Guild Wars 2

We do not know the price for anything yet. It might be expensive, or it might be cheap.

KarlaGrey.5903:

Evan Lesh.3295:

Zeke Minus.5720:

Hmm…

If Custom Arenas are replacing hotjoin and they cost money, and hotjoin is free…

This could potentially kill off the population of prospective PvPers that don’t have gems/lots of gold. This will truly make PvP quite a “small town.”

It doesn’t cost gems to play on a server, only to own one.

Are you certain that relying on players’ generosity is a solid way of promoting pvp?
Especially in an already dwinding community.

Has been for a while now. Even if player generosity isn’t there, there’s always Anet generosity.

Here’s an idea, why not make them free for a “one term use”. For example, if I’m the “host” (I created the custom arena), the arena works as long as I’m in the game. This could be perfect for quick 2vs2 or 1vs1 matches, just a casual PvP players. I’m not really a PvP player, but sometimes I just want to have a quick duel with my friends, once in a while, and I think it’s kinda silly that you have to pay in order to set up a custom arena for a one time thing.

If you want your arena to last longer (be available even if the host has left the game), for week, a month or so, then feel free to use tokens and gems. This will be good for PvP-focused guilds.

If the number of Custom Arenas is the problem, you could always put a certain limit and a waiting queue for players that want to make a free arena, while the ones who have gems will be able to create arenas instantly. It might be a bit unfair to the people who don’t want to spend gems, since they have to wait, but it’s better than paying real money or gold, if you want to play just 3 PvP matches with your friends.

So… hold on. The single one mode in the game which earns no revenue (PvE earns gold, WvW earns (some) gold. Heck, even Jumping Puzzle aficionados earn gold) is the one which has to pay to use it?

How come we do not need to rent CoF when we want to run that instance?

Kanto.1659:

So… hold on. The single one mode in the game which earns no revenue (PvE earns gold, WvW earns (some) gold. Heck, even Jumping Puzzle aficionados earn gold) is the one which has to pay to use it?

How come we do not need to rent CoF when we want to run that instance?

All the tournaments and hot join PVP will still be there as before without any cost, so that comparison is not valid. It is only the custom arenas that will cost some money to host. But for that cost you can set your own rules and create the pvp you want.

its more like if you could buy whole WVW or PVE map, set your own respawns of mobs, reset timers of events etc… but unlike of SPVP, this would end with broken economy etc, so its impossible to provide…

Kanto.1659:

So… hold on. The single one mode in the game which earns no revenue (PvE earns gold, WvW earns (some) gold. Heck, even Jumping Puzzle aficionados earn gold) is the one which has to pay to use it?

How come we do not need to rent CoF when we want to run that instance?

just ,after the treadmill, they have found a way to enter a monthly payment fee

i can imagine what the preview for the patch will be:
“behold the new pvp in guild wars 2 complety new! now u can buy arenas to play with your friends the same game that u been playing the last 8 months without any change! and the only way to get these arenas is not by glory that u been earning, is trough gems! BUY NOW only 10$ a week”
gtfo

Principe I.1492:

Kanto.1659:

So… hold on. The single one mode in the game which earns no revenue (PvE earns gold, WvW earns (some) gold. Heck, even Jumping Puzzle aficionados earn gold) is the one which has to pay to use it?

How come we do not need to rent CoF when we want to run that instance?

just ,after the treadmill, they have found a way to enter a monthly payment fee

You don’t have to pay to play the custom arenas, just to host them.

^ totally offtopic

back in topic, i was reading options for CA that Anet wrote on the blog, and… i couldnt see any option to turn off point gaining from bases, or am i wrong ?

Principe I.1492:

Kanto.1659:

So… hold on. The single one mode in the game which earns no revenue (PvE earns gold, WvW earns (some) gold. Heck, even Jumping Puzzle aficionados earn gold) is the one which has to pay to use it?

How come we do not need to rent CoF when we want to run that instance?

just ,after the treadmill, they have found a way to enter a monthly payment fee

I think it’s fine!

In other games I have to pay for a server as well when I want to have my own one.
They will have to add some servers to their server park which will add costs. So I understand their point of view.

You can also play on public servers if you like – you don’t HAVE to pay for one.

Custom Arenas finally enable something I’ve been looking for quite a while now. Players can now create custome leagues on website where you set private games to team-vs-team. That’s great and I gladly pay for that.

Although: They cannot make it too expensive. Referring e.g. to CS (where every Clan bought Servers) you usually pay in between 10-20 Euro per month – it shouldn’t be more expensive than that. I guess other gameservers are similar (Minecraft maybe a bit cheaper)

I also hope they make it possible to pay per month – I don’t want to buy every day again a new server!

If it’s entirely free it would cause problems. Too many servers, abuse, etc…

butch.8136:

If it’s entirely free it would cause problems. Too many servers, abuse, etc…

Yeah like every other game …. what the kitten

I’m not sure why so many people are so excited over custom arenas. All they are going to be is a money maker for Arena net. Don’t get me wrong it will be neat to be able to set the rules for private games but I think a lot of people are exaggerating how great they are. This game has a lot of holes. Also, I would assume these custom arenas exist outside of the world of ranking so outside of the occassional kitten and giggles aspect I just wonder what they are really good for in the end outside of a better hotjoin type experience. I can’t believe some people are getting sucked into e-sports mania again. This game will never be an e-sport.

yea custom arena isn’t going to change anything imo. solo queues and team ratings would have been a much better use if development time

deesbaby.8726:

I know majority of the players are into PVP , now i’ve nothing against those players i have nothing but repsect for you .
Now i know part of the cartography leads you into the PVP areas , but please can there be a safer way (not bow or wave at another player) like having a white flag on your back that over looks your head so it’s easily seen, for the small amount of players like myself who are not that interested in the PVP side, who can still get thier cartography and charm pets etc.
All my characters in Guild wars 1 are PVE , a player has the choice in the character creation screen to be a PVP character or PVE before you choose your profession which was awesome for me, if i wanted to try PVP i could do at some point later on in the game
I have given a couple of suggestions forward in this post , so that the staff at GW2 could consider for future reference (maybe ) lol

For all the kittens like this one, I suggest going here. You may enjoy yourself more.

PvP is player vs player. if you do not want to play against players, do not go in to the areas where players will want to kill you.

Respect Anet! This is the update I was waiting for.
sPvP coming back to life!

Hector.6950:

Respect Anet! This is the update I was waiting for.
sPvP coming back to life!

? it was never alive to begin with

Juan Ignacio.8903:

Hector.6950:

Respect Anet! This is the update I was waiting for.
sPvP coming back to life!

? it was never alive to begin with

Yes it was. First months of this game PvP was really active.
It was just missing the motivation to keep playing it. This will sure bring it back.

yep, and charging a fee to play a part of the game using a currency that players don’t earn while playing that part of the game is DEFINITELY a way to pump juice back in to the Frankenstein that is spvp.

or not.

this is why gem inflation goes unchecked. ANet barely shows they are developers, they are certainly not economists.

You all are overlooking one clear benefit of having a cost associated with hosting these custom arenas; It will significantly reduce the amount of spam rooms and force users to really create rooms that are beneficial for the community. If everyone just made one for free, you would see the "F!uck you all rooms" pop up, etc. When someone has to drop a little bit (hopefully its like 500 gems at most for a kit, 100 gems after that to rent) of currency, it keeps the community in check regarding the decisions it makes. Not to mention, it supports the developers who have to, neigh, MUST, make money. Don’t forget this is an on-going game, with 24-7 servers, and constant (it’s been monthly since launch!) content releases and quality of life improvements. At least be realistic when you gripe here. If ArenaNet introduces a way to earn a very small amount of gems from free tournaments, etc, then I am 100% in support of these gem purchasing kits and monthly rental tokens. The main philosophy that I agree with ArenaNet and their use of gems is; Paying outright will give you access to their items (that have no game play advantage) quickly, but if you’re patient, you can earn access to the content at a slower rate through the game (i.e. hopefully earning gems with the release of non-beta custom arenas through free tournaments).

tl; dr - ArenaNet just needs to release spvp earnable gems to support this [custom arenas] and we’re good.

docMed.7692:

You all are overlooking one clear benefit of having a cost associated with hosting these custom arenas; It will significantly reduce the amount of spam rooms and force users to really create rooms that are beneficial for the community. If everyone just made one for free, you would see the “F!uck you all rooms” pop up, etc. When someone has to drop a little bit (hopefully its like 500 gems at most for a kit, 100 gems after that to rent) of currency, it keeps the community in check regarding the decisions it makes. Not to mention, it supports the developers who have to, neigh, MUST, make money. Don’t forget this is an on-going game, with 24-7 servers, and constant (it’s been monthly since launch!) content releases and quality of life improvements. At least be realistic when you gripe here. If ArenaNet introduces a way to earn a very small amount of gems from free tournaments, etc, then I am 100% in support of these gem purchasing kits and monthly rental tokens. The main philosophy that I agree with ArenaNet and their use of gems is; Paying outright will give you access to their items (that have no game play advantage) quickly, but if you’re patient, you can earn access to the content at a slower rate through the game (i.e. hopefully earning gems with the release of non-beta custom arenas through free tournaments).

tl; dr – ArenaNet just needs to release spvp earnable gems to support this [custom arenas] and we’re good.

sounds about right, esp if you give gems to high-tier players, for example top 500

or sell gems for glory, perhaps.

but I still earnestly believe that this is the wrong things to charge for.

pay for custom motd, more (or fewer?) player slots, game modes (ya, I likely would pay a one time fee to add a ctf to my server).

plus, one time fees as a concept is far more palpable than recurring “time charges”.

this business model is as archaic and draconian as cell phone contracts from the 90s and early 2ks.

you already bought the game, and abet already made millions of dollars

you want continued development? how about providing a working product from day one and then releasing xpacs for smaller fees.

If pvp has zero gold value then we should be able to exchange glory for gems, no doubt.

For those of you whining that still don’t get the point of having to pay or think ANet is getting greedy, the answer is this: These Customs servers are ones that ANet owns and they don’t have an infinite source of servers either, so it’s a limited resource. The payment and time token system is so the private or custom arenas: A. Don’t just get stuck to a person who quit or isn’t active for forever more and B. So to help limit the people who have one so they don’t have to, let’s say, give out a couple thousand(probably more) out to every player or guild that decides to get one. In the second case, they’ll run out of servers and have to tell everyone either that they’re going to have to redo the system so they take all the custom arena servers away or they have to tell everyone it was first come first serve and just leave all the slow or new players out.
So yeah, there is a good reason for it.

lol ill agree to pay for a custom arena when fractals / cof access cost gems too

Dondagora.9645:

For those of you whining that still don’t get the point of having to pay or think ANet is getting greedy, the answer is this: These Customs servers are ones that ANet owns and they don’t have an infinite source of servers either, so it’s a limited resource. The payment and time token system is so the private or custom arenas: A. Don’t just get stuck to a person who quit or isn’t active for forever more and B. So to help limit the people who have one so they don’t have to, let’s say, give out a couple thousand(probably more) out to every player or guild that decides to get one. In the second case, they’ll run out of servers and have to tell everyone either that they’re going to have to redo the system so they take all the custom arena servers away or they have to tell everyone it was first come first serve and just leave all the slow or new players out.
So yeah, there is a good reason for it.

There are literally hundreds of open and empty SPvP servers.
I don’t think Anet is going to have a supply problem any time soon…

And no one would make free custom arena’s bind to a persons account and be permanently up for all of time (even when empty), that would be silly.

my complaint is not about greed but about what I believe to be flat out wrong.

as the above said, bandwidth and storage are not an issue. they haven’t been for almost ten years.

Anet should be charging for other things than simply creating a custom match.

Juan Ignacio.8903:

lol ill agree to pay for a custom arena when fractals / cof access cost gems too

This is still not a valid comparison since the normal sPV kitten till free and it is only this addon with custom arenas that will have a cost to host, not to play!

Some reasonable comments posted in this thread lately

nakoda.4213:

my complaint is not about greed but about what I believe to be flat out wrong.

as the above said, bandwidth and storage are not an issue. they haven’t been for almost ten years.

Anet should be charging for other things than simply creating a custom match.

You should realize by now that ANET treats sPVP as a mini game / cash cow for the actual game (PVE)

You do not realise what you’re asking for when wanting CA’s to be free.
If everyone could create an arena there would be thousands of servers with 0 players.
Plenty of people will still buy an arena and surely there will be one that is set up just like you want it to, for instance “Insert Name’s Dueling Server”
If that is still not enough you can buy your own for a little fee (People are used to having a monthly fee, surely you can pay for the rights to own a server) and hope that enough people like it so they will buy renting time for you (Yes, that is possible).
This way you can also split the fee if you have a guild or play with a group of friends.

Keep in mind that it is VERY common to charge for renting servers, as we have seen with CS and VOIP like Ventrilo and Mumble.

waka.9826:

nakoda.4213:

my complaint is not about greed but about what I believe to be flat out wrong.

as the above said, bandwidth and storage are not an issue. they haven’t been for almost ten years.

Anet should be charging for other things than simply creating a custom match.

You should realize by now that ANET treats sPVP as a mini game / cash cow for the actual game (PVE)

Lol, have you been to PVE!? The money they make is not from pvp and will never be. It’s the vanity/utility items in the gem store that gives them money from ppl who rather pay with cash than gold. This cost for CAs will just cover the costs of them having the servers up and running.

And as said before it needs to be limits so the dedicated ppl/groups hosting these servers stay populated without thousands upon servers from everyone as it would be if it was free to start a CA.

Devs making money out of PvP is a really good thing. The more money PvP makes, the more love it will get. They could for instance hire an entire crew to work on balancing, tournamants, even real prize money. Also I would love to see Special PvP armour bought with gems which you can aquire at a certain ranking. These kind of things makes you wanna play over and over again…

As much as I like Custom Arenas and Spectator Mode: But where is the incentive to play here? I mean there is nothing new, just some tweaks and toggles you can change.

The umpcoming patch is a bit overhyped, due to no changes in the incentive and progression-feeling for the playerbase. I hope the lack of titles and a real rank-progression will be fixed this year.

Custom arenas are the first step toward third-party organised tournaments and more generally they give the tools to the community to make the game alive and much more enjoyable.

If the game had shipped with the current ladder, mmr and 1-round tournament system and if by the end of 2012 they had release custom arenas and obs mode, gw2 would be on the top of the pvp games right now:p with a much more lively population and a much healthier community:p

The devs always overhype stuff in their blog posts on the main page… but yeah… the amount of overhype regarding Custom Arenas and Spectator modes is really big. I almost laughed out loud when I read that:

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/introducing-custom-pvp-arenas-and-spectator-mode-beta/

They must have made some marketing guy write that.

I mean… "I can’t wait to see what the community does with custom arenas! "

What should they do that you can’t wait to see it? As if there were something totally new implemented but it’s only the usual maps and the usual game mode with some settings you can change.

“From setting up one-on-one duels while others players watch, to organizing player-run tournaments,”

Yeah… duels. That’s how they want to make money. Players that want to duel need to pay. Someone in some other thread(or was it even here in some of the posts above) compared it to the Dungeons in PvE… why don’t we have to pay there? Lol. (But PvE is already bringing money from other sources like cosmetical stuff they are selling at the gem store).

Also the spectator mode seems pretty boring. I mean click 1 characters name and then auto following him? Would be much better if it also were possible to fly around the whole map(independently from where the chars are) as an invisible ghost.

As far as i know it will be possible to watch also from some fixed points on the map, other than players POV, i think it was something really needed cause this way new players can learn from high ranked pvpers.

@Empathetic Fighter
Do you really need a carrot on a stick?
Fun, Competitiveness and striving to be nr. 1 is not enough? You REALLY need a materialistic incentive?

@Luthan
Stop being to god kitten negative. If you do not like the change, then find another game that you like to play.
As far as i have heard spectator comes with more than just auto-following one player. As for Free-Look mode, yes it would be awesome, but give them time and it might be implemented later.

KrisHQ.4719:

@Empathetic Fighter
Do you really need a carrot on a stick?
Fun, Competitiveness and striving to be nr. 1 is not enough? You REALLY need a materialistic incentive?

Even A-Net said that “symbols of prestige” are required to create the highest possible competitiveness. A progression is needed to bring the player to invest time into the game. This was the case in GW1 and should be the same in GW2.

We have ranks, leaderboards and the c-title /gladiator-title at the moment.
The problem here is that ranks doesn’t tell you anything about a player, just how long he played in hotjoin.
C-Title was accomplished after a week and leaderboards are not ingame nor are they seperated into guild/teams or soloQ/premades.

Basically we have no indicator of skill after 8 months of release. And besides the leaderboards I feel no progression of the game.

I’m just saying how it is and how many many other ppl feel the same. As much as I like the game, and I really do, I feel not rewarded for playing it. Means not I’m having no fun.

Why exactlly is it not acceptable for a company to try and earn money from her product? Of course they will try to make money, and of course it should be totally acceptable by everyone. No one creates a game so that you can play free!!

The problem with pvp is that it needs much more stuff , so that it gives motivation to all of us to play. Custum arenas is something nice, i just disagree with the top 50 players been able to create an arena at he beggining. Arenas should go to Guilds, so that Guild members can train and learn to play better.
My Guild would have like 20 more players playing tournaments if we had an arena to help them learn how to play.

Gotta agree on the fact that ranks doesnt tell much about the player skill, lets say that its more likely that a high rank could be a skilled player rather than a low rank, but its not always true…. infact you can find some high ranks being noobs in tourneys cause they farmed all their rank in hotjoin.

Amelor.9845:

Why exactlly is it not acceptable for a company to try and earn money from her product? Of course they will try to make money, and of course it should be totally acceptable by everyone. No one creates a game so that you can play free!!

The problem with pvp is that it needs much more stuff , so that it gives motivation to all of us to play. Custum arenas is something nice, i just disagree with the top 50 players been able to create an arena at he beggining. Arenas should go to Guilds, so that Guild members can train and learn to play better.
My Guild would have like 20 more players playing tournaments if we had an arena to help them learn how to play.

Sadly “Guilds” are not in the focus of A-Net or not considered. We have individually seperated leaderboards, individual mmr, a not seperated soloQ, no guild-halls etc.
Also the philosophy of A-Net is to be casual-friendly, but even casuals don’t feel satisfied. SoloQueing is not funny if being stomped by premades etc. . And there is no incentive to create a guild, because a guild has no sense beside having a list of friends in a seperate window.

The example of your guild shows i could be right. The target to be casual-friendly has been missed and the hard-introduce and learning-curve makes it not easier to start with.

I totally agree. Thats the main problem of Guild Wars 2. It has nothing to do with Guilds!!!
Give motivation to Guilds, this would be a huge boost. Everyone would love to have their own Guild Arena, and have Guild pvp Rankings. Solo Queing is what makes people leave this game.

I think they are (slowly) moving in that direction that gives some more importance to guilds, guild missions are a start, we can hope we will see something else in future.

Amelor.9845:

I totally agree. Thats the main problem of Guild Wars 2. It has nothing to do with Guilds!!!
Give motivation to Guilds, this would be a huge boost. Everyone would love to have their own Guild Arena, and have Guild pvp Rankings. Solo Queing is what makes people leave this game.

I think owning and maintaining a server is what a guild would be able to do more efficiently than an individual. A collective gold bank is greater than that of one man… unless you play the market that is, in which case you are a one man guild.

Dirame.8521:

Amelor.9845:

I totally agree. Thats the main problem of Guild Wars 2. It has nothing to do with Guilds!!!
Give motivation to Guilds, this would be a huge boost. Everyone would love to have their own Guild Arena, and have Guild pvp Rankings. Solo Queing is what makes people leave this game.

I think owning and maintaining a server is what a guild would be able to do more efficiently than an individual. A collective gold bank is greater than that of one man… unless you play the market that is, in which case you are a one man guild.

Yep, this will happen later. It’s a step into the right direction for sure. But at the moment it’s hard to know all guilds out there, because there is not really an ingame-existing list of it. So you still have to find guilds on your level, which is really hard.

Well what did we expect ? It’s a gw2 part played by what, 10% of its players, with no way to get some money from it.
They are doing the right thing, if u want to host some tournament or whatever, pay for it, and 10 $ month seems a cheap price, considering this arenas will be a guild or a team effort (5 players, 2 $ each, doesn’t seem too much).
It’s not going to make gw2 an esport (gw2 will probably never be an esport) , but it will help fund the developers and help create private tournaments, it’s a good idea.

charge to:

- add reserved slots
- put up a custom MOTD with external links and whatnot
- have a server specific leader board
- have access to more game modes
- prizes for player organized tournaments
- “guild swag” that servers can sell to fund the ongoing use of other paid options
- pvp-related Black Lion store items (more finishers, custom weapon skins, etc)

do not charge to:

- play your subscription free game

Anet has NUMEROUS ways to make money off of PvP without charging people for something they already have.

I firmly believe that Anet never actually discusses things at meetings, teams just go ahead and do things and then justify themselves later at meetings.

I love how ppl agree with paying $$ for having a custom arena when u have so many games that they have that thing for free and since realease.
If they had it with some sort of currency used in pvp yeah they would be cool but nop so yeah f off. Anet have turned into Goldnet.
And dont tell me “they have to make money” many people bougth this game becouse of no sub and later on buy the next expansion.
The pvp community took so many hits and this is just a new 1.

As of right this minute, 36 of 325 sPvP servers have players in it, and only 2 out of those 36 are full. Anet wants to charge you for using the other 289 empty servers.