Guild Wars 2

That’s a low blow , anet. How many ppl will be denied the opportunity to witness the magnificence and radiance that is llama finisher? Don’t remove it!

I better snatch a few finishers up then, didn’t even notice a lot are being taken away.

But yes – llama is majestic finisher… Must stay available forever…

Just kill them and show them your llama….

I mean the solution is pretty clear.

One could only hope it’s removed from their cash-shop so they can put it in the game.. You know, in the light of Mike (president Anet) talking about how much he loves the B2P model, where they don’t bother people with the cash-shop but convince them to buy the game (basically what he said at the last big presentation)..

Reality however is that they most likely remove it so they can later put it back for a day, that is basic marketing. Create a feeling of urge, or a feeling of rarity.

They should use that sort of marketing for the game itself, selling a temporary available CE that has some limited stuff items. them being a B2P game, not with cash-shop items, them not being a cash-shop game.

The llama finisher is truly magnificent.
It will be treasured by those who have it, and coveted by those who don’t.

This sounds like teleshopping advertisement

People keep saying that the only reason to remove stuff is to sell more of them. Me? I prefer them to throw out the old and introduce new stuff. The longer stuff stays in the shop, the more we take it for granted and the less special it feels. I prefer they only bring it back for anniversary/nostalgia sales.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

People keep saying that the only reason to remove stuff is to sell more of them. Me? I prefer them to throw out the old and introduce new stuff. The longer stuff stays in the shop, the more we take it for granted and the less special it feels. I prefer they only bring it back for anniversary/nostalgia sales.

The same way they’ve brought back the oft-requested Bunny Ears, right? They sure have a track record of bringing things back that people request. And it is in-game as a skin now for those who owned it for that matter, so there’s no reason why it shouldn’t have been made available to those that wanted it. I’d rather they stop this annoying removal of items, stripping down the goods on offer. I highly doubt there is a limitation of shelving that’s behind their removal here, it’s an e-shop, it by its very nature has endless shelving.. “before we make room for all-new goods”, right! It’s not as if it’s confusing to have a lot of items on offer, though if anything, they should make some effort towards doing a better job sorting it into sub-categories, such as Outfits, Skins, and even then, into Head, Shoulder, Hands, etc., as a sub-filter for Skins again, and so on forth. If something isn’t selling well, it’s because it were a poorly made product. Or, it’s saturated, such as the various unlimited gathering tools, if you have one of each, why would you want to buy more—removing and putting them back in is not going to change that. It’s nice to have various styles available, but don’t expect people to buy more than one of each, perhaps two, if they want to style a specific character.

ArenaNet simply turned greedy over the years. That much is fairly obvious to me. The is the sole purpose of the removal, is greed. To create a false sense of urgency, because it’s going “out of stock”. To create a false sense of supply and demand, on something that is inherently unlimited in stock, it’s digital. “before we make room for all-new goods”, don’t make me laugh. I miss the old ArenaNet, who weren’t seemingly all about money, but very much about their players too. I don’t honestly get that feeling from them anymore. Especially after that horrible event they threw together recently. I get it, ArenaNet is a business, they both need and want money. They’re not our friends. But they’ve done some exceptionally stupid things over the past 3 years that’s made me spend less money in their store, and that really irks me the wrong way. They are trying to make up for a lack of sales, after ruining their own potential for revenue in the past. One example, making it near-impossible to collect Miniatures if you want to be a completionist about it, freaking Mini Mr. Sparkles.. And once upon a time they used to be our friends. With Guild Wars they were absolutely in touch with their community. Nowadays, it feels as if that connection is borderline lost. There’s a few great profession representatives though.

Absconditus.6804:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

People keep saying that the only reason to remove stuff is to sell more of them. Me? I prefer them to throw out the old and introduce new stuff. The longer stuff stays in the shop, the more we take it for granted and the less special it feels. I prefer they only bring it back for anniversary/nostalgia sales.

ArenaNet turned exceptionally greedy over the years. That much is obvious to me. This is the sole purpose of the removal, greed. To create a false sense of urgency, because it’s going “out of stock”. I miss the old ArenaNet, who weren’t seemingly all about money, but very much about their players too. I don’t honestly get that feeling from them anymore. Especially after that horrible event they threw together recently. I honestly wish they’d relocate or fire whoever is their Gem Store lead (not that he/she is related to the event being so bad). I believe they used to work for “that Korean F2P company”—most people should be familiar with them, it both starts and ends on N—which explains a whole lot why we get treated like dirt when it comes to money transactions. I get it, ArenaNet is a business, they need and want money. They’re not our friends. But they’ve done some exceptionally stupid things over the past 3 years that’s made me spend less money in their store. And they used to be our friends. With Guild Wars they were absolutely in touch with their community.

You do realize the person whose name you are not saying worked for ANet for several years immediately before going to work for “that Korean F2P company” before returning to ANet. And that back in May a feature write up was done on them which listed them working on the mastery system and seems to be no longer part of the “commerce team” since the time LS2 was going on.

What do you suggest then as a means to stimulate actual cash purchases from the Gem Shop? That don’t involve paying for power or advantage or locking normal content? The two existing mechanisms they have is artificial scarcity, pulling items and returning them for a limited time; and sales that drain excess gold and gems from player inventories so cash purchased gems is all that’s left for them.

You can only depend on whales for so long before they have everything at which time they cease being your sugar daddy. You need to get normal players to spend cash on gems. Keeping an item in the Gem Shop means a player could save up enough gold to buy it. That doesn’t pay ANet’s bills.

As for finishers, I believe that there is an elite specialization that uses one in normal PvE content, implying that some critters may get recovery and heals from their kind. Seems like a perfect opportunity to rerelease these during HoT.

I didn’t like the llama finisher, other than the lights and music at the end.

I chose the robot beatdown+rocket take off instead. seems to fit in with the game much more than a random llama dancing.

I will say that I have never, ever…seen anyone use that llama finisher, so I don’t think its as highly sought after as you might assume.

Behellagh.1468:

What do you suggest then as a means to stimulate actual cash purchases from the Gem Shop? That don’t involve paying for power or advantage or locking normal content? The two existing mechanisms they have is artificial scarcity, pulling items and returning them for a limited time; and sales that drain excess gold and gems from player inventories so cash purchased gems is all that’s left for them.

You can only depend on whales for so long before they have everything at which time they cease being your sugar daddy. You need to get normal players to spend cash on gems. Keeping an item in the Gem Shop means a player could save up enough gold to buy it. That doesn’t pay ANet’s bills.

As for finishers, I believe that there is an elite specialization that uses one in normal PvE content, implying that some critters may get recovery and heals from their kind. Seems like a perfect opportunity to rerelease these during HoT.

The Daredevil “finisher” attack didn’t use a finisher in PvE. It was simply a strong attack. If anything, they could make more PvE foes finishable, like the Toxic ones. I wouldn’t hate that personally, though I guess some might, as it’s one more step to kill something. And I use the Llama Finisher from time to time. I just change it often, as I own them all. It’s what I collect now. Well, unless Anet wants to ruin that by making one impossible to obtain for me that is.

The problem Anet has, is that when they seemingly have good means of earning steady money, they loosen the bowels and lets a big fat cow pie land on their legs. Miniatures, great means of steady income. But no, first they ruin it for a whole lot of people by putting some inside RNG boxes for Wintersday 2012, a whole lot of collectors stopped collecting at that point, since their collections were broken. Then they give away Mini Mr. Sparkles during a few games conventions, ruining further collections, this is where they lost me as a collector. Sure, several months later they made it so that you would get him if you had spent 4000 Gems in the store over the course of December, but that was way too late. People, myself included, had already skipped on a few packs by then. Then they start giving away a Mini Llama randomly at Twitch streams and to a few streamers here and there, ruining further collections. Some people think they were so immensely common, but no, they weren’t, not really. They, purposely ruined a market for themselves. A market that would have continued to be a steady income from “whales”. The only thing they had to do to resolve this, was to make them unbound. Up for trade. Nobody’s collection would ever be impossible to complete.

What they should do though, is organize their store properly. It’s a jumbled mess. There is no proper categorization, no proper sub-filters. Why is there only Style, and not further categorization for Outfits, Skins – Full, Head, Shoulder, Hands, Backpiece, Weapons – Staff, Sword, Mace, Shield, etc.? Miniatures are categorized as Toys. Sure, though as I explained, they’ve shot themselves in the foot with those regardless, but nevertheless they could be put into their own category. And if they want to create a demand, put up sales. Sales drives Gems to Gold up from Gold to Gems conversions, which in turn makes people buy Gems to get Gold. Fair enough, it is basically just shifting hands from several individuals to one “whale” willing to spend real money, while some trickle out of the market. It’s likely to be largely Gems to Gold conversions that is the brunt of their income, not actual individual purchases of items. Just look at the conversion and watch it jump back and forth. During a sale, you’ll see the cost for Gold drop immensely as people are converting Gold to Gems to afford items that’s on offer for a reduced price. And again, this in turn will quickly be offset by people converting Gems to Gold.

They need, frequent sales, just like Steam (do a Daily item on offer once the library is big enough, and a few Weekly offers with “slightly worse” deals). That alone is likely to shift Gold from those who won’t buy Gems, to those who do, with some leakage into oblivion. It will also bring some (likely a lot) people in daily, to check what is on sale today, or this week, and so on forth. In turn, tempting them to buy something else.

Ah, I now notice they throw out a lot of stuff.

So there are two options.

1: Mike’s talk about how he likes B2P and they convince people to buy HoT instead of trying so monetize them holds value. (While he also said the gems-tore would not change.. as if it was not already bad) and those items will soon find their way into the game, and in the future we will see more items come in-game, and less in the gem-store. Them focusing on the gem-store.

Or

2: It is indeed just something they will bring back later… Or not.. who nows.. BUY NOW!, to then have it available again temporary in a way to get people to buy it. Meaning all those nice words about B2P hold no value whatsoever and all there is to say about the ‘model’ is ‘disgusting’.

Knowing how how Mike basically started Anet, not agreeing about another payment-model, I still hold option 1 as possible, but looking at the last 2,5 years of GW2 the second option is more likely. Maybe Mike notice what was going on and so he did something about it?

If a group of items moves in-game and a group would stay in the gem-store, I would prefer to see toys, mini’s and skins moving to the game where they belong, while finishers, and mail carriers stay in the gem-store.

Only the future will tell us.

Devata.6589:

Only the future will tell us.

Well, the very recent past already did, heh. It’s to “make room” for new items. Because a e-store clearly runs out of room to stock their goods. It’s not as if it’s virtual or anything. I think the Gem Store is fair enough as it exists btw., and I’ve never really felt it was Pay 2 Win, even with the boosters. I just dislike when they take items out to create some artificial supply and demand.

Evon Gnashblade

The cubs are entering their fahrars, the days are growing shorter, and the weather grows colder. Summer is over, and with its end, we begin our transition into our winter lineup of items. This week marks your last chance to pick up our summer items before we make room for all-new goods.

Source: https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/seasonal-transition-in-the-gem-store/
_____________

Evon Gnashblade

Finishers
It’s time to retire our nonseasonal finisher sales from the Upgrades section of the Gem Store. The entire current line of finishers will be removed from Upgrades after this week, so this is your last chance to purchase them directly using gems.

Is interesting though.. and it almost sounds like they will be possible to earn in-game going forwards. —"this is your last chance to purchase them directly using gems." It could be something they aim to put into the sPvP Leagues and their rewards, e.g., a choice of a finisher for reaching x milestone. Makes some mild sense, I guess. And if so, I take back the greedy Anet comments. That’d be rather awesome, even if I’ve bought them all.

I agree that the style section needs to be sub-sectioned. Preview needs zoom for headgear.

But I disagree with frequent sales because it trains your entire player base to only buy on sales. It’s as bad a leaving an item in the shop forever. Why buy anything not on sale then? Which is the same reason they won’t let anyone upgrade Hot to the Ultimate Edition because the Ultimate over the Deluxe is nothing more than a gem sale. That is a path they do not want to ever go down. Gems have a known, questionably unfair for EU, price in RW currency. If Gems ever go on sale, the end is nigh.

Sales do drive cash sales of gems either directly, buying gems for items, or transferring a chunk of gold from players not willing to buy gems for cash to players who are willing to buy gems for cash. The exchange rate has returned to a rate fairly close to what it was just before the sale started which indicates balance between gems flowing into and out of the exchange.

But players selling gold need to build up enough to not feel disenfranchised when a sale happens. Otherwise to them it seems that it’s only for the gold or cash rich. Also the exchange rate won’t spike as much and therefore not necessarily drive gem to gold exchanges.

I just want to point out that creating exclusivity via having items not available all the time really does create a buy frenzy as well as an “ooh I want that” feeling for people who don’t have.

It works extremely well in other games like WOT where they have rare tanks go on sale.

To be honest I’m a huge fan of the whole system. When I buy something my hope is that its not available shortly after for a long time, because down the road it will become rare and…I dunno…makes my purchase feel more valuable.

When I buy an outfit and its on the store and doesn’t leave, it sort of starts to feel generic.

Absconditus.6804:

Devata.6589:

Only the future will tell us.

Well, the very recent past already did, heh. It’s to “make room” for new items. Because a e-store clearly runs out of room to stock their goods. It’s not as if it’s virtual or anything. I think the Gem Store is fair enough as it exists btw., and I’ve never really felt it was Pay 2 Win, even with the boosters. I just dislike when they take items out to create some artificial supply and demand.

Evon Gnashblade

The cubs are entering their fahrars, the days are growing shorter, and the weather grows colder. Summer is over, and with its end, we begin our transition into our winter lineup of items. This week marks your last chance to pick up our summer items before we make room for all-new goods.

Source: https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/seasonal-transition-in-the-gem-store/
_____________

Evon Gnashblade

Finishers
It’s time to retire our nonseasonal finisher sales from the Upgrades section of the Gem Store. The entire current line of finishers will be removed from Upgrades after this week, so this is your last chance to purchase them directly using gems.

Is interesting though.. and it almost sounds like they will be possible to earn in-game going forwards. —"this is your last chance to purchase them directly using gems." It could be something they aim to put into the sPvP Leagues and their rewards, e.g., a choice of a finisher for reaching x milestone. Makes some mild sense, I guess.

I have always find it a problem. Don’t matter if you name it P2W or not.

You have a vertical progression game and sell (the best) stats, it’s bad.

You have a horizontal progression game and sell the (best) skins / toys, it’s bad.

I play a horizontal progression game to hunt for horizontal items (like skins and toys and other fluff) in the game.. not to buy it or grind for it. I buy the game to not end up in a free cash-shop game.

Llama is love. Llama is life.

CD673141-975B-42E9-8500-F0FEFF861A7D:

Llama is love. Llama is life.

that sir is an epic account name…that the game key?

It will almost certainly come back at some point. Most items in the gem store are added and removed on a regular basis and recently they’ve even been bringing back items that have been gone for years.

But there’s no way for us to know when that will be. Just keep an eye on announcements.