Play for Free Confirmed [merged]
The thingh is that we didn’t buy only the game but also we contract a service (every mmo is a service) and here is the problem in the moment we bought the game the say to us that the game was b2p but now is a f2p.
I’m not agaist new players but I’m agaist what Anet is doing the things
And your service is still valid, you bought the service to play the game forever without paying again and that’s what you got, that never changed.
But the value of the offer has changed drastically. You pay 60 dollars to go to a show, and as you get there and get seated they announce that because 50% of the seats are empty they are letting everyone else in for free. Outrage will insue for anyone that values money and carefully chooses the things they enjoy enough to invest in. As somone who is physically disabled and has to manage my money carefully I made a very active decision to save the money to pre-purchase gw2 because I love the title and the company despite many of my posts on this forum.
All of your posts are completely riddled with logical fallacies and the sort. Let’s spell it out using your analogy.
Say you bought GW2 1-3 years ago. I paid $60 for your “ticket” to the show. You have been watching this show for the past 1-3 years. Other people looked at either the price of the ticket or the show advertisements and said, “nah, I can’t/don’t want to do that”. You said, “Yes, I do want to do that”, so you bought your ticket and have been watching the show while they were not watching the show.
Show’s over now. There is nothing about “empty seats” or 50% off; the show has ended. However they release a new show for the same price that allows you to continue watching the old show parts and new parts. You must pay $50 this time around regardless of who you are, but if you saw the old show you also get a complimentary drink. Maybe your drink tray is full, but they offer you a drink anyway. At one point, as the old show was finishing up, they sold tickets for the exact same price as this drink. They now let people into the old show alone without having to pay, but they moved the chairs out, however you can upgrade and see the old+new show like everyone else for the $50.
You chose to watch the show earlier than everyone else. Market trends clearly display that shows lose value as more people watch it (less viewers remaining). This means that at some point the old show by itself was going to either become less expensive or free at some point or another. Either that, or it won’t even be offered at all. You could very well wait 60 years before watching a recording of this show when you can get it and the sequels for a grand total of $5 in the discount bin at Big Box Mart, but then you’d have to wait that long.
The show never ended, that’s the thing. I paid for the show in its entirety, and they did not. You created a fallacy to attempt to make mine seem negative and only proved my point without realizing it.
Well not really 2 factor Auth is nice and helpful if you some one tires to log in. Its just there to make sure your safer. If you live in say the UK and some one from South America IP tries to log on and you dont have 2nd auth its annoying to get the items and things back what iff all the toons got killed and you cant get those names back. Very annoying
Free protip: Whack your keyboard randomly when creating your game password. Be sure to hit some numbers as well as letters. Keep whacking until the password box is full. You just created an impossible-to-guess, fully-unique password that will never be in danger from being discovered in another website’s database. Click the game menu option to remember your password and you’re finished.
Seriously; if a person used a password for their game account that they also used in another website maybe they deserved to have all their nice things taken away.
Setting the client to “remember password” gets a bit harder for those with more than one account, multiple accounts from different people on one computer, living somewhere where it’s unwise to leave anything with the password checked (those fun loving roommates or the evil little brother and you leave for a few minutes to grab a snack from the fridge) or the times when your potato of a computer turns into French Fried computer and the password is gone with it. But other than that, worth considering.
ANet may give it to you.
(edited by Just a flesh wound.3589)
OMG THE GAME CRASHED. ITS ALL OVER!
Oh, nvm. Just the forum bug again. Huehuehuehue.
ANet may give it to you.
I understand why the restriction is there: to stop gold sellers and to make free play as uncomfortable as possible so people will buy the game, but….
if new players can’t ask for help, they’re going to be turned off of the game real quick.
Sorry, but these systems need hard caps, not once or twice every so often. One account could post one message, one hundred accounts could post one hundred messages. Spam would get through.
Plus there needs to be some incentive to buy the game.
There is incentive to buy the game. It would cost $40 just to get the same amount of character slots and bag slots that a paid account has, and they would still have all the restrictions in place, so for only $10 more they can get the expansion instead and get the same amount of character/bag slots a paid account has as well, no restrictions, and access to all content.
They can chat in /say any more would sadly be too easily abusable by gold sellers, tbh if you ask me they shouldn’t be able to start whispers either unless to ppl they are mutual friends with (they can be allowed to answer to anyone that whisper then first though)
They can whisper friends. Friend paid players, join guilds with teamspeak. Their is ways they can communicate.
Guild Wars isn’t a particularly complicated game. Free accounts not having access to map chat is strict, but fair.
The Secksy Monk [Guild Wars 1]
Stormbluff Isle – Storm Slayer Dragons [SDS]
I thought they could whisper to anybody but only once per 30 seconds unless both friend one another.
RIP City of Heroes
(edited by Behellagh.1468)
Arena Net must drop the SMS verification nonsense. Who wants to need their phone with them whenever they want to play the game? Mine is usually in my coat pocket, upstairs, in the closet.
You don’t need it every time you log on. They have a Trusted computer feature as well, when you authorize a computer as a trusted computer you no longer need to use the SMS verification. I used the SMS verification 1 time, and haven’t used it since.
I thought they could whisper to anybody but only once per 30 seconds unless both are friend one another.
That’s what I thought too. As a player with the paid version of the game I would never hit that restriction lol.
I got a question..i was reading all the posts and the question and answer thing..but i still cant find 1 information (or maybe i could not see it)
When upgrading an f2p acc…the characters and items will stay? or they will disapear??
They will stay
/15char
ty for the fast answer
They can whisper to anyone in the same map then them, so they can react to map chat with a whisper.
I understand why the restriction is there: to stop gold sellers and to make free play as uncomfortable as possible so people will buy the game, but….
if new players can’t ask for help, they’re going to be turned off of the game real quick.
They can pay for the full game, and full access to the game then?
The thingh is that we didn’t buy only the game but also we contract a service (every mmo is a service) and here is the problem in the moment we bought the game the say to us that the game was b2p but now is a f2p.
I’m not agaist new players but I’m agaist what Anet is doing the things
And your service is still valid, you bought the service to play the game forever without paying again and that’s what you got, that never changed.
But the value of the offer has changed drastically. You pay 60 dollars to go to a show, and as you get there and get seated they announce that because 50% of the seats are empty they are letting everyone else in for free. Outrage will insue for anyone that values money and carefully chooses the things they enjoy enough to invest in. As somone who is physically disabled and has to manage my money carefully I made a very active decision to save the money to pre-purchase gw2 because I love the title and the company despite many of my posts on this forum.
And contrary to popular belief I am in no way shape or form unhappy with that investment, even knowing this would happen (I would be less happy about it) but I would do it again, and pay the 80 bucks up front. Now that being said this does not discount or change the feelings of animosity or distrust built by both the secrecy of this deal, because you know they knew this was going to happen and could have told the community earlier than yknow… the day they did it… nor does it change that I am upset that our consolation prize yielded to me no real value of any sort.
They did provide us with some garbage royal guard skin that looks like something that got downvoted too many times so they couldn’t greenlight the release on the trading post… however to many of us, especially most of us that will never ever use such a horrendously disfigured skin, this feels like a cop out, or at the very least gives veteran players (and this has happened many times before) the idea that we are worth next to nothing. That our continued support and promotion of their game is to them, worth whatever they found in the bottom of the barrell… They couldn’t dare to part with 15% off the expansion? Or even to generate a few in game gems to let us purchase something of actual use? Gems are an unlimited currency, they could have provided consolation compensation and chose not to. This is why most of us hardcore veteran players with 1101 days played are a little bit sour over this whole deal.
Also to many of the people on this forum this anger and unrest is being redirected at the new guys coming into the game because they are easily accessable and it will only cause problems in the future, fracturing those who play for free and those who don’t. You will see free to players getting kicked from parties, us vs them mentality. All because Anet couldn’t part with something other than a skin that looks like a beatleborgs halloween costume to placate a disenfranchised mass of veteran players who have been at the lesser valued end of pretty much every deal since the initial purchase. Veterans are not respected. Anet is a company that as a company is much like a shark, they know about time investment, and they know that as a company they don’t have any need to placate players that already exist because we stand to lose more than they do if we stop. They already have our money. This is the overall idea behind this whole fiasco.
A post or two from the red names and perhaps something of actual value would settle down the veteran players and really help to smooth the transition of these new guys into the game. Personally I am happy to see new players, I am unhappy that I was not given consideration in the method that they chose to aquire them.
Wow, I can’t agree more…
I thought they could whisper to anybody but only once per 30 seconds unless both friend one another.
But only if the other player is in the same map. They can’t cross-map whisper, though I don’t know how it works.
-BnooMaGoo.5690
I thought they could whisper to anybody but only once per 30 seconds unless both friend one another.
But only if the other player is in the same map. They can’t cross-map whisper, though I don’t know how it works.
Makes sense.
RIP City of Heroes
Love how mods merge threads not so related between them >.<
I don’t get it. Core game is available for free but people still whine. Not enough character slots, can’t earn laurels, chat restrictions for new players, etc. For kitten sake it’s really simple. If you like the game then buy HoT and restrictions disappear. That’s why NCSoft/ANet made game free. Consider it as trial not truly free2play game..
I understand why the restriction is there: to stop gold sellers and to make free play as uncomfortable as possible so people will buy the game, but….
if new players can’t ask for help, they’re going to be turned off of the game real quick.
They can pay for the full game, and full access to the game then?
Or they can immediately get discouraged and quit.
You just downloaded the game, have no idea how to play, you have questions. The chat box is unavailable, there’s no indication that you can whisper people, you can’t make friends if you can’t talk — how do you even respond to guild recruitments?
First impression: not good.
If you didn’t spend any money on the game you have no real incentive to go any further. You just chalk it up as a waste of time and quit
…maybe even telling a few irl friends that you can’t even communicate (in an MMO!) if you don’t buy the game. The words P2W probably comes up (though not literally accurate) because if you put basic features behind a paywall those are the words that come to mind.
I understand why the restriction is there: to stop gold sellers and to make free play as uncomfortable as possible so people will buy the game, but….
if new players can’t ask for help, they’re going to be turned off of the game real quick.
They can pay for the full game, and full access to the game then?
Or they can immediately get discouraged and quit.
You just downloaded the game, have no idea how to play, you have questions. The chat box is unavailable, there’s no indication that you can whisper people, you can’t make friends if you can’t talk — how do you even respond to guild recruitments?
First impression: not good.
If you didn’t spend any money on the game you have no real incentive to go any further. You just chalk it up as a waste of time and quit
…maybe even telling a few irl friends that you can’t even communicate (in an MMO!) if you don’t buy the game. The words P2W probably comes up (though not literally accurate) because if you put basic features behind a paywall those are the words that come to mind.
I paid $10 for this game. If a player who didn’t pay for anything wants the perks of my account, then they have to pay. They can wait for a sale while enjoying game. $10 is the cost of a lunch. Players who don’t want to pay even that can’t complain.
If they quit, how does that hurt the game? They paid nothing. Game loose nothing.
I don’t get it. Core game is available for free but people still whine. Not enough character slots, can’t earn laurels, chat restrictions for new players, etc. For kitten sake it’s really simple. If you like the game then buy HoT and restrictions disappear. That’s why NCSoft/ANet made game free. Consider it as trial not truly free2play game..
That was how i took it. It’s essentially a demo mode, albeit a non-time-limited one, which gives access to the majority of the game’s content.
The restrictions in place are not to limit the demo account, but to protect players who have paid for the full game.
RIP gw2
also no price drop for users who already own GW2. bullcrap
I’M with you on this.
F2P is for new players to check out the game and contribute by being playmates to pay-players, and also to get them buy the full game. So first impressions are important for the F2P version. Here what a new player sees:
- I need some help, let me ask in the chat box: “kitten account, Buy HoT!”
- Let me enter this Rata Sum portal: “kitten account, Buy HoT!”
- Let me use the mailbox: “kitten account, Buy HoT!”
- What’s that notice in the corner of the screen, oh, it says “Buy HoT!”
The chat restriction is particularly bad. This is an MMO and you can’t talk to other players? How do you make friends or respond to guild recruitments?
You expect some degree of restrictions but this is a bit too much. If new players feel like second class citizen they’re going to — technically accurate or not — pull out the dreaded letters “P2W” .. not something you want associated to your MMO.
In short, F2P new players have no money invested into the game, so they’ll quit in the beginning at the drop of a hat. The first impressions they get currently: not good.
Love how mods merge threads not so related between them >.<
Yep. Get these disjointed conversations and references to various OPs, that are not the OP of the merged thread.
Maybe instead of [merged] they should name it [spaghettified] to show that’s it’s a bunch of threads all tangled up in one.
ANet may give it to you.
I like the newbees, they ask things I forgot about the last 2 years.
great idea a’net.
I understand why the restriction is there: to stop gold sellers and to make free play as uncomfortable as possible so people will buy the game, but….
if new players can’t ask for help, they’re going to be turned off of the game real quick.
They can pay for the full game, and full access to the game then?
Or they can immediately get discouraged and quit.
You just downloaded the game, have no idea how to play, you have questions. The chat box is unavailable, there’s no indication that you can whisper people, you can’t make friends if you can’t talk — how do you even respond to guild recruitments?
First impression: not good.
If you didn’t spend any money on the game you have no real incentive to go any further. You just chalk it up as a waste of time and quit
…maybe even telling a few irl friends that you can’t even communicate (in an MMO!) if you don’t buy the game. The words P2W probably comes up (though not literally accurate) because if you put basic features behind a paywall those are the words that come to mind.
I paid $10 for this game. If a player who didn’t pay for anything wants the perks of my account, then they have to pay. They can wait for a sale while enjoying game. $10 is the cost of a lunch. Players who don’t want to pay even that can’t complain.
If they quit, how does that hurt the game? They paid nothing. Game loose nothing.
Really short sighted.
You do lose. New players are what keeps an MMO alive. There’s a lot of turnover and if players who’ve quit don’t get replaced, you end up playing by yourself. It’s already happened: that’s why we have megaservers right now.
You can restrict F2P players, but if you do it too much, they quit immediately. No chat is too restrictive.
I don’t get it. Core game is available for free but people still whine. Not enough character slots, can’t earn laurels, chat restrictions for new players, etc. For kitten sake it’s really simple. If you like the game then buy HoT and restrictions disappear. That’s why NCSoft/ANet made game free. Consider it as trial not truly free2play game..
That was how i took it. It’s essentially a demo mode, albeit a non-time-limited one, which gives access to the majority of the game’s content.
The restrictions in place are not to limit the demo account, but to protect players who have paid for the full game.
They’re not calling it a demo. They’re calling it F2P. People expect demos to be extremely restrictive. F2P being as restrictive as a demo makes for bad publicity.
The thingh is that we didn’t buy only the game but also we contract a service (every mmo is a service) and here is the problem in the moment we bought the game the say to us that the game was b2p but now is a f2p.
I’m not agaist new players but I’m agaist what Anet is doing the things
And your service is still valid, you bought the service to play the game forever without paying again and that’s what you got, that never changed.
But the value of the offer has changed drastically. You pay 60 dollars to go to a show, and as you get there and get seated they announce that because 50% of the seats are empty they are letting everyone else in for free. Outrage will insue for anyone that values money and carefully chooses the things they enjoy enough to invest in. As somone who is physically disabled and has to manage my money carefully I made a very active decision to save the money to pre-purchase gw2 because I love the title and the company despite many of my posts on this forum.
And contrary to popular belief I am in no way shape or form unhappy with that investment, even knowing this would happen (I would be less happy about it) but I would do it again, and pay the 80 bucks up front. Now that being said this does not discount or change the feelings of animosity or distrust built by both the secrecy of this deal, because you know they knew this was going to happen and could have told the community earlier than yknow… the day they did it… nor does it change that I am upset that our consolation prize yielded to me no real value of any sort.
They did provide us with some garbage royal guard skin that looks like something that got downvoted too many times so they couldn’t greenlight the release on the trading post… however to many of us, especially most of us that will never ever use such a horrendously disfigured skin, this feels like a cop out, or at the very least gives veteran players (and this has happened many times before) the idea that we are worth next to nothing. That our continued support and promotion of their game is to them, worth whatever they found in the bottom of the barrell… They couldn’t dare to part with 15% off the expansion? Or even to generate a few in game gems to let us purchase something of actual use? Gems are an unlimited currency, they could have provided consolation compensation and chose not to. This is why most of us hardcore veteran players with 1101 days played are a little bit sour over this whole deal.
Also to many of the people on this forum this anger and unrest is being redirected at the new guys coming into the game because they are easily accessable and it will only cause problems in the future, fracturing those who play for free and those who don’t. You will see free to players getting kicked from parties, us vs them mentality. All because Anet couldn’t part with something other than a skin that looks like a beatleborgs halloween costume to placate a disenfranchised mass of veteran players who have been at the lesser valued end of pretty much every deal since the initial purchase. Veterans are not respected. Anet is a company that as a company is much like a shark, they know about time investment, and they know that as a company they don’t have any need to placate players that already exist because we stand to lose more than they do if we stop. They already have our money. This is the overall idea behind this whole fiasco.
A post or two from the red names and perhaps something of actual value would settle down the veteran players and really help to smooth the transition of these new guys into the game. Personally I am happy to see new players, I am unhappy that I was not given consideration in the method that they chose to aquire them.
I live in Las Vegas so your movie analogy falls completely flat. Many times live shows offer reduced price seats, or even free seats to people just to fill the theater. These tickets are not comps, they give them out in order to fill the theater so that the performers and the people in the audience will have a better show. I’ve often sat next to people that have paid full price.
I understand why the restriction is there: to stop gold sellers and to make free play as uncomfortable as possible so people will buy the game, but….
if new players can’t ask for help, they’re going to be turned off of the game real quick.
They can pay for the full game, and full access to the game then?
Or they can immediately get discouraged and quit.
You just downloaded the game, have no idea how to play, you have questions. The chat box is unavailable, there’s no indication that you can whisper people, you can’t make friends if you can’t talk — how do you even respond to guild recruitments?
First impression: not good.
If you didn’t spend any money on the game you have no real incentive to go any further. You just chalk it up as a waste of time and quit
…maybe even telling a few irl friends that you can’t even communicate (in an MMO!) if you don’t buy the game. The words P2W probably comes up (though not literally accurate) because if you put basic features behind a paywall those are the words that come to mind.
I paid $10 for this game. If a player who didn’t pay for anything wants the perks of my account, then they have to pay. They can wait for a sale while enjoying game. $10 is the cost of a lunch. Players who don’t want to pay even that can’t complain.
If they quit, how does that hurt the game? They paid nothing. Game loose nothing.
Really short sighted.
You do lose. New players are what keeps an MMO alive. There’s a lot of turnover and if players who’ve quit don’t get replaced, you end up playing by yourself. It’s already happened: that’s why we have megaservers right now.
You can restrict F2P players, but if you do it too much, they quit immediately. No chat is too restrictive.
I paid $10 for the game. That money goes to the company. Free players who don’t pay don’t support the company. If they quit, the game is still here for me to enjoy. I don’t want to play with freeloaders begging for free stuff.
Not sure why you QQ, since you is a long time player. Restrictions on a FREE game make sense. If not, then why would anyone pay for this game?
(edited by Natto.5819)
It’s interesting to see how vigilant some are againt unrestricitng some things for people who have proofed not to be Goldsellers/Trolls by achieving lvl 70/80.
Unfortunately, being lvl 70+ does not prove you are not a gold seller. Gold sellers get gold by botting, bots level as a result of gold farming. A gold seller could easily level free accounts and get access to map chat for advertising.
I doubt they would take the time to grind an account to 70 just so they can spam map chat, and get it banned immediately, there are more efficient ways to go about that.
Like camping toons at SB, FE, and Jungle Wurm, and spamming /s whenever the event is up.
They’re not calling it a demo. They’re calling it F2P. People expect demos to be extremely restrictive. F2P being as restrictive as a demo makes for bad publicity.
I guess it’s good that it isn’t as restrictive as a demo, then…?
And Lord Kuru you’ve ignored what anybody has said about what is allowed in chat. Role an F2P account and play it. It really isn’t as horrific as you’ve suggested.
Plus ANet has to balance the F2P experience with the Vet experience of RMT spammers flooding the world as well as threats to the game economy.
RIP City of Heroes
I understand why the restriction is there: to stop gold sellers and to make free play as uncomfortable as possible so people will buy the game, but….
if new players can’t ask for help, they’re going to be turned off of the game real quick.
They can pay for the full game, and full access to the game then?
Or they can immediately get discouraged and quit.
You just downloaded the game, have no idea how to play, you have questions. The chat box is unavailable, there’s no indication that you can whisper people, you can’t make friends if you can’t talk — how do you even respond to guild recruitments?
First impression: not good.
If you didn’t spend any money on the game you have no real incentive to go any further. You just chalk it up as a waste of time and quit
…maybe even telling a few irl friends that you can’t even communicate (in an MMO!) if you don’t buy the game. The words P2W probably comes up (though not literally accurate) because if you put basic features behind a paywall those are the words that come to mind.
I’m guessing you didn’t even make a free account. If you did you would of seen that the chat box is sitting there just like it is for everyone else. It just defaults to /say.
It’s not Anet’s fault though. Blame all the people who buy gold from goldsellers. If no one did then there’d be much less of them. Wouldn’t stop the account scammers as easily though. If only Obama played GW2 and got spammed and declared goldsellers to be terrorist and saved us all.
Thanks the the responses. Tho this does raid the question, If someone buys a core game at a retail store for the full price, (My local walmart still has a couple copies on the shelves for full price) will that copy get auto upgraded to HoT as it would have been purchased after the point in time when the full purchase was for HoT alone and that simply included the core.
Thanks the the responses. Tho this does raid the question, If someone buys a core game at a retail store for the full price, (My local walmart still has a couple copies on the shelves for full price) will that copy get auto upgraded to HoT as it would have been purchased after the point in time when the full purchase was for HoT alone and that simply included the core.
nope in order to get the core game free you must by hot . and then you are given the core game GW2 free . and not the other way around. . i could not find the link with this info for you but it is in the hot forums i think that tells about this . but to answer your question in short you got to by hot to get the core game free .
I love the new Free To Play approach .. I’ve tested alot of it and it’s very well thought of .. It will allow the game to become one of the top PVP games out there that are readily available while still protecting its community for grievers, botters , and spammers .. Very well done approach . I’m very much looking forward to this impact this will have on PVP and WvW
Note: as a veteren player i’m in a complete support of this system. I did get 3 awesome years for what i’ve paid for and now this will make the game more available, so the community will grow, and my experience will become even better. thank you anet.
Just one last thing, I wish there was a more detailed explanation on the limited access Free accounts have on the TP. I was looking at it but couldn’t discern a pattern as to whats available and what’s not .. This is needed so i can explain to new members in our guild what they can and cannot get on the tp. Right now we’re abit a t a loss.
default SKU now is GW2:HoT if you buy direct from ANet.
the old SKU which contains Core game only no longer available if you buys direct from ANet, but still available from retailers that still have them in stock, although, buying that would be stupid as they charge nearly as much as the default SKU from ANet.
Archeage = Farmville with PK
MORE MORDREM MAY MAKE MANY MORE MORGUES MOLDY
MORE MORDREM MAY MAKE MANY MORE MORGUES MOLDY
MORE MORDREM MAY MAKE MANY MORE MORGUES MOLDY
MORE MORDREM MAY MAKE MANY MORE MORGUES MOLDY
MORE MORDREM MAY MAKE MANY MORE MORGUES MOLDY
(edited by Envy.1679)
And Lord Kuru you’ve ignored what anybody has said about what is allowed in chat. Role an F2P account and play it. It really isn’t as horrific as you’ve suggested.
Plus ANet has to balance the F2P experience with the Vet experience of RMT spammers flooding the world as well as threats to the game economy.
I did roll one. I wanted to level so the first thing I tried to do was ask if any events were going on. And guess what, I couldn’t. Luckily I know where events might be happening but a new player has no idea what’s going on.
And for those who wish to feel superior because you gave Anet $10, go ahead. But if F2P drives new players away, the game suffers as a whole and in the end your experience will suffer.
Anet should just bite the bullet and have real live human beings taking care of chat abuse reports in real time because not being about to communicate in an MMO is ridiculous.
If you can’t read map chat for the gold spam messages, it’s rendered useless to everyone.
Anet should just bite the bullet and have real live human beings taking care of chat abuse reports in real time because not being about to communicate in an MMO is ridiculous.
That’s extra manpower which equals extra money. They’re either unwilling or unable to commit that money.
(edited by Narrrz.7532)
OP you gotta stop cherrypicking your fights in this post with the worst possible comments. Alot of people here make it known they indeed can chat, and that free accounts indeed need this restriction. It’s logical, it’s correct, and it’s not changing.
it’s a free trial . the free2play word is just a sugar-coating.
Archeage = Farmville with PK
And Lord Kuru you’ve ignored what anybody has said about what is allowed in chat. Role an F2P account and play it. It really isn’t as horrific as you’ve suggested.
Plus ANet has to balance the F2P experience with the Vet experience of RMT spammers flooding the world as well as threats to the game economy.
I did roll one. I wanted to level so the first thing I tried to do was ask if any events were going on. And guess what, I couldn’t. Luckily I know where events might be happening but a new player has no idea what’s going on.
And for those who wish to feel superior because you gave Anet $10, go ahead. But if F2P drives new players away, the game suffers as a whole and in the end your experience will suffer.
Anet should just bite the bullet and have real live human beings taking care of chat abuse reports in real time because not being about to communicate in an MMO is ridiculous.
Well funny I could use /say and I could /whisper strangers once every 30 seconds. Nobody is disagreeing that map is disabled but localized chat does work.
RIP City of Heroes
F2P is for new players to check out the game and contribute by being playmates to pay-players, and also to get them buy the full game. So first impressions are important for the F2P version. Here what a new player sees:
- I need some help, let me ask in the chat box: “kitten account, Buy HoT!”
- Let me enter this Rata Sum portal: “kitten account, Buy HoT!”
- Let me use the mailbox: “kitten account, Buy HoT!”
- What’s that notice in the corner of the screen, oh, it says “Buy HoT!”
The chat restriction is particularly bad. This is an MMO and you can’t talk to other players? How do you make friends or respond to guild recruitments?
You expect some degree of restrictions but this is a bit too much. If new players feel like second class citizen they’re going to — technically accurate or not — pull out the dreaded letters “P2W” .. not something you want associated to your MMO.
In short, F2P new players have no money invested into the game, so they’ll quit in the beginning at the drop of a hat. The first impressions they get currently: not good.
They can talk in /say.
They can start a whisper every 30s for someone in the same map as they are.
If there wasn’t a restriction on /map, it would be full of goldseller spam…
So there is nothing preventing them from chatting with other players that are near them, and they can whisper someone that says ‘whisper me if you need help’ or whatever.
F2P is for new players to check out the game and contribute by being playmates to pay-players, and also to get them buy the full game. So first impressions are important for the F2P version. Here what a new player sees:
- I need some help, let me ask in the chat box: “kitten account, Buy HoT!”
- Let me enter this Rata Sum portal: “kitten account, Buy HoT!”
- Let me use the mailbox: “kitten account, Buy HoT!”
- What’s that notice in the corner of the screen, oh, it says “Buy HoT!”
The chat restriction is particularly bad. This is an MMO and you can’t talk to other players? How do you make friends or respond to guild recruitments?
You expect some degree of restrictions but this is a bit too much. If new players feel like second class citizen they’re going to — technically accurate or not — pull out the dreaded letters “P2W” .. not something you want associated to your MMO.
In short, F2P new players have no money invested into the game, so they’ll quit in the beginning at the drop of a hat. The first impressions they get currently: not good.
They can talk in /say.
They can start a whisper every 30s for someone in the same map as they are.
If there wasn’t a restriction on /map, it would be full of goldseller spam…So there is nothing preventing them from chatting with other players that are near them, and they can whisper someone that says ‘whisper me if you need help’ or whatever.
i’d like to add apoint to this .. think of it in context with the mastery system.. Mentors will exisit in the game and free accounts will be able to locate them and whisper them so the system works.