Guild Wars 2

This thread is fascinating. This highlights a very interesting consumer perspective in the argument for and against expansions as far as I’m concerned. Also, does anyone else feel that the term “free” is being misused here in the context of GW2 content? I was always of the understanding that “free” is simply subsidized in a manner of speaking. When you look at it that way, the argument for free content has to take how it will be paid for into account. I’m sure that little facet of producing the story content was taken into account when they offered a “free” version of the content to active players. I’m just saying when you ask for all the future story content to be “free”…

What about new accounts? A friend wants to buy the game but I don’t want to encourage him to buy it only to find out that he will have to pay more to “unlock chapters” trust me Anet you do not want to be associated with F2P cellphone games.

I just ran through all of LS s2 (I logged in for unlocks) this week, and besides the farm, grind, achievement hunting portions of those that I don’t bother with (I don’t like that kind of content), the actual personal story episode part had taken me about 4h to complete.

No new WvW & spvp updates or maps, professions, races, utilities, elites, class weapons, mounts, dueling, dungeons, raids, or GvG.
New armor set and back.

The episodes alone were great minus the zones that follow.

To buy that is around 115g or $20, I wouldn’t pay for those unlocks for that price.

Cancer.9065:

What about new accounts? A friend wants to buy the game but I don’t want to encourage him to buy it only to find out that he will have to pay more to “unlock chapters” trust me Anet you do not want to be associated with F2P cellphone games.

Or, you could take him through them. And if he wants to buy them after that, he can.

Remember, even if you don’t have the story unlocked, you can group with someone that does and play through it with them. The person that has it just has to be the one to initial the instances.

Cancer.9065:

What about new accounts? A friend wants to buy the game but I don’t want to encourage him to buy it only to find out that he will have to pay more to “unlock chapters” trust me Anet you do not want to be associated with F2P cellphone games.

People always seems to bring this up.
But would your friend rather be completely unable to even have a chance to do the content, as was the case in S1?

What about games with standard expansions? You have to buy the expansion pack as well in order to access the expansion content, even if you bought the original game.

I keep saying this:

I bought a game. woohoo, I can play
Oh look they have an expansion (in bits) WHAT!?!? I HAVE TO PAY FOR IT, THAT IS UNHEARD OF!!

Ayakaru.6583:

I keep saying this:

I bought a game. woohoo, I can play
Oh look they have an expansion (in bits) WHAT!?!? I HAVE TO PAY FOR IT, THAT IS UNHEARD OF!!

I know right, I love having access to Reaper of Souls when I bought Diablo 3 . . .

. . . wait.

Or how about “Enemy Within” when I bought X-Com!

. . . wait.

Anyway, isn’t the only thing people without access are locked off of . . . the story missions? Not the access to Dry Top / Silverwastes?

Oh, and new players also don’t get Living Story Season 1. In any fashion. ANet, I’d love you to rectify this somehow.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Ayakaru.6583:

I keep saying this:

I bought a game. woohoo, I can play
Oh look they have an expansion (in bits) WHAT!?!? I HAVE TO PAY FOR IT, THAT IS UNHEARD OF!!

I know right, I love having access to Reaper of Souls when I bought Diablo 3 . . .

. . . wait.

Or how about “Enemy Within” when I bought X-Com!

. . . wait.

Anyway, isn’t the only thing people without access are locked off of . . . the story missions? Not the access to Dry Top / Silverwastes?

Oh, and new players also don’t get Living Story Season 1. In any fashion. ANet, I’d love you to rectify this somehow.

Hey, remember when we got Grand Theft Auto, that old 2D game? I was really shocked to find out I had to pay for the futue stories. I mean, who in their right mind does that??

I would also pay for the end chapters of S1 LS. I would also pay for a full fledged expansion as well. If it’s something I enjoy then I do not have a problem paying to do it, or to get more content added to what I have already purchased.

the thing is: it’s sold for gems, so you are always free to unlock it entirely by ingame currency (=gold). It’s lv.80 content so you should have a bit of money once you get there.

200 gems for an episode isn’t a lot, unlocking it by earning the gold is a nice move imho.

It’s about 28 gold to buy the 200 gems per missing story. That’s a little bit of work, but worth it. I spent over $100 on the halloween stuff and didn’t want spend any more for the storylines so I’ve been farming gold for the storylines.

Paying for past episodes doesn’t bother me that much because like some have said, as long as you log in once during the two weeks, you’ll unlock the episode.

BUT! I’m pretty disappointed that they seem to have changed what counts as “the two weeks an episode is live.” Used to be that you could log in at any point up until the next release went live, even if it was just an hour before the next one. But earlier this morning, I logged in for the first time in a long while to make sure I unlocked Echoes of the Past before the update, and there was no clickable icon above my mini map; the LS menu said I’d have to pay 200 gems to unlock it. I guess because the date itself, the 18th, is the date of the new release, I was too late to unlock Echoes of the Past… even though Tangled Paths still isn’t up. That’s frustrating.

Did they say this change was going to happen on the website anywhere? If I missed it, that’s just my fault then, since I haven’t been following that stuff for the months I haven’t played, but otherwise…

Order of Venvardis.6073:

Paying for past episodes doesn’t bother me that much because like some have said, as long as you log in once during the two weeks, you’ll unlock the episode.

BUT! I’m pretty disappointed that they seem to have changed what counts as “the two weeks an episode is live.” Used to be that you could log in at any point up until the next release went live, even if it was just an hour before the next one. But earlier this morning, I logged in for the first time in a long while to make sure I unlocked Echoes of the Past before the update, and there was no clickable icon above my mini map; the LS menu said I’d have to pay 200 gems to unlock it. I guess because the date itself, the 18th, is the date of the new release, I was too late to unlock Echoes of the Past… even though Tangled Paths still isn’t up. That’s frustrating.

Did they say this change was going to happen on the website anywhere? If I missed it, that’s just my fault then, since I haven’t been following that stuff for the months I haven’t played, but otherwise…

If they changed their policy, they did not inform us, I would contact support and see if you can get it unlocked for free because this is their mistake. If this is not on purpose but a kind of bug, I would also contact support to solve it. Either way, I think you should contact support, good luck!

They have not changed anything as far as I am aware, but then again I think most people didn’t wait for the very last second to unlock something.

We have seen the same thing with other releases that involves dailies and such, with them not giving dailies the last day.

I don’t see the problem here… I for example completely support this decision because they are giving it all for free and for the new players they have given an opportunity to play they content they have missed instead of just locking it up forever like season 1. There are alot of MMOs that have events that go away after some period of time and i see the living story as a big event that keeps going and changing.
In the end what i meant to say is that people should see this as an opportunity to get to play the previous content if they haven’t been playing the game for some time. Also it’s not like they are forcing you to pay for the content with real money. You can just as easily gather the gold to purchase the gems for the content.

Honestly, I feel that charging for the story is kind of a crappy thing to do (there’s only a two week window for people to get it, rather easy for busy people to miss that), although I can understand why they would charge for it. It might not feel as crappy if it wasn’t for the fact that you are paying 200 gems for a good 3-4 story quests (which until recently didn’t really offer anything to really make you want to go and do them outside of just the story itself) – and not everyone wants to pay $10 for 4 chapters. I’m all for supporting the games I play, but I hate it when I feel like I’m being bled for money.

That being said, I also know a person or two who have logged into the game with their character to unlock a chapter during the window, and come back later when they had time to find that it’s still locked. Last I hear, all you had to do was sign in with a character so you actually exist in the game world, and a chapter would unlock for you – has that changed at all? Has that been placed somewhere that an average player may stumble across it and understand that they have to do something different?

The “gather the gold” statement that has applied to buying things with gems is still as it stands back in the day – for the person who plays this game and nothing else, and plays it steadily that’s a viable option. For the average person who only gets on now and then (the ones who wouldn’t have chapters unlocked, for example) it’s not nearly as feasible an option. Still, it’s nice that it’s there. I’d rather purchasing be left to just the cosmetic funsies and auxiliary features such as slots though. As it stands, GW2 is above some F2P market models I’ve played, but certainly not holding on to the ones at the front of the pack either.

I’ve read through this thread and I can see people’s point “logging in once every 2 weeks isn’t a big deal”

BUT what about this situation?

I have a friend who just started GW2 and hasn’t played it since the living story, so now he has to pay like 20$ just to get caught up as far as the storyline goes,

Now to people like me and possibly you, no big deal we play this game CONSTANTLY and have no problem throwing 20$ at anet to support them

But from the perspective of my friend a brand new player, hitting a pay wall the second he finishes the Personal Story might be somewhat of a turn off…

I hope that when season 2 is complete they just offer the entire season at a discounted price as opposed to having to pay 200 gems for each episode, maybe 1200 or some type of discount for the whole season? Just a thought for your newer players Anet, I’d hate to see them feel nickeled and dimed right out of the level 80 gate…

As for season 1, honestly? Their wasn’t hardly any instanced content to begin with, unlike alot of people I LOVED SEASON 1 I thought scarlet was a very interesting villian, thought I am glad that we are back to dragons, I still enjoyed it. HOWEVER most if not all of that content was completely zergy so I’m not exactly sure how Anet intend’s to bundle it in with the current living story model, I guess I won’t judge or throw out random ideas but just something to keep in mind Anet

I would really like to redo some LS1 content and look forward to that stuff being unlockable.

Anet you’re kaks… plain and simple.

If you create a new account today, all the living story that happens after today is free for you.

PLUS you can re-live content you LEGITIMATELY MISSED. For a small fee. It is entirely optional! You can hitch a free ride on somebody else’s instances (enough players would be happy to take you through there) or, if you care about the rewards and achievements, pay something like 3 dollars / 30 gold per chapter.

How is this even creating so much drama?

thewaterguy.4796:

I’ve read through this thread and I can see people’s point “logging in once every 2 weeks isn’t a big deal”

BUT what about this situation?

I have a friend who just started GW2 and hasn’t played it since the living story, so now he has to pay like 20$ just to get caught up as far as the storyline goes,

Now to people like me and possibly you, no big deal we play this game CONSTANTLY and have no problem throwing 20$ at anet to support them

But from the perspective of my friend a brand new player, hitting a pay wall the second he finishes the Personal Story might be somewhat of a turn off…

I hope that when season 2 is complete they just offer the entire season at a discounted price as opposed to having to pay 200 gems for each episode, maybe 1200 or some type of discount for the whole season? Just a thought for your newer players Anet, I’d hate to see them feel nickeled and dimed right out of the level 80 gate…

As for season 1, honestly? Their wasn’t hardly any instanced content to begin with, unlike alot of people I LOVED SEASON 1 I thought scarlet was a very interesting villian, thought I am glad that we are back to dragons, I still enjoyed it. HOWEVER most if not all of that content was completely zergy so I’m not exactly sure how Anet intend’s to bundle it in with the current living story model, I guess I won’t judge or throw out random ideas but just something to keep in mind Anet

It’s not that different to my experience when I first got GW1.

At the time there were 2 campaigns to choose from – Prophecies and the newly released Factions. I was much more interested in Factions, but my brother and his friend only had Prophecies, so if I wanted to play with them I had to get that campaign and then pay extra for the content I really wanted to see. (In the end that’s what I did – I got Prophecies first and bought both Factions and Nightfall a year later.)

The difference here is that a new player could just buy the base game and then join up with the friend they want to play with (or any other friend/guild member who has it unlocked) to play the stuff they haven’t bought.

As for Season 1 my guess is that’s why Anet have said it will take them a long time to make it compatible with the new system. As well as adding it into the story journal they’d have to move the actual content to instances and then rebalance it to work with smaller groups. They could do shared instances that look like the actual maps – like the introduction instances – so you’re not playing solo, but it would still be tricky to get it right.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Oh, and new players also don’t get Living Story Season 1. In any fashion. ANet, I’d love you to rectify this somehow.

Well wouldn’t we all. But I keep getting this feeling that ANet sees the converting of Season 1 into Season 2 format to be this big complicated and possible not possible. Although then again they probably know more about the technicalities of these sorts of things (since they did make the game and all), but from my perspective it seems like the sort of thing you could throw a 5 man team together for and have them slowly trickle out adapted/converted S1 content. At the very least a story instance here or there. Doesn’t even have to be chronological, do the easy instances first and then move on to the kittenes.

Ayakaru.6583:

Hey, remember when we got Grand Theft Auto, that old 2D game? I was really shocked to find out I had to pay for the futue stories. I mean, who in their right mind does that??

I can’t help but get the feeling you’re trying to contradict Tobias Trueflight with a separate example of your own. Having mercilessly played GTA though (back in the day) I’m not understanding the analog here. Did Rockstar bring out new stories after the game launched? I don’t seem to remember that. GTA was followed up by GTA2 and you had to pay for that.

eingefallener.1603:

Anet you’re kaks… plain and simple.

… Please don’t tell me your South African… Oh god you might even be Afrikaans…

Pixelpumpkin.4608:

How is this even creating so much drama?

People love drama. Gamers especially love drama.

CureForLiving.5360:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Oh, and new players also don’t get Living Story Season 1. In any fashion. ANet, I’d love you to rectify this somehow.

Well wouldn’t we all. But I keep getting this feeling that ANet sees the converting of Season 1 into Season 2 format to be this big complicated and possible not possible. Although then again they probably know more about the technicalities of these sorts of things (since they did make the game and all), but from my perspective it seems like the sort of thing you could throw a 5 man team together for and have them slowly trickle out adapted/converted S1 content. At the very least a story instance here or there. Doesn’t even have to be chronological, do the easy instances first and then move on to the kittenes.

I think, unlike dungeons, five people or less isn’t going to work. (Forget Lupi, solo Living Story remake is the toughest thing you can do.) I expect they’d only be able to do them at the cost of something else.

Especially if we want them, you know, decent instead of dumped in as small infobites.

Paying for past content appears greedy. Particularly if it was offerred without charge previously.

You now have content that is gated via real currency (gems), with no alternative method of acquirement. Whether people realize it or not, in-game gold represents real money, since it can be exchanged for gems which in turn can be purchased by real money. The 200 gems you acquire via in-game gold DO have a dollar value ($2.50).

To those that could not or did not login to “unlock” the content, its reasonable but ultimately fallacious to assume they could spare the 5 minutes to login. There may be a myriad of reasons a person would not login during the unlock period. And its safe to assume in almost every case, it would not be because the person wanted to avoid unlocking the content. People can still say its SOL for these folks, but remember that next time the shoe is on your foot.

Regardless, the arguments that the content is free if you login during the 2 week time the content is considered permanently unlockable are irrelevant to the discussion. The fact of the matter, is Anet is charging for that content now. Free content would be free all the time regardless of circumstance.

To those that think Anet is under no obligation to offer LS content or any content for free, you are absolutely right. But they have a large incentive to do so, and reap arguably big benefits. Content updates, including LS content keeps the game fresh and players engaged. There is no guarantee a person playing the game will spend money in the cash shop, but there is an absolute guarantee that a person not playing will not spend money in the cash shop. So Anet could stop offering content, but would only hurt themselves by doing so.

Frankly, I think it would be reasonable to allow people to progress episode by episode without charge, much like the personal story that is “unlocked” with purchase of the game. Imagine a person did not login during the Dragon Reach unlock periods. Its somewhat absurd that he would not be able to freely play those episodes, but could freely play the beginning and end of LS season 2.

To summarize, basically Anet is selling a DLC without calling it so. Some people are fine with that sort of thing. Me not so much, especially since they are not selling the story as a whole, but pieces of it. Like selling chapters of a book instead of the complete book. Appears miserly.

In the end, $ will decide things. If Anet makes plenty of cash on their actions, there is little reason to think they will change tack. Lots of things can happen between now and the expansion, though.

CureForLiving.5360:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Oh, and new players also don’t get Living Story Season 1. In any fashion. ANet, I’d love you to rectify this somehow.

Well wouldn’t we all. But I keep getting this feeling that ANet sees the converting of Season 1 into Season 2 format to be this big complicated and possible not possible. Although then again they probably know more about the technicalities of these sorts of things (since they did make the game and all), but from my perspective it seems like the sort of thing you could throw a 5 man team together for and have them slowly trickle out adapted/converted S1 content. At the very least a story instance here or there. Doesn’t even have to be chronological, do the easy instances first and then move on to the kittenes.

Ayakaru.6583:

Hey, remember when we got Grand Theft Auto, that old 2D game? I was really shocked to find out I had to pay for the futue stories. I mean, who in their right mind does that??

I can’t help but get the feeling you’re trying to contradict Tobias Trueflight with a separate example of your own. Having mercilessly played GTA though (back in the day) I’m not understanding the analog here. Did Rockstar bring out new stories after the game launched? I don’t seem to remember that. GTA was followed up by GTA2 and you had to pay for that.

eingefallener.1603:

Anet you’re kaks… plain and simple.

… Please don’t tell me your South African… Oh god you might even be Afrikaans…

Pixelpumpkin.4608:

How is this even creating so much drama?

People love drama. Gamers especially love drama.

Yes, they did bring out new stories? Ballad of Gay Tony is an example
I didn’t contradict him, I furthened the list of examples

I really don’t think that is too bad at all. There are 34 total episodes, so at 200 gems per episode the entire story to date would cost around $85. This is if you did not have any already unlocked, or did not want to spend in game gold on it. In terms of WoW subscriptions, that is about 6 months, which is really quite reasonable. In addition, you really don’t need to buy it. If you wanted to get up to date on lore in order to play the more recent ones the wiki has some very good summaries. This is coming from someone that just started playing the game, and therefore has none of the episodes already unlocked. The one big problem I have with it, however, is that you cannot play season 1. Hopefully they will add it to the story journal before too long.

To second Marimbajoe, it would be real nice if the main side plots of season 1 could be repacked as episodes.
And if there is to be a price tag, either in game hours or hard cash, can’t there be like a season bundle VS episode by espisode system, like buy in bundle? Reasonable prices according to in-game population could be nice too, you can be rich and not go on milking? I mean If each episode had been 100 gems( like what 5 euros), most of this discussion wouldn’t have happened. That’s most DLC’s price nowadays.

200gems(More than 10eu) for content VS access during two first week of event deployment, seems not only unfair, it is unjustly favouring people who have the opportunity to access the net everyday.
I, for instance, couldn’t follow most of season 2 content because of a job in the middle of nowhere making my internet access nearly inexistant. Now, I should pay the price of a small extension on Steam for a plot line? I should pay that much to receive content ANY player who had access to internet during that time has had free access to?
I mean I love this game, but this is a qualm to me.

Why does everyone think this is OK? I actually read a dev compare it to cable TV and ordering channels. Lol I mean really? This is a kitten game. We already bought and paid for it and was promised future content. Jeeze I love Anets creativity and WANT to experience it but throwing a price tag on every little thing everywhere in the story is stupid. The entire concept of living story has been destroyed single handedly by this. I have zero interest in buying content that should already be mine anyway. Could you imagine if Skyrim or something charged you a dollar for every quest after the main storyline? Please fire the idiot that thought this was a great idea.

Don’t let me forget the poor guys that have work, kids, school, etc. and have to take long breaks in between play sessions. They are the ones suffering most. Coming back to GW2 to get caught up and then get back handed with additional costs. Something you had better really think about before it becomes a trend.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/lwd/Paying-for-past-content/

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/lwd/Thanks-for-the-Kick-in-the-Teeth-ANet

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/lwd/Returning-with-friends-and-we-go-wtf/

Those are just the threads on the first page of this forum, with the exact same topic. There was no reason to make your own thread. You’ve even stated you read one of them, indicating that this thread is mere attention-seeking.

Olvendred.3027:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/lwd/Paying-for-past-content/

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/lwd/Thanks-for-the-Kick-in-the-Teeth-ANet

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/lwd/Returning-with-friends-and-we-go-wtf/

Those are just the threads on the first page of this forum, with the exact same topic. There was no reason to make your own thread. You’ve even stated you read one of them, indicating that this thread is mere attention-seeking.

Troll somewhere else bud. When you are done sulking read the very first sentence in my post.

JSemar.5821:

Why does everyone think this is OK?

Actually it is. The content was added before the release. The skyrim analogy is flawed and even then if all i had to do would be to open skyrim than close it once every 2 weeks i think i could find time for it. Unless you are in an area without internet or a pc i can’t see how you can be so busy not to make a grand total of 9 clicks . I still hope is a troll post tho.

If you had enough time to check your email to notice that Anet sent you an advertisement promoting the release of the latest episode of the LS, you’ve had enough time download it and log in to unlock for your account.

For those that either ignored the promotional emails or are just new players, the LW episode are basically just DLC purchases. DLC purchases that only cost about $2.50 each (cheaper than some cups of coffee) or about 28g (a few dungeon runs or a nice day farming SW) going through gem conversion.

JSemar.5821:

Why does everyone think this is OK?

Are you okay with having to pay for an expansion? What’s the difference? What if they held back everything in season 2 and released it all at once… as an expansion. That’s basically what HoT is, plus a few feature packs.

Unlocking the episodes was trivial. It takes under a minute to do and you have 2 weeks to do it. You can also automate the entire process with a very simple macro. Just use Windows scheduler to automatically login to GW2, then use a macro to login and exit. You can even setup your computer to automatically boot on a timer if you have to go on vacation or something. Unless you lose power/internet for over 2 weeks, there’s really no excuse.

Lastly, the episode model is based on TV. What happens when you miss an TV episode? Legitimately, you can pay to watch it online or wait for the DVD.

How is 200 gems more than €10?

Sure, you can only by the pack of 800 for real money, but that means you can unlock FOUR chapters, not one.

The actual worth of 200 gems is around €2,5 not €10.

While I do see the issue with having a work in the middle of nowhere, one could of course point out that said work most likely generated money and as such a tiny bit of those money could be used to unlock access.

Not to mention the fact that you can trade in-game gold for gems, thus paying nothing at all.
Or joining someone that have already unlocked it, thus not even having to get the gold.

JSemar.5821:

Olvendred.3027:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/lwd/Paying-for-past-content/

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/lwd/Thanks-for-the-Kick-in-the-Teeth-ANet

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/lwd/Returning-with-friends-and-we-go-wtf/

Those are just the threads on the first page of this forum, with the exact same topic. There was no reason to make your own thread. You’ve even stated you read one of them, indicating that this thread is mere attention-seeking.

Troll somewhere else bud. When you are done sulking read the very first sentence in my post.

aren´t you the one sulking here?

BobbyStein.2315:

It’s a lot like watching television in that you can watch (and record) an episode for free when it airs. If you miss it, you can buy the episode off iTunes later. Does that make sense?

No no no no, it’s not like television though is it? If you miss a program you can wait for it to air again.

If you missed a season episode you do not have that luxury. It’s a scam and I won’t ever be purchasing those episodes. If I wanted a good story I’ll go read a kittening book or, get this, go buy another game. “WHAT?! THERE ARE OTHER GAMES OTHER THAN GW2?! HOLY MOLEY!”

Zombiesbum.3502:

No no no no, it’s not like television though is it? If you miss a program you can wait for it to air again.

If you missed a season episode you do not have that luxury. It’s a scam and I won’t ever be purchasing those episodes. If I wanted a good story I’ll go read a kittening book or, get this, go buy another game. “WHAT?! THERE ARE OTHER GAMES OTHER THAN GW2?! HOLY MOLEY!”

No need to get so upset and worked up about it. There, there, it will be alright…

JSemar.5821:

Why does everyone think this is OK? I actually read a dev compare it to cable TV and ordering channels. Lol I mean really? This is a kitten game. We already bought and paid for it and was promised future content. Jeeze I love Anets creativity and WANT to experience it but throwing a price tag on every little thing everywhere in the story is stupid. The entire concept of living story has been destroyed single handedly by this. I have zero interest in buying content that should already be mine anyway. Could you imagine if Skyrim or something charged you a dollar for every quest after the main storyline? Please fire the idiot that thought this was a great idea.

We think it’s okay because we got future content for free. All of season 1 was free. They didn’t say infinite free content forever.

And the new zones that come with it are free anyway.

You’re missing only the story which many people don’t really care about, or are happy to look up on youtube.

It’s okay because at some point, a company is going to charge more money for new content. I’ve not seen a whole lot of companies give new content free forever. Guild Wars 1 didn’t do it. You had to buy the historic mission pack at one point.

WoW charges $15 a month, barely comes out with updates between expansions, sell you the expansion AND has a cash shop.

I’m pretty sure this isn’t that bad.

Guys, we keep repeating the same points over and over again, on both sides of the “issue”… and on multiple threads too. May we please stop bumping this? Dead horse is dead.

kthxbye

Zombiesbum.3502:

BobbyStein.2315:

It’s a lot like watching television in that you can watch (and record) an episode for free when it airs. If you miss it, you can buy the episode off iTunes later. Does that make sense?

No no no no, it’s not like television though is it? If you miss a program you can wait for it to air again.

If you missed a season episode you do not have that luxury. It’s a scam and I won’t ever be purchasing those episodes. If I wanted a good story I’ll go read a kittening book or, get this, go buy another game. “WHAT?! THERE ARE OTHER GAMES OTHER THAN GW2?! HOLY MOLEY!”

I want to stress the words “alot like”. Just for your case.
That said, who knows, maybe it will be free again in the future.

@Zombiesbum.3502

Just because the ’’issue’’ gets repeated doesn’t mean its valid. There are mount-threads all the time and some of them have multiple number of pages. Do you know why? because the majority of the mount-threads have 2-3 people asking for mounts and 50 speaking against it in which case these 2-3 people keep arguing.

Number of pages =/= there is an issue.
Also, you seem to have really little understanding of how the inudstry works. There are no paid DLCs? WoW doesn’t make you pay for ’’old’’ content? you get the entire WoW game if buying the box only?

There is alot of flaws with GW2, however, the decision to make LS2 paid if you are not an active player of the game isn’t even comparable to what other MMOs does to generate money. If you haven’t realized this yet then you apparently have no idea what’s going on in this ’’lovely’’ industry of yours.

Cancer.9065:

What about new accounts? A friend wants to buy the game but I don’t want to encourage him to buy it only to find out that he will have to pay more to “unlock chapters” trust me Anet you do not want to be associated with F2P cellphone games.

Why on earth are you called ‘cancer’ 0.o

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

Cancer.9065:

What about new accounts? A friend wants to buy the game but I don’t want to encourage him to buy it only to find out that he will have to pay more to “unlock chapters” trust me Anet you do not want to be associated with F2P cellphone games.

Why on earth are you called ‘cancer’ 0.o

Probably his horoscope sign.

I have a few friends I could convince to play GW2 but if I tell them to pay for the past content I dont think it will be that easy.

lordkrall.7241:

Or you can you know, login one time during the two weeks that event is available and have it unlocked for free.

It is unlock forever, for the account.

surely you pay for the content when you pay for hte game and the expansion?

Charging extra because you did not log in for a couple of weeks is just kittenty.

Hi,

Sorry or commenting on this thread but I am in the exact same situation… I fell like getting charged for this is a total disgrace.

I owned this game ever since launch of the original, but since ALL my friends eventually quit it, I started logging in less and less myself, until I basically didnt log in anymore for a long time, and even after this, I still preordered the expansion, paid full price, and on the first week of said expansion I dropped another like 40 GBP on cosmetic stuff purely because I felt like the game devs deserve more money because I think they did an excellent job with the expansion… but then I noticed that there are “gaps” in my understanding of the story, so I went looking for stuff that I might have missed only to be pay-gated by greed for something that was (and is supposed to be) free to players…

On top of that the price is waaaaay too high … I was considering paying for it with the remaining gems i got (even though I felt it was unjustified) but then I had to realize that it is not 200 gems total… it is 200 EACH…. NEVER … GOING … TO … HAPPEN

All they managed to achieve with this is that they got me kittened off and probably stop spending any more until they come to their senses.

They want an example of customer friendly dev team look at cd projekt red and their approach to customers with witcher 3 …

That is another game I considered the devs deserve more money for and I ended up sinking well over 500 pounds into it buying copies for friends, buying collectors edition, buying a whole ps4 with it for a friend of mine … Looks like something like this won’t happen here, I just don’t feel the attitude is correct. As Angry Joe and corporate commander would say “f* off and give me more money!” … I did… I wish I didnt now….

I’m sorry but IMO you can’t compare -insert single player game here- with -insert MMO name here- … a single player game is a finished product (except for the occasional DLC, free or not it may be) while an MMO is not, it’s a work in progress (in the sense that new content is kept getting released throughout the years).

As for living story 2, you had the option to log in during the 2-week release of each episode (just log in, and out again) to unlock them for free. Now you can buy the episodes with gems, which you can get from >ingame< gold. If this is not customer friendly I don’t know what is

Arianhod.3485:

I’m sorry but IMO you can’t compare -insert single player game here- with -insert MMO name here- … a single player game is a finished product (except for the occasional DLC, free or not it may be) while an MMO is not, it’s a work in progress (in the sense that new content is kept getting released throughout the years).

As for living story 2, you had the option to log in during the 2-week release of each episode (just log in, and out again) to unlock them for free. Now you can buy the episodes with gems, which you can get from >ingame< gold. If this is not customer friendly I don’t know what is

Sorry but I disagree, I can compare it because witcher 3 released 16 free dlc-s and they SAID it from the beginning that it would be free and they said that there would be paid expansions… Now I would have had no problems with arenanet saying we will release periodic content that will be free if you are an active player or whatever (However they phrase it) FROM THE START and not trying to sneak in this fee later on. But as far as I remember the pitch was that it is free once you bought the game once, and you only have to pay for expansions… (which I did…)
MMO-wise I only play wow and elite dangerous, but none of those charge me extra if I want to enter a vanilla raid because I didnt log in when that was the current thing, or charge me for trying to use wings (ED) because I didnt log in during that patch….

Look at it from this point of view:
I didnt play it for a while, apparently because I didnt find it engaging enough, or simply because some other games at the time were more engaging, and despite this I still had support and faith in them to buy, and not just buy, to PREORDER their official expansion, (even though I left the game because I didnt have enough fun with it) only to get awarded with a pay-gate mobile-game style….

“Now I would have had no problems with arenanet saying we will release periodic content that will be free if you are an active player or whatever (However they phrase it) …”

They said that, when they started releasing the living story, 2 years or so after the game’s release (with newsletters, blog posts etc). I don’t think that at game release it was already in their plans doing those eps in the way they currently are (and you can see this from how living story 1 was released).

“free once you bought the game once, and you only have to pay for expansions …”

I think their point was that it’s not sub-based, and their point still stand, you can log in whenever and play the game, you’re just missing 8 personal story episodes (something like 24 missions?)

btw, loved the witcher 3
ps: sorry for my english!!!