Guild Wars 2

Ok hear me out.

We all know that Expansions are these Huge Content Packs, offering several zones, instanced based content, and a slew of other features, and they make great additions to the game, in fact, They do a great job of attracting players back to the game, So.. bonus!

But, as a returning player, I noticed that I would need to buy the current LS if I wanted to play it.

Which made me wonder, why not make small content packs like Living Story, and sell them individually.

Since this game is mainly a horizontal level experience at 80th, with content being more about Story and Aesthetics as opposed to actual power, it leads itself well to selling content packs as they would not give players an actual power advantage over anyone else who did not buy the content.

Case in point.

Selling Living Story. Those that bought it Don’t have an unfair advantage over those that Didn’t.

Thus the Content is Purely Optional and it’s purchase is based on if a player might enjoy doing that kind of content, which would remove it from being any kind of Pay to win scheme.

This could be applied to many things.

• Selling legendary Journeys . (Not the weapon.. the JOURNEY, players would still need to complete the Journey to get the weapon)
• Selling Dungeons. These could be newly designed dungeons, done in a manner that is easy for Anet to develop and build as opposed to being more like the Original Dungeons. but, Selling 5 man instanced based content that offers a Story Mode, and repeatable ‘Explorer Paths’ (maybe entirely separate dungeons) that are all part of a theme, and offer their own tokens that can be used to purchase special weapon/armor skins.
• Selling Raid Content. I suppose 3 wings per pack, with their own rewards linked to them.
• Selling PvP Arena Mods. Why not, Buy a Custom design for a Personal Arena, Anyone else can enter it, but, make it so that a player could buy their own Custom Layout for a PvP match.
• Selling WvW Expansion Packs: I would suggest this as Alternate EoTM
  Maps, like an Access Pass, were you can chose which you want to join into, and run with people that also bought the same WvW Expansion Maps.
• Selling Fractals. This would be what it sounds like. Make a whole new Series of Fractals , say, 10 fractals total, and sell them as an Alternate Package. ergo a Desperate Door in the Mistlock Observatory, that allows you enter these “Alternate” Fractals.
• Selling Commander tag Designs. IE: a Pug face, for the WvW commanders that refer to themselves as’ Pugmanders’, Maybe a series of World Bosses, like a dragon, golem,Thorny Vine, Crossed swords, etc, for players that use their Commander tag to do world bosses a lot.
• WvW Armor Skins: More like a Permanent Vendor Access Pass.
• WvW Weapon Skins: Again, a Vendor Access Pass.

There is a lot more that could be put out there, but, the idea here us not simply “lets just sell you the armor skin” or “lets sell you a lottery to maybe be able to get something” it should be ’“Lets sell you access to be able to earn the item”

That is what drives players, content to play with and something to work for.

Selling Small Scale Content packs, would give them exactly that.

It also gives players choices on what they want to invest in, in short it allows them to vote with their wallet in the purest form, what they buy, what they invest in, is what is gets further developed.

Also, these content packs would not be sold for gems, the would only be purchasable with real money, that way, when players chose to invest into buying this content, they invest into the game and directly affect its’ direction.

You want MMO devs to create content and rewards to cater exclusively to a small group of people? Um no…

Serenity.6135:

You want MMO devs to create content and rewards to cater exclusively to a small group of people? Um no…

I have no idea how “small” these groups would be.. but, since the developers already make various content for “small groups” I don’t understand your objection.

They already create all the content currently for “free”. :P

FrizzFreston.5290:

They already create all the content currently for “free”. :P

This I am well aware of, and that is also a large part of the problem. See if they make the content for ’free" they need to see how it will affect their income, which becomes this convoluted game of guess work of who to appease to get the most money in gem sales/expansion sales.

However, If they sold the content directly in small batches, they would be able to see exactly what sells, and provide more of it to their players, to that effect, everyone willing to invest into the game gets a return for it.

Isn’t that what we all want, for our investment into the game to be recognized, rewarded and returned?

Wow!
Now the DLC are wanted for the players
What next?
No need to answer, it is a rhetoric question… just wow…

OP suggestions are to segregate contents even more and put them behind paywall. The overall problem with that is it also segregate the community even further, which is not a good idea.
F2P Age of Conan had vaguely similar idea; chopping up contents and put a price tag on everything. It was horrendous. Well, to be fair the game was a kitten in the first place.
OP should apply for a job @ EA. Guaranteed 100% welcome aboard.

I would throw my money at the screen if they had dungeon and raid packs. Gimme some of that repeatable content.

STIHL.2489:

FrizzFreston.5290:

They already create all the content currently for “free”. :P

This I am well aware of, and that is also a large part of the problem. See if they make the content for ’free" they need to see how it will affect their income, which becomes this convoluted game of guess work of who to appease to get the most money in gem sales/expansion sales.

However, If they sold the content directly in small batches, they would be able to see exactly what sells, and provide more of it to their players, to that effect, everyone willing to invest into the game gets a return for it.

Isn’t that what we all want, for our investment into the game to be recognized, rewarded and returned?

That would mean that someone who wants to play all the game modes would need to pay alot more than someone who just wants to do a few of those. It becomes cherrypicking, to some extend it could even mean that players might even invest less into the game.

Plus you’d be breaking the entire community apart. Instead of one big game, you basically have all these tiny games. People don’t easily define into tiny little boxes of “fractal player” “WvW Player” “PvP Player” “Raider” etc.

No way it is going to end up well…Nobody would want to pay more money now to have access to content that has been essentially being released for free for the past five years.

I remember you, OP, openly admitting on another thread that you played only from 2014 on so you pretty much missed 2 years of by-weekly content released free of charge and therefore I think you have a misrepresentation of what the game stood for at release.

Other than that your proposition is a big middle finger to all veterans and new players alike. Like I said before more gating do not foster sales to veterans and new players will feel like this is nothing but a cash grab if they already have to purchase season 2 and 3 to get the associated rewards tied to it.

Edit: Ultimately I also fail to see how they are going to pull that off. It is not because more they develop more and put a price tag behind it that it means quality content. At the end of the day they used to produce more (bi-weekly content minus the price tag) but they abandoned this release pace because it introduced too much gating.

Why would players want to pay for what they now receive free of charge? How would this affect what the game is known for – content and feature releases free of charge once purchasing the buy-to-play game? That’s a major selling feature of the game. They already have metrics to show who plays what, and how much; the Devs don’t need to charge for it to gather that information.

As others have stated, segregating the playerbase in an MMO is not especially healthy for the game, either.

I, personally, don’t think it’s a good idea. Thumbs down, sorry.

What kind of rich prick thinks demanding the players pay more than they already do to play a game they’ve already bought is a good idea. We get it, you can afford to pay $10 for every mouse click, but not everyone can. How about you take some of that money and be generous with it instead, like buying me gem store items.

I’m confused as to how “small content pack” differs from LS3/LS4. Yes, I get that there are specific details that differ, but doesn’t it serve the same niche? Something that people can do between the big content changes? And doesn’t ANet charge for them already? (They gift them to those playing during the 2-3 month release window, but everyone else has to pay 200 gems.)

no… just keep letting them release content in living world seasons, we spport them with gem and expansion purchases, I’ve put atleast a couple hundred into the game, I’m sure on average the hardcore playerbase with legendaries all sink quite a bit of money into it, enough to keep going with free updates.

Im all on for that. I would buy everything they create, If that means More content More regulary

That would turn GW2 into something that it’s not, and I would be massively put off by it. For me, that would be a sign of taking a more EA/Activision approach of milking the playerbase as much as possible for as long as they can. I’m not against companies making money, but souch an approach would hurt the life of the game, as I can see a lot of veterans quitting over it.

There is a reason big companies are moving away from paid dlc, like ubisoft at are. It’s more important to support the games with updates and content to keep the playerbase, and to keep them happy → make money on cosmetics/convenience.

I’m quite happy buying stuff in the gemstore with my CC but I can’t believe anyone really wants ArenaNet to carve off otherwise free content to sell it to them. Doing this just splits the playerbase (there’s a reason why the fractals they added after HoT are available in the base game).

No, I prefer their small content packs (like those we get with the LS episodes) remain free and their large content packs (expansions) cost money.