Of course expansions will cost money, GW1 added whole continents not just a new zone and a few quests, but an entire new storyline. Will gems be an option? maybe but I would not count on it, by the time an expansion is ready most of the player base will have a respectable sum of gold to their names.
I don’t think you will need to worry about that for at least a year (probably 2) in the mean time do expect stuff like the upcoming Halloween event. Its not just decorations, GW1 has a history of elaborate holiday events, with quests that chain to a final meta event, mini games with nice skins as rewards, etc. I honestly didn’t think they would do Halloween being so close to launch.
aion had expansions for free
but if i remeber correct expansions will be free in gw2 i remember they saying they dont gonna make stand alone campaing again like gw1 so i do think who owns the game will automaticly update to the new content
correct me if im wrong
just found this
Johanson discussed the issue of additional Guild Wars 2 content over on the game’s official forums.
“No need to buy them,” Johanson stated, “Gw2 will feature consistent free content updates and in-game events going forward. Our goal is to make it so you get more from Gw2 for free than you get from a game you pay a subscription for.”
Johanson added, “On top of a large amount of free bonus content, we will be expanding on offerings in the Black Lion Trading Company going forward, as well as be doing large-scale expansion content down the road.”
“We’ll cover a lot of the details on the kind of support and plans we have in place over the next month or so on the Gw2 blog and with our press partners. We do appreciate that you’d like to buy lots of new content, but we’d prefer to give a lot of it to you for free, cause that’s what we think a responsible MMO company does.”
The real question to decide this is “will gem purchases made by people playing the expansion make up for lost sales if we sell it for gems?”
I suspect a big expansion (in a year or so?) will have to be bought in stores for real money, unless ANet “manages” the gold-to-gems exchange rate to prevent the average player from just cashing in their pile of gold to buy it.
In a year, I expect lots of people will have a decent amount of gold saved up, after getting their bank tabs, character slots, and flavor items from the BLTC. The smart ones will even stockpile gems whenever the rate is good, because ANet can’t devalue the gems nearly as easily as gold.
If ANet sees that for example 40% of GW2 players has enough gems sitting unused in their account to buy the expansion and 20% has enough to also buy the new goodies without spending real money, they’ll think twice before releasing it as a gem purchase.
On the other hand, if gem purchases keep going well throughout the year and people are spending them, not stockpiling them, they will probably do it, and perhaps even release it for free to draw players back in.
“What kind of question is this….have you played a game when an EXPANSION PACK was free?”
Yes – Eve online has had over 17 expansions free.
True but if we are going to count all of eve expansion then this Halloween update would count as a free expansion too. Eve is a great game, but its merciless depth came from the interaction of players via the UI and menus. Most EVE expansions were to update the UI, update graphics, adding new resources or new ships or titles… it gave the game new strategies to implement and some new stuff to do but didn’t really embark the players on a new “adventure” or were simply to keep the game up to date.
If Anet keeps the spirit of GW1 expansion, its a boatload of content. So much content in fact that you didn’t need the original game to play them. Prophecies, Nightfall and Factions could be played without playing or owning the other “expansions” the only addon that needed the original game was GW:EN and it cost significantly less than the other 2.
“What kind of question is this….have you played a game when an EXPANSION PACK was free?”
Yes – Eve online has had over 17 expansions free.
To be fair, the PLEX→ISK→ Ship→Floating Wreck cycle has allowed them to tap into vast amounts of money. Those were also often times more like large content updates than strict expansions.
“What kind of question is this….have you played a game when an EXPANSION PACK was free?”
Yes – Eve online has had over 17 expansions free.
To be fair, the PLEX->ISK-> Ship->Floating Wreck cycle has allowed them to tap into vast amounts of money. Those were also often times more like large content updates than strict expansions.
Yes if you talk about each expansion/content update; but over the past 9 years the game is nothing like its original incarnation. If you played the game since it came out you would understand that over those years the game has changed quite a bit.
Yeah calling it an expansion could be a stretch for some but over all of them they added so much more to the game its mind blowing. I would say its equal to a good 5 “WOW” sized expansions. Especially Apocrypha when they added like 6000 wormholes.
@Dutch Don’t get me wrong I freaking love free stuff, but pretty sure that its only referring to “halloween” style updates (or expansions not sure what to call them now).
Hopefully I’m wrong and they will give us a new storyline, a new continent, etc for free XD
If they follow the GW1 trend they will give us tons of free stuff, mostly holiday updates and possibly some extra dungeon like areas like they did w/ Sorrows Furnace, War in Kryta, Winds of Change, etc.
Typical world of warcraft like expansions will probably cost money which is pretty standard for MMOs. If you can use gems as well to unlock them even better.
Most expansion packs for P2P games aren’t free, but are slightly discounted (around 40.00 – 50.00). GW1 model had paid expansion packs at full retail price. So it is highly likely this one will too, and most likely it will be full retail price (60.00).
Updates will most likely come out, but expansion won’t be heard about until 5-6 months into the game. If not then 7-8 months into lifespan of the game.
Guys this question has already been asked and Colin Johanson has already said their current plans are to give new content for free. He even said it on these forums so stop speculating and spreading false information and learn to search:
No need to buy them, Gw2 will feature consistent free content updates and in-game events going forward. Our goal is to make it so you get more from Gw2 for free than you get from a game you pay a subscription for.
On top of a large amount of free bonus content, we will be expanding on offerings in the Black Lion Trading Company going forward, as well as be doing large-scale expansion content down the road.
We’ll cover a lot of the details on the kind of support and plans we have in place over the next month or so on the Gw2 blog and with our press partners.
We do appreciate that you’d like to buy lots of new content, but we’d prefer to give a lot of it to you for free, cause that’s what we think a responsible MMO company does!
On top of a large amount of free bonus content, we will be expanding on offerings in the Black Lion Trading Company going forward, as well as be doing large-scale expansion content down the road.
So english its not my first language, but when I read that I understood a distinction between “free bonus content” from “large-scale expansion content down the road” I mean why separate the two if there is no distinction?
If Anet can pull off a large scale expansion, then all the power to them, I would just advice to not be so enthusiastic about it so as to not be disappointed later on.
Guys this question has already been asked and Colin Johanson has already said their current plans are to give new content for free. He even said it on these forums so stop speculating and spreading false information and learn to search:
No need to buy them, Gw2 will feature consistent free content updates and in-game events going forward. Our goal is to make it so you get more from Gw2 for free than you get from a game you pay a subscription for.
On top of a large amount of free bonus content, we will be expanding on offerings in the Black Lion Trading Company going forward, as well as be doing large-scale expansion content down the road.
We’ll cover a lot of the details on the kind of support and plans we have in place over the next month or so on the Gw2 blog and with our press partners.
We do appreciate that you’d like to buy lots of new content, but we’d prefer to give a lot of it to you for free, cause that’s what we think a responsible MMO company does!
He was talking about small content updates, not expansions. I think it is obvious that they do not plan to live and support the game solely from base game sales..
I’d like to know too and have already asked whether expansions will be available for gems or not. They should. It does not matter what model GW1 had, since GW1 was a completely different game, with no option to buy gems for gold. So the question stands.
IF all the available gems are in fact created by players spending real money on them, THEN the logical conclusion is yes, you will be able to buy expansions for gems, because all gems were bought by real money from ANet. So if you buy gems for gold, you are merely buying them off another player who spent real money on them, therefore ANet is not loosing anything here. Gems are not created from thin air are they? In other words, if I understand correctly, GW2 is using a system to even out the gap between people with a lot of cash to spend, and people who can’t pay at all, the former will simply sell gems they bought so the latter can spend their gold to buy them. If this works it is a really awesome and fair system, the best ever implemented in any MMO so far. Can we get an official response if this is the case?
Most expansion packs for P2P games aren’t free, but are slightly discounted (around 40.00 – 50.00). GW1 model had paid expansion packs at full retail price. So it is highly likely this one will too, and most likely it will be full retail price (60.00).
To be fair, though, in GW1, the expansions were standalone games, but allowed you to take advantage of more content if you owned more than one. If GW2 follows that model, I’d be more than happy to shell out full price, since it’s a separate game.
He was talking about small content updates, not expansions. I think it is obvious that they do not plan to live and support the game solely from base game sales..
Of course not, the Gem store is what’s keeping the game alive. They’re probably making as much if not more money off of the Gem store than they would with Sub fees. That’s why so many games do the F2P cash shop thing nowadays, because it makes more money from more and happier players.
The whole thing with the gold to gem exchange…SOMEONE has to buy the gems for you to exchange them..so it matters not if they sell them for gem as those gems will have been bought at one point. They dont just dump Gems into the exchange, if no one is selling gems there will be none on the market
Expansions will cost money. If there is a box associated with the update, then no gem purchases will be allowed for full access. No developer would risk potentially cutting their income.
Im not a game developer, but I do value my time and efforts I put into my work. If I put months/years worth of my time into my company, I would not be pleased when my efforts went unrewarded and people received my goods without compensating me for my hard work.
Now, on the other hand, I could see allowing access for certain portions of an expansion for gem purchases. Access to an expansion area, mini game, costumes and etc. But if you want to play, you have to pay.
Of course not, the Gem store is what’s keeping the game alive. They’re probably making as much if not more money off of the Gem store than they would with Sub fees. That’s why so many games do the F2P cash shop thing nowadays, because it makes more money from more and happier players.
It’s worth noting that most cash shops are pay2win, whereas GW2 isn’t. That will hit their profits (but mke the game better IMO)
SoE have finally been knocked off the top spot
in the list of developers I have the least faith & trust in.
Congratulations ArenaNet!
Arenanet has already said gems bought with gold began as gems sold by people who bought gems with real money. In other words if you bought gems with gold somone had to buy the gems with real money. So either way they get revenue for the purchase of an expansion if they offer them for sale that way. I suspect they will likely offer preorder perks as incentive to buy with real money in advance or at release and after with gems but lose out of the preorder perks. Again this is just my assumption based on the industry history.
I do sincerely hope they’ll ask money for the actual ’’expansions’’ They’re not just like adding a extra dungeon or area.
Ofcourse, but if you read the haloween preview on the bottom of the page you’d be seeing that they’re adding a tease of content coming soonish.
That would be the free content being dropped, besides that i sortof have high hopes for this haloweens event. Not to mention how they’ll do christmas. =>
If you look at the world map you’ll see there’s a lot of blank space on it that can be used for new zones. We’ll probably see many of those filled in with free updates over time, and expansions will add entirely new sections of the map such as Elona (the land to the south of the map).
The expansions would also add new skills, weapons, races, professions, etc. That’s my guess anyway.
Hit level eighty
Priorities, what to do?
Spend hours with dye
If you look at the world map you’ll see there’s a lot of blank space on it that can be used for new zones. We’ll probably see many of those filled in with free updates over time, and expansions will add entirely new sections of the map such as Elona (the land to the south of the map).
The expansions would also add new skills, weapons, races, professions, etc. That’s my guess anyway.
Stuff like the upcoming Halloween update will be free.
Expansion packs you will have to purchase. Whether they make them available for purchase with gems will be entirely up to Anet. Considering how many gems it would take to upgrade a regular game to deluxe, you can bet it will cost a small fortune in gems to purchase an expansion pack that way.
Stuff like the upcoming Halloween update will be free.
Expansion packs you will have to purchase. Whether they make them available for purchase with gems will be entirely up to Anet. Considering how many gems it would take to upgrade a regular game to deluxe, you can bet it will cost a small fortune in gems to purchase an expansion pack that way.
Oh kitten that will everyone will just save up gems they can afford now. =/
Don’t forget the Tyrian content, coming right after Halloweens content.
Bottom of the preview.
Updates like the Sorrows furnace and the TOPK updates ( HA use to be where TOPK is now ) from GuildWars 1 will likely be free . As far as expansions however you should expect to pay real money or at the very least a large amount of gems
The expansions will definitely cost money. Guild Wars 1 is buy to play, all 3 of it’s future releases were buy to play. They wouldn’t change this model.
I believe the deal is, you pay no monthly but if you want the expansion you will need to pay for it. I believe this is something exactly like GW1.
So how is that different from WoW, except you do pay a monthly and buying expansions is virtually required in WoW.
If I can’t play Guild Wars 2 at work, I won’t work in Guild Wars 2 either.
Delayed content is eventually good. Rushed content is eternally bad. ~ Shigeru Miyamoto
That dev or whatever meant updates such as adding more jumping puzzles/dynamic events/etc expansions are completely different. It’s so easy to make gold in this game anet would be shooting themselves in the foot by allowing the expansions to be bought with gems
That dev or whatever meant updates such as adding more jumping puzzles/dynamic events/etc expansions are completely different. It’s so easy to make gold in this game anet would be shooting themselves in the foot by allowing the expansions to be bought with gems
Don’t forget, the Currency Exchange relies on people buying Gems with Real money and selling them for in game Gold. If people arn’t doing that then the price to trade in game Gold for Gems would skyrocket.
I am pretty sure the expansions will work like they did in GW1 and I seriously doubt the gem store is a major source of income for anet (barely any vanity stuff or even items useful enough to justify their price) so they probably depend on their old model.
At the end of personal story main npc says there are other dragons to fight actually 4 more. Since whole storyline is based upon just one dragons curse there is lot more on the way. If you consider just one dragon took 80 lvls of adventure there will be many large expansions and large expansions usually are the paid ones.
Algreg you might be surprised. Some people have apparently spent over $100 on gems already. I’m not sure what they’re buying with them, although I suspect at least some are converting them to gold and that’s a big factor in prices rising so quickly (that and it’s a new economy).
On topic I would be very surprised if the full expansion packs were free. I think they’re using the same buisness model as GW1, where regular expansion packs were relied on to cover the cost of running the game, since there was no subscription free.
But at the same time I’m also sure we’ll get a lot of free content added.
Danielle Aurorel, Dear Dragon We Got Your Cookies [Nom], Desolation (EU).
