Guild Wars 2

Maybe I am wrong / did not understand it right / post what been posted previously in a different words but:
-“To clarify: $50 is the price of the expansion. We included the core game as a free bonus to make it easier for new players to get into it.”
– so we will have a copy of the game + HoT.

New player gets 1 new account (+1 character slot) upgraded to HoT = 50$ game and expansion.

Vet player will have 1 new + 1 existing account = 2 but +1 character slot on only 1 of them and only 1 copy of HoT?

If so than vets have 1 useless account, 1 character slot and HoT for old account. So total will cost: core game at full old cost 50$ + 50$ HoT = 100$, ok – 10$ for +1 character slot (even though those who still need it can easily get it with gold in game or wait for a discount) = 90$ and 1 quiet useless additional copy of the game without HoT.

So even ! IF ! HoT will be so big to have 50$ fair price as for a core game in the past, it does not look fair. And HoT will not be as big as game itself anyway!

Would be MUCH better if you would make at least 10$ discount for HoT (as a price of character slot), or give that 800 gems as an excuse instead of character slot to at least give players an option where to spend them, because lots of people already purchased slots or do not want them at all, but who need and want – still will be able to get it full priced or wait for a discount.

I hope something will be done.

nexxe.7081:

Duke Blackrose.4981:

This community can never be pleased.

To be fair, GW2 is touted as a casual game,

It has casual aspects but there is plenty of non-casual content.

@above – character slots should be standard when game introduces new professions, at least in case of games where you have to create a new character to try out the new class/profession. So EotN not having slots wasn’t a crime – it had no new character classes to put in said lacking slots.

Here however we do have revenant that is a mandatory new character if you want to try it.

Gaile Gray.6029:

Moon.7310:

Thank you! Pre-Purchased just now :-)

Thanks for your support!

I’m gonna go ahead and pre-purchase now. And a full 50% of my reason is because you are still working for ArenaNet.

The other 50% is because I believe someday, somehow, The Frog will return and bless us with his elusive wisdom and cold-blooded intrigue.

I prepurchased the ultimate edition the night it was announced.

And now I’m getting a bonus character slot.

3 years of entertainment, 2000 hours of fun, 7 80’s and a 68, and now two bonus slots for new enjoyment!

Am I supposed to be upset? or happy now?

Pre-purchasing isn’t the same as buying after launch. There is much greater meaning to pre-purchasing a game, you are literally trusting Anet to deliver a great product, and for that trust Anet is thanking veteran players in the form of a character slot.

Anet has thanked players before in the form of gemstore items in the past; like black lion keys, revive orbs, and other consumables, so they aren’t thankless.

Remember, this isn’t a thank you for simply being a loyal player, this is a thank you for buying the pre-purchase.

I’m sure Anet has plenty of other rewards for loyal players in game. That’s what those time-gated event/festival rewards are all about: you’re a loyal player, you get to experience special content that new or unloyal players will never get to. That’s a pretty nice reward, at least it is for me.

Well if you value gems and have the money; ultimate its the way to go:

• 4k gems=50$
• 2 char slots=20$
• All the stuff of deluxe edition=2kgems=25$

Total=95$ gems and gem shop items worth.

Making the expansion cost 5$.

What I wonder about is, the people who already bought, let’s say, the ultimate pack just to give support and didn’t want to go base because of the lack of character slot..

I think it’s great that base expansion will get a free slot for the veterans, but the worth (yea yea only 800gems) goes down for ultimate and deluxe while the price stays the same. I feel like there should be some compensation for the players who showed good faith and bought it ahead before any of this happened. Because people who bought ultimate/deluxe have now 800gems ripped off their value. You might say: well they get an extra slot now don’t they.. yes.. but.. is there really need for another slot? except if there will be another profession that hasn’t been mentioned it I think it’s better to give that extra slot we get now in the form of 800 gems so people can decide what to do with it. Personally I only need one extra for the revenant..

Or is this just me being an old hag?

Xorin.9260:

Not a complaint, necessarily, but for those who bought Deluxe or Ultimate, this is giving us two character slots. I’ve already got 9 slots: one per profession and one key farmer. I liked getting the extra slot with the upper two editions for the Revenant, but another one is not exactly useful for me. Perhaps there could be an option for something else for those of us who picked up Deluxe or Ultimate?

Or you could do what I do with extra character slots: mules. Half of my characters are just hoarding my things and materials

It’s a nice gesture for vets for sure but I feel disappointed since I made the mistake of buying the ultimate package because the basic did not get a char slot and the ult did. This is the only reason why I bought the ult in the first place!

Now I will get 2 slots which is nice for some but personally I don’t need it; if I had known this before hand, I would have only purchased the basic and saved 10 bucks instead. I do NOT need mules. I have three and all they hold is worthless ascended junk that I get by the 1000s every week. I will not be using that slot, sorry.

In the future, please iron out your pre-order plans and stop misleading some of us with mis-information before you start taking our money. Thanks.

minbariguy.7504:

Spleen.7836:

I still feel it was a bad move to try to sell the expac without a new slot from the beginning, but i’m thankful you are correcting that.
I’m still not sure that the xpac worth its price, but there is nothing wrong about that, nothing force us to pre-purchase it.

Except that it doesn’t really sound like they are correcting that, unless you pre-purchase. If you want to wait until it’s finished and released so that you know exactly what you’re getting, they’re not going to give you a character slot.

I appreciate the response from ANet, and I definitely feel as though it was a positive move, but I don’t think it’s really going to benefit me in any way. I doubt I’ll be willing to purchase HoT until it’s released, and I most definitely will not spend fifty dollars on an expansion pack that doesn’t come with a character slot.

Sigh. Still looks like a no-buy for me at this point. But I’m glad others are pleased.

I find myself in the same situation.

I cannot get the character slot for the new Revenant profession unless I make an uninformed decision and pre-purchase now versus waiting until release where I can judge if $50 is a justified price for what the expansion contains.

If I wait to make an informed decision as a responsible adult then I will need to pay an extra $10 (or 800 gems) to get an additional character slot just to be able to try out the new Revenant profession. I will not do that out of principle. I’m not going to buy an expansion that has a new profession if I then need to pay for a character slot to play this new profession.

I do not like being penalized for being a mature adult that makes smart purchases instead of ‘on faith’, especially when that faith has been shown to have been misplaced in this company several times since GW2 release.

It seems that my purchasing the expansion will be put off even longer now.

• If the expansion contained enough content to justify the cost, and also included a character slot for the Revenant, then I would purchase on release day.
• Even if the $50 is justified by the amount of content the expansion includes, I’ll still need to wait until a sale places it below $40 due to the cost of a character slot bumping that back up to $50.
• As the expansion now does not include a character slot unless you pre-purchase it, the expansion will now need to contain more content than is justified by the price to compensate for the added cost of purchasing a character slot. This is unlikely.
• If the expansion does not contain enough content to justify the cost, and also does not include a character slot for the Revenant, then I will need to wait until the price matches what the amount of content justifies as well as the cost of a character slot. If the content only justifies a $25 price tag, then the price will need to drop to at least $15 for me to buy it to factor in the additional $10 cost of the character slot I’d need to buy for the Revanant.

ANet, include the character slot for anyone that purchases the expansion, instead of only if they pre-purchase the expansion, and I’ll purchase the game on release day if the content justifies the price. Otherwise, see the above scenarios as to when you can potentially expect my money…if you ever do.

sinican.9250:

So with the core game essentially being included or given away as a bundle with future expansions, I do hope that isn’t increasing the cost they are passing onto us.

Bundling in the way that they have announced means that they will be selling more copies than would otherwise be the case. The copies that they are selling have, essentially, no production cost. This means that they are not increasing cost but are increasing revenue. Win/Win.

Another thank you, ANet—thank you for listening and for responding. For me this response breeds a tremendous amount of good will and faith. (And I’m a skeptic who rarely has faith in any company.)

My partner and I both bought the Ultimate edition as soon as we saw the blog post, and we both felt genuinely relieved by your response, good about our purchase, and able to return to feeling excited for HoT!

Pre-purchasing already gives you beta access, so it’s not like there isn’t already a bonus to pre-purchasing.

Including a char slot in an expac that adds a class is just simple common sense. Not including one is being cheap and screwing your customers, simple as that.

desertleaf.5403:

sadly.

I all heard was. You bought core game $60.00 USD on release.

Now you spent $100USD

which is can be the equivalent break down of Core game ($60 USD) + 4000 gems ( $50 USD) in Black lion TP, = $110 USD.

hence,
110 – 10 = 100 thus the 10 dollars you saved is all the extra stuff they tacked on to it and the expansion.

However, You already own the Core game — therefore you gave $ 50 USD away for the expansion, bought yourself 4000 gems from the black lion for another $50 and got a bunch of tacked on junk with it for free.

new players are still better off – they will get everything you just got and save the initial $60.00 you gave for free.
___________________ INSTEAD_______________________________
You should have just bought the expansion itself, and bought 4000 gems following that.
[You could have saved $20.00 or more assuming Heart of Thorns can be sold separate]

Im sorry but you didnt include so much in this analysis:

GW2 base game its a free in the Hot Bundle, i alredy put a post about that with a quick and simple analysis in other thread for how the bundle isnt killing vets, gonna check for it later.

Valuing ultimate:

Upgrade to deluxe Hot edition: 2000 gems= 25 dollars.
2 char slots (1 only for vets) = 1600 gems = 20 dollars.

Not buying gw2 at release: aprox 2 and half years of not playing the core game.

To point out:

He bought the expansion + 95 dollars worth gems and gem items at 100 dollars.
He bought GW2 base game at release at 60 dollars and played for 2 and half years aprox (this have a value).

He could have got:
GW2 base game + HoT expansion+ 85 dollars worth gems and gems items at 100 dollars.

Now to considerate whats the proper choice now (not before):
Doing the math because in the internet some people will do it wrong -.-, also im not considerating money interest and such (simplification, its late and im just correcting an alredy much more flawed post.

Vet purchasing ultimate (bought gw2 at release):

GW2+HoT+95$ worth gem stuff or gems- 160 dollars of cost + 2 and half years aprox of playing the game

New customer buying ultimate:

GW2+HoT+85$ worth gems and gem items-100 dollars of cost

Now to considerate what was the apropiate choice for a veteran to not lost against a newbie:

GW2+HoT+95 dollars worth gem stuff or gems- 160 dollars of cost + 2 and half years aprox of playing the game > = GW2 + HoT expansion+ 85 dollars worth gems and gems items at 100 dollars.

Operating (again is internet i dont want anyone doing it wrong -.-)

95 dollars worth gem stuff or gems- 160 dollars of cost + 2 and half years aprox of playing the game > = 85 dollars worth gems and gems items – 100 dollars.

10 dollars worth gem items + 2 and half years aprox of playing the game – 160 dollars cost > = -100 dollars

Result:

10 dollars worth gem items + 2 and half years aprox of playing the game > = 60 dollars
or
2 and half years aprox of playing the game > = 50 dollars
Note that this result will be the same comparing same editions in vets vs new customer.

The funny thing its thats the original decision the veteran made to buy gw2 + 10 dollars (after the pre purchase controversy), as long as he considerate it was the apropiate one, then hes still winning.

Meaning also that before the slot it was the original decision been considerate good after 2 and half years. That means only not happy customers wouldnt have chose to buy gw2 at release and buy the prepurchase as new costumers instead of vets.

Pd 1: just making math demostrate the obvius, most people know this result by common sense, including me).

Pd 2 : Vayne you are free to defend ultimate with this lol.

Pd 3 : math implications are far more potent if you know what you are doing, please take it in account.

Pd4: im making a simple not true suposition about the utility given buy playing hours of GW2 not having marginal decrements (witch can also be semi refuted by agregating social value, that increase the marginally at least at the start the more you know people).

Pd5: This is a simple and fast analysis, not gonna spend much time in something semiaceptable -.-

coso.9173:

old players and new players get EXACTLY the same thing, a NEW account with both core game + HoT.
now the old players hace the CHOICE to applpy the expansion to their existing account instead of having a completely new account, so they can continue to develop their characters.
However by doing some they lose the additional core game, since they already have it on their old account.

So, to have equal deal we have to lose ALL that was earned and PAID FOR.
Wow, Great choice! So encouragin, such marketing.

>In the future, if we release further Guild Wars 2 expansions, we plan to offer all of the prior expansions, the core game, and the latest expansion for one single purchase price.

So, i will buy only the last expansion

Yuri Kwon.1069:

Just don’t buy xpac and pay for Fallout 4. You might play for 100 hrs max i guess. I would rather buy xpac and play hundreds or thousands hrs. Good-Bye

10 hours of original content and 900+ of grinding/repetitive content you mean…

Personally I have zero interest in LS content nor the added PVE zone(s), I just don’t think they’re any good, and the PVE in this game just isn’t very interesting nor challenging.

The only thing I’m interesting in is the new WVW and PVP maps, and those aren’t part of the expac.

The only thing in the expac I want is the new class and elite specs, which doesn’t seem worth $50 at this stage.

So yes, I would rather have a char slot included and no access at all to LS updates nor Maguuma.

ChoChoBo.6503:

Pre-purchasing isn’t the same as buying after launch. There is much greater meaning to pre-purchasing a game, you are literally trusting Anet to deliver a great product, and for that trust Anet is thanking veteran players in the form of a character slot.

Anet has thanked players before in the form of gemstore items in the past; like black lion keys, revive orbs, and other consumables, so they aren’t thankless.

Remember, this isn’t a thank you for simply being a loyal player, this is a thank you for buying the pre-purchase.

I’m sure Anet has plenty of other rewards for loyal players in game. That’s what those time-gated event/festival rewards are all about: you’re a loyal player, you get to experience special content that new or unloyal players will never get to. That’s a pretty nice reward, at least it is for me.

qft

This whole greed/deception thing has left a real sour taste in my mouth.

They talk about trying to be the best value in the market but are too cheap to provide a character slot in an expansion that adds a class.

It’s not good value for new players to get so much more than existing players for the same amount of money.

Yuri Kwon.1069:

I would rather buy xpac and play hundreds or thousands hrs. Good-Bye

I guess it’s possible if the new map(s) is (are) as grindy and as rng-y as Silverwastes.

It is a step in the right direction. One thing that kinda bothers me is this:

“In the future, if we release further Guild Wars 2 expansions, we plan to offer all of the prior expansions, the core game, and the latest expansion for one single purchase price.”

It doesn’t say anything about what veteran players will get in the future and the character slot received now seems like a “forced hand” more then a reward. I hope in the future u don’t make the same CLEAR mistake of ignoring veteran players who have committed to the game both in time AND monetary, even if you do bundles that have everything, veterans should have receive something extra because they obviously own everything already.

As for the expansion i am still waiting for REAL information about QUANTITY and what you plan to offer us by using living story after and if we purchase the expansion. Let’s say you give us just 1 map in the base-expansion. I want to know how many maps will be given in the future (rough number) till the next expansion. Will we unlock the whole left-side of the map by then? and so on.

They haven’t addressed our concerns:

• new players get so much beter value for money than existing players for the same amount of money, ie: existing players are being made to subsidise new players.
• not including a character slot in an expac that adds a class unless they pre-purchase is just screwing your playerbase.

I wonder how much the next expansion will cost having in mind it will come with “free” GW2 and HoT.

Thank you ANet (and also Gaile) for listening to your fanbase.
I’ll now definitely be purchasing HoT.

Before I would have had to buy an extra character slot along with the expansion which just felt like a kick in the unmentionables… With the character slot the expansion costs only 35e/40$, think that’s fair.

Seeing I just bought a bunch of games on steam for a few bucks, I don’t mind new players getting a good deal, as long as veterans also get something for their ongoing support.

scerevisiae.1972:

They haven’t addressed our concerns:

• new players get so much beter value for money than existing players for the same amount of money, ie: existing players are being made to subsidise new players.
• not including a character slot in an expac that adds a class unless they pre-purchase is just screwing your playerbase.

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/pre-purchase-community-address/

Plisa, read…..

Linken.6345:

Khristophoros.7194:

I think this was all planned to get away with charging 50 dollars for it. It’s not worth 50 dollars unless the guild halls are absolutely incredible because the amount of content appears to be very low for a 50 dollar expansion.

And it’s really annoying that you are trying so hard to get people to preorder. If it turns out to be good people will buy it after it comes out. Don’t push the preorder this hard. Just make a good product and it will speak for itself after you release it.

I ended up preordering but I’m not happy about it. I felt like the only way I’d get a good value is by preordering the ultimate edition. I felt bullied into it. I may have done it, but I’m not happy about it.

So what did they do to bullie you into it give you a fair discount on 4000 gems?

well that can be bought with ingame gold if you play long enough, shouldent be that

Was it the ingame items? well considering you bought the first game and saw that deluxe was offered to people after game shiped for gems that can also be get in game it cant be that either.

I guess it was the betas and the really swag title.

No I got it its the character slot you could have had for 50+10 bucks ( or ingame gold) that now are included in all the editions

I cant for the life of me see how they twisted your arm to get you to preorder 100$ one.

Maybe you should ask for a refund/downgrade to the 50 buck one if you still have all the gems left that is.

If you wanted character slot 4k gems and the expansion the ultimate is the only edition to go for but now you get a extra character slot ontop of it, thats when you start complaining?

To clarify, I felt bullied into preordering at all. If I felt like standard edition was a better value I would have gotten it but I still would have felt bullied into it.

I was complaining before they added the character slot too. All I asked for was decent value and I shouldn’t have to preorder to get a decent value.

I wanted to wait until after it came out. Is that difficult to understand?

So many blind people around the community that have no marketing studies,just “eat” what they get like kids!Makes me “bleach” over…And this is why the world breaks down with this type of people…

Limited time offers are a fact of life in the current business climate. This is especially true in businesses that are publicly held, with quarterly reports which have an effect on public opinion as to the profitability of the company and thus the desirability of the stock. Perhaps it has escaped your notice that the HoT prepurchase was announced with two weeks left in Q2, 2015, and that the response to community outrage came with a week left in the quarter. I’m sure NCSoft very much appreciates the infusion of cash this will result in and I very much believe that ANet is both trying to be fair while meeting the expectations of their publisher.

Someone can choose not to like this aspect of modern business, but should at least understand it. Business is not about being fair, it is about making money. If you expect companies to always act in their best interest, and to act in your best interest only when it coincides with theirs, you will rarely be disappointed. On the path you have chosen, where you seem to expect companies to act in your interests, and not theirs, only disappointment awaits you.

Bris.7984:

So many blind people around the community that have no marketing studies,just “eat” what they get like kids!Makes me “bleach” over…And this is why the world breaks down with this type of people…

Take a chill pill

Because, they fail negociating a fair price with veterans and don’t own any knowledge to do so…instead they like to brainwash “new players” .

Vayne.8563:

ZeftheWicked.3076:

The OP’s point is quite valid. Any veteran player that buys and links HoT to his old account should get something.

It’s simple matter of fairness. New players get core game + HoT rolled into one for price of x-pac alone. Old players who do not choose to make new account (taking up server space and other resources), but instead link HoT to their old account, should get something too. Like that extra character slot.

Still at least A-net moved a bit torwards us veterans (and it’s own interest along the way). For me personally now it’s more of an “50$ is ten bucks too much for me”, rather then “I won’t support this sleeze”.

You mean playing the game for as long as you did, got you nothing? You mean you weren’t around to unlock every episode of the Living Story Season 2 for free. Maybe you played none of season 1.

You get something. You get to play the game which you bought. Since we now know that all the prior games will be included in each expansion, I suggest you wait 10 years till the last expansion, but it and get all the expansions free, except for that last one.

The rest of us will be here, playing the game and having a good time.

The entire Living Story was their ORIGINAL “we don’t do continuous yearly expansions, or gear treadmills” promise, and was advertised as their “Ongoing content development”. The Gem shop was, is, and still will be, their main source of income. Especially with the Gem trade (which they’ve purposely obfuscate now, and probably manipulate) to help entice gold players into using Gem store items and eventually buy them; as well as entice gem buyers to sell them in for basically easy profit to NCsoft. Assuming there is still a supply system in the Gem trade, it doesn’t work the same way TP does.

The problem with Living Story in general is that it took to long to get underway, most of the stories were pretty weak, not enough content was released in one go to truly immerse into it (reading 1 chapter of a book every 2 weeks), and cosmetic rewards (while hit and miss) started out as RNGesus, and slowly moved toward grinding for RNGesus.

While I appreciate the lower barrier for “some” of the skins, its still frustrating as the achievement requirements becomes harder as more people complete it, leaving fewer people willing to help with the more difficult ones. But a lot of these armor skins tend to fall flat due to animation and coloring issues that have existed since the start of the game, and continue to be a problem with the newer art assets. Lumi armor can’t display colors correctly, which is why hardly anyone uses it, and the few that do are either blue or green tints. This is shame, because the Carapace design (which lumi is based off of) is actually great with a lot of different colors. Then theres the massive clipping issues in any stance other then idle……

Anet claims they want to set Guildwars apart from other MMOs, by avoiding the common mistakes WoW clones make in their design. They set the bar high. And thats exactly the reason people passionately call them out on mistakes that even WoW wouldn’t make.

But more importantly, the style of the game focuses on Diversity of play. Specifically in the fact that it readily encouraged you to make multiple characters (which many of us did), as each class has unique mechanics that they operate on, and a wide span of build potential within each. But since TP market integration is so critical for high level crafting (which for all intents and purposes is the end game), the game becomes Bipolar in the way it uses character progress but account level player scope. This problem is incredibly clear with Ascended Armor, as there was never supposed to be anything Stat wise higher then Exoitc (which are readily available), is totally optional, but the game throws the material solely used in its production in our faces in ALL areas of the game. I can understand the need for infusion slots to justify the need for the new crafting line….. but the way damage is calculated that +5% stat bonus nags heavily at the player in all aspects of the game; not just the Fractals they were created for.

Ultimately a lot of these counter intuitive elements, no matter how small individually, find a way to compound in other areas of the game. Given the high standard of play the overall game generates, only causes these to stand out even more. Thats why you see this kind of cognitive dissonance effect from Vets….. We LOVE the game, and hold it to the high standards Anet themselves set for it.

scerevisiae.1972:

This whole greed/deception thing has left a real sour taste in my mouth.

They talk about trying to be the best value in the market but are too cheap to provide a character slot in an expansion that adds a class.

It’s not good value for new players to get so much more than existing players for the same amount of money.

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/pre-purchase-community-address/

They, actually, promised character slot. But still, feels like half-win.

Think you could of phrased your argument alittle better, but know that I whole heartily agree with you. Im sure plenty others do as well.

Change the topic to “Stop pushing the pre-purchase so hard”. Let’s be precise.

This I can call bad marketing behavior.If you don’t satisfy the “demands” of the community (online gaming market),you, “Anet” can go home and start a new business or sleep something like!….. And now i will wait for that “delete phase” to start,because I am right and “not constructive” in my arguments……..

Like many others, I’m a veteran player who was holding off purchase as a silent vote in the desire for a positive response to the issues the community has brought up. I think the response is pretty fair, wish they would have thrown in a little something more for the upper editions but I still bought Ultimate.

While there still seems to be a fair amount of misunderstanding about the new policy, at least in this thread, I guess that’s to be expected. What’s a bit more surprising to me is the way people are boiling this down into some kind of algebraic problem to solve for the value of HoT. Maybe it’s how used to entertainment being “free” people have gotten, and maybe those people don’t play much and it really may not be worth it to them. But as someone who’s had thousands of hours of enjoyment from this game, the cost per hour is laughably low regardless.

If you enjoy the game, and appreciate the way that Living Story and frequent updates feed you content year-round, you will understand and appreciate that HoT (or any expansion) gives them a platform to continue providing that content by paying their people and keeping their investors happy. To me it’s bizarre to think that for someone there’s a magical alchemy, number of bullet points in the release notes that will “make” the expansion worth $50 as opposed to $40.

So yeah, no one can tell you how to spend your money, but if you derive even a couple of hours of fun from the game each week I can’t see how $50 every few years is not more than worth it. If you need more complicated math than that, then you either don’t really like the game, have a budget so limited that games in general may not be a good use of funds, or you just enjoy being dramatic and getting worked up over minutia.

Giving the community what they asked for is bad marketing, sure it’s not perfect but, there is nothing in this world so close to perfection save death. Relationships are all about compromise both parties have to swallow a bit of the bile, if you will.

vikkival.2459:

Gawd thank you, now hopefully all these $50 threads will stop. I’ll be so happy!

You know you don’t have to read them right? Also, still didn’t really address the main concern of most of the veteran players. No reduced price without base game. Gonna wait on this expansion and expansions to come.

I’ve spent enough money on games this year. GW2 will have to really impresses me with the amount of content in this expansion to change my opinion.

I honestly find it hard to imagine the content in this expansion can size up to the amount of content in Fallout 4 considering the amount of time Bethesda spends on each and every one of their games. I’m not paying almost the same price of an entirely NEW game for an expansion. This is the reason I never even found WoW remotely interesting. Too much expensive content as well as a monthly subscription. Am I saying that Anet didn’t spend a lot of frugal and important time perfecting this expansion? Absolutely not, but anyone can say without a doubt, there’s no way it’s gonna be as big as Fallout or The Elder Scrolls.

I don’t really agree with this as a means of solving the price issue. The whole “it’s an extra $10 of value” is less convincing when you don’t really have a use for it. For me, and everyone I was hoping to convince to come back to the game it’s like getting a free winter coat with a vacation to the tropics. I already had a spare character slot a from a while back, and all my friends only had one or two characters. Sure, if they get back into it they might like that extra character slot, but that requires a prohibitive investment before that value shows.

There’s also the issue that it’s just another pre-order bonus. If I don’t jump on it now I lose any “veteran appreciation.”

ShelBlackblood.7826:

Wow, I’m kinda impressed and shocked at the same time. Not about Anet, I think it’s good that the company did some reflection on their marketing strategies.

In fact I’m really shocked about our community here. You “only” get the free charslot if you pre-purchase? So if you instantly pay 50$, with still no additional info about the content? And if you choose to take your right to wait and decide later on, you won’t get the charslot? Wow, just wow. Again, kudos to ArenaNet for taking this step. But the comm…. ugh, sometimes I don’t get this world anymore. Everything’s just forgotten and great+shiny all over again. Sigh…

I still wont pre-purchase since the real problems haven’t even been dealt with imo. Gosh, I’m 23 years old and already feel to old for this stuff.

Edit @Nanashi
Thank god I’m not the only one who feels stunned and kind of empty from the reactions we see here.

Its a classic and time honored tactic. People are just so simple that they are still falling for it. Present a truly terrible option. Let people rage about it to the point of insanity. Provide a token peace offering (refunds for being mislead and character slot that should have been in the base offering). All the marks are perfectly fine at this point with the slightly less terrible offering (still unclear what it is that you are actually paying for and the peace offering is only if you blindly accept the slightly less terrible offering and give up your money without clarity on what you are paying for).

Don’t get me wrong…its decent that they corrected the mistakes. I also have some doubts that they would made the mistake intentionally…since this is brand damaging. What I think happened is that their PR department came up with this tactic as a way out of a bad situation….just with the hopes that sheep won’t see past the token…through to the persisting original issue…ambiguous value for purchase amount. I think its slimy how they are trying to pressure pre-purchases, with the character slot, that should be included regardless of pre or post purchase.

I’m in the camp that this move shouldn’t elicit all the praise and adulation ANET is getting right now…since I’m pretty sure the level of public backlash, across so many venues, is the real reason for this back peddling on the character slot and more comprehensive refunds. This wasn’t a goodwill gesture…its a public relations bail out. Like many others have said, there were tons of opportunity via forum feedback on the need to include a character slot to play the revenant…that were just ignored. This lack of the slot wasn’t an accident or an oversight…it was a strategy that blew up in their faces. They are still trying to hold onto that strategy, to an extent, now…by limiting the character slot to blind pre-purchases only.

No apology? Meh.

imbalancedhero.3968:

(snipped for brevity)

There are few points you didn’t include in your reasoning.

1. Veterans are less likely to quit – the longer you play, the more you need to abandon all that emotional investment. New players on the other hand can decide after mere weeks that it’s simply not the game for them.

2. Yes, new players are yet to buy anything from gemstore, while veterans have already made many purchases – lot of them from the things you need to buy only once. Many of those purchases, however, were made when those players were already veterans. In other words, the new players will become veterans long before they end buying those “starting gemshop packeges”.

3. And, the most important part, at this point of the game history, there are, and will be, way, way more veterans than new players. If you double the number of new players, but at the same time cause only a single percent of veterans to leave, it will likely drop the game population. And that ultimately has a negative impact on sales (and game’s future).

DarkSyze.8627:

So without knowing if Hot is worth the price: people preorder it just because they see it posted in a site and in a commercial?

Example: It is like paying 20$ movie ticket just because of the commercial and movie ads?..

I can tell you why I pre-ordered it. Its true we have no clue how much content there is going to be but we know what Anet did so far. They spent 2 1/2 years releasing content constantly while working on the expansion. Content thats heavy on story which is something I like. That contrasts with other MMOs I’ve play were you hardly get any content updates while they develop an expansion and the content you get if any is generally dungeons you’re meant to repeat over and over and thats content I personally dont particularly enjoy. I am happy to buy the expansion just based on that premise never mind that chances are this is going to be repeated for the next 2-3 years.

Then there is what they have revealed so far. Guild halls are big features with lots of goodies (new crafting profession, Arena, decorations, huge map etc..) Specalizations that if you factor in skills and traits they provide they’re like 2 new professions (each specialization is 1/5 of a profession (1 heal vs 4, 4 utility vs 20 , 1 elite vs 5 1 trait line vs 5) with the revenant thats like they’re releasing 3 new professions (the equivalent) and expansions generally dont have more then 2 in my experiance. Then there is the whole trait and skill system rework which many expansions dont even touch.

So while yeah there is still alot that I havent heard about but what was revealed so far appear to be well done and plentiful.

Ashen.2907:

sinican.9250:

So with the core game essentially being included or given away as a bundle with future expansions, I do hope that isn’t increasing the cost they are passing onto us.

Bundling in the way that they have announced means that they will be selling more copies than would otherwise be the case. The copies that they are selling have, essentially, no production cost. This means that they are not increasing cost but are increasing revenue. Win/Win.

What I mean by passing the cost onto us is them placing a value of say $10 base for any expansion because they need to include the core game, despite clever wording to make it sound like you are getting the core game free with each expansion. What is that $50 supposed to actually give us to warrant the price? Like many others have pointed out, it is priced at full retail for a digital download expansion that isn’t a standalone game. The digital downloads has saved companies loads of money on overhead from physical media, shipping, packaging, advertising, etc. They never ever passed any of that savings onto consumers, nor have they increased the amount of content or its quality to compensate.

Edit: …. and typically work the kitten out of their employees taking advantage of salaried wage earners.

Kunzaito.8169:

Like many others, I’m a veteran player who was holding off purchase as a silent vote in the desire for a positive response to the issues the community has brought up. I think the response is pretty fair, wish they would have thrown in a little something more for the upper editions but I still bought Ultimate.

While there still seems to be a fair amount of misunderstanding about the new policy, at least in this thread, I guess that’s to be expected. What’s a bit more surprising to me is the way people are boiling this down into some kind of algebraic problem to solve for the value of HoT. Maybe it’s how used to entertainment being “free” people have gotten, and maybe those people don’t play much and it really may not be worth it to them. But as someone who’s had thousands of hours of enjoyment from this game, the cost per hour is laughably low regardless.

If you enjoy the game, and appreciate the way that Living Story and frequent updates feed you content year-round, you will understand and appreciate that HoT (or any expansion) gives them a platform to continue providing that content by paying their people and keeping their investors happy. To me it’s bizarre to think that for someone there’s a magical alchemy, number of bullet points in the release notes that will “make” the expansion worth $50 as opposed to $40.

So yeah, no one can tell you how to spend your money, but if you derive even a couple of hours of fun from the game each week I can’t see how $50 every few years is not more than worth it. If you need more complicated math than that, then you either don’t really like the game, have a budget so limited that games in general may not be a good use of funds, or you just enjoy being dramatic and getting worked up over minutia.

Well… it was quite a tactical move. The game was offered with no subscription, so feeding in that we get all these free hours is a bit of a moot point. In addition to this, a huge amount of players were not satisfied with the living story, nor many aspects of the initial release, some of which still have not been changed and deter so many players. I don’t like the response of “if you don’t like it, go play another game”, because clearly we like this game… we just expect more, and we hope they will add what so many people have wanted for ages.

@Shaaba: Lucius did a pretty good job explaining what I meant. Have to agree with you on the whole trait acquisition thing. However, the… core spec revamp (good term?) was definately a lot of work meant to pair with the new elite specs.

Another interesting thing to look at is the goal of making the expansion unique with more of a horizontal approach than a continual climb. Probably mangled the phrasing, but the expansion’s approach… It doesn’t add levels. Instead it increases your options. A game focused on a continual grind would simply make a seperate system of elites added on top of everything else. What we got instead was reworking and improving what we already have access to. I think of it as another one of GW2’s innovations that positively set it apart from most similar games. Unfortunately it has the downside of making new content less obvious than a level cap raise.

Sorry if that last paragraph is kind of an unclear ramble. Been floating around my head as an abstract idea I hadn’t yet put words to. Also doesn’t help that it’s 3am and I’m dead tired.

ODB.6891:

ShelBlackblood.7826:

Wow, I’m kinda impressed and shocked at the same time. Not about Anet, I think it’s good that the company did some reflection on their marketing strategies.

In fact I’m really shocked about our community here. You “only” get the free charslot if you pre-purchase? So if you instantly pay 50$, with still no additional info about the content? And if you choose to take your right to wait and decide later on, you won’t get the charslot? Wow, just wow. Again, kudos to ArenaNet for taking this step. But the comm…. ugh, sometimes I don’t get this world anymore. Everything’s just forgotten and great+shiny all over again. Sigh…

I still wont pre-purchase since the real problems haven’t even been dealt with imo. Gosh, I’m 23 years old and already feel to old for this stuff.

Edit @Nanashi
Thank god I’m not the only one who feels stunned and kind of empty from the reactions we see here.

Its a classic and time honored tactic. People are just so simple that they are still falling for it. Present a truly terrible option. Let people rage about it to the point of insanity. Provide a token peace offering (refunds for being mislead and character slot that should have been in the base offering). All the marks are perfectly fine at this point with the slightly less terrible offering (still unclear what it is that you are actually paying for and the peace offering is only if you blindly accept the slightly less terrible offering and give up your money without clarity on what you are paying for).

Don’t get me wrong…its decent that they corrected the mistakes. I also have some doubts that they would made the mistake intentionally…since this is brand damaging. What I think happened is that their PR department came up with this tactic as a way out of a bad situation….just with the hopes that sheep won’t see past the token…through to the persisting original issue…ambiguous value for purchase amount. I think its slimy how they are trying to pressure pre-purchases, with the character slot, that should be included regardless of pre or post purchase.

I’m in the camp that this move shouldn’t elicit all the praise and adulation ANET is getting right now…since I’m pretty sure the level of public backlash, across so many venues, is the real reason for this back peddling on the character slot and more comprehensive refunds. This wasn’t a goodwill gesture…its a public relations bail out. Like many others have said, there were tons of opportunity via forum feedback on the need to include a character slot to play the revenant…that were just ignored. This lack of the slot wasn’t an accident or an oversight…it was a strategy that blew up in their faces. They are still trying to hold onto that strategy, to an extent, now…by limiting the character slot to blind pre-purchases only.

Completely agree. I’d only add that the tactic removes the animosity from so many others issues, sort of makes us all even more blind.

Thank you. I really like you have listened to us, will buy.