Guild Wars 2

There is no mention about /team chat. What will happen when those free players join WvW or PvP with access to /team chat?

I also made a free account to see how it works. Here were my thoughts.

• The restrictions in place are good and really don’t hinder gameplay at all. Anet did a stellar job at the restrictions they put in place.

• Not having mapchat was fine as you can find someone in /s range usually. Once you get to lvl 10 you can enter the cities and find a large concentration of players to help if you need it.

• Not being able to send a PM or mail to someone not on your mutual friends list is really good (and we need that as an option for paid accounts). If someone sends you mail or they initiate the conversation though it sometimes happens that you can’t reply to them because not a friend or not in zone. But good restrictions to prevent abuse and not too bad as long as paid account folks know how all the chat restrictions work.

• This is part of the NPE but it bugged me: You can’t do hero challenges until you get to level 11 but as you’re mapping on a fresh character you find them out in the map in lower than lvl 11 areas. The dialogue box you get when you interact doesn’t tell you hey come back at lvl 11. If you want to fully complete the zone you then have to backtrack after you get to a high enough level.

• Dailies: To get daily completionist you need to do 3 daily options. You only get 3 options until (I don’t know what level) sometime later. PvE daily…easy. PvP daily…easy. WvW daily?….not possible until level 60 on a F2P account. So until you get more than 3 options you can’t complete the daily completionist.

Overall, the free account setup is really good. I wish they had 3 character slots rather than 2, so you could make a light, med & heavy class. But keeping it at 2 gives that extra incentive to buy the full game and keeps it so that getting the full game is absolutely worth it.

Someday I’ll upgrade my free account, but I just can’t afford that.

I think map chat in the starter zones would be acceptable. If I had no map chat when I first joined the game I would have been very, very confused. There’s a lot to take in.

I’m for f2p players getting map chat at 70+, because at that Point not being able to communicate in map chat will not only be a hindrance to them, but other players as well.

Just think about everytime you,ve seen someone going kitten because someone didn’t communicate something in map chat.

Acrisor.8097:

There is no mention about /team chat. What will happen when those free players join WvW or PvP with access to /team chat?

well wvw, you have to invite them, but it mention /team works in pvp, or did i miss something

Now Free to play.

Anet and general community thoughts, what do you think the likely hood of 2 or 3 AU/NZ services coming to life?

Currently servers like Seas of Sorrows and Black Gate hold a large portion of AU/NZ players however, no mater what server we are on we get 250/300 + pings.

A few Sydney servers would mean the world to AU and NZ players. With free to play the population of these servers would defiantly increase, lets face it Aussie net isn’t the best and a 300ping does tend to kick down the PVP side of the game for us. Even with an Fiber NBN connection the ping/latency does make a difference.

Free to play Games like Dota 2 with value have AU dedicated servers and it’s great for the gaming experience.

It would have to be 3 servers because of WvW. I do not think it happens. Those free account do not pay for the server.

Jiggawattz.2697:

Jehuty.1938:

HelloKittyZOMG.1875:

I bought the game full price, well my hubby bought it for me… to me this whole going f2p junk is bull, it’s basically a slap in my face. I think those who paid full price should get some sort of compensation, and those who disagree are probably those who’ve joined free. The economy is probably wrecked now.

I’m a veteran (not 3 years ago but close) and I have no problem whatsoever in gw2 becoming f2p. I mean it doesn’t change anything for me. I can understand the frustration of people who bought gw2 not so long ago and didn’t want to buy HoT. But for the others (I think the majority), it doesn’t change anything at all. You’ll still have to buy the expansion no matter how you jumped into the game, by paying or just downloading it for free.

Now regarding the community, we didn’t have to wait the f2p players to get toxic. Also, a lot of new players are just like me and you : people who want to have fun. The only difference is that they don’t have to pay to try the game and that’s GREAT. Just like O’Brien said, Anet is confident that new players will fall in love with the game and buy the expansion and I agree. Gw2 is an amazing and original MMO that deserves to be at least tried. The more new people try the game, the more constent players we’ll have. And in Gw2, more players mean more fun. So that’s a win-win situation honestly.

Regarding the economy, it is in fact an interesting decision. The gem store remains as it is now. New players gathering large amounts of Gold is going to be balanced by the Gold sunk into the new items HoT will provide. And for the price of the core game, it should be “re-earned” by the sales of HoT. Because indeed new players wont pay right now, but they will when they’ll eventually buy HoT or buy gems. So it is a rather good decision, at least in my opinion.

Also, ArenaNet made it clear now : everytime an expansion is available, the previous content becomes FREE. You won’t have to pay the core game + every previous expansion to be able to play. It is a great deal for newcomers and a great choice for the game in general. As for the veteran , it is how markets work. You buy something at launch and over time, its value decreases but you gained the amount of time you played the game. Sometimes I feel like people forget that buying games isn’t a “real” investment as you can’t profit by selling it later. It is something you buy to have fun, nothing more nothing less.

So the main question is : Did you have fun? If yes, then you have nothing to regret. If no, then quit the game and don’t buy HoT or wait till it comes out and see if you’re willing to make the same bet. Really it is as simple as that.

Also, the free outfit is a cool enough Thank you from Anet for us Veteran and we should be thankfull aswell for a game we spent more than a thousand hours playing and awesome people we met by doing so.

I bought the core game at full price and I don’t regret it at all. These last 2,5 years were great and I had a lot of fun, met awesome people that I may have not met if I waited for the game to be free.

This seems to be the argument they all use, its not a valid argument. Being satisfied with the product I originally purchased does not mean I have to be satisfied with all future changes or leave. As a customer I have the right to complain about my treatment by said company to the company. What they do with that complaint is up to them, but if I hear one more high school student ask me “Did you get 60 dollars worth of play out of it?” I am going to flip my kitten. That shows an ignorant, ridiculous, naive take on the real world…

I like how you’re assuming that we’re all children who don’t know the value of a dollar.

I’m 34 years old. I pay my own bills. I have a job. I pay taxes.

Nobody’s saying you don’t have a right to complain. We’re saying your complaints are unreasonable, childish, and ring of a massive entitlement complex. It reminds me a lot of the people that cried to high heaven when netflix split off its online and mail services which resulted in an 8 dollar a month price hike.

Completely reasonable from a business and consumer cost standpoint, but because you’re not being coddled or treated like a super special snowflake princess, you’re upset.

It’s not a case of a bunch of people that don’t know the value of a dollar here. Most of us who don’t have a problem with this realize both what it means for the game and for us as customers long term. We realize that the new player will always end up paying less and getting more. That’s fine. Once they’re invested they end up on the same system. It’s far more fair than asking every new player to pay an ever increasing cost as expansion after expansion are released. In your version of what’s fair, you’d be looking at getting new people in to the gamne by asking them to pay over a hundred bucks just for a basic account with all the expansions .

As an adult, doesn’t that seem unreasonable to you? Would you start playing a 3 or 6 year old MMO if it cost you more to play than something released last week?

See, it’s not that you’re dissatisfied. We all have things about that game that would be more convenient for us personally. It’s that your entire viewpoint is extremely selfish. You don’t care about new players coming in to the game, and you don’t value the service you’ve already recieved for the money you already paid. You’re asking for hand outs because you over value both your contributions and your own importance.

You are not a special snowflake. You do not deserve special treatment.

The good news is that, given this model, you can receive HoT for free and not pay a dime for it. Just wait until the next expansion releases if you feel that strongly about what “rights” you have, or what you “deserve” as a “veteran player”

As a fellow “veteran player” I’ll tell you straight up, there are things I’d like to see change in GW2, but business practices aren’t one of them. Arenanet has probably the most fair business model I’ve encountered in online gaming.

Yall are constantly hitting the gaming community up for servers. Start building better telcom cables. Hawaii did.

PopeUrban.2578:

Jiggawattz.2697:

Jehuty.1938:

HelloKittyZOMG.1875:

I bought the game full price, well my hubby bought it for me… to me this whole going f2p junk is bull, it’s basically a slap in my face. I think those who paid full price should get some sort of compensation, and those who disagree are probably those who’ve joined free. The economy is probably wrecked now.

I’m a veteran (not 3 years ago but close) and I have no problem whatsoever in gw2 becoming f2p. I mean it doesn’t change anything for me. I can understand the frustration of people who bought gw2 not so long ago and didn’t want to buy HoT. But for the others (I think the majority), it doesn’t change anything at all. You’ll still have to buy the expansion no matter how you jumped into the game, by paying or just downloading it for free.

Now regarding the community, we didn’t have to wait the f2p players to get toxic. Also, a lot of new players are just like me and you : people who want to have fun. The only difference is that they don’t have to pay to try the game and that’s GREAT. Just like O’Brien said, Anet is confident that new players will fall in love with the game and buy the expansion and I agree. Gw2 is an amazing and original MMO that deserves to be at least tried. The more new people try the game, the more constent players we’ll have. And in Gw2, more players mean more fun. So that’s a win-win situation honestly.

Regarding the economy, it is in fact an interesting decision. The gem store remains as it is now. New players gathering large amounts of Gold is going to be balanced by the Gold sunk into the new items HoT will provide. And for the price of the core game, it should be “re-earned” by the sales of HoT. Because indeed new players wont pay right now, but they will when they’ll eventually buy HoT or buy gems. So it is a rather good decision, at least in my opinion.

Also, ArenaNet made it clear now : everytime an expansion is available, the previous content becomes FREE. You won’t have to pay the core game + every previous expansion to be able to play. It is a great deal for newcomers and a great choice for the game in general. As for the veteran , it is how markets work. You buy something at launch and over time, its value decreases but you gained the amount of time you played the game. Sometimes I feel like people forget that buying games isn’t a “real” investment as you can’t profit by selling it later. It is something you buy to have fun, nothing more nothing less.

So the main question is : Did you have fun? If yes, then you have nothing to regret. If no, then quit the game and don’t buy HoT or wait till it comes out and see if you’re willing to make the same bet. Really it is as simple as that.

Also, the free outfit is a cool enough Thank you from Anet for us Veteran and we should be thankfull aswell for a game we spent more than a thousand hours playing and awesome people we met by doing so.

I bought the core game at full price and I don’t regret it at all. These last 2,5 years were great and I had a lot of fun, met awesome people that I may have not met if I waited for the game to be free.

This seems to be the argument they all use, its not a valid argument. Being satisfied with the product I originally purchased does not mean I have to be satisfied with all future changes or leave. As a customer I have the right to complain about my treatment by said company to the company. What they do with that complaint is up to them, but if I hear one more high school student ask me “Did you get 60 dollars worth of play out of it?” I am going to flip my kitten. That shows an ignorant, ridiculous, naive take on the real world…

I like how you’re assuming that we’re all children who don’t know the value of a dollar.

I’m 34 years old. I pay my own bills. I have a job. I pay taxes.

Nobody’s saying you don’t have a right to complain. We’re saying your complaints are unreasonable, childish, and ring of a massive entitlement complex. It reminds me a lot of the people that cried to high heaven when netflix split off its online and mail services which resulted in an 8 dollar a month price hike.

Completely reasonable from a business and consumer cost standpoint, but because you’re not being coddled or treated like a super special snowflake princess, you’re upset.

It’s not a case of a bunch of people that don’t know the value of a dollar here. Most of us who don’t have a problem with this realize both what it means for the game and for us as customers long term. We realize that the new player will always end up paying less and getting more. That’s fine. Once they’re invested they end up on the same system. It’s far more fair than asking every new player to pay an ever increasing cost as expansion after expansion are released. In your version of what’s fair, you’d be looking at getting new people in to the gamne by asking them to pay over a hundred bucks just for a basic account with all the expansions .

As an adult, doesn’t that seem unreasonable to you? Would you start playing a 3 or 6 year old MMO if it cost you more to play than something released last week?

See, it’s not that you’re dissatisfied. We all have things about that game that would be more convenient for us personally. It’s that your entire viewpoint is extremely selfish. You don’t care about new players coming in to the game, and you don’t value the service you’ve already recieved for the money you already paid. You’re asking for hand outs because you over value both your contributions and your own importance.

You are not a special snowflake. You do not deserve special treatment.

The good news is that, given this model, you can receive HoT for free and not pay a dime for it. Just wait until the next expansion releases if you feel that strongly about what “rights” you have, or what you “deserve” as a “veteran player”

As a fellow “veteran player” I’ll tell you straight up, there are things I’d like to see change in GW2, but business practices aren’t one of them. Arenanet has probably the most fair business model I’ve encountered in online gaming.

What are you talking about? As a consumer who’s bought a product people have every right to complain. There’s no “entitlement” to be had, we paid the product and therefore we are by every means allowed to be angry when a company does makes it free to play. It de-values the game for the old players, makes them feel as if they only paid to have some extra perks rather than have exclusive access to the game. Of course A-net knows that this backlash would have been created, they are prepared to take that risk because they know not all old players will leave and even if they do, the new ones would still most likely bring them profit. They think that they can earn back a portion of their fanbase with a mediocre armor skin but unfortunatly that doesn’t cut it. Nothing A-net can do will make me regain their trust.

I’ve spent over $200 on Guild Wars 2 over the past three years, and this is the best thing I can imagine happening.

Areas of the core game will maintain a population. PvP will experience a population boom and possibly gain eSport recognition. WvW might experience new life on low participation servers.

Anything negative from this has already been a problem -

• Gold sellers already watch /map to spam lots of people. Free accounts can’t see /map and can’t mass spam.
• WvW already has an issue with spy accounts. These new accounts cannot see /map and can’t even access WvW until level 60.
• The new accounts don’t get daily login rewards, can’t send items in the mail, and can’t trade through a guild bank. Gold farmers rely on these and will buy accounts anyway.

I welcome the new player base. I hope they enjoy what they can access, and I plan to help any of them I see.

Lambent.6375:

I’m for f2p players getting map chat at 70+, because at that Point not being able to communicate in map chat will not only be a hindrance to them, but other players as well.

Just think about everytime you,ve seen someone going kitten because someone didn’t communicate something in map chat.

If they’ve reached level 70 then they should have enough information as to whether or not they will buy the game. If they buy the game then the restrictions will be gone. If they don’t buy the game, I see no reason to reward them by lifting restrictions. The purpose of the restrictions is not only to protect the game but also to be annoying enough to make a person who plans to continue playing buy to remove them.

Ghosttalon.2416:

What are you talking about? As a consumer who’s bought a product people have every right to complain. There’s no “entitlement” to be had, we paid the product and therefore we are by every means allowed to be angry when a company does makes it free to play. It de-values the game for the old players, makes them feel as if they only paid to have some extra perks rather than have exclusive access to the game. Of course A-net knows that this backlash would have been created, they are prepared to take that risk because they know not all old players will leave and even if they do, the new ones would still most likely bring them profit. They think that they can earn back a portion of their fanbase with a mediocre armor skin but unfortunatly that doesn’t cut it. Nothing A-net can do will make me regain their trust.

You do have a right to be angry. The rest of us also have just as much of a right to be annoyed with your anger.

This entire argument stems from the idea that having bought the game at release somehow makes you deserving of special treatment. That you’re worth significantly more than a new player. Dude. You’ve had a full fledged MMO to play for 3 years. You can’t sell your account. What value have you lost exactly?

You’re saying the price you paid at release wasn’t worth the live events and time you’ve been able to play the game with no additional cost? Really? It’s not like it’s been six months since release. This is three years later

It doesn’t make sense to me. Only highly prized luxury items are intended to appreciate in value over time. Every other product depreciates in value. That’s just basic economics.

Every time I see this complaint I just wonder “did these people forget they’ve been playing a subscription free game for three years with a mass of free content and updates, roughly half of which is unplayable by new players because it was all live events?”

You’re acting like you bought land, or precious metals, or something that operates on a completely different set of economic rules.

F2p players can still chat in Say, Whisper, Group. There really is no need for them to have access to map chat. I went to queensdale yesterday and was able to help out some of the f2p players and they were able to still ask questions

PopeUrban.2578:

Ghosttalon.2416:

What are you talking about? As a consumer who’s bought a product people have every right to complain. There’s no “entitlement” to be had, we paid the product and therefore we are by every means allowed to be angry when a company does makes it free to play. It de-values the game for the old players, makes them feel as if they only paid to have some extra perks rather than have exclusive access to the game. Of course A-net knows that this backlash would have been created, they are prepared to take that risk because they know not all old players will leave and even if they do, the new ones would still most likely bring them profit. They think that they can earn back a portion of their fanbase with a mediocre armor skin but unfortunatly that doesn’t cut it. Nothing A-net can do will make me regain their trust.

You do have a right to be angry. The rest of us also have just as much of a right to be annoyed with your anger.

This entire argument stems from the idea that having bought the game at release somehow makes you deserving of special treatment. That you’re worth significantly more than a new player. Dude. You’ve had a full fledged MMO to play for 3 years. You can’t sell your account. What value have you lost exactly?

You’re saying the price you paid at release wasn’t worth the live events and time you’ve been able to play the game with no additional cost? Really? It’s not like it’s been six months since release. This is three years later

It doesn’t make sense to me. Only highly prized luxury items are intended to appreciate in value over time. Every other product depreciates in value. That’s just basic economics.

Every time I see this complaint I just wonder “did these people forget they’ve been playing a subscription free game for three years with a mass of free content and updates, roughly half of which is unplayable by new players because it was all live events?”

You’re acting like you bought land, or precious metals, or something that operates on a completely different set of economic rules.

There is nothing in what was said that implies that anyone thinks theyre special and entitled to special treatment. You completely changed it up to make it sound ridiculous. Expecting to not pay the amount that people have to pay for the full core game + HoT content if they already bought the core content is not the same as wanting special treatment. In fact its the opposite as they don’t want to be the special ones that pay for the core game twice! And before you say theyre not paying for the core game again I will preempt you by simply saying when you pay what they charge for HoT + core and you already bought core, you are in fact paying for core twice. Noone wants HoT for free so please stop saying that. We just want to pay for the expansion and not for the whole game over again which means we pay LESS not nothing at all! Btw I have no problem with the ftp model. I think its good for the game with the restrictions in play. I just doent think that when you do pay for HoT that vets should have to pay what is essentially a full package when we already bought at least half of that package.

I played for an entire day since the announcement of the free accounts and not once have I seen a newbie player acting crazy, the TP hasn’t exploded and everything seems to be business as usual. Actually, more of my low level items have sold because I guess there’s a growing market for items lower than level 50. That’s good

Chameleon Dude.1564:

If you complete a starter zone without skipping stuff, you’ll reach the levels easily. As for map chat – no. No, no, no, no, no! This will just lead to gold seller spam in any area they’re allowed to talk. It’s not perfect, but there’s a reason why we can’t have nice things – gold sellers ruin games, simple as.

Perhaps some IP blocks would be in order? Perhaps have a limit on how many characters you can use? A limit on messages per minute? Just pre-emptively blocking people doesn’t stop gold sellers because gold sellers WILL buy the game just to spam if need be. (or hack an account)

I suppose if they buy an account, that suits ANET and NCSOFT… so yeah there’s that. I don’t think it’s fair to newbies to prevent them from talking with map chat entirely. Most new players have plenty of questions and treating them like criminals doesn’t exactly project a good image of the game’s community and team.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Lambent.6375:

I’m for f2p players getting map chat at 70+, because at that Point not being able to communicate in map chat will not only be a hindrance to them, but other players as well.

Just think about everytime you,ve seen someone going kitten because someone didn’t communicate something in map chat.

If they’ve reached level 70 then they should have enough information as to whether or not they will buy the game. If they buy the game then the restrictions will be gone. If they don’t buy the game, I see no reason to reward them by lifting restrictions. The purpose of the restrictions is not only to protect the game but also to be annoying enough to make a person who plans to continue playing buy to remove them.

May as well also have ads that flash up on screen. Have watermarks. Remove the game’s audio. Remove graphics options and force the game to minimum.

If you want to play the game unhindered. You’ll buy it.

hildegain.2106:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Lambent.6375:

I’m for f2p players getting map chat at 70+, because at that Point not being able to communicate in map chat will not only be a hindrance to them, but other players as well.

Just think about everytime you,ve seen someone going kitten because someone didn’t communicate something in map chat.

If they’ve reached level 70 then they should have enough information as to whether or not they will buy the game. If they buy the game then the restrictions will be gone. If they don’t buy the game, I see no reason to reward them by lifting restrictions. The purpose of the restrictions is not only to protect the game but also to be annoying enough to make a person who plans to continue playing buy to remove them.

May as well also have ads that flash up on screen. Have watermarks. Remove the game’s audio. Remove graphics options and force the game to minimum.

If you want to play the game unhindered. You’ll buy it.

No one is talking about adding restrictions. That was about removing current restriction(s) as the player levels and whether or not that’s a good idea.

Shayne.2504:

Lets call this for what it is, an attempt to lower the que time in PvP (and trying to make e-sport out of GW2), so once again PvE suffers to they can try to keep PvP junk alive, at this point I wish Anet would abandon the PvP and Iggy (he tried his best to kill PvE in Guild Wars 1)

Why Anet didn’t just restrict the free account to PvP I will never understand. Well the nicest RPG community I have ever had the great pleasure to be a part of just took a dive. Thank Iggy for another bad decision and a big dump on PvE.

You’re beyond delusional if you think anets main focus is pvp.

Yes, cheaper mats please, unless the hoarders buys them up fast and we get kittened over and over again.

The scenario you outlined wouldn’t work. What’s more likely is:

• Free account farms and bots like crazy, generating mats.
• Sells mats to generate gold.
• Uses gold to buy an item that has a huge spread between highest buy offers and lowest sale prices. For example, WTB = 2g and WTS = 10g
• Sells that item for cheap, allowing paid account to buy it for cheap and resell it. In this example, sells it for 2g50s, allowing paid account to buy it and resell it for e.g. 8g (which could come from the botting account).

There are 3 problems with the scenario:

• The botter/paid account aren’t the only ones who have thought of it.
• There aren’t that many items like that and they trade very infrequently. I doubt if any of those items are even available to be bought by the free account in the first place.
• It’s horribly inefficient, even for botting.

tl;dr It’s likely that ANet has already considered all the most obvious and straightforward loopholes, as well as most other ways in which free accounts might be abused.

Ancientwolfgr.1648:

Yall are constantly hitting the gaming community up for servers. Start building better telcom cables. Hawaii did.

Send this through to the government and see what their reaction is.

Plus Hawaii is 10,432 km ^2, Australia is 7.692 MILLION km ^2, with a lot of people living in-land, and not just on the coast (such as myself). See the problem there?

With all this being said, OP I seriously doubt that there’ll be an Aussie server anytime soon, if at all, which is unfortunate.

I’m beginning to think that ANet should have used the same model they used for the original GW. That is, they don’t link the games. HoT would then be a new game with no connection to the original GW unless you linked your GW2 core account to HoT. You’d then be able to use core characters in HoT just as you used Prophecies characters in Factions.

Of course, if they wanted to preserver a leveling experience, even less time would go into end-level content. They’d have to make new leveling zones for HoT-only players — which was something they wanted to avoid. However, if it meant people would drop this incessant complaints about “buying” core all over again, I’d be willing to take the hit.

Nah, never mind, the inveterate cheap would find some other way to justify their attempts to shame ANet into giving them something for less.

John Smith.4610:

Don’t worry, the economy will be ok. We put a lot of effort into keeping it protected.

Care to enlighten us what you’ve done to prevent massive influence on TP and GW2’ economy?

1 server should be enough. Its not like people live in Australia anyway? Mostly just koalas, kangaroos and Crocodile Dundee afaik. NZ is just hobbits and orcs.

Dawdler.8521:

1 server should be enough. Its not like people live in Australia anyway? Mostly just koalas, kangaroos and Crocodile Dundee afaik. NZ is just hobbits and orcs.

Please tell me you’re just being facetious.

For anyone curious, currently there are about 23.1 million+ people living here in Aus.

That would be awesome…… there are so much oceanic players atm. Not just auzzy but NZ and all the asia/oceanic areas……..

Ancientwolfgr.1648:

Yall are constantly hitting the gaming community up for servers. Start building better telcom cables. Hawaii did.

Australia and New Zealand….. regardless of cables are pretty far away from dallas…. just sayin

BlackBunny.3681:

Ancientwolfgr.1648:

Yall are constantly hitting the gaming community up for servers. Start building better telcom cables. Hawaii did.

Australia and New Zealand….. regardless of cables are pretty far away from dallas…. just sayin

That and the land mass of Australia and NZ are vastly larger compared to Hawaii, so it’s not just easy as “building better telecom cables”.

While I have a lot of issues with many of the gameplay choices ArenaNet has made over the last couple years, I actually think this is a good business model. I bought the collectors edition so that was $150, not just the core game price.

I got three years of gaming for that investment and now I have to decide if it’s worth what they’re asking for HoT to continue my journey, but I have no problem with the core game going free at this point. If they continue to make expansions every 1-3 years, I sincerely hope the previous content is "free"d up (bad pun intended) to incentivize new players to join.

Because of some companies F2P has been given a bad rap, you have to remember that quests and raids are not the only content, so are we. Everyone who makes a digital world alive and vibrant is content for other players to group with and play. A large, happy community gives paying players a reason to come back, and a happy paying player spends more on a game they enjoy. If done right, everyone wins.

ArenaNet, you don’t always make decisions I agree with, but I applaud this one!

In my opinion its a good decision to make this game to a limited free to play.

Its done in good time – before HOT relase

Expansion usualy buy only players that have game already, so coming here x new players thanks to free play gives big chance. They can now test this game wiout risk and gives big % chance that they buy HOT (and the base game with it)

This will increase player base and give more moneys for new content, upgrades etc. and ofc. NEXT expansion

So be nice, stop cry, and WELCOME new players !!

Btw. Good played ANET!!

The most important is to be nice and keep smiling
Smile

Right now here in New Zealand our government is laying down fiber everywhere, I have it in my area and do have it myself. That being said it’s not the quality as others have mentioned it’s the distance.

Every Halloween playing that minigame they bring back I always see it, it’s very bad. You hit a skill and if you are the same hp as your oppnt and both fire a skill off at the same time, who do you think is going to walk away the winner? As an engi main I see rubber banding a lot too with enemy npcs if I use the flamethrower skill 3 (knockback) and then try the skill 2 (an explosion) the enemies suddenly appear right in my face and as such my shot fires past them and the explosion totally misses.

It’s the same playing COD on xbox or any other FPS. Actually it’s funny when we hear Americans crying on xbox about hit markers. Because for us EVERY hit is a hit marker. If we do manage to get lucky and get into a hosted Aussie or NZ game when we don’t get hit markers it seems weird and we think there is a glitch or something somewhere lol.

As for if we need servers here or there I’m not too worried myself as I will stay on my server regardless. When I used to play Runescape people asked them for Aussie servers for a while too until they decided to test them. I was actually testing them myself for the makers of that game and they took a lot of our feedback seriously. But the first phase of testing did not go so well as the Aussie hosts were just bad at the time. It wasn’t until 1-2 years later they finally got them up and running at a decent quality. I believe they have maybe 5+ Aussie/NZ servers now. Funny enough however I always found I had the best ping from the UK servers over American, and even in some cases the Aussie/NZ. Not sure why as they are totally the other side of the world, maybe it was just the quality of the hosts.

The above post needs more emoticons.

From what I heard some F2P players complain about, one very valid concern, should it be a genuine limitation, is how they are not able to Join friends in their various overflows. Playing the game with friends is obviously more fun than being frustrated from being separated because maps puts them in different instances. If it legit is a limitation to the F2P accounts, hotfix that asap., ArenaNet—they need to be allowed to play with friends, and grouping up through the ability to Join on one other is critical with the game’s underlying Megaserver and overflow system. I think the /map restriction is fine. They can whisper people who do talk in /map, or if they spot a Commander, and so on forth.

I’ve bought Guild Wars 2 preorder 3 years ago and I am very happy about those f2p news. Keep up the good work!

Paulytnz.7619:

Right now here in New Zealand our government is laying down fiber everywhere, I have it in my area and do have it myself. That being said it’s not the quality as others have mentioned it’s the distance.

Every Halloween playing that minigame they bring back I always see it, it’s very bad. You hit a skill and if you are the same hp as your oppnt and both fire a skill off at the same time, who do you think is going to walk away the winner? As an engi main I see rubber banding a lot too with enemy npcs if I use the flamethrower skill 3 (knockback) and then try the skill 2 (an explosion) the enemies suddenly appear right in my face and as such my shot fires past them and the explosion totally misses.

It’s the same playing COD on xbox or any other FPS. Actually it’s funny when we hear Americans crying on xbox about hit markers. Because for us EVERY hit is a hit marker. If we do manage to get lucky and get into a hosted Aussie or NZ game when we don’t get hit markers it seems weird and we think there is a glitch or something somewhere lol.

As for if we need servers here or there I’m not too worried myself as I will stay on my server regardless. When I used to play Runescape people asked them for Aussie servers for a while too until they decided to test them. I was actually testing them myself for the makers of that game and they took a lot of our feedback seriously. But the first phase of testing did not go so well as the Aussie hosts were just bad at the time. It wasn’t until 1-2 years later they finally got them up and running at a decent quality. I believe they have maybe 5+ Aussie/NZ servers now. Funny enough however I always found I had the best ping from the UK servers over American, and even in some cases the Aussie/NZ. Not sure why as they are totally the other side of the world, maybe it was just the quality of the hosts.

Do you PVP? because in wow going from 180-200 ping to now 30 ping was game changing…. And wow had global cds and lots of code in place to counter lag…. where guild wars does not.

It is useless to try and convince people who are hard bent on accusations and name calling to look at things logically. It is also useless to try to convince people that the ftp model is good. I do think that the ftp model is good and welcome all new players. I also think that those who already bought the core game should be able to continue their journey with the HoT expansion by being offered Just the HoT content at a lesser price than what they are charging for people who buy the full HoT expansion plus the core game.

This is not an issue of entitlement or wanting freebies as these people all paid for the basic experience and aren’t getting as much out of this purchase as new accounts are. No matter how many names you come up with or how many mean nasty rude puns you come up with.

I would love to continue my journey but at this price its simply not in my budget nor is it fair to charge us for what we already paid for just because it was repackaged with the new content. I would have to upgrade 6 accounts that I already paid for at at least 50 dollars each just to get the added content for HoT when new players come in and get it all for what I am paying for just the new content. I cannot and will not pay this so my journey must end here.

If Anet actually counted our purchase of the core game at all, they would charge less to upgrade existing core accounts. If that were the case I could afford to upgrade my familys accounts and would be more than willing to do so. This is not the case however so I guess whatever people who has never supported Anet before can just have the game now and the well over 1000 dollars Ive spent on this game AND GW1 to help support this game and to get a great experience until this point will benefit the new player with a shiny new 50 dollar bill.

I don’t blame Anet for me not being wealthy enough to upgrade my familys accounts but I do blame them for charging so much to do so. I would have no problem coming up with 20-30 dollars per account to upgrade them, but I cannot pay the full game price for the upgrade. That is ridiculous!

I also hope that the new players purchasing the game will understand that once a new expansion comes out they will also have to buy the game all over again instead of just paying for the new content as we do.

I would also like to formally welcome all ftp players! =-)

BlackBunny.3681:

Paulytnz.7619:

Right now here in New Zealand our government is laying down fiber everywhere, I have it in my area and do have it myself. That being said it’s not the quality as others have mentioned it’s the distance.

Every Halloween playing that minigame they bring back I always see it, it’s very bad. You hit a skill and if you are the same hp as your oppnt and both fire a skill off at the same time, who do you think is going to walk away the winner? As an engi main I see rubber banding a lot too with enemy npcs if I use the flamethrower skill 3 (knockback) and then try the skill 2 (an explosion) the enemies suddenly appear right in my face and as such my shot fires past them and the explosion totally misses.

It’s the same playing COD on xbox or any other FPS. Actually it’s funny when we hear Americans crying on xbox about hit markers. Because for us EVERY hit is a hit marker. If we do manage to get lucky and get into a hosted Aussie or NZ game when we don’t get hit markers it seems weird and we think there is a glitch or something somewhere lol.

As for if we need servers here or there I’m not too worried myself as I will stay on my server regardless. When I used to play Runescape people asked them for Aussie servers for a while too until they decided to test them. I was actually testing them myself for the makers of that game and they took a lot of our feedback seriously. But the first phase of testing did not go so well as the Aussie hosts were just bad at the time. It wasn’t until 1-2 years later they finally got them up and running at a decent quality. I believe they have maybe 5+ Aussie/NZ servers now. Funny enough however I always found I had the best ping from the UK servers over American, and even in some cases the Aussie/NZ. Not sure why as they are totally the other side of the world, maybe it was just the quality of the hosts.

Do you PVP? because in wow going from 180-200 ping to now 30 ping was game changing…. And wow had global cds and lots of code in place to counter lag…. where guild wars does not.

Yes I do PvP as well as WVW. In PvP I am at a slight disadvantage but I can still do well enough to be at the top of the scoreboard a lot of the time as well as going games without any deaths. I use PVT gear tho just because I am used to it. But it certainly helps with the ping thing as it buys me that extra fraction of a second I may need to see what’s happening and to react to it.

WvW is not such a big issue. But I do command there now and then when no other commanders are tagged up so I have to always be VERY aware of what’s going on and communicate a lot within the map chat as well as open up my map every 30 secs lol…
But again I can do very well there as well.

Oh btw on average I am at about 200-400 ping. Anything under 200 would be a miracle.

I’m just a bit confused as to the free accounts access to the TP .. When i tried using a free account to buy an item, it said:

“Newly Created accounts must meet the following requirements before using this feature:

- Upgrade to Hearth of Thorns
- Newly unlocked accounts require validation. This feature will"

I am very confused as there are some items on the tp that as a free account i can still buy but they don’t follow any pattern. It’s a confusing.

so here are my questions:
- Can Free accounts use the TP to Buy/Sell items?

- Are there restrictions on what can be bought or sold ? is there a daily or weekly limit for the value traded (bought or sold)?

- Is this restriction time gated that will open up upon further use of the Free of account or is it a permenant restriction?

Thank you.

Ronah Lynda.2496:

they gave you an outfit worth 800 gems plus up to 3 years of playtime. Isn’t this worth 50 bucks you paid 3 tears ago? (anything else what you might have bought with gems is irrelevant)

no i payed 50 bucks 1 year ago i didnt saw the so 40 free additions u talk about i didnt saw SAB/LS1 and w ont see it so quit ur yapin about 3years becuse not all did been here 3years i wasnt and my friend i took here 2.

Strach.1572:

Ronah Lynda.2496:

they gave you an outfit worth 800 gems plus up to 3 years of playtime. Isn’t this worth 50 bucks you paid 3 tears ago? (anything else what you might have bought with gems is irrelevant)

no i payed 50 bucks 1 year ago i didnt saw the so 40 free additions u talk about i didnt saw SAB/LS1 and w ont see it so quit ur yapin about 3years becuse not all did been here 3years i wasnt and my friend i took here 2.

so for 4$ a month, you must of got some good times out of it. 4$ now a day gets you like a gallon of gas, lol.

How about you say what will you give to players who bought the game full price and who supported you with all the gem buying through these 3 years.Every MMO that had transfered to F2P gave something to already existing players in conpensation.I would like the answer to these questions and not just some random “Welcome” post from Gaile.It is really hard to love you Anet anymore.And i pray that there wont be some server hickups becouse of these F2P acounts.

TJgalon.5012:

Strach.1572:

Ronah Lynda.2496:

they gave you an outfit worth 800 gems plus up to 3 years of playtime. Isn’t this worth 50 bucks you paid 3 tears ago? (anything else what you might have bought with gems is irrelevant)

no i payed 50 bucks 1 year ago i didnt saw the so 40 free additions u talk about i didnt saw SAB/LS1 and w ont see it so quit ur yapin about 3years becuse not all did been here 3years i wasnt and my friend i took here 2.

so for 4$ a month, you must of got some good times out of it. 4$ now a day gets you like a gallon of gas, lol.

sorry I use metric system like 95% of populace dunno whats a gallons.

Dear Arena.Net marketing guys,

I don’t know what kind of qualifications got you into your jobs. I don’t know what they told you at buisness school or college about marketing. In fact, I know very little about marketing theories, hardly scratched the surface it.
But what I do know is, that one should always think before talking/ writing, especially when it touches a term, which has a very negative meaning for many people. Just like the term “free2play”.
I mean, let’s look at what you actually did. You gave people the possibility to try core GW2 for free, without any time limits but with some tight restrictions.
So basicly it is indeed some kind of “f2p” since one doesn’t have to pay a single $/€ to start playing core GW2. But let’s face it, if you’d named it, I don’t know, “unlimited trial account” or something alike and at the same time openly published the restriction those accounts have (not having the players to actually dig it out! That “letter” from the president wasn’t a smart move either since it put all attention to the new “f2p” accounts, hiding the details behind a link most people won’t click in their “omg f2p kitten this kitten!” rant), I take any bet that there had been much less QQ and rants and thus less work for your company. Sure, there would have been a few people pointing out that “unlimited trial accounts” are basically just f2p accounts, but having regard to the restrictions, most people would have been ok with it right away I guess.

So may be you’d like to take my advice- next time think before acting and never underestimate the power and wisdom of common sense. And you won’t find the latter in any marketing book nor will it be tought at school/college.

Best regards
Nash

P.S.: I don’t mean to offend someone by any means, if something above sounds a bit harsh it’s probably due to the fact I’m no native english speaker. But I feel that the way this big change got published wasn’t your best piece of work, since most of the inconveniences were forseable and thus preventable with a little more effort put in it.

They should’ve just put this info on easier to find places.
https://help.guildwars2.com/entries/95982157?_ga=1.4690800.237670393.1441008549

Did you not watch the announcement about it going free to play? Basically the whole thing was “It’s free, here’s what we’re doing to protect current players”. It wasn’t exactly hard to find.

Also, I don’t know if you’ve noticed or not, but the game going free has gotten a ton of new players into the game, which is exactly what their marketing team wants.

If they used Trial it would indicate a limit of either time or level. Neither of which applies. So trial would confuse people more so then restricted F2P. This isn’t the first thread to mention this and it seems like people are more averse to the term F2P then anything.