Guild Wars 2

I was curious how GW2 compared to subscription MMO’s, such as World of Warcraft, EverQuest, EverQuest 2, and so on.

I’m used to paying a subscription fee for new content updates, so all of this free to play online after purchasing the game stuff makes me curious if there are actually frequent updates that are of a positive influence, being that they add more to do?

How does GW2 afford to stay online like this if its free to play?

Well seeing your posting history, you’ve been around for a while.

So I smell a bored under bridge dweller.

GW2 had living story episodes for the first 2 years that were free updates. Now they are working on an expansion. They pay the bills via game sales, gems store sales, and in the future the sale of the expansion. I’m guessing after the expansion they will continue with living story updates after some time as well and then probably another expansion, wash and repeat.

Behellagh, yes. I have been around for a while, yet I have always wondered this. Despite my being around, I haven’t invested much time into GW2 yet, although I think I should.

JustTrogdor, that is what I was curious about… the gems and such.

It’s interesting about the first two years of updates. I do remember some of those.

I just think it’s amazing that they can offer am MMO of this quality, 100% free to play, and continue to provide us with updates. For some reason I just get a bit skeptical with the “free updates” without paying a monthly fee. Just made me wonder how they can afford to do such.

Braxton.3926:

I just think it’s amazing that they can offer am MMO of this quality, 100% free to play, and continue to provide us with updates. For some reason I just get a bit skeptical with the “free updates” without paying a monthly fee. Just made me wonder how they can afford to do such.

As I stated, gem store sales are a large part of the business model as far as funding the game. The great thing is buying gems to support the game is optional unlike subscription based games where you have to pay every month to even play. Not only that but you can even buy gems with in game gold if you want gem store items and don’t want to pay with cash.

Good to know!!!

I have an active WoW subscription, I cancelled my EQ2 subscription due to money issues.

I am going to get back into GW2… I only have a low level character.

I’m hoping that there will be others in starting areas?

Although I bought the game at launch I really didn’t start playing yet.

Also, I’m playing on OS X (Mac).

There was a thread around a couple of days ago asking how much money people spent on the gemstore.

Many people said that they had spent $1000+.

Of course, they could be lying (but you’d have to question what the incentive would be). And then there’s the fact that forum posters are probably more loyal than the average player, so probably have spent more money than the average player too.

Braxton.3926:

Good to know!!!

I have an active WoW subscription, I cancelled my EQ2 subscription due to money issues.

I am going to get back into GW2… I only have a low level character.

I’m hoping that there will be others in starting areas?

Although I bought the game at launch I really didn’t start playing yet.

Also, I’m playing on OS X (Mac).

There are almost ALWAYS tons of people out and about, even in lower zones! In fact, I’d be surprised if you play a full day without striking up a conversation in chat or run across a group of people busting out events in almost EVERY zone!

GW2 has the same pay model as GW1, and GW1 is still up and running.

Jesus! £650 on gems O_o These people are insane xD I spent £8 or whatever it was in the first week for extra bag space and char slot – how could they spend so much. I’ve bought everything I’ve ever wanted from the gemstore too.

I’ll try everything out soon xD

I’m playing around with an old netbook now.

Braxton.3926:

I’ll try everything out soon xD

I’m playing around with an old netbook now.

If you’re looking for new pals, feel free to add me up!

http://www.reddit.com/r/mmorpg

Is a decent place to try and get plenty of opinions on various MMOs and comparisons.

I have a couple friends playing TERA, and through some digging found that most people had the consensus that GW2 was the superior game.

I am sure there will be similar threads about sub MMOs as well.

Fine Braxton, B2P allows the developer to quickly recover the cost of development unlike F2P which means unlike F2P a B2P game doesn’t cripple the player account from the get go or needs to pay way or nickle and dime a player simply to get a functioning character that’s enjoyable to play. But like F2P it doesn’t guilt the player into playing because they are paying monthly like a subscription game would.

As for content, we did get 28 Living Story Chapters, 11 Special Events and 2 Feature Packs in 29 months before announcing the expansion. Since the announcement it’s been a little new content lite. All in all not bad for a game that’s B2P and relies on the cash shop for it’s primary source of income for a fair chunk of the 33ish months it’s been out.

I’ve been talking about this with a friend just the other day and we arrived at the conclusion that we’re not getting anything for our money in subscription games because they focus almost entirely on instanced content as that’s what keeps the gear treadmill going which in turn keeps the subscription flowing.

Guild Wars 2 focuses on the story and a casual open world PvE with some fairly well balanced PvP to match it. Funding the game is optional and I get a small perk or two of my choice for each purchase. An economic minded guildie invests his money into bank and bag extensions, another one converts the gems to gold to fund her massive crafting sprees, my friend goes for toys, dyes and outfits. Everyone is satisfied and Arenanet turns a profit as well.

Coulter.2315:

Jesus! £650 on gems O_o These people are insane xD I spent £8 or whatever it was in the first week for extra bag space and char slot – how could they spend so much. I’ve bought everything I’ve ever wanted from the gemstore too.

I must admit I’ve probably spent about this much on gems over the past 2.75 years, but I do so because I choose to, not because ArenaNet are twisting my arm. And also because I enjoy the game, and I spend a lot of time in the game.

Gems are a guilty pleasure!

Braxton.3926:

I was curious how GW2 compared to subscription MMO’s, such as World of Warcraft, EverQuest, EverQuest 2, and so on.

What an original question! Can I lay claim to ‘what is better, star trek or star wars’?

Braxton.3926:

How does GW2 afford to stay online like this if its free to play?

They can’t, which is why they are rushing an expansion out. Hopefully when they switch their model, they can get the content timing better.

Menadena.7482:

Braxton.3926:

I was curious how GW2 compared to subscription MMO’s, such as World of Warcraft, EverQuest, EverQuest 2, and so on.

What an original question! Can I lay claim to ‘what is better, star trek or star wars’?

Better at what?

Storytelling? Star Trek. There are numerous original series episodes that, despite the relatively low budgets and primitive special effects, tell stories of greater emotional depth and resonance than any of the Star Wars films. Example: The Devil in the Dark.

Characters? Star Trek. Spock. McCoy. Picard. Data. Morn.

Soundtrack? Star Wars. At least for the original three. Not the prequels. The music in the originals is almost another character. You can listen to it and know what’s happening. In the prequels, however, the music becomes background noise. Even that one piece people always cite as being so great that plays behind the Darth Maul fight scene. Bah. Compared to the Williams’ earlier work in the franchise, it’s elevator music.

Merchandising? Star Wars. The starfighters, the lightsabers, the action figures — yup.

Holiday Special? Star Trek. Even though Star Trek had no holiday special, it’s still better than that awful Star Wars thing.

Retcons? Star Trek. Han shooting second is even worse than the turtle shell head Klingons.

MMOs? Tie. STO had the best pvp, SWTOR had more interesting class stories. I’m still playing GW2, though, even after 2014, instead of either of those, so that’s something, I guess.

BrooksP.4318:

Braxton.3926:

How does GW2 afford to stay online like this if its free to play?

They can’t, which is why they are rushing an expansion out. Hopefully when they switch their model, they can get the content timing better.

Yeah, because $76 million over the last year is a death knell. That’s equivalent to 400K+ subscriptions. Not bad for a cash shop. Sure it’s not WoW numbers but nothing else is close to WoW numbers either

Check out what WoodenPotatoes had to say on the matter way back when:

First off all, you are really comparing apples and oranges. The reason is that the businessmodel is different without monthly fees.

WoW has a system where you have an endless geargrind. This means that it is hard to cancel the sub and stop playing if you plan on returning. the content that is released for the game is based on that concept and so is endgame.

GW2 doesn’t need to have players to be hooked cause the players don’t pay the monthly fee. due to the lower amount of income, the amount of content released is more casual and less frequent.

Looking at the core game, it has bout 1000 hours of PvE (it took me bout 5 months to get full map completion, do all dungeons and all paths while playing 6 hours per day). The content released since then was about 300 hours in total of content. Unfortunally, the majority of this was remporary content that is now unavailable (Arenanet has left that path and is now only releasing permanent content). This is all free content off course.

But the core game alone is more then enough to have a good time and money well spend!