Guild Wars 2

It seems like it’s doing more harm than good, what with all the gold sellers and etc.

If we do get rid of them though, anyone who already had a free account should definitely be grandfathered in for obvious reasons. They should be the only ones allowed now to have a free account.

So what do you guys think? Are free accounts worth this?

EDIT: Another option is to limit them a lot more or at least in a different way as to completely deny making trash accounts such as removing all abilities to trade with any others except, of course, NPCs.

EDIT 2: Yet another option is to remove the level cap and area restrictions but to disallow free accounts from chatting completely. No WTS channel even. Maybe only whispering to friends will be enabled.

None of the gold sellers are F2P accounts. They have severe restrictions on trading, can’t use map chat and can’t whisper.

Ariurotl.3718:

None of the gold sellers are F2P accounts.

OK, but do you have a source for this?

F2P accounts are heavily restricted. The inability to trade with other accounts and the limits on whispering means those accounts aren’t useful for gold sellers. Stealing accounts from ANet through bank fraud gives them accounts without these restrictions.

Accounts
Whisper
Except for mutual friends, can only whisper in the same map, one new person every 30 seconds
Map chat
No
In game mail
Can only send to mutual friends. Can’t send gold or items.
Trading post
Can buy and sell items from a selected list.

Who is “we?” Are you planning to buy the company?

tolunart.2095:

Who is “we?” Are you planning to buy the company?

I was soo thinking this lol

tolunart.2095:

Who is “we?” Are you planning to buy the company?

Maybe I am. o_o

I’m sure there are a lot of RMT free accounts about but none of those pose a huge threat to anything such as annoying whisper spam. Although if you grandfathered in those accounts we would have a much bigger problem as a result. So nope.

Why should gold sellers use f2p accounts with all their restrictions on map chat, whisper chat, email trade, the trading post, and on what maps they can reach, when they can use bank or credit card fraud to buy accounts with no restrictions and stick ANet with the bill when the charges are reversed (and any fines from Anet’s financial insurance if ANet has too many reversed charges).

They undoubtedly do use some f2p accounts, but stolen paid for accounts are probably their first choice when they can get them.

Arnox.5128:

It seems like it’s doing more harm than good, what with all the gold sellers and etc.

If we do get rid of them though, anyone who already had a free account should definitely be grandfathered in for obvious reasons. They should be the only ones allowed now to have a free account.

So what do you guys think? Are free accounts worth this?

EDIT: Another option is to limit them a lot more or at least in a different way as to completely deny making trash accounts such as removing all abilities to trade with any others except, of course, NPCs.

EDIT 2: Yet another option is to remove the level cap and area restrictions but to disallow free accounts from chatting completely. No WTS channel even. Maybe only whispering to friends will be enabled.

“Play for free” is not going anywhere… Last year it doubled monthly concurrency rates to an estimated 3.1m players.

Good sellers are being dealt with and we won’t die getting the occasional messages.

Even if they weren’t heavily restricted to the point where gold sellers wouldn’t want to use them much anyway, removing free-to-play is never going to go over well. Its pretty much a “Pandora’s box” situation, once you add it you can’t ever take it away without getting a huge backlash.

Hello! I’m someone who only discovered GW2 within the past couple of weeks when searching for “SWTOR alternatives”. If there had not been a free-to-play option, I probably would not have explored GW2 for a few days before purchasing out of appreciation for its many beauties, even though I had missed the deadline for the HoT release discount.

no we should keep offering free accounts

i like being able to tell my friends “oi come play gw2 w/ me” and then they go “yeh alrite” instead of “lol $60 for a 4 y/o game? nty”

So with two factor authentication, how exactly are accounts getting stolen? Or are you guys saying there are still a lot of people that don’t have that yet?

Arnox.5128:

So with two factor authentication, how exactly are accounts getting stolen? Or are you guys saying there are still a lot of people that don’t have that yet?

Fraud is where most of the accounts come from, but many people don’t have 2F Authentication or other security measures on their email accounts.

Arnox.5128:

So with two factor authentication, how exactly are accounts getting stolen? Or are you guys saying there are still a lot of people that don’t have that yet?

Besides stealing accounts from other players, there are also accounts purchased with stolen credit card information.Those can be shut down once the fraud is discovered, but by then the thieves have already been reported for gold selling anyway.

F2P accounts, on the other hand, have enough restrictions on chat that I can’t see them as part of the problem. None of the people who whisper-spam you are F2P accounts, since you have to be mutual friends with a F2P account to get their whispers.

Arnox.5128:

So with two factor authentication, how exactly are accounts getting stolen? Or are you guys saying there are still a lot of people that don’t have that yet?

Hackers break into emails and steal financial information, then sell the information. The gold sellers can also get credit cards using fake information. Stolen bank accounts and credit cards are then used to buy/steal accounts from ANet, the charges of which are later reversed.

As others have said, free accounts cannot be sending you mail or bothering you in /map chat. Gold sellers will remain a fixture in this game (as well as others) as long as there’s a mechanic for trading coin/items/both and players are willing to buy gold/account-buffs on the black market.

The best ANet (or any other company) can do is to reduce the direct impact on the community and, for the most part, ANet does a pretty good job of that.

Restrictions on FTP accounts are why the problem isn’t worse, and their addition to the game encourages more players to try it and gives more opportunities for Anet to make money, both are positive effects for every player.

I’ve tried FTP games where chat is a wall of blah-blah-dot-com advertisements, more gold sellers than players it seems. Anet does a very good job of managing them, but they follow the money like vultures circling a wounded cow. The new LS season means more new and returning players, more advertising and attention for the game, and more gold sellers.

Fortunately whatever “we” decide to do about it is of no consequence, as customers we don’t make those kinds of decisions and Anet is already well aware of the value of FTP offers.

Fair enough. Thanks everyone.

Free to play seems okay for me.
I did pay 45€ for game and after 4 months HoT came out so I had to pay another 45€. But it wasn’t any problem because I like the game.

Free users are limited to Kyrta only with bunch of restrictions.
I think free users can’t even glide.

So F2P is meant for players to try it out and decide if they wanna buy full game

ShinyDay.5349:

I think free users can’t even glide.

Correct. Gliding is a HoT mastery so you need HoT to do it.

My boyfriend’s never really been into MMOs and it was actually the introduction of f2p that got him to try the game out. 2 days later he was in love and I bought him HoT. As someone who doesn’t have a whole lot of money to toss around, I appreciated the fact that he could get a feel of the game and form an opinion before I blew cash on it. Given ANet not exactly liking people sharing accounts (and all the details would have been in his name), I didn’t want to risk buying it, him not liking it and then me either getting banned for taking on the account he ended up not wanting or being out of pocket.

There’s a lot of salt about f2pers but they usually seem to be accused of doing things that they’re not actually able to do due to account restrictions. Says to me the problem’s not with f2p but something else…

Bellatrixa.3546:

There’s a lot of salt about f2pers but they usually seem to be accused of doing things that they’re not actually able to do due to account restrictions. Says to me the problem’s not with f2p but something else…

I think perhaps a lot of the salt mainly comes from people who’ve already bought the core game and think that the F2Pers are getting a free meal that they had to pay for in the past, even if the free meal they’re getting is just bread and some soup. That and/or there’s some regular ol’ classism going on here. XP

Arnox.5128:

I think perhaps a lot of the salt mainly comes from people who’ve already bought the core game and think that the F2Pers are getting a free meal that they had to pay for in the past, even if the free meal they’re getting is just bread and some soup. That and/or there’s some regular ol’ classism going on here. XP

Regarding the first point, I think it’s true to some degree. The common assumption is that the core game is entirely free now which isn’t strictly true. A heavily stripped down and restricted version of the core game is free. Most people on having this explained generally tend to calm down. F2P came out not long after I’d pre-ordered HoT and started playing. Initially I felt a bit ticked off until I saw what f2p accounts would actually be able to do, realised that I’d have bought the full game anyway and got on with playing.

I don’t know if I’d call it classism exactly, but I get what you mean. Some people just like to look down on others who they feel are ‘lesser’ than them because it makes them feel better about themselves. It just bugs me when people try to claim that certain things are caused by f2pers when they have no actual way of doing what they’re accused of (no offence). Or when people assume that because someone was a bit of an idiot that they’re instantly a f2per.

How is it heavily stripped down pray tell? You can do everything that isn’t tied to HoT. Yes you start with fewer character slots, fewer default bag slots per character and the restrictions to discourage it’s use as RMT burner accounts. But you have access to everything in the original game in terms of professions, crafting, dungeons, fractals, zones, etc.

Behellagh.1468:

How is it heavily striped down pray tell? You can do everything that isn’t tied to HoT. Yes you start with fewer character slots, fewer default bag slots per character and the restrictions to discourage it’s use as RMT burner accounts. But you have access to everything in the original game in terms of professions, crafting, dungeons, fractals, zones, etc.

https://help.guildwars2.com/entries/95982157-Account-types-Free-Core-HoT

There’s no map chat. You can’t convert gold to gems. You can’t access a whole bunch of the actual main content until you reach a certain level at least. You can’t whisper others unless friends. You can’t post on the forums. You don’t have full access to the Trading Post. You don’t get any daily login bonuses. Etc.

I’d say that’s pretty darn limited. And honestly, besides the aforementioned gold sellers which apparently I just learned don’t even use these accounts, I see absolutely 0 problem with them. They allow more players to try before they buy thus increasing the player count. ANet gets more money and we have even more people to meet and battle and play with. The active player count is the lifeblood of MMOs.

I know the limits, I have one to play on EU and none of that consists of “stripped down” from the original.

• The level restrictions until access non-starter zones is trivial, an hour or two of play at most, or 10 minutes crafting. Plus you have WP to each of the starter zones.
• WvW is account wide unlock at 60 but honestly if you aren’t already 80 with rares at minimum you are putting yourself at a disadvantage.
• The various chat restrictions are necessary to discourage RMT usage and isn’t really that bad in practice. At the very least it gets players standing next to each other chatting out of map chat.
• No Gold to Gems? TANSTAAFL, buy the game or buy gems with cash, cheapskate.

When I hear stripped down I think of other MMOs with F2P versions that are more like trials with limit access to classes with gold and level caps. And that’s on top of similar chat restrictions.

“Sripped down” is yet another example of forum hyperbole in an attempt to bolster a position that isn’t defendable from the get go.

Behellagh.1468:

When I hear stripped down I think of other MMOs with F2P versions that are more like trials with limit access to classes with gold and level caps. And that’s on top of similar chat restrictions.

“Sripped down” is yet another example of forum hyperbole in an attempt to bolster a position that isn’t defendable from the get go.

When you hear it. Doesn’t mean that was the meaning designated by the person who said it or that other people interpret it in the same manner.

stripped-down
adjective
reduced to essentials.

Now, what other than those two words did you object to in my posts? Because right now it seems like you’re trying to argue about nothing based on one phrase that you’ve decided to give a more exaggerated personal meaning.
Also please bear in mind that you took on a f2p account as an already established and experienced player of GW2; your items and gold might not have been transferable to EU but your knowledge was. You already knew how to make those restrictions not matter as much. Newer players (using my boyfriend and f2pers that’ve been recruited to my guild) don’t have that advantage and in my personal observational experience have run into quite a few of the walls that don’t bother you as an already knowledgeable player. The TP restrictions are what seem to catch a lot of people but again, I understand why they’re there.

Considering expansions are generally required to stay current and progress in a game, just compare what HoT gives you that f2p doesn’t. The gap between f2p and core isn’t huge in terms of content (I’d say the restrictions affect how you go about things more than content itself), but when you factor in that HoT is required to progress the story to now, I’d say that part of the game is most certainly ‘stripped down’, whether you like it or not (using my definition, not your hyperbolic one). It’s like being able to read the first few pages of a book on Amazon before you buy it, which is perfectly fine in my eyes.

There’s not so many/harsh restrictions that it’d put most people off playing f2p, but the hand of ANet is firmly encouraging you to pay if you want to do more than just the basics, which is a good thing.

I’m not sure what you’re trying to pick a fight over other than personal definitions of a phrase; I’m pro f2p and I feel it’s been implemented fairly but whatever gets you through the day I guess -shrugs-

If it wasn’t FTP I would have never downloaded the game. If I had never downloaded the game I’d have never payed for it.

FTP is how anet got my money after people had been asking me to play the game for years.

If you look at it as an rpg; there are additional time gates for exiting starter zones and wvw, etc, however all aspects of gameplay are available to the f2p. So it isn’t stripped down from that perspective.

However, as a mmo; f2p is severely restricting because of the social and economic restrictions. After all, those are some of the most important factors that differentiate mmos from single player games.

I personally feel it strikes a good balance when compared to other game’s f2p models.

Gold sellers aren’t f2p accounts though. There are alot of restrictions on F2P that would bait anyone into buying the game, I’d say it’s more of an unlimited trial. . . . Being unable to use TP or send someone anything at all is what made me buy the game in the first place. And of course HoT and gliding etc…

Bellatrixa.3546:

Behellagh.1468:

When I hear stripped down I think of other MMOs with F2P versions that are more like trials with limit access to classes with gold and level caps. And that’s on top of similar chat restrictions.

“Sripped down” is yet another example of forum hyperbole in an attempt to bolster a position that isn’t defendable from the get go.

When you hear it. Doesn’t mean that was the meaning designated by the person who said it or that other people interpret it in the same manner.

stripped-down
adjective
reduced to essentials.

Now, what other than those two words did you object to in my posts? Because right now it seems like you’re trying to argue about nothing based on one phrase that you’ve decided to give a more exaggerated personal meaning.
Also please bear in mind that you took on a f2p account as an already established and experienced player of GW2; your items and gold might not have been transferable to EU but your knowledge was. You already knew how to make those restrictions not matter as much. Newer players (using my boyfriend and f2pers that’ve been recruited to my guild) don’t have that advantage and in my personal observational experience have run into quite a few of the walls that don’t bother you as an already knowledgeable player. The TP restrictions are what seem to catch a lot of people but again, I understand why they’re there.

Considering expansions are generally required to stay current and progress in a game, just compare what HoT gives you that f2p doesn’t. The gap between f2p and core isn’t huge in terms of content (I’d say the restrictions affect how you go about things more than content itself), but when you factor in that HoT is required to progress the story to now, I’d say that part of the game is most certainly ‘stripped down’, whether you like it or not (using my definition, not your hyperbolic one). It’s like being able to read the first few pages of a book on Amazon before you buy it, which is perfectly fine in my eyes.

There’s not so many/harsh restrictions that it’d put most people off playing f2p, but the hand of ANet is firmly encouraging you to pay if you want to do more than just the basics, which is a good thing.

I’m not sure what you’re trying to pick a fight over other than personal definitions of a phrase; I’m pro f2p and I feel it’s been implemented fairly but whatever gets you through the day I guess -shrugs-

True, that is the definition but in colloquial usage it’s commonly used in a derogatory way. “Oh, you bought the stripped down model, do the windows even roll down?” If that’s not what you meant then I’m sorry.

The thing is the chat restrictions is no different than say the trial version of WoW but unlike a trial you have the full game in terms of core content. But comparing F2P with HoT and then complain about F2P is totally unfair. When you are leveling, there is very little you are missing by not having HoT, basically account wide mastery unlocks and picking Revenant. Once you hit 80 then yes, there is a lot of content you are missing out on but that’s the carrot to BUY the game cause at the end of the day ANet runs on cash.

Redenaz.8631:

F2P accounts, on the other hand, have enough restrictions on chat that I can’t see them as part of the problem. None of the people who whisper-spam you are F2P accounts, since you have to be mutual friends with a F2P account to get their whispers.

Just one correction – You don’t have to be mutual friends with a F2P player to get their whispers if you’re on the same map, and they only try one whisper every 30 seconds.

I actually think they did a really good job with the free accounts.

In my mind it’s a lot like the idea of shareware (which doesn’t seem to exist anymore, at least not for games), basically an extended demo. Because you can play for as long as you want, in all the core game maps (not right away, but you don’t have to pay to unlock them) and you’ve got access to all the levels and skills you can see whatever aspects of the game you want to decide if it’s something you want to pay for.

None of the restrictions actually prevent you playing the game (although I find the lack of map chat incredibly frustrating), but they do seem to do a good job of preventing abuse of free accounts by gold sellers. I suspect sooner or later they will affect most people, especially being unable to trade most items. But at that point it’s probably time to make your mind up and if you’re going to keep playing actually buy the game.

Which is another thing I like. In most free to play games you’d either have to pay a subscription to lift those restrictions (meaning it gets more expensive the longer you play) or pay for each one individually, which often ends up far more expensive than buying a full game. Whereas I feel like GW2 is very up-front about it. It’s 1 payment to lift all the restrictions in one go.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Why should gold sellers use f2p accounts with all their restrictions on map chat, whisper chat, email trade, the trading post, and on what maps they can reach, when they can use bank or credit card fraud to buy accounts with no restrictions and stick ANet with the bill when the charges are reversed (and any fines from Anet’s financial insurance if ANet has too many reversed charges).

They undoubtedly do use some f2p accounts, but stolen paid for accounts are probably their first choice when they can get them.

Haven’t seen any gold seller spam on map chat in ages. Pretty much all through whispers.

Khisanth.2948:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Why should gold sellers use f2p accounts with all their restrictions on map chat, whisper chat, email trade, the trading post, and on what maps they can reach, when they can use bank or credit card fraud to buy accounts with no restrictions and stick ANet with the bill when the charges are reversed (and any fines from Anet’s financial insurance if ANet has too many reversed charges).

They undoubtedly do use some f2p accounts, but stolen paid for accounts are probably their first choice when they can get them.

Haven’t seen any gold seller spam on map chat in ages. Pretty much all through whispers.

They cannot whisper random people either though. It is full accounts that are doing the spamming.

Here’s what I think, Living story season 3 came out so many players returned to the game. Many people are infected with keyloggers or had been phished before so those accounts now got stolen. Hence the increase in goldseller spam, because there are more accounts being stolen. But it’s just what I think, only Anet will know what’s really going on.

Another possibility is that many people returned to the game, decided to buy from a gold seller to “catch up” and got tricked.

According to various articles I’ve read (about gold selling generally, not just in GW2) it’s really not uncommon for them to steal accounts from their own customers. They trick people into giving away their login details when signing up for their service (in some cases it’s as simple as requiring you to register with their site and counting on people using the same email and password) and then if you don’t keep buying from them or if they simply decide there’s more benefit from stealing your account than selling to you they’ll take it over.

user does exist.6483:

Khisanth.2948:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Why should gold sellers use f2p accounts with all their restrictions on map chat, whisper chat, email trade, the trading post, and on what maps they can reach, when they can use bank or credit card fraud to buy accounts with no restrictions and stick ANet with the bill when the charges are reversed (and any fines from Anet’s financial insurance if ANet has too many reversed charges).

They undoubtedly do use some f2p accounts, but stolen paid for accounts are probably their first choice when they can get them.

Haven’t seen any gold seller spam on map chat in ages. Pretty much all through whispers.

They cannot whisper random people either though. It is full accounts that are doing the spamming.

Free accounts can send whispers. 1 new person every 30s and needs to be on the same map as the person they are sending the whisper.

During guild mission night, we sometimes encounter gold sellers using whispers. They don’t seem to be using free accounts, since many of us receive the exact same message from the exact same seller at essentially the exact same time based on guild members reactions in teamspeak. As a result, these gold seller whispers seem to be using full accounts (likely hacked or purchased with stolen credit cards) which have no restrictions on the number of whispers they can send in a given time span.