Guild Wars 2

I think the new slot should come with the purchase instead of being a pre-purchase bonus, but I think this is a good decision nonetheless.

Although I still think it was a mistake to announce pre-purchase while there’s still so many things we ignore about the game and while we have no idea what the release date will be. I will personally hold on pre-purchasing anything until I know more about the product.

But now that the cat’s out of the bag I think this announcement is a good decision.

It’s kind of a shame that the Guild Halls announcements went unnoticed while this whole debacle was raging on.

Gaile, while I appreciate the concerns addressed, I have issue with your business model. I understand the reason for packaging the core game and all expansions together for the full $50 price, but what about the loyal players who follow your releases as they come? The ones who make enough gem store purchases to pay for ten Guild Wars 2 serials?

If you release two more expansion packs and bundle everything together, new players make one $50 payment for everything. However, veteran players make four payments over time: say, $50 for the core game, $50 for Heart of Thorns plus core game, $50 for Frozen Spirit plus HoT plus core game, and $50 again for Rising Tides plus FS plus HoT plus core game. That’s not including the payments made to the gem store for living story content and other various things.

How is this at all fair to the veteran players? Character expansion slots don’t do enough justice. We can buy them for 800 gems currently, that’s around 10 bucks.

JustTrogdor.7892:

I’d like to echo the concern others who have purchased the deluxe/ultimate edition expressed. One of the reasons I purchased the upgraded edition was because is came with a character slot. A second slot is really of no value to me. I think it would be nice to consider some other type of item/reward for the people that bought those editions. I’m not trying to be greedy or entitled. It just seems for those of us that were willing to buy the upgraded editions from the start an other option aside from a second character slot would be nice. Thank you for listening to my concerns.

Ask for a refund of HoT Deluxe/ultimate then, it’s not like you’re losing any progress since it’s not out… then get the standard edition. Should be easily sorted out with support, I think.

Unless they have to wait for the HoM Rewards fix to remove your Maguuma Trailblazer title etc.

Thanks for listening…

Pre-purchased it now.

Talon Silverhawk.3574:

TJgalon.5012:

Talon Silverhawk.3574:

Gaile, what’s happening to peeps that bought the deluxe or ultimate because it had the extra slot ?

There was anothor post, i saw on dev tracker that said they will get a slot also, so I guess in turn they get two slots.

I don’t want 2 slots, and I may not have bought the version I did if there was a slot going with the basic version.

People who spent money already could feel misled into paying more now ?

If you spent an extra $25 or $50 just for something you could have already purchased for, what, $8 worth of gems . . . I’m disinclined to feel sympathy.

Regardless, ANet’s 30-day refund policy should cover this, should it not?

(Edited: Really? The filter doesn’t like the letter “T” ever directly preceding the gender-neutral pronoun? Ugh.)

Thank you Gaile, now purchasing

Selene.9415:

Random.4691:

So just to clarify, you have to Pre-Purchase to receive the character slot ? Or it will be available to everyone who purchases the expansion Pre-Purchase or not ?

Also I see July 31 mentioned a few times in the blob, is it safe to assume Pre-Purchase will end July 31, 2015 ?

Yes, the bonus character slot is only if you pre-purchase.

I’m thinking the July 31st date is only because it gives a realistic cut-off period to get everyone settled with refunds or whatever.

At the risk of being “that guy” I’m not sure if I’m happy about this or not. I’m happy they addressed us, and they took into account our loyalty but the question still remains, is the content worth $50. I would like the character slot, and I’m really not complaining, though it does come off that way but I personally would like more information about the expansion before I pay.

Would it be unreasonable to ask to extend this opportunity to say the end of August to allow for more information ?

Ultimate edition <3

And that’s literally all it took to get my wife and me to pre-purchase the expansion.

Thanks Anet!

Just for clarification- did I get the blog post right, that pre-purchase continues until July 31st?

Thank you for addressing this problem! While I still wish we had more information on what will be appearing in HoT (engi spec, maps, etc), I’m sure I’ll get my money’s worth if the game so far has been any indication.

Now to prepurchase the ultimate edition

Where’d all the white Knights go who were against us giving ANet criticism lol.

Back on topic, thank you so much for the update Gaile, while I’m still going to hold off on purchasing till more info is released e its much more likely to happen now

I hope that all the media who jumped on the news last week will put this statement out too.

I love you Anet!

Orimidu.9604:

Gaile, while I appreciate the concerns addressed, I have issue with your business model. I understand the reason for packaging the core game and all expansions together for the full $50 price, but what about the loyal players who follow your releases as they come? The ones who make enough gem store purchases to pay for ten Guild Wars 2 serials?

If you release two more expansion packs and bundle everything together, new players make one $50 payment for everything. However, veteran players make four payments over time: say, $50 for the core game, $50 for Heart of Thorns plus core game, $50 for Frozen Spirit plus HoT plus core game, and $50 again for Rising Tides plus FS plus HoT plus core game. That’s not including the payments made to the gem store for living story content and other various things.

How is this at all fair to the veteran players? Character expansion slots don’t do enough justice. We can buy them for 800 gems currently, that’s around 10 bucks.

Quote because easily missed.

Thank you for listening, I am happy to support the game with my money (even though there is very little info). This was always about the support for us veterans to me. I will be pre-ordering today.

butch.8136:

I hope that all the media who jumped on the news last week will put this statement out too.

I’m sure they will. Many of us “complainers” and the media admitted they loved the game but had concerns. That doesn’t mean we want to watch the world burn.

Gaile Gray.6029:

As we mentioned in several posts on the forums and in various other media, we have been reading and gathering your feedback about the Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns pre-purchase.

Please see this blog post for new information on the Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns pre-purchase.

Thank you again for sharing your thoughts!

Aww, was hoping for a $10 price cut… I guess I’ll have to make due with this then.

Amroth.2170:

They could have avoided a lot of trouble had they just done this from the start.

Indeed.

The price is still on the high side where i live (yes, even for basic package), even if it may seem okay to the people that live (and earn wages) in USA, but i don’t really believe that Anet can adjust prices now, after retailers started accepting money. I just hope they will think about this when the time for next expansion arrives.

Ok so again because there is some confusion from people I have chatted with, is it safe to assume Pre-purchase is over July 31, 2015 ? The blog mentions that date a few times but doesn’t clarify if that is an official cut off date for Pre-Purchase.

Edits, my grammars are broken

What’s funny is that now hardly anybody seems to care that you get the character slot only as a pre-purchase bonus and not as part of the regular expansion (which I’m pretty sure would have drawn complaints if you already had offered the new pre-purchase plan from the start).
Well played, ANet, well played…

While i’m not pre-purchasing yet, because i want to know more about the expansion first, its nice of you to do this. It certainly makes the decision easier.
I just hope you reveal the difficult group content stuff before pre-purchasing ends. Thats what will convince me the most.

Thanks Gaile for linking to the blogpost

Not to crowd the forums any further as they have been last week. I am totally fine with your philosophy of giving new players everything plus the newest expansion. I hope that for future expansions the prepurchase starts immediately after anouncing the expansion that way the confusion will not be too big.

Still not pre purchasing. I don’t care about all the bonus stuff I still need to see what else there is in the expansion in order to buy it, it isn’t worth 50 bucks to me right now.

I can’t get my wallet out fast enough now. Instant ultimate edition sale! This, coupled with the traits announcement has me over the moon. I was one of the angriest, most disappointed protesters, and now I couldn’t be happier.

Just wanted to ask, until when are we able to pre-purchase?. Since, I want to wait until more info about HoT is released before pre-purchasing.

Why don’t you let us buy the expansion from the gem store like Living Story 2? You can still make a prepurchase model in the gem store, keep one serial per account, and control the price for players who already own the base game.

I would play the game more often and prepurchase HoT if it was offered in the gem store as an upgrade. Buying it bundled with the core game is useless for me since I already own the game. Offer it as a digital upgrade and make it 45 bucks and throw in a character slot if we prepurchase it digitally.

I don’t think Anet should be praised for this. They could have proactively offered this, but no, only when suffering backlash do they make changes. They refused to listen to the people months ago about including a character slot. They are only now including one as damage control.

Fernling.1729:

I don’t think Anet should be praised for this. They could have proactively offered this, but no, only when suffering backlash do they make changes. They refused to listen to the people months ago about including a character slot. They are only now including one as damage control.

Yeah, how dare they correct their mistakes!

Great that you made the blog post! I didn’t have any issue’s but I am still glad to see that there is good communication.

Please clarify: By the new wording, it’s buy pre order and get a slot, if you wait until after release day, no new slot? Nowhere to put that new class?

Is that correct? Going from bad to worse if that is correct- even less incentive to purchase after release, and given the high price and lack of solid content I won’t be pre ordering at the moment, I’ll be waiting for the sale.

Thank you SO much for listening!

I had already pre-purchased because I am loving GW2 and I’m a longtime fan from 2006, but sorting this out just reaffirms why I play your game instead of other companies who would have just brushed this under the rug.

Cheers!

It was good to see they are addressing the concern of existing players. Requests varied but the average seemed to be just adding a character slot (hopefully in addition to the one we got if we bought more than the $50 version). I just would like to have seen someone address this last week rather than waiting for it to boil over like it did.

And, as simple as that… I can pre-purchase HoT, because the only thing lacking for me in the value, the 10$ character slot is added if I do so.

So, thank you ANet for having heard your community. But please, next time, try to take steps to prevent such problems, it would do you good, I think.

What this address says to me:

Veteran players have to pay full price for an expansion every time.
New players will always have the cheapest deals.

Thanks, ANet. Been with you for over 10 years and gave you money for the in-game stuff you release now and then. Instead of rewarding us, you just laugh at us and make us pay more. I can feel the love. I don’t need any more character slots. If I wanted more, I can just buy one with in-game money.

And I just made a topic about it a few hours ago, knew it was strange they went silent about the rant that was here, and I wont lie I am amazed by how Anet goes all-in for the community, you guys have a good ear for us and therefore youve got yourselves another pre purchaser (on my main account off course, thia is the 3rd btw )

Edit: People you must understand, 50$ is a legit price for this kind of product, they did gave us the veterans another character slot which costs 20$ more or less, now we equal with the newcomers every side gets it own benefits, games like WoW take 40$ for each expansion and also charge you a monthly fee, Anet give you allmost everything for free they got to make a living to beside the gems income, not all of the community buys gems and supports the company, think about that at first it wasnt fair because newcomers got more benefits but Anet made it equal for us, so please stop whining about the prixe of the product its not that they gonna release another expansion any soon, you invest 50$ in a game you enjoy already after all this years and get more content for the next future, please support them as they supported us now, because im totally going to,

THINK ABOUT IT !

Thank you Arenanet, as a veteran I appreciate the gesture. But the controversy that occurred should have never happened. Perhaps in time I may come back but for now, the damage has been done and I am gone. It is a matter of trust, you will have to re-earn my trust. So I will wait to see what happens in the future.

see, that wasn’t too hard, a free bonus worth 10$ balances out a free bonus worth 10$
gj to everyone, and have fun
(i will still wait for it to actually release, but that’s just my business ;d)

still this never should have happened, hope some people have learnt to keep their hands to themselves

Gaile, so what happens to the people that pre ordered the more expensive additions because they wanted ONE character slot for the expansion?

I bought one of the pre-orders that had a slot because I wanted the character slot and figured I might as well get other stuff… Now that the char slot is free, makes me feel a little different about the value of the pre-order.

Read it the memo…. Handle it like PRO,s….for that you get ma 100$ …Good job Net guys!

…One thing left to do…Make sure ma warrior get land spear…all set for the future !

I don’t know. This feels like the absolute bare minimum that they could have done to smooth things over. The pre-order bonus amounts to a character slot . . . which will allow us to play the new class that’s being released with the expansion, because Anet didn’t want to include a character slot in the base version of the expansion pack to begin with. And now everybody is celebrating being “given” something that I feel should have come standard, especially given the premium price Anet is asking.

So I guess my new quandary is whether I should go ahead and buy it now, or wait until after it’s released and drops enough in price to get, perhaps, two character slots for the same amount of money. I don’t really care about being in the beta tests, and there is no other incentive to BUY NOW.

Gaile Gray.6029:

Perez.1670:

If you bought deluxe before this, do you get an extra slot or how does that work?

It’ll be rolled into your account soon. And yes, as a purchaser of the Deluxe Edition, you get the one with the expansion pack itself and the one extra, as well.

Hope that info helps.

Ty anet for listening. Still think it’s a bit much but more equivalent for value to that of a new players. As well as all those refunds shows the company means well. Expect more gem purchases from me I will be purchasing this xpac.

Amlodhi Ilmarinen.4083:

Fernling.1729:

I don’t think Anet should be praised for this. They could have proactively offered this, but no, only when suffering backlash do they make changes. They refused to listen to the people months ago about including a character slot. They are only now including one as damage control.

Yeah, how dare they correct their mistakes!

It’s not about not correcting their mistakes, it’s about what it tells about them, making the mistakes in the first place (and what that tells about how you view your players). It’s kind of sad that their standing probably will be better now, because of correcting that mistake (although I think it still falls short of what it ought to be: not tied to pre-purchase), than if they had offered a fairer deal from the start.

Lustre Of Havoc.9173:

What this address says to me:

Veteran players have to pay full price for an expansion every time.
New players will always have the cheapest deals.

And how is this different from any game ever exactly?

My friend bought all of the GW games as soon as they come out, whereas I picked them all up for around £20 a year or two before GW2.

Thank you so much for this great address! I’m glad you took the weekend to let everything cool down a bit. I suppose you guys needed that little break too.

I hope the positive response will lift your spirits once again <3

So basically I should wait until the game is done doing expansions then buy the latest expansion to save my money ….. hmmmm ok.

The lack of character slot is honestly the thing I found most terrible. They knew more or less that people had to pay extra to play the new class.

This solution is very fair, and as a result I just pre-purchased the expansion! I can’t wait to play on my new Revenant when the expansion releases!

The addressed changes fix every concern I had with the original offer.
Also the address was very well thought out and professionaly presented.

Thank you Arenanet for continuing to believe in customer satisfaction.

Thank you, ANet. Now to think of a good name for my Revenant.