Guild Wars 2

I see a lot of dissatisfaction expressed in this forum, so I’d like to take a moment to shine the spotlight on GW2’s cost vs its worth.

If you type in /age, you will be given some data on your playtime, including all the time you’ve spent on all of your characters.

Mine is currently 539 hours (kitten, I need a life @_@). That’s 22.4 DAYS of solid entertainment.

With a puchase cost of $60, for me, GW2 has costed 11 CENTS per hour.

As entertainment goes, GW2 is easily the best purchase I’ve ever made.

Let’s compare this to another common form of entertainment - the ’big screen’. For easy math, let’s assume the average movie runs for 90 minutes, and the average theater ticket is $8.00 (#’s pulled out of thin air - estimate based on experience).

So, per hour, watching movies at the theater costs $5.33

Compared to my hourly cost for GW2 at 11 cents, that makes watching movies at the theater 48.45 times more expensive than GW2!! @_@ ...is the quality of entertainment provided by the movie theater 48.45 times better than GW2? Absolutely not!

So, was GW2 worth the $60? KITTEN YEA!

Anywho, next time you’re thinking about making a post complaining about how the devs aren’t doing a good job, log into the game first and type /age complete this formula: (60 ÷ total playtime = hourly cost of play). I’ve been entertained for 539 hours, for 11 cents an hour... I’d say the devs are doing just fine. Infact, I’d say they’re doing better than the devs of any other game I’ve ever played.

If you want to tack on the price of any gem purchases or additional cost of the delux/collector’s editions, just add the difference to the 60. I left that out for my results, since that isn’t part of the cost to play, but rather the cost of specific extras, but to each their own.

Anywho, excuse the ’fanboyism’. I don’t mean to say the game is perfect; far from it. I just wanted to point out how much we’re really getting out of this - which is a LOT.

I know people that have /played times bigger than my GW1 played which is quite sad tbh since I’ve played that for over 5 years, consistently too… lol, I’m hoping a lot of people have afk hours otherwise they are pretty much on 24/7 which isn’t healthy.

Oh btw GW2 is the worst purchase I’ve ever made right next to MW2/3

well I’ve learned my lesson on both franchises though. I guess in the end every company has to ruin the great things about their games, why? I have no clue. oh yea.. money.

The /age command no longer states how long you have been in an area.

That’s why I despise it.

Time well spent. I think. I’m not sure. Maybe I should go out.

Quality over Quantity.
Gw2 might have 500 hours of value in it, but that doesn’t make it a better investment than an interesting and engaging 3 hour movie. At least there you’re likely to find a good story and some character development.

Ashes.6418:

Quality over Quantity.
Gw2 might have 500 hours of value in it, but that doesn’t make it a better investment than an interesting and engaging 3 hour movie. At least there you’re likely to find a good story and some character development.

likewise a movie can just as well have a very shallow and boring story, with no form of character development and with very bad acting, so your point is?

Ashes.6418:

Quality over Quantity.
Gw2 might have 500 hours of value in it, but that doesn’t make it a better investment than an interesting and engaging 3 hour movie. At least there you’re likely to find a good story and some character development.

To each their own. I’d say the quality of entertainment from GW2 far exceeds the average movie... especially the crap that’s been hitting the big screen lately. This is, however, 100% a matter of personal preference.

For me, the social aspect of an MMO combined with thy myriad of features that make a video game a... well, video game... by default exceeds anything a movie *could* offer because no matter how good the movie is, you’re still just sitting and watching for its duration.

Interaction is huge, for me. Be it with other people or the game world. So, any movie would be pretty hard pressed to provide the quality of entertainment to me that pretty much any video game - and especially MMO’s - offer.

Over 800 hours here. I certain enjoy the game, I enjoy it very much. Let haters be haters. They can have their opinion of the game and I can have mine.
Here is a thing though… just because you think something is bad, does not mean it really is inherently bad, and others may, rightfully, disagree with you.

Ashes.6418:

Quality over Quantity.
Gw2 might have 500 hours of value in it, but that doesn’t make it a better investment than an interesting and engaging 3 hour movie. At least there you’re likely to find a good story and some character development.

I surely hope that you would’ve had the self-discipline to quit GW2 if you’ve not enjoyed most of those 500 hours. Or maybe you’re just sadistic inflicting yourself 500 hours of pain and boredom?
If you’re in a 3 hour movie that sucks, chances are you walk out after an hour…

You are comparing 2 different payment methods. 1 time purchase vs membership. Here you can buy a monthly movie ticket for 18 euro and watch…as many movies as you want in that period. Also, entertainment value is subjective. For you 500h of GW2 might be more fun that 10h of movies. But that doesn’t apply to everybody. I could also argue how GW2 is way to expensive compared to a manicure set(because a manicure set provides 24/7 entertainment for ~$10/month). Does that suddenly mean everybody should start complaining about how GW2 is not worth it? Just because I enjoy my nails more than the game and they are cheaper?

@ quality over quantity: if you are not enjoing the game but you are currently playing it you have bigger problems than the game itself.
btw when you go to cinema you can see a great movie but you can even find a bad one.

TWMagimay.9057:

You are comparing 2 different payment methods. 1 time purchase vs membership. Here you can buy a monthly movie ticket for 18 euro and watch…as many movies as you want in that period. Also, entertainment value is subjective. For you 500h of GW2 might be more fun that 10h of movies. But that doesn’t apply to everybody. I could also argue how GW2 is way to expensive compared to a manicure set(because a manicure set provides 24/7 entertainment for ~$10/month). Does that suddenly mean everybody should start complaining about how GW2 is not worth it? Just because I enjoy my nails more than the game and they are cheaper?

I’m forced to disagree with this statement. First of all you can’t compare one type of entertainment with another as they are meant for different purposes. However, you can compare the payment options as a cost factor for the overall entertainment of one activity that is gaming!

Every game that exists, have a “Overall Profit = Entertainment time/Cost ratio”. WoW for example for a lot of players with the current expansions+subscription model has set a very high cost factor and it’s only worth if the game still delivers a lot of entertaining for the players stick to it. However Guild Wars 2, have a cost factor much smaller (as only have to pay expansions). Therefor the Overall profit becomes higher for this game! The longer the time you play this game, the higher the profit will be, and would scale much more than subscription based models (that increases the cost factor every month).

Or if you live in Australia and a average film ticket costs 20 dollars =)

70 hours played across all characters since release. For €39.99 on release (yeah I found it cheap :P ) I have more than covered my costs. Now im on bonus time, and 26% world completion, so long ways to go yet

The trick with non sub games is don’t play them till your eyes bleed. You have your whole life to do stuff, don’t cram it all into one day and then whine for the rest of your life that you did everything already.

I have 780h and i like the game, but i stop reading when you compare GW2 with watching a movie.

my total age on guildwars 1 was 391 days over 6 years.

Cant see this being anywhere near that. Not even 1/10 unless they bring back some sort of Heroes ascent.

Ashes.6418:

Quality over Quantity.
Gw2 might have 500 hours of value in it, but that doesn’t make it a better investment than an interesting and engaging 3 hour movie. At least there you’re likely to find a good story and some character development.

Why would you spend 500 hours on an MMO that you don’t like?
I had RPGs that were not meant to be played as often as I did. The real amount of content was about 60 hours, I managed to get 1000 hours of entertainment of it. I would have not played it so much if I did not like it.

To me GW2 is the best purchase I did in 2012

I’ve spent a lot more because of gem purchases, but the game’s quality fully rectifies that. If people have spent several hundred hours on this game and still think that the money wasn’t well invested, they should ask themselves why they actually played that much, obviously without having any fun at all. Masochistic predisposition?

/e: what Mirta said, basically.

LHound.8964:

I’m forced to disagree with this statement. First of all you can’t compare one type of entertainment with another as they are meant for different purposes. However, you can compare the payment options as a cost factor for the overall entertainment of one activity that is gaming!

Every game that exists, have a “Overall Profit = Entertainment time/Cost ratio”. WoW for example for a lot of players with the current expansions+subscription model has set a very high cost factor and it’s only worth if the game still delivers a lot of entertaining for the players stick to it. However Guild Wars 2, have a cost factor much smaller (as only have to pay expansions). Therefor the Overall profit becomes higher for this game! The longer the time you play this game, the higher the profit will be, and would scale much more than subscription based models (that increases the cost factor every month).

What are you disagreeing with exactly? OP introduced GW2 vs movies, I simply took further.

And f2p games have a $0/hour value. Does that somehow…make them a better deal than GW2?

1146 Hours over 4 months.

Knox.3748:

I have 780h and i like the game, but i stop reading when you compare GW2 with watching a movie.

Why? It’s a valid comparison. It comes down to a cost/entertainment ratio. You could do this with a movie, another video game, going to a sporting event, reading a book, etc. It really doesn’t matter as it all comes down to: How much did you pay and how much entertainment did you get for that dollar?

For me, I went to see The Hobbit about a week or two ago. It cost my girlfriend and I about $30 for the experience. From that, combined, we got about 5 hours or so of entertainment.

Not terrible I suppose. About $6 per total hour of entertainment. But, I also spend $37.70 for GW2. Only $7.70 more than I did for the trip to see the Hobbit. I’ve gotten HUNDREDS of hours for that money. By doing very basic and simple math I can see that I got far more entertainment for my money out of GW2 than I did from The Hobbit. That’s really all there is to it.

Was The Hobbit better? That’s rather subjective and really doesn’t matter. If GW2 holds enough interest for me to put hundreds and hundreds of hours into it, then it must be kitten good enough. I know that even if I had an unlimted pass to return to the movie theater to watch The Hobbit as many times as I wanted, I’d not get hundreds of hours out of it. In fact, I’d probably not even go to see it a second time. But GW2 is holding attention enough for me to spend vast amounts of time into it. Definitely worth the cost.

TWMagimay.9057:

What are you disagreeing with exactly? OP introduced GW2 vs movies, I simply took further.

I chose movies because I felt that would make a comparison that most of the readers could relate to. I think it’s safe to say that a pretty decent chunk of GW2 players don’t use, nor would enjoy using, a manicure set; so comparing the value of that to GW2 wouldn’t communicate the point I’m trying to make nearly as well as the comparison to the movies.

It’s not about “Movies suck because GW2 is so much better” its “Holy kitten I’m getting a lot for my buck with this game”

Similarly, if you find using a manicure set a particularly euphoric experience, then purchasing said kits would be a good investment for you. This doesn’t lessen the quality of the GW2 experience, or movies, or anything else – just means that if you’re ever faced with deciding to purchase either a movie ticket, a character slot, or a manicure set, you’ll have to make that decision according to your own personal preference. If the manicure kit tops your list – buy it!

TWMagimay.9057:

And f2p games have a $0/hour value. Does that somehow…make them a better deal than GW2?

Back to quality of entertainment. At $0/hr, that certainly does make them a better deal. Get your hour or two of entertainment out of them, then when you get bored, or sick of seeing “Don’t you wish you could do this/wear that/go there/etc? Just pay $10!” then it’ll probably be time to move on to something else. …possibly something with better quality of entertainment ^^.

Compared to other mmos if your age is less then 500 and thinking about quitting it, it wasn’t very good. Compared to GW1 I had over 7,000 hours in 7 years and I still actively play it. GW2 I have 400ish hours and maybe play it every 2-4 days (to do a dungeon or two). Not a good investment for me…not good at all

between gw2 and harry potter 1~7, i would choose gw2.

Haltus Kain.4578:

I chose movies because I felt that would make a comparison that most of the readers could relate to. I think it’s safe to say that a pretty decent chunk of GW2 players don’t use, nor would enjoy using, a manicure set; so comparing the value of that to GW2 wouldn’t communicate the point I’m trying to make nearly as well as the comparison to the movies.

It’s not about “Movies suck because GW2 is so much better” its “Holy kitten I’m getting a lot for my buck with this game”

Similarly, if you find using a manicure set a particularly euphoric experience, then purchasing said kits would be a good investment for you. This doesn’t lessen the quality of the GW2 experience, or movies, or anything else – just means that if you’re ever faced with deciding to purchase either a movie ticket, a character slot, or a manicure set, you’ll have to make that decision according to your own personal preference. If the manicure kit tops your list – buy it!

Back to quality of entertainment. At $0/hr, that certainly does make them a better deal. Get your hour or two of entertainment out of them, then when you get bored, or sick of seeing “Don’t you wish you could do this/wear that/go there/etc? Just pay $10!” then it’ll probably be time to move on to something else. …possibly something with better quality of entertainment ^^.

My point was(and is) that there is no universal cost vs worth formula. You direct this topic at people who are not satisfied with the product. Telling them “it’s cheap, so you should enjoy it” is like me telling you to buy that red lipstick because it’s only $5 and you can effectively wear it for 100 hours. Would that in any way make purchasing the lipstick worth it for u(assuming you are not into wearing lipstick)? Doubtful. And if smb thinks they didn’t get their money’s worth, no calculations will change that. $0.11/hour is too much if you are not enjoying it.

Spent $80 on digital collectors, ~$400 on gems and have 984 hours of play time, is the game worth is in terms of entertainment per dollar… yes, but that’s an equation that differs for each of us.

I also use a similar cost/value equation in relation to the price of a movie ticket, at $13 for ~90 minutes of entertainment I’d have spent ~$8528 on movie tickets so it’s worth it, but my game cost breakdown is around 50c per hour (because of gem purchases).

I don’t get how people can say GW1 was better. I played it when it first came out before I went off to WoW for a few years. I just don’t get it. It was a good game don’t get me wrong. (It was my first MMO, kitten I love it dearly.) But now in the day and age of newer mmos. The play style and direction of GW1 would just not work. The game is very slow and has outdated movement methods… (Point and Click, Moving with clicking, moving to a target automatically which resulted in really weird movement at times) I loved GW1 and I played through Nightfall… But it needed a change.

Lunar Sunset.8742:

Compared to other mmos if your age is less then 500 and thinking about quitting it, it wasn’t very good. Compared to GW1 I had over 7,000 hours in 7 years and I still actively play it. GW2 I have 400ish hours and maybe play it every 2-4 days (to do a dungeon or two). Not a good investment for me…not good at all

Is the guild wars franchise the only video games you have ever purchased?

TWMagimay.9057:

My point was(and is) that there is no universal cost vs worth formula. You direct this topic at people who are not satisfied with the product. Telling them “it’s cheap, so you should enjoy it” is like me telling you to buy that red lipstick because it’s only $5 and you can effectively wear it for 100 hours. Would that in any way make purchasing the lipstick worth it for u(assuming you are not into wearing lipstick)? Doubtful. And if smb thinks they didn’t get their money’s worth, no calculations will change that. $0.11/hour is too much if you are not enjoying it.

Oh gotcha. Completely misunderstood your previous posts – your perspective makes much more sense now.

To clarify, though, I’m not telling people “it’s cheap, so you should enjoy it” but rather “it has entertained you for X hours, at a cost slightly higher than nothing.”

Enjoyment is assumed. If you’ve played for even 10 hours and haven’t enjoyed it, you’re doing something wrong. Why would you put so much time into something you don’t enjoy?

Many of us have accumulated hundreds of hours of play time. That wouldn’t be the case if we didn’t want to keep logging in during our free time.

Even if you do hate the game and every second in it; if you’ve spent hundreds of hours playing it, then the other posters are correct – you are a masochist. BUT, even if that’s the case, in a roundabout way you’ve still gotten your money’s worth because the painful experience you’ve subjected yourself to by playing GW2 has provided you pleasure. Such is the nature of masochism.

I sincerely hope that isn’t your, or anyone else’s, motivation for playing the game, but in any case, you have gotten your money’s worth out of those hundreds of hours of gameplay.

To compare that cost/entertainment ratio with different kinds of entertainment is always a bit biased. First of all you are not taking the whole costs for that entertainment into consideration. Going to the movies does not cost you anything beside the movieticket and the bus or whatever transport you use to get to the cinema. To play a video-game you need to have at least a computer, plus energy etc. You can use this computer for other things too ofc, so it’s not the whole costs.

Secondly you can buy a video-game or go to a movie and not enjoy it. This time you spend your time and money and in both cases it’s pretty much wasted because you didn’t get the entertainment you wanted. You would not say “oh this film was horribly boring but at least it was long.”

What you can compare is the amount of content with other video-games and I think GW2 has a pretty good ratio on that. About the quality vs quantity thing I would say it is pretty much a matter of taste. I personally enjoy GW2 quite alot still after many hours spent in the game.

Haltus Kain.4578:

To clarify, though, I’m not telling people “it’s cheap, so you should enjoy it” but rather “it has entertained you for X hours, at a cost slightly higher than nothing.”

Enjoyment is assumed. If you’ve played for even 10 hours and haven’t enjoyed it, you’re doing something wrong. Why would you put so much time into something you don’t enjoy?

Because you are hoping it might grow on you? I can honestly say I didn’t enjoy the first 10h in GW2, had to force myself through it. I’m a slow learner and GW2 throws you into serious combat from the start(I have never died at lvl 10 in a game until I started playing here). I was still trying to work out the controls(because in Tera you turn the screen by moving your mouse, for example, instead of holding down a mouse button) while mobs were 2hitting me….

Many of us have accumulated hundreds of hours of play time. That wouldn’t be the case if we didn’t want to keep logging in during our free time.

Even if you do hate the game and every second in it; if you’ve spent hundreds of hours playing it, then the other posters are correct – you are a masochist. BUT, even if that’s the case, in a roundabout way you’ve still gotten your money’s worth because the painful experience you’ve subjected yourself to by playing GW2 has provided you pleasure. Such is the nature of masochism.

I sincerely hope that isn’t your, or anyone else’s, motivation for playing the game, but in any case, you have gotten your money’s worth out of those hundreds of hours of gameplay.

There is a difference between hating smth and simply not enjoying it. It can just as well be a way to pass the time. Like watching a soap opera with your grandma because it’s that or knitting. The feeling that you got your money’s worth out of smth is very subjective. It’s not something you can influence when it comes to other people. You are happy with your purchase, I’m ok with it, somebody else regrets it. We are all right.

Its simple..

Some people like Donkey kong, others pokermon..

Some people liked Power rangers, Others preferred Teenage mutant hero turtles..

We all like diffrent things.. For me… Which is all that i care about, I dont enjoy it as much as i did gw1.. The game feels like its the offspring of a Guildwars 1, and a World of Warcraft breeding programme.. Does that make it a bad game? to some yes.. to me.. no..

It means that i dont enjoy it on the same wave length as guildwars 1. I Really didnt like world of warcraft it was horrible.. This game like i said, is a crossbread so i dont enjoy it but dont dislike it..

Any hardcore GW1 player who hated WOW.. im sure will feel not as enthusiastic about this game, as others do.. Everyone who played guildwars1 casually with a bit of wow.. I understand why your not complaining.

Why do we make threads like this then… If you dont know, you will never know.. Were hoping Anet will listen to its Old, Beloved fan base, and make changes.. its a new game.. just like Guildwars 1 was when i brought it.. They slowly adepted it so everyone was happy..

I played 5 years of Hero’s acent, I loved it.. What has GW2 got that i can play similiar to that? Or GVG infact?? Thats why we come on and people make threads like this.. To share our opinion with ANET.. Everyone who had WOW, or PVE in guildwars 1 has little to complain about… You can jump, you can graft all day for skins, you can run around and raid with huge zergs in pvp, you can do dungeons, you drop loot.. its a win win for you.. But Anet seems to have forgotten about a group of the hardcore players, and thats us from PVP…

If im wrong… Why has Guildwars 1 got guild (im currently there) still competing in MAT’s and playing GVG? HA is dead granted (as less people play ti you have no chance to get to the Hall of Hero’s ) But theres over 200 Guilds that still compete in the ladder.. Is it because they cant afford to buy GW2? nope.? 90% of people own it… Its because GW2 forgot about pvp and looked at what people from other franchises liked.. Business is a dog eat dog world, and the intent of this game was to keep there fanbase, but entise from other game types aswell. Sadly i think a little too much focus was put on trying to grow there fanbase than keep there current one.. Ill continue to play, and stick with anet, as i hope they do the right thing and listen to us.