Guild Wars 2

Is it true that people are boycotting this because it is overpriced? I’ve got like 20 friends who all play and none of them are preordering. In fact, when I suggested that I was going to preorder they all told me not to and that there was a huge boycott on this game. Can somebody tell me if it’s just my friends or if this is a game-wide occurence?

Pretty sure it’s just your friends. I haven’t heard of a boycott anywhere.

I haven’t had to put any money into guild wars 2 other than the initial cost for 3 years.

If i was still playing WoW for those 3 years, that would’ve cost me £323.64, so i think it’s obvious where i stand on buying the expansion.

Uh … no? There were some threads in the summer calling for a boycott due to HoT pricing, and even back in 2008 for some reason there was one (thanks, Google), but I don’t see anything current.

Any abortive attempts in that direction have obviously not been terribly effective. The game is going strong and gaining new players.

IT’S JUST MONEY! WHO CARES?!

Back when the price was first announced in June there was a bit of noise about a boycott. But they threw in a free character slot for vets and a rebate if anyone bought the core game from ANet online between the HoT announcement and price announcement and most of that died down.

Of course now the same closed mind … people are upset at F2P invading the core game and are making similar noises.

Haters gonna hate.

Your friends are just poor.

There was some hoohah during the original price reveal and i expect some are still holding out. There is no known large boycott however

Everything in my my life I can’t afford I’m boycotting.

I don’t say “I can’t afford it”. Nope, I go straight to boycotting.

That’ll show ’em.

I am not boycotting the expansion. However, I am waiting to purchase it until it is either shown to offer enough content that interests me to justify its current price, or eventually decreases in price to a point that I feel is more in line for what it ends up offering to my style of play. Either way, I do not give my money to companies for something that is not yet released and that I will be unable to use until some later date. I buy products, not promises of a product.

I was waiting for one of the officially associated partners to throw some sort of discount. Got mine for like 15% off + two small Steam games as bonus while watching the Daredevil livestream on Friday. I rarely pre-purchase these days, but after seeing the Berserker and Daredevil elite specs, I couldn’t resist and really want to be able to try them out next beta weekend.

Aramil.9503:

Is it true that people are boycotting this because it is overpriced?

No, people are simply not buying because it’s overpriced.

HoT will come with:

• Only 4 new PvE maps. This is almost nothing.
• Only 2 new armor skins per weight, plus legendary armor. This is less than the number of outfits they have released in the Gem Store since they announced HoT.
• Only 5 new weapon skins. Again, they have released more skins in the Gem Store than this.
• Only 3 new legendary weapons. Because ArenaNet says they will add more “soon” (last time they said that, it was more than 2 years ago and we’re still waiting)
• Only part of a single raid. They will release more “soon” (current bets say in 2017)

Really, it’s DLC-worth content. The kind of thing people would pay at most $10 for.

Don’t buy it right now. Wait, and, considering how starved for money ArenaNet is (free to play game, rushing to release an obviously unfinished “expansion”), they will reduce the price as soon as the poor reviews start pouring in.

I don’t intend to pre-purchase the expansion.

I don’t intend to buy it until I know exactly what content I’m getting for my money. So far, what I’ve seen doesn’t measure up to what I expect from other games for the same $50, so it’s pretty likely I may spend that money on a ps3 game or two instead of HoT and wait for the price to come down.

If you really want to call that a boycott, I guess it is?

45E for this dlc that contain 4 mini-maps (= 1 normal map) and some ui tweaks is way overpriced. My perceveid value of the dlc is 15E, and even at that price I’d have waited for a cheap key because I don’t want to reward lazy work.

If you must have it day 1 you can already get it elsewhere for £10 cheaper, otherwise hold off on it, no one is forcing you despite how developers can’t wait to get your money.

Phy.2913:

Your friends are just poor.

I know right? Having to work hard for what they have and sweat. Man, what losers! It is always their fault too, you know? Why don’t they just go to a bank and get more money?

Lets get some ice cream and play with our stocks some more, that will show them.

Aramil.9503:

Is it true that people are boycotting this because it is overpriced? I’ve got like 20 friends who all play and none of them are preordering. In fact, when I suggested that I was going to preorder they all told me not to and that there was a huge boycott on this game. Can somebody tell me if it’s just my friends or if this is a game-wide occurence?

It’s not really a boycott, it’s just a general consensus that it’s overpriced and not worth $50. Even with what they have announced today it’s not worth $50, maybe $30 at a push.

No, no one is boycotting. If your friends are really that intent on saving money tell them to wait. It should go on sale eventually.

I have seen a lot of talk ingame about the price of the HoT so those people who think this is not an issue are wrong/trolls/whatever – it is an issue and many more people would have pre-orded if it was cheaper. The reality is that we, the existing gamers, have paid to make GW2 what it is today and ANet have decided that ALL the existing contet (core game) should be free from HoT – frankly this is insulting, having a lvl 80 char should not be worthless. Is it worth paying for HoT, well if you dont you will have no more content than a F2P account so its up to you.

Test.8734:

Aramil.9503:

Is it true that people are boycotting this because it is overpriced?

No, people are simply not buying because it’s overpriced.

HoT will come with:

• Only 4 new PvE maps. This is almost nothing.

Consisting of as many as three biomes, which means each map can potentially equate as three maps each.

• Only 2 new armor skins per weight, plus legendary armor. This is less than the number of outfits they have released in the Gem Store since they announced HoT.
• Only 5 new weapon skins. Again, they have released more skins in the Gem Store than this.
• Only 3 new legendary weapons. Because ArenaNet says they will add more “soon” (last time they said that, it was more than 2 years ago and we’re still waiting)

So what? They are also releasing legendary armor, a new profession, and 9 elite specializations. Quit leaving out pertinent details.

• Only part of a single raid. They will release more “soon” (current bets say in 2017)

They said it would be a matter of a couple weeks for the first wing to come out, and a few more weeks for the next two. It isn’t going to be 2017. I could imaging 2016 but stop exaggerating.

Really, it’s DLC-worth content. The kind of thing people would pay at most $10 for.

Don’t buy it right now. Wait, and, considering how starved for money ArenaNet is (free to play game, rushing to release an obviously unfinished “expansion”), they will reduce the price as soon as the poor reviews start pouring in.

Your above summations are patently ridiculous. You left out important details, you are making some vast assumptions on the rate of release on the raids, and then you say this is worth only $10? thats utterly ridiculous. I could possibly imagine someone saying this was $30. But $10? good lord.

And poor reviews. What are you going to say if the reviews are excellent rather than poor?

Simzani.4318:

45E for this dlc that contain 4 mini-maps (= 1 normal map) and some ui tweaks is way overpriced. My perceveid value of the dlc is 15E, and even at that price I’d have waited for a cheap key because I don’t want to reward lazy work.

Again no. It isnt 4 mini maps. Its four maps containing as much as three levels each. You people sure know how to pick and choose your facts and ignore those that counter your toxic vehemence.

Speaking of which, when will we hear reviews, are they likely to be from a broad range of sources?

OP:to answer your question, there isn’t a boycott. there isn’t even a massive attempt by people to not pre order it. Some people are choosing not to pre order it because they want to know more details before they do.

Others are choosing not to preorder it because they think from what they have heard its over priced.

But a lot of people are pre ordering it too.

The real problem is people aren’t really sure just how much and how good the content is. Do you have faith anet will do it right, or not? There are naysayers here who say they won’t do it right and others that say they will.

For me, I have faith in them. no game is perfect, but this ha been IMHO the best mmo in a long time, and they have also delivered some substantial content completely for free so far. So, I am willing toput my faith n them.

If they screw this up, then next time I may not bother… or may stop playing. But thus far, as I said, I think they will do right by us.

Sicarius.4639:

Speaking of which, when will we hear reviews, are they likely to be from a broad range of sources?

sure, but the formal release is still 2 months away.

boycotting? how can one boycot when one has already prepurchased?

Morfedel.4165:

Sicarius.4639:

Speaking of which, when will we hear reviews, are they likely to be from a broad range of sources?

sure, but the formal release is still 2 months away.

Have we heard anything about embargo times etc?

Most of the people ‘boycotting’ aren’t playing the game anyway and aren’t entertaining the notion of an ‘expansion’ with four maps total. There’s a reason the core game went free-to-play, and it’s not because people are boycotting.

It’s because they aren’t playing. Period. Don’t get that twisted.

I’m not aware of a boycott but many people have made the (entirely sensible) decision not to buy it until they think it’s worth it: either when more information comes out on the stuff they want, or when the price drops after launch. Some of those people might never buy it.

But waiting to make a purchase decision is not the same as a boycott, which implies you do want it but have some issue with the business and are refusing to buy it as a protest.

Aramil.9503:

Is it true that people are boycotting this because it is overpriced? I’ve got like 20 friends who all play and none of them are preordering. In fact, when I suggested that I was going to preorder they all told me not to and that there was a huge boycott on this game. Can somebody tell me if it’s just my friends or if this is a game-wide occurence?

Nobody is making any sort of mass movement or riot to boycott this game.

It’s just people making wise individual decisions on whether they should spend their money or time on this expansion. Decisions will differ according to each individual.

Sometimes their decisions are influenced by some propaganda they hear about the game or by exciting news(raids) coming out, but the decision to prepurchase or not is ultimately theirs.

About 4 in 10 people I have spoken to have not prepurchased HoT even after release date was announced. However, this is only a small sample size.

Some are planning to purchase when it releases, whereas many regret prepurchasing it after seeing that their favourite class(Ele and Guardian) is getting the middle finger with no dev response on the respective forums.

With GW2 going free to play, that goes hand in hand with “Arenanet will not lower the price of HoT”. Because new f2p players are now made equal(with some restrictions) to old players, the only differentiating factor is HoT. There may be discounts or promotions 2 months or so after HoT launches(or Wintersday or Boxing day sale), but I wouldnt count on it being lowered anytime soon.

3 Year old headstart player here, I havent prepurchased HoT yet. I am still playing GW2 in-case I decide to prepurchase HoT at some point, but my decision is leaning towards not prepurchasing until they fix Dragonhunter to be a viable spec.

Donari.5237:

Any abortive attempts in that direction have obviously not been terribly effective.

Well, partly due to it Anet added a character slot for veteran players, so it wasn’t that completely ineffective. Especially since a char slot was in truth all that most boycotters asked for.

Not really a boycott, there are just a lot of people who’ve taken an honest and practical viewing of what the expansion offers and decided that it isn’t worth what ANet is asking for it. Or, that there is no point in buying anything that’s apparently going to be free if you wait a year or two anyway.

I’m one of them, still haven’t prepurchased, waited all the way until the very last announcement yesterday hoping something would change my mind about prepurchasing, and it didn’t, in fact if anything the free to play announcement made it all worse.

Going free to play is strongly associated with the weakening, decline, and oncoming downfall of gaming companies; I had confidence in their previous business model enough to prepurchase the vanilla game on the day it opened, and I don’t have that confidence with this new approach.

I haven’t purchased yet because I’m not interested in either 1/2 price gems or beta weekend access.

Plus there is always a chance that the retail box will go on sale before Xmas.

Boycott? I haven’t heard anything about.

I’m personally waiting for a sale a year or two down the line from release, but that’s quite all right. I’ve three more races and five more classes to level til then, as well as other games that require my attention.

The whole argument of “I won’t buy HoT until I know exactly every single map, weapon and armor skin, line of dialog and waypoint I get for my money” is so confusing to me.

Do you like guild wars 2? Do you want to play NEW stuff? Because outside of half of stronghold and some changes to fotm, you’re not going to get anything new added to the base game. If all you want to do is run AC every day, then sure, I guess you don’t need HoT, but personally I don’t care what I’m getting so long as its something NEW.

Your friends are so cheap lol…. I preordered HoT just for the betas so i can try out the elite specs and decide if i wanna play the game.

So few real gamers left out there :/ Nowadays everyone wants meta, fast and cheap.

I heard that it is possible to create a fake interpretation of what is happening in anything by writing that I heard that the fake interpretation is true. Called trying to create a crisis to manipulate by implanting a suggestion that there is a crisis..

Seriously?! Considering GW2 has NOT MONTHLY FEE and HASN’T CHARGED FOR ALL THE CONTENT UPDATES SINCE RELEASE, you are really going to quibble over this? Seriously!?!?

Not heard anything about any boycotts, no. It’s probably just your friends. I have gotten well over 5000 hours of excellent fun out of Guild Wars 2 so far, and foresee more fun coming with the release of HoT. I ain’t going to start complaining about not getting my money’s worth or complain about pricing. It’s not like I have to pay a subscription, nor is the Gem Store forcing me into it, whatever I spend there is purely because I want to spend it there, not out of any sort of necessity to stay competitive.

Mattargul.9235:

Seriously?! Considering GW2 has NOT MONTHLY FEE and HASN’T CHARGED FOR ALL THE CONTENT UPDATES SINCE RELEASE, you are really going to quibble over this? Seriously!?!?

I too, share this acute sentiment.

Turtle Dragon.9241:

Aramil.9503:

Is it true that people are boycotting this because it is overpriced? I’ve got like 20 friends who all play and none of them are preordering. In fact, when I suggested that I was going to preorder they all told me not to and that there was a huge boycott on this game. Can somebody tell me if it’s just my friends or if this is a game-wide occurence?

About 4 in 10 people I have spoken to have not prepurchased HoT even after release date was announced. However, this is only a small sample size.

i with my 7 friends buy it, if u cant spend 40$ for game go to the work or tell ur mom present gw on xmas, or stop buy console games for 200$ per disc

Funny, I was about to say the exact opposite; that the hesitation to buy could be a result of the average age of gamers going up, because when you’re an adult and earning your own money you’re (hopefully) more mature and more likely to think before spending it, even if you can easily afford it.

Mattargul.9235:

Seriously?! Considering GW2 has NOT MONTHLY FEE and HASN’T CHARGED FOR ALL THE CONTENT UPDATES SINCE RELEASE, you are really going to quibble over this? Seriously!?!?

Yes, but you’re not being charged for what they chose to release for free before making the expansion, you’re being charged for what’s in the expansion so that’s what the decision should be based on.

Test.8734:

Aramil.9503:

Is it true that people are boycotting this because it is overpriced?

No, people are simply not buying because it’s overpriced.

HoT will come with:

• Only 4 new PvE maps. This is almost nothing.
• Only 2 new armor skins per weight, plus legendary armor. This is less than the number of outfits they have released in the Gem Store since they announced HoT.
• Only 5 new weapon skins. Again, they have released more skins in the Gem Store than this.
• Only 3 new legendary weapons. Because ArenaNet says they will add more “soon” (last time they said that, it was more than 2 years ago and we’re still waiting)
• Only part of a single raid. They will release more “soon” (current bets say in 2017)

Really, it’s DLC-worth content. The kind of thing people would pay at most $10 for.

Don’t buy it right now. Wait, and, considering how starved for money ArenaNet is (free to play game, rushing to release an obviously unfinished “expansion”), they will reduce the price as soon as the poor reviews start pouring in.

You missed : New elite specs, new class, mastery system, the massive size of the “only 4 maps”, updates to fractals (both level and apparently mapwise), Raid having 3 wings, all the free updates like living story that will be included in that price. Do you know what people usually get charged 10$ for? 1 new character (only changes appearance and voiceacting), 2 new weapons, 1 new set of perks (Payday 2), set of like 4 skins, or even buying very little cash shop currency that gets you ~5 times a 0.01% chance at a permanent item with p2w stats (S4 League, A.V.A. , GunZ…. And about every other F2P game with a non-cosmetic-only cashshop. Geez.

Danikat.8537:

Mattargul.9235:

Seriously?! Considering GW2 has NOT MONTHLY FEE and HASN’T CHARGED FOR ALL THE CONTENT UPDATES SINCE RELEASE, you are really going to quibble over this? Seriously!?!?

Yes, but you’re not being charged for what they chose to release for free before making the expansion, you’re being charged for what’s in the expansion so that’s what the decision should be based on.

Even then the price is fair, at most 10$ too much. But the free updates actually factor in as Living Story, possible new maps, fractals, raids etc. will be for the possessors of HoT. Of course you could wait till that happens and buy it then for cheaper, but I’m pretty content with what we get at release anyway… and considerring you’D have payed 300+$ for playing WoW, FF14 RR etc., or maybe wasted 1k +$ on gambling in f2p/p2w games, I think 50$ is a ok (and i think you can get a key somewhere for 40$).

I, personally, got the 99$ version, because I wanted to support them, and again, it is way less than what I’d have “wasted” on eg. WoW.

Up until todays announcement i wouldn’t have said it was overpriced.

The core game was £19
The Heart of thorns expac and core game was £35

seemed like a good deal…then they go announcing the core game is now free, £35 is pretty expensive for an expansion….it had better be big.

Test.8734:

• Only 4 new PvE maps. This is almost nothing.

with the biome system, it could be worth a lot more – especially if there’s a lot of events/missions/etc (also, would non-combat areas (like cities, guild halls) even count toward this number? if not, that’s quite a few more maps)

Test.8734:

• Only 2 new armor skins per weight, plus legendary armor. This is less than the number of outfits they have released in the Gem Store since they announced HoT.

Only 2 new armour sets per weight from the open world. we know we’re also getting 2 guild-hall based armour sets, and legendary armour – that’s 5 sets off the bat, and a number of individual armour skins from other sources

Test.8734:

• Only 5 new weapon skins. Again, they have released more skins in the Gem Store than this.

5 new weapon skin sets, plus a bunch of individual skins. not as high as I’d like, but not so bad as you make out.

Test.8734:

• Only 3 new legendary weapons. Because ArenaNet says they will add more “soon” (last time they said that, it was more than 2 years ago and we’re still waiting)

This is sucky, and you have a point regarding their track record – but with the masteries, I have a chance of actually getting one of these 3 legends, which is more than can be said for the existing ones.

Test.8734:

• Only part of a single raid. They will release more “soon” (current bets say in 2017)

While I hope you’re wrong on the speed of release, nothing you’ve said here is incorrect, sadly.

overall, I think your wording and assumptions make this look worse than it is, but it’s still a point worth considering.

I definitely planned to get the expansion because I’ve enjoyed Anet’s products for years (they’re not perfect, but they do good work – after 10 years, I still get feels when I hear pre-searing music).

At first, I was in the “I don’t need this now so I’ll just wait ’til launch” camp, but the day they announced the veteran character slot with pre-purchase, I bought the ultimate. The BWE is a fun bonus, though I wouldn’t pay to get it, but the $50 in gems and 2 $10 character slots I would have gotten eventually. The rest of the stuff is meh, although some might enjoy it. So I basically got the ex pac for $30, and I think it’s a great deal. Based on what I’ve seen so far, I’d say it’s worth at least that and probably more.

If you don’t care about gems, character slots, or beta, there’s really no reason to pre-purchase. If you can’t justify the $50 price tag, I’m sure the price will drop some time after launch.

An expansion for a regular game is never as expensive as the original game was, clearly Gw2 is an MMO and clearly people play it more than most games (buy a game, compelet it, never paly it again etc is NOT what you do with an MMO). Its perfectly logical to look at the price for HoT and say “that looks like a new game” – in a way it is a new game, just look at whats happening to the core game.

All the content we have helped to create over the last three years is now being given away for free, that means its worthless. HoT isnt an expansion for GW2, it is all GW2 will be from relese day and thereafter. Of course when the next expansion comes out HoT will be added to F2P and what you pay today will be as worthless as the core game.

This isnt a regular “expansion” like wow and its not an “expansion” in the way GW1 had “expansions”, this is a different concept where the “old” game is given away free to attract new players and the existing (new non-F2P) players are given new content and progression (make no mistake, masteries will be required, they are the new way to level your char) to keep them playing. This is somewhere between wow expansions and the original subscription-free GW1 concept.

I like bashing Anet but saying you could get similar amount of content in $10 DLC is a bit too much. DLC that costs $10 usually gives you like an armour or so.

Ascii Red.4029:

An expansion for a regular game is never as expensive as the original game was, clearly Gw2 is an MMO and clearly people play it more than most games (buy a game, compelet it, never paly it again etc is NOT what you do with an MMO). Its perfectly logical to look at the price for HoT and say “that looks like a new game” – in a way it is a new game, just look at whats happening to the core game.

All the content we have helped to create over the last three years is now being given away for free, that means its worthless. HoT isnt an expansion for GW2, it is all GW2 will be from relese day and thereafter. Of course when the next expansion comes out HoT will be added to F2P and what you pay today will be as worthless as the core game.

This isnt a regular “expansion” like wow and its not an “expansion” in the way GW1 had “expansions”, this is a different concept where the “old” game is given away free to attract new players and the existing (new non-F2P) players are given new content and progression (make no mistake, masteries will be required, they are the new way to level your char) to keep them playing. This is somewhere between wow expansions and the original subscription-free GW1 concept.

Why are so many people bunching up free with worthless? This is not the same.

Ascii Red.4029:

All the content we have helped to create over the last three years is now being given away for free, that means its worthless. HoT isnt an expansion for GW2, it is all GW2 will be from relese day and thereafter. Of course when the next expansion comes out HoT will be added to F2P and what you pay today will be as worthless as the core game.

Just because there is no price tag on it doesn’t mean it’s worthless. Just because they are making the core game free doesn’t invalidate all the time people spent in Tyria.

Straylight.7529:

Ascii Red.4029:

All the content we have helped to create over the last three years is now being given away for free, that means its worthless. HoT isnt an expansion for GW2, it is all GW2 will be from relese day and thereafter. Of course when the next expansion comes out HoT will be added to F2P and what you pay today will be as worthless as the core game.

Just because there is no price tag on it doesn’t mean it’s worthless. Just because they are making the core game free doesn’t invalidate all the time people spent in Tyria.

Yeah, it really does make me sad to see people thinking like this. Having a free version of the game is a very valid business decision. One major disadvantage that GW2 had when compared to its competition was that there was no way to try it for free. This disadvantage was a pretty big limitation to the game’s growth.

Besides, the F2P version is just a glorified trial. Who wants to play for an extensive amount of time with so many limitations? What are you going to accomplish if you do?

This move actually made me lean closer to buying the expansion rather than make me angry and bitter, but that’s just me.

I have no problem with a trial account either. I do have a problem with the way they shaft existing players. Only the new players will do, ta-da.

There is a precedent with software that goes : you buy the software and use it. Then the company releases an updated version. New users buy the entire new update. Existing users get the option to upgrade at a discounted price: not the price of the new update.

The developers – and people who have been using the software up until the update – don’t go around yelling that you’ve had the use of the software for all the time before the update and therefore must pay full price again.

If ordinary software works like this, why must ArenaNet be different? Do they want to buy an entire new version of their development software instead of just an upgrade price.

Pah. Humbug.