Guild Wars 2

Ricky: Perhaps reward is the wrong word. I do not work for the company. But I see it as a reward for purchasing early. Many games do this.

edit: reward, perk, benefit

This is a lot like getting early access, or beta weekends to me

no, i can appreciate your point – if anything i’m trying to help….:D

I’m showing you how things can be perceived in different ways ……whats happening on this forum is a battle of perceptions. Your presentation gives me the impression of someone looking down on me, hence i saw you increasing the value of ‘rewards’ and devaluing my money….not that it’s what you intended, but considering the overall mood of the debates in general, precision in presentation is necessary ….it’s a game of walking on eggshells at this point lol

funniest kind of war at that!! lol – “so what you are trying to tell me is!?” lots of that going on. it’s like quicksand too, because the less shells you try to crack, the less confident you look. I know how to fight this one, but would rather not say, so much fun watching everyone hopping around different angles of debate lol!!

and i know i’m not helping, i do love and respect anet very much, but they broke my pvp game…..so ….it’s like

Say NO to #Orwellian Gaming!!

and for the twist – the price is not the problem, but it’s one heck of a spice to add to the fiesta of debates! compare the cash value of a legendary in gems, vs the expansion…and that should put it in a relative perspective. this is more a result from a loss of trust.

Ricky: I am not looking down on anyone. And you are correct this is a debate of perceptions. Neither side is going to change theirs. It is now a reality.

Anet has seen the debate, they have taken into consideration what players have said here, on reddit, twitter, facebook, etc. etc. The have addressed the community.

Players are free to be unhappy about it. So they post their unhappy thoughts, some agree with them because that is their shared perception. And then some disagree with them and they continue to battle back and forth.

yeah, it’s a pvp game, pvp is in our blood, the idea is to keep it more in the game than the forum lol

Ayrilana.1396:

usernameisapain.7163:

50 dollars is only for expansion without character slot, a pre-purchase “bonus” doesn’t count as it is not included in the package per se, therefore it makes sense to say that it is 60 bucks.
Regardless there has been many shady issues, among others the different value of the 60/100 dollar versions on the international market, which by the way, cannot be explained by the taxation.
Furthermore it is being sold as a digital product at this moment, which means it cost Anet nothing to distribute or produce.

And there is plenty of reason to call this out as being overpriced. People keep returning to the “if you get x hours of fun out of it, it is worth it” or “I can afford it”
Well that’s great, however the price is still overpriced, and if everyone jumps into that boat it will legitimize the company to sell the next base expansion for 5-10 dollars more.
And it was never a question of being able to have x amount of hours of fun. The fact is it is easily 5-10 dollars too much. It is a principle of making it clear “this is too pricey, we know it, we think it is too bad” I don’t think anyone is expecting the price to change, or Anet gluing the char slot to the expansion instead of the pre-purchase.

The issue is, that if people don’t make a case out of these kinds of practices, it will only get worse going forward. We can all afford it, but we can also see that the price is off.
The same way that I can see that the price is off if my eggs or milk has risen exponentially even though the farmer hasn’t changed his prices. or a white t-shirt at a clothing store that normally cost between 10-15 across a wide variety of stores, and all of a sudden cost 25 at one, the quality isn’t necessarily better than those 10 other stores.

Let’s say that Anet had instead of having Revenant be part of the expansion that they had instead released it with last week’s large update. We also go under the assumption that it was always going to be a part of that update. Would you have any issues then even if you didn’t have any character slots? What if they instead were not doing an expansion but continuing on with the living story and provided the class as part of that?

If someone gives you something and you have to spend extra money to use it, its one thing.

If someone sells you something many people expect it to work without additional purchases.

Ayrilana.1396:

usernameisapain.7163:

50 dollars is only for expansion without character slot, a pre-purchase “bonus” doesn’t count as it is not included in the package per se, therefore it makes sense to say that it is 60 bucks.
Regardless there has been many shady issues, among others the different value of the 60/100 dollar versions on the international market, which by the way, cannot be explained by the taxation.
Furthermore it is being sold as a digital product at this moment, which means it cost Anet nothing to distribute or produce.

And there is plenty of reason to call this out as being overpriced. People keep returning to the “if you get x hours of fun out of it, it is worth it” or “I can afford it”
Well that’s great, however the price is still overpriced, and if everyone jumps into that boat it will legitimize the company to sell the next base expansion for 5-10 dollars more.
And it was never a question of being able to have x amount of hours of fun. The fact is it is easily 5-10 dollars too much. It is a principle of making it clear “this is too pricey, we know it, we think it is too bad” I don’t think anyone is expecting the price to change, or Anet gluing the char slot to the expansion instead of the pre-purchase.

The issue is, that if people don’t make a case out of these kinds of practices, it will only get worse going forward. We can all afford it, but we can also see that the price is off.
The same way that I can see that the price is off if my eggs or milk has risen exponentially even though the farmer hasn’t changed his prices. or a white t-shirt at a clothing store that normally cost between 10-15 across a wide variety of stores, and all of a sudden cost 25 at one, the quality isn’t necessarily better than those 10 other stores.

Let’s say that Anet had instead of having Revenant be part of the expansion that they had instead released it with last week’s large update. We also go under the assumption that it was always going to be a part of that update. Would you have any issues then even if you didn’t have any character slots? What if they instead were not doing an expansion but continuing on with the living story and provided the class as part of that?

Did you read my post ? =) my entire issue was with the pricing, I was just explaining that revenant/char slot 50/60 thing that people kept mentioning. Furthermore, even if the they did include a char slot, I would still consider it too pricey, people say that it is worth 10dollars/800 gems, but anything in the gem shop is super pricey if you think about it.
Anyhow my issue is with the price, and the pricing of international 60/100 dollars versions. I think I made that quite clear. I can follow the idea that people are satisfied, and they’ll get their worth.
Doesn’t change the fact that it is overpriced. No matter how you look at it, compare it to what games/ expansions cost 10 years ago, and 1 year ago. Compare it to a-nets own game releases. I simply cannot see how people can proclaim it is not overpriced?
Yeah I’m sure I can sink hours into it. I have already spend plenty of money on the gemshop to buy all the versions of the expansion twice possibly more. And I didn’t get any gameplay out of that, never complained though, because the item-shop prices were fairly equal with other games across the board.

Point is it is overpriced. The same way I don’t buy a white brand t-shirt that cost 25 dollars, when I can get it for 15, I’m sure that if I buy the one for 25 I’ll be able to wear it for years come, but I can do that with the one for 15 too. Furthermore I know it’ll be on sale in 6 months for half the price, so I just won’t buy a t-shirt till then.

the cost of a legendary is just under 50 dollars in gems
isn’t it funny that no one argues about that, but a whole game expansion is more of less the cost of a legendary yet considered expensive ?

i really don’t think it’s about the price.

usernameisapain.7163:

Point is it is overpriced. The same way I don’t buy a white brand t-shirt that cost 25 dollars, when I can get it for 15, I’m sure that if I buy the one for 25 I’ll be able to wear it for years come, but I can do that with the one for 15 too. Furthermore I know it’ll be on sale in 6 months for half the price, so I just won’t buy a t-shirt till then.

now that’s a pretty simple solution if you ask me, but don’t expect to get it as a preoorder for half the price. people who always need the prettiest shiny new toy always pay the most. Yet everybody has to decide on their own how much worth that exp pack holds to them…

usernameisapain.7163:

Ayrilana.1396:

usernameisapain.7163:

50 dollars is only for expansion without character slot, a pre-purchase “bonus” doesn’t count as it is not included in the package per se, therefore it makes sense to say that it is 60 bucks.
Regardless there has been many shady issues, among others the different value of the 60/100 dollar versions on the international market, which by the way, cannot be explained by the taxation.
Furthermore it is being sold as a digital product at this moment, which means it cost Anet nothing to distribute or produce.

And there is plenty of reason to call this out as being overpriced. People keep returning to the “if you get x hours of fun out of it, it is worth it” or “I can afford it”
Well that’s great, however the price is still overpriced, and if everyone jumps into that boat it will legitimize the company to sell the next base expansion for 5-10 dollars more.
And it was never a question of being able to have x amount of hours of fun. The fact is it is easily 5-10 dollars too much. It is a principle of making it clear “this is too pricey, we know it, we think it is too bad” I don’t think anyone is expecting the price to change, or Anet gluing the char slot to the expansion instead of the pre-purchase.

The issue is, that if people don’t make a case out of these kinds of practices, it will only get worse going forward. We can all afford it, but we can also see that the price is off.
The same way that I can see that the price is off if my eggs or milk has risen exponentially even though the farmer hasn’t changed his prices. or a white t-shirt at a clothing store that normally cost between 10-15 across a wide variety of stores, and all of a sudden cost 25 at one, the quality isn’t necessarily better than those 10 other stores.

Let’s say that Anet had instead of having Revenant be part of the expansion that they had instead released it with last week’s large update. We also go under the assumption that it was always going to be a part of that update. Would you have any issues then even if you didn’t have any character slots? What if they instead were not doing an expansion but continuing on with the living story and provided the class as part of that?

Did you read my post ? =) my entire issue was with the pricing, I was just explaining that revenant/char slot 50/60 thing that people kept mentioning. Furthermore, even if the they did include a char slot, I would still consider it too pricey, people say that it is worth 10dollars/800 gems, but anything in the gem shop is super pricey if you think about it.
Anyhow my issue is with the price, and the pricing of international 60/100 dollars versions. I think I made that quite clear. I can follow the idea that people are satisfied, and they’ll get their worth.
Doesn’t change the fact that it is overpriced. No matter how you look at it, compare it to what games/ expansions cost 10 years ago, and 1 year ago. Compare it to a-nets own game releases. I simply cannot see how people can proclaim it is not overpriced?
Yeah I’m sure I can sink hours into it. I have already spend plenty of money on the gemshop to buy all the versions of the expansion twice possibly more. And I didn’t get any gameplay out of that, never complained though, because the item-shop prices were fairly equal with other games across the board.

Point is it is overpriced. The same way I don’t buy a white brand t-shirt that cost 25 dollars, when I can get it for 15, I’m sure that if I buy the one for 25 I’ll be able to wear it for years come, but I can do that with the one for 15 too. Furthermore I know it’ll be on sale in 6 months for half the price, so I just won’t buy a t-shirt till then.

It was a question for you unrelated to your post.

OP, as pointed out you missed a lot of things.

Elite specializations are heavily editing how a class works. While its not quite a new class, rewriting the core mechanics of 8 other classes has to be worthy of a second class.

And there are the other masteries. Such as hang gliding. Many of them are region-specific, but not all. There are masteries for legendaries and fractals coming out.

And do we actually know for a fact we aren’t fighting Morderemoth? Even if not, though, that surely suggests we will be in the future.

I’m not saying this will be worth the $50; seeing how much we got in the GW1 campaigns, I do expect a lot. But it could be these maps we are getting are massive in scope, and possibly with some impressive boss battles. I loved what little I saw, aside from the repetitiveness of the day/night cycle (although we had such a limited area, both horizontally and vertically, that we saw just a fraction of the entire map).

phys.7689:

Ayrilana.1396:

usernameisapain.7163:

50 dollars is only for expansion without character slot, a pre-purchase “bonus” doesn’t count as it is not included in the package per se, therefore it makes sense to say that it is 60 bucks.
Regardless there has been many shady issues, among others the different value of the 60/100 dollar versions on the international market, which by the way, cannot be explained by the taxation.
Furthermore it is being sold as a digital product at this moment, which means it cost Anet nothing to distribute or produce.

And there is plenty of reason to call this out as being overpriced. People keep returning to the “if you get x hours of fun out of it, it is worth it” or “I can afford it”
Well that’s great, however the price is still overpriced, and if everyone jumps into that boat it will legitimize the company to sell the next base expansion for 5-10 dollars more.
And it was never a question of being able to have x amount of hours of fun. The fact is it is easily 5-10 dollars too much. It is a principle of making it clear “this is too pricey, we know it, we think it is too bad” I don’t think anyone is expecting the price to change, or Anet gluing the char slot to the expansion instead of the pre-purchase.

The issue is, that if people don’t make a case out of these kinds of practices, it will only get worse going forward. We can all afford it, but we can also see that the price is off.
The same way that I can see that the price is off if my eggs or milk has risen exponentially even though the farmer hasn’t changed his prices. or a white t-shirt at a clothing store that normally cost between 10-15 across a wide variety of stores, and all of a sudden cost 25 at one, the quality isn’t necessarily better than those 10 other stores.

Let’s say that Anet had instead of having Revenant be part of the expansion that they had instead released it with last week’s large update. We also go under the assumption that it was always going to be a part of that update. Would you have any issues then even if you didn’t have any character slots? What if they instead were not doing an expansion but continuing on with the living story and provided the class as part of that?

If someone gives you something and you have to spend extra money to use it, its one thing.

If someone sells you something many people expect it to work without additional purchases.

There is a caveat though. If the price of the expansion is unaffected with the exclusion of the new class then those that would need to purchase an additional character slot in order to play it could not argue it as being part of the cost of the expansion as they are now. The reason being that regardless of how the class was given to the players, they still would have incurred the $10 cost to purchase the additional character slot. This is only further strengthened if they were actually willing to purchase the character slot if the class were made available outside of the expansion.

Ayrilana.1396:

phys.7689:

Ayrilana.1396:

usernameisapain.7163:

50 dollars is only for expansion without character slot, a pre-purchase “bonus” doesn’t count as it is not included in the package per se, therefore it makes sense to say that it is 60 bucks.
Regardless there has been many shady issues, among others the different value of the 60/100 dollar versions on the international market, which by the way, cannot be explained by the taxation.
Furthermore it is being sold as a digital product at this moment, which means it cost Anet nothing to distribute or produce.

And there is plenty of reason to call this out as being overpriced. People keep returning to the “if you get x hours of fun out of it, it is worth it” or “I can afford it”
Well that’s great, however the price is still overpriced, and if everyone jumps into that boat it will legitimize the company to sell the next base expansion for 5-10 dollars more.
And it was never a question of being able to have x amount of hours of fun. The fact is it is easily 5-10 dollars too much. It is a principle of making it clear “this is too pricey, we know it, we think it is too bad” I don’t think anyone is expecting the price to change, or Anet gluing the char slot to the expansion instead of the pre-purchase.

The issue is, that if people don’t make a case out of these kinds of practices, it will only get worse going forward. We can all afford it, but we can also see that the price is off.
The same way that I can see that the price is off if my eggs or milk has risen exponentially even though the farmer hasn’t changed his prices. or a white t-shirt at a clothing store that normally cost between 10-15 across a wide variety of stores, and all of a sudden cost 25 at one, the quality isn’t necessarily better than those 10 other stores.

Let’s say that Anet had instead of having Revenant be part of the expansion that they had instead released it with last week’s large update. We also go under the assumption that it was always going to be a part of that update. Would you have any issues then even if you didn’t have any character slots? What if they instead were not doing an expansion but continuing on with the living story and provided the class as part of that?

If someone gives you something and you have to spend extra money to use it, its one thing.

If someone sells you something many people expect it to work without additional purchases.

There is a caveat though. If the price of the expansion is unaffected with the exclusion of the new class then those that would need to purchase an additional character slot in order to play it could not argue it as being part of the cost of the expansion as they are now. The reason being that regardless of how the class was given to the players, they still would have incurred the $10 cost to purchase the additional character slot. This is only further strengthened if they were actually willing to purchase the character slot if the class were made available outside of the expansion.

As a seller they can come up with whatever prices and package content how they want.
They could say revenant needs a elite char slot that costs 20 dollars.

However, if the consumers dont feel it is a fair value, the product will fail or change price. Many people dont feel the no batteries included style for revanent is good.

They circumvented this with a prepurchase bonus, but the truth is at the end of the day many people still find the package they are offering lacking. They just arent focused on it because they dont actually intend to buy the game after release.

They picked the wrong price point for the product they are promoting. A large amount of players are only interested in the product at this price if they start adding extras.

After release they will have the same issue. Many returning players wont feel its worth it. This expansion as it is, is going to need sales and special offers to achieve its goal of having a high adoption rate.

Either that or give more content or take away content from core.

phys.7689:

As a seller they can come up with whatever prices and package content how they want.
They could say revenant needs a elite char slot that costs 20 dollars.

However, if the consumers dont feel it is a fair value, the product will fail or change price. Many people dont feel the no batteries included style for revanent is good.

They circumvented this with a prepurchase bonus, but the truth is at the end of the day many people still find the package they are offering lacking. They just arent focused on it because they dont actually intend to buy the game after release.

They picked the wrong price point for the product they are promoting. A large amount of players are only interested in the product at this price if they start adding extras.

After release they will have the same issue. Many returning players wont feel its worth it. This expansion as it is, is going to need sales and special offers to achieve its goal of having a high adoption rate.

Either that or give more content or take away content from core.

They didn’t circumvent anything.

They charged what they thought the market would bear

Arenanet, or NCSoft doesn’t owe the customers anything beyond producing the game and selling it. If the market won’t bear the price, the product will fail, and they’ll have to discount it or take a loss on it.

There’s really not much else to say.

phys.7689:

Ayrilana.1396:

usernameisapain.7163:

50 dollars is only for expansion without character slot, a pre-purchase “bonus” doesn’t count as it is not included in the package per se, therefore it makes sense to say that it is 60 bucks.
Regardless there has been many shady issues, among others the different value of the 60/100 dollar versions on the international market, which by the way, cannot be explained by the taxation.
Furthermore it is being sold as a digital product at this moment, which means it cost Anet nothing to distribute or produce.

And there is plenty of reason to call this out as being overpriced. People keep returning to the “if you get x hours of fun out of it, it is worth it” or “I can afford it”
Well that’s great, however the price is still overpriced, and if everyone jumps into that boat it will legitimize the company to sell the next base expansion for 5-10 dollars more.
And it was never a question of being able to have x amount of hours of fun. The fact is it is easily 5-10 dollars too much. It is a principle of making it clear “this is too pricey, we know it, we think it is too bad” I don’t think anyone is expecting the price to change, or Anet gluing the char slot to the expansion instead of the pre-purchase.

The issue is, that if people don’t make a case out of these kinds of practices, it will only get worse going forward. We can all afford it, but we can also see that the price is off.
The same way that I can see that the price is off if my eggs or milk has risen exponentially even though the farmer hasn’t changed his prices. or a white t-shirt at a clothing store that normally cost between 10-15 across a wide variety of stores, and all of a sudden cost 25 at one, the quality isn’t necessarily better than those 10 other stores.

Let’s say that Anet had instead of having Revenant be part of the expansion that they had instead released it with last week’s large update. We also go under the assumption that it was always going to be a part of that update. Would you have any issues then even if you didn’t have any character slots? What if they instead were not doing an expansion but continuing on with the living story and provided the class as part of that?

If someone gives you something and you have to spend extra money to use it, its one thing.

If someone sells you something many people expect it to work without additional purchases.

I guess that depends on how many people already have an extra character slot, or haven’t even used all the ones they have. There are a bunch of people who probably only have a couple of characters. Not everyone fills everyslot.

That said, I’ve always been of the opinion that the game should have come with a free slot for everyone who buys it.

Windsagio.1340:

phys.7689:

As a seller they can come up with whatever prices and package content how they want.
They could say revenant needs a elite char slot that costs 20 dollars.

However, if the consumers dont feel it is a fair value, the product will fail or change price. Many people dont feel the no batteries included style for revanent is good.

They circumvented this with a prepurchase bonus, but the truth is at the end of the day many people still find the package they are offering lacking. They just arent focused on it because they dont actually intend to buy the game after release.

They picked the wrong price point for the product they are promoting. A large amount of players are only interested in the product at this price if they start adding extras.

After release they will have the same issue. Many returning players wont feel its worth it. This expansion as it is, is going to need sales and special offers to achieve its goal of having a high adoption rate.

Either that or give more content or take away content from core.

They didn’t circumvent anything.

*They charged what they thought the market would bear*

Arenanet, or NCSoft doesn’t owe the customers anything beyond producing the game and selling it. If the market won’t bear the price, the product will fail, and they’ll have to discount it or take a loss on it.

There’s really not much else to say.

They circumvented the outcry that the base package wasnt worth it by offering char slots.

But thats only prepurchase. If people didnt feel it was worth 50 dollars before they still dont but since they are prepurchasing they are like whatevs.

And like i said they dont customers anything at all. But if customers dont feel the price point is right and dont buy it, they make less money. Especially with this expansion. It costs virtually nothing to sell, and people not adopting doesnt lower operating costs.
The main way to profit off such a good is to sell as many copies as possible.

The only way this works out to more money is if part of their plan is to start charging high then lower it to catch all the people they missed at the higher price point

Randulf.7614:

Be very careful about comparing NF maps to any GW2 maps, especially new ones. GW1 were generally light on content and had repeat value only for hard mode which was added later. Because of their small size of maps and lack of any real substance, they required substantially and I mean substantially less work work to make and develop than a GW2 map.

Take Dry Top. Dry Top alone has generated more time and content than any single GW1 map across any campaign;
- Coins to collect
- farming
- exclusive crafting reward
- an interesting and unique map mechanic
- a variety of different bosses with different mechanics
- jumping puzzles

By comparison what did Bahdok Caverns or Jahai Plains have? A couple of bosses, most of which had no discernable difficulty, some mobs, some pretty scenery confined by pathing, some non-repeatable quests. And that’s it.

You cannot compare GW2 and GW1 in terms of maps simply because the content ratio is utterly different and more time and effort goes into 1 single map in GW2. That’s why they churned NF out so quickly after Factions.

Sorry I just want to point out the reason NF came so fast after Factions was because they had 2 teams working on the games. The prophecies team started work on Nightfall and the 2nd team that worked on Factions started working on Eotn.

What gets me is if in 3 years this is all they have done with WAAAY more people on their payroll and it may or may not have the final dragon content at the end, when are we going to get to fight all 6 dragons and move onto other parts of Tyria? 12 years from now? I REALLY hope they can start pumping out more add-ons to the current world in a faster time period, they have the man power and a decent quality team.
I would rather take more add ons than small living world content that takes about 1 hour to complete, and I’m not a fan of endless grinding kind of person so those dry top armour pieces don’t excite me.

On another note, that NF:CE is awesome I have the same one. When I pre-ordered Factions I got a free t-shirt with it.

zityz.6089:

Randulf.7614:

Be very careful about comparing NF maps to any GW2 maps, especially new ones. GW1 were generally light on content and had repeat value only for hard mode which was added later. Because of their small size of maps and lack of any real substance, they required substantially and I mean substantially less work work to make and develop than a GW2 map.

Take Dry Top. Dry Top alone has generated more time and content than any single GW1 map across any campaign;
- Coins to collect
- farming
- exclusive crafting reward
- an interesting and unique map mechanic
- a variety of different bosses with different mechanics
- jumping puzzles

By comparison what did Bahdok Caverns or Jahai Plains have? A couple of bosses, most of which had no discernable difficulty, some mobs, some pretty scenery confined by pathing, some non-repeatable quests. And that’s it.

You cannot compare GW2 and GW1 in terms of maps simply because the content ratio is utterly different and more time and effort goes into 1 single map in GW2. That’s why they churned NF out so quickly after Factions.

Sorry I just want to point out the reason NF came so fast after Factions was because they had 2 teams working on the games. The prophecies team started work on Nightfall and the 2nd team that worked on Factions started working on Eotn.

What gets me is if in 3 years this is all they have done with WAAAY more people on their payroll and it may or may not have the final dragon content at the end, when are we going to get to fight all 6 dragons and move onto other parts of Tyria? 12 years from now? I REALLY hope they can start pumping out more add-ons to the current world in a faster time period, they have the man power and a decent quality team.
I would rather take more add ons than small living world content that takes about 1 hour to complete, and I’m not a fan of endless grinding kind of person so those dry top armour pieces don’t excite me.

On another note, that NF:CE is awesome I have the same one. When I pre-ordered Factions I got a free t-shirt with it.

Everything was slowed down because of the combination of the China launch and the change of direcition. I don’t believe we’ll have to wait 3 years for another expansion.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Galen Grey.4709:

No expansion is the size of a full game, its unreasonable to expect it to be considering that an expansion is worked on for a fraction of the time a company works on the full game. That being said, we dont even know how big HoT is, isnt this argument a bit premature?

We know that it won’t be the size of a full game, because it is an expansion. And as you said, no expansion is the size of a full game.

But it is priced as a full game. This makes the price unreasonable, regardless of what future content they reveal in HOT. It’s not going to be more than a full game, and yet it is priced as one. On that basis alone, we can say it is too expensive.

Thing is pricing isnt that simple. Even in the physical world, things like pizza, ham burgers, steaks etc.. even though they’re relatively all the same size can vary in price greately. We dont expect a pizza that costs twice as much as another pizza to be twice the size because its not just about the size. Its also about the ingerients, its also about the quality, the service as well as the overall taste / experiance.

There is also another thing to consider, what if the core game was in a way sold for much less then what its worth? Lets compare Prophecies with Gw2 for example. Both took 5 years to develop but Anet had 120 employees in 2008 while they had 270 in 2012. More then twice the people worked on Gw2 so should it cost twice as much?

Even content wise. Cities were more then twice as elaborate, same goes for all the maps. Same goes for content 25 missions + 205 quests vs 100s of personal story missions (various combinations of prof, race and choices) + 1500 dynamic events + hearts etc…

Thing is pricing digital items is tricky business . Its not like pricing physical Items. I can easy say how much it costs for me to product a pizza, I can say how much markup I want to make and there is my price. A game on the other hand is a different story. You dont even know how many copies you’re going to sell so you dont know what the price has to be to break even much less to include the markup you intend to make.

what I am trying to say, most likely really badly is personally I dont think you can measure a price by conent simply because there is no direct relation there. Price here is more of a raw supply and demand affair. What price point will people be willing to buy at? and thats why I do feel that its perfecly reasonable to factor in the no-subscription and LS updates in that decision because this isnt about a physical item perse its about an experiance. $50 per 2-3 years is more then reasonable for what we’re getting imho.

Yes there are other revenue streams that pay for that stuff but this is the only guaranteed income Anet has, it is what makes sure NCsoft are happy enough with Anet that not only did they not downsize the team like most other MMOs do post launch but they were okey with increasing that team from 270 people to 350 people they have today. $10 above the industry average is more then fair for what we get in my opinion.

phys.7689:

If someone gives you something and you have to spend extra money to use it, its one thing.

If someone sells you something many people expect it to work without additional purchases.

Which is why no one buys a car? or a pen? or why some items have the famous batteries no included sign?

plenty of things you buy require additional costs for you to enjoy. I wish when I purchased my PC it came with free electricity, internet and content but alas I have to pay for all of those, especially the content that ends up costing orders of magnitute more then what I paid for my PC

Galen Grey.4709:

what I am trying to say, most likely really badly is personally I don’t think you can measure a price by content simply because there is no direct relation there. Price here is more of a raw supply and demand affair.

I disagree. Just because some people are willing to pay more for a product, does not mean that you can’t compare content vs price.

Yes, there will always be fans that will throw down as many dollars as required, regardless of how high the price is. That does not mean that that price is justified.

You seem to be implying that the value of a product is completely abstract, and differs from person to person. And while each person will no doubt attach a different value to any given product, that doesn’t mean that the product cannot be given an inherent value based on its content alone. I don’t think it is entirely subjective, as you seem to suggest it is. With digital products this is perhaps more difficult than with physical products, but it doesn’t make it impossible. In fact, the GW2 core game gives a direct comparison.

If we agree that GW2 was originally reasonably priced at $60, then I think we can also agree that any expansion that has the same price tag, should deliver at least as much content for that value.

usernameisapain.7163:

Did you read my post ? =) my entire issue was with the pricing, I was just explaining that revenant/char slot 50/60 thing that people kept mentioning.
(snip)
Doesn’t change the fact that it is overpriced. No matter how you look at it, compare it to what games/ expansions cost 10 years ago, and 1 year ago. Compare it to a-nets own game releases. I simply cannot see how people can proclaim it is not overpriced?

There are many ways how to look at it. You can look at the price of the expansion itself and say okey Anet is charging $50 for their expansion. Only other company to do that was WoW so yeah pretty overprised.

Fair enough

There are other aspects to it though. Its a bit to early to tell but it may very well be it takes Anet 2-3 years to push out an expansion. $50 ever 2 to years 3 for gw2 is very reasonable. Not overprised in fact quite cheap for Example one other Buy to play game has DLC releases for $10 each. Super cheap right ? In 3 years it released 11 of them for a total of $110 + other smaller paid content. That alone makes it twice as expensive but when you factor in Gw2 also threw a ton of free content while this other game didnt the value you’re getting with Gw2 is much higher.

I dont think we need to even elaborate on sub based MMOs, $50 is what you pay to play 4 months and they still charge you $40. Never mind the other 32 months you have to pay for during that 3 year period.

Then there are F2P games. You generally get expansions for free here or for just $39.99 but then again you get more agressive cashshops. Cashshops that range from taking away gameplay mechanics unless you pay or that make it impossible to compete in PvP (upgrade insurance items), Severly limiting inventory etc.. Its hard to say how much it will cost to play such a game for 3 years. Could be cheaper, could be not.

usernameisapain.7163:

Point is it is overpriced. The same way I don’t buy a white brand t-shirt that cost 25 dollars, when I can get it for 15, I’m sure that if I buy the one for 25 I’ll be able to wear it for years come, but I can do that with the one for 15 too. Furthermore I know it’ll be on sale in 6 months for half the price, so I just won’t buy a t-shirt till then.

Thing is this isnt a white brand t-shirt, its a quality fashion shirt that sells for $50 and you can keep wearing it proudly for 2-3 years. The company is also nice enough to supply you with free accessories now and then too. There are other options some cheaper as low as $10 but these require changing every 3 months or so. Other t-shirts sell for $40 but require you pay $15 a month while you ‘re wearing them. Then there are free T-Shirts that have these little frustrating things such as coming in a size too small, or this little label in the back that keeps poking you while you’re walking around.
There is a solution to all these problems and it involves a small fee.

Now you can stop and just consider the price and conclude this is the most expensive shirt there is. Or you could look at the big picture and realise that everything considered the value you’re getting over time is actually better then some cheaper options.

Galen Grey.4709:

phys.7689:

If someone gives you something and you have to spend extra money to use it, its one thing.

If someone sells you something many people expect it to work without additional purchases.

Which is why no one buys a car? or a pen? or why some items have the famous batteries no included sign?

plenty of things you buy require additional costs for you to enjoy. I wish when I purchased my PC it came with free electricity, internet and content but alas I have to pay for all of those, especially the content that ends up costing orders of magnitute more then what I paid for my PC

Both cars and pens where i come from are purchased full.

Also most the products you mentioned are not created and sold by the same company.

Regardless its probably not agAinst the law, its just something consumers dont like, especially when the competition tends to include everything you need.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Galen Grey.4709:

what I am trying to say, most likely really badly is personally I don’t think you can measure a price by content simply because there is no direct relation there. Price here is more of a raw supply and demand affair.

I disagree. Just because some people are willing to pay more for a product, does not mean that you can’t compare content vs price.

Yes, there will always be fans that will throw down as many dollars as required, regardless of how high the price is. That does not mean that that price is justified.

You seem to be implying that the value of a product is completely abstract, and differs from person to person. And while each person will no doubt attach a different value to any given product, that doesn’t mean that the product cannot be given an inherent value based on its content alone. I don’t think it is entirely subjective, as you seem to suggest it is. With digital products this is perhaps more difficult than with physical products, but it doesn’t make it impossible. In fact, the GW2 core game gives a direct comparison.

If we agree that GW2 was originally reasonably priced at $60, then I think we can also agree that any expansion that has the same price tag, should deliver at least as much content for that value.

Okey let me tell you why I believe thats a bad metric.

I mean I am heavily speculating now but I think there is a good chance the expansion will have more then 25 story missions and more then 205 dynamic events. using your own logic wouldnt that put it above the $50 prophecies charged?

Lets go deep in the dark crevises of speculation and state there is going to be 50 story missions and 500 dynamic events. If we compare it with the original guild wars using your metric thats worth $100

if we compare it to Gw2 thats still about 33% of what the core game had so worth $20

2 very different conclusions which we came to using metric. Provided there are actually 50 story missions and 500 dynamic events (which as yet we dont know) based on content size this expansion is overprised and underprised at the same time depending with what you compare it to. How can that be explained? only possible way is the price choosen never had a direct relation to the ammount of content in the first place. Because if it did Gw2 so have cost a lot more then prophecies did.

Galen Grey.4709:

Thing is this isnt a white brand t-shirt, its a quality fashion shirt that sells for $50 and you can keep wearing it proudly for 2-3 years.

Although they will need to patch certain holes in the T-shirt right after you bought it, and while many customers were expecting the T-Shirt to have a really awesome picture at the back, that picture will in fact be added much later.

Galen Grey.4709:

The company is also nice enough to supply you with free accessories now and then too.

Although most of the accessories will not be free. Just the ones that fix holes in the T-shirt.

Galen Grey.4709:

Now you can stop and just consider the price and conclude this is the most expensive shirt there is. Or you could look at the big picture and realize that everything considered the value you’re getting over time is actually better then some cheaper options.

Another way to look at it, is that those other brands of T-shirts are not just expensive, but deliver bad quality on top of that. This T-shirt delivers good quality, but for a really really high price.

It’s not that the quality of this T-shirt is remarkably better. It’s just that the deal you are getting from other T-shirt manufacturers is remarkably worse. Basically, they are all trying to squeeze dollars out of their customers, but some T-shirt manufacturers are more greedy than others.

Galen Grey.4709:

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Galen Grey.4709:

No expansion is the size of a full game, its unreasonable to expect it to be considering that an expansion is worked on for a fraction of the time a company works on the full game. That being said, we dont even know how big HoT is, isnt this argument a bit premature?

We know that it won’t be the size of a full game, because it is an expansion. And as you said, no expansion is the size of a full game.

But it is priced as a full game. This makes the price unreasonable, regardless of what future content they reveal in HOT. It’s not going to be more than a full game, and yet it is priced as one. On that basis alone, we can say it is too expensive.

Thing is pricing isnt that simple. Even in the physical world, things like pizza, ham burgers, steaks etc.. even though they’re relatively all the same size can vary in price greately. We dont expect a pizza that costs twice as much as another pizza to be twice the size because its not just about the size. Its also about the ingerients, its also about the quality, the service as well as the overall taste / experiance.

There is also another thing to consider, what if the core game was in a way sold for much less then what its worth? Lets compare Prophecies with Gw2 for example. Both took 5 years to develop but Anet had 120 employees in 2008 while they had 270 in 2012. More then twice the people worked on Gw2 so should it cost twice as much?

Even content wise. Cities were more then twice as elaborate, same goes for all the maps. Same goes for content 25 missions + 205 quests vs 100s of personal story missions (various combinations of prof, race and choices) + 1500 dynamic events + hearts etc…

Thing is pricing digital items is tricky business . Its not like pricing physical Items. I can easy say how much it costs for me to product a pizza, I can say how much markup I want to make and there is my price. A game on the other hand is a different story. You dont even know how many copies you’re going to sell so you dont know what the price has to be to break even much less to include the markup you intend to make.

what I am trying to say, most likely really badly is personally I dont think you can measure a price by conent simply because there is no direct relation there. Price here is more of a raw supply and demand affair. What price point will people be willing to buy at? and thats why I do feel that its perfecly reasonable to factor in the no-subscription and LS updates in that decision because this isnt about a physical item perse its about an experiance. $50 per 2-3 years is more then reasonable for what we’re getting imho.

Yes there are other revenue streams that pay for that stuff but this is the only guaranteed income Anet has, it is what makes sure NCsoft are happy enough with Anet that not only did they not downsize the team like most other MMOs do post launch but they were okey with increasing that team from 270 people to 350 people they have today. $10 above the industry average is more then fair for what we get in my opinion.

No products know how much they will sell ahead of time. Digital products are actually one of tje easiest products to deal with nowadays because the cost barely changes for each item sold.

Selling boxes is no more guaranteed than selling outfits.

This type of product is a dream for most businesses.

Galen Grey.4709:

I mean I am heavily speculating now but I think there is a good chance the expansion will have more then 25 story missions and more then 205 dynamic events. using your own logic wouldnt that put it above the $50 prophecies charged?

Lets go deep in the dark crevises of speculation and state there is going to be 50 story missions and 500 dynamic events. If we compare it with the original guild wars using your metric thats worth $100

You know, I thought your estimate of 25 story missions was already way too generous.

Galen Grey.4709:

if we compare it to Gw2 thats still about 33% of what the core game had so worth $20

Add in some of the other features, and you close in on about $35 bucks, which would be a very reasonable price for any MMO expansion.

Galen Grey.4709:

2 very different conclusions which we came to using metric. Provided there are actually 50 story missions and 500 dynamic events (which as yet we don’t know) based on content size this expansion is overpriced and under-priced at the same time depending with what you compare it to. How can that be explained? only possible way is the price chosen never had a direct relation to the amount of content in the first place. Because if it did Gw2 so have cost a lot more than prophecies did.

50 story missions I think is a wild over estimation on your part. I don’t think we’ll get even half of that. This is a small expansion, not a full stand alone game.

Look, I think the price will always be a balance between:

-1- The amount of new content
-2- The production costs
-3- What the customer is willing to pay (for an expansion)

Point 1 is directly linked to point 3. You have what Anet thinks the content is worth, and you have what the customer thinks the content is worth. Anet tries to strike a balance between the two.

Point 2 on the other hand is more a case of, how many copies do we need to sell to break even? And how many copies do we expect to sell?

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Galen Grey.4709:

what I am trying to say, most likely really badly is personally I don’t think you can measure a price by content simply because there is no direct relation there. Price here is more of a raw supply and demand affair.

I disagree. Just because some people are willing to pay more for a product, does not mean that you can’t compare content vs price.

Yes, there will always be fans that will throw down as many dollars as required, regardless of how high the price is. That does not mean that that price is justified.

You seem to be implying that the value of a product is completely abstract, and differs from person to person. And while each person will no doubt attach a different value to any given product, that doesn’t mean that the product cannot be given an inherent value based on its content alone. I don’t think it is entirely subjective, as you seem to suggest it is. With digital products this is perhaps more difficult than with physical products, but it doesn’t make it impossible. In fact, the GW2 core game gives a direct comparison.

If we agree that GW2 was originally reasonably priced at $60, then I think we can also agree that any expansion that has the same price tag, should deliver at least as much content for that value.

I disagree. And if you think you can get the same value anywhere else TODAY, good luck to you,. because you can’t. Guild Wars 1 came a time when that sort of thing was possible. I don’t see any value like that around today.

Maybe you want to spend the rest of your days looking for that value and never play anything again. The value I get from Guild Wars 2 is not all that different from the value I got from Guild Wars 1. That is, it’s the game I like the most, without the monthly fee.

Because there is no expansion to Guild Wars 1. It doesn’t exist. So I can’t play it. And there’s no other MMO that makes a game that’s worth playing.

So either you spend a few zillion dollars and build a time machine to a time when you can get that value, or you accept the fact that times have changed, or you don’t and play only games and never expansions, because by your reckoning, none of them will be worth it.

phys.7689:

Galen Grey.4709:

phys.7689:

If someone gives you something and you have to spend extra money to use it, its one thing.

If someone sells you something many people expect it to work without additional purchases.

Which is why no one buys a car? or a pen? or why some items have the famous batteries no included sign?

plenty of things you buy require additional costs for you to enjoy. I wish when I purchased my PC it came with free electricity, internet and content but alas I have to pay for all of those, especially the content that ends up costing orders of magnitute more then what I paid for my PC

Both cars and pens where i come from are purchased full.

Also most the products you mentioned are not created and sold by the same company.

Regardless its probably not agAinst the law, its just something consumers dont like, especially when the competition tends to include everything you need.

Fair point. though technically you can buy a car and then later on buy extras for it. Still its not about law, you simply stated then when people buy something they arent expecting to pay more later which each of these purchase clearly invalidates that statement. Sure the manufactorer of the toy car you just baught may not manufactur batteries but neither do they manufacter the vast majority of parts that make up that toy car. For various reasons they chose to not include batteries and leave that purchase to you. Doesnt change the fact until you buy batteries you’re not enjoying you new toy car!

Competitors include everything you need? No they dont. Sub based MMOs dont include sub time with expansions (and you need that far more)

F2P games dont include the stuff you need to fully enjoy that content either (you’ll need to buy those pesky insurance stones if you want to upgrade the new weapons to their highest possible potential. Or the storage space needed to carry all the rewards the new content provides etc..

This is defintely not something Anet alone do

Vayne.8563:

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Galen Grey.4709:

what I am trying to say, most likely really badly is personally I don’t think you can measure a price by content simply because there is no direct relation there. Price here is more of a raw supply and demand affair.

I disagree. Just because some people are willing to pay more for a product, does not mean that you can’t compare content vs price.

Yes, there will always be fans that will throw down as many dollars as required, regardless of how high the price is. That does not mean that that price is justified.

You seem to be implying that the value of a product is completely abstract, and differs from person to person. And while each person will no doubt attach a different value to any given product, that doesn’t mean that the product cannot be given an inherent value based on its content alone. I don’t think it is entirely subjective, as you seem to suggest it is. With digital products this is perhaps more difficult than with physical products, but it doesn’t make it impossible. In fact, the GW2 core game gives a direct comparison.

If we agree that GW2 was originally reasonably priced at $60, then I think we can also agree that any expansion that has the same price tag, should deliver at least as much content for that value.

I disagree. And if you think you can get the same value anywhere else TODAY, good luck to you,. because you can’t. Guild Wars 1 came a time when that sort of thing was possible. I don’t see any value like that around today.

Maybe you want to spend the rest of your days looking for that value and never play anything again. The value I get from Guild Wars 2 is not all that different from the value I got from Guild Wars 1. That is, it’s the game I like the most, without the monthly fee.

Because there is no expansion to Guild Wars 1. It doesn’t exist. So I can’t play it. And there’s no other MMO that makes a game that’s worth playing.

So either you spend a few zillion dollars and build a time machine to a time when you can get that value, or you accept the fact that times have changed, or you don’t and play only games and never expansions, because by your reckoning, none of them will be worth it.

For you sure. For many other gamers this game is competing for dollars

Vayne.8563:

I disagree. And if you think you can get the same value anywhere else TODAY, good luck to you,. because you can’t. Guild Wars 1 came a time when that sort of thing was possible. I don’t see any value like that around today.

DDO?

Vayne.8563:

Maybe you want to spend the rest of your days looking for that value and never play anything again.

Or alternatively, vote with your wallet, and encourage more game companies to not be so greedy.

Vayne.8563:

Because there is no expansion to Guild Wars 1. It doesn’t exist. So I can’t play it. And there’s no other MMO that makes a game that’s worth playing.

I’m assuming you meant to say GW2, since GW1 obviously has Eye of the North.

Vayne.8563:

So either you spend a few zillion dollars and build a time machine to a time when you can get that value, or you accept the fact that times have changed, or you don’t and play only games and never expansions, because by your reckoning, none of them will be worth it.

Or! Or! You don’t accept it, and show the game industry that they have to be reasonable with the pricing of their expansions. If enough people vote with their wallet, they will have to reduce the price. Yes, even mammoth companies like Blizzard.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Vayne.8563:

I disagree. And if you think you can get the same value anywhere else TODAY, good luck to you,. because you can’t. Guild Wars 1 came a time when that sort of thing was possible. I don’t see any value like that around today.

DDO?

Vayne.8563:

Maybe you want to spend the rest of your days looking for that value and never play anything again.

Or alternatively, vote with your wallet, and encourage more game companies to not be so greedy.

Vayne.8563:

Because there is no expansion to Guild Wars 1. It doesn’t exist. So I can’t play it. And there’s no other MMO that makes a game that’s worth playing.

I’m assuming you meant to say GW2, since GW1 obviously has Eye of the North.

Vayne.8563:

So either you spend a few zillion dollars and build a time machine to a time when you can get that value, or you accept the fact that times have changed, or you don’t and play only games and never expansions, because by your reckoning, none of them will be worth it.

Or! Or! You don’t accept it, and show the game industry that they have to be reasonable with the pricing of their expansions. If enough people vote with their wallet, they will have to reduce the price. Yes, even mammoth companies like Blizzard.

He is voting with his wallet, he finds it to be a great deal.

The level of detail is much much higher than GW1. It’s like comparing the price between a painting of 1 by 1 meter to a painting of 3 by 3 meter and expect the same price.

Also, just because there’s no price increase in games, doesn’t mean there’s no inflation. Because inflation would mean that when the price level rises, each unit of currency buys fewer goods and services.

Of course, as a consumer you want to buy something tangible, rather than silly explanations about back-end changes upgrades and stuff that you don’t actually see.
This is likely why there’s cash shops in many MMOs these days.

The problem might be that they said it themselves is that the HoT itself is a more feature rich expansion, which to me sounds like the amount of actual playable content is on the lower end.

Whether we actually get our worth of stuff, is seemingly even more unlikely with all the additions to the game coming with HoT being free either way due to their changes of the original game. That devalues the expansion even further.

I’m fairly sure that the cost of the expansion is taking into account all those things we either get for free or afterwards. While as a consumer, this really sounds more like you’re paying more for less.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Vayne.8563:

I disagree. And if you think you can get the same value anywhere else TODAY, good luck to you,. because you can’t. Guild Wars 1 came a time when that sort of thing was possible. I don’t see any value like that around today.

DDO?

Vayne.8563:

Maybe you want to spend the rest of your days looking for that value and never play anything again.

Or alternatively, vote with your wallet, and encourage more game companies to not be so greedy.

Vayne.8563:

Because there is no expansion to Guild Wars 1. It doesn’t exist. So I can’t play it. And there’s no other MMO that makes a game that’s worth playing.

I’m assuming you meant to say GW2, since GW1 obviously has Eye of the North.

Vayne.8563:

So either you spend a few zillion dollars and build a time machine to a time when you can get that value, or you accept the fact that times have changed, or you don’t and play only games and never expansions, because by your reckoning, none of them will be worth it.

Or! Or! You don’t accept it, and show the game industry that they have to be reasonable with the pricing of their expansions. If enough people vote with their wallet, they will have to reduce the price. Yes, even mammoth companies like Blizzard.

DDO? hahhaha conversation over.

Turbine was a greedy horrible company long before Warner Bros took them over. One of my friends is a DDO player and does nothing but complain about what thieves they are. He used to be in my GW 1 guild and got involved in DDO, which he enjoys. But saying that Turbine’s pricing policies are somehow better than Anet’s? lmao

Okay.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Although they will need to patch certain holes in the T-shirt right after you bought it, and while many customers were expecting the T-Shirt to have a really awesome picture at the back, that picture will in fact be added much later.

I am not sure what the holes are supposed to be to be honest. What holes did the living story patch?

I assume the picture at the back refers to the fight with mordremoth right? I looked hard and wide but didnt manage to find one single statement by an devs saying we will not get to fight modremoth in the expansion. Considering they gave us 0 news on the story I’d find it hard to believe they already spoke on that respect. Do you happen to have a link where they stated no fight in HoT?

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Although most of the accessories will not be free. Just the ones that fix holes in the T-shirt.

Which updates in the past 3 years were not free (accessories was an analogy for updates)

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Another way to look at it, is that those other brands of T-shirts are not just expensive, but deliver bad quality on top of that. This T-shirt delivers good quality, but for a really really high price.

It’s not that the quality of this T-shirt is remarkably better. It’s just that the deal you are getting from other T-shirt manufacturers is remarkably worse. Basically, they are all trying to squeeze dollars out of their customers, but some T-shirt manufacturers are more greedy than others.

Would it though? If every T-Shirt in the world sold for $100, would someone releasing kitten t-shirt be considered overprised? What people are willing to pay for something is a massive driver for pricing. Just look at housing. 30 years ago houses around here sold for about $100,000ish now a days they sell for about $300,000 though no one would even dream selling the house they bought for $100,000 for anything less then $300,000 because ultimately the price isnt what an item costs but what people are willing to pay, it may be unfair but its how the business world works.

Vayne.8563:

DDO? hahhaha conversation over.

Turbine was a greedy horrible company long before Warner Bros took them over. One of my friends is a DDO player and does nothing but complain about what thieves they are. He used to be in my GW 1 guild and got involved in DDO, which he enjoys. But saying that Turbine’s pricing policies are somehow better than Anet’s? lmao

Okay.

I have yet to pay a single dime for DDO. I’ve bought all expansions by simply playing the game and earning DDO points, and one expansion was gifted to me. So they seem pretty fair to me.

But even if you think Turbine is also greedy, so what? Does that make it right?

Galen Grey.4709:

I am not sure what the holes are supposed to be to be honest. What holes did the living story patch?

I was referring to the fact that we buy a product that will have to be patched shortly after release. This has been the case for the core game, and also for Nightfall and Eye of the North. In the case of GW2, a large chunk of the dynamic quests, and nearly all of the traits and skills were bugged. This will be the case for HOT as well. We don’t pay for a perfectly polished product. We pay for a rough product, and are even given the option to pay for testing it for them.

Galen Grey.4709:

I assume the picture at the back refers to the fight with mordremoth right? I looked hard and wide but didnt manage to find one single statement by an devs saying we will not get to fight modremoth in the expansion. Considering they gave us 0 news on the story I’d find it hard to believe they already spoke on that respect. Do you happen to have a link where they stated no fight in HoT?

Like I said, don’t have a link. Just remember it being mentioned in an interview. People just blindly assume that he has to be in the expansion, and for many this is a reason to buy the expansion. I think it is about time Anet spoke up about it.

Galen Grey.4709:

Which updates in the past 3 years were not free (accessories was an analogy for updates)

I was mostly referring to all the gem store content.

Galen Grey.4709:

Would it though? If every T-Shirt in the world sold for $100, would someone releasing kitten t-shirt be considered overpriced? What people are willing to pay for something is a massive driver for pricing. Just look at housing. 30 years ago houses around here sold for about $100,000ish now a days they sell for about $300,000 though no one would even dream selling the house they bought for $100,000 for anything less then $300,000 because ultimately the price isn’t what an item costs but what people are willing to pay, it may be unfair but its how the business world works.

A lot of games are trying the free-to-play model nowadays. GW1 started the trend, but it is now no longer a unique feature. And companies are trying to find other ways to earn money from their customers. This started in GW1 with the in-game store (which made a lot of people unhappy), and then continued into GW2 to a much larger degree. Now the whole gem store concept, along with constant DLC, has become mainstream. We are seeing pay walls in a lot of games, and more and more companies are trying to exploit their customers.

It started out really innocent, but has slowly but surely been growing into an ugly beast. And it is going to keep doing that, unless we as customers send a clear message. This pre-purchasing concept is a bad deal for consumers. And the only way we’re going to stop it, is by saying no.

There are plenty of people who would pay $60, $70 or even $100 bucks for half an expansion, packed with Living Story left overs, because they think the expansion is worth it. That does not put them in the right. What little we know of HOT does not validate the current price tag. It just doesn’t. And by paying it anyway, consumers are contributing to the problem of overinflated expansion pricing.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Vayne.8563:

DDO? hahhaha conversation over.

Turbine was a greedy horrible company long before Warner Bros took them over. One of my friends is a DDO player and does nothing but complain about what thieves they are. He used to be in my GW 1 guild and got involved in DDO, which he enjoys. But saying that Turbine’s pricing policies are somehow better than Anet’s? lmao

Okay.

I have yet to pay a single dime for DDO. I’ve bought all expansions by simply playing the game and earning DDO points, and one expansion was gifted to me. So they seem pretty fair to me.

But even if you think Turbine is also greedy, so what? Does that make it right?

Galen Grey.4709:

I am not sure what the holes are supposed to be to be honest. What holes did the living story patch?

I was referring to the fact that we buy a product that will have to be patched shortly after release. This has been the case for the core game, and also for Nightfall and Eye of the North. In the case of GW2, a large chunk of the dynamic quests, and nearly all of the traits and skills were bugged. This will be the case for HOT as well. We don’t pay for a perfectly polished product. We pay for a rough product, and are even given the option to pay for testing it for them.

Galen Grey.4709:

I assume the picture at the back refers to the fight with mordremoth right? I looked hard and wide but didnt manage to find one single statement by an devs saying we will not get to fight modremoth in the expansion. Considering they gave us 0 news on the story I’d find it hard to believe they already spoke on that respect. Do you happen to have a link where they stated no fight in HoT?

Like I said, don’t have a link. Just remember it being mentioned in an interview. People just blindly assume that he has to be in the expansion, and for many this is a reason to buy the expansion. I think it is about time Anet spoke up about it.

Galen Grey.4709:

Which updates in the past 3 years were not free (accessories was an analogy for updates)

I was mostly referring to all the gem store content.

Galen Grey.4709:

Would it though? If every T-Shirt in the world sold for $100, would someone releasing kitten t-shirt be considered overpriced? What people are willing to pay for something is a massive driver for pricing. Just look at housing. 30 years ago houses around here sold for about $100,000ish now a days they sell for about $300,000 though no one would even dream selling the house they bought for $100,000 for anything less then $300,000 because ultimately the price isn’t what an item costs but what people are willing to pay, it may be unfair but its how the business world works.

A lot of games are trying the free-to-play model nowadays. GW1 started the trend, but it is now no longer a unique feature. And companies are trying to find other ways to earn money from their customers. This started in GW1 with the in-game store (which made a lot of people unhappy), and then continued into GW2 to a much larger degree. Now the whole gem store concept, along with constant DLC, has become mainstream. We are seeing pay walls in a lot of games, and more and more companies are trying to exploit their customers.

It started out really innocent, but has slowly but surely been growing into an ugly beast. And it is going to keep doing that, unless we as customers send a clear message. This pre-purchasing concept is a bad deal for consumers. And the only way we’re going to stop it, is by saying no.

There are plenty of people who would pay $60, $70 or even $100 bucks for half an expansion, packed with Living Story left overs, because they think the expansion is worth it. That does not put them in the right. What little we know of HOT does not validate the current price tag. It just doesn’t. And by paying it anyway, consumers are contributing to the problem of overinflated expansion pricing.

What you mean to say is you grinded to get the stuff for free. and there’s no way you can tell me you didn’t grind. I’ve played that game. I’ve played the same stuff over and over again, to get to the next thing I can do. And if you don’t want to grind…you pay. For content. For dungeons. For character classes?

Want to start a monk when you play DDO? When I played it you had to pay to unlock the monk. Or I suppose you could play a class you don’t like for countless hours until you have enough turbine points to unlock the monk. It’s like the cash shop in Guild Wars 2. If you want skins from the TP and you don’t want to buy them with cash you can farm your kitten off. But you don’t need those skins to play.

Having professions and content cut off by this is a whole different story.

Erm…

I have yet to pay a single dime for DDO. I’ve bought all expansions by simply playing the game and earning DDO points, and one expansion was gifted to me. So they seem pretty fair to me.

Vs

Which updates in the past 3 years were not free (accessories was an analogy for updates)

I was mostly referring to all the gem store content.

-

There are plenty of people who would pay $60, $70 or even $100 bucks for half an expansion, packed with Living Story left overs, because they think the expansion is worth it. That does not put them in the right.

Yes it does, their money, their trust, their decision. Your political campaign against pre purchasing deals is a reason to be CAREFUL with your money, but in the end it’s definitely up to everyone themselves to decide whether they want to pre purchase.

Also, you can’t make both the arguments “I know too little!” and on the other hand say: “I know it’s too little!”.

I’d rather compare it to Guild Wars Factions: small ‘in dept’ content (meaning closed gates which you had to play open). HoT is also small, and from an article in a Belgium magazine I understand that you also have to unlock content by doing special actions (jumping and fractal alike puzzels). I skipped Factions and was delighted with Nightfall. Sincerely hope that the next expansion will be like Nightfall (meaning a huge map and lots of fighting content).

Albadaran.1283:

I’d rather compare it to Guild Wars Factions: small ‘in dept’ content (meaning closed gates which you had to play open). HoT is also small, and from an article in a Belgium magazine I understand that you also have to unlock content by doing special actions (jumping and fractal alike puzzels). I skipped Factions and was delighted with Nightfall. Sincerely hope that the next expansion will be like Nightfall (meaning a huge map and lots of fighting content).

I think you’re judging it too early. There’s still more detail to come, particularly in the challenging content area. Not to mention how many zones we get, and how big they are. But we do know there is new AI and new technology being employed, that might very well make for some very challenging fights.

I’m not trying to convince you to change your mind, I’m just saying keep it open for when that info is revealed.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

I have yet to pay a single dime for DDO. I’ve bought all expansions by simply playing the game and earning DDO points, and one expansion was gifted to me. So they seem pretty fair to me.

But even if you think Turbine is also greedy, so what? Does that make it right?

wait a sec, so in Gw2 you completely dismiss statements that you can buy the extra character slot with in game money because and I quote “This means that the game allows you to work, in order to earn a digital currency that has a certain dollar value in-game (not outside of it).
So you are paying for it. You are just paying for it with a digital currency instead of real dollars. That doesn’t mean you are getting the character slot for free.” but the same doesnt apply to Turbine?

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

I was referring to the fact that we buy a product that will have to be patched shortly after release. This has been the case for the core game, and also for Nightfall and Eye of the North. In the case of GW2, a large chunk of the dynamic quests, and nearly all of the traits and skills were bugged. This will be the case for HOT as well. We don’t pay for a perfectly polished product. We pay for a rough product, and are even given the option to pay for testing it for them.

Thats true for any MMO. Which game released 0 patches because it was perfect? MMOs are complex products and no ammount of testing can cover every single base. Some issues dont even happen until a lot of players are put in the mix.

Lets not kid ourself, the pay to test is simply an excuse. People who pay for early access pay in order to get to play as early as possible and thats true for any game. Just look at all the posts for any game out there. They all trash their games for the issues they dont provide bug reports.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Like I said, don’t have a link. Just remember it being mentioned in an interview. People just blindly assume that he has to be in the expansion, and for many this is a reason to buy the expansion. I think it is about time Anet spoke up about it.

Its not about stating he is definitely going to be in the expansion, Anet simply hasnt said yet. But there is a big difference between saying I personally thing we’re going to get to fight modremoth or not to saying Devs have confirmed we’re not going to be fighting him. I am personally going to be sceptic, not because I think you’re making it up but there have been so many examples of people misinterprting things Anet said, even of Anet wording things in ambiguis ways which end up conveying the wrong message. But yes I do agree with you its about time Anet started being a bit more specific on whats in the expansion.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

I was mostly referring to all the gem store content.

I wouldnt consider gem store content as giving us stuff for free. The living story is a much better example of that. Still it would be disingenous for you to conisder DDO as total free to play just because you can earn TP for free and buy everything while holding Gw2 to a different standard.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

A lot of games are trying the free-to-play model nowadays. GW1 started the trend, but it is now no longer a unique feature. And companies are trying to find other ways to earn money from their customers. This started in GW1 with the in-game store (which made a lot of people unhappy), and then continued into GW2 to a much larger degree. Now the whole gem store concept, along with constant DLC, has become mainstream. We are seeing pay walls in a lot of games, and more and more companies are trying to exploit their customers.

Exploit customers is too hard a word. Thing is for Gw2 to be made a group of people (ncsoft share holders) forked a ton of money in advance. We’re talking wages for about 300 people for 5 years as well as expensices of running a business + licensing and other stuff they may have bought to get the job done. They didnt do this out of the kindness of their hearts, they did it as an investment. How would you feel if the bank you deposit your live savings in suddenly decided to cut your return in 1/2 simply because they have a chance of conscience one day and decide to charge less interests to entities borrowing money from the bank?

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

It started out really innocent, but has slowly but surely been growing into an ugly beast. And it is going to keep doing that, unless we as customers send a clear message. This pre-purchasing concept is a bad deal for consumers. And the only way we’re going to stop it, is by saying no.

These kind of moves are pretty dangerous in my opinion. I mean you have a noble idea, safeguarding players but actions have consquences. If people say hold off because pre-purchase is a bad deal and NCSoft takes that as a sign that hey interest in Gw2 has waned and forces Anet to fire X amount of employees in the end who really benefits from that? What if that causes a worst quarter then projected for NCSoft which results in management reshuffle and the new management decides to be more agressive with their monitization? Obviously I am not suggesting we throw free money at Anet just in case but I have no problem pre-purchasing something I know I am going to purchase anyway. Others may feel the same, is that really a problem? Its not like if you dont pre-purchase will result in you being penalized in anyway after all (you in general)

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

There are plenty of people who would pay $60, $70 or even $100 bucks for half an expansion, packed with Living Story left overs, because they think the expansion is worth it. That does not put them in the right. What little we know of HOT does not validate the current price tag. It just doesn’t. And by paying it anyway, consumers are contributing to the problem of overinflated expansion pricing.

every purchase is a leap of faith, there is never going to be a complete breakdown of every single thing present in the expansion like there wasnt in the full game. You dont go see a movie sure that movie you’re about to watch is worth the price. You know the director/writers/actors previous work and that helps you make an informed decision. Same here. Yes for someone who knows nothing about anet or who wasnt very satisified with what they did till now you’re absolutely right. What we know so far isnt enough to justify the price. For those of us who did love what they did, the living story, the content direction and all that we dont need much for us to leap. We may end up falling and breaking every bone, thats the nature of leaping after all but then there will be repurcussions next release. At the end of the day good will may win you some leaway and there is nothing wrong with that. Abusing that good will always has consiquences after all and unless Anet plan to close the day after they release HoT its not in their best interest to sell a tiny update for a big price. They may paritcially get away it now but they will not next time.

Times change, look all the f2p and mobile games. There are people paying hundreds of €/$ just to play Candy Crush.

When I started to play online 15 years ago you got free maps from the developers and everything was free. No stupid season pass, no horrendous DLC prices etc.

i think the most important questions that comes to mind is, for how long does anet expect us to have these debates before release ?

and considering the current presidential candidates, I’m actually wondering who would look better in office – jayz and bae or kanye and kim – almost makes me wish lady gaga would run for office – would love to see congressmen dress up in pop art fashion, that could only help domestic and foreign relations.

at the very least it would make all the debating for office and expansions more entertaining

• Value is extremely subjective. This is why it’s important for individual consumers to make individual decisions as to value-for-money for them.
• One can comparison shop to assist in determining value. However, in doing so the consumer needs to be realistic. Times change. Comparing the value-for-money of a product from almost 9 years ago to a contemporary product is a fool’s errand. Salaries increase, overhead costs increase, and the market forces (e.g., competitor prices) change, thus the comparison falls apart. Would I like everything to be priced as it was 9 years ago? Sure. However, that would mean that salaries/wages would be at that level also, as well as production values and a host of other factors.
• Every game’s forums contain posts lambasting the developer for charging too much for an expansion of DLC, or being P2W, or overcharging for virtual gewgaws. Every single one. Some posters use the forums as a personal soapbox to attempt to shame the company into giving more for less money or no money.
• So, how can one separate the shamers from the consumers exercising their consumer rights? One separates the sheep from the goats by looking at the content and reasonableness of their demands. It is perfectly reasonable to say, “I do not find sufficient value in HoT to justify its price.” It’s reasonable to say, “I’m not buying unless X.” It’s reasonable to request more information." It’s not reasonable to accuse the company of being thieves when you have no clue about the economics on the producer’s side of the equation. It’s also not reasonable to make comparisons to old products produced in a different time period when production costs were lower and competitive market forces were different.

Sadly, while I support the OP’s quest for value-for-money and consumer responsibility, I cannot support her tactics.

Galen, I can’t really disagree with anything you just said. And I think that means we’re kind of in agreement, and understand each other. Not on whether HOT is worth the price tag, but in agreement on the current situation, the lack of information, and the leap of faith aspect of it all.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Galen, I can’t really disagree with anything you just said. And I think that means we’re kind of in agreement, and understand each other. Not on whether HOT is worth the price tag, but in agreement on the current situation, the lack of information, and the leap of faith aspect of it all.

I would definitely not disagree with anyone complaining about lack of information. I may have been comfortable to pre-purchase just because of my experiance with Anet but I would definitely not expect everyone to follow suit. Anything above an impulse buy and $50 is definitely not an impulse buy requires enough information so that people can make an informed decision and we’re definitely not there yet. So yes totally in agreement with you there.

So, I’m guessing we’re writing off all the additional content they are going to add to HoT over time via LS for the comparison?

Erukk.1408:

So, I’m guessing we’re writing off all the additional content they are going to add to HoT over time via LS for the comparison?

The Living Story is meant to be free. We are not supposed to be paying for that.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Erukk.1408:

So, I’m guessing we’re writing off all the additional content they are going to add to HoT over time via LS for the comparison?

The Living Story is meant to be free. We are not supposed to be paying for that.

That doesn’t really change my question though. Are we writing off all the free additional content they are going to add to HoT over time via LS for the comparison?

Yes. It should not be factored into the price. I pay for what I get now, not for what I maybe get later.