I bought the game full price, well my hubby bought it for me… to me this whole going f2p junk is bull, it’s basically a slap in my face. I think those who paid full price should get some sort of compensation, and those who disagree are probably those who’ve joined free. The economy is probably wrecked now.
I’m a veteran (not 3 years ago but close) and I have no problem whatsoever in gw2 becoming f2p. I mean it doesn’t change anything for me. I can understand the frustration of people who bought gw2 not so long ago and didn’t want to buy HoT. But for the others (I think the majority), it doesn’t change anything at all. You’ll still have to buy the expansion no matter how you jumped into the game, by paying or just downloading it for free.
Now regarding the community, we didn’t have to wait the f2p players to get toxic. Also, a lot of new players are just like me and you : people who want to have fun. The only difference is that they don’t have to pay to try the game and that’s GREAT. Just like O’Brien said, Anet is confident that new players will fall in love with the game and buy the expansion and I agree. Gw2 is an amazing and original MMO that deserves to be at least tried. The more new people try the game, the more constent players we’ll have. And in Gw2, more players mean more fun. So that’s a win-win situation honestly.
Regarding the economy, it is in fact an interesting decision. The gem store remains as it is now. New players gathering large amounts of Gold is going to be balanced by the Gold sunk into the new items HoT will provide. And for the price of the core game, it should be “re-earned” by the sales of HoT. Because indeed new players wont pay right now, but they will when they’ll eventually buy HoT or buy gems. So it is a rather good decision, at least in my opinion.
Also, ArenaNet made it clear now : everytime an expansion is available, the previous content becomes FREE. You won’t have to pay the core game + every previous expansion to be able to play. It is a great deal for newcomers and a great choice for the game in general. As for the veteran , it is how markets work. You buy something at launch and over time, its value decreases but you gained the amount of time you played the game. Sometimes I feel like people forget that buying games isn’t a “real” investment as you can’t profit by selling it later. It is something you buy to have fun, nothing more nothing less.
So the main question is : Did you have fun? If yes, then you have nothing to regret. If no, then quit the game and don’t buy HoT or wait till it comes out and see if you’re willing to make the same bet. Really it is as simple as that.
Also, the free outfit is a cool enough Thank you from Anet for us Veteran and we should be thankfull aswell for a game we spent more than a thousand hours playing and awesome people we met by doing so.
I bought the core game at full price and I don’t regret it at all. These last 2,5 years were great and I had a lot of fun, met awesome people that I may have not met if I waited for the game to be free.
This seems to be the argument they all use, its not a valid argument. Being satisfied with the product I originally purchased does not mean I have to be satisfied with all future changes or leave. As a customer I have the right to complain about my treatment by said company to the company. What they do with that complaint is up to them, but if I hear one more high school student ask me “Did you get 60 dollars worth of play out of it?” I am going to flip my kitten. That shows an ignorant, ridiculous, naive take on the real world…
I like how you’re assuming that we’re all children who don’t know the value of a dollar.
I’m 34 years old. I pay my own bills. I have a job. I pay taxes.
Nobody’s saying you don’t have a right to complain. We’re saying your complaints are unreasonable, childish, and ring of a massive entitlement complex. It reminds me a lot of the people that cried to high heaven when netflix split off its online and mail services which resulted in an 8 dollar a month price hike.
Completely reasonable from a business and consumer cost standpoint, but because you’re not being coddled or treated like a super special snowflake princess, you’re upset.
It’s not a case of a bunch of people that don’t know the value of a dollar here. Most of us who don’t have a problem with this realize both what it means for the game and for us as customers long term. We realize that the new player will always end up paying less and getting more. That’s fine. Once they’re invested they end up on the same system. It’s far more fair than asking every new player to pay an ever increasing cost as expansion after expansion are released. In your version of what’s fair, you’d be looking at getting new people in to the gamne by asking them to pay over a hundred bucks just for a basic account with all the expansions .
As an adult, doesn’t that seem unreasonable to you? Would you start playing a 3 or 6 year old MMO if it cost you more to play than something released last week?
See, it’s not that you’re dissatisfied. We all have things about that game that would be more convenient for us personally. It’s that your entire viewpoint is extremely selfish. You don’t care about new players coming in to the game, and you don’t value the service you’ve already recieved for the money you already paid. You’re asking for hand outs because you over value both your contributions and your own importance.
You are not a special snowflake. You do not deserve special treatment.
The good news is that, given this model, you can receive HoT for free and not pay a dime for it. Just wait until the next expansion releases if you feel that strongly about what “rights” you have, or what you “deserve” as a “veteran player”
As a fellow “veteran player” I’ll tell you straight up, there are things I’d like to see change in GW2, but business practices aren’t one of them. Arenanet has probably the most fair business model I’ve encountered in online gaming.
What are you talking about? As a consumer who’s bought a product people have every right to complain. There’s no “entitlement” to be had, we paid the product and therefore we are by every means allowed to be angry when a company does makes it free to play. It de-values the game for the old players, makes them feel as if they only paid to have some extra perks rather than have exclusive access to the game. Of course A-net knows that this backlash would have been created, they are prepared to take that risk because they know not all old players will leave and even if they do, the new ones would still most likely bring them profit. They think that they can earn back a portion of their fanbase with a mediocre armor skin but unfortunatly that doesn’t cut it. Nothing A-net can do will make me regain their trust.
