Guild Wars 2

…then you really need a better gem shop.

Suddenly, ANet cares about vertical progression, and many say this is because they need those players for business purposes. I rather think, if the payout of BLTC was lower than expected, it might have to do with the offerings being terrible.

The #1 item for GW1 sales were costumes, we know this is also true for LOTRO – their biggest sellers are cloaks and dresses. The sparkle pony raked in extra millions for WoW.

So we get a cash shop of nonsensical town clothes, useless boosters, and hideously ugly gear available on an RNG basis from chests. No wonder it isn’t selling. Put in things that are worth buying and make that purchase guaranteed, and I promise the money will come rolling in.

Best post ever. I definitely agree that they could easily have found better ways to increase their revenue without throwing their manifesto out the window.

I would LOVE a huge selection of town clothes. I RP constantly, and the ability to easily change into a lot of different (realistic) clothing sets would be fantastic. I’d probably go broke if they added this…

On another note, I don’t think the BLTC isn’t paying off. I’ve spent more than $60 in the shop since the game launched… My guild is full of players that have spent far more than that. One of our players has 14 (read: fourteen) unlocked character slots.

I initially swore I’d never spend a dime in the shop. I quickly recanted that.

I would like to see it expanded too.

Yep, they don’t even have basic stuff like appearance changers in the cash shop yet.
I would have bought more than the from the cash shop if they actually had decent stuff in it (and not tied to RNG because kitten that). The only thing I’ve gotten from the cash shop is a character slot.

I hate my town clothes on every single character. (Well, I kinda like the Asura look with my GW2 ballcap.) Honestly, I wish I could equip regular armor into the townclothes slots so I’d at least have something to switch to that I don’t hate.

I think they’re doing pretty well financially with the game. Huge initial sales, and it seemed like they got at least 10s of millions from the gem store, just judging by /g and forum posts.

Could be better

its a question of keeping most players “in” the game.

that fractal kitten is to keep the “hardcore, elitist, play too much, addict” type players well sucked in a downward spiral that keeps the game on a buzz.

is it healthy? no.
good for long term business? we ll see how sick and masochist people really are.

I was going to spend some cash for some new minis with the Lost Shores event, as I did with Halloween, but they decided that they could try to make more money by adding them to the limited time chests as rare drops and try to get people to gamble their money away on a ton of chests

No cash from me this event. Maybe next time.

I bought a bank slot, the Witch costume for Halloween and some BL salvage kits, Fine Transmute stones.
I deleted my town clothes because they are hideous no matter how you dye them.
I really wanted to support this game but that was all I could realistically buy.

It there where:
character customization.
new hairstyles
new emotes/dances
costumes/town clothes
armor skins/weapon skins
heck even player housing

People would throw money at the cash shop in a never ending stream.

Avatar.1923:

its a question of keeping most players “in” the game.

that fractal kitten is to keep the “hardcore, elitist, play too much, addict” type players well sucked in a downward spiral that keeps the game on a buzz.

is it healthy? no.
good for long term business? we ll see how sick and masochist people really are.

there are a couple real problems with this philosophy.

1) the hardcore types are going to jump ship as soon as the next new game comes out. its not even a question, they will leave. they left whatever game they were playing when gw2 came out to come here, and they will do it again when the next big thing arrives. Then you will be left with a game made for hardcore players, but no hardcore players to play it.

2) item tread mill games fail the vast majority of the time. WoW is an anomaly. If you take wow off the table and look at the rest of the item treadmill games released since 2004, you will see an astronomical failure rate. That is the reason most gaming companies consider MMO games too big of a risk to invest in.

This is a personal theory. There is strong evidence backing it, but its still a theory…

Before launch, and the details of the cash-shop were released, Nexon purchased a large number of shares in NCSoft. Not long after that purchase it was announced that Crystin Cox from Nexon was joining the ArenaNet team to work on the cash-shop.

I believe that since GW2 was expected to be NCsofts big earner that Nexon strong armed them as a large share holder to put someone at ANet to protect their investment.

This is sort of a corporate nepotism that means Crystin has a huge amount of influence over the cash-shop and there really isn’t much Anet senior management can do since she is protected by corporate politics.

The writing is on the wall. This lady produced Maple Story. You can take a look at Maple Story’s cash shop online. It’s nothing but different tiers of mystery chest. What have we had in the cash shop since launch? Mystery chests, followed by more mystery chests for events, and even more mystery chests for content releases.

Not only are we seeing more chests, but the things people had been buying have been removed from direct purchase and made as chance items in chests. Like Halloween minis to Lost Shore minis.

ArenaNet knows their audience and they know what people want. Out of the gate with GW they gave us make-overs, skins, name changes, character slots and storage. Mercenaries later were a really cool addition and outside of the box.

Do you think they just forgot who we and they were over the last few years? No. But there is someone in charge of that cash shop that _ doesn’t_ know us. The GW audience, especially the core franchise fans, are much different from the Maple Story audience. Yet she is still trying to force feed us chests at every opportunity. It really is borderline insulting.

Fritz.5026:

Avatar.1923:

its a question of keeping most players “in” the game.

that fractal kitten is to keep the “hardcore, elitist, play too much, addict” type players well sucked in a downward spiral that keeps the game on a buzz.

is it healthy? no.
good for long term business? we ll see how sick and masochist people really are.

there are a couple real problems with this philosophy.

1) the hardcore types are going to jump ship as soon as the next new game comes out. its not even a matter of ‘might.’ they left whatever game they were playing when gw2 came out to come here, and they will do when the next big thing arrives. Then you will be left with a game made for hardcore players, but no hardcore players to play it.

2) item tread mill games fail the vast majority of the time. WoW is an anomaly. If you take wow off the table and look at the rest of the item treadmill games released since 2004, you will see an astronomical failure rate. That is the reason most gaming companies consider MMO games too big of a risk to invest in.

1) I left WoW after playing it for more than three years. There were plenty of “next new games” in there that I did not jump ship for.

2) There are also tons of cases of very successful MMOs out there, many of which are F2P.

Interesting argument, OP, and one I’ve been thinking about as well. Something else to consider though:

The most frequently purchased items from Star Trek Online are, by a wide margin, new ships.

The most frequently purchased items from Champions Online are, by a wide margin, Freeform character slots.

The most successful Booster Packs in City of Heroes are, generally, the ones that came with attractive powers. (Example: The Ninja booster pack came with the Ninja Run power plus a few dozen costume pieces. The costume pieces were great, but it was the power that drove the sale.)

Conversely, small time consumables are usually the least popular items, generally purchased (if at all) as impulse-purchases with leftover currency.

Well, the fact that we have boxes based on RNG that we have to pay real money for is stupid as all hell, regardless of the fact that we can exchange gold for gems.

That kind of stuff has to go, leave the RNG to Tera.

its like Magic the Gathering.

if you could buy every card you want, it would be cheaper than buying booster packs and hoping to get it.
and it would also make the trading post more dead, as everybody would only have what they really want/need.
smart and fun business move id say.

this aint the problem.

GEAR TREADMILL and ELITISM is the problem.

My only (minor) issue with town clothes is how easily they’re swapped out of at times, like minor falling damage for instance. Still, more outfits from the gem store would be wonderful. I love playing ‘dress up’ in MMO’s and I’ve actually bought several armor sets for my main characters just for the appearances.

Still though, I’d prefer to see more actual outfits rather than the novelty ones. Don’t misunderstand, I do think the novelty ones can be great, but I don’t feel that every outfit needs a gimmick to get people interested in owning them. Sometimes just looking great is all that you want.

I’ve spent a fair amount in the gem store, though largely for bank upgrades or to trade gems for gold. I did buy the pirate outfit though, and I’d happily buy more outfits if they piqued my interest. I’m sure Anet is already aware of the potential investment there, and it wouldn’t surprise me to learn that new outfits are already in the works.

Have you seen the light armor skin in the store? Looks like it was designed by a 5 year old, whoever designed that should be fired.

Gotchaz.7865:

Have you seen the light armor skin in the store? Looks like it was designed by a 5 year old, whoever designed that should be fired.

All of those models are pretty awful…

how about a pay to grind service. while I am at work, some anet bot grinds fractals for me!

I reluctantly agree. I have spent a bit in the cash shop, but the return wasn’t that great. I maxed out my bag slots and expanded my bank, got a few dye kits to get started, and tried a few of the event chests out just to say I tried.

I was really hoping for more town clothes, and was even more disappointed when I heard they don’t drop anywhere…the piddly selection in the cash shop is it.

Mind you, I am enjoying the game and plan to continue playing for a long time. However, that doesn’t mean I have any reason to dump more into the game for Gems.

grinding is the problem.

you should be able to get everything you need by doing everything in the game “once”.

unfortunately, it isnt possible because, i think, some people like to grind?
i mean… some people actually did the 4 tiny acts of D3 how many times?
this is sick man….

Avatar.1923:

its like Magic the Gathering.

if you could buy every card you want, it would be cheaper than buying booster packs and hoping to get it.
and it would also make the trading post more dead, as everybody would only have what they really want/need.
smart and fun business move id say.

this aint the problem.

GEAR TREADMILL and ELITISM is the problem.

That is why smart people buy singles.
That is why most smart people won’t touch those RNG chests even if they have a chance for a Legendary weapon.

They could have made a killing off of charging for server transfers. Think of all of those WvW bandwagon hoppers that transferred multiple times per week.

Columba.9730:

how about a pay to grind service. while I am at work, some anet bot grinds fractals for me!

Hey, why not? They said gems for gold would kill gold selling, and obviously it did (hollow laugh), so why not kill leveling and grinding services by offering it in the store to busy players?

Actually, to be honest, in freemium games I have zero issue with offline xp. It’s much less offensive to me than being able to buy game currency with real money.

Purging the legions of bots would probably help by lowering the amount of gold sellers.

I couldn’t agree more.

I bought GW2 expecting that I’d happily buy from the cash store for cosmetics goodies.. but.. I couldn’t have been more wrong.

Everything offered in the Gemstore is gimmicky garbage. Pirate Costumes? Chef Outfits? BOXING GLOVES!?

What is wrong with you A-net.

To date I have not purchased a single gem.. because why should I? Please put quality clothing items on the Gemstore please. I want to buy outfits that will make my character look more beautiful and casual pieces for roleplay. When I look at town NPCs.. I’d gladly spend gems to get what they are wearing.

So yeah. If you want our money A-net, your going to have to put way more effort and thought into your Gemstore offerings because currently everything on it is silly and not appealing at all.. for me atleast.

If there’s some sort of hijacking going on let arena net alone to do their thing! Its agonizing to see this game like this!

I agree.

I don’t consider myself someone who buys from these MMO stores, but even I bought the Steed of Night from LoTRO’s shop. Why? Because I like the way it looked.

Take all these stuff off of RNG chests. Make them real, for-sure purchases. Charge a lot for them if you want. If people know for certain what they’re going to get, they will buy it. I thought that was taught in Marketing 101 or something. It’s really mind-boggling.

AcidicVision.5498:

ArenaNet knows their audience and they know what people want. Out of the gate with GW they gave us make-overs, skins, name changes, character slots and storage. Mercenaries later were a really cool addition and outside of the box.

No they didn’t. None of these things were in the game at launch (it didn’t even have a cash shop then) and apart from extra character slots and storage they weren’t added until the game had been out for 4 years.

i think a lot of people would like to see appearance change items (makeovers and such). Also it would be nice to have more armor skins in the shop. right now you can only buy 1 real skin or get lucky and get something out of a chest , which is fine because i like to gamble sometimes but having more guaranteed on buy items would attract even more customers. besides it shouldn’t be that hard to at new skins compared to adding new content.

also since we are talking about improvement to the gem shop it would be nice if Anet would add more ways to buy gems, i’m not a fan of using credit cards etc. and the only prepaid option are gem cards. those are really hard to find where i live (and buying them through amazon or other sites would defeat the purpose of not using a credit card). for example: i would like to buy gems with paysafecards those are used in many other mmo’s and iv’e seen it being suggested before on the forum so there are others that will use it if its possible.

sry for possible bad grammar i’m not english

The cash-shop is not appealing at all. In fact there isn’t a single piece I would want from it except bank-slots. I had this problem from the very beginning even when I was really, really fond of the game and it’s philosophy. But to be honest even if they put in stuff that I really wanted I wouldn’t buy anything atm.

I don’t see spending money in the game as an “investment” in my char but at least I have to be sure I want to continue to play for a longer time. But for the moment I will wait and see how it goes with this new shiney gear and what comes out at the end of that story.

For me, I will only buy transmutation stones, but only at level 80, and only for gear Exotic and above. I also will buy Character slots and bag/bank slots. That is about it. I like this game so I am going to spend $10 every month for Gems whether I need them or not, to give more support for more content.

Its more than just clothes…they need a proper wardrobe re-design, like LOTRO has…who the hell wants to buy clothes for one outfit that cant be changed and is lost if you upgrade your armour/clothes…….Turbine tried that with DDO and it was a massive failure.

With the wardrobe you get 3 or 4 free slots per character, 20 account wide slots for clothing, extra space for both character and account can be bought from the gem store.
Honestly, why havent you Anet guys done your own research and why dont you have this done already……clothing options are the biggest sellers behind actual content in MMO’s……its blindly obvious that behind the pretty graphics you havent put much effort into this game at all.

I want to like town clothes, but I spend so little time in towns that it’s not worth it unless I can wear and enjoy them out of towns as well. I would buy some if it weren’t for the restrictions.

Anet/et all dropped the ball with their cash shop. They went for the Korean gambling model, which when you look at who they hired to do it is not surprising. Problem with that, is it does not work very well in the west. Next they will try and get us to rent things.

Yes, some people are willing to shell out an idiotic level of money to gamble on digital goods, but most are not. What most ARE willing to shell out money for is cosmetic goods. Riot Games makes a killing off of their cash shop and aside from a few boosters 90% of what they sell are just cosmetic items.

And you know what? I bet Riot makes more money for their masters than Anet does.
But, that other MMO is still making several hundred million dollars a month from its ‘outdated’ pay to play model.

Gems for server transfers = lots of $$$$

I don’t think Anet judging by the gem shop’s offerings and the fact that server transfers are still free almost 3 months after release that it wants to milk its customers, which is somewhat odd… unlike WoW but let’s not go there! :P

Danikat.8537:

No they didn’t. None of these things were in the game at launch (it didn’t even have a cash shop then) and apart from extra character slots and storage they weren’t added until the game had been out for 4 years.

I meant out of the gate with the store launch . I didn’t think that would need to be specified. But there you go.

It opened with stuff in it players would buy because it’s stuff ArenaNet players would have bought themselves. I doubt any Anet emps are dropping cash for chests. You haven’t heard any of them jump in here and defend those scams have you? Because they dislike them as much as we do, they just can’t do anything about it.

But way to pick out a single detail you thought was a historical inaccuracy instead of commenting on anything else relevant to the topic. /thumbs-up

Morrigan.2809:

I bought a bank slot, the Witch costume for Halloween and some BL salvage kits, Fine Transmute stones.
I deleted my town clothes because they are hideous no matter how you dye them.
I really wanted to support this game but that was all I could realistically buy.

It there where:
character customization.
new hairstyles
new emotes/dances
costumes/town clothes
armor skins/weapon skins
heck even player housing

People would throw money at the cash shop in a never ending stream.

I completely agree with this post. So far, I’ve bought some Fine Transmutation stones, and that’s it. For me, personally, armor/weapon skins would be the big draw. My human, male mesmer was almost level 70 before I stopped transmuting all his armor to the Apprentice look because of all the in-game armors (that he could wear), it was the only one I could stand; and boy, was I bored with it by then. Give me a wide variety of looks to choose from and I’ll gladly spend a little money. I really think all the items mentioned by Morrigan would have pretty wide appeal.

I think they are watching themselves, it would be easy of them to put some amazing armor skins into the gem store, but that might upset people who want the coolest looking things in the game to be obtained by hard work / commitment and effort.

Not a fan of black lion/consortium chests myself, but I can see why the RNG is needed, it helps with the games economy because the harder-to-get stuff will be more expensive. In theory it’s a win-win situation. Get monnies in IRL, improve the in-game economy. In practice … lotta pissed off people.

Last word. Every penny I spend on gems on the gem store I think of myself not only as getting something for myself, but also supporting GW2’s future. And that sirs, is priceless.

No sorry they are not doing wellfare they are a company. If you want my money offer me something that I would want to buy.

Exploit my vanity. More clothing, more appearance options, titles, banners for my guild.

If they’re worried about pissing people who wants to work for unique skins, just make the store ones exclusive to the store or something. But make them stuff that people want to buy.

Keep the Legendary PvE skins out of the store. That way, it doesn’t lose it’s importance by suddenly being cash shop buyable.

Just make sure they’re all the same (or equivalent) stats. So where and how you got them isn’t gonna matter on your performance.

AcidicVision.5498:

This is a personal theory. There is strong evidence backing it, but its still a theory…

Before launch, and the details of the cash-shop were released, Nexon purchased a large number of shares in NCSoft. Not long after that purchase it was announced that Crystin Cox from Nexon was joining the ArenaNet team to work on the cash-shop.
<snip>
The writing is on the wall. This lady produced Maple Story. You can take a look at Maple Story’s cash shop online. It’s nothing but different tiers of mystery chest. What have we had in the cash shop since launch? Mystery chests, followed by more mystery chests for events, and even more mystery chests for content releases…

Hmm…interesting theory. You might just have something.

I don’t think there is any question that the gem store is being completely mishandled. I don’t think I have seen many people come on and defend the gem store. It is about as unattractive as it could possibl be. They offer city skins that make absolutely no sense and aside from a couple of viable things (like extra character slots and extra bank slots), it is littered with money traps like RNG chests.

Usually I spend a little cash to buy things like extra bank slots and character slots but I am holding off on this until I see how things go for a couple more months. If things keep like they are then I won’t be playing too long anyhow.

Just to add, another shady business practice is the addition of more crafting ingredients (and other questing items) without adding bank slots for them. Add to that, Anet’s reluctance to comment on if we should keep these things after the event makes things all the more shady, imo.

I would buy some good looking medium armour skins (anything rather than trenchcoats).

I have made a topic similar to this in the BLT forum.

Something that amazes me, beyond the Nexon factor, is how poorly thought the store armor skins are. In GW1, costumes had a clear advantage over common armor – common armor was made in individual pieces, so each piece had to work with multiple armor designs from the same profession, effectively making them hard to design. Costumes, in other hand, were just two pieces – one head piece, and one single piece for the entire body (merging chest, arms, legs and feet). As a result, designing costumes was easier than designing armor, which allowed ArenaNet to make new costumes without all the work needed to design new armor sets.

In GW2, it takes as much work to design a new armor skin for the gem store as it does to design a new armor skin for inside the game >.>

This was clearly a step backwards.

The gem shop in GW2 looks like an undergraduate work for his/her Gaming Design course.

Almost everything is useless and ugly, only thing I buy is some karma boosters to compensate for my lack of time.

It is a pitty because the gem shop could provide a huge income to ANet and, at same time, please the gamers. But no, the motto seems to be: “…lets sell lottery chests and that will be enough to keep the them occupied..”.

Well, luckily we live in a world where we have other options when we are not happy with a product.

Best regards,

Red

CorruptedSave.2570:

I was going to spend some cash for some new minis with the Lost Shores event, as I did with Halloween, but they decided that they could try to make more money by adding them to the limited time chests as rare drops and try to get people to gamble their money away on a ton of chests

No cash from me this event. Maybe next time.

I may have spent some real cash on the mini’s or skins. But AreanaNet in stead put them in the new chests. So I used in-game money to by two chests. I was lucky and got one mini and the shoulder armor I wanted. I then sold the mini and made 13g.

When I look at the gem shop, i can’t help but think to myself……..These guys are not even trying.