Guild Wars 2

Is there a thread where I can express my overwhelming anger about the treatment of veteran players in this whole deal? If so please move this post to that thread.

I have played this game for 1100 days at this moment, not counting beta… this includes the pre-release and everything. I paid every penny for my game and I put money into the game. All of my own choice of course, but as a person who made the effort to support the game I cannot feel a little sour over the fact that I am paying 120 dollars to play HOT, when new players got refunds on their original game copy, and even newer players got the game outright free… Anet’s response to this was far worse than pathetic. No discount on HOT, no refund or even a gem bonus for loyalty rewards… we get some kitten kitten looking dinky “royal guard” skin that so far most of my guild has added to collection never to be touched again because it looks like something they had a high school intern design…

Before I get flooded with posts about entitlement and the value of 3 years of “free content” understand that while I may sound entitled, any one person would be a bit sour over the deal that is given to veteran players. We purchased the game… we supported it… we built this community and in a lot of ways this game… and we are rewarded for this effort and monetary and non-monetary support by them handing us a useless kittenty skin with one hand while reaching in our pockets AGAIN…

We tried out best not to complain over the ages, not when you stopped releasing content, or started charging for garbage content like living worlds… anet I am sure you know what kind of flop that was… but this is just in a lot of ways unprofessional. You are pandering to new players giving them the deal of the century, and rewarded your veterans, your loyalists, fans and supporters… by charging us full price a second time around. By the time HOT comes out I will have payed 140 dollars minimum for this game, not counting time investment and microtransactions… That is a bit much considering for 60 dollars I can get every piece of the game in its entirety…

The worst part is they sort of slapped us in the face with this. It would have been better if they gave us no compensation because then we could still be hoping they would reward us for our loyalty… but instead this… this royal guard skin… it is like the golden pen they give you when they force you to retire from a company… its like a very shiny kitten you that you will never use…

I guess I will put my tin foil hat on and hope that arena net is visited by the spirits of expansions past present and future…. so when it wakes up tomorrow it might find some semblance of respect for its active and loyal fan base… instead of milking us like cows in a stall because you know we stand to lose more in our time investment by quitting the game, even though we should in principle…

Anet, kitten your disingenuous business practices during this whole deal…

<End Rant>

That’s what they’re saying over at mmorpg.com. If this is true it isn’t right. We want their new blood to join us. Plz send us noobs to eat! I mean play friendly with.

Yeah, so everyone can just make f2p accounts to spy on other servers, besides that, i think it’s good to have content locked for those who buy the game, so free players have incentive to actually…you know, buy the game?

They would need some pretty severe restrictions, like no access to supplies, siege, and picking upgrade options for towers/garrison/camps.

F2p players can enter WvW at level 60.

Edit, or to be more precise WvW unlocks on the account once the first character reaches 60.
https://help.guildwars2.com/entries/95982157-Account-types-Free-Core-HoT

Well, I guess those of you who are upset over this can take this as a lesson to wait 3 – 4 years min before you buy anything, or start any new games.

This isn’t anything new, this is very typical of businesses. EQ players paid up to $150+ yearly, only to find that later there was a free account version.

Daoc has 5 expansions, every single one of them are free now

etc

Lexy.3912:

F2p players can enter WvW at level 60.

Edit, or to be more precise WvW unlocks on the account once the first character reaches 60.
https://help.guildwars2.com/entries/95982157-Account-types-Free-Core-HoT

does that mean once your have a character with lvl 60 you can simply delete that character and transfer to any other server to spy in wvw ?

Jiggawattz.2697:

Is there a thread where I can express my overwhelming anger about the treatment of veteran players in this whole deal? If so please move this post to that thread.

I have played this game for 1100 days at this moment, not counting beta… this includes the pre-release and everything. I paid every penny for my game and I put money into the game. All of my own choice of course, but as a person who made the effort to support the game I cannot feel a little sour over the fact that I am paying 120 dollars to play HOT, when new players got refunds on their original game copy, and even newer players got the game outright free… Anet’s response to this was far worse than pathetic. No discount on HOT, no refund or even a gem bonus for loyalty rewards… we get some kitten kitten looking dinky “royal guard” skin that so far most of my guild has added to collection never to be touched again because it looks like something they had a high school intern design…

Before I get flooded with posts about entitlement and the value of 3 years of “free content” understand that while I may sound entitled, any one person would be a bit sour over the deal that is given to veteran players. We purchased the game… we supported it… we built this community and in a lot of ways this game… and we are rewarded for this effort and monetary and non-monetary support by them handing us a useless kittenty skin with one hand while reaching in our pockets AGAIN…

We tried out best not to complain over the ages, not when you stopped releasing content, or started charging for garbage content like living worlds… anet I am sure you know what kind of flop that was… but this is just in a lot of ways unprofessional. You are pandering to new players giving them the deal of the century, and rewarded your veterans, your loyalists, fans and supporters… by charging us full price a second time around. By the time HOT comes out I will have payed 140 dollars minimum for this game, not counting time investment and microtransactions… That is a bit much considering for 60 dollars I can get every piece of the game in its entirety…

The worst part is they sort of slapped us in the face with this. It would have been better if they gave us no compensation because then we could still be hoping they would reward us for our loyalty… but instead this… this royal guard skin… it is like the golden pen they give you when they force you to retire from a company… its like a very shiny kitten you that you will never use…

I guess I will put my tin foil hat on and hope that arena net is visited by the spirits of expansions past present and future…. so when it wakes up tomorrow it might find some semblance of respect for its active and loyal fan base… instead of milking us like cows in a stall because you know we stand to lose more in our time investment by quitting the game, even though we should in principle…

Anet, kitten your disingenuous business practices during this whole deal…

<End Rant>

I agree with you. BUT not only that, i also miss the times when computers costed hundred thousands of dollars. It is so unfair for people to get the same today for 1/100th of the cost 20 years ago. Don’t let me get started on the iphone 1 fiasco.

After having read the updates and the detailed list of what is afforded to free/core/HoT players:

Good measures in place for restricting those free accounts, but they really need to be capped at say level 70 or something. And yes WvW spying will be a bigger issue with this. Enjoy the rage in those forums.

Now, that being said as a veteran player this outfit you’re offering as an olive branch, “look we’re thinking of you guys” is absurd. Even if this outfit look OMG AWESOME, there are still many of us that don’t give a flying fig about outfits and others which outright hate them. In the grand scheme of things this kind of appeasement is going to feel like a slap in the face. I understand you all need more people in the game (lord knows that unless there is a world boss event happening I’m constantly being asked to move to another map) so this is a way to get more bodies in there while you hope they drop more money to get HoT. I get it. You’ve lost players. Ever wonder though that maybe you’d retain more long time players by not dumping all over them then trying to get more money out of them via the gemstore?

I digress.

The really sad side effect to all of this is that when looking forward to the next year there are A LOT of games coming out that are vying for my limited dollars and this one here…its not doing a good job trying to convince me to hand them over. I hope against all hope that I am very wrong here. I do. History isn’t on my side however.

To all the people complaining about this on a financial basis.

Really?

You spent at most 50 bucks for the game three years ago. That’s what these free to play people are getting.

Do you barge in to the electronics store you bought your TV in and demand a 50% refund when it goes on a 50% off sale?

Get a grip, or assume that every single online game will go free to play at some point. That’s the reality of the market today.

This is in no way a “slap in the face” and all of you should be ashamed for seeing a move intended to bring now players in to the game as a slight against your personal “investment”

Fifty bucks is not an investment. It barely even covers what it cost to keep the concurrent servers you play on running for the last three years. In that time you received two seasons of living story, and a massive load of QoL fixes, updates to core systems, and a ton of other stuff.

I really do hope, if you’re that upset about “your investment” you just plain quit. Take your persecution complex elsewhere, or realize that you recieved far more than your money’s worth if you never purchased gems.

Between this and the “toxic raiders will ruin our community” nonsense it’s becoming pretty clear where the lion’s share of “toxic” behavior seeps from on these boards.

I, for one, am quite happy to have the opportunity to show the game to some people that were on the fence about it.

azizul.8469:

Lexy.3912:

F2p players can enter WvW at level 60.

Edit, or to be more precise WvW unlocks on the account once the first character reaches 60.
https://help.guildwars2.com/entries/95982157-Account-types-Free-Core-HoT

does that mean once your have a character with lvl 60 you can simply delete that character and transfer to any other server to spy in wvw ?

Yip, seems to be the case.
To be honest. I don’t think it will be a big issue, and if it will, they will handle it quickly. The core game has been as low priced as 10 bucks (january 2015 sale). So someone who wanted to do this, could have done that a long time ago relative cheap. As it currently isn’t an issue and as it still is a bannable offense where you risk your main account, I would not fear from it.

PopeUrban.2578:

To all the people complaining about this on a financial basis.

Really?

You spent at most 50 bucks for the game three years ago. That’s what these free to play people are getting.

Do you barge in to the electronics store you bought your TV in and demand a 50% refund when it goes on a 50% off sale? snipped for brevity

No, it wasn’t just a 50 dollar purchase initially. Not for many vets that I know of and not for me personally. I know I have put in over $1000 additional dollars over the years I’ve had the game (and most of that was in the first 2 years of having the game) because i wanted to support the game and the developers while they were providing all of that living world content. This was because they explicitly stated that they were (at the time) only delivering new content via living world, so I wanted to support them through that endeavor.

Then they reveal that their LW content creators were really just a skeleton crew and most of their team was working on something bigger. Expansion talk was now on the horizon, but while that was going on, they made some HORRIBLE game breaking decisions for the game that languished on for over a year and which sent many players away from the game, new and old. Over the course of the game they have increasingly done things to push veteran players away and NOW they announce raids and harder content (which we don’t know if they even will be after a month of so), but its still all locked in behind HoT, so its either buy HoT at full game price or you don’t get to take part in that content. But here, just to show you we’re thinking about you, have an outfit you’ll never wear or care about and please head to our gemstore for the latest thing we want to sell you this week.

People are tired of Anet’s BS and this thread is going to be a LONG one. Unless they find some reason to bury it.

Couldn’t they just buy HoT instead and get all the features?

In GW1 each expansion and base game gave you SOMETHING.

Now the F2P basically gives half the original and HoT would unlock full original and also expansion?

Or am i missing something.

You’re exactly right that’s the point. They’re meant to buy HoT not the original game. That’s why when you click buy Gw2 on the website it takes you to the HoT purchase

So owning GW2 is poinltess?

I don’t think you can buy the base game any more. Anet don’t sell it and I suspect (but don’t know for sure) that all new accounts get HoT the same way they all get the heroic edition after that was released.

SwiftXShadow.4236:

So owning GW2 is poinltess?

Owning GW2 removes all the restrictions, but will not give access to the HoT-specific things.

SwiftXShadow.4236:

So owning GW2 is poinltess?

It just means you own all of GW2 or nothing, so there’s no paywalls in the way for new players.

3 years of GW2 is not nothing, either.

SwiftXShadow.4236:

So owning GW2 is poinltess?

No. Current GW2 owners still get a number of perks over f2p accounts, like being able to use map chat, full use of the Trading Post, etc.

However, owning just the full version of GW2 is a legacy thing now. You can’t buy just the base game anymore. For new players, you’re either f2p, or you own a full account with access to HoT.

SwiftXShadow.4236:

So owning GW2 is poinltess?

Owning GW2 means you don’t have to deal with the restrictions on free accounts: you can use map chat, make more than 2 characters, whisper anyone, use guild banks and so on.

The free accounts sound like the free trial version they did a while ago, fine in the short term but I think it’d drive me mad trying to play on one long term.

PookieDaWombat.6209:

PopeUrban.2578:

To all the people complaining about this on a financial basis.

Really?

You spent at most 50 bucks for the game three years ago. That’s what these free to play people are getting.

Do you barge in to the electronics store you bought your TV in and demand a 50% refund when it goes on a 50% off sale? snipped for brevity

No, it wasn’t just a 50 dollar purchase initially. Not for many vets that I know of and not for me personally. I know I have put in over $1000 additional dollars over the years I’ve had the game (and most of that was in the first 2 years of having the game) because i wanted to support the game and the developers while they were providing all of that living world content. This was because they explicitly stated that they were (at the time) only delivering new content via living world, so I wanted to support them through that endeavor.

Then they reveal that their LW content creators were really just a skeleton crew and most of their team was working on something bigger. Expansion talk was now on the horizon, but while that was going on, they made some HORRIBLE game breaking decisions for the game that languished on for over a year and which sent many players away from the game, new and old. Over the course of the game they have increasingly done things to push veteran players away and NOW they announce raids and harder content (which we don’t know if they even will be after a month of so), but its still all locked in behind HoT, so its either buy HoT at full game price or you don’t get to take part in that content. But here, just to show you we’re thinking about you, have an outfit you’ll never wear or care about and please head to our gemstore for the latest thing we want to sell you this week.

People are tired of Anet’s BS and this thread is going to be a LONG one. Unless they find some reason to bury it.

Funny, all the people I know are actually coming back to the game because it’s better than it was when they left

You know, far less broken specs, a less annoying leveling path, more content overall, etc. etc. etc.

Okay, not 50 bucks, whatever the preorder was for the edition with the mistfire wolf then (which, hey, the offered as DLC later! Was that a slap in the face too?) $70? Honestly I don’t remeber as it was so long ago.

Then you’re what, expecting the expansion to be 30 bucks? Expecting them to keep charging people for content that was wrapped up literally years ago?

What exactly is it that you, personally are after here? A refund for five or six accounts? What makes you think you even deserve that?

What entitles you to say how much your money is worth compared to every single other user?

You payed money for gems, which you spent, and you recieved compensation for them. You payed money for the game, just like the rest of us. Heck, I was in the beta for GW1. I still remember skill rings. You think I was upset when they released a bundle of campaigns that cost me over a hundred bucks for only 20?

Why do you hate this idea of the game you love so much and have invested so much in being made more avaliable to more people?

You you feel this way toward businesses who discount merchandise you bought when it was new? If I could find your exact microwave for free on craigslist right now, would you be angry at the person who gave it to me?

I just don’t understand the logic I guess, so perhaps you could explain it to me.

How does offering a limited free version of the base game devalue your purchases and time spent over the last three years? Did you somehow expect to reclaim them for monetary value one day? Why does it matter how much it costs other people?

PookieDaWombat.6209:

PopeUrban.2578:

To all the people complaining about this on a financial basis.

Really?

You spent at most 50 bucks for the game three years ago. That’s what these free to play people are getting.

Do you barge in to the electronics store you bought your TV in and demand a 50% refund when it goes on a 50% off sale? snipped for brevity

No, it wasn’t just a 50 dollar purchase initially. Not for many vets that I know of and not for me personally. I know I have put in over $1000 additional dollars over the years I’ve had the game (and most of that was in the first 2 years of having the game) because i wanted to support the game and the developers while they were providing all of that living world content. This was because they explicitly stated that they were (at the time) only delivering new content via living world, so I wanted to support them through that endeavor.

Then they reveal that their LW content creators were really just a skeleton crew and most of their team was working on something bigger. Expansion talk was now on the horizon, but while that was going on, they made some HORRIBLE game breaking decisions for the game that languished on for over a year and which sent many players away from the game, new and old. Over the course of the game they have increasingly done things to push veteran players away and NOW they announce raids and harder content (which we don’t know if they even will be after a month of so), but its still all locked in behind HoT, so its either buy HoT at full game price or you don’t get to take part in that content. But here, just to show you we’re thinking about you, have an outfit you’ll never wear or care about and please head to our gemstore for the latest thing we want to sell you this week.

People are tired of Anet’s BS and this thread is going to be a LONG one. Unless they find some reason to bury it.

That is a lame excuse. Nobody forced you to spend more than 50$ on the game. You did it on your own accord because you wanted/liked something.

Also the LW was going to be their main content provider but the community wanted more than that,expansion(if you were visiting the forums during the 3 years you played you know this is true). Plus they will continue with the LW updates so it’s not just a skeleton crew.

ANet said that future content would be focused on HoT so is it a surprise that raids would require you to buy the expansion?

I believe the presence of GW1 on Steam is already serving the purpose of advertising for GW2. GW1 is frankly overpriced for such an old game, but that might actually be a strategy to pique interest and lead people to find out it has a much prettier sequel.

For what it’s worth I bought the Deluxe edition on the first day of pre-purchase, played since the first day of headstart, bought gems regularly and got the Ultimate edition of HoT and the free trial accounts don’t bother me.

I don’t think it will affect me and my game at all, as long as they don’t bring free to play sales tactics to the gem store and it doesn’t bother me that other people get to start for free, I don’t think it devalues what I’ve got.

(I’d mention GW1 as well but considering I got the Platinum edition for 1/2 price in one Christmas sale, Factions and nightfall collectors editions for less than the price of the normal ones and EOTN in a buy 1 get 1 free sale and got all the same content as people who paid full price that may not be the best way to make the point.)

It really isn’t a surprise that the game has become free to play. They sort of gave that away with the Heart of Thorn promotion if people were paying attention. I think it is more telling that it is free to play and Guild Wars is not.

That being said, I think WvW should be restricted for free accounts. Getting to level 60 isn’t much of a barrier to entry considering the ease of leveling in the game. Once the free accounts can access it you will hear complaints of spying taking place. I’m not saying actual spying will or won’t take place, just that the complaints will begin. Lets face it though, spying happened with paid accounts so it is very possible there will be an uptick for the free accounts.

For the rest? I stopped caring when ANet decided they wanted to become a hybrid of Second Life and WoW.

Drying out all enemies supplies incoming, this will be soooooooooooooooooo much fun

Your example of the microwave, while neat, is nothing like this.

If I bought a car and the company said they would be providing upgrades, fixes, part replacements for my car and i opted to support them by buying additional accessories for the car to help support them in that endeavor then they decide to offer up a new engine for the car and tell me I had to pay the price of the full car for that engine if I wanted it, but NEW owners of the car get the car and the new engine upgrade for the same price, I’d be a bit miffed. Sure I didn’t HAVE to pay for all those other accessories, but i wanted to support the company given the other things they were doing for me during that time. So for them to come along and tell me that i can get that new engine for the same price as the whole car that I originally paid and new people can just get the new car with all the upgrades AND the new engine is more than a little off putting.

See, its not that I had a TV and now its gone on sale and someone else is getting it for that sale price. I could care less about that. I care that people (myself included) have invested time and money into the game and have been jerked around many times over by Anet and they are simple unapologetic about the whole thing.

As for the LW being done by a skeleton crew: yes they only had a handful of people ever working on those. More so for season 2 than season one.

And while I’m all for them making harder content (finally), they are restricting it to HoT AND none of it is for the solo or small group, so basically general PvE will still be a press “1” snorefest.

TJgalon.5012:

There really is no reason for all this hate. The restriction are pretty good, the security is tighter then it ever been, lets welcome the new players, and be the friendly people we are supposed to be,.

I’m not an employee I’m a customer who has paid to play the game. A B2P that’s gone F2P but is still asking for another box sale? Madness

That’s just it. You didn’t “invest” in anything. You Made purchases

Those purchases are not being given away to free players

The basic car is, not the aftermarket options.

I think OP may be referring to retailers who still sell copies of GW2 Core.

If that’s the case then, yes, GW2 Core still has value as a restriction-free option for getting an alt account. With a paid version of GW2 core you would be able to collect daily login rewards and send things (gold, mystic coins, T6 mats bought with laurels, etc.) to your main account, whereas F2P accounts would be completely worthless for this purpose due to mailing restrictions.

Since GW2 has gone F2P and ANet is pursuing the single-price-point model with HoT, retailers may begin to offer their remaining stock of GW2 Core at discount as well.

Jiggawattz.2697:

Is there a thread where I can express my overwhelming anger about the treatment of veteran players in this whole deal? If so please move this post to that thread.

I have played this game for 1100 days at this moment, not counting beta… this includes the pre-release and everything. I paid every penny for my game and I put money into the game. All of my own choice of course, but as a person who made the effort to support the game I cannot feel a little sour over the fact that I am paying 120 dollars to play HOT, when new players got refunds on their original game copy, and even newer players got the game outright free… Anet’s response to this was far worse than pathetic. No discount on HOT, no refund or even a gem bonus for loyalty rewards… we get some kitten kitten looking dinky “royal guard” skin that so far most of my guild has added to collection never to be touched again because it looks like something they had a high school intern design…

Before I get flooded with posts about entitlement and the value of 3 years of “free content” understand that while I may sound entitled, any one person would be a bit sour over the deal that is given to veteran players. We purchased the game… we supported it… we built this community and in a lot of ways this game… and we are rewarded for this effort and monetary and non-monetary support by them handing us a useless kittenty skin with one hand while reaching in our pockets AGAIN…

We tried out best not to complain over the ages, not when you stopped releasing content, or started charging for garbage content like living worlds… anet I am sure you know what kind of flop that was… but this is just in a lot of ways unprofessional. You are pandering to new players giving them the deal of the century, and rewarded your veterans, your loyalists, fans and supporters… by charging us full price a second time around. By the time HOT comes out I will have payed 140 dollars minimum for this game, not counting time investment and microtransactions… That is a bit much considering for 60 dollars I can get every piece of the game in its entirety…

The worst part is they sort of slapped us in the face with this. It would have been better if they gave us no compensation because then we could still be hoping they would reward us for our loyalty… but instead this… this royal guard skin… it is like the golden pen they give you when they force you to retire from a company… its like a very shiny kitten you that you will never use…

I guess I will put my tin foil hat on and hope that arena net is visited by the spirits of expansions past present and future…. so when it wakes up tomorrow it might find some semblance of respect for its active and loyal fan base… instead of milking us like cows in a stall because you know we stand to lose more in our time investment by quitting the game, even though we should in principle…

Anet, kitten your disingenuous business practices during this whole deal…

<End Rant>

I totally agree and my last 8 posts have been trying to say exactly that! I have no problem with ftp model for core. The restrictions are perfect. My problem is that I supported both gw1 and gw2 when they 1st came out and very few even cared about it (If they even knew of its existance) I bought 5 additional accounts for family members. Now you tell me that I have to pay for 6 totally new accounts to continue my experience! Screw you for screwing me and giving newcomers dinner and a massage! Of course I feel that I shouldnt have to pay for the core+Hot in order to continue my experience. Especially on 6 accounts! Especially since I cared for this game when they were not so popular and continued to support them over 10 years. No they dont owe me anything, but charging me more than someone who has never supported them just because they THINK I will be dumb enough or desperate enough to play the new content (Which in many cases we will be desperate enough) Thats just wrong and Anet is also not dumb so they already know that. Why would you do this anyway?

BS I didn’t invest in anything. In those years that I and other players (whether they were one offs or whales) poured money into the game LONG after the initial purchase was made in part because we KNEW that the store was their main revenue stream and if we wanted those servers to stay up, if we wanted that LW content to keep flowing, those updates to the game to be made, for those lights to essentially stay on, that we would have to support the game in some way.

Make no mistake about it, if people didn’t open their wallets during those first 2 years NCsoft would never have even green lit an expansion. The proof was in their financials and in the words of those at the top at NCsoft at the time they announced that they had made enough money to justify an expansion. If that money hadn’t been made, there wouldn’t be a HoT coming soon.

We are not asking for a handout. I think that 20-30 dollars for people who already own the core game would be reasonable. But charging what they are charging new players for the whole thing is absurd!

Ok the question is rather, does owning GW2 have any point at all after u buy HoT?

In GW1 each expansion and core game still had a point.

By buying HoT, you buy GW2.

If you already have GW2, then you don’t get anything else in place of that. All you get by owning GW2 after buying HoT is the ability to play GW2 now, and for the last 3 years.

Wait until they start “rebalancing” classes because of the ease and cost of exploiting with dummy accounts.

Nah, they could add an alternative means to buy them though. Kind of like how you can buy acc with laurels and ectos, instead of guild commedations.

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

Concurrent Steam Users: 6,395,949 / 9,524,812

6 – 9 million players log into steam everyday.

The concurrent users is how many are logged at a set time.

The total amount logging per every day is several times greater than the concurrent number.

None of you “invested” anything in Guild Wars 2. You bought things that were for sale. You got the things you bought. Done. That’s how transactions work. (Sure, people should probably be refunded for things like the infinite SAB coin unless SAB comes back right quick, but that’s a separate issue.)

I’ve been trying to avoid the word “entitlement” here, but holy crap, some of you are making that very difficult.

PopeUrban.2578:

To all the people complaining about this on a financial basis.

Really?

You spent at most 50 bucks for the game three years ago. That’s what these free to play people are getting.

Do you barge in to the electronics store you bought your TV in and demand a 50% refund when it goes on a 50% off sale?

Get a grip, or assume that every single online game will go free to play at some point. That’s the reality of the market today.

This is in no way a “slap in the face” and all of you should be ashamed for seeing a move intended to bring now players in to the game as a slight against your personal “investment”

Fifty bucks is not an investment. It barely even covers what it cost to keep the concurrent servers you play on running for the last three years. In that time you received two seasons of living story, and a massive load of QoL fixes, updates to core systems, and a ton of other stuff.

I really do hope, if you’re that upset about “your investment” you just plain quit. Take your persecution complex elsewhere, or realize that you recieved far more than your money’s worth if you never purchased gems.

Between this and the “toxic raiders will ruin our community” nonsense it’s becoming pretty clear where the lion’s share of “toxic” behavior seeps from on these boards.

I, for one, am quite happy to have the opportunity to show the game to some people that were on the fence about it.

If you go to a restaurant and order a 20 dollar meal, and get everything but desert and they tell you you don’t get desert. Do you not complain because “Well I suppose I got 20 dollars worth of a meal out of it so I should be thanking them” Shut the kitten up and act like an adult. We payed for a product and are upset with our service so we are issuing complaints on the proper medium. Take that garbage somewhere where people think its okay to take kitten from companies because of your internal value of money. People like you are ignorant as all hell.

PookieDaWombat.6209:

BS I didn’t invest in anything. In those years that I and other players (whether they were one offs or whales) poured money into the game LONG after the initial purchase was made in part because we KNEW that the store was their main revenue stream and if we wanted those servers to stay up, if we wanted that LW content to keep flowing, those updates to the game to be made, for those lights to essentially stay on, that we would have to support the game in some way.

Make no mistake about it, if people didn’t open their wallets during those first 2 years NCsoft would never have even green lit an expansion. The proof was in their financials and in the words of those at the top at NCsoft at the time they announced that they had made enough money to justify an expansion. If that money hadn’t been made, there wouldn’t be a HoT coming soon.

No, you bought gems, and spent those gems on whatever black lion stuff you got with them.

At no point was there ever an open letter from arenanet begging for more money to help their struggling business. At no point was there ever a request for monetary investment or donation.

You can place yourself in the role of investor or philanthropist as much as you like, but the reality is that you are not that important or generous. They sold you a product, you bought it.

Why you bought it is irrelevant

As for the guy that is upset about “having to pay for six more accounts”

What did you expect here? A full blown expansion for free? A discount in recognition of money you spent three years ago, for a product you have used for three years without additional fees?

I’ll be blunt.

We all have opinions on the matter. None of them are fact. My personal opinion is that you’re both being completely unreasonable and are extremely over valuing whatever money you may have paid to arenanet for the last three years

I still have all my BLTC items (Which I paid for)
I still have GW2, and all the loot, gear, and characters I’ve spent the past three years of game play adventuring.
Heck I still have a truckload of dyes unlocked from when they dropped as loot

I feel pretty good about the money I’ve spent, and from the feature set in HoT I feel pretty good about paying for it. I think it’s awesome that they’re adopting a “most recent expansion” pay model. It makes sense. It’s a far better way to do things than the GW1 campaign model as it allows a consistant investment for new players while retaining income from existing ones.

See, here’s the thing. The people that start GW2 three years from now aren’t facing down a $200 purchase just so we can feel good about our purchase. They’re facing down a $60 or $70 purchase to get in to the game and start playing at the same amount of content we enjoy.

They have payed less because they have derived less use of the product or service

You don’t deserve a massive discount just because you bought a game three years ago and your gem purchases do not factor in to this argument because gems are itemized purchases for add-ons and hold their own intrinsic value separate from the core game

dane.4638:

We are not asking for a handout. I think that 20-30 dollars for people who already own the core game would be reasonable. But charging what they are charging new players for the whole thing is absurd!

Agree, there is no reason people who own the full copy of the game before a certain period shouldn’t have access to a discount coupon of some sort… giving us some recolored skin that was already in the game like that is supposed to pacify the masses… Anet is slipping..

PopeUrban.2578:

PookieDaWombat.6209:

BS I didn’t invest in anything. In those years that I and other players (whether they were one offs or whales) poured money into the game LONG after the initial purchase was made in part because we KNEW that the store was their main revenue stream and if we wanted those servers to stay up, if we wanted that LW content to keep flowing, those updates to the game to be made, for those lights to essentially stay on, that we would have to support the game in some way.

Make no mistake about it, if people didn’t open their wallets during those first 2 years NCsoft would never have even green lit an expansion. The proof was in their financials and in the words of those at the top at NCsoft at the time they announced that they had made enough money to justify an expansion. If that money hadn’t been made, there wouldn’t be a HoT coming soon.

No, you bought gems, and spent those gems on whatever black lion stuff you got with them.

At no point was there ever an open letter from arenanet begging for more money to help their struggling business. At no point was there ever a request for monetary investment or donation.

You can place yourself in the role of investor or philanthropist as much as you like, but the reality is that you are not that important or generous. They sold you a product, you bought it.

Why you bought it is irrelevant

As for the guy that is upset about “having to pay for six more accounts”

What did you expect here? A full blown expansion for free? A discount in recognition of money you spent three years ago, for a product you have used for three years without additional fees?

I’ll be blunt.

We all have opinions on the matter. None of them are fact. My personal opinion is that you’re both being completely unreasonable and are extremely over valuing whatever money you may have paid to arenanet for the last three years

I still have all my BLTC items (Which I paid for)
I still have GW2, and all the loot, gear, and characters I’ve spent the past three years of game play adventuring.
Heck I still have a truckload of dyes unlocked from when they dropped as loot

I feel pretty good about the money I’ve spent, and from the feature set in HoT I feel pretty good about paying for it. I think it’s awesome that they’re adopting a “most recent expansion” pay model. It makes sense. It’s a far better way to do things than the GW1 campaign model as it allows a consistant investment for new players while retaining income from existing ones.

See, here’s the thing. The people that start GW2 three years from now aren’t facing down a $200 purchase just so we can feel good about our purchase. They’re facing down a $60 or $70 purchase to get in to the game and start playing at the same amount of content we enjoy.

They have payed less because they have derived less use of the product or service

You don’t deserve a massive discount just because you bought a game three years ago and your gem purchases do not factor in to this argument because gems are itemized purchases for add-ons and hold their own intrinsic value separate from the core game

Again people like you have no reason to be on a forum post like this. If you are happy with your purchase and have no complaints ignore this post and go play the game. A lot of us however ARE upset and we make up a large portion of the player base. We are expressing our concerns in a medium in which those concerns can reach the needed officials to potentially make a change that would satisfy our discontent. I am glad you can pay for a whole pizza and then get all but 4 slices from the delivery guy and he tells you to pay another 20 dollars to finish the rest of the pizza… oh and also he is giving pizza free to your neighbors…. you can take that attitude of contentedness and be happy with it. Those of us who HAVE experienced conflict and struggle in our life do not take our money lightly and therefore feel a bit betrayed by a company that treats its veterans like cash cows while giving new people half off.

Jiggawattz.2697:

If you go to a restaurant and order a 20 dollar meal, and get everything but desert and they tell you you don’t get desert. Do you not complain because “Well I suppose I got 20 dollars worth of a meal out of it so I should be thanking them” Shut the kitten up and act like an adult. We payed for a product and are upset with our service so we are issuing complaints on the proper medium. Take that garbage somewhere where people think its okay to take kitten from companies because of your internal value of money. People like you are ignorant as all hell.

I’ll use your metaphor to illustrate my point here.

Did they advertise that the meal included dessert?

I’ve actually had a lot of 20 dollar meals that didn’t include dessert.

What you’re complaining about is ridiculous

You expected to receive dessert when none was advertised

You know what I, as an adult, do when I’m dissastified with a product or service? I stop using it, and report abuses to the proper authorities

All I see are a bunch of people who want hand outs because they have an overinflated sense of self importance. You know, like a guy who orders a 20 dollar meal at a restaraunt and then becomes furious that there’s no dessert… even when the place doesn’t serve dessert.

We don’t need anything. The very fact that any of you think that ANet will listen to this is amusing. They have already shown they will only pay attention to things that will make them money.

If they offered a discount then people would complain it wasn’t on what they wanted. I personally am sick of skins. I’m sick of the fluff like the mail carrier getting priority over actual game play improvements. I’m sick of idiocy like wedding gear. There is nothing ANet can offer me that would make me happy with a discount coupon. So that solution is not a catch all.

They have made it clear that GW2 is a poor quality game that is now free unless you want some slight additional extras. They made that clear when they gave it away for when people bought the expansion-not-an-expansion Heart of Thorns.

Essentially we are now all at the point of suck it up and deal or go play another MMO. Although ANet really does need to block WvW access to Free to Play players. It will not end well and I’m seriously starting to wonder if any of them actually play this game with any amount of seriousness.

It seems like GW1 was a great game since it did not have to go F2P just to get people interested in it. Maybe Anet needs to invest some time into what made it successful and bring it over to GW2.

I don’t think that type of thinking can be applied now.
Gaming has changed.The things that made GW1 successful back then might not work now…

True, but it feels like the direction that GW2 is going, it couldn’t hurt to try something different (skippable cut scenes) or events that is not tied directly to Living Story, pretty much anything that was good in the past that they just didn’t follow up on.

The cutscenes can’t be skipped….well the unskippable ones,because are real time cutscenes.

The issue is that laurels can be turned into gold.
I have no objection for F2P to be able to get ascended gear.
I see two solutions though.
A: limit the things F2P can buy for laurels to those things that are accountbound
B: reward laurels to F2P, but lock the laurel trader all together for them (so they get the laurels, but they can’t use them).

The other rewards from daily chests hould be locked out for F2P alltogether. So instead of the chest, a daily reward of 1 laurel.