Guild Wars 2

Given a lot of thought on the whole debacle.

Honestly, there are only a few good points and criticisms I can accept from those against the pricing:

- Not enough information to make the purchase
- Not enough cash on hand

These are really the only two excuses, and ultimately both are solved with time. The pre-purchase is simply setting yourself up for HoT early so you don’t get caught in line at the retail when it launches for real. It makes sense to want to see more information, or start saving up money now rather than feel pressured to buy like so many people continue to harass and suggest.

I’ll be honest, at first I felt an immense disappointment in the community, I was dumbfounded on why so many people were complaining when they knew for months the expansion would be paid, and many at that time complained about the hypothetical pricing and what it would be at. I suppose I expected more people to be adequately prepared to make the pre-purchase and be thrilled about things moving forward.

I don’t doubt many of you who aren’t making the purchase fall under the above catagories, and I can definitely agree on those two points of contention.

That being said, I am going to stand firm against people who are complaining about the price, attempting to compare it to other games (including GW1) or demanding freebies when clearly all the content between Core and now has been cheap at the very most in cost, given the average player in GW2 might have spent something like $5 (I read this from an article somewhere, it was a comparison between MMOs). I still feel a bit down about the individuals without a case demanding some sort of entitlement for playing the game, and there have been quite a few of those that I have read.

Overall, I can’t say I am too happy with the shenanigans, but at least I have made my pre-purchase already, and given what I saw from the Guild Halls trailer, if everything else beyond that is going to be that kind of quality then $50 is a terrific deal.

Could have included a character slot for even standard maybe, but otherwise the $50 price tag is just fine, especially since this game doesn’t have a subscription fee, unlike FF XIV and WoW which expansions are around this price point. Also HoT is $10 cheaper compare to what the base game was when it comes out, much like how Eye of the Storm was to GW1.

But again a character slot would be nice.

Fukc you anet, put your marketing team at wc and flush

nJuSt.9182:

Fukc you anet, put your marketing team at wc and flush

wildcreek?! :p

maybe anet could give them a discount if they’ve bought gw2 in the recent few months to make up for the paid differences to balance out for the new price.
bought gw2 for $10, get a $10 discount for hot…

TrcyMcgrdy.2317

What irks me the most is the people who bought HOT already, maybe even the ultimate version, then come on here to explain how it is worth it while, at the exact same time, telling people that the value of the expansion is different for everyone. Hypocritical as fark. If you TRULY loved this and were more than happy about buying HOT, you wouldn’t be coming here trying to justify the price.

Cut these people some slack. They are not so much defending ArenaNet’s pricing policy, but rather their own purchasing decision. After all, agreeing with this angry mob that ArenaNet gives bad deals, would mean that they would have to admit that they fell for a bad deal. Nobody wants to admit to being a sucker.

By the way, I am not claming the current pricing scheme is a good deal or a bad deal. I have not purchased the expansion myself, so far.

ilMasa.2546:

nJuSt.9182:

Fukc you anet, put your marketing team at wc and flush

wildcreek?! :p

Isn’t that place in Eternal Battlegrounds? Time for Anet to flush their marketing department there.

Sykper.6583:

…
That being said, I am going to stand firm against people who are complaining about the price, attempting to compare it to other games (including GW1) or demanding freebies when clearly all the content between Core and now has been cheap at the very most in cost, given the average player in GW2 might have spent something like $5 (I read this from an article somewhere, it was a comparison between MMOs). I still feel a bit down about the individuals without a case demanding some sort of entitlement for playing the game, and there have been quite a few of those that I have read.
…

You can’t support your points with evidence that you can’t cite. As far as I can tell you made that number up and used it to justify your perception. Anyway, technically your overarching point is correct. Time will fix all of those problems. Entropy is a hell of a drug. Regardless, if you’re going to denigrate people and try to use supporting evidence, at least make sure it exists before you post it.

Unfortunately, everyone is getting screwed on this, bar none. Every single person is now stuck behind some kind of paywall. New players will have to pay for old living story. Old players will have to pay for character slots. The hidden fees system of income generation that has been established is a bummer and will only make people trust Anet less. That, more than anything, is a terrible business move.

Jornophelanthas.1475:

I think this person nailed it:

ZaidDyan.3057:

Just give a choice: extra slot or base game
Seems like a simple solution. I’d happily pay $50 for expansion +1 slot as a vet. A new player gets great value by getting the base + HoT and has 5 empty slots to work with. But let me choose!

Personally, I will get the ultimate because I’ve gotten far more than $50 of value out of the game over the years and I have no problem giving ANet my $. But I think they’d quickly quell the concerns of the masses with the above solution.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/hot/Just-give-a-choice-extra-slot-or-base-game/first#post5164506

I think an issue at this point is not only what will resolve the issue but how will they apologize to the community. With so much hate atm just throwing in something without an apology still would leave alot of lingering emotions xD

Gaile Gray.6029:

Hey all,

We understand that there are many opinions and suggestions about the game versions and the pre-purchase program. We will continue to read your thoughts and thank you for sharing them.

Is it true that you can just upgrade from standard to deluxe via gem store later on?

u need to treat your loyal fans well!!!!

Gaile Gray.6029:

Hey all,

We understand that there are many opinions and suggestions about the game versions and the pre-purchase program. We will continue to read your thoughts and thank you for sharing them.

Castien.1872:

Since I no longer plan to get HoT at this point in time, I see no reason for me to continue to play GW2 at the moment. I stuck by you guys for a ton of years, while all of my friends bounced and went to other games. None understood why I kept playing GW1 at that time. I kept the faith even after my original account was hacked and I had to buy the trilogy again while everyone was telling me to join them in the various games they were playing at that time. I stuck by you guys through a ton of gripes that I won’t list here (I’m trying to keep this short).

I’m not saying I’m gone for good, but it’ll be a cold day down under before I pay 50 bucks for that expansion as is. And until I buy HoT, I see no reason to continue playing this game. I’ll holla when HoT no longer looks like a horrible purchase to me. I’m not paying 100 bucks just to feel like I’m actually getting my money’s worth and the base pre-order package ain’t worth 50 bucks in its current iteration. So… peace out for now.

After looking around this thread, this summarizes my thoughts and circumstances exactly. As one of the last few in my circle of friends who actually stuck with GW for years, I won’t be encouraging anyone to come back to… this.

Gaile Gray.6029:

Hey all,

We understand that there are many opinions and suggestions about the game versions and the pre-purchase program. We will continue to read your thoughts and thank you for sharing them.

But will you actually do anything about it?
Reading doesn’t do anything for us.
How about telling us what you guys think, and what you are doing, or what you are thinking about doing instead of saying:
‘WE CAN READ YOU KNOW.’

Gaile Gray.6029:

Hey all,

We understand that there are many opinions and suggestions about the game versions and the pre-purchase program. We will continue to read your thoughts and thank you for sharing them.

At last, a sign of life from the aNet office! Honestly though.. We need a character slot or we cannot play the expansion, not going to delete 1600 gems worth of bagspace :-(

800 gems would be the perfect compensation, let people choose if they want a character expansion slot, or spent it on a fancy dress in game. I’m sure the mayority will accept that as compensation.

I dont care , much for charater slots 5 is enough for most Normal gamers who the hell needs 3 accounts with 12-15 charaters ..who has the time to level all of those really?

im not going to pre-purchase but i will pre-order if the shops have HoT instock that way i can trade one or two games in or use my points card to knock off £10-20. making a uk Unlimited version £50 rather than 79.99 so im basicly getting 4000 gems and HoT for £50 well blow me over , its called Savey shopping guys .

they are a business , we are customers dont like the deals they offer , buy it else where Anet still get a cut , though they wont get all of it.

HoangAn.2085:

I think an issue at this point is not only what will resolve the issue but how will they apologize to the community. With so much hate atm just throwing in something without an apology still would leave alot of lingering emotions xD

You have a point. But solutions do not exclude apologies, and vice versa.

Personally, I understand the anger, but I wouldn’t need an apology from ArenaNet. I also haven’t pre-purchased HoT so far. I prefer to wait for more money and more information about the release. (A release date would be the minimum for me to consider making a purchase.)

Gaile Gray.6029:

Hey all,

We understand that there are many opinions and suggestions about the game versions and the pre-purchase program. We will continue to read your thoughts and thank you for sharing them.

Thanks for taking into considerations of the opinions and suggestions from the fans. You’ve been one of the main liaison between the fans and developers. Hopefully, you’ll be able to convince your company that many existing player base are unhappy about the fact that they won’t be getting any character slots and will end up paying more to experience the full potential of HoT expansion. Pricing is one issue, but I’m sure most of the existing fan base will be content with the options of getting additional character slots instead.

A response finally. Greatly appreciated but a decision needs to be made quickly in order to reverse some of the damage that has been done.

There’s 60 pages of suggestions and feedback. Most stem toward adding an extra character slot for the $50 version instead of a free (useless to us) copy of the core game.

Gaile Gray.6029:

Hey all,

We understand that there are many opinions and suggestions about the game versions and the pre-purchase program. We will continue to read your thoughts and thank you for sharing them.

Easiest fix I can suggest if you aren’t going to split the HoT purchase into separate GW2 and HoT codes, would be to have it add a character slot if applied to a pre-existing GW2 account.

Because otherwise it looks like you’re thanking us for paying you twice, by giving us less.

AWACS.6537:

Gaile Gray.6029:

Hey all,

We understand that there are many opinions and suggestions about the game versions and the pre-purchase program. We will continue to read your thoughts and thank you for sharing them.

But will you actually do anything about it?
Reading doesn’t do anything for us.
How about telling us what you guys think, and what you are doing, or what you are thinking about doing instead of saying:
‘WE CAN READ YOU KNOW.’

Patience. Gaile Gray gave a heads up that ArenaNet has picked up on this issue and confirms that they are taking it seriously. This means that an official response could be coming later (but no guarantees).

Regardless, as a community representative, she is not the one who makes decisions about sales, marketing and pricing. She is, however, the one who can relay our concerns to those people. Which she may well be doing, given her response.

DeceiverX.8361:

I think the big issue at hand is that simply put, the content in HoT to our knowledge thus far isn’t worth the $50.00.

THIS.

Really, nothing else needs to be said.

From what we have been told in the past six months, we content of Heart of Thorns is so minimal that our guesses at its size is not worth $50. If ArenaNet wants to calm folks down, the best way to do such is to give us a ballpark figure of how much content we are paying for.

We paid $60 pre-purchase for 80 levels, 5 races, 8 professions, 15+ storylines, 2+ dungeons, 5 regions which included 11+ maps and ‘all open betas’. That is the core game that we knew when the pre-purchase showed up.

We are paying $50 for 0 levels, 0 races, 1 profession, 9 sets of new skills (guessed 54-69 skills) 1 storyline, 0 dungeon, 1 region which includes 1 maps, and ‘all open betas’. That is HoT pre-purchase and what we know.

Price is basically the same, content is not.

Some GW2 players are the most entitled I’ve seen in the industry, not because they want everything given to them … but because they honestly think they are being rational about this.

@Gaile, one thing that would be helpful is if the content of the expansion wasn’t so vague. If we’re getting TONS of stuff equal to say Nightfall was for Guild Wars 1 – might help us accept the pricing (well, some of us). Maybe if we really knew what the $50 (or more for the other editions) was getting us…

I definately think that a character slot or two for those that already own the core game would be a good move as well since the “free core game” really doesn’t act as an incentive if you’ve already got it… (I do think, for new players, it’s a great idea.)

(All IMO)

I’m another long term member of Guild Wars (played GW1 since 1st year of release) and yet I hardly ever visit the forums to comment. That being said, I had to respond to the pricing set for the new HOT expansion. I personally see the current options as completely unfair for long term players of GW2. Why should long term players that have already bought the game once be expected to pay the same amount as a new player will pay to get both the core game and the expansion? That makes no sense whatsoever. The long term players are basically paying double the price for the exact same thing. We are getting punished for being long term players and supporting the game since day one? Anet you really dropped the ball on this one. I have been a big supporter of the gem store as well, as I’m sure a lot of other long term players have. This is yet another avenue where long term players have pumped more money into the game than new players. Im going to have to seriously consider my ongoing support of gem store items, very much disappointed with you Anet … you really blew this one. Someone needs to make this right and offer a expansion only purchase option at a lower price

Why should I pay $50 for an expansion on the existing game instead of buying a new account with new slots?

First of all your math is incorrect and wow doesn’t release an expansions every year. Usually 2 years plus in-between.
Secondly I see this all the time about how one must support the company. It’s truly great marketing on their part to come across as a small indie-dev when they have a company such as Ncsoft in their back, a concern with I don’t know how many games. Guild Wars 2 is an AAA title as well…
It’s nothing but common sense to skip any big release on the first week and wait for reviews to avoid nasty surprises. To pre-purchase is pure gamble. It’s somehow ok to not give the customer the full info but demand the full price. The only thing to do is to wait and make sure it’s worth that and not buy into the industry uping the prices for less every year. Please don’t be a sheep and wait and see if it is truly worth 45€.

If the base game is “free” then why did you remove it from the Shop area? It should be available to download for “free.” Either way, if new players are getting something of value that fluctuated between $10-40, why is everyone else being ignored?

Gaile Gray.6029:

I should be a bit more clear: Please don’t take a comment like “we’re reading your thoughts” lightly. That’s truly not a dismissive comment, but one that is intended to let you know that feedback from our forum members and players will be shared with the team as a whole.

In fact, I’ll edit my previous post to make that a bit more visible.

See, that’s what we want to hear.
Being clear with us is all we really needed, and honestly, I respect that you take the effort to clarify things. The players saying we are just raising our pitchfork of entitlement have no clue what we really want, we want clarity and understanding. We do not just want free stuff. ( But I’ll take it. ) We want to be heard, and we want to know it too.

Regina Buenaobra.6193:

To clarify: $50 is the price of the expansion. We included the core game as a free bonus to make it easier for new players to get into it.

Thank you for this move, as it will encourage new players to join the fun

Thumbs up

Gaile Gray.6029:

I should be a bit more clear: Please don’t take a comment like “we’re reading your thoughts” lightly. That’s truly not a dismissive comment, but one that is intended to let you know that feedback from our forum members and players will be shared with the team as a whole.

In fact, I’ll edit my previous post to make that a bit more visible.

Yay! I think just knowing that we’ve been considered, whether it results in anything or not, helps put our minds at ease about the whole ordeal.

Also when you say that you’re “reading our thoughts” are you SURE you weren’t suggesting telepathy?

Xeno Mezphy.3145:

Sykper.6583:

…
That being said, I am going to stand firm against people who are complaining about the price, attempting to compare it to other games (including GW1) or demanding freebies when clearly all the content between Core and now has been cheap at the very most in cost, given the average player in GW2 might have spent something like $5 (I read this from an article somewhere, it was a comparison between MMOs). I still feel a bit down about the individuals without a case demanding some sort of entitlement for playing the game, and there have been quite a few of those that I have read.
…

You can’t support your points with evidence that you can’t cite. As far as I can tell you made that number up and used it to justify your perception. Anyway, technically your overarching point is correct. Time will fix all of those problems. Entropy is a hell of a drug. Regardless, if you’re going to denigrate people and try to use supporting evidence, at least make sure it exists before you post it.

Unfortunately, everyone is getting screwed on this, bar none. Every single person is now stuck behind some kind of paywall. New players will have to pay for old living story. Old players will have to pay for character slots. The hidden fees system of income generation that has been established is a bummer and will only make people trust Anet less. That, more than anything, is a terrible business move.

Found it, though I thought I read a different article than this one that was more recent but I don’t think the numbers would inflate or deflate by a terribly high amount (March 2014 from March 2013):

https://www.superdataresearch.com/blog/mmo-arpu/

It wasn’t $5 as I thought but $3.88 average per user.

New players paying for old living story isn’t a new thing, its one of the things we as Veterans get for sticking around for as long as we did. As for the character slot I can’t really say one way or another, I have had a free character slot for Revenant ever since it was announced, maybe Arenanet assumed more people would save a slot as well and didn’t factor in the concept of allocating a new slot for a new profession? Subjectively on the line for me but I can acknowledge if they do decide to grant that slot after the fact.

Like I said, the shenanigans were disappointing to say the least. And time will definitely help. Though, what the next move should be is a huge announcement that rivals or even beats out the Guild Halls one, like an in-depth description of what ‘Difficult PvE Content’ is and if it answers all our expectations. What really pushed me to getting the pre-purchase was that I fully expected Guild Halls to be maybe half of what I just saw from the trailer given how ‘on the side’ that project sounded like it was.

Seeing Arenanet pull through and then some with the Guild Halls raised the question whether or not they might have done something even more profound for the actual features of HoT.

Gaile Gray.6029:

I should be a bit more clear: Please don’t take a comment like “we’re reading your thoughts” lightly. That’s truly not a dismissive comment, but one that is intended to let you know that feedback from our forum members and players will be shared with the team as a whole.

In fact, I’ll edit my previous post to make that a bit more visible.

Thank you for posting that Anet sees the distress, and thank you for taking the criticism today. There are many people who feel hurt that the new player seems to get everything for a single price and the old faithful ones, the ones who’ve played since launch must repay for the whole game. Honestly as one of those people i do not care if i had to pay $50 dollars as long as a new player will have to do the same when he or she wants the expansion (IMO)

crunchyraisin.6054:

$50 is a more than reasonable price for an expansion for a free game with no subscription fee. Most of us with brain stems were expecting something in the ball park of $40 anyway.

$50 being reasonable is very much dependent on the content it adds, which is something they are not sharing for some reason. As for the game having no subscription, there is the gemstore in place of that. Gemstore income is what funds non-expansion pack content updates, so whatever is in this paid release of HoT needs to hold up to the price they are asking. Of course, what amount of content is worth $50 varies from person to person, but the info we’ve been given so far has left a lot of doubt for many of us.

I’d say most would agree that asking $50 for something that seems likely to be much smaller than the size of the core game (which was only $10 higher at release) is not reasonable. If it turns out to be much more equal in terms of content, fine. But the lack of info/hype about it does not leave me with much faith in that happening.

I was expecting a $40 price myself. But I was expecting at least 1 char slot with that. And certainly was not expecting a so called “free” core game copy (that I can’t use) to be “included”.

Sykper.6583:

Xeno Mezphy.3145:

Sykper.6583:

…
That being said, I am going to stand firm against people who are complaining about the price, attempting to compare it to other games (including GW1) or demanding freebies when clearly all the content between Core and now has been cheap at the very most in cost, given the average player in GW2 might have spent something like $5 (I read this from an article somewhere, it was a comparison between MMOs). I still feel a bit down about the individuals without a case demanding some sort of entitlement for playing the game, and there have been quite a few of those that I have read.
…

You can’t support your points with evidence that you can’t cite. As far as I can tell you made that number up and used it to justify your perception. Anyway, technically your overarching point is correct. Time will fix all of those problems. Entropy is a hell of a drug. Regardless, if you’re going to denigrate people and try to use supporting evidence, at least make sure it exists before you post it.

Unfortunately, everyone is getting screwed on this, bar none. Every single person is now stuck behind some kind of paywall. New players will have to pay for old living story. Old players will have to pay for character slots. The hidden fees system of income generation that has been established is a bummer and will only make people trust Anet less. That, more than anything, is a terrible business move.

Found it, though I thought I read a different article than this one that was more recent but I don’t think the numbers would inflate or deflate by a terribly high amount (March 2014 from March 2013):

https://www.superdataresearch.com/blog/mmo-arpu/

It wasn’t $5 as I thought but $3.88 average per user.

What you linked there, as far as I can tell, is an article saying that GW2 is the 3rd most profitable B2P/F2P MMO on the planet (per user), making 3 times as much money per account as League of Legends! Was that part of your argument about how we should just pay the $50 and get on with it already?

Gaile Gray.6029:

I should be a bit more clear: Please don’t take a comment like “we’re reading your thoughts” lightly.

I was wondering why my scalp felt all tingly every time I clicked on this thread…

Heh .

you guys do know that you dont have to buy the expansion right now.
no one is twisting your arm.

prepurchase is for people who are too hyped to wait for release.
are you too hyped to wait for release?
no?
then dont prepurchase.

price too high?
wait for it to drop while the rest of us enjoy the content.

i was planning on spending over $100 on a CE. so the pricing doesnt phase me. if it werent for some impulsive steam sale purchases i would already have ultimate.

i play the kitten out of this game. more than happy to pony up for a massive chunk of new stuff to do.

just think. we probably would be getting a free living story update instead but we kept crying out for an expansion. we got what we asked for… right?

50$ for some maps? Ok.

This isn’t so much an ‘entitlement’ thing as much as… nearly spending what we did on the game originally and not even getting half of what we originally paid for. So far it seems the new things, minus the new class – are equal to the free updates we’ve already gotten in terms of content. So why charge so much?

As a PvE casual I can’t afford to spend $50 PLUS however much it would cost to open up another slot. It would be like buying the game over again. Almost worth having two accounts just so I dont have to delete anyone on my current account – and that’s absurd.

kny.3789:

you guys do know that you dont have to buy the expansion right now.
no one is twisting your arm.

prepurchase is for people who are too hyped to wait for release.
are you too hyped to wait for release?
no?
then dont prepurchase.

Ah, you missed the section of the Pre-order page where it says “Access to All Beta Weekend Events”. It’s at the top of the page. I can feel my arm being twisted just typing those words out…

I may be completely wrong, but based on what I’ve read and heard so far, Heart of Thorns doesn’t have the amount of content that some other MMOs expansions have. I could see $30 being reasonable, maaaaaaybe $40, but not $50.

The pricing strategy is a good way to get new people into your game, but it comes across as a slap in the face to players who have been playing and supporting your game for years. (I suppose I know why another “snowy” developer never did this with their MMO now. – Sale on the base game, yes. Included with the xpac, no.) There are a lot of other game options out there. If the price remains the same, I’ll probably either pass or wait until HoT goes in the sale bin for $10.

Sykper.6583:

Found it, though I thought I read a different article than this one that was more recent but I don’t think the numbers would inflate or deflate by a terribly high amount (March 2014 from March 2013):

https://www.superdataresearch.com/blog/mmo-arpu/

It wasn’t $5 as I thought but $3.88 average per user.

…

Kudos for the source, though that does claim it’s per 12 months, so that’s more like $12 per user since launch (assuming constant numbers over the timeframe). I’m probably close to the $100 mark in total, but I wasn’t buying an additional character because I’ve never played an MMO before (with limited character slots) that didn’t give you a slot when a new class comes out. I’m sure it’s happened, but that doesn’t really make it terribly reasonable. It’s like a parking garage asking me to pay them to drive my new car into the lot and then once I’m inside making me pay for a parking spot.

Gaile Gray.6029:

Hey all,

We understand that there are many opinions and suggestions about the game versions and the pre-purchase program. We will continue to read your thoughts and thank you for sharing them.

Edit to add: We will share your input with the team.

Thanks for posting. It’s nice to know it’s being read.

Since everyone else is I’ll post my suggestion/thoughts
-75 Euro is a very high price point for a fully digital, deluxe edition (considering the bulk of the extra cost in physical editions is for the extra goodies/statues) Especially for an expansion. I’m hoping to purchase that version but I don’t feel that price point is value for money it’s more than I’d pay for most release day game deluxe editions with physical goods from a shop.

-The pre-order bonus of a Vanilla GW2 account, the key from it should should be usable to create a separate account if you’re just upgrading an existing account. I can make use of it or give it to a friend. Alternatively upgrading an existing account could give 2 bonus character slots (or 1600 gems) so that existing players feel they are still getting the benefit of that bonus.

Gaile Gray.6029:

DarkWasp.7291:

Gaile Gray.6029:

I should be a bit more clear: Please don’t take a comment like “we’re reading your thoughts” lightly. That’s truly not a dismissive comment, but one that is intended to let you know that feedback from our forum members and players will be shared with the team as a whole.

In fact, I’ll edit my previous post to make that a bit more visible.

Yay! I think just knowing that we’ve been considered, whether it results in anything or not, helps put our minds at ease about the whole ordeal.

Also when you say that you’re “reading our thoughts” are you SURE you weren’t suggesting telepathy?

Oh gad! You’re right. That really should simply be “reading and sharing your input.” I hesitate to go back and edit that post, especially since it was quoted a time or two. But I hope you’ll forgive the poor wording by looking at the good intentions it symbolizes.

Gaile could you please comment on the change made to the FAQ literally within hours of the pre-order going live? It’s being seen by lots of players (especially in light of the several sales on core game accounts the last few months) as an unethical cash grab that borders on a bait-and-switch.

It looks to the veteran players like either somebody screwed up and tried to cover their tracks or else Arenanet is engaged in some incredibly dishonest business practices. You can understand why the player base isn’t very likely to trust any information or statements coming from Arenanet or their representatives, right? In either case the community at large is owed an apology

Konig Des Todes.2086:

DeceiverX.8361:

I think the big issue at hand is that simply put, the content in HoT to our knowledge thus far isn’t worth the $50.00.

THIS.

Really, nothing else needs to be said.

From what we have been told in the past six months, we content of Heart of Thorns is so minimal that our guesses at its size is not worth $50. If ArenaNet wants to calm folks down, the best way to do such is to give us a ballpark figure of how much content we are paying for.

We paid $60 pre-purchase for 80 levels, 5 races, 8 professions, 15+ storylines, 2+ dungeons, 5 regions which included 11+ maps and ‘all open betas’. That is the core game that we knew when the pre-purchase showed up.

We are paying $50 for 0 levels, 0 races, 1 profession, 9 sets of new skills (guessed 54-69 skills) 1 storyline, 0 dungeon, 1 region which includes 1 maps, and ‘all open betas’. That is HoT pre-purchase and what we know.

Price is basically the same, content is not.

this

Since this thread is being read, I just want to go on record that adding an extra character slot to the standard edition would do nothing to entice me to buy HoT for $50. I already have a character slot ready for a Revenant.

For me, it comes down to not seeing $50 worth of value in what we’ve seen of HoT so far. It’s possible in a future beta there will be vastly more content than it currently seems, and I’ll revise that, but for the moment I will be waiting until HoT is discounted to somewhere around $30 before I’ll pick it up for the four accounts owned by my family.

Sykper.6583:

Given a lot of thought on the whole debacle.

Honestly, there are only a few good points and criticisms I can accept from those against the pricing:

- Not enough information to make the purchase
- Not enough cash on hand

These are really the only two excuses, and ultimately both are solved with time. The pre-purchase is simply setting yourself up for HoT early so you don’t get caught in line at the retail when it launches for real. It makes sense to want to see more information, or start saving up money now rather than feel pressured to buy like so many people continue to harass and suggest.

I’ll be honest, at first I felt an immense disappointment in the community, I was dumbfounded on why so many people were complaining when they knew for months the expansion would be paid, and many at that time complained about the hypothetical pricing and what it would be at. I suppose I expected more people to be adequately prepared to make the pre-purchase and be thrilled about things moving forward.

I don’t doubt many of you who aren’t making the purchase fall under the above catagories, and I can definitely agree on those two points of contention.

That being said, I am going to stand firm against people who are complaining about the price, attempting to compare it to other games (including GW1) or demanding freebies when clearly all the content between Core and now has been cheap at the very most in cost, given the average player in GW2 might have spent something like $5 (I read this from an article somewhere, it was a comparison between MMOs). I still feel a bit down about the individuals without a case demanding some sort of entitlement for playing the game, and there have been quite a few of those that I have read.

Overall, I can’t say I am too happy with the shenanigans, but at least I have made my pre-purchase already, and given what I saw from the Guild Halls trailer, if everything else beyond that is going to be that kind of quality then $50 is a terrific deal.

It’s a shame that in today’s gaming community we still have people who pre-order and accept any price a gaming company asks of them without knowing if the game, or in this case, expansion is worth it. You are part of the problem, not the solution. Anet made a great game, but asking $50 for an expansion and not including even a character slot is too much and reason to move on. Don’t care about your core players, then I’m no longer going to support you or any company that treats it’s customers like they mean nothing more than $$$.

I’m willing to pay only for HOT expansion I’m not interested for paying for content I already paid ….Have a nice day Arena..
If naw basic content is free dose it mean base game become Free to play ? Everyone can join and play? No you just sell the game again to us ….. I doubt HOT is even 30 % of base game ….so this is bascily and official scum …..I’m not buying …
it make no sens .