Why I am NOT purchasing HoT
Can I have your stuff
I agree to an extent, I did purchase heart of thorns but it really feels like they don’t care about the base game at all anymore.
I agree to an extent, I did purchase heart of thorns but it really feels like they don’t care about the base game at all anymore.
This is my point exactly! They’ve even stated, in many other words, that they basically aren’t going to be supporting the base module anymore.
After having played HoT all day. I can honestly say there is a metric kitten ton of content here. If you think the amount of work that went into this expansion is legitimately worth exactly 0 of your dollars, then you are both crazy and welcome to go elsewhere.
It comes to this: A game this good (a game of any size, really) requires real actual people to spend real actual hours to make. The cost of that time is the price you pay to get the game. The base game went F2P. So what? The time you spent there isn’t suddenly valueless because of it.
F2P means more people will give the game a chance that otherwise wouldn’t, and will likely purchase HoT after falling in love with the game. That’s only a good thing for literally everyone.
I’m sorry, but I just don’t agree and simply can’t understand the problem with F2P. Unless the actual problem is that $50 is outside of your budget. Which is understandable, as that really is quite a bit. But that’s a different issue altogether.
If you think the amount of work that went into this expansion is legitimately worth exactly 0 of your dollars, then you are both crazy and welcome to go elsewhere…
…The base game went F2P. So what? The time you spent there isn’t suddenly valueless because of it…
I’m sorry, but I just don’t agree and simply can’t understand the problem with F2P. Unless the actual problem is that $50 is outside of your budget. Which is understandable, as that really is quite a bit. But that’s a different issue altogether.
While the requesting amount for the game is more than I want to pay, that certainly isn’t the issue. If it is worth it, that would be one thing – but my issue is that they basically told the veteran players that enabled them to make it where they are now to “screw off” if we don’t purchase their new product.
You see, if they would actually compensate us for our time, that would be different. Instead, our hours of game play seemingly became valueless due to the fact that they don’t even bother to recognize the veteran players other than by merely giving them ONE character slot IF they pre-purchased the game during an allotted time slot. That is where my biggest issue comes into play! When you don’t acknowledge those who got you to where you are, then you have no business being where you are.
At a certain point this is what an MMO lifecycle is designed to look like. Sure you have outlier games that still develop and change after expansions but for the most part the base game dies out and is considered “complete” and/or “obsolete”. I do understand your frustration though, although I don’t agree with receiving any compensation for the game going free. GW1 never went free, and you had to pay for each expansion. Even after price drops there was never any compensation (I own all GW1 expansions) so seeing them make the base game free left me in awe! It was definitely a breath of fresh air.
If you had bought Prophesies and when Nightfall came out and you didn’t buy but your friends did so that you couldn’t join your friends over there, was that ANet telling you to buy or go elsewhere?
Be careful what you ask for
ANet may give it to you.
ANet may give it to you.
The thing is, It wouldn’t be obsolete if they didn’t completely nerf almost every single way for non HOT players to make any money, and that’s a huge issue. I did not expect the changes to fractals to do the same thing that they did to dungeons…..But it seems Anet is just trying to cash out. I was fine with the dungeon changes only because I knew fractals were going to be a viable alternative for them to make some gold. Now all they have is the silverwastes and it’s only a matter of time before that’s nerfed too.
You see, if they would actually compensate us for our time, that would be different. Instead, our hours of game play seemingly became valueless due to the fact that they don’t even bother to recognize the veteran players…
They did compensate us for our time. We paid for a product and they did their best to support and grow and change that product for the better (this is a relative opinion I know). The expansion is basically a love letter to veterans that says “You have supported us so well that we can continue the story, and keep a world that you love running for x amount of time”.
The thing is, It wouldn’t be obsolete if they didn’t completely nerf almost every single way for non HOT players to make any money, and that’s a huge issue. I did not expect the changes to fractals to do the same thing that they did to dungeons…..But it seems Anet is just trying to cash out. I was fine with the dungeon changes only because I knew fractals were going to be a viable alternative for them to make some gold. Now all they have is the silverwastes and it’s only a matter of time before that’s nerfed too.
Do you think this was done to force you to buy the expansion or to help stabilize the economy once HoT was released. Their economist has gone into fervent detail about why a lot of the changes were made, given how hard it is to predict economic changes in an expansion situation. Actually, as a solution to that problem, wouldn’t dedicating a set amount of servers with rulesets that weren’t dependent on the HoT economy solve that problem? That way free players could enjoy the game without a “kitten” feel due to factors that were outside of their control (driven by the paying playerbase)
The thing is, It wouldn’t be obsolete if they didn’t completely nerf almost every single way for non HOT players to make any money, and that’s a huge issue. I did not expect the changes to fractals to do the same thing that they did to dungeons…..But it seems Anet is just trying to cash out. I was fine with the dungeon changes only because I knew fractals were going to be a viable alternative for them to make some gold. Now all they have is the silverwastes and it’s only a matter of time before that’s nerfed too.
Do you think this was done to force you to buy the expansion or to help stabilize the economy once HoT was released. Their economist has gone into fervent detail about why a lot of the changes were made, given how hard it is to predict economic changes in an expansion situation. Actually, as a solution to that problem, wouldn’t dedicating a set amount of servers with rulesets that weren’t dependent on the HoT economy solve that problem? That way free players could enjoy the game without a “kitten” feel due to factors that were outside of their control (driven by the paying playerbase)
The damage was already done at this point, either way, 5g an hour is nothing special.
If you think the amount of work that went into this expansion is legitimately worth exactly 0 of your dollars, then you are both crazy and welcome to go elsewhere…
…The base game went F2P. So what? The time you spent there isn’t suddenly valueless because of it…
I’m sorry, but I just don’t agree and simply can’t understand the problem with F2P. Unless the actual problem is that $50 is outside of your budget. Which is understandable, as that really is quite a bit. But that’s a different issue altogether.
While the requesting amount for the game is more than I want to pay, that certainly isn’t the issue. If it is worth it, that would be one thing – but my issue is that they basically told the veteran players that enabled them to make it where they are now to “screw off” if we don’t purchase their new product.
You see, if they would actually compensate us for our time, that would be different. Instead, our hours of game play seemingly became valueless due to the fact that they don’t even bother to recognize the veteran players other than by merely giving them ONE character slot IF they pre-purchased the game during an allotted time slot. That is where my biggest issue comes into play! When you don’t acknowledge those who got you to where you are, then you have no business being where you are.
You were compensated with an incredible fun and engaging video game. What more do you want? Does there actually need to be more?
If you had bought Prophesies and when Nightfall came out and you didn’t buy but your friends did so that you couldn’t join your friends over there, was that ANet telling you to buy or go elsewhere?
Here was the wonderful thing about Factions and Nightfall: They were basically completely new games! While being expansions of the original, they offered completely new lands and quests, loot and bosses, and they were even equipped with leveling zones starting at Lv. 1 so you could try the new classes accordingly in their respective zones. This isn’t what HoT is doing.
If I buy a banana, I eat it. My reward for buying the banana was the gift of eating it. If I go to buy another banana, I don’t expect to get a piece of my new banana for free just because I bought a banana before.
If I go to see Avengers 1, I get to see Avengers 1. When Avengers 2 comes out, I don’t expect to see it for free because I saw Avengers 1.
Why do people think video games are somehow different in this regard? I literally do not understand.
If you think the amount of work that went into this expansion is legitimately worth exactly 0 of your dollars, then you are both crazy and welcome to go elsewhere…
…The base game went F2P. So what? The time you spent there isn’t suddenly valueless because of it…
I’m sorry, but I just don’t agree and simply can’t understand the problem with F2P. Unless the actual problem is that $50 is outside of your budget. Which is understandable, as that really is quite a bit. But that’s a different issue altogether.
While the requesting amount for the game is more than I want to pay, that certainly isn’t the issue. If it is worth it, that would be one thing – but my issue is that they basically told the veteran players that enabled them to make it where they are now to “screw off” if we don’t purchase their new product.
You see, if they would actually compensate us for our time, that would be different. Instead, our hours of game play seemingly became valueless due to the fact that they don’t even bother to recognize the veteran players other than by merely giving them ONE character slot IF they pre-purchased the game during an allotted time slot. That is where my biggest issue comes into play! When you don’t acknowledge those who got you to where you are, then you have no business being where you are.
You were compensated with an incredible fun and engaging video game. What more do you want? Does there actually need to be more?
I don’t know if I could say incredible fun. It started out okay but became dull after some time of doing the same thing with different creatures. Of course, that is what MMOs are all about. Guild Wars 2 tried to personalize it with your story, but it still ended up collecting dust in my game library after a while, for a while.
What really bugged me, and this is just because of personal beliefs, was when I made my Sylvari and completed the tutorial story. At the end of it, two lovers (regardless of the fact that they were trees,) were making out with one another. It is not a game’s place to promote crap like that, and I didn’t pay for a game so that I could see that within the first 5 minutes of creating a character!
If I buy a banana, I eat it. My reward for buying the banana was the gift of eating it. If I go to buy another banana, I don’t expect to get a piece of my new banana for free just because I bought a banana before.
If I go to see Avengers 1, I get to see Avengers 1. When Avengers 2 comes out, I don’t expect to see it for free because I saw Avengers 1.
Why do people think video games are somehow different in this regard? I literally do not understand.
What you’re not understanding is the costs that are associated with video games. Millions of dollars go into them, especially MMOs, and this is what has caused them to die. It costs so much money to build the game and release it, and then you need to guarantee x amount of subscribers a month at x amount of dollars per subscription just to survive in the game world. Otherwise, your company barely breaks even (or even goes under) as a result. This is what released the introduction of the F2P model of gaming.
Many games started developing “Lite” versions of games to get players to try them in hopes they would purchase the game, but that only goes so far. So then micro transactions were introduced as a way to generate extra income while also making a completely f2p version of the game after noticing that players were prone to spend more money when they weren’t forced to spend money. The big market for micro transactions are actually cosmetic items – things to make your characters look cooler. It doesn’t matter if it has any benefits to your character, people want them to look amazing. Henceforth why customizing your character and making them how you feel they should look has taken off in recent years.
Guild Wars essentially released an MMO that relied solely on sales of the games (back in GW1 days,) with little micro transactions until they got into Factions and Faction Wars, etc. How they survived, I honestly have no idea. But when GW2 was launched, it followed a similar path except that it now included a plethora of micro transactions. Not only could you spend money to make your character look more awesome, you could buy items that allowed you to gather materials permanently, buy gold essentially, and pretty much pay to win the game if you had enough money.
What started this entire thread was the foundation that Arena Net has completely disregarded its veteran players upon releasing/launching Heart of Thorns. They essentially do nothing to thank us for our patronage, and end up rubbing it in our face so to speak by making the base game free completely and forcing us to pay for an expansion if we want to continue to enjoy new content. If they would have given us a discount for owning the game for a length of time, or at least kept the original game at a certain cost and just released a “lite” version to sample it, that would’ve been different. But they didn’t…
If I buy a banana, I eat it. My reward for buying the banana was the gift of eating it. If I go to buy another banana, I don’t expect to get a piece of my new banana for free just because I bought a banana before.
If I go to see Avengers 1, I get to see Avengers 1. When Avengers 2 comes out, I don’t expect to see it for free because I saw Avengers 1.
Why do people think video games are somehow different in this regard? I literally do not understand.
What you’re not understanding is the costs that are associated with video games. Millions of dollars go into them, especially MMOs, and this is what has caused them to die. It costs so much money to build the game and release it, and then you need to guarantee x amount of subscribers a month at x amount of dollars per subscription just to survive in the game world. Otherwise, your company barely breaks even (or even goes under) as a result. This is what released the introduction of the F2P model of gaming.
Many games started developing “Lite” versions of games to get players to try them in hopes they would purchase the game, but that only goes so far. So then micro transactions were introduced as a way to generate extra income while also making a completely f2p version of the game after noticing that players were prone to spend more money when they weren’t forced to spend money. The big market for micro transactions are actually cosmetic items – things to make your characters look cooler. It doesn’t matter if it has any benefits to your character, people want them to look amazing. Henceforth why customizing your character and making them how you feel they should look has taken off in recent years.
Guild Wars essentially released an MMO that relied solely on sales of the games (back in GW1 days,) with little micro transactions until they got into Factions and Faction Wars, etc. How they survived, I honestly have no idea. But when GW2 was launched, it followed a similar path except that it now included a plethora of micro transactions. Not only could you spend money to make your character look more awesome, you could buy items that allowed you to gather materials permanently, buy gold essentially, and pretty much pay to win the game if you had enough money.
What started this entire thread was the foundation that Arena Net has completely disregarded its veteran players upon releasing/launching Heart of Thorns. They essentially do nothing to thank us for our patronage, and end up rubbing it in our face so to speak by making the base game free completely and forcing us to pay for an expansion if we want to continue to enjoy new content. If they would have given us a discount for owning the game for a length of time, or at least kept the original game at a certain cost and just released a “lite” version to sample it, that would’ve been different. But they didn’t…
Your example makes sense if you spent a lot of money in the cash shop, but even then that was something that you choose to do and spending that money gave you a reward on its own. I don’t think that an MMO should have a customer loyalty system for many reasons, and this one is one of them. Why should others get a discount because they enjoyed a product longer than someone else?
I really enjoyed GW2, but when I found out that I would have to re-purchase it to even play the addon! NO!
On a separate note, Free accounts are subject to limitations.
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Account#Limitations
There are very many loyal players since day 1 that I’m sure don’t feel this way and that bought HoT and are playing it. What makes you so special in this regard?
Does anyone else agree? … Maybe I am being too dramatic or demanding, or I am being too greedy.
I agree with this.
I wouldn’t complain about the game going free to new players if I were you. Why not? Because if you hold off and don’t buy HOT, when the next expansion comes YOU will get HOT for FREE along with all the other free players. So, don’t shoot yourself in the foot here…..
Since when did this business of being a hero become being a business?
If I buy a banana, I eat it. My reward for buying the banana was the gift of eating it. If I go to buy another banana, I don’t expect to get a piece of my new banana for free just because I bought a banana before.
If I go to see Avengers 1, I get to see Avengers 1. When Avengers 2 comes out, I don’t expect to see it for free because I saw Avengers 1.
Why do people think video games are somehow different in this regard? I literally do not understand.
What you’re not understanding is the costs that are associated with video games. Millions of dollars go into them, especially MMOs, and this is what has caused them to die. It costs so much money to build the game and release it, and then you need to guarantee x amount of subscribers a month at x amount of dollars per subscription just to survive in the game world. Otherwise, your company barely breaks even (or even goes under) as a result. This is what released the introduction of the F2P model of gaming.
Many games started developing “Lite” versions of games to get players to try them in hopes they would purchase the game, but that only goes so far. So then micro transactions were introduced as a way to generate extra income while also making a completely f2p version of the game after noticing that players were prone to spend more money when they weren’t forced to spend money. The big market for micro transactions are actually cosmetic items – things to make your characters look cooler. It doesn’t matter if it has any benefits to your character, people want them to look amazing. Henceforth why customizing your character and making them how you feel they should look has taken off in recent years.
Guild Wars essentially released an MMO that relied solely on sales of the games (back in GW1 days,) with little micro transactions until they got into Factions and Faction Wars, etc. How they survived, I honestly have no idea. But when GW2 was launched, it followed a similar path except that it now included a plethora of micro transactions. Not only could you spend money to make your character look more awesome, you could buy items that allowed you to gather materials permanently, buy gold essentially, and pretty much pay to win the game if you had enough money.
What started this entire thread was the foundation that Arena Net has completely disregarded its veteran players upon releasing/launching Heart of Thorns. They essentially do nothing to thank us for our patronage, and end up rubbing it in our face so to speak by making the base game free completely and forcing us to pay for an expansion if we want to continue to enjoy new content. If they would have given us a discount for owning the game for a length of time, or at least kept the original game at a certain cost and just released a “lite” version to sample it, that would’ve been different. But they didn’t…
Your example makes sense if you spent a lot of money in the cash shop, but even then that was something that you choose to do and spending that money gave you a reward on its own. I don’t think that an MMO should have a customer loyalty system for many reasons, and this one is one of them. Why should others get a discount because they enjoyed a product longer than someone else?
I have several discounts for various services, because i’m loyal customer for years and they appreciate that and show me with the discount. They understand that making their customers happy is more important than trying to squeeze every single penny out of them. Happy customer is more happy to spend money there, to tell friends about it, to support it, to look for other products from same developers etc…
And that argument that people use “you played a game all this time, that’s your gift, what the hell do you want?”, we can turn that around as well and say, that us playing the game that we paid for is a gift for Anet. If there are no players there is no game and money.
Can I have your stuff
can share some with me?
Founder & Leader of Equinox Solstice [TIME], a Singapore-Based International Guild
Henge of Denravi Server
www.gw2time.com
Henge of Denravi Server
www.gw2time.com
If I buy a banana, I eat it. My reward for buying the banana was the gift of eating it. If I go to buy another banana, I don’t expect to get a piece of my new banana for free just because I bought a banana before.
If I go to see Avengers 1, I get to see Avengers 1. When Avengers 2 comes out, I don’t expect to see it for free because I saw Avengers 1.
Why do people think video games are somehow different in this regard? I literally do not understand.
What you’re not understanding is the costs that are associated with video games. Millions of dollars go into them, especially MMOs, and this is what has caused them to die. It costs so much money to build the game and release it, and then you need to guarantee x amount of subscribers a month at x amount of dollars per subscription just to survive in the game world. Otherwise, your company barely breaks even (or even goes under) as a result. This is what released the introduction of the F2P model of gaming.
Many games started developing “Lite” versions of games to get players to try them in hopes they would purchase the game, but that only goes so far. So then micro transactions were introduced as a way to generate extra income while also making a completely f2p version of the game after noticing that players were prone to spend more money when they weren’t forced to spend money. The big market for micro transactions are actually cosmetic items – things to make your characters look cooler. It doesn’t matter if it has any benefits to your character, people want them to look amazing. Henceforth why customizing your character and making them how you feel they should look has taken off in recent years.
Guild Wars essentially released an MMO that relied solely on sales of the games (back in GW1 days,) with little micro transactions until they got into Factions and Faction Wars, etc. How they survived, I honestly have no idea. But when GW2 was launched, it followed a similar path except that it now included a plethora of micro transactions. Not only could you spend money to make your character look more awesome, you could buy items that allowed you to gather materials permanently, buy gold essentially, and pretty much pay to win the game if you had enough money.
What started this entire thread was the foundation that Arena Net has completely disregarded its veteran players upon releasing/launching Heart of Thorns. They essentially do nothing to thank us for our patronage, and end up rubbing it in our face so to speak by making the base game free completely and forcing us to pay for an expansion if we want to continue to enjoy new content. If they would have given us a discount for owning the game for a length of time, or at least kept the original game at a certain cost and just released a “lite” version to sample it, that would’ve been different. But they didn’t…
Your example makes sense if you spent a lot of money in the cash shop, but even then that was something that you choose to do and spending that money gave you a reward on its own. I don’t think that an MMO should have a customer loyalty system for many reasons, and this one is one of them. Why should others get a discount because they enjoyed a product longer than someone else?
I have several discounts for various services, because i’m loyal customer for years and they appreciate that and show me with the discount. They understand that making their customers happy is more important than trying to squeeze every single penny out of them. Happy customer is more happy to spend money there, to tell friends about it, to support it, to look for other products from same developers etc…
And that argument that people use “you played a game all this time, that’s your gift, what the hell do you want?”, we can turn that around as well and say, that us playing the game that we paid for is a gift for Anet. If there are no players there is no game and money.
They rewarded you for that time already. You paid a set amount for a product at the time that you purchased. You continued playing (and for some of us, paying) and they in turn released new content (gem store or otherwise). Any content delivered outside of the gem store was free, even though it had an associated man-hour cost with it. You have been receiving these free updates for some time now, as a reward for buying the initial game. It’s hard to compare this to any other service since there is no monetary obligation after the initial purchase except for aesthetic reasons. For the expansion the development costs were exponentially higher (NCSOFT R&D costs were at 42.7 million US for Q1/Q2 2015, although that wasn’t just GW2), and it looks like they will abide by the same philosophy of “buy it once and receive all the updates for free”.
If I buy a banana, I eat it. My reward for buying the banana was the gift of eating it. If I go to buy another banana, I don’t expect to get a piece of my new banana for free just because I bought a banana before.
If I go to see Avengers 1, I get to see Avengers 1. When Avengers 2 comes out, I don’t expect to see it for free because I saw Avengers 1.
Why do people think video games are somehow different in this regard? I literally do not understand.
What you’re not understanding is the costs that are associated with video games. Millions of dollars go into them, especially MMOs, and this is what has caused them to die. It costs so much money to build the game and release it, and then you need to guarantee x amount of subscribers a month at x amount of dollars per subscription just to survive in the game world. Otherwise, your company barely breaks even (or even goes under) as a result. This is what released the introduction of the F2P model of gaming.
Many games started developing “Lite” versions of games to get players to try them in hopes they would purchase the game, but that only goes so far. So then micro transactions were introduced as a way to generate extra income while also making a completely f2p version of the game after noticing that players were prone to spend more money when they weren’t forced to spend money. The big market for micro transactions are actually cosmetic items – things to make your characters look cooler. It doesn’t matter if it has any benefits to your character, people want them to look amazing. Henceforth why customizing your character and making them how you feel they should look has taken off in recent years.
Guild Wars essentially released an MMO that relied solely on sales of the games (back in GW1 days,) with little micro transactions until they got into Factions and Faction Wars, etc. How they survived, I honestly have no idea. But when GW2 was launched, it followed a similar path except that it now included a plethora of micro transactions. Not only could you spend money to make your character look more awesome, you could buy items that allowed you to gather materials permanently, buy gold essentially, and pretty much pay to win the game if you had enough money.
What started this entire thread was the foundation that Arena Net has completely disregarded its veteran players upon releasing/launching Heart of Thorns. They essentially do nothing to thank us for our patronage, and end up rubbing it in our face so to speak by making the base game free completely and forcing us to pay for an expansion if we want to continue to enjoy new content. If they would have given us a discount for owning the game for a length of time, or at least kept the original game at a certain cost and just released a “lite” version to sample it, that would’ve been different. But they didn’t…
Your example makes sense if you spent a lot of money in the cash shop, but even then that was something that you choose to do and spending that money gave you a reward on its own. I don’t think that an MMO should have a customer loyalty system for many reasons, and this one is one of them. Why should others get a discount because they enjoyed a product longer than someone else?
I have several discounts for various services, because i’m loyal customer for years and they appreciate that and show me with the discount. They understand that making their customers happy is more important than trying to squeeze every single penny out of them. Happy customer is more happy to spend money there, to tell friends about it, to support it, to look for other products from same developers etc…
And that argument that people use “you played a game all this time, that’s your gift, what the hell do you want?”, we can turn that around as well and say, that us playing the game that we paid for is a gift for Anet. If there are no players there is no game and money.
They rewarded you for that time already. You paid a set amount for a product at the time that you purchased. You continued playing (and for some of us, paying) and they in turn released new content (gem store or otherwise). Any content delivered outside of the gem store was free, even though it had an associated man-hour cost with it. You have been receiving these free updates for some time now, as a reward for buying the initial game. It’s hard to compare this to any other service since there is no monetary obligation after the initial purchase except for aesthetic reasons. For the expansion the development costs were exponentially higher (NCSOFT R&D costs were at 42.7 million US for Q1/Q2 2015, although that wasn’t just GW2), and it looks like they will abide by the same philosophy of “buy it once and receive all the updates for free”.
Or, how about I paid for a game + updates? Let’s be honest, does anyone buy a mmo game and thinks they will never update it? Ofc they update it, the game would die if they wouldn’t. They are not doing updates because of their good hearts, they are doing them for game to survive and so they can make money. Tons of games, even single player games get free updates and dlcs, so what’s special here?
Or, how about I paid for a game + updates? Let’s be honest, does anyone buy a mmo game and thinks they will never update it? Ofc they update it, the game would die if they wouldn’t. They are not doing updates because of their good hearts, they are doing them for game to survive and so they can make money. Tons of games, even single player games get free updates and dlcs, so what’s special here?
But you didn’t. Those updates weren’t guaranteed at the time of purchase and they haven’t been for any MMO. You paid for the game in it’s current state at the time of purchase, and assumed that it would be updated because that has been the cycle for similar MMOs. Whether it would die or not without those updates is a moot point, given that that relies largely on how successful cash shop items are in a game with no subscription. Content Updates are the playerbases reward for playing, because there wouldn’t be updates if nobody played, that’s how the gaming industry works. You could also argue that it isn’t the people who just play the game, but the people who shop at the gem store who kept it running.