Guild Wars 2

It just seems more practical I live overseas in Japan so getting a hard copy might prove difficult for me unless you can buy it online as a digital copy. So I guess my question is will there be a digital copy of HOT expansion or is it going to be just hard copy?

They’ve confirmed the expansion will come in both physical and digital varieties.

However, I doubt they’ll let you buy it with gems, since that would allow people to get the expansion without paying real money due to gold > gem conversion, which wouldn’t really help Anet’s profits (and that’s one of the key reasons to release a boxed expansion vs Living Story). Most likely you’ll have to buy the expansion directly via credit card / paypal / whatever other form of real world currency Anet’s online store accepts. Or buy digitally through other outlets like Amazon.

Sounds legit. Cool beans

Yeah, I don’t think ANet is going to allow (in theory) for players to not pay for the expansion (gold → gems). One of the advantages of a boxes expansion is the ability to recoup development costs via box sales.

The way conversion works, if you buy gems with gold, ANet still gets paid in real cash, because someone had to buy those gems with real cash to sell them on the exchange.

So it’s not a matter of them not getting paid for the expansion.

But can you imagine the price of gems in gold if they do offer the expansion for gems?

Gibson.4036:

The way conversion works, if you buy gems with gold, ANet still gets paid in real cash, because someone had to buy those gems with real cash to sell them on the exchange.

So it’s not a matter of them not getting paid for the expansion.

But can you imagine the price of gems in gold if they do offer the expansion for gems?

Except that those gems were already purchased in the past. That money has come and gone. ANet is not receiving any new money from the person buying HoT with gold>gems.

So yes, it IS a matter of them not getting paid.

@Gibson
Gems are digital currency non existant Anet doesn’t need anyone to sell gems in order for someone to buy them. It doesn’t work quite that way.
Buying the expansion with the Gems would be giving Anet false profit. If someone grinded gold than bought the expansion Anet doesn’t get money.
If you could exchange Gems to Dollars, maybe it would be different story (I hope
It doesn’t happen. Usually encourages bad type of players)

@Budman
There will be digital version of expansion for sure.

I hope they do not allow for players to buy hot (or any future xpac) with gems or by converting gold to gems.

Gibson.4036:

The way conversion works, if you buy gems with gold, ANet still gets paid in real cash, because someone had to buy those gems with real cash to sell them on the exchange((my emphasis)).

Double-counting, even if correct.

Even if the above bold section were true (which I seriously doubt, by the way), paying gold for gems that are already paid for and in the game adds nothing directly to ANet’s income. If it were to have any effect at all, it would be at most a secondary one: an increase in the exchange rate, and a possible resultant pull-on of people buying more gems with real money to convert them into gold at a better rate. Only ANet would know how strong that effect would be, though.

There’s no reason to think it’s true in the first place, though. ANet have total control over the market; they can, in principle, inject or remove gems and gold, and manipulate the exchange rates, precisely as they wish, to keep the market healthy and to meet their game and business needs. It’s very difficult to see why they wouldn’t. Which means: (a) there’s no reason to suppose that gems sales are genuinely even closely matched by gems purchases, let alone exactly; and (b) if a different exchange rate would better suit ANet’s goals, frankly they can arrange it anyway.

Either way – it’s very hard to see how allowing players to buy HoT with gems would benefit ANet’s bottom line. And that’s what this is all about.

For my money, I expect no gem-purchase option for HoT, and a real-world price-point of up to £30(€40/$45) – maybe a little less. Whether or not I’ll think that to be good value for money is neither here nor there; if the price seems a bit steep, I, and the vast majority of current players, will grumble our heads off – but we’ll still buy.

Gems vs online money transfer is no difference money wise for a-net.

However most people who think of buying HoT with gems are delluding themselves.
Something as insignificant as dark wings backpack made gem to gold prices raise by 50%. And we’re just talking here a piece of visual gear, not to everyone’s liking mind you.

If HoT was in gemstore, gem prices in gold would skyrocket so hard, you’d prefer to just buy it with your own, real life money, rest assured of that.

Nephziel.6053:

Gems are digital currency non existant Anet doesn’t need anyone to sell gems in order for someone to buy them. It doesn’t work quite that way.

Actually, it does work exactly that way, which was directly confirmed by devs several times already. The only source of gem generation that does not come from people buying them for real cash is the achievement rewards, and those do not add any meaningful amount to the whole pool.

Still, as it has been mentioned, those gems were bought already, and Anet would most likely want an income that can be put in the books in the correct year and quarter. The best you can probably hope for is some gemshop equivalent to the Digital Deluxe upgrade for HoT.

Well Gaile indicates gold → gems == no money for ANet
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/hot/Questions-about-Pricing-and-Payment-merged/4734013

John on the other hand…
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/hot/Questions-about-Pricing-and-Payment-merged/4734114
Seems to indicate yes? I don’t know, I’m John-Smith-dyslexic.

Although the linked thread does make it clear that no HoT is paid for expansion.

Translation of Johns response:
If your friend buys 800 gems with cash and puts them on the exchange for gold, and you buy 800 gems with gold, there is no way to ensure the 800 gems you buy are those your friend put in there, but they have been put in there by someone who paid for them with cash. They are not created from thin air.

I suppose John felt the need to clarify this because in other games with such an exchange system (specifically: EVE Online) the transaction is directly player to player, whereas in GW2 the source of the gems is obscured by the trading post.

Astralporing.1957:

Nephziel.6053:

Gems are digital currency non existant Anet doesn’t need anyone to sell gems in order for someone to buy them. It doesn’t work quite that way.

Actually, it does work exactly that way, which was directly confirmed by devs several times already. The only source of gem generation that does not come from people buying them for real cash is the achievement rewards, and those do not add any meaningful amount to the whole pool.

How can I put it? Whilst I have absolutely no reason to think that those weren’t genuine and honest statements, I’m also ultimately a cynic when it comes to such things. Whilst I don’t automatically assume I’m being lied to when there’s no obvious advantage to it, I don’t necessarily take everything I’m told at face value either – and even when something’s actually true, I definitely don’t believe that it will necessarily always remain true in the future (especially when I can see reasons for alternate behaviour). Or, indeed, that we’d be told if it were to change. I’ve been around the block enough times to know that business simply doesn’t always work that way.

So – OK, if John Smith said a month back that the entire fungible gems stock was bought by players, I agree that it seems likely that’s currently the case. Whether it will always be so even if it is, and whether ANet management will always resist the temptation to have things tweaked – who knows?

(There’s also quite bit of “wiggle room” in John’s statement, by the way; it’s not a full description of the GW2 economy. For example – if I buy gems with real currency, then spend those gems on in-game purchases, are those gems removed from circulation? Or do, or can, some or all of them become available for in-game purchase with gold? Even if all new gems are bought with real currency, and even if gems used to make purchases are taken out of circulation, what about the game pool of gold that the market also needs to operate? Is that also left entirely to market forces – does it come entirely from player earnings in-game (because ANet could equally affect the exchange rates by changing the amount of gold in that pool)? And come to that – whilst it’s not actually impossible that both gold and gem pools were empty at launch, it seems unlikely, because otherwise the market could at minimum have been downright frustrating, and possibly highly volatile as well (the first gems would have needed to come from real currency; the players who bought them wouldn’t have been able to exchange them for gold from an empty pool; players wanting to buy gems with in-game gold wouldn’t have been able to do so until people had swapped gems for in-game purchases – and if those gems were then taken out of circulation, they still wouldn’t be available, come to that, so there would need at minimum to be some gold to exchange gems for; and at times there could potentially have been high demands chasing limited supply, meaing exchange rates potentially off the scale. Not something I’d expect ANet would have wanted. So there was almost certainly at least a degree of pump-priming. How big was it, compared to the current market? And is it still in there, or has it been removed? And so on.)

There is some massive confusion here, but consider that ArenaNet makes money when, and only when, people give them real money (either for gems or anything else.) Very simple.

Anything that happens to (gems/gold/whatever) after that is irrelevant.

Doghouse.1562:

(There’s also quite bit of “wiggle room” in John’s statement, by the way; it’s not a full description of the GW2 economy. For example – if I buy gems with real currency, then spend those gems on in-game purchases, are those gems removed from circulation? Or do, or can, some or all of them become available for in-game purchase with gold? Even if all new gems are bought with real currency, and even if gems used to make purchases are taken out of circulation, what about the game pool of gold that the market also needs to operate? Is that also left entirely to market forces – does it come entirely from player earnings in-game (because ANet could equally affect the exchange rates by changing the amount of gold in that pool)? And come to that – whilst it’s not actually impossible that both gold and gem pools were empty at launch, it seems unlikely, because otherwise the market could at minimum have been downright frustrating, and possibly highly volatile as well (the first gems would have needed to come from real currency; the players who bought them wouldn’t have been able to exchange them for gold from an empty pool; players wanting to buy gems with in-game gold wouldn’t have been able to do so until people had swapped gems for in-game purchases – and if those gems were then taken out of circulation, they still wouldn’t be available, come to that, so there would need at minimum to be some gold to exchange gems for; and at times there could potentially have been high demands chasing limited supply, meaing exchange rates potentially off the scale. Not something I’d expect ANet would have wanted. So there was almost certainly at least a degree of pump-priming. How big was it, compared to the current market? And is it still in there, or has it been removed? And so on.)

…sigh
All of those points were explained already by many dev statements up until now. Unless of course you assume that you are being lied to, in which case you can keep assuming whatever you want.

(but in case you missed those statements: the system, as we were told, works like this:
- whenever someone buys gems with gold, gems are removed from gem pool, and gold gets added to gold pool
- whenever someone buys gold with gems, gold gets removed from gold pool, and gems are added to gem pool
- the exchange price is based upon the gems to gold ratio of those pools
- there is a hidden tax on both transactions that removes some fo those gems/gold from the system (this is also the reason why exchange rates of gems to gold and gold to gems are slightly different)
- at the start of the game, both pools were seeded by anet, but in both cases those seeds are long gone (and are a drop in the bucked compared to the market now)
- those are the only ways gems and gold gets added/removed to those pools.
- while anet could possibly micromanage this, by modifying pools, they don’t see any reason to do so. This is unlikely to change (as i understand, the chances of the gem market getting unbalanced to the point where intervention would be desirable is extremely unlikely).

I see no reason why Anet might want to intentionally mislead us on this info. You, of course, can disagree.

And what if someone bought HoT with gems from achievement chests? Nobody bought those.

it is simple, other games that do not deserve it always charge IRL money only for their xpack, even though they have a stinking sub !

Yet here we are demanding xpack purchase through gems for a game that has no sub !

You should all be ashamed of yourselves !

I for one say: make it real money only a.net ! you deserve the money.

while other games try to double dip their sub paying customers, yet nobody complains to them about it ! God knows they have a right to.

Astralporing.1957:

Doghouse.1562:

(There’s also quite bit of “wiggle room” in John’s statement, by the way; it’s not a full description of the GW2 economy. For example – if I buy gems with real currency, then spend those gems on in-game purchases, are those gems removed from circulation? Or do, or can, some or all of them become available for in-game purchase with gold? Even if all new gems are bought with real currency, and even if gems used to make purchases are taken out of circulation, what about the game pool of gold that the market also needs to operate? Is that also left entirely to market forces – does it come entirely from player earnings in-game (because ANet could equally affect the exchange rates by changing the amount of gold in that pool)? And come to that – whilst it’s not actually impossible that both gold and gem pools were empty at launch, it seems unlikely, because otherwise the market could at minimum have been downright frustrating, and possibly highly volatile as well (the first gems would have needed to come from real currency; the players who bought them wouldn’t have been able to exchange them for gold from an empty pool; players wanting to buy gems with in-game gold wouldn’t have been able to do so until people had swapped gems for in-game purchases – and if those gems were then taken out of circulation, they still wouldn’t be available, come to that, so there would need at minimum to be some gold to exchange gems for; and at times there could potentially have been high demands chasing limited supply, meaing exchange rates potentially off the scale. Not something I’d expect ANet would have wanted. So there was almost certainly at least a degree of pump-priming. How big was it, compared to the current market? And is it still in there, or has it been removed? And so on.)

…sigh
All of those points were explained already by many dev statements up until now. Unless of course you assume that you are being lied to, in which case you can keep assuming whatever you want.

(but in case you missed those statements: the system, as we were told, works like this:
- whenever someone buys gems with gold, gems are removed from gem pool, and gold gets added to gold pool
- whenever someone buys gold with gems, gold gets removed from gold pool, and gems are added to gem pool
- the exchange price is based upon the gems to gold ratio of those pools
- there is a hidden tax on both transactions that removes some fo those gems/gold from the system (this is also the reason why exchange rates of gems to gold and gold to gems are slightly different)
- at the start of the game, both pools were seeded by anet, but in both cases those seeds are long gone (and are a drop in the bucked compared to the market now)
- those are the only ways gems and gold gets added/removed to those pools.
- while anet could possibly micromanage this, by modifying pools, they don’t see any reason to do so. This is unlikely to change (as i understand, the chances of the gem market getting unbalanced to the point where intervention would be desirable is extremely unlikely).

I see no reason why Anet might want to intentionally mislead us on this info. You, of course, can disagree.

I agree with your main point, that Arenanet would not risk the exchange by adding or removing gems and gold to the pools unless the exchange were about to rip kitten in the Tyrian universe. The exchange will function best if it is left alone.

However I am bored so…

1) The gems and gold from the initial reserve could still outnumber the gems and gold added by players. For most of the game’s lifespan the exchange rate has trended upwards, indicating that gems were leaving the exchange faster than they were being replenished. Even if player purchased gems now outnumber reserve gems, every gem retains the information of those reserve gems.

2) Hidden tax? I don’t remember ever seeing anything about a hidden tax within the exchange. If you are referring to the 30ish% difference in the exchange rate direction, that difference does not remove gold from the exchange pool, only slows down how quickly that gold could re-enter general circulation. Unless there is a hidden tax, then the exchange does not destroy gems or gold. Only players can do that by either purchasing gems and spending them within the gemshop or purchasing gold and spending it on a gold-sink.

To get back to the thread topic….

If Arenanet made HoT available for gems, they would make less new money than if they didn’t; don’t think there is any way to argue that they would. Whether or not they can afford to do that is up to them.

The TP exchange allows Anet to destroy currency via exchange taxes to make sure there isn’t too much of 1 currency in the game as opposed to directly trading with players.

Will you be able to buy the expension with ingame GEMS?
And if so, how much? estimated or confirmed, thanks!

No

Gaile Gray posted…somewhere…saying no. Somewhere on this forum.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/hot/Have-to-buy-HoT-to-create-a-Revenant/first#post4867494

No. As obvious as it is.

Gaile Gray.6029:

Let’s be clear:

Q: Is the expansion “buy to play”?
A: Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns is a paid expansion to Guild Wars 2, but once you buy it, there are no subscription fees. This means that you can continue playing and access future updates for Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns with no subscription fee.

“Paid” in this context means money, not gems.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/hot/HOT-purchased-in-game-with-gems/first#post4867488

considering that gems come from purchase with real money, why the hell not?

Happyfool.8951:

considering that gems come from purchase with real money, why the hell not?

Are you aware that real money is not the only source for gems?, Does conversion Gold to Gems ring any bell? Right now many people are sit on important amounts of gold that came from their gameplay which would mean Anet not receiving money back. Not being able to buy HoT with Gems makes perfect sense.

There’s also the gems from achievement chests that no one bought with real money.

yes, but to actually have gems into the system, someone has to pay for it. and unless anet has been planting gems into the system.

player A buys gems with real money
player A converts the gems into gold.
player B converts gold to gems(player A’s gems)
player B buys expac with $60 worth of gems

real money is still paid to anet

edit. I did not know you could get gems from chests

Happyfool.8951:

considering that gems come from purchase with real money, why the hell not?

Why do I keep seeing this?

Why do people think that if I buy gems with my money, they get to claim the gems only exist because of being purchased and, therefore, should be allowed to buy the expansion with the gems they earned by grinding gold?

Essentially people who argue for the Xpac to be in the gemstore so they can grind gold are arguing that since someone else paid for it, I should get it.

I’M NOT PAYING FOR YOUR EXPANSION PACK! I’m paying for this or that gemstore item because I don’t have the time to grind the gold to get it that way.

Despite what you might think, there is no monetary value for gold because it only goes one way. You use real money to buy gems and then buy gold with the gems, you CANNOT grind gold to buy gems and then turn that into real money. Since you cannot go the full spectrum both ways, gold is not backed by real money. Exchanging gold for gems is NOT the same as buying gems with money.

The person who buys their gems is supporting your game, that money has been funneled into giving Anet employees a job as well as paying for the development of the game. It is not floating around in GW2’s market.

Happyfool.8951:

yes, but to actually have gems into the system, someone has to pay for it. and unless anet has been planting gems into the system.

player A buys gems with real money
player A converts the gems into gold.
player B converts gold to gems(player A’s gems)
player B buys expac with $60 worth of gems

real money is still paid to anet

edit. I did not know you could get gems from chests

Player A buys gems with real money, player A converts gems into gold because that is the feature Player A’s money paid for in development costs/server upkeep/employee wages.

Player B converts gold to gems (Player A’s Gems)
Player A should get the expansion pack because Player B stole Player A’s money… wait, that isn’t how it works. Anet isn’t paying you to earn gold.

You are not an employee of Anet, Player A did not give you their money in any form. Essentially you’re expecting Player A to shell out $60 for their gems, which you snatch up with in game gold, AND to shell out another $60 if they want the xpac while you buy the xpac with the gems you snatched from them?

So Player A, essentially, paid for yours and their expansions.
Or did the gems Player A bought, pay for their expansion? If so, two expansions are being bought off of one player cost. This is not how businesses operate. You both have to spend money to get the expansion because they’re in it for the profit.

Kentaine.4692:

Happyfool.8951:

yes, but to actually have gems into the system, someone has to pay for it. and unless anet has been planting gems into the system.

player A buys gems with real money
player A converts the gems into gold.
player B converts gold to gems(player A’s gems)
player B buys expac with $60 worth of gems

real money is still paid to anet

edit. I did not know you could get gems from chests

Player A buys gems with real money, player A converts gems into gold because that is the feature Player A’s money paid for in development costs/server upkeep/employee wages.

Player B converts gold to gems (Player A’s Gems)
Player A should get the expansion pack because Player B stole Player A’s money… wait, that isn’t how it works. Anet isn’t paying you to earn gold.

You are not an employee of Anet, Player A did not give you their money in any form. Essentially you’re expecting Player A to shell out $60 for their gems, which you snatch up with in game gold, AND to shell out another $60 if they want the xpac while you buy the xpac with the gems you snatched from them?

So Player A, essentially, paid for yours and their expansions.

player A chose to shell out $60 in gems then convert it to gold, he didnt have to, but he had the urge to need gold. considering the gem conversion is anonymously done, player B could in no shape or form convince player A to spend $60 dollars in gems then convert it or even specifically convert player A’s gems.

bottom line is, one way or another, the expac is being paid for with real money be it with gems or directly from anet.

Happyfool.8951:

bottom line is, one way or another, the expac is being paid for with real money be it with gems or directly from anet.

Not necessarily, refer to my post:

Lazaar.9123:

There’s also the gems from achievement chests that no one bought with real money.

Lazaar.9123:

Happyfool.8951:

bottom line is, one way or another, the expac is being paid for with real money be it with gems or directly from anet.

Not necessarily, refer to my post:

Lazaar.9123:

There’s also the gems from achievement chests that no one bought with real money.

i did not know that. ok, that throws my argument out the window. kitten you anet, it would have been a solid argument if it werent for that.

The few Gems obtained through Achievement Chests hardly make a ripple in the Gem pool.

The in-game Economist states that Gems are, in fact, back by real cash transactions. Make of that as you will.

Regardless, for the first time a couple of days ago, we got confirmation that the expansion would not be able to be purchased with Gems.

Hmm, that means it’s different to the Digital Deluxe Upgrade, which is available via the Black Lion Trading Company, and we can’t use the gems we bought with real money in this case. That sort of devalues the currency you introduced for more convenience.

It do not you can still use those gems on anything in the gem store or convert it to gold.

There is just no way for anet to know if u buy it with free gems from ap chests or gems bought with money, so they want all to buy with money to be sure to get paid.

Edit
Just see it as a expansion not a upgrade you cant buy the base game for gems this is the same thing.

Consider the box sales statistic. A high sales report looks good to investors, and Gem store sales won’t get counted in that.

Happyfool.8951:

bottom line is, one way or another, the expac is being paid for with real money be it with gems or directly from anet.

Not really. ANet is taking that money to keep GW2 operating and to grow the business, so you can’t ask them to take money that’s already been spent to pay for the expansion as well.

Think of buying gems as a volunteer subscription model with gems as benefits instead of being gift cards.

You can’t sell the base game via the gem store, if you need the base game in order to access the gem store. An expansion is not needed so play, so it’s also optional.

True, they might not want the people to get the expansion for free via the ap chests, but then the free ap chest gems led to the gems, you bought for money of via gold from someone else who spent money, being worthless for the purpose of buying expansion. Hence the gems are devaluaed.

Gems money are going to ncsoft and only they decide where to put money. Not necessarilly for GW2.

really makes you wonder what percentage of players think they are actually supporting the game financially by converting the virtual currency gold into the virtual currency gems that someone else bought.

Tamora.4603:

Hmm, that means it’s different to the Digital Deluxe Upgrade, which is available via the Black Lion Trading Company, and we can’t use the gems we bought with real money in this case. That sort of devalues the currency you introduced for more convenience.

It’s entirely possible there will be a Digital Deluxe Upgrade for HoT you will be able to purchase for gems. In this case we’re talking about an expansion that will also have a box sale – in this way, it is only comparable to the basic game.

Swagger.1459:

really makes you wonder what percentage of players think they are actually supporting the game financially by converting the virtual currency gold with the virtual currency gems that someone else bought.

You can color me ignorant I guess. I struggle to grasp that my money is going anywhere other than their company when I purchase gems. As such if I choose to convert that into gold I am unsure how that immediately removes the my money from the equation. So while no the individuals transferring gold to gems doesn’t directly benefit anet, the allure of buying gems at times of extreme fluctuation (when the wings where available for example) is enough to get people to drop gems down. I also feel like it is evident that putting the HoT expansion on the gem store would cause an extreme increase in gold to gem prices thus prompting more gem purchases.

Rehero.7821:

Swagger.1459:

really makes you wonder what percentage of players think they are actually supporting the game financially by converting the virtual currency gold with the virtual currency gems that someone else bought.

You can color me ignorant I guess. I struggle to grasp that my money is going anywhere other than their company when I purchase gems. As such if I choose to convert that into gold I am unsure how that immediately removes the my money from the equation. So while no the individuals transferring gold to gems doesn’t directly benefit anet, the allure of buying gems at times of extreme fluctuation (when the wings where available for example) is enough to get people to drop gems down. I also feel like it is evident that putting the HoT expansion on the gem store would cause an extreme increase in gold to gem prices thus prompting more gem purchases.

I edited my post to be more reader friendly and I’m sure that clears up the mess… “converting the virtual currency gold into the virtual currency gems that someone else bought.”