Guild Wars 2

I have a bad feeling about this.

One of the easiest ways to prevent free account abuse would be to just disable daily login rewards—or, honestly, just disable laurels. None of the other rewards are nearly as vulnerable to abuse. Just replace the laurels in the daily login rewards for free accounts with more crafting materials or Black Lion goods. Boom, issues sidestepped.

Then, limit them to only being able to communicate with their guild, party members, or people who have accepted them as friends. Done.

As for raids: that was leaked a while ago from a pretty reputable source, and I’m not worried. I’d imagine they’ll look a lot like the elite missions from GW1: exactly what you’d expect from existing PvE content, just for a larger group and probably with longer runs. Notice how ArenaNet is retooling Fractals to be better suited for short runs with HoT—I bet they’re doing that to contrast with the more time-consuming raids.

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

No, they aren’t stupid. Although sometimes they are a bit naive, I think. Or just don’t think through all of the ramifications.

Great ideas, poor implementation…

Kidel.2057:

Oh, come on, they’re not stupid. Of course there will be mail and tp limit on trial accounts. Or a time window at least.

but will their be a whisper limit lol?

You think I want GW2 GOLD FOR SALE XXX WEBSITE LALALA every day while i pvp?

Well it not like we didn’t expect raids. Still foo on IGN.
The trial thing though is a surprise. Would have been even bigger of a surprise if not for IGN (double foo!).

I just bought the main game for my son 2 days ago to try out and see if he like it before paying $50 for HoT…I just wasted my money for nothing. Anet is really kittening me off by constantly keeping us in the dark. There better be some benefits the paid players get over the free.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Core game is for free? Does that mean everyone can get 30 of these accounts and get the daily log in rewards (165 T6 mats/28 days)? Or are the login rewards only for those who have paid. Because that would crash the T6 market, if true.

That’s exactly what I was wondering, if the game goes f2p (gag) will that mean the end of logon rewards? I can imagine the gold farmers glee, create hundreds or thousands of free accounts and reap massive amounts of T6 mats without having to do anything more than have a bot log on once a day.
There’s no way anet can let that happen. I mean, sure you can do the same now but it requires a monetary investment, and even $20 can keep a lot of crap at bay.
I myself have several alt accounts for those T6 mats, not even to sell but just to save me some farming so I could focus on more stuff I found fun, and its been a great help.
I’d hate for that dry up :/

Going from buy-to-play to straight free-to-play will cause some irrevocable damage… you attract a much different audience when the audience has no money invested in the game. Even a token $20 entry fee stops a lot of garbage from flowing in.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

The free accounts would have to be prohibited from buying and selling on the trading post, emailing, limits on chat and whispering, no posting on the forums, no putting items in or out of guild banks and no daily login rewards

In other words: The SWTOR approach.

I don´t know how to feel about the core game going f2p. I´m abit worried about, since i have yet to make a good experience with a f2p game/playerbase. The b2p concept of Guild Wars 2 was perfect for me. But we will see. I trust Anet not to ruin their community, since it is something they are specially proud of.

About IGN leaking/spoiling the special announcement that Anet seemed to have planned for quite some time, and where probably equally excited about (not about the reveal itself, but the playerbase reactions), i got to say, these are simply bad manners.
Maybe Anet should seriously think about not sharing any news with IGN in the future. It was the work of countless developers at Anet, so it was up to them reveal it in any way and at any time they thought it was appropriate.

Anyhow, dear Anet, i bet most of the players are still hyped about saturday. So dont let some “click/traffic hungry” business like IGN ruin what you ve worked on for so long.

Thanks for this awesome game.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Core game is for free? Does that mean everyone can get 30 of these accounts and get the daily log in rewards (165 T6 mats/28 days)? Or are the login rewards only for those who have paid. Because that would crash the T6 market, if true.

Or just disable TP & mails on free users. Problem solved

I am worried what this will do with the daily login rewards. It could potentially make many items worthless.

ArenaNet is not stupid enough to let free accounts abuse daily login rewards. They’re either going to change for everyone, or be limited/unavailable to free accounts.

Do you all seriously think that an experienced developer would have not thought that through? That they’re just going to flip a “turn on F2P” switch and hope for the best?

Whats even the reasoning behind F2P? just hope the free players end up spending a ton of money on skins through gemstore?

Get ready for a real toxic community if the F2P players have FULL access to things like wvw/pvp… going to be spam city

Shen Slayer.3058:

I just bought the main game for my son 2 days ago to try out and see if he like it before paying $50 for HoT…I just wasted my money for nothing. Anet is really kittening me off by constantly keeping us in the dark. There better be some benefits the paid players get over the free.

In all fairness this is IGN we’re talking about. Still we’ve got 2 days until the official announcement. I guess you could go on a wild rant rampage. Might change ANets mind, and they can then wipe the whole business under the rug and pretend it never happened.

lol, that Reddit sourced leaked IGN video is suddenly “no longer available”

Me thinks this was legit and someone, somehow, dropped the ball early.

Have fun in the Raids guys. Let us Necro and Ranger players know how it went.

Lunacy Solacio.6514:

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

No, they aren’t stupid. Although sometimes they are a bit naive, I think. Or just don’t think through all of the ramifications.

Great ideas, poor implementation…

Exactly

Sylent.3165:

Sigh I hope it’s not true.

1. Free to play typically means the game is over. When games go free to play they don’t last as long. And the amount of spam we will get from gold sellers will be awful.

2. We don’t need raids. I understand people like them and have been asking for them but seriously go play wow and ff14. A large amount of people in this game got it to get away from garbage that destroys the community in other mmo games.

Anet please tell me it’s not true. Your looking more like a wow copycat, next it will be a gear treadmill

1. Tell that to Star Wars the old rebublic, Neverwinter and all the other f2p games that have existed for years.

2. YOU dont need Raids. YOUR opinion is different from everyone elses. Most of the community have been asking for challenging group content. Also Raids has a wide meaning and ArenaNet can impement them very differently from other games.

http://dulfy.net/2015/08/27/gw2-getting-raids-with-core-game-being-free/

Scipio.3204:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Core game is for free? Does that mean everyone can get 30 of these accounts and get the daily log in rewards (165 T6 mats/28 days)? Or are the login rewards only for those who have paid. Because that would crash the T6 market, if true.

Or just disable TP & mails on free users. Problem solved

Could still trade items and gold through a guild bank to another, not free account. The guild banks would have to be limited also. (And I said disable email and tp on another post).

CureForLiving.5360:

Shen Slayer.3058:

I just bought the main game for my son 2 days ago to try out and see if he like it before paying $50 for HoT…I just wasted my money for nothing. Anet is really kittening me off by constantly keeping us in the dark. There better be some benefits the paid players get over the free.

In all fairness this is IGN we’re talking about. Still we’ve got 2 days until the official announcement. I guess you could go on a wild rant rampage. Might change ANets mind, and they can then wipe the whole business under the rug and pretend it never happened.

I think it will be true, there’s a video from Anet on the first page of this thread and at the end it say free to play.

You know what would change Anet’s mind though…all those that pre-purchase HoT request a refund.

the hints were there,
1. Limitations on mailing gold
2. Core GW2 game Free with purchase of HoT
3. GW2 authenticator setup plus perk (pet)
4. NCsoft other games (B&S/Wildstar) going f2p in the states

Looking forward to watching GW2 at PAX, and further information on raids!

As far as IGN leaking the information, I’m glad they did. Anet’s anemic communications with their player-base has left me a bit skeptic and jaded. I originally had no intention of checking out the announcement on Saturday, but now that I know what it will be about… You bet I’ll be there.

Substance E.4852:

lol, that Reddit sourced leaked IGN video is suddenly “no longer available”

Me thinks this was legit and someone, somehow, dropped the ball early.

Have fun in the Raids guys. Let us Necro and Ranger players know how it went.

hahaha.

Well it will depend on the raid mechanics/gameplay before we can rule out rangers/necro lol

Who knows, maybe we might need a constant fear machine in the raid that only necros can apply efficiently.?

Substance E.4852:

lol, that Reddit sourced leaked IGN video is suddenly “no longer available”

Me thinks this was legit and someone, somehow, dropped the ball early.

Have fun in the Raids guys. Let us Necro and Ranger players know how it went.

I saved it, just as I’m sure many, many more did.
It’ll be back up on a dozen different places in no time at all.

Glaurung.1076:

Most of the community have been asking for

Should probably read, “some of the community,” unless you have statistics showing otherwise.

Please, really don’t :‘( . It will ruin the game, you will see. If you want, make trial versions. But a true F2P will attract only:
1. little children who will be ruining the experience for others
2. people who will never buy expansions anyway
3. BOTS, BOTS, BOTS…. lots of bots :’(
4. a lot of trafic, full megaservers, a lot of lagging, skill lagging/stucking
5. and with bots comes ruined economy

It will be horrible. You already have a lot of problems with fixing old and new bugs, and by this you will complicate this your situation even more.

Dear Mr. O’Brien, really don’t do this. This game is just fine even without it. You don’t have to lower yourself (as a company) to UNsuccessful MMOs that recently joined the market.

This little exchange comes to mind.

Turhan; “How will this end?”
Kosh: “In fire.”

Well we don’t know if it’s going full F2P or if they’re just introducing a free trial.
I’m personally all for a free trial.

SkiTz.4590:

Substance E.4852:

lol, that Reddit sourced leaked IGN video is suddenly “no longer available”

Me thinks this was legit and someone, somehow, dropped the ball early.

Have fun in the Raids guys. Let us Necro and Ranger players know how it went.

hahaha.

Well it will depend on the raid mechanics/gameplay before we can rule out rangers/necro lol

Who knows, maybe we might need a constant fear machine in the raid that only necros can apply efficiently.?

Hell no…I’m kicking all rangers from my party.

From a datamine during season 2. Scroll down to the end about trial accounts.

http://thatshaman.blogspot.com/2014/07/upcoming-features-from-entanglement.html?m=1

Things could have likely changed since then but this may give a general idea of what they may do.

All you people that are screaming terror on the F2P core game need to do a little research. But wait this is the internet why would you try to google before whining.

From the data mined “Trial Account”
http://thatshaman.blogspot.com/2014/07/upcoming-features-from-entanglement.html

List from /u/Vahkris on reddit:
Only one or two character slots
Limit of level 15
Seems like a limit on how high a “rank” you can get (specific to trial or possibly PvP related)
Only able to send mail to friends.
Can’t send items or gold through mail
Can’t speak in map chat
Can’t access Team Arenas
Can’t access main WvW maps (EB and Borderlands)

Have fun in the map overflow everyone.

Please Anet, tell us it’s a joke.

Here is something interesting.

gain access to the experience you are earning now. You have reached the trial limit of level 15. We will continue tracking the experience you earn up to level 19, and you will receive it upon upgrading to a full account.

I don’t know either, but the tweet suggests more the truly free. And as we already know arenanet, they will probably do it. Free player can enjoy WvW, PvP and a giantic core game. It is enough for a lot of people and it will probably earn Anet some money from buying Gems. But the implications which it will have on the game are too big.. it’s not worth it.

Nothing we say will change their mind. Its Anet. Dont get your hopes up

For gold sellers, they should limit the f2p accounts to only whisper me if I have them in my friend list, otherwise be blocked or something.

3. BOTS, BOTS, BOTS…. lots of bots :’(

This is my #1 concern. I don’t care about the other because they are non-issues.

:( yeah.. they already made a trailer for it

Yunielesca.2850:

Please Anet, tell us it’s a joke.

Which part?

StinVec.3621:

Substance E.4852:

lol, that Reddit sourced leaked IGN video is suddenly “no longer available”

Me thinks this was legit and someone, somehow, dropped the ball early.

Have fun in the Raids guys. Let us Necro and Ranger players know how it went.

I saved it, just as I’m sure many, many more did.
It’ll be back up on a dozen different places in no time at all.

It buffered horribly slow for me to the point that I quit watching. They might have been in the process of taking it down at the time. All I saw was a lot of false representations of in game content (cliffside titan shown as part of an epic fight, lolwut?). Was there an announcement of free to play at the end?

Here’s doozer, they can sell on TP.

109792_0555 sell items on the Trading Post.

runeblade.7514:

3. BOTS, BOTS, BOTS…. lots of bots :’(

This is my #1 concern. I don’t care about the other because they are non-issues.

packed servers will be the issue. I kind of don’t believe ArenaNet will invest millions into expanding their servers in US and EU.

If it were actually about another upcoming trial period and that is what the “play for free” part was referencing, I’m sure someone at ANet would have stepped in here by now to say that GW2 is not going completely Free-To-Play as hinted at in that tweet and video. Their silence on the matter, considering how their players are responding to this bit of (possibly incorrect) news, is very telling.

datamined info earlier showed something about a trial account (this could be the F2P).

It also had datamined tidbits of maximum lvl of 15 for free trial (makes sense, only able to get into those start zone lvl 1-15 maps like queensdale)….

Couldn’t speak in map chats or use trading post and things like that either so I HIGHLY DOUBT its a full f2p game lol

Most likely just a free trial.

Emtiarbi.3281:

For gold sellers, they should limit the f2p accounts to only whisper me if I have them in my friend list, otherwise be blocked or something.

Well it’s a difficult balance. I’d want all whispers and mailing to be blocked. But then again their is the scenario of a current player wanting to get one of their non-player friends to try the game and they’d obviously want to communicate.
Wonder if we’ll see a ‘invite a friend’ functionality.

Mortifer.2946:

runeblade.7514:

3. BOTS, BOTS, BOTS…. lots of bots :’(

This is my #1 concern. I don’t care about the other because they are non-issues.

packed servers will be the issue. I kind of don’t believe ArenaNet will invest millions into expanding their servers in US and EU.

They did. Its called Megaservers.

Agent Noun.7350:

Yunielesca.2850:

Please Anet, tell us it’s a joke.

Which part?

The f2p of course.

Yawn*

All you people that are screaming terror on the F2P core game need to do a little research. But wait this is the internet why would you try to google before whining.
From the data mined “Trial Account”
http://thatshaman.blogspot.com/2014/07/upcoming-features-from-entanglement.html
List from /u/Vahkris on reddit:
Only one or two character slots
Limit of level 15
Seems like a limit on how high a “rank” you can get (specific to trial or possibly PvP related)
Only able to send mail to friends.
Can’t send items or gold through mail
Can’t speak in map chat
Can’t access Team Arenas
Can’t access main WvW maps (EB and Borderlands)