Guild Wars 2

Direksone.3867:

Devata.6589:

maddoctor.2738:

Devata.6589:

If you base you income on expansions (like GW1) you should do it faster once every year / year and a half.

And then you have a community spread all over the place, which was one of the main problems of the expansion system of GW1. Also, players not being able to play together was another big issue, I had loads of guildies with access only to Prophecies that couldn’t come to play Factions, while other newer players started with Factions. The regular expansion system has lots of benefits yes but it also has loads of drawbacks too.

Spreading the community might be a good thing because it means there are people everywhere not almost everybody in one spot. I also don’t see this problem in other mmo.. I mean I see the spreading, I don’t see the problem. In GW2 they are also spread out. BTW how did it spread the community in GW1? In GW1 you where always in instances.

Yes new members and directly after the release will not have full access true. But how long does it normally takes before people will buy the expansion, and the fact that other guild member can go there only is a reason for people to buy the expansion.

Of course it has benefits and drawbacks but if I put them next to P2P or F2P (so the income generated by a cash-shop) then the benefits of a B2P payment model where Anet focuses on expansions for income far outweighs the drawbacks.

The only thing they really need to be careful of is a pile of expansions that is a problem for new players. 5 expansions down the road it would become to expensive to start playing the game if you need to buy them all. Best way to do that is to work with a system where you have a little cheaper and a little more expensive expansion every time switching. Next you only require the original game and the last two expansions where the for-last expansion gives you access to all previous expansions.

DCUO does something along those lines: small expansions for 10euros with cool additions. Can play the majority of the game without, but they do contain good stuff, such a price is perhaps also more attractive and more people can buy that. But they do have a different business model so it might not work.

Do agree with ya, would never get a new acc on WoW for that reason alone (obviously theres more but w/e)

Personally I would prefer full (and so also more expensive) expansions to also get a more full experience in stead of small separate editions but I guess the result might be about the same. I don’t know that game so hard to say.

Expansions almost always sell well. Unless they wait so long players no longer care. Even after Wow’s Cata expac (possibly their worst) players lined up to buy Panda express. I realize that is wow and possibly not a fair comparison but I think an expac would do fine. Problem is they are making a ton of the gem store and don’t need to even think about it. Sucks for us I guess.

Lord Kuru.3685:

IMO, there is no way they won’t have an expansion. When MMO players who have quit a game hear the word “expansion,” they almost instinctively come back to try it out. It’s a tried-and-true way of getting people back and excited about a game again. The word has too powerful a connotation that Anet will not be able to resist.

And this is the reason why we will most likely see one. The market doesn’t like big changes. It’s why you still see posts here thinking that GW2 should bring back the classic “trinity.” Or cries for “moar loot!”

Same thing here… the same trap players are falling into. Expansions are familiar… safe… they’re what they know. Arena.net could package up content they’re doing now, burn it to a DVD, call it an expansion, and players would gobble it up.

At least I won’t buy it.
No more NCSoft for me.

Xcom.1926:

Ok I spent sometime and looked at NCSoft’s releases on sales. Please be aware, that generally the developer only gets 10% to 15% of the total revenue and NOT all of it.

Unit : Korean Won in Millions

3Q 12 = 45,841
4Q 12 = 119,013
1Q 13 = 36,382
2Q 13 = 28,899

Without an expansion we will keep seeing drops. The only way to rejuvenate their revenue is a new expansion. They know this better than anyone else, which is why I am 100% sure there will be an expansion. It would be silly not to have one.

Not enough time there to get a trend on an MMO. The first 2 quarters are during the huge box sales, and we know they sold ~500,000 copies between the 1Q and 2Q. Eventually the game will not sell as many boxes, and we will be seeing sales that come from mainly the gem store. At the very least we need another 2 quarters to get a good idea if things are really falling, or just stabilizing.

No, they are not afraid of an expansion not selling.

Devata.6589:

The whole idea is that with the B2P you lose the RNG boxes you buy for real cash or have to grind grind grind to exchange gold for and all other negative side effects from the F2P model. In a way B2P is a P2P model but you do not pay per month but per expansion. Cash/shop would become more an optional thing where you can maybe buy a few special skins or stuff like extra bank slots and char slots.

But while in a way it is a P2P model you do not have the timer above your head and P2P models have failed for over the last 9 years. No MMO was able to hold it up longer then 2 years so we must conclude that P2P does not work.

Thats why I like B2P so much. It has best of two worlds and is a fair way because everybody pays for the content.

Companies don’t go for it because they think they will not make enough money and maybe on the short run they will make less (not so convinced of that tbo) I also think it has a longer life-spawn. Besides, a few years ago those companies did also not think they could make money with B2P and GW1 already proved that it can work.

I’m sorry, but are you trying to say RNG boxes aren’t in GW2 because it is B2P? Because they are quite clearly in this game (maybe not at this exact moment) as they were one of the main driving forces behind the southsun patch and you could definitely buy them off the gem store. That is the epitome of trying to milk the player base knowing people will buy bundles of them trying to get the tickets for weapon skins.

Then everyone argues with the irrefutable “well, they have to make money somehow” and I agree… However this is the exact reason I prefer to just pay a sub and not have these types of things in the game to begin with. Just have everything obtainable in the open world and that’s it. If you want it work for it, if you don’t then don’t. Sure you can farm all day long for the boxes to drop in the open world events but obviously they skewed the drop rates to be low enough that people would feel like they had to buy the boxes off the gem store before the event was over.

15 bucks might be a lot to some people, who am I to criticize that, but to me..it is barely anything. It literally cost my girlfriend and I 30 bucks to go see gravity in 3D over the weekend. It was great, but it’s not like I can walk into that theater all month long and watch it as many times as I want during that time. That’s just how I look at it. I’ve had many problems with world of warcraft, and I’ve subbed and unsubbed more times than I can count since 2006, but it was never about the money…it was about other things about the game.

Other games may not have had success because they aim to appease everyone at first, when really they should start with a lower expectation and work up from there. SWTOr is a good example of what not to do.. they created a game that is highly niche but was marketed in the beginning to gather as many people as possible. They set the bar too unrealistically high for themselves from the gate, which explains why they dumped a ton of money into building it to begin with, so of course they needed to get as many subs as they could to support a studio they put together with that kind of money, which didn’t work out so well.

WoW is not the only P2P game on the market… so saying the P2P model is dead is far from the truth. People subscribe to netflix.. people subscribe to PSN and Xbox live. People sub to a lot of things in their life. It’s not subscriptions that are dead..it’s the idea of trying to create a game that tries to cater to everybody instead of just a couple groups of people that is really dead. Look at what wildstar is doing..they are straight up about saying this content is for hardcore gamers…these dungeons will be hard..etc, etc. It’s pretty evident who they are targeting. On the other side of the spectrum look at Elder Scrolls..they have pulled a 180 for the most part and are now targeting hardcore elder scrolls fans and RPG fans.

Sorry for the rant, but TL;DR it’s not the payment model that’s dead…people will gladly pay for something that is worth the money. What is dead is the idea that an mmorpg needs to cater to every gamer instead of just a select few groups of gamers.

Charak.9761:

Lord Kuru.3685:

saalle.4623:

Arena Net said that they will release HUGE content patch next year

They also hyped the release of a new “dungeon” and then gave us the abomination that was Canach’s Lair.

What was so bad about it, use the bomb on him, dps, loot, gg. I prefer short dungeons.

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/releases/may-28-2013/
Canach’s Lair on a subterranean solo mission under the island.

This was advertised as an instance similar to Personal story missions. It was not a dungeon. Anet failed to explain this to some players.

Devata.6589:

But while in a way it is a P2P model you do not have the timer above your head and P2P models have failed for over the last 9 years. No MMO was able to hold it up longer then 2 years so we must conclude that P2P does not work.

There are just as many F2P games that have failed including recent examples. Games don’t fail because of their business model. Games fail if they are bad games period. Players will play games regardless of payment models if they are good games. Not one person has told me they quit SWTOR because of subscription, they told me they quit because it was a bad game.

The market will not allow average games to charge subscriptions anymore. Your game has to be great if you want to charge subscription.

But to a developer it is probably better to have subscriptions than B2P/F2P. This way they dont’ have to worry about monetizing content every month.

dcypher.2590:

15 bucks might be a lot to some people, who am I to criticize that, but to me..it is barely anything. It literally cost my girlfriend and I 30 bucks to go see gravity in 3D over the weekend. It was great, but it’s not like I can walk into that theater all month long and watch it as many times as I want during that time. That’s just how I look at it. I’ve had many problems with world of warcraft, and I’ve subbed and unsubbed more times than I can count since 2006, but it was never about the money…it was about other things about the game.

My problem with sub fees is that (at least to me), I find myself forcing myself to play to make that month’s investment worth it. It doesn’t matter whether I like the content provided that month, it’s $15 out of my pocket. If I play 200 hours that month, or 200 seconds; $15. If the guild officers are on vacation and we don’t do anything together for those weekends… yep. Still $15.

And the company can claim that I’m a proud subscriber on their fact sheets.

Whereas with a cash shop option; I can actually show my support for content I like. If I don’t like what GW2 offers that month… I don’t have to pay them a dime. If I approve, yeah, I’ll drop them $10 on something I want.

Never bought a Black Lion Key. Never bought a random mini-pack, or anything else from the Gem Store that’s tied to RNG.

But apparently a lot of people do; because they’re still there. A lot of people like that gamble, and I’m tired of trying to tell them they’re idiots. Oh well.

chemiclord.3978:

I find myself forcing myself to play to make that month’s investment worth it.

That is a good thing. MMOs should make you feel like you have to play them. Not randomly log on here and there. Which is exactly why GW2 has things like dailies and temp content. They want you to log on and have the urge to log on.

Xcom.1926:

That is a good thing. MMOs should make you feel like you have to play them. Not randomly log on here and there. Which is exactly why GW2 has things like dailies and perma content. They want you to log on and have the urge to log on.

And yet, if I don’t like those dailies that day (like today’s made me go “meh”) I feel absolutely no compulsion to do it. I’ve already got my money’s worth, and I like that feeling.

As a result, I will NOT play ANY game that has a subscription fee anymore. I don’t care how good you think it is.

I dunno, I’m half and half on expansions. It’s easier to release a ton of content with them because you have a lot more time to develop but then again I doubt an expansion could be placed on the gem store. A lot of people are happy with buy once – forever free content.

I think the major reason LS doesn’t hype people up or bring them back to the game as an expansion would is because it’s mostly just temporary content. If ANet kept everything permanent and the world kept expanding, LS would be a lot better imo.

chemiclord.3978:

And yet, if I don’t like those dailies that day (like today’s made me go “meh”) I feel absolutely no compulsion to do it. I’ve already got my money’s worth, and I like that feeling.

As a result, I will NOT play ANY game that has a subscription fee anymore. I don’t care how good you think it is.

But there should be compulsion. There should always be that urge. You should feel like you are missing out or wasting something if you don’t log in. GW2 learned the lesson early on that you can’t just tell players “leave it and come back whenever you like”.

I personally will play games with any model, I prefer subscription. But second best would be GW2’s system. However, if GW2 had a sub I would gladly pay it as long as they put better perma content in the game.

Xcom.1926:

But there should be compulsion. There should always be that urge. You should feel like you are missing out or wasting something if you don’t log in. GW2 learned the lesson early on that you can’t just tell players “leave it and come back whenever you like”.

Nope. If you are coming up with way to make people feel they HAVE to play, that’s just a cheap replacement for compelling content. You should make people WANT to play, not HAVE to.

Not that I think GW2 has always had perfectly compelling content, mind you… but if I don’t like it, I don’t have to give them my money. I prefer that immensely over “Here’s my $15, no matter how crappy your updates are!”

chemiclord.3978:

Nope. If you are coming up with way to make people feel they HAVE to play, that’s just a cheap replacement for compelling content. You should make people WANT to play, not HAVE to.

Again, that is pretty much what dailies and temp content are. It makes you want to play but you don’t have to. You don’t have to play with subscriptions either, but it makes you want to play.

You are losing something in both cases. You might put more value on the 50 cents for that day. Others might put more value on the content/rewards/achievement they get for that day.

eisberg.2379:

Xcom.1926:

Ok I spent sometime and looked at NCSoft’s releases on sales. Please be aware, that generally the developer only gets 10% to 15% of the total revenue and NOT all of it.

Unit : Korean Won in Millions

3Q 12 = 45,841
4Q 12 = 119,013
1Q 13 = 36,382
2Q 13 = 28,899

Without an expansion we will keep seeing drops. The only way to rejuvenate their revenue is a new expansion. They know this better than anyone else, which is why I am 100% sure there will be an expansion. It would be silly not to have one.

Not enough time there to get a trend on an MMO. The first 2 quarters are during the huge box sales, and we know they sold ~500,000 copies between the 1Q and 2Q. Eventually the game will not sell as many boxes, and we will be seeing sales that come from mainly the gem store. At the very least we need another 2 quarters to get a good idea if things are really falling, or just stabilizing.

I agree that is a good point. But the thing about sales like this is, if they didn’t do as well in the previous quarter it means the game didn’t gain a lot of new players. And we all know MMOs lose players as time goes on. If you are not replacing players that are quitting, any MMO will be in bad shape. Less players = less gem shop sales.

But would NCSoft/Arenanet be happy with GW2 being stable? Won’t they want the players that quit back in the game? Don’t they want a surge of new players? I am pretty sure they do.

Seems like an expansion would be the best solution to that problem.

chemiclord.3978:

dcypher.2590:

15 bucks might be a lot to some people, who am I to criticize that, but to me..it is barely anything. It literally cost my girlfriend and I 30 bucks to go see gravity in 3D over the weekend. It was great, but it’s not like I can walk into that theater all month long and watch it as many times as I want during that time. That’s just how I look at it. I’ve had many problems with world of warcraft, and I’ve subbed and unsubbed more times than I can count since 2006, but it was never about the money…it was about other things about the game.

My problem with sub fees is that (at least to me), I find myself forcing myself to play to make that month’s investment worth it. It doesn’t matter whether I like the content provided that month, it’s $15 out of my pocket. If I play 200 hours that month, or 200 seconds; $15. If the guild officers are on vacation and we don’t do anything together for those weekends… yep. Still $15.

And the company can claim that I’m a proud subscriber on their fact sheets.

Whereas with a cash shop option; I can actually show my support for content I like. If I don’t like what GW2 offers that month… I don’t have to pay them a dime. If I approve, yeah, I’ll drop them $10 on something I want.

Never bought a Black Lion Key. Never bought a random mini-pack, or anything else from the Gem Store that’s tied to RNG.

But apparently a lot of people do; because they’re still there. A lot of people like that gamble, and I’m tired of trying to tell them they’re idiots. Oh well.

I mean if you are only going to play 200 seconds then you shouldn’t be subbed up. I’m not saying the best route to go is to buy 3 month time cards, I certainly don’t. I usually pay 15 bucks to play when patches come out and whenever I feel like I’m done I unsub again. I wasn’t trying to imply you should just blindly pay for time you don’t use. In comparison 15 bucks for entertainment, even just a couple hours, is relatively cheap.

Anyway, I wasn’t trying to argue that. It’s ok if you personally don’t want to pay a sub, but that doesn’t mean sub models don’t work. Everyone in the world is not subbed to Netflix, yet it still works. It’s not magic. The point I was trying to make is people will pay for quality games and quality games should not try to encompass every type of mmorpg player, rather they should focus on a handful of types and make those elements amazing instead of just sub-par because development and direction is spread out across the board.

Onshidesigns.1069:

Charak.9761:

Lord Kuru.3685:

saalle.4623:

Arena Net said that they will release HUGE content patch next year

They also hyped the release of a new “dungeon” and then gave us the abomination that was Canach’s Lair.

What was so bad about it, use the bomb on him, dps, loot, gg. I prefer short dungeons.

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/releases/may-28-2013/
Canach’s Lair on a subterranean solo mission under the island.

This was advertised as an instance similar to Personal story missions. It was not a dungeon. Anet failed to explain this to some players.

Nice try at cherrypicking. The first part of the sentence that you quote calls it a dungeon.

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/releases/may-28-2013/

“Join Kiel for a mission to capture the deadly, desperate Canach! In this all-new story dungeon, you’ll enter Canach’s Lair on a subterranean solo mission under the island.”

chemiclord.3978:

Lord Kuru.3685:

IMO, there is no way they won’t have an expansion. When MMO players who have quit a game hear the word “expansion,” they almost instinctively come back to try it out. It’s a tried-and-true way of getting people back and excited about a game again. The word has too powerful a connotation that Anet will not be able to resist.

And this is the reason why we will most likely see one. The market doesn’t like big changes. It’s why you still see posts here thinking that GW2 should bring back the classic “trinity.” Or cries for “moar loot!”

Same thing here… the same trap players are falling into. Expansions are familiar… safe… they’re what they know. Arena.net could package up content they’re doing now, burn it to a DVD, call it an expansion, and players would gobble it up.

Funny to see this sort of argument also. Something you also see in politics when one group wants something and the other don’t the the group who wants it says the group who won’t is afraid for changes. It is bull but it helps in a psychological way also on the voters because you don’t want to be that afraid person.

The reality however is that not every change is a good change or not every change is progression.

Tell me what is the trap? A trap means it is bad so what is bad about expansions?

Besides generating income mainly on expansions is also pretty unique / new. GW1 did it but thats about it. Most go for P2P or F2P and many of those do NOT have expansions. Not in the traditional form where you buy them in a show anyway.

If you really think people would be happy if Anet would have sold 1 extra ‘dungeon’ and 1 extra map as an expansion it’s not really possible to have a discussion with you because everybody knows that is also bull. Just like the ‘people are afraid’. Of course you also know yourself that people would not be happy with this. You say it just to make your argument stronger. Same reason as the “they are afraid for change” statement.

So if you are correct why do you need this sort of statements about how people are afraid of change and how people would be fine with an expansion if they got what they did now get?

Lastly there is still the problem of generating income by gems or by expansions and how that affects the game. For my thats the main reason I want expansions.

I do think that expansions have more advantages like generating more publicity and so getting new players, overhauling thinks like making GW2 a real open world in stead of every map being an instance and so on. Many of those thinks might be done in an expansion and I don’t think they will be done with the living story (because it would be a bigselling point for an expansion but not so much for an living story patch) however they could be done in the living story. I do belief races and maps could and would be released in the living story.

For me the main reason is the influence gem-store focus already has on the game. I want that influence to go away, I want mini’s to be put in the world, hairstyles be put in the world, gold driven should be lower so farming what you need is more of a possibility, no temporary items in the gem-store or anywhere else and so on.

Those thinks that are there this way because Anet now gets there income from micro transactions will only go away of they would change focus for income to expansions.

eisberg.2379:

Xcom.1926:

Ok I spent sometime and looked at NCSoft’s releases on sales. Please be aware, that generally the developer only gets 10% to 15% of the total revenue and NOT all of it.

Unit : Korean Won in Millions

3Q 12 = 45,841
4Q 12 = 119,013
1Q 13 = 36,382
2Q 13 = 28,899

Without an expansion we will keep seeing drops. The only way to rejuvenate their revenue is a new expansion. They know this better than anyone else, which is why I am 100% sure there will be an expansion. It would be silly not to have one.

Not enough time there to get a trend on an MMO. The first 2 quarters are during the huge box sales, and we know they sold ~500,000 copies between the 1Q and 2Q. Eventually the game will not sell as many boxes, and we will be seeing sales that come from mainly the gem store. At the very least we need another 2 quarters to get a good idea if things are really falling, or just stabilizing.

However is does show that during box sales the income is more as double that of when gem sales are the main source of income. Even when they would stabilize. While expansions might sell less this is at least a good argument to why using expansion as a main source of income in stead of micro transactions might very well work.

We also see the same in many other games. It’s known that during expansions the playerbase increases a lot.

dcypher.2590:

Devata.6589:

The whole idea is that with the B2P you lose the RNG boxes you buy for real cash or have to grind grind grind to exchange gold for and all other negative side effects from the F2P model. In a way B2P is a P2P model but you do not pay per month but per expansion. Cash/shop would become more an optional thing where you can maybe buy a few special skins or stuff like extra bank slots and char slots.

But while in a way it is a P2P model you do not have the timer above your head and P2P models have failed for over the last 9 years. No MMO was able to hold it up longer then 2 years so we must conclude that P2P does not work.

Thats why I like B2P so much. It has best of two worlds and is a fair way because everybody pays for the content.

Companies don’t go for it because they think they will not make enough money and maybe on the short run they will make less (not so convinced of that tbo) I also think it has a longer life-spawn. Besides, a few years ago those companies did also not think they could make money with B2P and GW1 already proved that it can work.

I’m sorry, but are you trying to say RNG boxes aren’t in GW2 because it is B2P? Because they are quite clearly in this game (maybe not at this exact moment) as they were one of the main driving forces behind the southsun patch and you could definitely buy them off the gem store. That is the epitome of trying to milk the player base knowing people will buy bundles of them trying to get the tickets for weapon skins.

~

No I am saying GW2 is not really B2P!
B2P means you generate your main income by box-sales that being the original game and expansions. GW2 now uses micro transactions to generate it’s main income so there is a need for thinks like RNG boxes. And would they do that away something else bad will come in it’s place. Generating your main income on micro transaction is called a F2P payment model. Thats what GW2 is using with the only difference is that they did charge money for the initial box. Looking back on that now it is sort of rude to give a F2P game experience but asking money for the game.

Anyway.. What I am saying if if they would indeed turn back to using a real B2P model and so generating their main income with expansions, not with micro-transactions then they can get rid of RNG-boxes, the gold-driven economies (gold is better then farming items them-self) and the many other examples I have given over and over again in this and some other threads.

About subs. I hate subs because you have a timer over your head. The quality of the games can be good and everything usually is in the world like it should but when you are not playing you are like.. damm I did play and then the month is over and you feel like playing.. Not my thing.

Thats why I like the REAL B2P model so much. Everything can be in the world and there is no timer over your head. In a way it is similar to a P2P model. But you don’t pay per month but per expansion (so per year / year and a half). Overall it might even cost the same. People who will play every month might pay less but many people do not play / pay every month in sub-games. So in the end it is about the same. There is no timer over your head and because the company behind the game does not uses the micro transactions as main income everything can be in the world like it should and the game will not have mechanics build around the idea of getting you to buy gems.

You just don’t have access to a part of the content if you do not buy the expansion. It really is the best of two world (F2P / P2P).

One more thing about P2P. It does not work. Over the last 9 years many many games did try to have a P2P model and they ALL (Western) failed with that model within maximum 2 years.

I did go over the list of all released mmo’s and there where only 2 that had been released over the last 9 years (after WoW) that still had P2P but those games where considered a failure themselves and only have a very small player-base left. Other games that have P2P are older games. (FF14 has not yet proven it will be able to stay popular and contain it’s P2P model)

You say subs don’t work because of the games. I see that argument and then they always defend some upcoming game. Like you are now defending Wildstar. I did see the same thing in the ArcheAge forums from the people who wanted P2P, needles to say in there eyes Wildstar will fail with P2P but ArcheAge would not. Over the last years I have seen the same being said in all forums of all those games. Fact is they all failed with the P2P model. BTW Wildstar is a not really a P2P model. It’s more a F2P with the obligation to buy items. Because if you buy gems you get the playtime for free. Wonder how that works but I don’t like it anyway.

Devata.6589:

No I am saying GW2 is not really B2P!
B2P means you generate your main income by box-sales that being the original game and expansions. GW2 now uses micro transactions to generate it’s main income so there is a need for thinks like RNG boxes. And would they do that away something else bad will come in it’s place. Generating your main income on micro transaction is called a F2P payment model. Thats what GW2 is using with the only difference is that they did charge money for the initial box. Looking back on that now it is sort of rude to give a F2P game experience but asking money for the game.

Anyway.. What I am saying if if they would indeed turn back to using a real B2P model and so generating their main income with expansions, not with micro-transactions then they can get rid of RNG-boxes, the gold-driven economies (gold is better then farming items them-self) and the many other examples I have given over and over again in this and some other threads.

Sorry but you cannot say that just because you think so.

Here is the definition of B2P from the Urban Dictionary:
1. B2P
Meaning “buy to play.” It is used to describe MMORPG’s that you only have to pay for once to play it.
Guild Wars is a B2P game.
that is what it is

It is also not a case of GW2 “now uses micro transactions”… the business model was announced before launch. They have done exactly what they said they were going to do.

Just so you understand what F2P actually is:

1. f2p
Free to play. Ussually used in games that have a free as well as a pay version or mode.
<Player1> u cant use that item in f2p
<Player2> There are better items out there

As in- sorry you can’t run because you are f2p
Sorry that dungeon is premium only
etc etc

and last but not least
Pay to Win:

1. pay-to-win
Games that let you buy better gear or allow you to make better items then everyone else at a faster rate and then makes the game largely unbalanced even for people who have skill in the game without paying.
Dude, you’ve spent like 400 bucks on this game so you can beat everyone who hasn’t spent any money. Pay-to-win noob!

So please- you are starting to remind me of those guys with the sandwich boards that says “the end is Nigh”

Xcom.1926:

Devata.6589:

But while in a way it is a P2P model you do not have the timer above your head and P2P models have failed for over the last 9 years. No MMO was able to hold it up longer then 2 years so we must conclude that P2P does not work.

There are just as many F2P games that have failed including recent examples. Games don’t fail because of their business model. Games fail if they are bad games period. Players will play games regardless of payment models if they are good games. Not one person has told me they quit SWTOR because of subscription, they told me they quit because it was a bad game.

The market will not allow average games to charge subscriptions anymore. Your game has to be great if you want to charge subscription.

But to a developer it is probably better to have subscriptions than B2P/F2P. This way they dont’ have to worry about monetizing content every month.

Read again. I simply stated the P2P model (not the game) did fail all the time over the last 9 years. Does that mean they have not released any good MMO’s over the last 9 years? I do not think so.. Is the payment model the only reason they failed. I don’t think so. It is a combination. However I personally do look at the payment model. I don’t like P2P because of a timer over my head and I don’t like F2P because the game is always trying to get you to buy items from there cash-shop in one way or the other. That was also the main reason I went for GW2. Anet had a good name for really having a B2P model with GW1, by charging money for GW2 they suggested having the same for GW2. To bad they are now trowing away that name with GW2. Maybe they will turn back to a real B2P model, we will see.

Whatever it may be, the facts are that a payment model DOES effect the game in some way and the fact is that the P2P model (or the game itself) did fail for all MMORPG’s over the last 9 years.

Xcom.1926:

chemiclord.3978:

I find myself forcing myself to play to make that month’s investment worth it.

That is a good thing. MMOs should make you feel like you have to play them. Not randomly log on here and there. Which is exactly why GW2 has things like dailies and temp content. They want you to log on and have the urge to log on.

No a good MMO should make you want to log in. Not make you feel you have to log in.

(For a game to be good. a commercial standpoint may be differend but if you need to log it is almost mains you get burned out faster so that only works in the short run)

Xcom.1926:

MMOs should make you feel like you have to play them. Not randomly log on here and there. Which is exactly why GW2 has things like dailies and temp content. They want you to log on and have the urge to log on.

Xcom.1926:

But there should be compulsion. There should always be that urge. You should feel like you are missing out or wasting something if you don’t log in.

From the way it sounds you want it, they should just lace the game with nicotine.

I don’t know if you’re wording it wrong or if I’m reading it wrong. They should make the game appealing and fun to play, yes…….but not like a drug as you are making it sound. Its a very wrong turn a game has made if they have to force that addictive quality onto its players to force them to play rather than just having players logging on and enjoying themselves because the content is fun.
If I feel like I’m wasting something in a game because I’m doing something in the real world, then it might be time to reevaluate my life.

Mathias.9657:

I dunno, I’m half and half on expansions. It’s easier to release a ton of content with them because you have a lot more time to develop but then again I doubt an expansion could be placed on the gem store. A lot of people are happy with buy once – forever free content.

I think the major reason LS doesn’t hype people up or bring them back to the game as an expansion would is because it’s mostly just temporary content. If ANet kept everything permanent and the world kept expanding, LS would be a lot better imo.

“I doubt an expansion could be placed on the gem store”
I do not get this sentence.

“If ANet kept everything permanent and the world kept expanding, LS would be a lot better imo.” You would still keep the negative side-effects from them trying to get you to buy gems. Funny enough the fact that is was so temporary can be directly be because of that reason. It gave them a good excuse to put temporary items in the gem-store and so generating a sense of urgency so people would buy gems. If they would now make it permanent we would still see other bad side effects from there focus on the gem-store for income. And thats the real reason I want them to base there income on expansions in stead of on micro transaction.

Devata.6589:

eisberg.2379:

Xcom.1926:

Ok I spent sometime and looked at NCSoft’s releases on sales. Please be aware, that generally the developer only gets 10% to 15% of the total revenue and NOT all of it.

Unit : Korean Won in Millions

3Q 12 = 45,841
4Q 12 = 119,013
1Q 13 = 36,382
2Q 13 = 28,899

Without an expansion we will keep seeing drops. The only way to rejuvenate their revenue is a new expansion. They know this better than anyone else, which is why I am 100% sure there will be an expansion. It would be silly not to have one.

Not enough time there to get a trend on an MMO. The first 2 quarters are during the huge box sales, and we know they sold ~500,000 copies between the 1Q and 2Q. Eventually the game will not sell as many boxes, and we will be seeing sales that come from mainly the gem store. At the very least we need another 2 quarters to get a good idea if things are really falling, or just stabilizing.

However is does show that during box sales the income is more as double that of when gem sales are the main source of income. Even when they would stabilize. While expansions might sell less this is at least a good argument to why using expansion as a main source of income in stead of micro transactions might very well work.

We also see the same in many other games. It’s known that during expansions the playerbase increases a lot.

If you look over the NCsofts Financials from 2005 to 2007, the period that they released the GW1 games, Guild Wars 2 has made more sales in 6 months than in any given Year between 2005-2007 for Guild Wars 1 (2006 = 52 W Mn, 2 new campaigns released that year), and Guild Wars 1 was released in more markets than Guild Wars 2 has been.

So using data from the time Anet used the model you want, it makes a good argument that Microtransaction sales is the better choice for income.

Morrigan.2809:

Devata.6589:

No I am saying GW2 is not really B2P!
B2P means you generate your main income by box-sales that being the original game and expansions. GW2 now uses micro transactions to generate it’s main income so there is a need for thinks like RNG boxes. And would they do that away something else bad will come in it’s place. Generating your main income on micro transaction is called a F2P payment model. Thats what GW2 is using with the only difference is that they did charge money for the initial box. Looking back on that now it is sort of rude to give a F2P game experience but asking money for the game.

Anyway.. What I am saying if if they would indeed turn back to using a real B2P model and so generating their main income with expansions, not with micro-transactions then they can get rid of RNG-boxes, the gold-driven economies (gold is better then farming items them-self) and the many other examples I have given over and over again in this and some other threads.

Sorry but you cannot say that just because you think so.

Here is the definition of B2P from the Urban Dictionary:
1. B2P
Meaning “buy to play.” It is used to describe MMORPG’s that you only have to pay for once to play it.
Guild Wars is a B2P game.
that is what it is

It is also not a case of GW2 “now uses micro transactions”… the business model was announced before launch. They have done exactly what they said they were going to do.

Just so you understand what F2P actually is:

1. f2p
Free to play. Ussually used in games that have a free as well as a pay version or mode.
<Player1> u cant use that item in f2p
<Player2> There are better items out there

As in- sorry you can’t run because you are f2p
Sorry that dungeon is premium only
etc etc

and last but not least
Pay to Win:
~

Because it is in the Urban Dictionary it’s true?
Just think logically here. We are talking about a payment model! A payment model describes how a company generates income. Can a company generate it’s income on a game that it keeps developing (Like the idea of MMORPG games) just by the initial box sale? No they can’t. Your own example might not describe it very good but even they give Guild Wars as an example. Guild Wars, not Guild Wars 2. GW based there income on expansions and guess what, you where not able to play the expansion when you did not buy it.

But then again.. the name is not even the point here. It’s about how they generate the income by expansions or by micro transactions and if you want to give that another name then B2P then go ahead. But thats what I clearly stated in the comments. So I don’t know why you are now wanna stat a fight about the definition of a name.. I stated multiple times I was talking about how they generated income.. anyway whatever you want.

Anet did say there would be a gem-store and I don’t have a problem with that. They however did not state they would use the gem-store as main source of income and looking at there name as B2P company (You know like they have that in GW1, you can gave it any other name so lets name it the GW1 model) GW1 model company it is normal to believe they would use the same B2P/ GW1 model as they did in GW2 and so would not use a model mainly based on micro transactions.

The F2P example is also a little strange because for many F2P games there is no paid version available. Or they do not have premium option. They just sell items in-game to generate money. Often that are indeed B2W items but that is not really a requirement. BTW what winning is for a PvP game is so called fluff for PvE games.

Not sure why you also give a definition about B2W.

Anyway like I said it does not even matter what name you give it. I did state in many comments that I talked about how they generated the income. F2P games mainly do that with micro transactions. GW2 at this moment does that also mainly with micro transactions. So from a business viewpoint there is no real difference and it effects the game in a similar way. Thats what we are talkign about here isen’kitten

eisberg.2379:

Devata.6589:

eisberg.2379:

Xcom.1926:

Ok I spent sometime and looked at NCSoft’s releases on sales. Please be aware, that generally the developer only gets 10% to 15% of the total revenue and NOT all of it.

Unit : Korean Won in Millions

3Q 12 = 45,841
4Q 12 = 119,013
1Q 13 = 36,382
2Q 13 = 28,899

Without an expansion we will keep seeing drops. The only way to rejuvenate their revenue is a new expansion. They know this better than anyone else, which is why I am 100% sure there will be an expansion. It would be silly not to have one.

Not enough time there to get a trend on an MMO. The first 2 quarters are during the huge box sales, and we know they sold ~500,000 copies between the 1Q and 2Q. Eventually the game will not sell as many boxes, and we will be seeing sales that come from mainly the gem store. At the very least we need another 2 quarters to get a good idea if things are really falling, or just stabilizing.

However is does show that during box sales the income is more as double that of when gem sales are the main source of income. Even when they would stabilize. While expansions might sell less this is at least a good argument to why using expansion as a main source of income in stead of micro transactions might very well work.

We also see the same in many other games. It’s known that during expansions the playerbase increases a lot.

If you look over the NCsofts Financials from 2005 to 2007, the period that they released the GW1 games, Guild Wars 2 has made more sales in 6 months than in any given Year between 2005-2007 for Guild Wars 1 (2006 = 52 W Mn, 2 new campaigns released that year), and Guild Wars 1 was released in more markets than Guild Wars 2 has been.

So using data from the time Anet used the model you want, it makes a good argument that Microtransaction sales is the better choice for income.

I think you are looking a little wrong at the numbers. Of course GW2 made more money. It is a much bigger name / game, it’s a real MMORPG I would be surprised if they would not make more money.

I am just looking at the moment of box-sales vs moment of non box sales. I also look if I can see a similar trend with other games (like WoW) and there I see the same. The fact that GW1 had less sales in not relevant for this. You are proving that GW1 had way less people and sold way less copies but thats really not relevant to the question if expansions boost sales and if a company would be able to run good focusing on expansions for income.

Your data does not proof micro-transactions are better they proof a bigger game with more people are better. Besides I also stated that I think generating income on expansion will mainly have a higher profit on the longer run. But thats another discussion as the only point in the my comment you did reply on was that expansions boost sales and that those numbers might also be a good argument to why using expansions as main source for income in stead of micro transactions might work very well. Not that micro transactions might not work.

GW2 is B2P. You buy the box, you play it. That’s it. This is really inarguable as the cashshop microtransactions are not needed in any way, shape or form to play. Those are completely at the discretion of the player.
I would imagine he mentioned Pay-to-win, because many F2P games generally take this route as they have no box sales and no other source of income, thereby putting things in the cashshop that are needed for endgame to force people to use the chashshop, forcing cashshop income.
Thats the greatest difference between GW2’s B2P model and F2P (B2Win)….Anet has nothing, absolutely nothing, in the cashshop you need to buy to play. Many people, myself included, have not spend a dime in the last year and have actually played the game free since the box purchase.

By not having expansions thus far and providing a free Living Story (whether anyone agrees it is a good thing or not), they are also sticking to being B2P. You are not paying for any new content, its all free for everyone. You are not paying for endgame gear. You are not paying a monthly sub. You are not paying for anything game-altering from the cashshop. You dont not need to use the cashshop at all and can have gone the entire last year without even looking at it.
Just because they throw luxury items in the cashshop does change the fact this game is 100% free to play after the box purchase.

MrRuin.9740:

GW2 is B2P. You buy the box, you play it. That’s it. This is really inarguable as the cashshop microtransactions are not needed in any way, shape or form to play. Those are completely at the discretion of the player.
I would imagine he mentioned Pay-to-win, because many F2P games generally take this route as they have no box sales and no other source of income, thereby putting things in the cashshop that are needed for endgame to force people to use the chashshop, forcing cashshop income.
Thats the greatest difference between GW2’s B2P model and F2P (B2Win)….Anet has nothing, absolutely nothing, in the cashshop you need to buy to play. Many people, myself included, have not spend a dime in the last year and have actually played the game free since the box purchase.

By not having expansions thus far and providing a free Living Story (whether anyone agrees it is a good thing or not), they are also sticking to being B2P. You are not paying for any new content, its all free for everyone. You are not paying for endgame gear. You are not paying a monthly sub. You are not paying for anything game-altering from the cashshop. You dont not need to use the cashshop at all and can have gone the entire last year without even looking at it.
Just because they throw luxury items in the cashshop does change the fact this game is 100% free to play after the box purchase.

Thank you
You get the point perfectly

MrRuin.9740:

GW2 is B2P. You buy the box, you play it. That’s it. This is really inarguable as the cashshop microtransactions are not needed in any way, shape or form to play. Those are completely at the discretion of the player.
I would imagine he mentioned Pay-to-win, because many F2P games generally take this route as they have no box sales and no other source of income, thereby putting things in the cashshop that are needed for endgame to force people to use the chashshop, forcing cashshop income.
Thats the greatest difference between GW2’s B2P model and F2P (B2Win)….Anet has nothing, absolutely nothing, in the cashshop you need to buy to play. Many people, myself included, have not spend a dime in the last year and have actually played the game free since the box purchase.

By not having expansions thus far and providing a free Living Story (whether anyone agrees it is a good thing or not), they are also sticking to being B2P. You are not paying for any new content, its all free for everyone. You are not paying for endgame gear. You are not paying a monthly sub. You are not paying for anything game-altering from the cashshop. You dont not need to use the cashshop at all and can have gone the entire last year without even looking at it.
Just because they throw luxury items in the cashshop does change the fact this game is 100% free to play after the box purchase.

“they are also sticking to being B2P. You are not paying for any new content” So now when you pay for mew content it means is not B2P anymore? You know GW1 required you to pay for new content and it very well know as B2P.

Anyway, GW2 is at this moment using micro transactions as main source for income thats also inarguable. That was what I have been referring to the whole time and I was also clear about that. You don’t want to call that the F2P model.. then call it something else. You don’t want to call a game that generates main income on box sales and expansions B2P then call that something else. I don’t really care how you call it and I am not here to have a discussion about how you call it as the name is not even close to the point here. So call it whatever you want.

The idea however that you (always?) get B2W in games that have no box-sales while games with box-sales would (never?) get them however is flawed. If a game uses box sales and then keeps going for another 10 years making money on micro transactions then the money they get from the box sales are not even interesting anymore. That principle even has a mathematical name.. can’t recall it at this very moment but its like 6*X+8 where 8 is the box sale and x is the years. The more years you get the less interesting the 8 becomes.

When GW2 generates it’s main income with gems they will need to convince people to buy gems. They are already doing that and no there is no P2W.. not really. The infinite SAB coin can be seen as a form of P2W just like the vote boosters during the politic patch and I hear a lot of complain about yet another item they now put in. But for the argument it does not really matter how they convince people to buy gems. They need to get people to buy gem, thats the point. No mather if thats B2W or not.

Like I also said. What winning is for PvP, flulff is for PvE and this game is based more on PvE then on PvP so P2W would not even make that much of sense anyway.

I think there’s a lot in many different areas that needs to be done in GW2 as it stands, let alone the need for an expansion.

as to the topic at hand, I remember an interview with Colin in 2011, in that interview Anet was not sure how exactly they were going to introduce all the new content, the only thing they knew for sure is the living story was going to introduce new content, but they were not sure if they would have expansions, or just add new content to be bought from the Gem store. So if before the game even released they were not sure if there would be expansions or not, there is no reason to believe that they are afraid to release expansions.

Morrigan.2809:

MrRuin.9740:

GW2 is B2P. You buy the box, you play it. That’s it. This is really inarguable as the cashshop microtransactions are not needed in any way, shape or form to play. Those are completely at the discretion of the player.
I would imagine he mentioned Pay-to-win, because many F2P games generally take this route as they have no box sales and no other source of income, thereby putting things in the cashshop that are needed for endgame to force people to use the chashshop, forcing cashshop income.
Thats the greatest difference between GW2’s B2P model and F2P (B2Win)….Anet has nothing, absolutely nothing, in the cashshop you need to buy to play. Many people, myself included, have not spend a dime in the last year and have actually played the game free since the box purchase.

By not having expansions thus far and providing a free Living Story (whether anyone agrees it is a good thing or not), they are also sticking to being B2P. You are not paying for any new content, its all free for everyone. You are not paying for endgame gear. You are not paying a monthly sub. You are not paying for anything game-altering from the cashshop. You dont not need to use the cashshop at all and can have gone the entire last year without even looking at it.
Just because they throw luxury items in the cashshop does change the fact this game is 100% free to play after the box purchase.

Thank you
You get the point perfectly

Yeah he did get your comment. However that has nothing to do about the discussion how generating income with micro transactions affects the game in another way that generating income with expansions does.

You want to have a discussion about how to call those models, fine by me but totally not the point in that discussion.

Tachenon.5270:

Vayne.8563:

25 missions in Prophecies and 13 missions in Factions compared to how many personal stories?

Oh, is that all there was to those two games? Just the missions? Heh.

You quoted the entirety of that context, and still ignored it.

Devata.6589:

Morrigan.2809:

MrRuin.9740:

GW2 is B2P. You buy the box, you play it. That’s it. This is really inarguable as the cashshop microtransactions are not needed in any way, shape or form to play. Those are completely at the discretion of the player.
I would imagine he mentioned Pay-to-win, because many F2P games generally take this route as they have no box sales and no other source of income, thereby putting things in the cashshop that are needed for endgame to force people to use the chashshop, forcing cashshop income.
Thats the greatest difference between GW2’s B2P model and F2P (B2Win)….Anet has nothing, absolutely nothing, in the cashshop you need to buy to play. Many people, myself included, have not spend a dime in the last year and have actually played the game free since the box purchase.

By not having expansions thus far and providing a free Living Story (whether anyone agrees it is a good thing or not), they are also sticking to being B2P. You are not paying for any new content, its all free for everyone. You are not paying for endgame gear. You are not paying a monthly sub. You are not paying for anything game-altering from the cashshop. You dont not need to use the cashshop at all and can have gone the entire last year without even looking at it.
Just because they throw luxury items in the cashshop does change the fact this game is 100% free to play after the box purchase.

Thank you
You get the point perfectly

Yeah he did get your comment. However that has nothing to do about the discussion how generating income with micro transactions affects the game in another way that generating income with expansions does.

You want to have a discussion about how to call those models, fine by me but totally not the point in that discussion.

You are assuming that the Gem store would be any different if they made expansions. Given that the store is exactly how they described it long before the game released, I am certain that making expansions would not change any of that. An expansion would have similar properties to the base game, but all the cosmetic/convenience stuff would still be in the gem store, there would still be Living story specific items in the Gem store regardless if there was expansions.

eisberg.2379:

as to the topic at hand, I remember an interview with Colin in 2011, in that interview Anet was not sure how exactly they were going to introduce all the new content, the only thing they knew for sure is the living story was going to introduce new content, but they were not sure if they would have expansions, or just add new content to be bought from the Gem store. So if before the game even released they were not sure if there would be expansions or not, there is no reason to believe that they are afraid to release expansions.

Are you sure that was in 2011. Because I did hear exactly the same interview. However that was this year. They where at that moment talking about that because they first announced they wanted to use the living story “if we do this correct we don’t ever get an expansion” and they got a lot of negative feedback about that. Before the release I never did hear them ever speak about the ‘living story’.

Have a look here: http://www.guildwars2hub.com/news/guild-wars-2-colin-johanson-twitch-transcript can’t find the interview itself.

Devata.6589:

Morrigan.2809:

MrRuin.9740:

GW2 is B2P. You buy the box, you play it. That’s it. This is really inarguable as the cashshop microtransactions are not needed in any way, shape or form to play. Those are completely at the discretion of the player.
I would imagine he mentioned Pay-to-win, because many F2P games generally take this route as they have no box sales and no other source of income, thereby putting things in the cashshop that are needed for endgame to force people to use the chashshop, forcing cashshop income.
Thats the greatest difference between GW2’s B2P model and F2P (B2Win)….Anet has nothing, absolutely nothing, in the cashshop you need to buy to play. Many people, myself included, have not spend a dime in the last year and have actually played the game free since the box purchase.

By not having expansions thus far and providing a free Living Story (whether anyone agrees it is a good thing or not), they are also sticking to being B2P. You are not paying for any new content, its all free for everyone. You are not paying for endgame gear. You are not paying a monthly sub. You are not paying for anything game-altering from the cashshop. You dont not need to use the cashshop at all and can have gone the entire last year without even looking at it.
Just because they throw luxury items in the cashshop does change the fact this game is 100% free to play after the box purchase.

Thank you
You get the point perfectly

Yeah he did get your comment. However that has nothing to do about the discussion how generating income with micro transactions affects the game in another way that generating income with expansions does.

You want to have a discussion about how to call those models, fine by me but totally not the point in that discussion.

and yet it has everything to do with all your millions of posts in this thread because you keep using incorrect terms for things so that you can cherry pick to get your point across.
You are the one insisting that a B2P game must have pay for box expansions.
That is not part of the definition.- it can be but it is not.

F2P games, P2P games can all have expansions.
Heck Single player games have expansions

Regardless of why, Anet said that they do not wish to do it that way ( seperate box) and have not decided.
They have good reasons why they haven’t decided and no it has nothing to do with the kitten cash shop.
I have already stated what those reasons are and I am not going to repeat myself.

If there was a facepalm button I would hit it so hard right now, seriously

Since you say my comment has nothing to do with the discussion let me address the OP:

Are you kidding me?
Your title is ridiculous and provocative
They are not “afraid” of making an expansion- do some research

Devata.6589:

Yeah he did get your comment. However that has nothing to do about the discussion how generating income with micro transactions affects the game in another way that generating income with expansions does.

You want to have a discussion about how to call those models, fine by me but totally not the point in that discussion.

I don’t see what you’re arguing.
They are using the cashshop as a significant source of income. They are also claiming to be introducing as much new content as an expansion via Living Story (Anets claim, not mine). Thereby, by their claim, they are expanding the game and you are not paying for, while also getting people to sustain the game by introducing new luxury cashshop items with each instalment of the Living Story.
In theory, I could see how this model would be more sustainable than a one-time purchase expansion as they are getting this income on a more consistent basis.
A one-time expansion purchase is just that.
If the Living Story becomes more and more permanent content, so much the better as it would help future vanilla box sales. Buy the game at any time during its lifespan and you have access to everything they have released since without needing to buy any expansions. 3 years down the road that could be appealing to people – buy game ‘x’ + 3 expansions or buy game ‘y’ and get all added content included.
There are ways to improve upon this model, IMO, but it seems to be serving them quite well.

Devata.6589:

eisberg.2379:

as to the topic at hand, I remember an interview with Colin in 2011, in that interview Anet was not sure how exactly they were going to introduce all the new content, the only thing they knew for sure is the living story was going to introduce new content, but they were not sure if they would have expansions, or just add new content to be bought from the Gem store. So if before the game even released they were not sure if there would be expansions or not, there is no reason to believe that they are afraid to release expansions.

Are you sure that was in 2011. Because I did hear exactly the same interview. However that was this year. They where at that moment talking about that because they first announced they wanted to use the living story “if we do this correct we don’t ever get an expansion” and they got a lot of negative feedback about that. Before the release I never did hear them ever speak about the ‘living story’.

Have a look here: http://www.guildwars2hub.com/news/guild-wars-2-colin-johanson-twitch-transcript can’t find the interview itself.

I know that interview that you linked very well, and it is not the one I am talking about. Living story has been talked about long before the game released, and I do remember in 2011 an interview talking about how they will introduce new content, and living story was at that point the only one they knew for sure would be one way to introduce some content, they still were not sure how they would introduce other content. In that recent interview they showed they want to lean more towards introducing the same stuff in an expansion through the living story and do it over time instead of one big package.

Morrigan.2809:

Devata.6589:

Morrigan.2809:

MrRuin.9740:

GW2 is B2P. You buy the box, you play it. That’s it. This is really inarguable as the cashshop microtransactions are not needed in any way, shape or form to play. Those are completely at the discretion of the player.
I would imagine he mentioned Pay-to-win, because many F2P games generally take this route as they have no box sales and no other source of income, thereby putting things in the cashshop that are needed for endgame to force people to use the chashshop, forcing cashshop income.
Thats the greatest difference between GW2’s B2P model and F2P (B2Win)….Anet has nothing, absolutely nothing, in the cashshop you need to buy to play. Many people, myself included, have not spend a dime in the last year and have actually played the game free since the box purchase.

By not having expansions thus far and providing a free Living Story (whether anyone agrees it is a good thing or not), they are also sticking to being B2P. You are not paying for any new content, its all free for everyone. You are not paying for endgame gear. You are not paying a monthly sub. You are not paying for anything game-altering from the cashshop. You dont not need to use the cashshop at all and can have gone the entire last year without even looking at it.
Just because they throw luxury items in the cashshop does change the fact this game is 100% free to play after the box purchase.

Thank you
You get the point perfectly

Yeah he did get your comment. However that has nothing to do about the discussion how generating income with micro transactions affects the game in another way that generating income with expansions does.

You want to have a discussion about how to call those models, fine by me but totally not the point in that discussion.

and yet it has everything to do with all your millions of posts in this thread because you keep using incorrect terms for things so that you can cherry pick to get your point across.
You are the one insisting that a B2P game must have pay for box expansions.
That is not part of the definition.- it can be but it is not.

F2P games, P2P games can all have expansions.
Heck Single player games have expansions

Regardless of why, Anet said that they do not wish to do it that way ( seperate box) and have not decided.
They have good reasons why they haven’t decided and no it has nothing to do with the kitten cash shop.
I have already stated what those reasons are and I am not going to repeat myself.

If there was a facepalm button I would hit it so hard right now, seriously

Since you say my comment has nothing to do with the discussion let me address the OP:

Are you kidding me?
Your title is ridiculous and provocative
They are not “afraid” of making an expansion- do some research

“You are the one insisting that a B2P game must have pay for box expansions.”

No I insist that the fact that GW2 is generating main income with micro-transactions influence the game in a bad way and that imo it would be better for the game if the generated the main income with expansions.

You are the one that started a discussion about the meaning of a word. So no it has nothing to do with it. Whatever the name is you give it has nothing to do with it at all.

“F2P games, P2P games can all have expansions. 
Heck Single player games have expansions” and also this has nothing to do with anything I have been saying.

“If there was a facepalm button I would hit it so hard right now, seriously“
Funny because I have exactly the same idea about your comments. You keep getting tings into it that are not even related. The meaning of a word, the fact that F2P and P2P games can also have expansions…? Yeah so?

I do however agree that I do not think they are “afraid” so far they simply made another decision and might come back on that. I don’t like the way they are going however and want them to use the GW1 payment model (that what I call B2P) by what I mean they should generate there main income by expansion sales not micro transactions. There happy?

eisberg.2379:

Devata.6589:

eisberg.2379:

as to the topic at hand, I remember an interview with Colin in 2011, in that interview Anet was not sure how exactly they were going to introduce all the new content, the only thing they knew for sure is the living story was going to introduce new content, but they were not sure if they would have expansions, or just add new content to be bought from the Gem store. So if before the game even released they were not sure if there would be expansions or not, there is no reason to believe that they are afraid to release expansions.

Are you sure that was in 2011. Because I did hear exactly the same interview. However that was this year. They where at that moment talking about that because they first announced they wanted to use the living story “if we do this correct we don’t ever get an expansion” and they got a lot of negative feedback about that. Before the release I never did hear them ever speak about the ‘living story’.

Have a look here: http://www.guildwars2hub.com/news/guild-wars-2-colin-johanson-twitch-transcript can’t find the interview itself.

I know that interview that you linked very well, and it is not the one I am talking about. Living story has been talked about long before the game released, and I do remember in 2011 an interview talking about how they will introduce new content, and living story was at that point the only one they knew for sure would be one way to introduce some content, they still were not sure how they would introduce other content. In that recent interview they showed they want to lean more towards introducing the same stuff in an expansion through the living story and do it over time instead of one big package.

What I recall from before release is that they talked about a ever evolving breading world, and usually they then where mainly talking about how dynamic events would so that. But I never did hear the term “living story” before and also never the discussion on if they would release new content that way.

Devata.6589:

I do however agree that I do not think they are “afraid” so far they simply made another decision and might come back on that. I don’t like the way they are going however and want them to use the GW1 payment model (that what I call B2P) by what I mean they should generate there main income by expansion sales not micro transactions. There happy?

They will never do that, the benefits of fast releasing expansions are too little compared to the drawbacks and they’ve said so in the past. It might’ve worked in an instanced game, but in an open world game it’s not so simple.

That doesn’t mean we won’t get expansions, they will probably release some new big landmass through an expansion but not on a regular basis, the GW1 model cannot work without instances. Typical expansions aren’t always good for a “living” world, changing the existing world can have a far better results han adding new zones, if done correctly. Which is exactly what the devs want to do, with very little results so far I admit, but it has potential.

I’ll take changes (real changes) to old zones, progress on many storylines, like what happens after Ulgoth dies in Harathi Hinderlands, what happens after the Ogres are defeated in Fields of Ruin etc over some new landmass and neglect of the old areas. That’s what living breathing world is, that’s Anet’s vision, an ever changing world, that is not something that can happen through expansions. Currently it doesn’t happen through their Living Story either, but that’s a completely different topic.

Devata.6589:

eisberg.2379:

Devata.6589:

eisberg.2379:

as to the topic at hand, I remember an interview with Colin in 2011, in that interview Anet was not sure how exactly they were going to introduce all the new content, the only thing they knew for sure is the living story was going to introduce new content, but they were not sure if they would have expansions, or just add new content to be bought from the Gem store. So if before the game even released they were not sure if there would be expansions or not, there is no reason to believe that they are afraid to release expansions.

Are you sure that was in 2011. Because I did hear exactly the same interview. However that was this year. They where at that moment talking about that because they first announced they wanted to use the living story “if we do this correct we don’t ever get an expansion” and they got a lot of negative feedback about that. Before the release I never did hear them ever speak about the ‘living story’.

Have a look here: http://www.guildwars2hub.com/news/guild-wars-2-colin-johanson-twitch-transcript can’t find the interview itself.

I know that interview that you linked very well, and it is not the one I am talking about. Living story has been talked about long before the game released, and I do remember in 2011 an interview talking about how they will introduce new content, and living story was at that point the only one they knew for sure would be one way to introduce some content, they still were not sure how they would introduce other content. In that recent interview they showed they want to lean more towards introducing the same stuff in an expansion through the living story and do it over time instead of one big package.

What I recall from before release is that they talked about a ever evolving breading world, and usually they then where mainly talking about how dynamic events would so that. But I never did hear the term “living story” before and also never the discussion on if they would release new content that way.

Right, because they didn’t come up with the living story till after release.

They did try adding dynamic events and they, by and large, got ignored. So they brainstormed and came up with another approach.

Clearly they see the approach as successful…otherwise why would they have added teams to it.

What is successful?

I believe Anet looks at concurrency numbers and places a large stock in those.

A-net will not dare to make an expansion for this game.
Many many MANY ppl are unhappy with the game and if an expansion came out and force ppl to spend money to keep playing, most of them would simply quit the game for good.

So this is what they said before the game launched.
this is from 2011:
This is was and still is as far as I know their stance on stand alone expansions.
http://www.joystiq.com/2011/06/15/guild-wars-2-to-avoid-retail-mmo-expansion-model/

This is thier view on micro transactions, and the possibilty of an add on expansion. Note that they have since said they do not know how they will introduce this add on but that they would like to do it via the living story.
http://www.videogamer.com/news/guild_wars_2_expansions_a_sure_thing_says_arenanet_2.html

Those are the facts
thread/

Devata.6589:

eisberg.2379:

Devata.6589:

eisberg.2379:

as to the topic at hand, I remember an interview with Colin in 2011, in that interview Anet was not sure how exactly they were going to introduce all the new content, the only thing they knew for sure is the living story was going to introduce new content, but they were not sure if they would have expansions, or just add new content to be bought from the Gem store. So if before the game even released they were not sure if there would be expansions or not, there is no reason to believe that they are afraid to release expansions.

Are you sure that was in 2011. Because I did hear exactly the same interview. However that was this year. They where at that moment talking about that because they first announced they wanted to use the living story “if we do this correct we don’t ever get an expansion” and they got a lot of negative feedback about that. Before the release I never did hear them ever speak about the ‘living story’.

Have a look here: http://www.guildwars2hub.com/news/guild-wars-2-colin-johanson-twitch-transcript can’t find the interview itself.

I know that interview that you linked very well, and it is not the one I am talking about. Living story has been talked about long before the game released, and I do remember in 2011 an interview talking about how they will introduce new content, and living story was at that point the only one they knew for sure would be one way to introduce some content, they still were not sure how they would introduce other content. In that recent interview they showed they want to lean more towards introducing the same stuff in an expansion through the living story and do it over time instead of one big package.

What I recall from before release is that they talked about a ever evolving breading world, and usually they then where mainly talking about how dynamic events would so that. But I never did hear the term “living story” before and also never the discussion on if they would release new content that way.

They didn’t coin the phrase “living story” till after the game launched, but in interviews prior to launch they described what is now called Living Story.

Devata.6589:

Because it is in the Urban Dictionary it’s true?