Guild Wars 2

The char slot on all bundles would have avoided most of the angst.

Palador.2170:

snip

Oh, you and I are in 100% agreement. I’m not defending ArenaNet, believe me. I just came back from a 3 day ban.

TurtleofPower.5641:

Just think of this… if the majority of people that buy HoT are the noobs… and they never even make it to 80 to access it….

So much face palm.

Holy kitten is that carrot on one heck of a loooooooooooong stick.

Mooncaller.9634:

@Aidenwolf I’m not saying that the lack of content argument isn’t a valid reason not to pre-purchase or buy the expansion, I’m just saying that this is a very highly subjective topic and the threshold of “enough content for price” is an extremely moving target.
Also, no matter what the price is everyone gets the same expansion, there is no difference between a new account and an existing account when it comes to what is contained in the expansion.

@Manasa Devi I personally think they would have had a lot less scrutiny and controversy on their hands if they had included the character slot at the Standard price point. I think the lack of a character slot and the ambiguous language regarding the inclusion of the core game are what tipped off this kittenstorm for most of the people here.
Clearly stating that the core was included ONLY for new accounts and including the character slot would likely have prevented a lot of his debacle.
Granted, you would still likely have the debate about price vs. content (that was going to happen no matter what, especially with a pre-purchase with so little information yet out).
You would still have the argument over the FAQ change, though due to the lower amount of scrutiny probably a much smaller segment of the community would be aware of it or citing it as an issue.

I think the price + inclusion of core + lack of character slot put them under the microscope.
I think the FAQ change and lack of clarity regarding inclusion of the core game severely fanned the embers into a raging flame.

I for one am interested to see if they are willing to, and how well they can, walk back this kittenstorm and repair their relationship with a large segment of the community that I think we can all agree is a lot less trusting of ArenaNet than they were a week ago.

i think you are right that a lot of the issue came from their marketing making you think twice.

they created a lot of think twice moments
no release date for a full purchase was a big one for me.
then there was the no charachter slot
then there was the faq that leads to a profitable error
lack of actual info on the game

all coming together to make you very wary of the company. Making you really want to see if this was all a bunch of errors in judgement, or wether it is something more sinister.

heres what i would reccomend

• 1) an extremely public, possibly in game announcement and a system created to get people who bought the game after the announcement, HoT if they wish for the difference between the price they paid and the new coreHoT. It cant just be the people who are persistent with customer service, most customers will never be that. If its just the guys who try hard and harass customer service, it will seem like those scams where they get people to buy something and offer returns, knowing that most people wont return them.
• OR) create an expansion only upgrade, for less money, refund every pre-existing player who used the code on an existing account. (this will actually solve the issue of deceptive faq, because it would be true)
• 2) Offer items/bonuses/charachter slots to existing players who upgrade
• 3) explanation of how most of these issues were errors, or that after hearing the community they rethought some ideas/policies
• 4) IF the game is going to be content lite, explain what people are going to get now, and COMMIT to delivering some further development of the content with a assumed time frame (subject to change, but not 2 years later and behind a paywall like precursors)

People are pretty willing to throw their money at people the trust/like/give them something to believe in. right now, anet is coming off a bit shady, if that isnt their intent they should try hard to reverse that.