Guild Wars 2

45 euros for an expansion?
http://media0.giphy.com/media/tZF2erGJ5uOHe/giphy.gif

For anyone, who wants to say anything in defence of Anet and already bought HotT – you’re welcome. Just, please. no offense. We all have opinions, we have right to write them down. You have this right too.

What maters – is the Anet answer to this. They will put an end to this, one or another, you can’t do it.

Keep calm and make your reasoning.

Just to joke a bit.

Kitsune.1902:

Vulcanite.3012:

Poeple are missing the point here. The problem is not with the Veterans or the people who buys HoT and then gets core game at the same time. The problem is everyone who bought the core game since the expantion was announced because in the FAQ it stated you need the core game to be able to play HoT and they changed it yesterday when they added the core game to HoT.

Interesting note: This expantion now costs more then I paid for the core game when it was first released in South Africa also about 1/4 of my month’s salary. Also feel so bad i convinced one of my friends to buy the game last week. He is so happy with me now.

If he bought the game just last week, he should contact the support immediately. It’s been mentioned elsewhere that they can help you migrate the purchase into HoT prepurchase (although I assume you have to pay the cost difference, and your account may be reset so that any progress you had made in-game will be lost). Essentially it’s refund of the game you bought, and purchase of the new HoT option.

That is going to be a bit hard seing as he bought it from a store with Rands, South African currency, and does not have a credit card to make online payments.

I really do not think the $50 is what most people are really upset about. Its the most obvious and easiest thing to use as a scapegoat.

The real issue is the nickle and diming. Had Anet included a character slot and perhaps a unique account bound item (bank slot? inventory bag? etc) for the $50, people might have hemmed and hawed a bit, but at least they could point to the price and say they got something tangible for value.

I really hope HoT has alot of content. the backlash will be immense if there is only one Silverwaste-like area, one pvp map and one LS, all of which will be completed in 2-3 days.

I already have the core game, but I haven’t really played much the last year and haven’t kept up with the news a lot. I remember Guild Wars 1 expansions being pretty much full-fledged games that could be played as games on their own with their own huge story and a lot of areas and missions, making them absolutely worth the price tag.

Now my question is, is Heart of Thorns expansion going to be similar in that respect? Can I expect access to at least 10+ new, unique areas and a storyline that’s on par with the core game? What about dungeons? —- Or am I better off waiting for a price drop?

mulzi.8273:

I really do not think the $50 is what most people are really upset about. Its the most obvious and easiest thing to use as a scapegoat.

The real issue is the nickle and diming. Had Anet included a character slot and perhaps a unique account bound item (bank slot? inventory bag? etc) for the $50, people might have hemmed and hawed a bit, but at least they could point to the price and say they got something tangible for value.

I really hope HoT has alot of content. the backlash will be immense if there is only one Silverwaste-like area, one pvp map and one LS, all of which will be completed in 2-3 days.

THe nickle and diming as you call it isnt that they should add the base game and an extra char slot and and and, there simply should be an alternative for the free base game included.
An extra standard edition with 1 free character slot
or the current standard edition for new players.

In all honesty I think anet is overlooking that is all (or actually their marketing team is looking to much at other companies).

Just leaving this here..

Avlaen.7241:

Getting new players into the game is important for the life of the game.

I have a friend who wanted to get into gw2 but didnt want to have to pay for the core game and the expac just to get into it, which is understandable.

Now he can get both and join the community.

The expac is priced fiarly even for just an expac. yet alone one for a game without a subfee.

Some of us Veteran Players, or a lot if not most of us, have supported the game more than what a subscription fee would be. The reason? They do some work on an outfit and we buy it so we get something and thank them for putting effort into it by buying it. It’s a trust relationship we have going with Anet, one that NCsoft constantly butts in and screws it up.. All for the cause of money.. Ironically, when we would be willing to spend more in game to pay for the developers and staff if they would do something extremely simple.. Make a bundle for Veteran Players. Add 800 gems to it since we won’t be getting the Core game like New Players. It’s special treatment towards New Players. I’ll say it is one heck of a deal for New Players, but they won’t get “all the free content” we did. They will have to pay for the LS S1 because if you didn’t login the first like 2 weeks they released it you had to purchase it from the Gem Store. So they don’t get that. It is as simple as giving us Veteran Players something special for pre-ordering and continuing to support the game. It’s sooooo simple. It’s not like we are asking for Legendaries or anything.. We just want Anet’s gratitude for supporting them all this time. You can hear them at the HoT release convention thing and Mike talks about “How we couldn’t have done this without you” and then HE allows THIS. Literally would have had no backlash from the GW2 community if they just used their brains. It would have gotten RAVING reviews screaming “Buy this!!” instead it’s getting worse reviews and the Veteran Players that spent money on the game.. Just aren’t inclined to do so again. So we wanted them to change it to accommodate the ones who would lose out on this deal. Then… They say everything is locked in place and no changes will be made to the Pre-Order Bundles. The Ultimate Slap to the face. “Negotiations Over” “No Discussion” “We Don’t Care About Your Feelings” “You’ll Buy It Anyways” Things like that.. kitten me off. Already multiples of my friends have said, “No, I am not buying this. It’s ridiculous.” I don’t know if I will buy it or not. The Veteran Players not buying it.. Will hurt.. A LOT. Sure there will be plenty of those who will buy it. But, it is highly unlikely that enough new players who don’t appreciate what Anet has done for them will put more cash into the game than what the Veteran Players have. Period. It was a bad, if not downright Horrific, idea and terrible marketing.So many more things I could cover, but just now bad reviews are being written by Veteran Players that will haunt Anet. It’ll cost them.

Arena shoot themself in the foot with this magic scum ….I personally will not buy game until they will give a reasonable price for HOT…… 3 years same OLD boring events not intreasting Living Story ….. and in the end for firt expansion they want to screw you over? Pff wish mister Greedy Scruge
I allready bought this game 3 times for my self and for 2 friends as a gift and now …..
I payed Blizzard for too long …. I will not fall for this greedy cash grab

I would gladly pay 50$ for HoT, if it’s included a character slot. Is it that hard to give something to the veteran players? I don’t even need the other ingame bonuses, i will get them somehow in time.

I have 5 level 80’s. Why do i need to delete one of them, to play a Revenant? Of course, i can farm the gold, to unlock a char slot from the gem store, but everyone can do that. I would just appreciate this little “gift” from Arenanet, for playing their game since headstart, giving them feedback, reporting the evil bots and goldsellers, and spending real money on gems.

Thanks for reading!

warbignime.4610:

Ros campain is like 2 hours, also hot brought way more feature than what you mentioned, guild hall,mastery, specs, new class, new region, adventure. yeah it blows Ros out miles away.

I’m over 3800 hours in GW2 and over 1300 hours in DIII+RoS, but I must said that since the beguinning of this year RoS is increasingly filling the space of GW2. And HoT is doing nothing to change my mind.

I honestly don’t get why people defend Anet here. This is just a good example of bad marketing from ANet their side.

I don’t get it why you couldn’t see this coming. Aside from the expansion’s price tag, which your financial department has alot more knowlegde about than I do, the marketing was just plain bad.

For alot of players this feels like ANet ignores the fact the players already payed for the base game, and someone else is getting it “free”. Ofcourse people tend to forget they’ve already been playing this game for a few more years than the newbies. But it’s not an uncommon response, and that’s why I don’t see why ANet didnt see this comming.

And all they had to do is just give the players who already own the base game a little thingy. Character slot, gems, pet, I dont know? Something that could’ve calmed their nerves a bit. Because, lets be honest 45euros is alot for something we barrely know something about.

https://imgflip.com/i/n2duo

Jornophelanthas.1475:

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.

you actualy think someone cares what the angry mob thinks of them?

ps:i bought it 8-)

Mattmatt.4962:

https://imgflip.com/i/n2duo

Made my day! xD That’s just it!

As surprised as I was when I first saw the $50 price for a base expansion with absolutely no extras, when I sat back and thought about I realized I probably missed some rather obvious foreshadowing of this on EAnet’s part. I mean, earlier the same day, a few hours before the expansion pre-order went online, they added this to the Gem Store: https://youtu.be/E4_iw5VwG7w

Yes, that is exactly what you think it is: a digital pet rock. For $5.00. A real-life pet rock shouldn’t cost $5.00, much less a pet rock that doesn’t actually exist! I feel like this was a test they used to gauge how much they could charge us for the expac, and how little they could get away with including in the basic pack. Like they said, "Ok, let’s add a digital pet rock to the game a few hours ahead of pre-orders, and for every 100 people who buy this thing, we’ll just add another $1 to the price. Also, for every 500 people who add it, we’ll simply take away one of the free extras we were planning to put in the standard pack (like character slots), until there’s nothing left but the expansion itself and maybe some crummy, bare minimum thing like a Title or Beta Access that most players won’t even use. Oh, and if we sell 1000 of these digital pet rocks, maybe we can do away with any physical box version altogether! Make the Collector’s Edition digital, call it “Ultimate” instead, charge double the price of any modern AAA title, and just include a few digital bonuses, since GW2 players love that stuff! It’s just a few more lines of code anyway, just give them some junk that we’ve already got lying around, like a vine wall or something, it won’t even cost us a penny! I mean, come on, if they’re willing to buy a pet rock IN A GAME, then I assume these people will pay for anything!"

The expansion is too expensive, just made a HoT-only version able to purchase and the veteran people that is the most important will be happier.

First of all, yes i bought the expasion for 50$ because i love to play this game and want to support it, BUT!
Something i would like to know is how they got to the 50$ price tag for the game, if the core game costs around the same price. The expansions from gw1 were price tagged at 30$(*including character slot) which i consider reasonable, considering the amount of content in the expansions.

Now i get that a 100$ price tag for the game and expansion wont get any new players attention. But for the people who have always been playing the game it is kind of a rip-off. I would suggest to find a balance between the new and core players of gw2, for example:

- *50$ price tag and no extra character slot is a no-go
- You dont need to drop the price of the expansion, but at least give the core players some free items for their support

Pity that the marketers of GW2 did not think the psychology of selling to two very diverse groups in your customer base through properly. Pity. What these marketers now have is the backlash of players feeling very disappointed, even betrayed, because they (ANET?) have overlooked the importance of FAIRNESS in marketing. Trust have been breached and to fix it some seriously concrete action is needed.

I don’t mind paying the current price ‘cause I know I’ll get my moneys worth but I also agree with those who seem to think $50 is a bit too much for an expansion – especially for those who already own the base game, I feel like a discount should be applied for those who obviously own a GW2 account.

innocens.1582:

Jornophelanthas.1475:

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.

you actualy think someone cares what the angry mob thinks of them?

ps:i bought it 8-)

No, they don’t care what the angry mob thinks about them. They feel they must defend their purchase against the angry mob’s accusations, because otherwise they must draw the conclusion “I am a sucker”.
What they are telling themselves is “I am not a sucker. Therefore, I must have paid a fair price. Therefore, HoT must be priced fairly. Therefore, the angry mob must be wrong.”

And this reasoning has nothing to do with whether the angry mob is right or wrong here.

smitske.4912:

I think read is an exaggeration all they have been doing is just putting any topic about it in this one to, in the best case notice that we are not happy. In worst not even reading one word (usually they read 5 words and interpret it completely wrong).

They tell you they’re reading this and weighing the options and apparently you’re still indignant for some reason? Have SOME patience, christ almighty. Take off the ‘I Hate Corporations’ shirt, put away the tinfoil hat, and have even a minor amount of faith. This isn’t EA we’re working with here.

dervix.9126:

smitske.4912:

I think read is an exaggeration all they have been doing is just putting any topic about it in this one to, in the best case notice that we are not happy. In worst not even reading one word (usually they read 5 words and interpret it completely wrong).

They tell you they’re reading this and weighing the options and apparently you’re still indignant for some reason? Have SOME patience, christ almighty. Take off the ‘I Hate Corporations’ shirt, put away the tinfoil hat, and have even a minor amount of faith. This isn’t EA we’re working with here.

while I agree that they’re looking, and I’m happy about that, Arenanet could stand to work on their communication with their customers. people are pretty kittened at the moment, and silence is one of the worst responses they can go with. right now they’re looking at losing the loyalty of quite a few people, and that’s not something you want to do as a business…

I myself have supported this game since beta and have personally spent an ungodly amount of money on gemstore stuff because I want to support this game (way more money than a subscription fee btw). After thousands of hours of game play I never got a precursor drop and I’m perfectly cool with that too. However, I’m going to pass on this expansion because I feel that it is overpriced, vague, and just plain unappealing. This kind of greed just makes veteran players want to quit. I’ve almost always defended this game, but I can’t defend this and I can’t see how any other near 3 year player can sit there and feel fine with what the company is charging for expansion content that cost the same as the base game when I bought it.

I love GW2 and haven’t got any other game to play at the moment however I’m sorry Anet but I refuse to pay over £30 for standard with nothing thrown in.

Jornophelanthas.1475:

innocens.1582:

Jornophelanthas.1475:

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.

you actualy think someone cares what the angry mob thinks of them?

ps:i bought it 8-)

No, they don’t care what the angry mob thinks about them. They feel they must defend their purchase against the angry mob’s accusations, because otherwise they must draw the conclusion “I am a sucker”.
What they are telling themselves is “I am not a sucker. Therefore, I must have paid a fair price. Therefore, HoT must be priced fairly. Therefore, the angry mob must be wrong.”

And this reasoning has nothing to do with whether the angry mob is right or wrong here.

I do enjoy and feel okay with my purchase, if that makes you think i am a sucker, then so be it.

I don’t think they will reduce the expansion price for the veteran anyway, and if you don’t buy it at the end, its your own call. Hope at the end you won’t “be that sucker” if they keep the cost as is.

Preliminary Patch Notes of a true Expansion looks like (id say arround 1/4 of whats coming is here now): http://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodestone/topics/detail/e76258d6487ea30feb388f9ecc0a926fddc9eca8

Honestly. There is no way the glorified DLC called HoT is worth 50 bucks for a sane person.

maddoctor.2738:

FFXIV has 2 new primals, GW2 doesn’t have anything remotely close to it.

No idea what a primal is.

FFXIV is getting 8 new dungeons, GW2 cut it’s dungeon team so likely nothing.
FFXIV is getting a new Raid, GW2 might be getting a raid.

We still don’t know what “Challenging group content” is. Also, how many open world event chains is FF getting? How many open event bosses? How many zones with zone mechanics (day/night) cycle? We are also getting instanced adventures in HoT designed to test player skill and add competition in PVE. Any adventures in FF?

FFXIV is getting FC workshops, airships, and air ship missions; GW2 nothing similar.

Well we have guild missions, probably expanded/upgraded, not in the air though.

Primals are instanced 8 player group content that go from normal mode to extreme. Normal is pretty easy as long as you pay attention. Hard you’re having a tough time, but it’s not too bad. Extreme if you’re 1s late either you died or you wiped the raid, basically any mistake by anyone in the group is a potential wipe. If you like hard PVE then you’ll love these. These cover instanced adventures I think, but so do Guildleves(small instanced missions that are easy). Challenging PvE content is something that FFXIV does very very well and isn’t likely to be beaten by GW2 in the next century for a few reasons. First off we have the non-trinity system that means the number of mechanics available is already deminished since you don’t have tanks or dedicated healers. Class/stat balance- if they balance based on full dps builds that leaves any group with a support or tankier build screwed. Last the fact that ArenaNet has never been good at polish. Remember the marionette fight where one person would be put on a pad?

Each new zone in FFXIV has day/night and weather. They are even adding a UI so you can see what conditions in a zone are like. There was actually a video awhile back showcasing the new day/night cycle as the shadows change with the suns position. As far as zone bosses, won’t know until it releases. I can say there are zone bosses in certain zones already so it’s very likely the new zones will have them as well.

The point in all of this is that HoT, by what they have announced, is adding less for more money compared to FFXIV HW. Even if they are adding equal amounts of content GW2 HoT is still $10 more($20 really since FFXIV HW was on sale for $30 constantly). I’m not sure how you can really justify it. The subscription in FFXIV pays for far better patches and polish and the equivalent in GW2 is the cash shop. If ArenaNet isn’t making enough money to keep making patches then they need to re-evaluate their pricing structure. There are plenty of F2P games that keep putting out patches with only a cash shop so it is not a valid excuse of the clear quantity and quality disparity.

papry.8096:

Hey, remember the reddit post with the help for recent buyer of GW2.
Guess what ?
Here; their answer to people asking for help.

http://i.imgur.com/T0lpOQO.jpg

Wow, just wow. Apparently the support lead did not inform his team enough. On reddit people were promissed a refund if they were recent buyers.

- EDIT: Note though you are not prepaired to elminate your current guild wars subscription, if you were to do that they might want to help you?

Slowly I am losing my faith in Arena Net and this situation.. FAQ Ninja edit few hours before launch, suddenly the game comes free as addon.

You know what this sounds to me like? Not marketing.. It sounds like a technical flaw in your source coding, and marketing profits from it.

Otherwise you could have easyly corrected this by selling the EXPANSION<- (Huh am I expanding with a new core game?) seperatly.

My two cents? Compensate ALL pre-orders with 800 gems, let them decide what to do with it, either buy their own character slot, or let them spent it on a fancy dress. Everyone will be happy.

Also, I still need to know why UK based players pay 111,50€ for the DLC, whilest the rest of europe that has the same VAT (Included in the price even) pays 99,99.

(Tax regulations for online purchases vary between 18 and 21% across the whole of EU, and conversion rates are far from 10% of the total price)

This is very simple, I don’t have any objection with the price of the expansion. It’s expensive, but it’s what it is. You can buy it now, never, or when its price gets reduced.

The fact is that they are gifting the base game with the expansion, right? Well, then I will want my expansion and a serial code for a new account so I can give it to another person. Or the same value on gems, for example. I’m not gonna let them steal that “gift” from me just for being a supporter since Beta.

And if they are not comfortable with this, then make a cheaper option without the “gift”.

papry.8096:

Hey, remember the reddit post with the help for recent buyer of GW2.
Guess what ?
Here; their answer to people asking for help.

http://i.imgur.com/T0lpOQO.jpg

Cash grab at it best. Idk about you guys but i for one wont be buying xpac anytime soon. Not for the arrogant comment from John Smith, not for the shady practices and not for the lies on reddit.

I completely agree with this guy:

“Copy-pasting from one of the other threads in case it gets locked/deleted:
LOTRO’s Helm’s Deep expansion cost $40 for the base edition and came with, in addition to the expansion content itself:
a unique cosmetic
a unique title
1000 Turbine Points (i.e, gems)
HoT’s standard edition comes with only the expansion content itself, if you’re a veteran player.
$50 is not an unusual price for an MMO expansion, but other MMO expansions usually bundle other goodies with the purchase to provide extra value to their loyal customers.”

Reddit

Distaste.4801:

maddoctor.2738:

FFXIV has 2 new primals, GW2 doesn’t have anything remotely close to it.

No idea what a primal is.

FFXIV is getting 8 new dungeons, GW2 cut it’s dungeon team so likely nothing.
FFXIV is getting a new Raid, GW2 might be getting a raid.

We still don’t know what “Challenging group content” is. Also, how many open world event chains is FF getting? How many open event bosses? How many zones with zone mechanics (day/night) cycle? We are also getting instanced adventures in HoT designed to test player skill and add competition in PVE. Any adventures in FF?

FFXIV is getting FC workshops, airships, and air ship missions; GW2 nothing similar.

Well we have guild missions, probably expanded/upgraded, not in the air though.

Primals are instanced 8 player group content that go from normal mode to extreme. Normal is pretty easy as long as you pay attention. Hard you’re having a tough time, but it’s not too bad. Extreme if you’re 1s late either you died or you wiped the raid, basically any mistake by anyone in the group is a potential wipe. If you like hard PVE then you’ll love these. These cover instanced adventures I think, but so do Guildleves(small instanced missions that are easy). Challenging PvE content is something that FFXIV does very very well and isn’t likely to be beaten by GW2 in the next century for a few reasons. First off we have the non-trinity system that means the number of mechanics available is already deminished since you don’t have tanks or dedicated healers. Class/stat balance- if they balance based on full dps builds that leaves any group with a support or tankier build screwed. Last the fact that ArenaNet has never been good at polish. Remember the marionette fight where one person would be put on a pad?

Each new zone in FFXIV has day/night and weather. They are even adding a UI so you can see what conditions in a zone are like. There was actually a video awhile back showcasing the new day/night cycle as the shadows change with the suns position. As far as zone bosses, won’t know until it releases. I can say there are zone bosses in certain zones already so it’s very likely the new zones will have them as well.

The point in all of this is that HoT, by what they have announced, is adding less for more money compared to FFXIV HW. Even if they are adding equal amounts of content GW2 HoT is still $10 more($20 really since FFXIV HW was on sale for $30 constantly). I’m not sure how you can really justify it. The subscription in FFXIV pays for far better patches and polish and the equivalent in GW2 is the cash shop. If ArenaNet isn’t making enough money to keep making patches then they need to re-evaluate their pricing structure. There are plenty of F2P games that keep putting out patches with only a cash shop so it is not a valid excuse of the clear quantity and quality disparity.

I was only responding to this:

As for what HW is bringing…it’s far far far more than HoT

And I explained why I think it’s not bringing so much more than HoT (from what we know so far) I didn’t mention the price.

As for the price, I cannot justify it at all. In fact 50$ from what we’ve seen in HoT so far is a very high and unreasonable price.

New players gets three times more than vets, vets that kept the game alive, and vets dont even get some gems or something with 1st or 2nd package they buy with HoT….yeah, seems fair and that has alot of common sense. Even if vets got tons of content, at least add a kitten bonus with that 50$, same with ppl that already bought, give em some bonus in-game, 2000 gems should do the trick and would calm the majority that says that the price is wrong without any bonus, but they are ignored in almost every way possible.

dervix.9126:

smitske.4912:

I think read is an exaggeration all they have been doing is just putting any topic about it in this one to, in the best case notice that we are not happy. In worst not even reading one word (usually they read 5 words and interpret it completely wrong).

They tell you they’re reading this and weighing the options and apparently you’re still indignant for some reason? Have SOME patience, christ almighty. Take off the ‘I Hate Corporations’ shirt, put away the tinfoil hat, and have even a minor amount of faith. This isn’t EA we’re working with here.

Unfortunately they have a trackrecord of not really reading stuff properly but just picking out sentenced and misinterpreting the meaning completely. Arenanet is extremely poor at communicating properly, in any “crisis” control it is key to communicating fast and clear, they do neither and thus fail, only leading to more uproar. This isn’t EA yet, but they are getting closer to more they behave like this, their rep has taken a hit and the longer they ignore things the harder it will be to fix that damage.

And in all fairness with the scam they pulled they are no better than EA (every sale since HoT announcement).

At least tell us what is in the expansion first before giving us a price tag.

Terrible marketing team at Arenanet.

HoT marketting plan : Start high, compromize to your advantage.

Overprice, let the forums flame, provoke emotional rollercoaster with a char slot, still sell overpriced, job done.
Yes, I’m an entitled customer, I don’t get along with greedy marketing. Is it so surprising?

Vulcanite.3012:

Kitsune.1902:

Vulcanite.3012:

Poeple are missing the point here. The problem is not with the Veterans or the people who buys HoT and then gets core game at the same time. The problem is everyone who bought the core game since the expantion was announced because in the FAQ it stated you need the core game to be able to play HoT and they changed it yesterday when they added the core game to HoT.

Interesting note: This expantion now costs more then I paid for the core game when it was first released in South Africa also about 1/4 of my month’s salary. Also feel so bad i convinced one of my friends to buy the game last week. He is so happy with me now.

If he bought the game just last week, he should contact the support immediately. It’s been mentioned elsewhere that they can help you migrate the purchase into HoT prepurchase (although I assume you have to pay the cost difference, and your account may be reset so that any progress you had made in-game will be lost). Essentially it’s refund of the game you bought, and purchase of the new HoT option.

That is going to be a bit hard seing as he bought it from a store with Rands, South African currency, and does not have a credit card to make online payments.

Ouch. Yes, difficult to do any transactions online then, and so CS might not be able to do much. Wouldn’t hurt to still contact them, but not sure it would help much.

So… full price for half an expansion, for a product that was already incomplete upon release, and already has a gem store with lots of rewards locked behind a pay wall. Sounds perfectly reasonable. -cough-

(Missing emotes, guildhalls, explorable areas, broken quests/skills/traits/guilds on release, and an unfinished final boss fight)

Throwing in my vote for having:

Standard $49.99

Core
Heart of Thorns
800 Gems

This technically drops the revenue of the expansion $10, but has the side-effect of also giving veteran players gems to use to buy an outfit or buy a new character slot. It also puts gems in the hands of new players to explore the Trading Post and get them enticed to use it in the future.

ArenaNet still gets their $50. It is a win-win compromise. Everyone gets something, and feels like both a deal and an apology. ArenaNet loses 20% off of the base game but effectively advertises the gem store for new players.

Then, replace the character slot from the other two editions with this 800 gems.

And it is easy to implement. Anyone who purchased HoT gets a 800 gem drop.

if you think, like me, that chargin the base game AGAIN to vet si out of question (also because ANET sold copies lately with the advertisement “get ready for HOT!” remember YOU ARE THE CONSUMER, if you DON T BUY it you can make your voice matter.

They need US not the other way around. I m a gw2 vet and IM NOT SPENDIN MONEY ON SOMETHING I ALREADY OWN.

i will consider then expansion only when it ll come as a stand alone package

Wtf are they on crack. I guess I will have to wait for a review. I love a net. And want to support them but this price is just making me cautious is all.

Not searched for this as list is getting really big now..

Anyone else worried by the SUBLIMINAL MARKETING tactics used by anet on the “Buy HOT” page, on any platform…….

It allways opens up with the Ultimate highlighted. they do not need to do this….

Why not just highlight options as you curser over them….

Also only one payment line proudly showing “only” £79.99

Why not three lines – one for each option..

Oh I know why……

SUBLIMINAL MARKETING…..

Amongst other things I am a trained industrial engineer and its suprisingly easy to guide “which one should I chose” in a “useful” (read – your own words here) direction

Eagle.7208:

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 :-(

You will be able to play the expansion with existing characters

I was collecting money for gw2 since i heard it will came. It’s took me a lot of time becouse i am still studying. HoT cost 50 bucks but in my country it’s around 250z? and it’s a bigger price than just core game. I really love that game i play my charr thief for two years and i never get bored. I don’t really need even more slots i just want new epic adventure…but even if i want to buy HoT for this price i can’t do it i don’t have that money. Please Anet do something or at least give us a reason why you damanding such high prices for just DLC. It is just so big and epic or you have problems with cash i am sure players will understand. P.S. I am going to send Grand Duchess Faolain to teach you a manners if you will leave us without a good answer…i know her it will not be a peaceful lesson. ,..,

warbignime.4610:

Most of MMORPG are vague about their expansion too, there are no weekly live stream about the content neither weekly detailed blog post..

This statement is partially correct.It is true that most of MMORPG are vague when annuncing a new expansion,mostly to generate hype and curiosity but in practice they will tell you at some point all the major features they gonna add in it,while remaining vague on the details of each aspects.

For example,they could say they r going to add a new continent showing you only 5 regions. (maybe 5 outta 10 totals of that continent)
In this case you are aware that there will be a new continent,BUT even if they have shown only a small part u know there is still plenty.

warbignime.4610:

You guys should compare WoW expansion reveal to HoT, or even ff14 heavensward.

Do u really want to make comparisons with WoW at this very moment!?Do u really want to make comparisons with WoW in first place?!

warbignime.4610:

Just check wow MoP reveal page, all they did are listed features and a very short portion of the reveal video and that’s pretty much it.

Ok lets do this,lets make the comparison (http://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/6771526/mists-of-pandaria-launches-september-25-2012-pre-sales-now-open-7-25-2012)

MoP: Standard edition 39.99 , Digital Delux 59.99
HoT: Standard edition 49.99 , Deluxe 74.99 , Ultimate Edition 99.99

And sorry but MoP,as any other WoW expansion, added a kitten TONS of CONTENTS for less the price.Im totally fine with Blizzard tell me nothing in the reveal page lol.

What HoT offer at this moment:
- 2 to 3 pve maps …(with a vertical structure..like what Edge of the Mist?!Aww god)
- 1 new WvW map
- 1 new competitive pvp mode
- a new class
- one new weapon spec for each profession

Sorry dude 50 $ and not even e free character slot its just BS.

Its more like a console DLC rather than a expac,and for the record ive seen mods adding way more content for free.

Check this bro https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BC9LC6JLS_I he says the exact point.

skowcia.8257:

papry.8096:

Hey, remember the reddit post with the help for recent buyer of GW2.
Guess what ?
Here; their answer to people asking for help.

http://i.imgur.com/T0lpOQO.jpg

Cash grab at it best. Idk about you guys but i for one wont be buying xpac anytime soon. Not for the arrogant comment from John Smith, not for the shady practices and not for the lies on reddit.

They are probably getting hundreds, or thousands of inquiries like that. That’s the same copy-paste response I’ve seen posted elsewhere. If you want to get somewhere, I think you need to poke them again and explain the situation – the second letter probably goes to a slightly closer scrutiny. You may have to be prepared to give up your game progress though – although I couldn’t be sure.

Personally, the day they announced the $10 sales, I knew this would happen. They were basically giving the game away. Of course, bank accounts don’t need the expansion so buying a $10 account was an obvious choice.

ArenaNet’s no longer selling the core game by itself because $10 would have been its new price and selling it alone would have been damaging. A $10 account can turn a profit within 2 months, so if you were going to spend $10 on gems anyways, buy a new account instead. What they should have done was simply offer HoT and HoT+GW2 separately and showed that $10 difference. HoT could have been sold for $45-$50 assuming they wanted a standard price, while HoT+GW2 would have been $5-10 more.

They could have avoided these (bundle) complaints and the confusion that came along with it if they had just done that. After all, this problem was predicted months ago, so I can only assume their marketing team also expected it. Perhaps they figured this would work as a form of advertisement, then next week to turnaround the problem, they’ll announce that existing accounts get a free character slot, bank slot, bag slot and material storage upgrade. Just a character slot would have been fine, but the worse it gets, the more appealing they have to be.

Except WoW is a subscription-based game, meaning that it’s reasonable for you to expect a lot of content from them, both during and inbetween xpacs, as that is what you are paying each month for: to have more content in a steadier stream than a F2P or Pay2Enter-based game.

Plus, Blizzard is trying to kill its own game, I think. They have Hearthstone and have HOTS on the way. They’re not in the same situation ANet is in. They’re like night and day.