Guild Wars 2

I have always had issues with this idea. Although guild wars 2’s gem system does not really add anything of added influence to your account with the exception of bank stash and 1 bag slot, and some buffs. I personally would not use the gem store for that reason, unless I traded gold for the gems. But what about black chest keys. They dont give you anything you coulkd use to help your account but add some fun things, esecially with the 22nd in a few days.

I am stuck, I want to get some cool things from the halloween event, but I dont want to feel bad about spending money on gems because I dont want to feel like I am having an unfair advantage to the game. I never really liked the games where you could spend money for gems, but I understand why its there. But should I be a part of it?

Question, Do you feel bad spending money on going to the movies?

I don’t go to the movies, this game is my form of entertainment. I set an monthly entertainment budget for myself and that’s the amount I’m “allowed” to spend on frivolous items like Gem Store purchases.

Arena Net does a fine job of only selling fun items in the store and not selling anything that would get an advantage. Anything in the store is totally optional and not having it won’t keep you from doing anything.

This is true, the only thing I really dont like is that its ok to buy gems with gold, but selling gems for gold, can be an unfair advantage, I would never do this but it is there.

The buffs are small and temporary ones, so I would not feel guilty about buying those.

My guildmates level up their cooking professions and give away their hundreds of cakes and pies, which also grant small and temporary buffs.

While running around in the game, I occasionally pick up Black Lion Keys and Black Lion Chests, and so win for free the same small and temporary buffs you might buy from the gem store.

If the gem store ever sells a magic sword that does twice as much damage as any sword one can find or make in the game, then you can feel guilty.

You should only feel bad if you can’t afford the gems and you are diverting money from more important things, but the way I look at it is this. Recently I had a $15 recurring bill that I managed to finally get rid of, so if I buy 800 gems a month, I’m still $5 ahead.

Its not spending the money that is the issue, its spending the money for un-fair advantages

Nashiem.8932

Its not spending the money that is the issue, its spending the money for un-fair advantages

I’m not sure what you’re finding to be an unfair advantage. Buying gold is just an alternative to spending hours farming. You’re not forced to do it, it’s just another way to get in game currency. That currency can’t even be used to get the better in game items.

Then you really shouldn’t feel bad, the only “unfair” advantages are not only pretty small, they also only apply to PvE and WvW and are completely attainable without actually spending any gems at all.

I have a ton of the buffs from the cash shop just from playing through the personal story and just playing the game, but they’re just kind of sitting there doing nothing at the moment (I’m terrible at using time sensitive things, the only reason I used my golem banker from the DD stuff is because I accidentally activated it :P)

This is a pay-to-win game. Why would you feel bad about playing the game the way it was meant to be played? Just go ahead and spend the money if you can afford it.

Bubbles.1047:

This is a pay-to-win game. Why would you feel bad about playing the game the way it was meant to be played? Just go ahead and spend the money if you can afford it.

how is this game pay to win?
You have no idea what ur talking about.
pay to win is diablo 3 where u can buy GEAR with real money.
So are you saying the gem shop sells gear?
You can convert gems to gold and buy items ingame on the ah if thats what you mean by PTW.

But how is that different from any other mmo like wow where you can buy gold from gold farmers and do the same?

I put 60 bucks in gw2 so far so i can upgrade my bank and inventory slots and thats all. Whats wrong with that? thats not pay to win.

Like i said, u got no idea what your talking about

LOL @ pay-to-win Bubbles. You obviously don’t know what that means.

And LOL @ thinking having gold in this game gives you an unfair advantage. That’s a ridiculous notion. Nothing you can get with gold makes you a more skilled player and that’s what GW2 gameplay depends on, skill. Not on gear, that is why we have no vertical gear progression at 80.

No you shouldn’t feel bad for using a legitimate feature of the game, if it was buying from gold sellers then that is a different issue as botting and gold sellers destroy the game and should mean a instant ban but using ANets own feature does not have the same harmful effect on the game.

See gemstore as “instead-of-monthly-cost” and you know you can buy for around €8/$12 a month without feeling bad about it, whatever you get from it.

Seriously guys don’t get trolled by bubbles… @op, don’t feel bad, I bought every single thing in the GW1 store and that included bonus missions that no one else had access to unless they bought it. I didn’t feel bad for supporting ANet, who at the time was a very respectable company that loved its fans. Anyone else could fork out that cash.

I had 3 accounts in GW1 too.

I feel bad for NOT spending any money in the gem store and buying all my gems with ingame currency.

I think this whole idea that cooperative PvE is just about getting your gear (and prestige items) before the next guy is the most negative hangover from the culture that World Of Warcraft has developed into in the last few years (during which I fortunately haven’t been playing it).

What’s clear is that Arenanet greatly underestimated the extent to which players would go to avoid doing the content and instead crowd into limited areas to get gold as quickly as possible.

I don’t think there is a way to get “unfair advantages” with gems.
Gold doesn’t make you better or stronger than any other 80 with exotics out there.
You just made yourself on par with them from a statistical point of view, that’s about it; you saved yourself 10 hours or so.

The only reason I would buy gems would be the permanent mechants and a thing to remove waypoint fees, everything else is not appealing to me so far.

I personally never spend money on “In Game Cash” because i think half the fun comes from earning the rewards yourself. But its in the game so i see no reason to feel bad about it. I think its perfectly fine to buy in game content if you want to!

If you should I feel bad about spending real money on gems then Anet should feel bad for designing the game the way they did.

You shouldn’t feel bad about continuing to support Anet. They only made the best MMO ever and didn’t tack on a subscription. If you’ve got some extra cash to wipe your nose with, you might as well send it Anet’s way.

The money paid into the RMT store pays for the servers, developers, support staff, etc.

No, you should not feel bad for providing ongoing financial support to the game.

Cash shops are the wave of the future. Like it or not the pay to win approach to gaming for some reason appeals to a great deal of players. This game does a good job not putting game breaking materials for sale I their shop. I bought gems for extra bank and bag space and used the rest for keys just to see what was in the chests (waste of money).

1) Yea for not being able to get money for yourself in the game and doing it the easy way through real money. It’s like using gameshark to beat a game, not forbidden but removes the achievement feeling.

2) No because ANET sells it and you have money to spend on it.

Choose your answer.

Sparty.5934:

Cash shops are the wave of the future. Like it or not the pay to win approach to gaming for some reason appeals to a great deal of players. This game does a good job not putting game breaking materials for sale I their shop. I bought gems for extra bank and bag space and used the rest for keys just to see what was in the chests (waste of money).

I think that as time goes on, the “casual” player base ages and moves forward in life. More gamers today have full time jobs and families than they did ten years ago. The hardcore players may be able to spend 10 hrs a day grinding out coins and tokens to go up a step on the gear ladder, but when you work 10 hrs a day already that’s not an option. So a greater number of players today are cash rich but time poor.

There are games that reward those who have the ability to spend all day in game, and there are games that reward those who have extra cash to compensate for the lack of time to grind. The trick is to balance the two so that neither group feels left out.

I spent money in the shop to buy extra character slots, and I probably will drop a few more bucks in it next week for Halloween goodies.

I feel zero remorse; I enjoy the game, I like fluff, and most importantly, it’s my money to spend as I choose.

Don’t lose sleep over it, OP. It’s just a video game.

Can everyone please stop equating a cash shop with pay2win.

They are 2 different things, nothing in GW2’s cash shop gives any form of stat boost and does not affect the outcome of a fight.

I dont feel bad. I have a great career now that eats up alot of my time where 10 years ago I could spend all day every day playing. So with the less time I have, but with alot of disposeable income, I tend to buy a few more gems than the next person. Besides, gem purchases keeps new content rolling in. Hopefully.

If you actually care about a band you should buy their CDs, or at least buy their songs individually (preferably not from Amazon since they have the same parent company as WMG, which contributed greatly to Youtube jumping the shark).

The same principle applies to gaming: more revenue for the company means R&D money to deal with bots and content updates. In return you get at least as much or more bagspace than gossmer or silk bags would permit with default bagspace (15g pr even 1g for a rune of holding?! No thank you I’ll stock up on cotton bags instead)

This game has saved me the $15 a month i payed subbed to other games that don’t give me as much satisfaction for the amount of time i might log in and play. Paying for things I never got to see and content I did. That’s 180 a year. minus the initail box cost I paid $60 and that’s $120 this year i’ll save.
So is it bad if i pop down $50 to bu some gems or account upgrades that i can actually use and benefits me directly? Nope, Here Arena.net, take my money please for making me an MMO I am addicted to and having more fun that i could have thought possible in an MMO again.

If you enjoy it and it is legal and it doesn’t hurt you (and others), go spend for it.

If I could afford to buy them with real money, I would. The reason I would is because it helps to support the game and ensures that more content will come out in the future. As long as someone is either buying the base game or buying stuff off the diamond store, then the game is being supported. I wouldn’t feel bad at all about that. That’s like being a sponsor for the game imho.
I fully plan on spending money on diamonds as soon as I’m financially able.

I have read all the comments and here is what I feel. There is an unfair advantage to certain people that buy gems and then trade it in for gold because for one they can get their crafting skills maxed in no time at all. I personally would never use the gem store to help me in the game, but for fun items, or armor/ weapon skins, thats a diffrent story. They do not add anything to the game but looks, and I would consider spending real money for that. But the idea of spending money to aquire what I could from grinding is an easy way out.

In a similar way guild wars 1 eventyally added pvp skill packs. at first I did not particapate in this, but after I started getting more involved in pvp it became a must have. Only bad part, it unlocked all the pve skills as well.

In the end I will always feel bad about putting money into a game where I could get the same result from grinding hard, But for events like halloween I dont have time to make enough gold to aquire enough gems to produce the results I would like to have, stricktly for fun of course, not to help my toon. Skins and fun things you can only get from the gem shop. But just the idea of spending real money for something that I could get from hard work is what makes me feel bad. I guess if you could not by gems with gold than it would be diffrent. But I appreciate anet for adding that feature as it gives the player an option to choose.

Buying Gems is one way to support GW2, since it doesn’t charge a sub. I think the retail Gem Card is a great idea and I intend to buy one to upgrade my character slots.

ArenaNet, in my opinon, has done an excellent job in making sure that purchases using gems aren’t providing any sort of unfair advantage. And, to be very honest, I am actually willing to spend additional money on this game because of that, and because of no subscriptions!

only reason i don’t do it yet is because gems are still cheap enough to be bought with gold. i look at how hard it is to get, say, 5g, and think “this isn’t worth 10 dollars”, so i haven’t bought any yet. prices are rising though, if they become expensive enough i’ll start buying them with cash (though only to spend on gem store items, never to trade for gold. feels like a waste of money).

In my case, I will feel bad if I spend money on cash items that doesn’t benefits me nor make me special.

I personally bought some gems before. I have that feeling thinking whether it’s worth or not. I feel this way more in GW2 than any other mmo. Maybe it’s because there’s no gear progression in GW2 end-game. I don’t feel like spending money on gems because it won’t make me stronger or special. In previous mmo I played, I feel my money was worth it because it made my stats higher than average players. It make me feel “special”.

I wish they did what Riot does and give you bonus gems if you spend more money. Man I keep giving Riot money even when I don’t play their game that competitively.

Selling gems for gold is really not an effective way of getting game gold. If you feel bad about it, don’t do it, simple. I buy gems primarily to expand my inventory options, character slots, and to buy chest keys. Since chest keys are so rare (compared to the chests) I don’t really feel bad doing it. Nothing I’ve bought gives me any advantage over other players.

With the exception of the gem trading I feel this is what a cash shop should be- small items that add to convenience of the game via bank size or xp boosters, but are obtainable ingame albeit through a much slower pace. Cosmetic items that give no bonuses other than to look unique are a plus too, but the moment any item is added that give a permanent stat boost I’m deleting the game.

Only items that’s worth purchasing are the extra bank slots. Having said that, 600 gems (enough for a bank slot) = 10 bucks?

Less you earning minimum wage, 10 bucks is nothing as it’s basically cheaper then ordering pizza thus if it’s bothering you that much, just don’t order out this weekend, haha.

Before the game was released, gem store was part of the ruleset. So it’s not at all something to feel good or bad about in-game.

Now your pastor might think you should donate the money instead of spending on a game. Or your romantic partner might rather you spend it on him/her. Maybe your nephew needs new shoes. And there’s millions of people out of work, growing #s living in poverty…

In-game, tho, it’s been part of the rule-set from the beginning. Just cuz it’s a cheesy cheat in another game, doesn’t make it wrong here. That’s like feeling like a good hard hit in hockey is mean or unsporting, just cuz it’s against the rules in non-contact sports like baseball or basketball.

Beast.9516:

Nothing I’ve bought gives me any advantage over other players.

Let’s clarify that. Using the gem store definitely CAN make your character better than it was before. Better looking AND better performing than it was before. That’s ok, and part of the game.

What it won’t do is give you a play advantage over another player who doesn’t buy gems with $, but acquires the same items using in-game methods.

i.e. maybe I buy it with $$ and maybe you have to farm for it.