it makes no sense in GW2. Simply because GW2 is another game with the same name and nothing more.

It’s not far out or impossible to have Dhuum or Menzies return.
- There is the issue of the Gods suddenly cutting all contact.

It could be that ANet has another idea or plot in mind, which stand in the way of things.

Panites.6798:

I personal couldn’t give a kitten about lore or about the gods, i care about my character. This is a cool outfit and i’m willing to buy it because it looks cool and you can swap to them AT ANYTIME.

Say you are to receive these skins/outfits after completeting the equivalent to all arah paths in 2 hours without any of your party getting downed, then these skins would be truly legendary.
I doubt 99% of the community could do this but if people work hard and spent insane hours at it like the elite PvE players, it could be achieved.

Or do you want something a lot easier that 99% of the community can complete, given that the game content simply cannot become hard because of the RNG involved in drops already implemented in every form of the game.
What i am saying is, is that the game is casual friendly in terms of difficulty and there is no way to change that except for making something exceptionally difficult.

Humans will always subconsciously go the easier route that rewards the best, or in terms of time spent for the best reward. Your forms of gaining these items would have no RNG related else people would simply not do them if too hard, or it would be too easy and everyone would have the skin.

The only way i see these ‘god’ skins becoming attainable as you would like, is through a quest such as of mawdrey with a difficulty level that requires complete 100% attention and cooperation.

Oh and what about the players who dislike PvE and only enjoy PvP or WvW? Are you now going to limit them doing this difficult feat because they dislike that part of the game?

Well your examples sure look like more fun than a mindless boring grind we have now. Would make the game and the content and the game-play much more interesting for sure.

It’s btw not true that with RNG it would always become dumbed down. If you would only get an item for specific (harder) content but it would still be RNG (doable rng) then the price would be higher and so while the option to grind gold is still there, it would cost so much compared to the more direct approach (going for the item) that grinding gold is not always the way of least resistance. Maybe in skill but not in effort!

“Oh and what about the players who dislike PvE and only enjoy PvP or WvW? Are you now going to limit them doing this difficult feat because they dislike that part of the game?” Just as we now limit people who don’t like to just grind gold (in this game marketed with the no-grind-philosophy) but like to hunt down there cosmetics (in this game all based on cosmetics)? Yeah I guess that might happen. On the other hand you might also put some more WvW looking stuff available in WvW and some more PvP looking skills in PvP.

While again if RNG is an option the option to grind gold is still there without it having to dumb down the game. So in those cases it would still also be available for WvW and PvP only people.

“I personal couldn’t give a kitten about lore or about the gods, i care about my character. This is a cool outfit and i’m willing to buy” Personally I also do not care so much about lore, but I don’t have a game to be able to buy more skins for the character in the game. That is not playing a game. This might come as a surprise to you, but I do have a game to play it.

Ashen.2907:

For everything that you do not want in the gemstore someone else wants to exclude something else. If Anet is going to make everyone who wants something out of the gemstore happy they would have to remove everything.

How would YOU personally make up for the loss of revenue if this item was withheld from the gemstore ? Lets say a thousand people would have paid ten dollars each for the set. How would YOU make up the loss of ten thousand dollars ? Not Anet, YOU?

I would have sold an expansion every year and put fun content in it that rewarded these things. People would then hopefully buy the expansions every year because they know there is all this fun content in them. Eventually I might have even earned more by selling the game and expansion on yearly base.

Whatever a Balthazar armor is. Human gods are a pretty boring concept, they’re just some statues being worshipped. Don’t really see them as interesting outside of the joke with the grenth-statue in the LS.

Devata.6589:

I would have sold an expansion every year and put fun content in it that rewarded these things. People would then hopefully buy the expansions every year because they know there is all this fun content in them. Eventually I might have even earned more by selling the game and expansion on yearly base.

Wel now you’re delivering content, but how will you make money?
Because not to burst your bubble too much but that content takes a smaaaaall amount more money to create than gem store content so your sales reach better be close to 100% (mind you no sub, so this is compared to the previous sales) or you’re not making much money.

Sizer.5632:

They might be legendary to YOU, but not to everyone. What if one person considers profane armor legendary, and another zodiac, and another flamekissed? So all of these would somehow have to be taken out of the gem store, which would lose money, and more people would have to be hired to create new content for them, which would cost even more money.

Doesnt seem likely to happen unless they put in a monthly sub or something to pay for it all, which is even less likely.

Welcome to f2p gaming.

“Doesnt seem likely to happen unless they put in a monthly sub or something to pay for it all, which is even less likely.

Welcome to f2p gaming."

Then again, this game was supposed to be B2P (not F2P, while indeed the way it works now is more F2P.. something I got a lot of hate for when I first said it was becoming more F2P than B2P. Now naming this game F2P has become mostly accepted).

But in a B2P game the ‘’something to pay for it all" would be to logical way to pay for it, and ’something’ would be the game and expansions. Meaning you would also have more regular expansions obviously.

The god ‘armors’ where costumes in GW1 previously. I am not surprised to see them come back as such in GW2 (and I like the job they did on Balth this time around so much better).

Now, I’m not against having more armors in the game. However, I can see how this would be a pain in the kitten to convert into an armor with their current armor weight / mesh set ups.

Beyond that, turning it into an armor could potentially lock it to a single armor weight as well as introduce a whole crap load of clipping issues (with other armors, with the assorted races, so forth and so on).

If they did create the 6 as actual armors, I honestly feel they should be limited only to humans. They could use it as a new cultural of sorts, I suppose. They’d need to find something comparable for the other races though.

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Costume

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

The god ‘armors’ where costumes in GW1 previously. I am not surprised to see them come back as such in GW2 (and I like the job they did on Balth this time around so much better).

Yes, I know of the costumes we had there, however, the designs we see here are not the same as those.
- http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/File:Gods_of_Tyria_Avatars.png

It would be nice to have the old outfits come back, but I’d also like for Menzies and Dhuum (and possibly new enemies associated with Dwayna, Lyssa, Melandru and Kormir) to return and reward us with the “new” sets (possibly as outfits, if that is easier for ANet to make).

As I’ve already said, I didn’t “expect” Menzies or Dhuum to return any time soon or the Avatar of Balthazar outfit, but I always thought that if I ever saw the armor in the game, it would be as reward for defeating Menzies.
- It would be a nice way to “end” those story arcs.

There is also the possiblity that ANet have a plot for the Gods – they have remained silent for a long time, so who knows, there may actually be some content intended to explain further that we’ve yet to discover.
- Still, a Dhuum and Menzies bossfight would be epic.

Devata.6589:

Ashen.2907:

For everything that you do not want in the gemstore someone else wants to exclude something else. If Anet is going to make everyone who wants something out of the gemstore happy they would have to remove everything.

How would YOU personally make up for the loss of revenue if this item was withheld from the gemstore ? Lets say a thousand people would have paid ten dollars each for the set. How would YOU make up the loss of ten thousand dollars ? Not Anet, YOU?

I would have sold an expansion every year and put fun content in it that rewarded these things. People would then hopefully buy the expansions every year because they know there is all this fun content in them. Eventually I might have even earned more by selling the game and expansion on yearly base.

I don’t believe that Anet could make an expansion a year. This isn’t Guild Wars 1. Things aren’t pathed. Dynamic events are not quests.

You realize you need roughly three times as many dynamic events as you do quests to population a zone, right?

Vayne.8563:

Devata.6589:

Ashen.2907:

For everything that you do not want in the gemstore someone else wants to exclude something else. If Anet is going to make everyone who wants something out of the gemstore happy they would have to remove everything.

How would YOU personally make up for the loss of revenue if this item was withheld from the gemstore ? Lets say a thousand people would have paid ten dollars each for the set. How would YOU make up the loss of ten thousand dollars ? Not Anet, YOU?

I would have sold an expansion every year and put fun content in it that rewarded these things. People would then hopefully buy the expansions every year because they know there is all this fun content in them. Eventually I might have even earned more by selling the game and expansion on yearly base.

I don’t believe that Anet could make an expansion a year. This isn’t Guild Wars 1. Things aren’t pathed. Dynamic events are not quests.

You realize you need roughly three times as many dynamic events as you do quests to population a zone, right?

I agree with Vayne on this one.
- I’d rather not get a bug infested expansion each year.

An alternative to it could be that the Living Story seasons would lead up to something significant in size. Something that wouldn’t be the size of an expansion, but still larger than your average LS content – sort of a mini-expansion.

And I’m eager to see if they can increase efficiency on the LS side of things. Eight episodes in Season 2, although great, wasn’t enough content for over half a year.
- And yes, I’m aware that they also did the feature packs, but I hope they can increase the effeciency with the LS – and the time between expansions as well.

You won’t see any anet answers in this thread.

CutePicsHunter.7430:

You won’t see any anet answers in this thread.

They haven’t answered the multitude of similar threads over the last 3 years, so good bet.

Vayne.8563:

Devata.6589:

Ashen.2907:

For everything that you do not want in the gemstore someone else wants to exclude something else. If Anet is going to make everyone who wants something out of the gemstore happy they would have to remove everything.

How would YOU personally make up for the loss of revenue if this item was withheld from the gemstore ? Lets say a thousand people would have paid ten dollars each for the set. How would YOU make up the loss of ten thousand dollars ? Not Anet, YOU?

I would have sold an expansion every year and put fun content in it that rewarded these things. People would then hopefully buy the expansions every year because they know there is all this fun content in them. Eventually I might have even earned more by selling the game and expansion on yearly base.

I don’t believe that Anet could make an expansion a year. This isn’t Guild Wars 1. Things aren’t pathed. Dynamic events are not quests.

You realize you need roughly three times as many dynamic events as you do quests to population a zone, right?

The fastest expansion for GW1 was half a year and I do think they will be able to push it out once a year if that is where their focus is.
That is because dynamic events end and another begin (so yeah so always have events going on you need more) but one quest should not have to be much more complicated to create then a quest when you have a good basis build for making events. And quest aren’t the hardest part of making an expansion, it’s just a bulk of work. With many smaller / filler quest you should be able to create multiple (3 or so) quest (or dynamic events) in a day pp. The better quest (good quest-chains) maybe 1 quest chain in 2 days. Now I would be fine, no I would love, to see traditional quest as well, mixed in with the dynamic events. Traditional quest simply add things that the events miss (and the other way around) but an event is not able to completely replace a traditional quest.

Currently there are about 1500 events. You said 1 quest = 3 events. So you would need 500 quest if you were to replace all events by quest. But let’s say we wanted to do it 50/50. So then 250 + 750 = 1000 quest / events. Let’s go for a nice mix of good quest / evens and filler quest. We put a team of 17 people on it for 2 month (you can also use less people and spread it out, but just for the sake of argument). For the better quest-chains / events we calculate 40 working days / 2 (2 day per quest) = 20 quest x 10 people = 200 quest / events. Then 5 people for the smaller quest. So 40 working days x 3 quest x 5 people = 600. So that is 800 quest / events for the expansion. The 2 people left are supporting the other people by creating items and other things requested by the quest-builders.

So if it comes to quest that should easily fit into a expansion per year schedule.