Guild Wars 2

Vela.4903:

I trust Anet not to ruin their community

LOL!

We will be in HoT content anyway, so why does it matters.

StinVec.3621:

If it were actually about another upcoming trial period and that is what the “play for free” part was referencing, I’m sure someone at ANet would have stepped in here by now to say that GW2 is not going completely Free-To-Play as hinted at in that tweet and video. Their silence on the matter, considering how their players are responding to this bit of (possibly incorrect) news, is very telling.

The fact that the cat’s outta the bag on Raids probably means they will not be setting foot in here until Sunday lest they be hit with a deluge of “OMG Raids, wtf?!” or “Woo Raids! Plz gib all info nao!”

im alright if its for only level 15’s only like WoW has but if its the full game it upsets me as someone who has payed for both expansions at full price each

runeblade.7514:

Mortifer.2946:

runeblade.7514:

3. BOTS, BOTS, BOTS…. lots of bots :’(

This is my #1 concern. I don’t care about the other because they are non-issues.

packed servers will be the issue. I kind of don’t believe ArenaNet will invest millions into expanding their servers in US and EU.

They did. Its called Megaservers.

Megaserver is just a technology that groups servers together. It has its limits…. I experience a skill lag (I cannot use any skills) during lots of WvW fights and meta events like Tequatl…. not always, but it happens already. What will it be like when there is like a million more players?

Please OP, change the title. The fact that it becomes F2P must be seen by all the players directly. It’s also the only way to get a fast answer from Anet.

McViolin.8547:

Vela.4903:

I trust Anet not to ruin their community

LOL!

LOL

Agent Noun.7350:

ArenaNet is not stupid enough to let free accounts abuse daily login rewards. They’re either going to change for everyone, or be limited/unavailable to free accounts.

Do you all seriously think that an experienced developer would have not thought that through? That they’re just going to flip a “turn on F2P” switch and hope for the best?

And given their history of hamfisted solutions they’re likely to just destroy it for everyone.

Mortifer.2946:

1. little children who will be ruining the experience for others

Lmao this game is usk 12 you know?

Mortifer.2946:

runeblade.7514:

Mortifer.2946:

runeblade.7514:

3. BOTS, BOTS, BOTS…. lots of bots :’(

This is my #1 concern. I don’t care about the other because they are non-issues.

packed servers will be the issue. I kind of don’t believe ArenaNet will invest millions into expanding their servers in US and EU.

They did. Its called Megaservers.

Megaserver is just a technology that groups servers together. It has its limits…. I experience a skill lag (I cannot use any skills) during lots of WvW fights and meta events like Tequatl…. not always, but it happens already. What will it be like when there is like a million more players?

Yeah. The megaserver just seems to be virtualising maps across a server farm. You can still run into a performance bottleneck at the hardware level since megaserver is likely primarily software side.

People are panicking really prematurely about F2P. It would not be difficult to put sensible limits on it while still allowing people a relatively unrestricted free core game. Just off the top of my head, here are some brainstormed and reasonable restrictions:

- You can only communicate with people in your guild, in your party, or people who have added you as a friend.
- You can’t send items or gold through the mail, and can only send 1 mail per hour.
- You can’t receive daily login rewards. Or maybe, you just can’t receive laurels. The other rewards are no big deal.

Is there anything else that would even be necessary? Do those three things and you protect the paid players from a lot of potential abuse while also letting people get a pretty complete free-to-play experience.

CureForLiving.5360:

Well we don’t know if it’s going full F2P or if they’re just introducing a free trial.
I’m personally all for a free trial.

I also don’t have anything against a trial account. But the way it was written by IGN….it definitely sounds more f2p than trial account.

Mortifer.2946:

runeblade.7514:

Mortifer.2946:

runeblade.7514:

3. BOTS, BOTS, BOTS…. lots of bots :’(

This is my #1 concern. I don’t care about the other because they are non-issues.

packed servers will be the issue. I kind of don’t believe ArenaNet will invest millions into expanding their servers in US and EU.

They did. Its called Megaservers.

Megaserver is just a technology that groups servers together. It has its limits…. I experience a skill lag (I cannot use any skills) during lots of WvW fights and meta events like Tequatl…. not always, but it happens already. What will it be like when there is like a million more players?

With millions of players, there will be 100,000-500,000 maps to fit the millions of players.

Yunielesca.2850:

Please OP, change the title. The fact that it becomes F2P must be seen by all the players directly. It’s also the only way to get a fast answer from Anet.

Have you not read anything, there was data mined info where trial accounts have very limited access. So no the game is not going F2P, free to try sure, but they do not get the whole game. Please read before posting again.

Yunielesca.2850:

Please OP, change the title. The fact that it becomes F2P must be seen by all the players directly. It’s also the only way to get a fast answer from Anet.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Please-don-t-make-it-F2P

Teniz.5249:

Mortifer.2946:

1. little children who will be ruining the experience for others

Lmao this game is usk 12 you know?

Lineage 2 was also USK 12 and it didn’t stop me playing Lineage 2, swearing and trolling in it when I was 10. I don’t know where you live, but parents in EU are not that strict about it.

runeblade.7514:

Mortifer.2946:

runeblade.7514:

Mortifer.2946:

runeblade.7514:

3. BOTS, BOTS, BOTS…. lots of bots :’(

This is my #1 concern. I don’t care about the other because they are non-issues.

packed servers will be the issue. I kind of don’t believe ArenaNet will invest millions into expanding their servers in US and EU.

They did. Its called Megaservers.

Megaserver is just a technology that groups servers together. It has its limits…. I experience a skill lag (I cannot use any skills) during lots of WvW fights and meta events like Tequatl…. not always, but it happens already. What will it be like when there is like a million more players?

With millions of players, there will be 100,000-500,000 maps to fit the millions of players.

Man… you still don’t get it. It doesn’t work like that… Megaserver cannot possibly create so many maps. Doesn’t matter, as others explained, it is just TRIAL. And I am quite okay with that.

Agent Noun.7350:

People are panicking really prematurely about F2P. It would not be difficult to put sensible limits on it while still allowing people a relatively unrestricted free core game. Just off the top of my head, here are some brainstormed and reasonable restrictions:

- You can only communicate with people in your guild, in your party, or people who have added you as a friend.
- You can’t send items or gold through the mail, and can only send 1 mail per hour.
- You can’t receive daily login rewards. Or maybe, you just can’t receive laurels. The other rewards are no big deal.

Is there anything else that would even be necessary? Do those three things and you protect the paid players from a lot of potential abuse while also letting people get a pretty complete free-to-play experience.

What about Map overflow? With all the bots camping out at particular zones, will most of us be kick into overflow?

Anet is gonna be pretty kittened with IGNorants

Yunielesca.2850:

CureForLiving.5360:

Well we don’t know if it’s going full F2P or if they’re just introducing a free trial.
I’m personally all for a free trial.

I also don’t have anything against a trial account. But the way it was written by IGN….it definitely sounds more f2p than trial account.

IGN article? You mean the click bait titles? You have NOT read any article, you read a click bait title. And look you did exactly what they wanted, got emotional over reading a title.

Yunielesca.2850:

CureForLiving.5360:

Well we don’t know if it’s going full F2P or if they’re just introducing a free trial.
I’m personally all for a free trial.

I also don’t have anything against a trial account. But the way it was written by IGN….it definitely sounds more f2p than trial account.

This is almost certainly true. The IGN tweet would’ve mentioned a free trial if it was a free trial. This is an F2P option, almost certainly.

Remember also that they’ve been teasing two things for Saturday: revealing the “challenging group content” and revealing the “future of Guild Wars 2.” A free trial is not a big change to GW2; a full free-to-play option absolutely is.

Well to keep Central Tyria populated, going F2P makes sense as HoT owners will be either leveling alts in Central Tyria only after running their 80s through HoT content.

In all likelihood the F2P will come with restrictions to limit the impact of RMT like chat limitations (like map), no mail exchange of gold or items, no joining guilds, probably two character slots, maybe a gold cap, no login rewards. Something beyond the expansion that would make a F2P player fork over the money for the whole game.

i doubt they would make it F2P after all, how do you sell character slots and bank spaces when someone can have a thousand alts to store stuff on?

not to mention the daily log in rewards, that would be insane with a dozen accounts.

yeah, its highly unlikely.

Anet is not stupid. They will not make gw2 F2P. I guess they are just going to make trial accounts with some limitations (for example max lvl 15, no daily rewards, no ability to send items in mails, etc.)

Zypher.7609:

Yunielesca.2850:

CureForLiving.5360:

Well we don’t know if it’s going full F2P or if they’re just introducing a free trial.
I’m personally all for a free trial.

I also don’t have anything against a trial account. But the way it was written by IGN….it definitely sounds more f2p than trial account.

IGN article? You mean the click bait titles? You have NOT read any article, you read a click bait title. And look you did exactly what they wanted, got emotional over reading a title.

I’m as skeptical of internet “journalism” as anyone and I honestly think you’re engaging in wishful thinking. ArenaNet has been teasing a big reveal about “the future of Guild Wars 2” on Saturday for a while now, and it’s separate from their reveal about “challenging group content.” A free trial would not be a meaningful change to the future of the game; free to play absolutely would be. It makes a ton more sense.

Agent Noun.7350:

Yunielesca.2850:

Please Anet, tell us it’s a joke.

Which part?

Both, F2P and raids are both horribly bad for a games community, either one is capable is bringing a game to its knees on its own. To do both at the same time….I can see a shark tank and what looks like GW2 about to jump it.

Behellagh.1468:

Well to keep Central Tyria populated, going F2P makes sense as HoT owners will be either leveling alts in Central Tyria only after running their 80s through HoT content.

Actually we get map reward system. Finally a way how to get Cores and T2/3/4/6 mats

Substance E.4852:

StinVec.3621:

Substance E.4852:

lol, that Reddit sourced leaked IGN video is suddenly “no longer available”

Me thinks this was legit and someone, somehow, dropped the ball early.

Have fun in the Raids guys. Let us Necro and Ranger players know how it went.

I saved it, just as I’m sure many, many more did.
It’ll be back up on a dozen different places in no time at all.

It buffered horribly slow for me to the point that I quit watching. They might have been in the process of taking it down at the time. All I saw was a lot of false representations of in game content (cliffside titan shown as part of an epic fight, lolwut?). Was there an announcement of free to play at the end?

Ah, I see.

I noticed the huge amount of falsely represented content as well. Made me laugh out loud.

Yeah, there sort of was. It said Play For Free and had a link that doesn’t work right now.

forum bug fix

Shen Slayer.3058:

Agent Noun.7350:

People are panicking really prematurely about F2P. It would not be difficult to put sensible limits on it while still allowing people a relatively unrestricted free core game. Just off the top of my head, here are some brainstormed and reasonable restrictions:

- You can only communicate with people in your guild, in your party, or people who have added you as a friend.
- You can’t send items or gold through the mail, and can only send 1 mail per hour.
- You can’t receive daily login rewards. Or maybe, you just can’t receive laurels. The other rewards are no big deal.

Is there anything else that would even be necessary? Do those three things and you protect the paid players from a lot of potential abuse while also letting people get a pretty complete free-to-play experience.

What about Map overflow? With all the bots camping out at particular zones, will most of us be kick into overflow?

I think most of the areas of the game have been made somewhat bot proof* thanks to the horrendous swarms of naked Shortbow bear ranger bots back in 2012.

There will be a few places like Orr that bots will congregate, but it won’t be super widespread.

*bot proof as in they give embarrassingly bad rewards.

Agent Noun.7350:

Zypher.7609:

Yunielesca.2850:

CureForLiving.5360:

Well we don’t know if it’s going full F2P or if they’re just introducing a free trial.
I’m personally all for a free trial.

I also don’t have anything against a trial account. But the way it was written by IGN….it definitely sounds more f2p than trial account.

IGN article? You mean the click bait titles? You have NOT read any article, you read a click bait title. And look you did exactly what they wanted, got emotional over reading a title.

I’m as skeptical of internet “journalism” as anyone and I honestly think you’re engaging in wishful thinking. ArenaNet has been teasing a big reveal about “the future of Guild Wars 2” on Saturday for a while now, and it’s separate from their reveal about “challenging group content.” A free trial would not be a meaningful change to the future of the game; free to play absolutely would be. It makes a ton more sense.

Actually yeah, you are right, kitten. We will see on Saturday, I guess.

Other games going free to play meet the same thing. Bots, bots, bots, bots, bots, trolls trolls trolls, people with no feeling for the game because it is free just flows in and ruin the games for those that played it for a long while and those will start to leave one by one because the game they were used to and loved are now full of i don’t give a kitten-players.

I don’t see how this will be different for GW2. I whish they think this through one more time, if this is truely what they are going to do. GW2 have had a really great comunity so far, i don’t want that to change.

CureForLiving.5360:

Emtiarbi.3281:

For gold sellers, they should limit the f2p accounts to only whisper me if I have them in my friend list, otherwise be blocked or something.

Well it’s a difficult balance. I’d want all whispers and mailing to be blocked. But then again their is the scenario of a current player wanting to get one of their non-player friends to try the game and they’d obviously want to communicate.
Wonder if we’ll see a ‘invite a friend’ functionality.

If i invite a friend to play, the first thing i’m gonna do is add him to my friendlist so we can communicate. I just hope there are some restrictions for the F2P accounts (But let them go to SPvP, so that side of the game gets better pls :’) ).

Do not make GW2 F2P… please. ç.ç

Agent Noun.7350:

People are panicking really prematurely about F2P. It would not be difficult to put sensible limits on it while still allowing people a relatively unrestricted free core game. Just off the top of my head, here are some brainstormed and reasonable restrictions:

- You can only communicate with people in your guild, in your party, or people who have added you as a friend.
- You can’t send items or gold through the mail, and can only send 1 mail per hour.
- You can’t receive daily login rewards. Or maybe, you just can’t receive laurels. The other rewards are no big deal.

Is there anything else that would even be necessary? Do those three things and you protect the paid players from a lot of potential abuse while also letting people get a pretty complete free-to-play experience.

We don’t trust them to think it all the way through.
They have a long history of failing to do exactly that.

Yeah… quick to the trigger there, buddy.

I’m not against F2P as a whole. It can be done well. In some games. I’m not sold on GW2 doing it though…

But we don’t know yet. This is why IGN sucks. Because they spilled the beans without all the details.

We can’t claim sky is falling without knowing all the details. Or at least some more.

This doesn’t LOOK like good news, sure. But still too early to say. Wait until Anet gives their side of the story. Then come back and post this thread if it’s needed.

Leaa.2943:

Other games going free to play meet the same thing. Bots, bots, bots, bots, bots, trolls trolls trolls, people with no feeling for the game because it is free just flows in and ruin the games for those that played it for a long while and those will start to leave one by one because the game they were used to and loved are now full of i don’t give a kitten-players.

I don’t see how this will be different for GW2. I whish they think this through one more time, if this is truely what they are going to do. GW2 have had a really great comunity so far, i don’t want that to change.

This.

I couldn’t explain it better. F2P = destroyed community

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

I’m honestly not sure how I feel about the core game going free to play. I mean, they could do something akin to WoW’s first 20 lvls is free to play or something, and then you can purchase the game if you want to continue after that. It would allow a lot more people to “try it out” without the up front commitment. However, I’m very leery of just straight up “free to play” all of the core game. Sends the wrong image imo. Who knows, maybe it’ll be ok though.

As for raids… no, I can’t say I’m surprised. Not after the raid cdi, the specific hiring of a “raid designer.” No, not a surprise at all. The word itself makes me twitch, due to some extremely bad experiences in WoW, but this isn’t WoW, so there’s hope. I seriously hope Anet didnt go overboard with this concept though. I am really hoping for something more akin to GW1 ‘elite areas’ as opposed to WoW’s “heroic 40-man” raids. I will cross my fingers and wait for saturday I guess.

I would be okay with Guild Wars 2(core) going free to play. There could be some restriction to separate the paid players and the free player.

• Separate the paying players and free trial players with two servers so I don’t have to see the gold seller spam. Paying players can visit the free player servers to help their free player friends.
• Separate the economy of free trials and paid players.
• Free trial players can’t whispers to paid players unless they are in the free trial server, in the friendlist, the same party, or the same guild.

Sonickeyblade.8415:

. . .
This doesn’t LOOK like good news, sure. But still too early to say. Wait until Anet gives their side of the story. Then come back and post this thread if it’s needed.

I will just bump it. :/

I really hope this is a misleading title on their part and that it’s just a free weekend or something.

I don’t want the game to go F2P, it will get used as a justification for an even more invasive gemstore . Yay on the raids though.

I’d be confused as to why they’d go F2P they’ve just had a large influx of cash and could have continued to sell the core game for 10-20e and it would have been fine. Unless the HoT pricing backlash had more of an impact than we know.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Core game is for free? Does that mean everyone can get 30 of these accounts and get the daily log in rewards (165 T6 mats/28 days)? Or are the login rewards only for those who have paid. Because that would crash the T6 market, if true.

I’m going to say that would be one of the F2P restrictions, no login rewards. Along with no map chat and other chat limits.

ScribeTheMad.7614:

Agent Noun.7350:

Yunielesca.2850:

Please Anet, tell us it’s a joke.

Which part?

Both, F2P and raids are both horribly bad for a games community, either one is capable is bringing a game to its knees on its own. To do both at the same time….I can see a shark tank and what looks like GW2 about to jump it.

I’m not worried about raids, myself.

Remember that announcement about the changes to Fractals? How they want to lower the barrier of entry and lower the time commitment for individual Fractal runs? That makes even more sense if they’re adding raids, which will require larger groups and longer time commitments.

They’ve already confirmed there’ll be no gear tier beyond ascended in Heart of Thorns, so the gear treadmill aspect of raids in other MMOs won’t be an issue.

My guess is it’ll look a lot like the elite missions from GW1’s Factions campaign—extra-long, more difficult dungeons that require a larger-than-normal party and offer higher-than-normal rewards. Raids don’t worry me at all.

F2P is a different story. It could be botched easily, but it could also be handled well. It all remains to be seen.

Leaa.2943:

Other games going free to play meet the same thing. Bots, bots, bots, bots, bots, trolls trolls trolls, people with no feeling for the game because it is free just flows in and ruin the games for those that played it for a long while and those will start to leave one by one because the game they were used to and loved are now full of i don’t give a kitten-players.

I don’t see how this will be different for GW2. I whish they think this through one more time, if this is truely what they are going to do. GW2 have had a really great comunity so far, i don’t want that to change.

Other games going F2P is usually an indication that they have one foot in the grave… I think that’s probably the most uncomfortable part for me.
So lets just call this a trial. I like the word trial, F2P not so much.

So it hasnt been confirmed by Anet, but there are speculations for the base game becoming free to play?! If so what do you plan on doing for your community that paid for this game and brought GW2 to where it is today? What are you going to do about the increase in gold sellers and “web advertisers” such as pvp bank….we have enough of them in game blowing up our whisper and map chat…..im hoping for a Devs answer not a thought from the community

Its not going f2p for kittens sake.Its like WoW’s f2p model.Do your research before you start qqing on forums people.

CureForLiving.5360:

Leaa.2943:

Other games going free to play meet the same thing. Bots, bots, bots, bots, bots, trolls trolls trolls, people with no feeling for the game because it is free just flows in and ruin the games for those that played it for a long while and those will start to leave one by one because the game they were used to and loved are now full of i don’t give a kitten-players.

I don’t see how this will be different for GW2. I whish they think this through one more time, if this is truely what they are going to do. GW2 have had a really great comunity so far, i don’t want that to change.

Other games going F2P is usually an indication that they have one foot in the grave… I think that’s probably the most uncomfortable part for me.
So lets just call this a trial. I like the word trial, F2P not so much.

It’s worth noting that GW2 remains one of NCSoft’s highest earners. I mean, it doesn’t come close to Lineage, but nothing NCSoft has comes close to Lineage. I don’t think GW2 has one foot in the grave.

I do think GW2 makes a lot more money from gem sales than from game sales. By lowering the barrier of entry, they could potentially generate a lot more revenue from gems. Not only do they bring in a lot more people to potentially sell gems to, they also remove the initial expenditure and make gems an easier sell as a result. How much more willing would you be to buy gems with real money if you never had to spend money on the game in the first place? Even if you’re not, a lot of others might be.

Multiple posts already.

But f2p should lose out on map chat, not be allowed to pm til x level, no daily login rewards. 100 gold transfer a month. Crafting limit to 250.

SkiTz.4590:

datamined info earlier showed something about a trial account (this could be the F2P).

It also had datamined tidbits of maximum lvl of 15 for free trial (makes sense, only able to get into those start zone lvl 1-15 maps like queensdale)….

Couldn’t speak in map chats or use trading post and things like that either so I HIGHLY DOUBT its a full f2p game lol

Most likely just a free trial.

Thank you kindly for this info. I’m going to believe it until Anet says otherwise on Saturday.

CandyHearts.6025:

SkiTz.4590:

datamined info earlier showed something about a trial account (this could be the F2P).

It also had datamined tidbits of maximum lvl of 15 for free trial (makes sense, only able to get into those start zone lvl 1-15 maps like queensdale)….

Couldn’t speak in map chats or use trading post and things like that either so I HIGHLY DOUBT its a full f2p game lol

Most likely just a free trial.

Thank you kindly for this info. I’m going to believe it until Anet says otherwise on Saturday.

That datamined info is over a year old. It is almost certainly not relevant. It’s probably something ArenaNet considered in the past and scrapped in favor of something else.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Please-don-t-make-it-F2P/
Lets not divide the conversation too much.