Guild Wars 2

Juan Ignacio.8903:

lettu is not a matter of gold or gems im pretty sure that every1 that bougth guild wars 2 is able to afford a custom arena on their own is about the thing that they are not adding anything new and they are charging you for that.

Yes, they are adding something new, and yes, they are charging for it. They are adding the ability to run your own server, change the map rotation, etc. Since you couldn’t do this before, it is “new” by definition.

Zeke Minus.5720:

All of the things you listed are items of cosmetic or little necessary value. They do not restrict or empower and are purely for convenience.

You’re right. And that’s why it doesn’t cost anything to play on a custom arena. Owning a custom arena and being able to change its settings, on the other hand, IS purely for convenience, does not empower the owner of the arena nor restrict non-owners of arenas, and has little necessary value because – remember this crucial fact – you don’t need it to play PvP!

By your own definition, owning a custom arena is not a feature, it’s a cash shop service.

Guild Wars 2 defines the future of online roleplaying games with action-oriented combat, customized personal storylines, epic dynamic events, world-class PvP, and no subscription fees!

The facts:

• Custom arenas/time tokens can only be purchased with gems (according to what they’ve stated so far)
• Gems can only be purchased with real money or with gold
• Gold cannot be acquired in sPvP
• Therefore, if you want to purchase and renew a custom arena without paying a monthly subscription fee, you or one of your buddies has to play WvW or PvE to earn gold enough to buy a time token.
• A monthly subscription fee goes against ArenaNet’s mission statement for Guild Wars 2 (indicated in the above quote).

My opinion:

• Having monthly rental time tokens that can’t be purchased via the sPvP reward currencies, glory and laurels, may feel too reminiscent of a monthly subscription fee for some players. Why should PvP players have to grind for gold in game modes they may not even enjoy, just to own or support a custom arena? What if the PvP player doesn’t have time to grind for gold—they have to pay real money every month for the “convenience” of playing how they like? I can see how that would feel like they’re being forced into what’s essentially a monthly subscription fee.
• Whether obtaining gold for a custom arena or time token is actually a significant time sink will depend on pricing.
• My gut tells me that custom arenas and time tokens should be purchasable with glory or laurels. It makes sense that, after playing sPvP enough to earn a significant amount of glory/laurels, a custom arena or time tokens would make great rewards. Laurels make more sense than glory to me; that way, players don’t feel like they can’t use their glory to create cosmetic rewards because they’re saving up for custom arenas or time tokens.
• Custom arenas are still in beta. I hope ArenaNet creates an alternative way to purchase custom arenas before releasing to the public, especially to avoid the PR nightmare of coming off as introducing a monthly subscription fee to play sPvP. sPvP was highly censured by the eSports community, and the last thing GW2 needs is to appear to be adding insult to injury.

I really hope that by the end of the beta, arenanet give the option to allow private dueling arenas that don’t cost money. I don’t have the money to pay $5.00 every day I want to duel in a private room. There will always be the chance that someone else has a server open that I can join, but I hate the idea of being at the mercy of how frivolously other people want to spend their money. ("Hey Friend! Let’s see if there are any idiots who are paying for an arena that they are not using so we can duel!) It’s an answer, but It’s not one that I look forward to. When people say that I can get 6g to open my own CA within an hour, I feel like pointing out that part of GW2 advertising was that they didn’t want people to blindly go through the grind to have fun. I don’t have the time or patients to grind for an hour. That’s why I enjoy GW2 already. That’s why this could be a game breaker for me.

lettucemode.3789:

Zeke Minus.5720:

All of the things you listed are items of cosmetic or little necessary value. They do not restrict or empower and are purely for convenience.

You’re right. And that’s why it doesn’t cost anything to play on a custom arena. Owning a custom arena and being able to change its settings, on the other hand, IS purely for convenience, does not empower the owner of the arena nor restrict non-owners of arenas, and has little necessary value because – remember this crucial fact – you don’t need it to play PvP!

By your own definition, owning a custom arena is not a feature, it’s a cash shop service.

Ahh, actually, I think there was a misunderstanding with how CAs were being said to work.

There are servers that are empty that nobody owns and can be played on without stipulation, and I thought they were getting rid of those in favor of a system fully powered by players and gems.

Now that this is not the case, you’re right, a CA is definitely a convenience and not a requirement to play.

This is a hard issue to argue either way, however we now have a pay-to-play system implemented into a buy-to-play business model, that though designed to be limited by the players serious enough to pay for the functionality, it is simply discouraging the game mode for other content that is essentially free barring the initial cost of the game. It is further disenfranchising players who wanted this as a core feature of the game, left because of it, and must pay more to come back to the game for it. This doesn’t bode well for rebooting the competitive pro teams, nor a potential e-sport quality game mode as monetization is now a deciding factor in teams looking to practice for the game mode. It’s a tall order to ask for more money from the e-sport seeking community when they were let down with a single match typed, functionality lacking, second-rate game mode to begin with.

It’s no secret ANet’s primary focus is on PvE content as has been clearly demonstrated in patch after patch, update after update. 1v1 dueling functionality or more game modes like a free for all or team death match, will only ever be a major focus of this development team if they are a jokingly added PvE element. And now, in order to continue funding their PvE centric development model, they are asking the minority player base in sPvP, the dedicated teams who want to hold regular practices, to pay more for a functionality issue that’s plagued the game mode since before launch? 1v1 dueling is such a small thing, yet they’d rather produce an endless stream of new PvE content dubbed a living story than create it. Wonder why there’s no dueling? Because you have an entirely new living story limited time only dungeon to distract you from how terribly unsupported the sPvP game mode is. Why no team death match? They needed to pay Rox’s voice actor I suppose. Why no free custom arenas? Not selling enough molten picks I guess.

I’m sternly disappointed with their decision on this, and think it will harm the sPvP community more than help it grow.

Many good points have been made for both sides but I do want to input a key part of custom arenas people have not mentioned. I am neither for nor against, simply waiting to see how it plays out.

One feature of the Arena is an option to restrict access with a barred “entrance” fee to the arena. So say that Anet sets the cost too high, players may feel obligated to charge for entrance so they feel they are not being exploited. Lets say some casual players want to join but all arenas open to the world cost an entrance fee, even if it is in game money, they do not have the money for whatever reason. This WILL alienate players already disappointed by lack of features. Easy access to MMO standards such as competitive ladders/dueling/casual options (Solo Q) do not exist and 2 of them will be even harder to access (dueling/casual play) with the removal of hot join. Like the OP, most casuals really are feeling squeezed by Anet and they can’t seem to figure out why. Frankly its a shame and a poor reflection on the community that we don’t have more players who are willing to explain the economics behind CA for them in a way that is not derisive and ineffective.

However, costs may be reasonable and players may not mind spending a few bucks IRL for a more active and engaging community, I know I would. I personally dislike PvE very much and would never even consider farming gold for access to CAs. Since Gold, like glory, are just virtual currency I do not see why Anet has not given glory points access at all to gems. Both are simply symbols of time invested, just make the conversion rate of glory ===> gems high enough to balance the reward. What about all the players who have earned so much glory and basically are being given gems? Shouldn’t be a problem considering the large number of PvE players who essentially already farm enough gold to never even need to consider real money for gems. Seeing as PvP players are denied access to gems in any form I wouldn’t mind Anet taking a small loss in profits to give the rest of their players access to something PvE has had access to all along, especially seeing as with incoming CA they will have a steady income from this side of the player base. Don’t be fooled by the smoke and mirrors, this game is still a grind. All most players ask is a little incentive in the rewards to make the time spent worth it.

Idk if there have been stated prices for CA yet, but depending on how high or low they are to buy/maintain will be the biggest decider on how they are used and welcomed by the community.

Yes, you have to pay to have duels in peace. Yes, that is seriously kittened up. It’s like they saw the decaying state of sPvP and thought “You know what we could do to fix this? Lets charge them.” So many things are needed to help the sPvP scene, adding a cost barrier is not one of them. Of course, now if you want to duel or deathmatch or whatever you can kinda do that, if you pay for the right.

Oh my god, if ArenaNet made Custom servers free there would be 10,000 spam servers all of a sudden? That’s kitten there’s barely enough PvPers to fill up 30 servers in the first place. Where are all these mysterious custom server spammers coming from?

To all you kitten acting like people just want something for free, lick the hairiest part of my kitten Everyone here already paid at least $60. ArenaNet themselves said pre-release they wanted the game to be funded by regular expansions and the original box fee. There are something like 200 empty servers at any given time anyway, and now you have to pay to use them (and the right to tweak minor attributes). I understand that money rules all, but seriously just think for a second. Nobody is playing this game for free.