but that’s not being sneaky, they have been transparent about being a next generation of mmo – this involves taking risks in different models. unfortunately the perception of the bundle has devalued the core game and made it look free to play. The fact ncsoft has placed a value for it as stand alone on amazon, shows that was not their intention.
No, you are mistaken, the perception is that Arena Net has decided to save up several months worth of living story content and game updates and slapped a 50.00 price tag on them.
And used the inclusion of the core game to justify the 50.00 cost… then in response to the backlash released a statement saying that the expansion itself costs 50.00 but the core game is being given away free… unless you already have an account, then you are only getting the expansion.
Then in response to that backlash, they said they will be giving those that pre-order a “free” character expansion slot… while stating that all future expansions will include a copy of the core game as well as any and all expansions released prior to the current expansion.. unless of course you are already an account holder and loyal Guild Wars 2 fan, in which case you will be getting just the current expansion at the full price of the current GOTY edition.
Did I forget to mention that the perception also is that unless you buy one of the BUNDLES, of which existing players will only receive the expansion from, at full bundle price, you will be blocked from any further Living Story updates, etc and basically be left to die of boredom in a dying version of the game?
So yeah, some people are definitely resentful, not at the fact that there is an expansion being released, and not really so much that it is a 50.00 expansion… but more at the fact that from the details released so far it appears to be a heavily polished Living Story Season 3… and not a traditional game world expansion.
I am one of those that is rooting for Heart of Thorns, I would love to see it be a massive expansion that allows us to sort of move on from the old tried and true lands and dungeons that we have been playing over and over for the past 3 years to new lands to explore and dungeons to conquer, new armor and weapon sets to collect, new legendaries to lust after and grind for. (I would love to see some new darker, as in spooky, themed armor and weapon sets.. think skeletons and demons.. hint, hint)
And if it delivers on being that full on expansion to the Guild Wars 2 world, I’ll gladly plop down that 50.00 and tell everyone how awesome it is, and get on with the grindage, and forget all about the feeling cheated out of a copy of the original game that I feel forced to pay for…
If it doesn’t live up to the expectations that the full AAA title price tag has set up for it, and turns out to be Living Story Season 3, and the pay wall which all future updates are locked behind, then I will most likely start migrating back towards some of the other games that I play, and probably check out another similarly priced title.
That is not any kind of “Give me my way or I’ll quit!” threat or anything, it’s just simply how I feel about the whole debacle at this point. The game has definitely lost some of it’s shine without the small content updates adding to it’s world every couple weeks or so, and if it GW2 is moving towards is 50.00 Seasons of Living Story I can see myself losing interest.
But like I say at the end of the majority of my posts, only time will tell.