Guild Wars 2

Pro tip: Get off the forums, don’t buy the expansion and stay happy. No one is forcing you to spend that $49.99 for that amount of content. Maybe get a new skateboard or something?

scerevisiae.1972:

I agree, it’s pretty bad value, especially when you consider you don’t even get a char slot to play the new class that comes with the expansion, essentially making it a $60 expansion.

while technically you do not need a char slot, or you can earn enough gold in a decent time to buy it, if I am not mistaken, preordering now does get you a char slot to use, 2 if you buy the more expensive version. It why I went with the $100 deal. bet value for my buck.

If not a lot of people would buy it, you just wait another month, and there’s black friday, and you know…

I don’t understand the complaint here. They are not doing anything that every other game doesn’t already do. You are paying $50 dollar for what is essentially a “Season Pass” in any other game such as CoD which usually goes for the same amount. With said season pass you get pretty much no DLC at the beginning ,but get it as it comes out. HoT is the exact same you are paying $50 getting those 4 maps, new class etc. and then any more content they release after that for that price. Nothing new here at all.

JUN YANG.4328:

how anet treat us as veteran. an outfit for exiting players. and open the core for everyone.
is it fair to us? is it fair to the retail store. we spend real money on the game..
so what about the retail store still have the core game on the shelf..

we still spending same price on HOT.

A free player can buy that retail version to get themselves 3 extra character slots, 2 extra bag slots, and all the restrictions taken off of themselves.

Also it is misleading to call it “4 maps” when the 4 maps have ~ 3 biomes each, effectively making it ~ 12 maps. Core game, each map was 1 biomes, with an occasional jolt in a cave below. Now think of a core map, and then having the same size above the ground and below the ground, so yeah, more like ~ 12 maps.

scerevisiae.1972:

I agree, it’s pretty bad value, especially when you consider you don’t even get a char slot to play the new class that comes with the expansion, essentially making it a $60 expansion.

Yes you do if you pre-purchase before the expansion goes live. All 3 tiers of the pre-purchase get an additional character slot for anybody who has bought the core game prior to January 2015.

JUN YANG.4328:

anet $50 US

so $50 only for HOT..really? i can buy i brand new game for that.

Sure, buy a new game for that price.

Or decide whether you’ll enjoy GW2/HoT more. I don’t care if it has 4 zones or 40, 2 sets of skins or 10 — I care whether it’s fun to play. For me, ANet’s track record on that dimension is excellent: I’ve enjoyed all the iterations of GW to date and always felt I got great value for the money.

You might disagree, in which case, I’d strongly recommend against paying for HoT until the price drops in a year or two. You won’t miss any of the features you enumerate — you will only miss the excitement of “being there” and whatever free stuff they throw at us between now and then, which might be worth very little to you.

When viewed as a few maps, and some other stuff, $50 may seem like a lot. When viewed as a season pass in addition to that stuff, maybe it seems like less, maybe not. If you don’t like ANet’s prior seasons, then the season pass may not mean much to you. That’s alright. You don’t have to like it, you don’t have to buy it. If GW2 was not worth the original $60 (or more, if enhanced version — or less,if on sale), then it’s unlikely HoT would seem worthwhile no matter what was included.

It is above market value from what I can see. Personally speaking, however, I will get my money’s worth out of it (given I have ploughed thousands of hours into this game so far). This should be the case for most long term players, and comparing our situation to those poor souls on sub. model games is probably enough for us to accept paying over market value.

Where ANet loses out is enticing back those people who jumped on at launch and then left because there was “no endgame”. This expansion should be a decent lure for them, but the headline figures of 4 new maps (and the number of maps is one of those things people always consider) and $50 is going to turn them off.

JUN YANG.4328:

anet $50 US

for
2 armour set, 3 legendary, 5 weapon set, 4 map,
+ legendary backpack, armor
1 new class
7 new weapon

do you really think it worth $50?? don’t forget core game will be free.
so $50 only for HOT..really? i can buy i brand new game for that.

Please refer to this list for everything you left out: https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/3izcdj/a_condensed_list_of_hot_featuresreally_puts_into/

Guild Wars may have started as a few disillusioned WoW devs attempting to create an alternative, but it is not any more. Nowadays it’s BIG business and as such it’s objective is to make the most money possible for the owners, at the smallest cost possible.

Originally GW2 cost me AU$68, 778 days ago. With Aussie to USA conversion, it will cost me approximately the same for the Heart of Thorns expansion (for the base version). But I cannot see it as being of value. After all, it’s only 3 maps and 3 raid dungeons.

I’m already bored with the game, I have 8 toons, one of each class. Each has full set of ascended armour/weapons/trinkets. Each has Copper-salvo, enless gather pick/sickle/ax. I bought all the bank slots, maxed material collection to the 1500 limit, even bought 9th slot for Revenant (before they announced free slot). Yet there are a lot of people I have chatted with that haven’t spent any money in-game since starting before I did.

I played WoW form Vanilla to Cataclysm and finally gave up when Blizzard allowed power leveling of newbies. That put me in high level dungeons with new players who didn’t know what taunting was, how to kite a lethal mob or even interrupt a mob. I have noticed the same things creeping into GW2 over the last 4 odd months or so. Time for a change.

I have noticed during my playing of GW2 that this happens a lot, peeps starting then taking a 1-2year absence, while playing other games.

It appears as tho expansion release time is the crunch point for any MMO, and given the underlying dissatisfaction being voiced by veteran players, I think GW2’s player base will suffer.

On a brighter note, I’m following a couple of Open Source MMO’s that are coming along nicely. That’s where the future lies, where anyone can create content and put it out there.

JUN YANG.4328:

do you really think it worth $50??

Yes, I think HoT is worth it. Thats why I prepurchased it.

Bought it. Have no regrets. Will be quite happy on release day.

Ferguson.2157:

Bought it. Have no regrets. Will be quite happy on release day.

QFT

kitten many have said, $50 is a bit steep, and because of all the free content they either have or soon will be releasing the xpac does appear to look skimpy. Even if they had rolled everything into the purchase I still think $40 would be a better price tag.

Either way, you don’t have to buy it, some of us are still waiting for more info. If I’m happy with the Ranger/Engi reveals I’ll probably purchase it, though I still believe $50 is greedy.

I haven’t bought it yet. Will I buy it? Yes when I know what I’m paying for, which imagine I will know in a couple weeks.

It is defiantly worth it.. if the Anet employees do as their president says.. Monetize by selling the game, not with the gems-tore. (That is basically what he said around 39 min into the reveal).

I like Sam, we are on the same line.. well about what model is best and how it should work.. not so much as how it works in practice in GW2 I guess.

But I must agree, two new armor set, 5 new weapon sets and 60 new items is a little low, depending on what is all including. Do they just mean 2 / 5 new full sets but are there in addition also other skins rewarded and are they then included in those 60 items? Are new consumables that are sold by merchants just as new gray items (I expect to see also new items like that to add same flavor) also included in those 60 items or do they only mean the more interesting items?

We do know they include mini’s and I would have loved to see at least 20 of those as rewards in the game maybe 10 glider skins, some specific weapon and armor skins, toys and so on.. But then 60 is not a lot.

It could have all been a bid more and then no new items like that in the cash-shop.. but it also depends a little on what is included in those 60 items. Maybe it is in fact a little more as it looks.
We know for examples that they will be adding new raids but not at release, maybe they also get specific rewards (other than the legendary armor) like mini’s, toys, gliders, skins, finishers and so on, but are they not included in those 60 items because they get added later. That would at least be best.

Also the number of maps could be a bid more.. but other than that I am fine with the expansion and the price.. If they now indeed start behaving as a B2P game!.

$50 is bad, but $15/month for some p2p games with a couple updates per year is ok. Logic.

JUN YANG, first of all. Please learn the plural s. Multiple items are called maps, sets or weapons. It’s an extremely simple rule and much easier to learn than in other languages and makes your posts less painful to read.

See it this way: you only pay 50 bucks once, you will get the content that will released post release for free.

Guild Wars has always been value for money for me and many others for over 10 years of titles, if you don’t believe HoT will be yet wait to buy it.

JUN YANG.4328:

no matter what they are doing this what we got at start
http://heartofthorns.guildwars2.com/game/maguuma/
2 armor 5 weapon
http://heartofthorns.guildwars2.com/game/maguuma
4 map

i just don’t understand why some players will accept everything given..no matter is worth or not..with no complain with no question about it.

And I don’t understand the incessant desire to grind ArenaNet’s junk EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. they give us any information whatsoever and make a hissing spitting fit-pitcher of oneself over not getting the earth, the sun, and all the stars for ten bucks.

If you don’t want it? Don’t freaking buy it. Go get a new game instead. I’m sure we’ll all miss you terribly.

I am not seeing 50$ worth of value in HOT, so I will wait for the price to drop. Hopefully many will think the same as me, so the price will drop soon after release.

I had a Wiener Schnitzel and a beer last Saturday with friends. In my country this costs around 40$. It took about 2 hours and I still think it was worth it. If people think 50$ is too much, I can’t help it.

There are tons of single player games I paid 70-99$ on consoles which you finish within 10-15 hours, all God of War games, Gears of War, Uncharted, Last of Us. Some last even for only 6 hours – like Heavy Rain. They were all full priced games back then. No one was complaining that you finished it withing 10 hours. So, what the hell do people expect, a solar system to explore?

6116 posts (except those stating the opposite opinion) of endless and useless rants always stating the same old “I am a vet, I deserve more and newcomers less”, or “The exp pack is not enough, I won’t buy it”. I must say I am really impressed (but not exactly by how bright humankind is).

Just a small reminder: for the most of us vets, one hour of guild wars 2 entertainment is around 0.01 €.h-1. If you are so unhappy with it, please, by any mean go make something else of your life.

Turgut.4397:

$50 is bad, but $15/month for some p2p games with a couple updates per year is ok. Logic.

No it’s not.. who did say that?? Tell us.. silly him.

“Within the open world of the Heart of Maguuma, you’ll earn and build two new armor sets with unique looks for light, medium, and heavy armor, five new weapon sets, and over 60 unique additional item skins, miniatures, and more!”

—36 unique armor skins belonging to two sets, spread over three weight tiers. 95 new weapons skins belonging to five sets. And an additional 60+ combined total of skins, miniatures and more. There’s also 3 Legendary weapons to start pursuing, with an additional 16 to come (obviously) as we continue past Heart of Thorns release. From what I’ve gathered, these also have unique precursor skins, meaning there’s an additional 3 skins at release to get together with those as well, and an additional 16 to come, as they release more Legendary weapons. Then there’s the Legendary armor just announced, and who’s to say that they don’t take on a unique appearance based on your profession? Those 3 different weight tiers can suddenly become more than 3 different sets of unique skins. Also, there’s two Legendary back pieces announced, the Fractal one and the sPvP Leagues related one. There’s one new profession, with a Specialization, and Specializations for every existing profession. And 4 maps with 3 layers to them would be more like 12 maps. With a day / night cycle that changes the encounters and enemies. There’s the Masteries, Adventures, and so on forth. I think you’re underselling the potential content that comes with this expansion. Keep in mind there’s still no subscription fee. There’s still no necessity to dip into the Gem Store and spend real money. You can still convert Gold to Gems as well.

I think the value seems about right. Especially considering I’ve played for well over 5000 hours so far over the past 3 years. I doubt I’ll struggle with getting my moneys worth out of Heart of Thorns.

Guys please don’t feed what is now clearly a childish troll trying to stir stuff.

So I bought the game on 15th July. By 16th, I think it was made clear that u get the core game free with HoT (:|). And I haven’t played much thinking I’d wait for HoT anyway. And now the game is f2p (:||). And I happened to come upon this on the wiki:

“New Guild Wars 2 accounts registered between January 23, 2015 and June 16, 2015 will automatically be refunded what the player paid for the core game if Heart of Thorns is pre-purchased by July 31, 2015.”

So I basically missed a chance of getting the DLC for 40$ less or something? (Kill me pls :|||)

symke.3105:

I am not seeing 50$ worth of value in HOT, so I will wait for the price to drop. Hopefully many will think the same as me, so the price will drop soon after release.

I instead predict few will do so and you will end up joining later, feeling lame for paying the same price although you said it was not worth and, on top of that, being late and having missed all release opportunities.

The refund was for people who bought the core game within the few months prior to HoT’s announcement. Everyone that wants HoT will have to pay $50 regardless of if they’re a F2P or veteran core account.

If you have the game now, at the very least you might as well login every day to collect your login rewards for free gold. Why wait for HoT? HoT is all level 80 content. You might as well spend the next 2 months to become familiar with the game and play through the current story.

I see a lot of people looking at the time spend in game as a measurement.. but you should then also look at what you are doing and how fun it is.

It is no secret that huge amount of people are just grinding away to then buy the items they like, when you ask them many of them even say they don’t really like the grind but “what else should I do?.. Besides, I am watching a movie on my other screen so it’s fine”. You can’t equal 1 hour of that to an hour of intensive playing in a FPS.

Just my two cents about the hours spend.

If it comes to the €50,- I really can’t say if it is worth it.. When looking at the marked then for a cash-shop game it would be too expensive, for a B2P game it’s not. Mike O’Brien said they would use the B2P model where they monetize the game, but that did not happen during the last 2 years where the cash-shop was there monetization.

So if it is worth the price really depends on what will happen with this in the coming year imho.

Will we see more items ingame, less in the cash-shop and the next expansion not too far away, so truly B2P, than it’s very much worth the price, if not then it’s kind of expensive when compared to the market.

The free to play accounts come with multiple restrictions. Can’t enter Lions Arch till level
35, WvW at level 60, only 2 char slots, chat restrictions, economic restrictions, can’t post on the forums, buy gems with gold, etc..They are to give people a way to try the game for free, but not to get everything for free. Anyone who is enjoying the game enough to stay is unlikely to stay f2p unless money is the major consideration.

Restrictions

The Free to Play thing is a nice hook to get new people to pay the full amount for a core/HoT account. By no means you will be “better-off” with the free account, if you are enjoying the game. A refund will only net you money, and a more restricted (basically, trial-like) playing experience.

Agree with Healix above, at least log-in every day for now until you decide to play more frequently when HoT comes out (a restricted account would have no such benefits.)

wait if you bought Gw2 on the 15th of July assuming you mean 15th july of this year you actually bought HoT and got the core game free.

You should be golden… well unless you bought it from some 3rd party site and only got the core game but if you bought from the official site on the 15th pre-purchase was already open and all you could buy is Heart of Thorns with the core game being gifted for free to anyone who bought the game.

point is he missed a narrow window, and ended up wasting 40 dollars purchasing gw2 core, when he should be getting hot for 50 bucks.
He didnt mention f2p.
This always struck me as odd. Anet is still allowing gw2 core to be sold, even though its essentially beating people in the head.

ohh and one more thing? why wait for HoT to play? You need to be level 80 to enjoy the content of the expansion anyway, isnt it better to use these 2 months to get 1 or 2 characters to level 80 and be able to enjoy HoT when it launches?

F2P here is not the same as F2P in other mmorpgs. When HoT comes, that will be the main focus for everyone that wants to progress their characters. If you dont have HoT, then you’re sort of excluded from the rest, and you’ll hinder yourself if you keep playing without. Not to mention the restrictions you have on your account. All in all it’s a fine balance between a trial accounts restrictions vs the vast vanilla content you can partake in.
This is a great chance to get more newcomers into the game.

phys.7689:

point is he missed a narrow window, and ended up wasting 40 dollars purchasing gw2 core, when he should be getting hot for 50 bucks.
He didnt mention f2p.
This always struck me as odd. Anet is still allowing gw2 core to be sold, even though its essentially beating people in the head.

no he didnt, if we purchased on the 15th july from Anet site, what he bought is Heart of Thorns and was given the core game free of charge.

There is no refunds needed or anything or am i missing something?

Galen Grey.4709:

phys.7689:

point is he missed a narrow window, and ended up wasting 40 dollars purchasing gw2 core, when he should be getting hot for 50 bucks.
He didnt mention f2p.
This always struck me as odd. Anet is still allowing gw2 core to be sold, even though its essentially beating people in the head.

no he didnt, if we purchased on the 15th july from Anet site, what he bought is Heart of Thorns and was given the core game free of charge.

There is no refunds needed or anything or am i missing something?

he said he bought gw2 for 40 bucks, he probably didnt get it from the website. Anet is still allowing all their games to be sold without any sort of plan for people who didnt get it on site. Even now, people can buy gw2 core for 40 dollars and immediately get told to pay 50 more for an expansion.

Unless he bought hot without realizing, he basically got screwed.

This a classic “contact customer support” issue, because something doesn’t add up here.

So I recommend contacting customer support.

Mogget.2104:

4 maps, some containing 3 “biomes” – all containing many new events
New races of npcs and monsters
Repeatable adventures with leaderboards
Map bonus reward system
1 profession
9 specializations
New Personal Story
Living World releases including Living Story S3
2 new armor sets per weight (from the open world)
5 weapon sets
Legendary armor
New legendary weapon set
Legendary back pieces
60 new item skins, miniatures and more
7 mastery tracks with 39 tiers
1 raid with 3 wings
2 Guild Halls with 6 core buildings and over 175 decorations including a customizable PvP arena
New guild armor and weapon sets
New PvP gamemode with new map
Guild teams and leaderboards
PvP leagues
10 New PvP reward tracks
New WvW borderland
New fractal system, rewards and 50 more levels
Plenty of other smaller features and updates

List taken from https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/3izcdj/a_condensed_list_of_hot_featuresreally_puts_into/

I’ll leave you to decide if that is worth spending $50 on. It sure was for me.

pvp and wvw are not part of Hot.
fractal system is also not hot.
3 new legendary weapons, not a new set of weapons
map bonus, i dont think is hot only change

Majic.4801:

This a classic “contact customer support” issue, because something doesn’t add up here.

So I recommend contacting customer support.

customer support would be useful, they may help out, the officially they wouldnt have to. Its bad planning that this is stil possible though.

Galen Grey.4709:

wait if you bought Gw2 on the 15th of July assuming you mean 15th july of this year you actually bought HoT and got the core game free.

You should be golden… well unless you bought it from some 3rd party site and only got the core game but if you bought from the official site on the 15th pre-purchase was already open and all you could buy is Heart of Thorns with the core game being gifted for free to anyone who bought the game.

Yeah I did indeed buy it off some 3rd party selling the game. After a few days I log in and realize that the HoT was already for pre-purchase. I should’ve researched more before buying it but I guess what’s done is done now lol.

Healix.5819:

The refund was for people who bought the core game within the few months prior to HoT’s announcement. Everyone that wants HoT will have to pay $50 regardless of if they’re a F2P or veteran core account.

If you have the game now, at the very least you might as well login every day to collect your login rewards for free gold. Why wait for HoT? HoT is all level 80 content. You might as well spend the next 2 months to become familiar with the game and play through the current story.

Yeah I guess you’re right. Its time to wreak havoc in the lands of tyria.

Hawkeye.4987:

Healix.5819:

The refund was for people who bought the core game within the few months prior to HoT’s announcement. Everyone that wants HoT will have to pay $50 regardless of if they’re a F2P or veteran core account.

If you have the game now, at the very least you might as well login every day to collect your login rewards for free gold. Why wait for HoT? HoT is all level 80 content. You might as well spend the next 2 months to become familiar with the game and play through the current story.

Yeah I guess you’re right. Its time to wreak havoc in the lands of tyria.

call customer support, they may have a plan useful to you. Tell them it seems odd they were still allowing the base game to be sold in stores when they were officially only selling hot as a package at that time.

phys.7689:

Hawkeye.4987:

Healix.5819:

The refund was for people who bought the core game within the few months prior to HoT’s announcement. Everyone that wants HoT will have to pay $50 regardless of if they’re a F2P or veteran core account.

If you have the game now, at the very least you might as well login every day to collect your login rewards for free gold. Why wait for HoT? HoT is all level 80 content. You might as well spend the next 2 months to become familiar with the game and play through the current story.

Yeah I guess you’re right. Its time to wreak havoc in the lands of tyria.

call customer support, they may have a plan useful to you. Tell them it seems odd they were still allowing the base game to be sold in stores when they were officially only selling hot as a package at that time.

Can’t be too optimistic but I guess I’ll give a shot. Only problem is.. Could I be told as to how I can contact customer support?

Hawkeye.4987:

phys.7689:

Hawkeye.4987:

Healix.5819:

The refund was for people who bought the core game within the few months prior to HoT’s announcement. Everyone that wants HoT will have to pay $50 regardless of if they’re a F2P or veteran core account.

If you have the game now, at the very least you might as well login every day to collect your login rewards for free gold. Why wait for HoT? HoT is all level 80 content. You might as well spend the next 2 months to become familiar with the game and play through the current story.

Yeah I guess you’re right. Its time to wreak havoc in the lands of tyria.

call customer support, they may have a plan useful to you. Tell them it seems odd they were still allowing the base game to be sold in stores when they were officially only selling hot as a package at that time.

Can’t be too optimistic but I guess I’ll give a shot. Only problem is.. Could I be told as to how I can contact customer support?

https://help.guildwars2.com/categories/20107392-Purchase-Support-Payment-Methods-Upgrades-and-Products

But I cant assure nothing, usually when you buy gw2 from a third party Anet support doesnt tend to refund your money… but give it a try ^^

Wasn’t the refund not also only for people that bought directly from ANet ?
Can’t imagine they will refund people that bought from somewhere else and
then try to get the money back from the seller.

Beldin.5498:

Wasn’t the refund not also only for people that bought directly from ANet ?
Can’t imagine they will refund people that bought from somewhere else and
then try to get the money back from the seller.

maybe they can have answer that doesnt involve a refund, like i dunno maybe an account upgrade for less money.

i personally thought they would make this an option for all games registered after they started selling hot as apackage.

The laurels alone will pay for what you spent (assuming you keep on playing for more than a month). I mean log in every day atleast to get your money’s worth back. No sense crying about it now.