Guild Wars 2

I am a long time MMO player. I’ve played the major standards, as well as a number of other games that have come and gone.

Let’s be really clear — players are going to buy the expansion or they will quit playing the game. Not a single major MMO has had a substantial number of players continue playing without an expansion.

The original Guild Wars, due to the campaign nature, was a different beast. GW2 follows a more traditional MMO model.

So please, let’s stop talking about a “divided playerbase” as if we don’t know that 99% of those active in the game 2 months post-HoT will have HoT. It’s not a real concern. It’s a myth. It’s absurd. Everyone is buying the expansion.

Im not even to worried if the community get’s divided.

You can still run all the old dungeons, you should be able to keep playing WvW just fine regardless, world bosses will still get killed, old maps still get played, pvp will still be played in conquest mode.

Yes you miss out on the new stuff, but the old content does not get invalidated.

JLHiggs.6258:

I am a long time MMO player. I’ve played the major standards, as well as a number of other games that have come and gone.

Let’s be really clear — players are going to buy the expansion or they will quit playing the game. Not a single major MMO has had a substantial number of players continue playing without an expansion.

The original Guild Wars, due to the campaign nature, was a different beast. GW2 follows a more traditional MMO model.

So please, let’s stop talking about a “divided playerbase” as if we don’t know that 99% of those active in the game 2 months post-HoT will have HoT. It’s not a real concern. It’s a myth. It’s absurd. Everyone is buying the expansion.

Only they won’t increase the level cap or add a new tier of gear so basically those who don’t buy the expansion can continue doing what they were always doing without fear of being left behind or surpassed by the expansion owners. Of course they won’t have access to some of the skills / traits (maybe? not 100% sure on this) but that doesn’t mean the new skills / traits will become instant-meta for anything.

The big question here is which parts of expansion will remain expansion only features and which will be general upgrades to the game available to all.

ZeftheWicked.3076:

The big question here is which parts of expansion will remain expansion only features and which will be general upgrades to the game available to all.

The point of this post is to note that this is not “the big question” because it’s mindless speculation from a bunch of players who are undoubtedly going to buy the expansion anyway. I love speculation, but we can speculate on things that might actually matter…

ZeftheWicked.3076:

The big question here is which parts of expansion will remain expansion only features and which will be general upgrades to the game available to all.

why would they announce game feature updates outside the expansion pack when they are announcing an expansion pack? Exactly it makes no sense…

Everything that is said at PAX will be in the expansion, and you’ll have to pay for it. If you don’t, it’s not a big deal because you can still play the game as before as the expansion pack doesn’t change the level cap or adds higher gear tiers.

I don’t really get how people can get such things on their mind. HoT is a expansion, not a free feature pack and a optional expansion if you want the specialisations and revenant…

GW2 follows a more traditional MMO model.

oO?

jokke.6239:

GW2 follows a more traditional MMO model.

oO?

In comparison to GW1, GW2 is more of an traditional MMO (Which was the main point in that remark).
Although, in comparison to traditional MMOs, GW2 of course is the first revolutional sheep.

While we at it, how bout releasing SAB since it won’t divide the playerbase, only bring new players in.

I know I wont be
with 2 lvl 80’s
all I do now is log in for the reward and log
have been for months now
played EQ for 12 years and that had a monthly fee
here no need to log in
repeating the same thing over and over again was/ is getting VERY old….
same thing happen with GW1.

The OP’s thoughts are similar to my own in this regard. We’re not talking about a DLC with a couple of dungeons or the like – with most MMOs, the assumption is that when an expansion comes out, everyone who’s playing it even moderately seriously will get the expansion. Those who don’t are generally either those who are likely to quit within a few months anyway, or who play so casually that they don’t really have a significant effect on ingame player populations.

This was the case even with GW1.

ArenaNet is being more inclusive to people who don’t have all the expansions than most by not raising the level cap, but let’s face it: People with the additional materials are almost certainly going to find builds that are technically better than what can be made from a base game alone – and this applied to GW1 too. The distinction is that the difference between having some more options to your build is a lot SMALLER than being 5-10 levels higher with gear to match.

If HoT doesn’t bring enough that pretty much all of the regular players consider it an auto-buy, then there’s a problem there… and that problem is bigger than concerns about splitting the playerbase. The worst that can happen is that people who can’t afford to put money into the game when it releases will be left behind until they can – which is unfortunate (I’ve been under financial strain myself, so I’m not unsympathetic) but ArenaNet have to pay their bills too.

On the other hand not everyone will buy the expansion right away. And it is far better to entice people to do it later using carrots than sticks, as the latter method may make them quit even if they didn’t intend to before. And if they happened to be in a social guild with people that did intend to buy the expansion, it may cause those people to stop playing as well. Or at least play less, and use gemshop less.
It’s not all that straightforward. If it were, all games would still be subscription based, and no one would even consider going b2p/f2p.

The great civil war the real guild wars beings not in the digital plain, but rather right here. The expaionest and the others WHO WILL WIN!