Guild Wars 2

I pre-ordered the original GW2 after having played GW1 and PvP in several other MMOs and I was hyped for it at that time. When GW2 went live, me and my friends quit after maybe 2 weeks. There were many issues with PvP. I knew there was an expansion coming soon and decided to give GW2 a second chance this week. So I started playing again this week. Many things have been fixed and I do enjoy the game so far. I went and looked up for the expansion prices and saw the same thing many people before me have probably mentioned… 50$ original game included, no cheaper price, no new slot, etc.

While I understand that GW2 has no monthly fee which is awesome (would have been if I had played for those 2 years), for someone who just came back like me, it’s just a slap in the face and I’m actually not so sure if I want to buy it or not now. I understand the 50$ for the expansion thing and incentive to attract new players but I just feel really insulted as a customer. This basically means that the money I spent on the original game was almost 100% wasted, I could very well never have bought it and gotten it for free right now.

There should have been at least a small discount for players who already have an account or at the VERY LEAST ONE free character slot. Add all the micro transactions… normally games are EITHER pay to play based OR heavy onto micro transactions, not both. The esteem I had for A.net just went down quite a bit :/

Those who had purchased the game before January 2015 are given a free character slot, on top of any other character slots that are offered from the Deluxe and Ultimate editions.

I recommend you skim through this blog, which details most of those additions.

Similarly, the expansion would have cost $50 regardless of whether the core game was included or not – the core game is a free edition to help new players into the franchise, and it is how all of ANets expansions will work in the future for Guild Wars 2.

“There should have been at least a small discount for players who already have an account or at the VERY LEAST ONE free character slot.”

If you buy HoT and tie it to an account you created before january 23, you do get a free character slot. See: https://help.guildwars2.com/entries/94582027-Heart-of-Thorns-Pre-Purchase-FAQ/#Additional

I bought Gw1 and all campaigns/expansions for a total of 120 euro’s. Now it is offered for less then 40 euro. Did I got ripped off? nope. I played a lot.

the things you thought where wrong, have been fixed a good amount of time ago. You where happy to pay 50 USD for the original game and you can choose to enjoy it any time you want. You choose not too.

Arenanet is the one who almost invented no monthly fee in the genre. There is a ton of content added since launch, all for free.

I’ve payed 130 euro’s (excluding HoT purchase) in the last 3 years. For that price I got a lot of content for free and the possibility to play whenever I want. In other games you need to pay 10 euro per month AND buy the expansions for 50 euro per year to actually stay competitive. compared to that GW2 is an absolute bargain.

mercury ranique.2170:

I bought Gw1 and all campaigns/expansions for a total of 120 euro’s. Now it is offered for less then 40 euro. Did I got ripped off? nope. I played a lot.

Yeah. I bought GW Complete (all three campaigns and the expansion) for $40 in early 2011. Amazing value at that low price, but it was obvious I missed out. Most GW1 players have fond memories of being there as the game grew. The only things released after I got the game was the Winds of Change storyline and some balance patches.

The $60 price when GW2 was released is only wasted if you didn’t play much throughout the 3 years the game has been out. Well worth the price if you did play. The expansion model doesn’t really affect that.

IMO, If you had an existing account they should give you two or three extra character slots. It’s not like the extra slots cost them anything. Still, I understand why they they bundled the core game. It was to attract brand new players. (totally understandable)

Why not throw in some extra goodies if you’ve had an account for years and pre-purchased HoT?

You don’t have to upgrade your old account OP. You can buy the expansion and get a new account with access to the HoT content. Since you haven’t played for almost 3 years, it’s not like you need to upgrade your old account because it has so much stuff gained from playing a long time.

Good point, Just a flesh wound. (Side note, I really want to put more capital letters in your name — do you have a nickname like “Just” or “Wound” you’d accept? /grin). The only thing lost by giving up on the first two weeks of progress would be the two, and pending third, birthday presents, none of which are game changing so far. You might be better off starting fresh.

The only “waste” in the $60 spent three years ago, OP, is not having played the game. That money bought those of us who stuck with it thousands of hours of play and seeing the game grow and change. ANet’s not obliged to give you a cut rate on the expansion simply because you spent money on them three years ago and then ignored their game.

You owned the game, you didn’t play it. I wish I could do that with everything. I bought a computer it was $1500. A year later a better computer that came with more stuff was $1000. That’s life. You deal with it. This should be your biggest problem.

The game was being sold for $10 bucks anyway, several times, before it was included for free in the expansion. The fact is, you had the game, you chose not to play it. You could have.

In the mean time, including the base game for free is actually good for you, because it removes a barrier of entry to get new people playing it.

One last thing, you can buy heart of thorns and install it fresh instead of updating it. That gives you a new account, which you can then use to get daily rewards, just like you can on your old account. Those daily rewards add up. And you get the same deal new people get, except you already have another account.

That’s like saying Fallout 3 should have been cheaper if I already owned Fallout 2 but had never played it.

The argument is just stupid.

Wow… so many people fail to make any logical argument here, it’s scary. Maybe it’s more obvious to me cause it’s what I teach but still. GW1 being cheaper now has nothing to do with GW2 being the currently played game and FREE. It’s not a bargain, most games are free to play right now with micro transactions. WoW is about the only one that still has a sub and they allow people to cover it with in-game gold.

I’m not asking for a cheaper cost because I have barely played the game as it came out in really bad shape at first and didn’t come to look back at it for a long time. I’m just saying that it makes sense to make it cheaper but making it free is a slap in the face to those who bought it and just want to upgrade. The ’’bargain’’ most people here are talking about comparing to other games doesn’t hold. Most games being free to play nowaday, it would have cost me zero or maybe 15$ in micro transactions back then.

However, the info wasn’t very clear and thanks to Zalladi for pointing out that link for an extra slot for those who had purchased the game before. It might not be that useful to me for now but if I do get to play the game some more, it might come handy at one point. All I meant was that anything, even just a free character slot made more sense for those who upgrade otherwise, the message that is sent is that those that aren’t sure if they want to play GW2 or not should wait until the next expansion after that since they’ll get everything for free with the upcoming expansions.

GW2 is B2P. Some games that started as P2P went F2P. Free core GW2 with HoT for new accounts is a B2P version of going F2P. They could have just gone F2P for core, I suppose. My guess is they didn’t because of unlimited free accounts for gold sellers and for those who would farm the heck out of Laurels → T6 Mats from daily login rewards.

The new GW2 business model is no more of a slap in the face than SWtOR, AoC, STO or Wildstar going F2P. People who spent money on those games may in fact feel that they were slighted, just as some GW2 players feel they are being slighted.

I can see the point that the new ANet business model has an issue with incentives to continue for prior owners — at least as far as some customers are concerned. For those who’ve played for nearly three years on the original purchase, GW2 might have been a great value (It was for me, at less than $0.05 per hour played). The question I have about HoT is more whether it will add sufficient new things for me to do, both at launch and going forward, to provide value in the same general range. For me, it would take about 500-1000 hours of game-play I would not otherwise get.

It’s unfortunate that the original game did not provide the value you were looking for. A lot of my friends from GW left GW2 within two months of launch for similar reasons, and I see no signs of their return.

Well…I’m sorry you wasted your time with the game?

It’s been what…close to 3 years since this game was released and if you’re just now coming back, you should have had plenty of time to get your $50 worth. You didn’t need to wait until now for things to change and even if you didn’t like anything about GW2 until now, that doesn’t mean that you’re somehow deserving of a discount on the expansion. =P