Guild Wars 2

This game has far too many bugs and and poorly thought out mechanics/features to be worthy of a subscription based model.

HiddenNick.7206:

Gehenna.3625:

HiddenNick.7206:

Advent.6193:

No thank you. If I were a fan of subscription-based gaming, there are plenty of other options still out there.

Name 3 fantasy based MMO’s with subs.

WoW
LotRo
DDO
Aion
Rift
Tera

Most of them can be played f2p as well but still have sub options that give you more in game.

From whole that list only ONE game have subs. Others are micro transaction based.

False. As I said, they may have added f2p options but they ALL still offer subs. I checked in fact before posting this.

Chuo.4238:

For GW2? Neither.

Nothing in the gemstore is worth it, and I wouldn’t pay a sub to play this game.

My preferences in general, however, lean towards subscriptions. I just want to play a good game, and if that gives developers the breathing room to make one, and quit shoving ridiculous cash-shop stuff in my face, then that’s what I want.

I’d cheerfully pay a sub for a good, classy game.

I agree that ANet handled the content/rewards issues better in GW than in GW2. However, I don’t agree that a subscription game provides better content. In sub games, I get annoyed every time it seems to me that the developers are trying to slow me down to keep me around longer — and imo that type of thing is pervasive in sub games. I also feel that sub game content updates contain as much or more meaningless fluff as we get here. As far as meaningful content updates, mostly they come with expansions — which of course are over-and-above the sub fee. So, I don’t see how renting the game rather than buying it is improving my experience. Ymmv, of course.

Duke Blackrose.4981:

Someone who buys gems with gold is contributing just as much to the financial success of the game as someone who buys gems with real money? Why? Because:

1) Gems are never free – they’re bought by someone else for real money and then traded to you. You’re supporting Anet/NCSoft by proxy.

2) Gem prices go up with more players trading gold for gems. This encourages other players to spend real money on gems to sell for the better exchange rates. In this way, one of your supposed non-contributors is actually fueling another player’s purchase.

As for your subscription proposal…. keep it out of my game. I’ve bought my game. I deserve to enjoy and play it. When I decide Anet deserves my cash in the gem store, I spend money on gems. When I want something from the gem store but don’t feel like blowing money, I trade gold for gems and support Anet through the two above points. It’s a perfect model. It benefits the players in virtually every way, and I’ve NEVER complained about gold to gem exchange rates – in fact, they could be considerably higher and I wouldn’t complain. High gem prices are healthy for both Anet/NCSoft’s finances and for the discouragement of gold sellers.

If GW2 was subscription based I’d have to farm for gold and other items that I normally buy off the gem store. I hate farming games, no thank you.

A simple NO is the only option. They can’t change their model this far into the game without it causing a number of problems including loss of players.
Very soon you will have your sub based MMO, that not only charges full retail for the program, with a monthly subscription, but has a cash shop as well. Although a fan of all things elder—-I am going to scroll right by that game and model.

I will NEVER pay a fee just to log in a game again. GW2 has proven that you don’t need sub fees to maintain and grow a MMO, heck they are putting out more content than sub based games.

I prefer subscription. If any RMT, just purely cosmetic or account related (i.e. server transfers etc.). The problem is that when a game focuses in on RMT to make money, the designers start to revolve everything around getting people to spend money into RMT. This means design decisions may not be focused on providing the most engaging and fun content, but simply to drive sales for the RMT shop.

But we knew what we were getting into when we bought this game. Eventually the people like me that had/have subscriptions in other games and yet spent money buying gems here will move on (or play less), while those that will only play RMT based games but never spent money will see less content roll out.

The thing about gems is that whilst it might not be anet deliberately tweaking the gold:gem ratio, it pays for them for it to suck. They have no desire to regulate it. Secondly is the fact that it’s an infinite resource they just create and can make money off of without it having any effects on the game. This means the ratio shouldn’t get so bad, I mean who cares if more people have gem store items?

Whole discussions seems moot. People who think subscriptions were/are ever a good idea are living in the WoW era still, which was the epitome of money grabbing.

iFocus.3781:

Here is what we all MUST make a stand on:
1 Gemstore
2 Subscription

This isn’t the only choice. I’ll bring up GW1 not because it was a perfect game and I feel GW2 must be GW1, but because it had a solid model and is from the very same company (thought it does not often feel like it).

Another choice would be, no subscription, but a gem store that was not built such that it negatively impacts the rest of the game. The most significant positive impact the gem store has had is the ability to purchase currency from a legitimate source.

I find the design of black lion chests and keys to be abhorrent. The introduction of very interesting weapon skins connected to that design in a random way is even more abhorrent. One time use armor skins that sell for $10. It’s this creeping in of the very worst aspects of free-to-play microtransaction monetization strategies that I would have never expected to see from ArenaNet so long as they remained somewhat independent of NCSoft.

Too much of the unique and differentiating content of the game has been introduced via gems rather than normal gameplay. The argument that you can use gold to convert to gems doesn’t hold water because the more you do this, the worse the exchange rate becomes, negating any ability you may have to earn meaningful gem shop wealth via game mechanics.

Their current strategy has changed their relationship with us. Their gem shop goals and gameplay goals are at odds with one another. They want you to enjoy the game, to find the rewards both in terms of fun and items meaningful and worth pursuit. If they do this though, and put everything of value into the game, achievable by normal people with normal lives in terms of time commitment, then they can’t monetize you with them.

When it comes time to decide “Do we make Zodiac Skins drop from some new set of world events… like say, maybe the Clockwork Chaos series we introduced at the same time or do we put them behind thinly veiled gambling mechanics on the gem shop?”

It’s easy to see what they decided and what they will most often decide in the future.

Karizee.8076:

I will NEVER pay a fee just to log in a game again. GW2 has proven that you don’t need sub fees to maintain and grow a MMO, heck they are putting out more content than sub based games.

It has actually kind of proven you DO need subscription fees to deliver large, meaty content updates on a regular schedule. Compare what WoW has released over the past year to what GW2 has and there’s simply no comparison — WoW wins hands down.

Aretak.3826:

Whole discussions seems moot. People who think subscriptions were/are ever a good idea are living in the WoW era still, which was the epitome of money grabbing.

WoW? The whole f2p (yes this is b2p) and RMT driven games have hurt the development of sandbox mmo’s more than anything. It’s harder to include RMT into a sandbox as a driving force. It’s far easier to convert the rest to f2p RMT and get sudden surges in revenue for a short time then move on to making another when it deflates.

But that started in the dev chatter back in early UO, concerning the avg 2yr life of the majority of subscriptions vs. getting money fast rather than sustained income. But yeah, a game like EVE can keep bringing in money over the long haul, but the money surge for RMT and f2p (or the like) is more attractive to investors that want the payout fast.

WoW was more the end-game for general subscription based games, as the meh-jority of new mmo gamers wanted a quick f2p game to play while they kept their WoW subscriptions up. This has been a driving force in the new business model, yet at consequence to the existing mmo players.

Zeldain.5710:

Karizee.8076:

I will NEVER pay a fee just to log in a game again. GW2 has proven that you don’t need sub fees to maintain and grow a MMO, heck they are putting out more content than sub based games.

It has actually kind of proven you DO need subscription fees to deliver large, meaty content updates on a regular schedule. Compare what WoW has released over the past year to what GW2 has and there’s simply no comparison — WoW wins hands down.

1 raid (2 if you want to count the upcoming raid that will appear before its year is up), a couple daily zones, and a handful of scenarios?

If GW2 added 12 living story content patches together (the same amount of time as it takes them to make 1 raid) I’m sure most players would consider that quite “meaty”.

GoldenTruth.2853:

Zeldain.5710:

Karizee.8076:

I will NEVER pay a fee just to log in a game again. GW2 has proven that you don’t need sub fees to maintain and grow a MMO, heck they are putting out more content than sub based games.

It has actually kind of proven you DO need subscription fees to deliver large, meaty content updates on a regular schedule. Compare what WoW has released over the past year to what GW2 has and there’s simply no comparison — WoW wins hands down.

1 raid (2 if you want to count the upcoming raid that will appear before its year is up), a couple daily zones, and a handful of scenarios?

If GW2 added 12 living story content patches together (the same amount of time as it takes them to make 1 raid) I’m sure most players would consider that quite “meaty”.

You cannot argue with people who like games like WoW. They believe that the company is giving them something wonderful for their sub fees, when the new content that all MMO companies are giving their fans is reasons to log in regularly and play on an ongoing basis. They all put massive time sinks in their games because they cannot program fast enough. It’s just that in a sub game, you’re paying for the “privilige.”

I never found WoW’s between-expansion updates to be all that interesting. To be frank, they were pretty dull. The strength of WoW was a large number of classes and a big world to level them up in. But, everyone thinks of MMO’s in terms of features that they’ve come to expect. People say they want something new from their next game, but when push comes to shove, what they really want is the same old bull-gravy their last game had.

I’m 100% fine with cash shops supporting games as long as they don’t sell power. A-net has done a very good job of not doing that.

The cash shop allows people that don’t have the time to spend real life money to get the things that they want (shineys). The gold->gem conversion allows people who have time but not much money to still get these shineys.

The lack of a sub fee is also why we have SO many more updates and new content. They need to give players reasons to keep coming back and spend more money to keep the game going.

It’s a really good set up for everyone involved IMO.

Aberrant.6749:

I’m 100% fine with cash shops supporting games as long as they don’t sell power. A-net has done a very good job of not doing that.

I’d add “as long as they don’t sell power and also do not employ exploitative monetization schemes nor alter game design with the gem shop in mind.”

This game has done an excellent job with first of those three, but is consistently allowing the last two to happen.

Unleashed.6195:

Aberrant.6749:

I’m 100% fine with cash shops supporting games as long as they don’t sell power. A-net has done a very good job of not doing that.

I’d add “as long as they don’t sell power and also do not employ exploitative monetization schemes nor alter game design with the gem shop in mind.”

This game has done an excellent job with first of those three, but is consistently allowing the last two to happen.

It’s all subjective. You’re seeing exploitative monetization schemes and altered design where they may or may not actually exist. I’ve personally never seen a more reasonable, less invasive cash shop. And I’m satisfied with just knowing that 1) I can earn everything in it by trading gold for gems (and at a rate I consider reasonable) and 2) That nothing in said gem shop is required for me to play or enjoy the game.

At the end of the day, content isn’t being designed to be dysfunctional without the cash shop. Even election participation was easily done without any use of the cash shop. As for RNG – who cares? It’s skins. It’s always been skins – and skins that you can buy from other players via the tp at that. Skins are irrelevant towards actual game design even in a horizontal progression game. Why? Because tastes are subjective and there are a multitude of skins that appeal to various tastes available through pretty much every method of play.

Zeldain.5710:

Karizee.8076:

I will NEVER pay a fee just to log in a game again. GW2 has proven that you don’t need sub fees to maintain and grow a MMO, heck they are putting out more content than sub based games.

It has actually kind of proven you DO need subscription fees to deliver large, meaty content updates on a regular schedule. Compare what WoW has released over the past year to what GW2 has and there’s simply no comparison — WoW wins hands down.

You might wanna have a seat…

I read an interesting article a few days when ESO announce they are going to be subscription based. The article mentioned that subscription provide a more stable and predictable funding and this usually translate into bigger development budget and hence why games like ESO and Wildstar are going subscription. B2p/F2p games usually have fluctuating funding and hence may limit what can be allocate for the development of ongoing content.

Looking back at the past MMOs and GW2, this kinda explain some things like why GW2 tend to release temporary content as they are usually easier to produce (and probably much cheaper to develop as well as maintain) and can occupy the players for long period of time, or cosmetics that translate into direct gem sales in the store. I think it will be harder for B2P/F2P MMOs to produce large permanent content areas compared to subscription based games unless they do it like DDO/LOTRO style where each new content area are bought with gems.

Only time will tell if the next wave of MMOs like ESO and Wildstar will be successful with the subscription based model as it seems MMOs players are starting to demand more involved content that F2p/B2p modem might have difficulties providing.

Duke Blackrose.4981:

It’s all subjective. You’re seeing exploitative monetization schemes and altered design where they may or may not actually exist.

Black Lion Chests + Keys isn’t a difficult example to break down into how it is exploitative.

Duke Blackrose.4981:

I’ve personally never seen a more reasonable, less invasive cash shop. And I’m satisfied with just knowing that 1) I can earn everything in it by trading gold for gems (and at a rate I consider reasonable) and 2) That nothing in said gem shop is required for me to play or enjoy the game.

There will always be players in a free-to-play game who achieve everything they want to without the cash shop despite their design being both exploitative and in opposition to the best interests of gameplay as a whole.

Duke Blackrose.4981:

At the end of the day, content isn’t being designed to be dysfunctional without the cash shop. Even election participation was easily done without any use of the cash shop. As for RNG – who cares? It’s skins. It’s always been skins – and skins that you can buy from other players via the tp at that. Skins are irrelevant towards actual game design even in a horizontal progression game. Why? Because tastes are subjective and there are a multitude of skins that appeal to various tastes available through pretty much every method of play.

If a game were not free-to-play microtransaction based as this one is, and those new skins you don’t care about were placed on a raid boss or difficult to kill world boss, it would not change anything about the game for you. If they were placed on an actual slot machine, where three cherries in a row won you the item skin, that would also not change the game for you. How you play and enjoy the game as an individual player does not define whether or not they’re using exploitative practices, nor does it answer the question of whether or not they’re negatively impacting gameplay design to feed the cash gem shop.

Ask yourself how different this event series would be without the gem shop? What would it look like if gems were not involved? That’s the root of the issue. It’s a game built around monetization. It’s a different product. A different relationship between us and the developer.

The exchange used to be “I’m going to make something as fun as I possibly can and ask you to pay for it”. Now it’s much more opaque and indirect. It has as much in common with a carnival game or gambling as pre-free-to-play gaming.

Rynarx.6124:

I read an interesting article a few days when ESO announce they are going to be subscription based. The article mentioned that subscription provide a more stable and predictable funding and this usually translate into bigger development budget and hence why games like ESO and Wildstar are going subscription. B2p/F2p games usually have fluctuating funding and hence may limit what can be allocate for the development of ongoing content.

F2P monetizes better than B2P or B2P + Sub, at least that has been the case thus far with every subscription to F2P transition for MMOs in recent times. Everything from TF2 to LotRO to Rift has enjoyed increases in both player number and revenue.

Their explanation for why they want to be B2P or B2P + Sub is that they do not want to have to make the gameplay compromises that come with F2P monetization strategies. They want to keep their old relationship with us, the one that had them making things as fun as they possibly could and asking for money for the experience. If they go down the F2P path, they know what that means and how it will change their jobs. It’s the struggle between games as an art and built out of passion for their hobby and games as a business. They are always balanced against one another, but F2P monetization strategies tip the scale much further towards games as a business and away from what drew most of us to make games in the first place.

After my sore and bitter dissapointment with the announcements made by wildstar and elder scrolls online, i would definately say; NO NO NO NO NO.

I like the gemstore the way it is, except perhaps skins being locked behind RNG boxes. Sub games are dying as the above games will find out the hard way. Gemstore has enough versatility to allow players to pay to be lazy OR grind their way to free rewards. That in my opinion is WAY better than 100’s of a pounds a year on a sub OR a pay2win system included in other f2p games.

Also, would like to mention the amount of amazing looking games coming out in the next year. The next gen is kicking off and gaming is more popular than ever. The market is SO saturated with good titles its ridiculous to think that anyone would find a sub affordable and acceptable, unless your a niche gamer and want a game to concentrate on, theres currently way too many games and far too little time, especially when your paying hard cash for that time.

hmmm what about a guild wars 2 lite edition offering only:
- Guild Wars 2 game
- 1 Character slot

at USD 10.00

since usd 10.00 buys us 800 gems, which can unlock 1 character slot.

Unleashed.6195:

Duke Blackrose.4981:

It’s all subjective. You’re seeing exploitative monetization schemes and altered design where they may or may not actually exist.

Black Lion Chests + Keys isn’t a difficult example to break down into how it is exploitative.

Duke Blackrose.4981:

I’ve personally never seen a more reasonable, less invasive cash shop. And I’m satisfied with just knowing that 1) I can earn everything in it by trading gold for gems (and at a rate I consider reasonable) and 2) That nothing in said gem shop is required for me to play or enjoy the game.

There will always be players in a free-to-play game who achieve everything they want to without the cash shop despite their design being both exploitative and in opposition to the best interests of gameplay as a whole.

Duke Blackrose.4981:

At the end of the day, content isn’t being designed to be dysfunctional without the cash shop. Even election participation was easily done without any use of the cash shop. As for RNG – who cares? It’s skins. It’s always been skins – and skins that you can buy from other players via the tp at that. Skins are irrelevant towards actual game design even in a horizontal progression game. Why? Because tastes are subjective and there are a multitude of skins that appeal to various tastes available through pretty much every method of play.

If a game were not free-to-play microtransaction based as this one is, and those new skins you don’t care about were placed on a raid boss or difficult to kill world boss, it would not change anything about the game for you. If they were placed on an actual slot machine, where three cherries in a row won you the item skin, that would also not change the game for you. How you play and enjoy the game as an individual player does not define whether or not they’re using exploitative practices, nor does it answer the question of whether or not they’re negatively impacting gameplay design to feed the cash gem shop.

Ask yourself how different this event series would be without the gem shop? What would it look like if gems were not involved? That’s the root of the issue. It’s a game built around monetization. It’s a different product. A different relationship between us and the developer.

The exchange used to be “I’m going to make something as fun as I possibly can and ask you to pay for it”. Now it’s much more opaque and indirect. It has as much in common with a carnival game or gambling as pre-free-to-play gaming.

Could you make the words “for you” flash, rotate, spin and glow in the dark? Duke’s post subjective opinion. Nothing more.

The things in the gem shop aren’t in any way required items… mostly just skins… and you can buy the majority of them for gold off of the TP now and not have to mess with the BLKeys. It’s totally your choice as far as which way you want to obtain them. I don’t see how that can be considered exploitative…

Gehenna.3625:

My point is, Anet went B2P with microtransactions. If it had been a totally convincing success, I am sure they would use it again. But instead we see new MMOs coming out with subs. Wildstar is just one of them.

You mean, Anet went B2P with Megatransactions.

Aberrant.6749:

The things in the gem shop aren’t in any way required items… mostly just skins… and you can buy the majority of them for gold off of the TP now and not have to mess with the BLKeys. It’s totally your choice as far as which way you want to obtain them. I don’t see how that can be considered exploitative…

Why do people keep saying certain content is not “required”?
Translation: It’s not important to me, so it shouldn’t be important to you.

Villious.8530:

Aberrant.6749:

The things in the gem shop aren’t in any way required items… mostly just skins… and you can buy the majority of them for gold off of the TP now and not have to mess with the BLKeys. It’s totally your choice as far as which way you want to obtain them. I don’t see how that can be considered exploitative…

Why do people keep saying certain content is not “required”?
Translation: It’s not important to me, so it shouldn’t be important to you.

it is not required because you can still play the game just fine without them.
hence, not required.

for example,

i need food & water to survive. required.
i do not need expensive branded clothes to survive. not required.

Villious.8530:

Aberrant.6749:

The things in the gem shop aren’t in any way required items… mostly just skins… and you can buy the majority of them for gold off of the TP now and not have to mess with the BLKeys. It’s totally your choice as far as which way you want to obtain them. I don’t see how that can be considered exploitative…

Why do people keep saying certain content is not “required”?
Translation: It’s not important to me, so it shouldn’t be important to you.

Because they don’t give you any advantage to a player in terms of actual performance.

It doesn’t mean that I don’t think looks should be important to you. Just that if you want something specific and rare that I don’t have a problem with it costing me more. Trust me… I spent plenty of gold to get wintersbark, t3 cultural, bifrost (so my mes would be alpha as kitten with rainbows and butterflies) etc. just for the look lol

A game with horizontal progression has already made the value statement for everyone that gear is not about stats. Since that’s out of the way, what is left for people to desire?

Aesthetics.

Since that is all that matters with gear, how it looks, then we shouldn’t have to play games with semantics over whether it’s required or not. A primary reward mechanism for the game has been skewed to push people to randomized cash shop mechanics that are akin to nickel slot machines.

You’re immune and are fine with other skins that are available. That’s great. It doesn’t mean they haven’t taken what used to be a pure “experience content and earn rewards” experience and polluted it with cash shop mechanics that are on shaky ethical ground.

Unleashed.6195:

A game with horizontal progression has already made the value statement for everyone that gear is not about stats. Since that’s out of the way, what is left for people to desire?

Aesthetics.

Since that is all that matters with gear, how it looks, then we shouldn’t have to play games with semantics over whether it’s required or not. A primary reward mechanism for the game has been skewed to push people to randomized cash shop mechanics that are akin to nickel slot machines.

You’re immune and are fine with other skins that are available. That’s great. It doesn’t mean they haven’t taken what used to be a pure “experience content and earn rewards” experience and polluted it with cash shop mechanics that are on shaky ethical ground.

Once again… if you want to buy these skins you can now buy them off of the tp. That was a huge move towards reducing any ethical problems (or whatever) people may have. Now nothing is forcing you to gamble with the BL keys…

No offense to anyone here, but if Anet made the subscription fee one dollar a month, I still wouldn’t pay for it. Heck, I even regret spending 30 bucks on this game already. No, Guild Wars 1 shows you that you don’t necessarily have to have a ton of items in the gemstore to bring in income. GW1 had about 3 costumes and a few extra items, and it thrived for many, many years even being constantly updated and changed. The base box price should bring in enough income for Anet to happily produce content for years already, they don’t need the gemstore or a subscription fee. Sure, why wouldn’t Anet want a gemstore? It’s more money for them, but they don’t need it to keep the game running. It’s just like extra pocket change. It’s nice to have, but you don’t need it.

Rynarx.6124:

I read an interesting article a few days when ESO announce they are going to be subscription based. The article mentioned that subscription provide a more stable and predictable funding and this usually translate into bigger development budget and hence why games like ESO and Wildstar are going subscription. B2p/F2p games usually have fluctuating funding and hence may limit what can be allocate for the development of ongoing content.

Looking back at the past MMOs and GW2, this kinda explain some things like why GW2 tend to release temporary content as they are usually easier to produce (and probably much cheaper to develop as well as maintain) and can occupy the players for long period of time, or cosmetics that translate into direct gem sales in the store. I think it will be harder for B2P/F2P MMOs to produce large permanent content areas compared to subscription based games unless they do it like DDO/LOTRO style where each new content area are bought with gems.

Only time will tell if the next wave of MMOs like ESO and Wildstar will be successful with the subscription based model as it seems MMOs players are starting to demand more involved content that F2p/B2p modem might have difficulties providing.

Really? ANet provided a whole world to adventure in, tons of dynamic events, event chains that were/are more interesting than the open world content I’ve seen in any MMO. What did players do? Farmed the path of least resistance, glitched events to produce infinite spawns, and repeated CoF1 until their eyeballs bled. Every time ANet changed the game to try to get players to spread out and do a variety of content, they flocked to the next most efficient farm, and complained about how hard it was to get gold. Now, ANet is giving them what they asked. Since launch, ANet has tried to give a demanding player-base what they asked for.

There may be some MMO players demanding more involved content, but they sure don’t look to be a majority, at least in this community. As to ESO and WS, we’ll see how well they do. My guess is they will start strong, then lose players, until we see them go Freemium. I hope they don’t, but I think they will — because I have no faith that one game can be everything to everyone, and that is what I believe it would take to make a sub game hugely successful over the long haul.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Rynarx.6124:

I read an interesting article a few days when ESO announce they are going to be subscription based. The article mentioned that subscription provide a more stable and predictable funding and this usually translate into bigger development budget and hence why games like ESO and Wildstar are going subscription. B2p/F2p games usually have fluctuating funding and hence may limit what can be allocate for the development of ongoing content.

Looking back at the past MMOs and GW2, this kinda explain some things like why GW2 tend to release temporary content as they are usually easier to produce (and probably much cheaper to develop as well as maintain) and can occupy the players for long period of time, or cosmetics that translate into direct gem sales in the store. I think it will be harder for B2P/F2P MMOs to produce large permanent content areas compared to subscription based games unless they do it like DDO/LOTRO style where each new content area are bought with gems.

Only time will tell if the next wave of MMOs like ESO and Wildstar will be successful with the subscription based model as it seems MMOs players are starting to demand more involved content that F2p/B2p modem might have difficulties providing.

Really? ANet provided a whole world to adventure in, tons of dynamic events, event chains that were/are more interesting than the open world content I’ve seen in any MMO. What did players do? Farmed the path of least resistance, glitched events to produce infinite spawns, and repeated CoF1 until their eyeballs bled. Every time ANet changed the game to try to get players to spread out and do a variety of content, they flocked to the next most efficient farm, and complained about how hard it was to get gold. Now, ANet is giving them what they asked. Since launch, ANet has tried to give a demanding player-base what they asked for.

There may be some MMO players demanding more involved content, but they sure don’t look to be a majority, at least in this community. As to ESO and WS, we’ll see how well they do. My guess is they will start strong, then lose players, until we see them go Freemium. I hope they don’t, but I think they will — because I have no faith that one game can be everything to everyone, and that is what I believe it would take to make a sub game hugely successful over the long haul.

When did players glitch an event to produce infinite spawns? o.O

Galtrix.7369:

No offense to anyone here, but if Anet made the subscription fee one dollar a month, I still wouldn’t pay for it. Heck, I even regret spending 30 bucks on this game already. No, Guild Wars 1 shows you that you don’t necessarily have to have a ton of items in the gemstore to bring in income. GW1 had about 3 costumes and a few extra items, and it thrived for many, many years even being constantly updated and changed. The base box price should bring in enough income for Anet to happily produce content for years already, they don’t need the gemstore or a subscription fee. Sure, why wouldn’t Anet want a gemstore? It’s more money for them, but they don’t need it to keep the game running. It’s just like extra pocket change. It’s nice to have, but you don’t need it.

Guild Wars 1? Really? LMAO!

Guild Wars 1 shows you that in a NON MMO (which is much cheaper to run than an MMO), with a staff of 50 people, in a game made 8 years ago, you can get by without strong depency on a cash shop. That’s ALL Guild Wars 1 shows you. Period.

If Guild Wars 1 were a true MMO, if they needed servers that had a couple of hundred people all moving and fighting at the same time, a staff of over 300, bigger headquarters, and more overhead in general, coming out today instead of 8 years ago….

Guild Wars 1 would never have been sustainable in today’s environment.

It did great when it had like only MMOs to compete with, all of which had subscriptions. In today’s environment… not so much.

There’s no way you can compare this game and that game, unless you throw away all the facts surrounding issue.

IMO, no game -no matter how good it is, is worth 15 bucks a month.

RainbowSyrup.4130:

IMO, no game -no matter how good it is, is worth 15 bucks a month.

My advice to you is never take up golf. lol

For all the people who are pro subscription – google “skinner box rat” then think about your favourite sub game.

I gladly pay a monthly fee if they would provide some content in return. Since I bought this game in november they mostly produced boring events which added nothing to the core game. The dungeons are mostly unchanged since then. In other games like WoW when you take a break you have lots of content to explore when you come back, in gw2 it’s nearly unchanged because 90% of their manpower is wasted in producing temporary events.

Gehenna.3625:

HiddenNick.7206:

Advent.6193:

No thank you. If I were a fan of subscription-based gaming, there are plenty of other options still out there.

Name 3 fantasy based MMO’s with subs.

WoW
LotRo
DDO
Aion
Rift
Tera

Most of them can be played f2p as well but still have sub options that give you more in game.

Wrong, except WoW those games are F2P but have sub as an option. Big difference. In LOTRO and DDO its in fact better, from financial point, NOT to go sub as in long term it costs much more, just buy content you need piecemeal with money/ingame rewards as you see fit.

Aion, TERA and RIft can be played for completely free. And all those games increased revenue (profit) after the conversion.

Galtrix.7369:

No offense to anyone here, but if Anet made the subscription fee one dollar a month, I still wouldn’t pay for it. Heck, I even regret spending 30 bucks on this game already. No, Guild Wars 1 shows you that you don’t necessarily have to have a ton of items in the gemstore to bring in income. GW1 had about 3 costumes and a few extra items, and it thrived for many, many years even being constantly updated and changed. The base box price should bring in enough income for Anet to happily produce content for years already, they don’t need the gemstore or a subscription fee. Sure, why wouldn’t Anet want a gemstore? It’s more money for them, but they don’t need it to keep the game running. It’s just like extra pocket change. It’s nice to have, but you don’t need it.

No offense here, but how much new free content GW1 had in its first year? Yeah, thats right, if you have almost no new free content you dont need sub/cash shop.

Its true, if you have almost none free content you can get away with no sub and GW1 had cash shop so whats exactly your point?

Gehenna.3625:

My point is, Anet went B2P with microtransactions. If it had been a totally convincing success, I am sure they would use it again. But instead we see new MMOs coming out with subs. Wildstar is just one of them.

Gaffney said that “it makes sense to go P2P for a while and then drop to F2P”.

As in you can double dip your customers in that time. Expect WS going F2P within a year.

And its pretty moot since they have CREDD, and possibly the only reason they dont have cash shop is because they couldnt develop infrastructure for it for launch but they also said theyll probably have a cash shop (probably same time they go F2P).

Yes they know what theyre doing, they want to maximize their income, unfortunately that is NOT good for you as a customer (at least until you want to wait till it goes F2P)

Accounting is done at the end, temporal spikes are usually bad sign, short term sure you can show better numbers (SWTOR does it since launch, spike numbers just before quarterly reports) but long term negatives outweigh positives.

OTOH, no AAA MMO since WoW made it as sub game in the west.

Why is this even up for debate? They make more than enough regularly. It just seems like they have a lot of internal communication problems, and money isn’t going to fix that.

I really don’t like subscriptions and won’t play a game with them.

Since I don’t have steady and reliable income and I’m on and off player I prefer to pay for new content and support the game when I want to play it and have the money to buy it.

I will pay for expansions and use cash shops so long as they aren’t selling power.
I don’t like limited time RNG gambling with cash and would much rather just buy the kitten thing but since it’s cosmetic (which are still important but they have make money somehow) I won’t complain too much. They seem to be moving away from that anyway.

For me it’s not an option. I couldn’t afford to pay a subscription and if I did pay it in the months I could afford it I’d then feel pressured to spend all my free time on that game to make sure I got my moneys worth (and to catch up to people playing full-time on all the inevitable time-gated content and new tiers).

This system is perfect for me. I bought my game and I can play it whenever I want, as much as I want (or don’t want). If I have the money I can choose to spend it on extra things, and if I don’t I can go without and still have full access to everything I originally paid for, plus all the new content that’s released. All I miss out on is cosmetics and convenience items, most of which I can buy later on if I want to.

Also even though I know a portion, possibly even the majority, of the cost of items in the gem store is ‘profit’ used to cover the cost of running the game rather than the cost of making that specific item I feel a lot better if I spend my money and get something extra in the game in return. Rather than paying out month after month for nothing more than permission to play a game I’ve already bought.

Daishi.6027:

Why is this even up for debate? They make more than enough regularly.

True, and if you want to support the game just buy some gems. Dont really see a need for forced payment, they said themselves they will thrive or fall of their work and it seems theres enough people to support their effort.

Daishi.6027:

It just seems like they have a lot of internal communication problems, and money isn’t going to fix that.

Not really and it has to do nothing with the topic. But just for kicks, which game do you find better in that respect (with that team size and game size in ballpark of GW2).

It will never become subscription, since their main selling point was no subscription fee. If it was subscription i would have never bought the game nor do i think a lot of people here would have.

Bratpirat.6137:

I gladly pay a monthly fee if they would provide some content in return. Since I bought this game in november they mostly produced boring events which added nothing to the core game. The dungeons are mostly unchanged since then. In other games like WoW when you take a break you have lots of content to explore when you come back, in gw2 it’s nearly unchanged because 90% of their manpower is wasted in producing temporary events.

I’ll gladly take more events like SAB etc. etc. > hey… lets put in another tier of gear for them to go grind out and split between 20 people. Raiding turned into a frekkin’ job in WoW. I don’t miss that or the sub fees one little bit.

LOL no thanks, you don’t NEED anything from the gemstore, and if you would LIKE something then you can buy gems and support anet that way.
End of topic.

Ps. it will no go P2P, hell even WoW is going F2P in the future so.