Guild Wars 2

I created this thread, to see what others would would want to be happy with the expansion. A peaceful, reasonable and friendly discussion, no flame wars.

If you are already happy with the expansion, please don’t debate, as is I think you should get a white robe with zero defenses for wvw so we can admire your loyalty which is more than what you already got, you are not forgotten or overlooked. If you must post, then post what you think is too much and unfair for anet.

Let’s assume that they are under pressure from NCsoft to keep investors happy, so let’s respect the price they set.

Further, in contemplating all this, I think Anet should offer an Anet banner in the shop for people who simply want to put up a flag in the new guild hall to support anet and help them meet their quarterly quotas …..the more you purchase it, the more gold the flag becomes or something. This could be an ongoing fund raiser, that those who can afford it, help chip in.

what I want ?

I remember a time the staff walked in the town with us and talked with us, we grew in the gaming world together. We reasoned together and we learned together.

let’s go back to that time and find out how to make everyone happy.

So please say what you think would make you happy with the update.

What I want:
HOT purchasable upgrade to already existing accounts
$40.00
1 character slot included

An apology from ANET admitting to their shady dealings and lying to their playerbase
(you know…. the people that made it possible for you to make an expansion)

but if they are under the gun from ncsoft, that wouldn’t be good for them….so we have to respect their price line in consideration for their well being and operating expenses. I highly doubt they would come flat out and say it that way. I’m simply giving them the benefit of the doubt.

it does us no good to get a price reduction and then have ncsoft announce next year they have to shut it down because it isn’t a sustainable business model.

Ricky.4706:

but if they are under the gun from ncsoft, that wouldn’t be good for them….so we have to respect their price line in consideration for their well being and operating expenses. I highly doubt they would come flat out and say it that way. I’m simply giving them the benefit of the doubt.

Despite their need to meet yearly projections, as laid out here: http://goo.gl/42CoEN , Guild Wars 2 is actually the 3rd most profitable f2p/b2p game per player out there right now, making more money per player than even huge MOBAs like LoL or DotA2: https://www.superdataresearch.com/blog/mmo-arpu/

So I don’t know if I would start the ArenaNet bake sale just yet… that said, they need to do something, and lowering the price currently doesn’t seem like an option, so I’ll be very interested to see how this turns out.

Ricky.4706:

but if they are under the gun from ncsoft, that wouldn’t be good for them….so we have to respect their price line in consideration for their well being and operating expenses. I highly doubt they would come flat out and say it that way. I’m simply giving them the benefit of the doubt.

it does us no good to get a price reduction and then have ncsoft announce next year they have to shut it down because it isn’t a sustainable business model.

Guildwars1 server are still running. I don’t think it would be an issue.

part of my agenda with this thread is to show that we are not simply stats on a paper, but the Guildwars audience is actually a strong culture.

It would mean something to me to prove this by having a healthy negotiation. something for the history books. I knew gw’s great grand parents before even blizzard. I played this genre when it was first introduced to the net. I owe it to them :p

is there so much suspicion that friendly discussions are not possible at the moment ?

I think the problem is that we don’t know what the content of the expansion is. The logical order would be to look at the content, assign a value to that, then add gems/char slot … to get from that value to the 50D.
From what we currently know, that’s not possible. Lacking a release date is also, at least to me, a major red flag.

It’s the lack of information that makes me hold back. I’ve paid similar prices for expansions in other games, but I’ve always known what I was getting and already had a lot of trust in the game.

For me, I am too unsure where this game is going (I have thief/ranger, all I know is ranger is getting staff, not if it will improve the class and thief elite spec is unknown). There have been many updates I sincerely disliked and many things I wished fixed that remain flawed still. Until I know where the game is going, I can’t put money into it.

So the answer for me is enough content + extras to be worth 50D as well as actual communication and information about both expansion and future direction of the game.

I realize it’s probably not the simple answer you’d hoped for, but well, it’s an answer

no, please…that was a great post.

Transparency is a reasonable request, and will help build trust again!

Thank you.

I’m going to wait until I know what I’m exactly paying for, but I’m certainly not paying a second fee just to try a core element of the expac, the Revenant.

So at least a character slot included in the base tier.

It’s not really a negotiating table until there’s at least two parties present, and one is conspiciously absent.

that just made me think, that instead of giving a character slot in the pack, it should be enough gems to cover a character slot, because if this peaceful negotiation idea works and we get an even better deal at launch….the prepurchasers will be treated unfair….and that can be easily fixed with gems, than getting extra slots they may have already purchased and not need.

Character slot or 800 gems, plus some unique digital item like a mini pet as an apology to the fans for all this drama.

Baconplease.1657:

An apology from ANET

This!

I do not mind the price tag, 50$ is fine, as long as the content they provide is worthy.
Its upon them to give us more information, what HoT actually includes.

GW2 Core Game + HoT is a great deal for new players.

well…i’m trying to avoid a blame situation and start neutral – for the sake of a happy future, and my history with anet, I remember when things weren’t like this, but that was also when it was a much smaller scale. I also remember reading that many of the developers aren’t exactly getting rock star salaries, and i can’t even begin to imagine the costs of keeping all the servers online and keeping a good staff of it people on call 24/7 So I’d like to avoid the apology part in giving neutral ground to Anet too, let’s just pretend they are trying to get a raise to match the cost of living, – not disregarding anyones feelings, because to be honest, I feel it too….. but I’m putting it aside in good faith to see if we can find something peaceful everyone can live with.

if 10 dollars more gives our dedicated developers a happier life, then it’s not a big issue from that view – it’s not like we are forced to buy things from the gemstore after that…so it is a one time cost not a yearly cost.

From this ‘assumption’ they shouldn’t have to apologize for trying to keep a job and live a normal life. – again, this is simply giving them the benefit of the doubt to see if we as a community from company to player can find a happy middle ground. Everyone wants and needs more money, life is just expensive these days! for them and for us.

40$ with extra character slot for base package and we’re golden.

I don’t care for an apology, Anet making the changes to the Expansion is apologetic enough.

34.99-39.99 price range + Character Slot, for existing accounts.

then we are good.

The price tag isn’t the problem I think. It’s the way they presented the product and the sudden change of hearts they’ve manifested.

As such, the most important part would be a change in their behavior, that doesn’t change back after the storm passes. And by that, I mean them taking care of their game. When people point out bugs and broken mechanics, you don’t just put up more minis in the gem store.

We’re having a huge trust issue here. And that doesn’t get fixed with character slots or gems. Thing is, years ago they’ve released their MMO Manifesto and then, systematically trampled all the values they promised to uphold in it.

From my point of view, HoT is not an expansion. It’s a remake (or, if you want, the final GW2 product – the way it probably should’ve been – with a cherry on top, the Revenant). Even so, I’d fork out the cash if this time they’d promise (and stick to that promise) to focus on the game more than on the gem store. Fixing bugs and broken elements in a time frame shorter than 2 years. Hearing the community and working on their pleas, not on their desperate need for mini rocks.

As a gesture of good faith from their part, they could provide something to improve the QoL for the players (you’d think character slots, inventory upgrades – hence gems, ye) $10-$20 worth of gems – thus also covering the cost of the products they sold in not so good faith to all the people purchasing GW2 between HoT announcement and today. If need be for more reasons on this, let’s say that they did use to offer equal number of character slots and professions.

Anyway, we have moral issues here a lot bigger than financial ones. How do you fix your bad reputation before having the time to prove your good will?! Not that they are putting any effort into it, since the outburst of this mess… Gaile’s words still weight heavily, but kinda hard to be able to outweight everything else, including John’s “you rang?”…

just curious, if they made hot and the core game 2 separate products – you could either make a new un-expanded core account…or you can gift it….while upgrading your main account with the expansion. would this be reasonable ? it would basically be the same thing it is now, except both vets and new players enjoy the same perks of a free guildwars 2 core account.

If I could just buy HoT as an upgrade for my account for $20-$35, I’d buy it. Twice. Because they got rid of Hobosacks.

There was an interesting article on community reactions, concentrating on the over the top metroid reaction this week. The general consensus was that developers tend to find these things blow over and if left alone.

Im not saying thats what will or should happen here, but the precedent is set for these things.

Frankly, selfishly i am in a win/win situation. I have no issues with the preorder price or value whatsoever. However, if this bizarre storm do mean added extras or reduce the price, having already preordered, I can only benefit even more

There is a reason for the $50 price tag http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/3adxq0/the_real_reason_for_hots_50_price_tag/

I think just adding an extra character slot for players that already own the core copy of gw2 would be good.

My biggest grievance with the HoT prices is that the price jump is 25 dollars to get an extra character slot.
Now this isn’t to devalue the other collectible/skins etc. that the artists have worked on. they all deserve to get paid and the 25 dollars certainly works for that purpose, but i’m talking purely about the value of the character slot.

the character slot is the biggest draw to the deluxe edition, it means no rerolling, no deleting favoured characters, no hassle in deciding which characters that you want and no need to farm for days to get the gold needed to buy a character slot, because the value of gems has inflated by a TON.

I’m honestly too shocked at the $100 dollar deal to really comment on it. the price alone is throwing off my logical side so i’ll ignore it until i can find the words for it later.

the character slot was (from what i’ve heard) a standard for factions and nightfall, to accomodate the 2 new classes for each campaign. And i realise gw2 is a different direction, plus the fact that really they don’t owe us a character slot. it just doesn’t feel right that they did that. a long standing custom where a new class or two was introduced and the ability to play as that class without losing progress from any characters that you have.

there is also the aspect that gw2 had dual classes, and as such, the vast majority of content for the new classes was achievable in some form even without new character slots. it was a convenience mostly but it was still provided in good faith. and now that good faith has been removed somewhat.

it’s not really a matter of entitlement, i won’t demand that arenanet fixes the problem and immediately grant a character slot for every edition of the game. the 800 gems idea that i’ve seen floating around seems like a great idea actually, but really this is a matter of faith in the developers and their actions towards the community. It’s not a harsh or extreme thing, and certainly not something worth lighting the torches and wielding the pitchforks for, but more a disappointment.

they’re either forcing players to dedicate hours that most people reasonably don’t have to buy a character slot through gems, shell in real life money for a new character slot to try the revenant (or not) or pay 15 dollars more than the cost of a character slot to get the character slot. these are a lot of not so great options for players who are low on money but still want to support the game. The base edition should have some sort of option to provide an extra character slot for veterans as respect towards those of us who bought the game before.

I do understand the push for ease of access to new players, but it’s not unreasonable to think that veteran players are getting the short end of the stick if new players get the entire base game for free as a bonus for preorder.

I’m just preparing to reroll my thief. didn’t play him muchso not that much of a disappointment, so i don’t truly mind what happens one way or another, but arenanet is a company of good will, and it would be a shame for some of that goodwill to be tainted by a lack of thought towards veteran players.

I’d take the $50 price with a free slot or the equivalent in gems. If they added a slot to each package I’d buy the Ultimate Edition because I’d want to reward them for doing the right thing.

Guess so. However, since their intention is to actually asimilate the core into HoT… Let’s say it wouldn’t be all that wise. HoT is the new core game, they were quite clear about it. It’s also why it doesn’t have much content either. Because it’s not an expansion. It’s a rework of the foundations of GW2. Time and effort wise, it’s a new game. New content wise, it’s a DLC.

• They’ve reworked all the core mechanics. Added an extra one which could and probably will carry over in the future content too (gliding).
• They reworked the rewards system to make gathering rare mats and such less frustrating and finally prevent mad grinding (hopefully).
• They gave back the reason for the game’s name.
• They’ll hopefully make ascended armor meaningfull for all content, not just FotM (while maybe also adding crafting options for breather and accs)
• While they did put 0 effort into making the instances more enjoyable, they did say to work on making the world events more fun (hopefully that won’t mean praying to catch some big guild organizing them for a chance to see them completed – like it’s the case with TT these days)

All in all, it’s GW2 reworked. The extra map and profession are the “cherry on top” and a sorry excuse for an expansion. So, better to not split GW2 and HoT (especially since most of the work on HoT will still be enjoyed by all new GW2 players, devaluating HoT more).

well, in studying myself, i’m finding myself becoming less attached to it, by effort, simply because i have to stand back and remind myself it’s a game lol. I still really enjoy the game, but am learning to not want more than I already have. I could easily just set my mind on getting legendaries and all ascended character and have a full gaming life. That’s not good for anet though.

If i knew anet needed the money for survival reasons, i’m seriously a fan. But considering the first feeling i got was not positive, i’m feeling that yoga moment of letting go of material wants lol

but yes, i still care about anet and it’s community. -shrug- it’s the only reason i’m posting really.

based on a reddit post, I’d say a talking mini-Colin that has a % to comment each time you use your cleaving weapon’s AA would be best way of fixing this stuff! Anet would admit to screwing the pooch in the most funny way possible!!

vincecontix.1264:

There is a reason for the $50 price tag http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/3adxq0/the_real_reason_for_hots_50_price_tag/

I think just adding an extra character slot for players that already own the core copy of gw2 would be good.

And really, this is our issue how?

If Anet needs to raise 100,000,000 for 2015 they need to come up with better business strategy. To expect 100m from 1 product launch off its ENTIRE player base is just a stupid move. Talk about putting all your eggs in one basket.

They should drop the Expansions cost to a traditional 39.99, build a ‘recruit a friend’ system where aged accounts gain benefits for bringing in new sales, and do BETTER work on the gem store (whip sword is a cool idea, but they needed a better delivery on it IMHO, same with the black angel wings).

That is how you do business, you don’t screw your ENTIRE kittening customer base to make that ‘projected’ require profits for the rest of the year. You just don’t!

and unfortunately, i have to agree, that is what it does feel like. I’d rather help a friend, than feel like i’m being sold a gold painted rock. wait…..i need help with an analogy on that one….

2 slots as we got with EoTN is obviously out…That’s not what this little operation of theirs is about. They want us begging for just one instead.

Fine.

I want one. And a miniature weasel in an anet cap. It seems….Fitting.

Want
-1600 gem for owning the core game
-1x slot for new class
-price is ok as it is

Future want
-monthly sub of 10usd
-remove gem shop and put those item cosmetic ingame
-stop money grabbing marketing (ur just making ur company look stupid)

It’s kind of simple, I think 90% of unhappy players are asking for a simple character slot, not a price drop.

Here is a metaphor of the issue, it’s like buying a new car but you would need to pay an extra to get the wheels to drive it out of the shop.

Channel.9402:

Future want
-monthly sub of 10usd
-remove gem shop and put those item cosmetic ingame
-stop money grabbing marketing (ur just making ur company look stupid)

I would not pay a sub to a company that sits on the buttocks for 3 years to fix bugs and game mechanics. $360 for a broken game with many mini rocks is a bit too much

Baconplease.1657:

What I want:
HOT purchasable upgrade to already existing accounts
$40.00
1 character slot included

An apology from ANET admitting to their shady dealings and lying to their playerbase
(you know…. the people that made it possible for you to make an expansion)

This is probably the best offer anet can go with. I say take it.

A character slot or equivalent value in gems.

That is for HoT in general. To prepurchase I want to know what is included.

HOT regular edition at $35 + 1 free extra character slot.

There’s a lot to read here (and everywhere else on the forum about the expansion), so I apologize if I repeat what others may have said.

I think the pricing is fine, but I do feel that a character slot should be mandatory for an expansion with a new playable class (or race if that comes about in the future). Period. So far, nothing has been able to convince me otherwise. (Is there a limit to how many character slots you can have? If so, ANet should make the restriction for the number of character slots you can BUY, but not the overall number of slots that are permitted. Please, let me know if this doesn’t make sense.)

I think that the core game should be delivered in the form of a code that can either be tossed or given away to a friend/relative/random stranger. (Someone in LA map chat said that when they purchased their expansion that the core game code WAS separate. Can anyone confirm or deny this for me, please? Pretty please?)

I also feel that veteran players should receive something of note…but I don’t have any substantial ideas. (Honestly, this isn’t a big concern for me.) Furthermore, what makes a player a “veteran”? Just having the game? Purchasing it within the first year? Having a toon of a certain age? Should the person who bought the game the day before the pre-order be given the “veteran” items/content?