Guild Wars 2

Do you guys think we’ll get a new login/character selection screen?

I personally don’t really like the current one, it’d be nice to have a new background/music upon login in to reflect that the expansion is live.

More character info such as character crafting disciplines would be good too.

I’ve been playing GW2 since the early access days, and I must admit, I was a little surprised that the standard edition of HoT does not include a character slot. Here are some of my thoughts on the matter.

From what I saw in the posts surrounding in this topic, the major upsets can be separated into two categories.

1) 50$ is too expensive, we don’t have know how big HoT is and it might not be worth the money

2) Everyone pays the same price for HoT, but new players gets the core game as something extra. So veterans are getting the short end of the deal.

Now for upset #1, it is indeed hard to judge the size of the expac right now. Arenanet has not provided a detailed feature list of HoT yet, so naturally people just guesstimate the size of Hot based existing shown features. It could be that they’ve already shown a majority of the content, but it is more likely that they are only giving us a taste of the features to come. After all, it wouldn’t make sense for them to reveal everything right now, or there wouldn’t be any new and fresh feeling when people log into HoT for the first time. So I wouldn’t jump to conclusions and say things like “HoT only has 1 map with 3 biomeswhich is wayyyy to small for a 50% expac”.
Therefore, if your main concern is the about the price and HoT content size. I would suggest you wait a while until they reveal more HoT features before making a decision. There is no hurry in pre-purchasing the game since no Beta has been announced yet.

Now for upset #2, which seems to be the majority of the complain. Many veterans feels like since the core game is worth at least 10$, so if HoT bundles everything together, there should be some rewards for veterans that accounts for the 10$ worth of lost value. This feeling of left behind is strengthen when many people had spent real money on gems over the last couple years, and they feel that the expac will never be possible if it were not for them sustaining Arenanet.
However, people needs to realize that Arenanet did not just sell you the game 3 years ago and went on vacation while collecting the money form gem sales. There were constant FREE content updates over the years, which the gem sales paid for. So don’t feel like you paid for the development of HoT and expect a discount as result of that. In addition, you also did get something extra for spending real money, either in the form of exchanging gem for gold, or make your character stand out and show off that brand new shiny weapon skin which few people have. It’s not like you donated the money and nothing came out of it.

Let me give you another example on upset #2. Imaging you bought a car 3 year ago at full price. You’ve enjoyed driving it and even gave the company more money by purchasing services such as changing oil at dealers. Without you and all the buyers that bought the card, the dealer/company would have closed down long ago. Now 3 years later, a new car is coming out. It is based on the old car design, they’ve upgraded the engine so that it is faster, more fuel efficient, and plenty of new features such as standard backup camera. The price for the new car is around the same price that you’ve paid for the old car 3 years ago, but new buyers will basically get your car plus additional features for the same price. On the other hand, you as an old customer can either buy the new car as a whole, which is built upon your old car, or not buy it at all and not get the new features. In this situation, I don’t think anyone one will go up to the dealer and say something like “hey, I want the upgraded engine, can you only sell me the engine at a reduced price?” or “I bought a car 3 years ago from you, can you sell me the new car minus the current cost of my old car?” . Nobody will do that because it doesn’t make any sense. You’ve already got the enjoyment of the price you paid, you got the extra services by paying more money. So dealers don’t owe you anything when new things come out. They might give you some incentive into buying the new stuff by offering a small discount, but they may not and you can’t force them.

TLDR – I think if you feel like the expac isn’t what you’ve expected, then hold off on the pre-purchase until later. Don’t be another “me too” person, and expect to have everything other people are getting. You’ve paid for the base game, you got it, Arenanet doesn’t owe you anything.

Ps. getting new players into the game isn’t a bad move anyways. The game will grow and better content will come as a result.