Guild Wars 2

MiniEquine.6014:

joneb.5679:

MiniEquine.6014:

joneb.5679:

All that extra stuff you said Vets got to play that new players may not, thats what we were paying for when we bought GW2 as that was what was in the manifesto. Living Story was promised to us. More than that its because vets bought the original GW2 and kept playing, investing time and often more money, that HoT is a reality now. So, your idea that we got more than new players as if we were blessed is ridiculous.

We certainly are not better off than new players with the price of the new seemingly minimal expansion. I dont play WoW and I do not accept prices for an add being that of a full game.

This has nothing to do with veterans being “blessed” with being able to play the game for the past 3 years, it’s the fact that they have been. Anet is not going to pay you to play their game. No company does this. You did get more than new players. Take any new player out there right now and compare what you have against them. Thousand more play hours, Living Story completion at no cost/that is no longer in game, seasonal rewards, holiday rewards, etc. If you really think none of that has any value, buy a new account and don’t upgrade your current one to HoT. If you do think it has value, how much value would you place on it?

You of course don’t have to buy the expansion. You don’t have to ever give Anet any money ever again if you don’t like their business practices. In fact, if you don’t like those practices, then don’t continue to give them money. But the amount of time you spent playing the game does not have 0 value to you.

You make no sense to me whatsoever. Your comment is as if we are from different worlds. We probably are metaphorically. Of-course everything Vets have played has been of value to them and we paid for all of that when we bought the game as that was what was offered and what we got. Anet has never said anything the like of the value for vets paying $50 for HoT includes paying towards that which came before it. Thats a ridiculous notion.

We do live in different worlds, apparently, but I’m grounded in the reality of the situation: you buy a product with certain features offered at the time, you only buy those features. In what world should you get the expansion for less than other people? Having it at a lower price point would be nice, but it is by no means necessary.

Do you work for Anet maybe trying to persuade people in any way you can the price for the expansion is worth it?

Oh cut it out. Are you so willing to accuse me of such a thing? No. I even flat-out told you that you have no obligation to ever give Anet any money for as long as you live. Nobody has to ever give them any more money. They need to price their product competitively. However, your entitlement is what is ridiculous, and you don’t deserve the expansion any cheaper than anybody else.

Now you are saying I think the expansion should be cheaper for some or for me which is so wrong and misinterpreted. It should be cheaper all round. If Anet wanted to create a bundle with the original game they should have priced it as a bundle combining the expansion price and reduced price on the core game and kept the standalone expansion price for vets. So the expansion price is the same for us all. What they did was sly and cynical making it that from HoT on you can only buy both together.

I still have the core game minus HoT and can play that without accepting HoT so until that changes even the bundle is not core. So Anet have pulled a fast one. It could work it may hit them hard in the long run. You accept what you want and believe what you want. The world will go on with conflicts because people have different opinions, ethics but also because some allow themselves to be consumed in lies and manipulation.

I also don’t think I or anyone selse are entitled to anything different from anyone else I just have a sense of fairness butyou are more capitalist oriented it seems to me.

MiniEquine.6014:

joneb.5679:

All that extra stuff you said Vets got to play that new players may not, thats what we were paying for when we bought GW2 as that was what was in the manifesto. Living Story was promised to us. More than that its because vets bought the original GW2 and kept playing, investing time and often more money, that HoT is a reality now. So, your idea that we got more than new players as if we were blessed is ridiculous.

We certainly are not better off than new players with the price of the new seemingly minimal expansion. I dont play WoW and I do not accept prices for an add being that of a full game.

This has nothing to do with veterans being “blessed” with being able to play the game for the past 3 years, it’s the fact that they have been. Anet is not going to pay you to play their game. No company does this. You did get more than new players. Take any new player out there right now and compare what you have against them. Thousand more play hours, Living Story completion at no cost/that is no longer in game, seasonal rewards, holiday rewards, etc. If you really think none of that has any value, buy a new account and don’t upgrade your current one to HoT. If you do think it has value, how much value would you place on it?

You of course don’t have to buy the expansion. You don’t have to ever give Anet any money ever again if you don’t like their business practices. In fact, if you don’t like those practices, then don’t continue to give them money. But the amount of time you spent playing the game does not have 0 value to you.

You make no sense to me whatsoever. Your comment is as if we are from different worlds. We probably are metaphorically. Of-course everything Vets have played has been of value to them and we paid for all of that when we bought the game as that was what was offered and what we got. Anet has never said anything the like of the value for vets paying $50 for HoT includes paying towards that which came before it. Thats a ridiculous notion. Do you work for Anet maybe trying to persuade people in any way you can the price for the expansion is worth it?

KOPPER.1458:

Does it have monetary value? The core game is now free if you buy HoT. You can not buy the core game from Anet anymore.

“To clarify: $50 is the price of the expansion. We included the core game as a free bonus to make it easier for new players to get into it.”

This explains it all. The expansion is 50. This does not include any value for the core game. That is free. You may perceive it differently, but they answer this above.

So you say that new players get a better value. Sort of, on the surface it looks that way. But as a Veteran player you’ve had a lot more time with the game. And depending on when you started playing, a lot more value that new players won’t have or even see in some circumstances.

Perhaps that isn’t enough, that will depend on each player. Anet is not going to remove the core game from buying HoT, this is how they want to sell it. They aren’t going to give a discounted copy, because HoT is 50. You could wait for a sale, or buy from a 3rd party retailer closer to launch. These might give discounts, and that is up to you.

All that extra stuff you said Vets got to play that new players may not, thats what we were paying for when we bought GW2 as that was what was in the manifesto. Living Story was promised to us. More than that its because vets bought the original GW2 and kept playing, investing time and often more money, that HoT is a reality now. So, your idea that we got more than new players as if we were blessed is ridiculous.

We certainly are not better off than new players with the price of the new seemingly minimal expansion. I dont play WoW and I do not accept prices for an add being that of a full game.

Just to make sure people are clear on the point if you are waiting on HoT to get cheaper Anet Im sure has not said that it will not produce more Living Story based on HoT that will have to be paid for separately if HoT is purchased at a later time. Also they haven’t mentioned if HoT instead of becoming cheaper down the line may be bundled with Living Story 3 to make it just as expensive or more so. In this latter case you may as well have bought Hot at release.

I dont think Anet are above doing this and will attempt to get there $50 from everyone however we look at it as HoT without LS3 may be more incomplete than GW2 without HoT.

I’m happily playing another MMO now but if Anet had any sense they would offer a better price for players showing an interest even if playing elsewhere. I find it sad I have been played like this. Maybe I will still be able to get a cheaper price elsewhere near the release date or just after. I can always buy an extra slot with gold converted to gems. That’s the only hope Anet have of getting me back even if temporarily.

warbignime.4610:

OMG, people are still going on about this? Have you ever played wow,ff14 or any non f2p with expansion? They all do more or less the same thing, and those are p2p games. You also should not buy any new release video game in the future too cause eventually they go on sale and you spent way more than new players. Gosh.

I played DDO and it didn’t make you pay for your current game again when expansions came out. I don’t think Lotro did either. I don’t know of its younger players who just accept bad treatment but I’m from an age group that would stand up for their rights. You young ones do know you have the right to do that or are you caught up in the baby talk such as calling legitimate complainers whiners.

Ozmian I don’t mind if people miss LS content they pay to have it but its the fact that Anet have been able to make such a high package price because if long time players don’t want to pay that price now they will have even more to pay later. They are banking on most every player giving in to their current price because the other option to hold off is even worse.

Well first regarding the pressure and manipulation. Just because it happens does not mean its right or acceptable and if Anet sell HoT as standalone for a cheaper price because the consumer exercises their right to complain and not buy the bundle then its a win for common decency and a strike against companies and organisations just taking the mickey

I am sure Anet will bring out more LS as they probably have already got more material than what comes out with HoT and as I said its more pressure on people to buy HoT at the current price as waiting for it to be cheaper means those players will need to pay for LS.

Furious.2867:

Ravenmoon.5318:

OP have you considered the possibility that this is precisely why you don’t own a game studio? Or a supermarket. Or anything that deals with customers directly. Oh snap.

Also lack of intelligence is not a disease <O>

But I do have an MBA from an Ivy League. I’d hate to own a supermarket because the vertical is stupidly competitive but margins hover only at 2-3%. Kinda hard to respect anyone whose scope of business knowledge is limited to high competition, low margin industries.

I don’t own a game studio because I’d hate to have customers like you.

I’m an extremely well paid consultant and I have no shame turning down clients I feel would be difficult to work with.

Was amused by the rhetorical questions you asked me. I doubt that you own a game studio or supermarket or even deal with customers.

My question to you isn’t rhetorical…

Are you a high income, debt-free, self-made multimillionaire?

The bottom line is what makes the huge difference between you and what I call decent people. I truly believe people like yourself are so corrupted by your position and riches you can’t see how your arrogance and greed is so far from what makes a “good” person. You contradict yourself about tight margins and how you need to make sure your business profits with the fact that the people that run these businesses are able make sure they are very nicely well off indeed. I would never do business with you. I would feel dirty.

To the OP and Giland, taking out the sense of entitlement there is nothing good about Anets price for current customers and the way Anet have created a no win scenario to make their overpricing the best option against losing your characters further advancement and paying a fortune more for LS content later. That’s not good customer service. So the only good argument is its business take it or leave it. If GW2 is adversely affected by losing many more players you will all find the game won’t die but its growth will.

I never once mentioned this is a scam. Read my posts. I’m just making sure this is not overlooked because the attention is just on the initial package cost. I did say Arena net think this is crafty as its another way to pressure current customers to buy the initial HoT at full price. This is not new but it was all planned a long time ago when they had the idea to charge for old LS.

Has anyone also brought to peoples notice if you don’t buy HoT now you will have to most probably have to spend much more later if you want to also have the rest of the benefit of the Living Story from then on. This is not new but it does mean if you dont pay that $50 or £34.99 now you could have to pay $150 or £100 down the line for waiting. I’m also sure Anet will hold back content so after HoT is released the first LS will be a month later and that will add more dollars if you want it so even after a month your full HoT package with LS will be maybe about £45.99 or $70.

So no one else cares that not only you have to pay £34.99 or $50 but that if you wait until you get the HoT package later you will need to spend even more if you want to continue through the Living Story (which I know is not new)? This mean in a years time you may have to fork out possibly a £100 (around $150 odd) to get everything from this point in. It’s a no win situation and I’m sure Anet will hold content back so the first LS (first extra cost)will happen only a month after HoT is released.

Ricky.4706:

show me where on the gw2 page I can buy an unexpanded version ?
No reasoning or guesswork required. It doesn’t exist anymore.
Hot is not a separate product, it is the new core game.

Hot is not the core game. It cant be.
Its the core game plus expansion even though that’s all that is available to buy now. The core game is still Guild Wars 2 only because people who still have that can still play it without HoT. HoT is not necessary its just that you cant buy it separately now so that means GW2 without HoT is still core. If suddenly GW2 players without it get stopped from playing their game or have HoT integrated free or otherwise then the core game will be HoT. This is fact!

I’m thinking possibly Anet will hold back already made content when HoT is released so they can do a new LS update based on it a month after then every so often after that again. Wouldn’t this mean if others decide to buy it at later dates they will have to pay for HoT and the following LS episodes on top of that too? Am I right Anet?

I’m just thinking Anet are concocting a no win situation here. Even if they do eventually reduce the price of HoT the fact that we have to buy the LS Story updates as well will make it more expensive than ever. I think Anet thinks this is great crafty idea but such a cost will be forever prohibitive to me and maybe others too and will further their reputation in a downward spiral. It looks like I will be sticking with a rival MMO.

Arkblue.6129:

joneb.5679:

LoL what I wrote is fact. It’s not opinion. I did not say the original game is available otherwise than with the HoT. I said its bundled with it free of charge as Anet have stated the price of Hot includes the original for free. That is fact. Also its fact that no matter the price, the bundle is more favourable to new customers and it is a bundle no matter what. There is no question that the base game is required. That changes nothing of the cost and value to new and current players.

It’s becoming apparent you are not capable of making sense of this. The analogy you use of restaurants giving free sample is evidence of that. Free samples are never full meals in my experiwnce. they are a very tiny portion as an example of the food on offer. Maybe you are thinking of a voucher for the first visit.

Im not getting involved in your endless illogical debate. I already made it clear we are owed nothing from Anet and that they are free to not do anything for current customers. I also said its business but I’m the kind of person who believes in human decency and decency over business would mean Anet would give better value on the new HoT expansion only for current customers.

Okay enjoy what ever you are intending to do with this thread.

Decency, credibility and affection are also main factors when you monetize on aesthetic content. If a subscription games loses credibility, they still retain the full value of their subscription, as long as players don’t completely quit the game.
When a f2p game with cash shop model loses credibility everyone starts purchasing less.

Correct.

LoL what I wrote is fact. It’s not opinion. I did not say the original game is available otherwise than with the HoT. I said its bundled with it free of charge as Anet have stated the price of Hot includes the original for free. That is fact. Also its fact that no matter the price, the bundle is more favourable to new customers and it is a bundle no matter what. There is no question that the base game is required. That changes nothing of the cost and value to new and current players.

It’s becoming apparent you are not capable of making sense of this. The analogy you use of restaurants giving free sample is evidence of that. Free samples are never full meals in my experiwnce. they are a very tiny portion as an example of the food on offer. Maybe you are thinking of a voucher for the first visit.

Im not getting involved in your endless illogical debate. I already made it clear we are owed nothing from Anet and that they are free to not do anything for current customers. I also said its business but I’m the kind of person who believes in human decency and decency over business would mean Anet would give better value on the new HoT expansion for current customers too.

Okay enjoy what ever you are intending to do with this thread.

Jongi.7612:

joneb.5679:

TO the op why does such an intelligent person as you seem so ignorant towards peoples rights to speak for themselves when they see something is poor value and poor treatment.

There is no such thing as loyalty from any company no matter what they say but there is good customer care. We owe GW 2 nothing and they owe us nothing but there are expectations.

First we were told when we bought the game we would be getting frequent free updates regards the Living Story. We did. Some people paid £49.00 for the original game but including LS it was fantastic value for money but that’s what we were paying for.

Many of us hoped for a big expansion pack and we don’t mind paying for it. When HoT was detailed at first some of us felt it wasn’t that much and it certainly wouldn’t have the same playtime for many of us as the base game. We have not had the LS story for a long time so we obviously know this is to replace the free LS updates this year most probably or at least for 6 months.

We expected reasonable value for it. £20.99 to £24.99 is acceptable for me with a free character slot. Well what Aney offered is much costlier and certainly not value for money for many of us because the current new content we know about now has absolutely no way near the life the original game has.

Anet obviously know a lot of people have invested a lot of time on this game and money in the gem store and they are betting on people, happily or angrily, buying the expansion because the only other options is their characters will stop progressing through the game as a whole. They are treating us like a captured audience they can manipulate.

We are not though. It’s not like we are stuck in a music festival having to buy drinks at extortionate prices as we were not allowed to bring our own. We can walk away to other games. I’m sure most if not many of us have done this before. I already moved on but would have come back for a fairly priced HoT even if for a short time. It won’t happen at this price.

I have no issues with someone speaking their opinions, but if they say something like arena net does this or that it implies that its a fact. Say why you dont think something is worth it, but if you say that someone gets more or better treatment than another you can test it and show how their thought processes since they arent looking at the entire picture.

What procedure do you have to do this as based on your reply you are very wrong indeed. Very wrong.

What veterans players have experienced so far was given to them by Anet as part of the package and service they alreeady paid for and may have invested more through the gem shop so that has no import whatsoever to the expansion. We are not entitled to any more either though.

So putting that to sleep. The expansion has been marketed in such a way as that it can now only be bought with the original game. Now as the purpose of an expansion is to expand on what you already have the original game with it is of no use to any current players. It is therefore a fact that the current price though supposedly with a free base game favours bringing in new custom who get more value due to the bundle with the original game which they need.

Current customers therefore are not getting the same level of treatment as new comers. To get a similar level of treatment they should at least get something of similar value free in addition. It is now only an assumption by me but the reason there is no incentive for current customers is Anet are depending the incentive is already there since if current players don’t pay for HoT they cant evolve the characters they have invested in for many years. This is again very ignorant even if they have the right to act this way.

The only reason people may feel its okay to play on peoples invested time and interest is in my opinion they are the same kind of people who put business above human decency.

TO the op why does such an intelligent person as you seem so ignorant towards peoples rights to speak for themselves when they see something is poor value and poor treatment.

There is no such thing as loyalty from any company no matter what they say but there is good customer care. We owe GW 2 nothing and they owe us nothing but there are expectations.

First we were told when we bought the game we would be getting frequent free updates regards the Living Story. We did. Some people paid £49.00 for the original game but including LS it was fantastic value for money but that’s what we were paying for.

Many of us hoped for a big expansion pack and we don’t mind paying for it. When HoT was detailed at first some of us felt it wasn’t that much and it certainly wouldn’t have the same playtime for many of us as the base game. We have not had the LS story for a long time so we obviously know this is to replace the free LS updates this year most probably or at least for 6 months.

We expected reasonable value for it. £20.99 to £24.99 is acceptable for me with a free character slot. Well what Aney offered is much costlier and certainly not value for money for many of us because the current new content we know about now has absolutely no way near the life the original game has.

Anet obviously know a lot of people have invested a lot of time on this game and money in the gem store and they are betting on people, happily or angrily, buying the expansion because the only other options is their characters will stop progressing through the game as a whole. They are treating us like a captured audience they can manipulate.

We are not though. It’s not like we are stuck in a music festival having to buy drinks at extortionate prices as we were not allowed to bring our own. We can walk away to other games. I’m sure most if not many of us have done this before. I already moved on but would have come back for a fairly priced HoT even if for a short time. It won’t happen at this price.

£20.99 as its a small fraction of the size GW2 was when it was released. I got bored with GW2 and I am enjoying another game but I am curious about HoT and have 5 characters to return to and a guild still. There are plenty full world mmorpgs at HoTs price tag with much more new systems, classes, stories to explore. Don’t need an extra slot as they can be bought with ingame cash conversion. So yeh £20.99 is the most its worth to me.

DevilLordLaser.8619:

Solori.6025:

Are you seriously suggesting that people
A. Stop telling anet they are upset
B. Excuse anet for shady business practices and
C. Be happy with everything that is wrong with this preorder fiasco and ignore the issue?

You may as well ask people to be happy with being stabbed in the liver.

Nah. I’m saying that this:

!http://vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net/robber-penguin-agency/images/7/72/Gaming-Rage-Face.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20140618172440!

Isn’t going to get anybody anywhere, even en masse. People are perfectly entitled to their opinions, and the forums exist for the purposes of discussion and feedback.

We have long, long, long since passed the point of ‘discussion and feedback’.

They know they screwed up. Telling them nine hundred thousand more times is not going to improve their response time. TELLING THEM IN ALL CAPS HOW MAD U R is also not going to improve their response time. I’m fairly certain the actual game devs are fighting Marketing as hard as they can on this one, but trust me – Marketing gets more say than they do in matters like this. NCSoft is not going to be backing codemonkeys over money people, even when things have exploded in their faces like this.

And in the meantime, there are folks in my guild who are almost horrified at the amount of incendiary horse hooey being flung around in here.

Heh, suppose I was just trying to tell people that their blood pressure could use some reduction. All this crazed insanity cannot be healthy for you folks. Maybe give the Poopocalypse a rest and switch to relatively calm and peaceful “This is why I have yet to purchase the Heart of Thorns expansion, ArenaNet. I would like to, but in good conscience I cannot until these issues are addressed” posts for a while instead?

I guarantee you those’ll go over better.

What size of petition would make the biggest impression 100,1,000, 100,000
Would a protest march of a 100 be as effective as 10,000?
The more Anet see in the forums they can bet there are multiples of that unhappy who don’t write here. The question then is can Anet afford to gamble on losing a lot of players?

Okay your standard expansion for Heart of Thorns is £34.99
I offer you £20.99
There is a sense of entitlement here but only as a customer who you are trying to sell this product to and who has a right in his own economy to barter. As I work in Customer Services in a large communications company I know there is no such thing as loyalty to a customer, so this is from a business point of view.

Here are the reasons why.

• We are not getting a spare slot but I don’t want one at the price you quote as those can be bought converting gold to gems.
• I already have the game and don’t want a second account.
• The size of the expansion from what I read here is a small fraction of that of Guild Wars 2 originally which wasn’t much more in price so the ratio of price to content is so much poorer in that context.
• There are many other ftp and btp mmorpg games out there than there ever have been to choose from and many more to come. I would rather pay the HoT expansion price on a btp game with a large full world and much more new themes, playstyles, classes and storylines to explore as well.
• I burned out a quite bit in GW2 and have not really enjoyed the last seasons creations as much as most of LS1. Therefore, I have not played in a long time instead playing another mmorpg with three characters on the go and enjoying it very much.
• I do miss my old Guild Wars guild and I am interested to see where HoT is going with things as it would be nice to do this stuff with others but at the price you quote Im not that interested.
• I’m pretty sure eventually I will get a cheaper version of the expansion anyway at my leisure

Do we have a deal?

Very poor for Anet to introduce this at such a premium price and to justify it throwing the game in when many of us don’t need that whole game again. Its wrong on so many levels but there are always those on good incomes that can make ignorant comments such as you paid only $60 three years ago so its only another $50 big deal, even if another player has also paid in to the cash shop and is on a low income. It is such a joke because all it is is the Living World in one go instead of spread out over a year with a few extras.

Anet you are fools. You had special offers for GW2 at half price I believe just recently so in anticipation people will have bought it to get ready for the expansion and certainly wont buy it again. I can see this getting a very cold reception and I can see it soon as expansion only on its own at $30. Whether or not it doesn’t matter to me. I have found another game whilst waiting and I will stay there until this gets cheap if I even do come back. I won’t wish you good luck though as you are money grabbing and ignorant of your own consumer base.

You need to get your foot scene to. Get that bullet out before it is poisoned, metaphorically.

Vayne.8563:

What it will come down to is people playing ESO long enough to see the flaws, which are bound to still be there, albeit different flaws than launch.

People here who are saying ESO is refreshing, many of them anyway, are in the new game honeymoon phase, which passes eventually.

I’m sure it is a nice diversion though. I’ll wait for it to be cheap before I get it myself however.

It is already cheap. I got the hard dvd copy of the explorers edition for £14.99

1) Is the expansion anything more than gathering a whole season of a Living Story and gameplay features updates together and adding in a few more maps to bump up the quantity so we can pay instead of getting free LS?

2) Isn’t it something that has been in planning and production long before the announcement and that’s why the LS Season 2 was much less quantity on the whole than Season 1? (It seems to me to be less quantity though better quality).

3) Do you expect that after having a huge break from content and LS that suddenly players that have become bored will suddenly just all give up the new game they are playing and flock back for HoT?

I understand you did give us LS story for two years which in the beginning was very frequent and sometimes good quality updates for free but much of the first year was temporary and what it left behind mostly boring. Also LS 2 did leave behind some really nice extra maps and events and content but I would have much rather had more substantial chapters like Factions and Nightfall and paid for them than what you have done with free frequent mostly temp LS season 1, less frequent season 2 then a huge quiet spell and paid for expansion that seems it may still be less substantial than those GW1 campaign chapters.

Ele needs more tactics to play. Go into fights with earth based protection and armour buffs, stick down water fields and switch to flame or lightning for a lot of dps but always be creative. Its about using a variety of combinations and not just your one heal skill and dps otherwise.

I am now enjoying ESO immensly. The story and lore when leveling is brilliant and in my opinion much better than that of GW2 is and more akin to GW in quality. GW2 seems watered down in comparison and more just a series of conflicts with no real flesh. I cant really get into the GW2 supporting characters the same way either. They are very stereotypical.

On the other hand ESOs lore is very deep and the story is very involved putting the player at the front of it and not an npc. The characters are much better fleshed out with so much more going on that’s possibly duplicitous, morally gray and sinister.

Travelling is annoying right now because GW2 got me so used to just way pointing and ignoring half the environment if i wanted to so very easily. But I love having my mount which actually counts for something and not just cosmetic.

GW2 is a much easier game to get into and fun indeed but my characters feel very unimportant in it. Although Legendaries are supposed to be just that and very difficult to get and ascended gear quite involved it seems all too convoluted for me and too difficult to attain even after thousands of hours of play all because its all simply down too farming particular elements heavily and nothing to do with just playing through the game leveling a character and taking part in a little bit of everything. The end game seems to be all about really boring repetition, even WvW. I do feel as a more casual player but having still put in thousands of hours with 6 level 20s I am very unimportant in GW2.

I have quite a bit to go until the ESO end game but the new justice system is shaping up to be mighty fun indeed even when leveling and my character feels much more important.

Op is right. When it comes down to it grind is only what a person feels the need to do even though it bores them. It has nothing to do with what is required to play the game the way it was designed because its all psychological.

If a developer could eliminate grind from a game in every way they most certainly would but its impossible to as grind is just a state of mind. If a person likes to have nice skins in a game or the best items but finds it boring to get them its not only a grind its a failure in whats important to them in their particular game. They may enjoy the leveling as many of us do and the dungeons but they cant have what they want and that’s not any different to people thinking leveling is a grind to get to the end game because that’s what they want from the game.

This is a fact. The concept of eliminating unnecessary grind to allow people to play the game is wrong if they find the the vanity items or best items is whats important to them. To me levelling is a big part of what I like about a game and if done well its great fun and no grind whatsoever. If I play the game and put in a lot of hours why should i struggle to have just some nice stuff just because I dont “WORK” at a particular element of the game. To me its catering to people who find levelling a dislikeable grind but dont mind farming to stoke their ego and so they can claim they deserve the nicest things and the rest of us dont.

The last part may be controversial but in the end to sum it all up in regards to enjoyment of GW2 necessary grind is just a state of mind whether someone stops playing because they hate the leveling or they hate that they cant achieve any of the nicest things or the best things.

After just reading a post in which it was suggested people can save up for Hot easily I thought an alternative finance model could be lease to own. Simply it would be monthly installments that give access to HoT until the full expansion price is paid off when the player would own the expansion.

Sure like every finance model there will be pros and cons and I don’t know how difficult this would be to put in to practice or how this would turn out. You may find many people only pay one installment and decide they don’t like it. On the other hand many people who are a little cash strapped and have decided they cant afford it may be able to afford to dip their toe in to the water and like it enough to continue the installments as in the end to be able to continue to progress in GW2 HoT will be necessary I am led to believe.

Just throwing this idea out int to the vicious wild of the GW2 forums where I’m sure there will be beasts snapping at my idea and trying to ravage it.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

joneb.5679:

Boanoah I wouldn’t trust Colin or anyone representing any publicity or information about modern industry of any kind, whether video games, movies, technology. It has been proven time and again they will lie or use word play and things that were once promised will change and things denied are often proven to be true.

It wasn’t that long ago they denied there were plans for a paid for expansion etc though to be honest I dont think there were for a long time. This expnasion is really just content they were originally working in as LS and timed feature updates I believe.

Can I borrow some of that tinfoil? I’m cooking ribs and need something to cover them up.

LoL Im just analysing alot of what I have read about and experienced. I would like to say I know I cant believe all I read but then you would probably say I need more tin foil on my hat. But seriously from movies to to tv series to computer games, to new technology, the media gets everywhere and what it really likes to do is speculate.

The problem is a lot of real information gets leaked into the world these days and so the only way to try and throw a red herring into information you don’t want to waste your plans is to deny it. That way people don’t know if its real or rumour. It has been proven time and again how when a company says one thing it will do another if public reaction is bad it will backtrack. This has happened time and again.

Its not about “conspiracy theory”. its purely business.

Boanoah I wouldn’t trust Colin or anyone representing any publicity or information about modern industry of any kind, whether video games, movies, technology. It has been proven time and again they will lie or use word play and things that were once promised will change and things denied are often proven to be true.

It wasn’t that long ago they denied there were plans for a paid for expansion etc though to be honest I dont think there were for a long time. This expnasion is really just content they were originally working in as LS and timed feature updates I believe.

GW2 is a fun game but in the end no matter how diverse the professions are and how versatile they are, outside of soloing there seems to be only one effective way to play PvE and that is as a zerker. Im hoping the AoT will change this but Anets seem to have unwittingly encouraged this type of game play by making no effective death penalty and allowing any class to be able to become this to some extent. Conditions can be fun to play and if levelling solo in pve its good to build in survivability and speed, especially if you don’kitten to fight every monster. I find in mmos better survivability and speed means you can run through certain areas faster, between quests.

Lets make it clear a game like an mmo which is supposed to be about diversity of professions, skills and playstyles is broken if their is only one really effective way to play it. In the case of GW2 conditions and toughness mean nothing as raw dps is just so powerful.

Why is this? Because if a zerker group is running a dungeon they can do it so fast because they can gamble that if they die they just respawn fast and get it right next time which is only a small time blip compared to a more balanced build taking twice to four times as long on their first attempt.

The reason I have moved on to another game is partly because of this flawed game design amongst other reasons. Its a joke. I’ll be back to experience Heart of Thorns probably at some point but I do hope some day Anet make zerker if not less powerful, more of a gamble, with harsh death penalties for instance based around the playstyle choice as I mentioned in my previous post here. Heavy damage per hit on expensive equipment needs to mean more damaged items faster and should be expensive to fix. So toughness would mean less expense and less time.

By making armour repair free Anet just made zerking more attractive and the lackof a need for the trinity has made it so every class can be played as a zerker (though obviously there are preferred professions)

Wiznerd.7845:

Not that I have seen. I recently picked up the game and am a little sad that I cannot see the full story without dropping $20 in gems. Also concerned that I will drop the gems only to find out that I need a group to finish certain parts.

You may find it difficult to solo some of it. The pact colleagues really need to be more effective to help you when solo and one of them should join you at all times unless a particular part is meant to be solo.

The only thing to make toughness much more worthwhile than all out zerker is to make the death penalty punish a lot more and depend on the amount of damage of the killing strike after mitigation by toughness.

Therefore in the case of someone who takes 18k damage and dies but mitigates 6k due to toughness, not armour, finds one piece of armour damaged. The person who only mitigates 1k finds 5 pieces of his armour damaged. The cost of repairs should also depend on the quality of armor to reflect how the increase in stats makes it easier to alllow for more toughness so ascended is more expensive to fix than exotic. This also allows for the cost of repairs to be meaningful to someone who can afford the better armour.

I really dont know the core values of damage mitigation by toughness well. Ive been away from the game awhile and my memory sucks plus my maths is poor so please consider the basic notion here rather than the figures.

adormtil.1605:

First of all considering that a races in this game have their own zone, city and story we are not gonna have a new race in this game. Arenanet is not Blizzard who is the only company that has the resources to add a new class and a new race and a new area for it and new skills and new stories and another area besides that in one expansion. It sucks but when you are small you do small things.

Erm Anet did all this this in GW1 minus the race but with a massive new culture and new professions in Factions and Nightfall with big new storylines and a huge all new map etc.

Thanks guys for mostly respectful replies. I have been with the game since the start and I have seen quite a few others drop from burning through content in half the time I have played. I am still playing my Mesmer, Was hoping to cap him. I may well be back this time. I dont know.

I don’t think the rival games in general are doing much worse. GW2 has been written off many a times itself. I am particularly impressed about the turnaround on one particular game.

lordkrall.7241:

Is it not a bit early to complain about there being too little when the only thing we have heard is an announcement?

We have no idea what these new group challenges are.
We have no idea how many or how big the maps will be.
We have no idea how the Guild Hall system will work.
We have no idea about [insert anything announced] will work.

Wait until we actually have information before complaining about it being too little.

Im not sure how deep it will go but Im not sure if its complaining about the new expansion so much as complaining about the whole game in general and saying the expansion doesn’t seem like enough especially in regards to how Anet overhyped the size of the last Living Story in my opinion. And its still months and months away probably with probably hardly anything new until then. It may be too little too late because there is much more in the mmorpg world happening.

To me this could be too little too late. Its substantial content compared to the good but still minimal LS content but it seems more like an Eye of the North size of expansion rather than Factions or Nightfall and there are too many more b2p or f2p games out there now.

This is from my point of view but I don’t think I’m the only mmorpg player who thinks this way. The reason I think like this is basically I do not like repetition and GW2 seems built especially for this. It does it well though but I do like substantial new stuf to see and do and that is what has caused me to move between mmo’s. The thing is when I leave most games for a long period, even ftp, I dont really get back into them.

Guildwars was my first MMORPG type then Dungeons and Dragons Online, Lord of the Rings and Star Wars the Old Republic before GW2. After 3 and a half years or so with GW after the big new campaigns and Eye of the North behind, my friends had moved on, guilds I had been in disbanded or went in different directions for my liking. No substantial content was coming and I felt like I had played it out.

People said it was f2p so I could go back but though I tried I couldn’t get into the old groove again. I moved to DDO, also ftp with subs and b2p content but after a while it grew too samey to me and to be honest I wasnt willing to pay to play new content and I didnt want to pay the sub anymore to get all access. So I moved on.

I left LOTR as I never really did find a good guild there and content seemed to be getting too hard, I foud myself playing solo and again I wasnt willing to pay for anything if I couldnt have a helpful guild unit.

SWTOR was great but guild faded away and GW2 came out where many of us decided to move on too. But even after moving we had fun for a while but lots of the guys burned through the content and left after just over year, disliking the LS. I found another great guild which is mainly why I have stayed around so long but found content to be too repetitive and to lesser extent too competitive with mini games built around competitive activity and the SAB getting way too hard for me.

But even after all this and after buying a rival game I still paid for a new character slot and rolled a Mesmer for this weekend but man after lots of fun it grew old again.

I just want to explore, do new stories, dungeons, evolve my characters through new material, not repeating zones. SO now this new expansion is announced but another AAA game is about to go B2P. This “newish” game is so cheap to buy right now and evolving very fast from a bad start to something pretty spectacular I believe and that is something that I want to experience and its new and substantial.

Anet you need to try harder for people like me but there may be plenty of people going around to keep a community like Guildwars still has and maybe that’s all that matters to you. I’m moving on to something that is really growing and unless this new expansion has so much much more than the impression I have of it (or if the new game doesn’t work) then I wont be back.

Is there more material coming than we expect so far? For the first time I have a guild that has grown and still very active in game even as I leave so I could still find my way back? Anyway I’m still around just messing with my Mes but I will be moving soon. No point buying a game and not playing it.

Allergic to cats – Charr
Afraid of Heights – Norn
Hayfever – Sylvari

Clumsy – Don’t want to fall on my sword, axe, dagger, stick an arrow in my foot or blow my toe off with my gun or become a pile of ash in a fireball for that matter.
Short term memory loss – Where did i put my greatsword again? Klaatu Verata Nic cough cough!

GW2 was never ever about being realistic. Not once. All those crazy costumes, Cuddly minis running around after you? The cuddly backpacks? The combat finishers? The witches broomstick? Now we have nice little mailmen, pigeons or whatever else. They have embraced all this from the start so they may as well keep it. To be fair If Im Ihonest hate it too but its a major factor of the game so mounts need be no different in spirit.

I dont know what stuff some of you guys are on. When I started this game at the very release the guild I was in was supposed to be casual yet players who thought of themselves as casual had gotten to 7500 achievement points in much less than a year if i mind right.

I have got 10k achievement points now from doing a huge variety of things in this game instead of grinding or farming the same or similar stuff for certain ingredients. There are many players of these games who just need to get a life outside it. Really. If you want to play this game with some sort of mad hard core philosophy or think casual means you only spend 5 hours a day every day fine but you only deserve a straitjacket not a legendary or anything else. I did play this game quite obsessively at start so im not immune to this either but i managed to get clean. Get the addiction out my system. I advise you all do.

The exception are people who are ill or disabled, who may be housebound and who just have more time anyway they are unable to fill otherwise and the game is a nice way for them to do it.

I may have only been playing MMOs for 8 years but the commenst that MMOS arent for me is so ignorant its unbelieveable. Its always the first comment that comes out when someone complains. If I could I would split at a moment to other newer mmo games but my computer sucks big time, my hardware and my windows vista 32 bit

Palador.2170:

joneb.5679:

Funny I started to use my maize balm for the fun of guildlies and other players in the area and not just me but I was disappointed the things die so fast. Its just a waste to me not to give them veteran status so more people can join in on the fun and get bags.

I think the idea was that, due to there being three uses per bottle, they made them easy to kill so you can take them down without using your weapon skills.

I give them to my ranger, and with the first two potions I have my pet do the killing for me. Then I can run off and find more ambients.

That makes no sense to me as a lot of contradictions in this game. They design a game to look beautiful and put waypoints and asura gates everywhere so you can avoid experiencing much of it. They make a game built around group play but its actually like playing solo most of the time as by design people just run into each other do events if they are in the vicinity, and they want to then move on.They will help each other but there is not much talk, much cameraderie its just a solo experience unless you havea friend running with you.

The experiences that are designed around proper organised group play are few, some dungeons with paths that have some variables and fractals and even some of the mosyt powerful world bosses i suppose. Instead of making more of these they have told us no more dungeons.

And they give you maize balms to turn creatures into fun mini killing events but make it so easy they may as well just have given you the loot that drops.

Its complete insanity in this game.

Just to make it clear to everyoneand not you in particular if you work and have a partner and kids then devote time to them not daft amounts of time in a video game. I have a friend who loves video games but because he works and has a wife and a child his time is nearly all taken. He has a little time to play casually some less demanding games on occasion but its few and far between and his work and family do take most of his time. He also has his priorities right.

If you and your partner have no children and both play the game then you have advantages over lots of other people whose partners dont play and rightly want them to spend their time in the real world with them. The problem with most people is a huge amount of ignorance. If you enjoy playing a game to spend crazy time in it “working” fine but it deserves no reward. Just like if you like sky diving into a bucket of water you dont desreve a reward either just a padded cell.

There are people who are always willing to go to outrageous lengths to do many things in life. That doesn’t mean its either sensible or advisable. Every danger sport player who dies for his sport I feel no sympathy for but for his poor family and friends who he has left mourning. Just because there are people who have devoted their lives to collecting every stamp in the whole wide planet and universe and finds it relatively easy doesnt mean a stamp collector who hasnt done so is lazy or wants his stamps for no effort.

If someone wants to spend stupid amounts of time in a video game thats fine but the game should not be building itself around this.

DO the right thing Anet and increase exotics to the stat levels of legendaries and ascended. Lets see who begin to whine about the difference in stats being unimportant.

Ok OP your post on the arguments regarding mounts mentions animals existing or new. I know I have often mentioned Charr, Asura, Sylvari technology too and how imaginative a mount based on these could really be. I’m talking vehicles of a kind and not creatures. Also Im sure other people have as well

There are actually other reasons in the argument for mounts not mentioned here that I have and I am sure others have mentioned such as a toggle to reduce them to a basic model for reducing or removing lag they may cause; not allowing them in towns or cities or close to npcs as to cause blocking,

You also argued that having mounts already is an argument against having mounts which is twisted, If something exists already then it should be an argument that more can exist. Just because there are minis doesn’t mean no more minis should be produced. Just because there is armour does not mean no more armour should be produced.

You are missing out valid reasons for mounts and although I’m not going to do thorough research like you to aggregate posts what I see here is because of the thousands of post made on this you have just taken the most common few in the arguments.

Unfortunately there are valid arguments still missing here from what has been posted already and even if an argument is new if its valid then excluding it from this post means the argument you are putting forward is being misrepresented.

If you cant be concise with your arguments the intentions of this thread may be lost depending on what they are because people will still argue those things you have left out until death.

Shpongle.6025:

Emapudapus.1307:

Lots of people wants to have them ingame. And i have an idea how to implement it without hurting the game. They should be an x second cast item that, when mounted, gives perma swiftness and maybe some dash on “dodge”. So mounts wouldnt give some extra super speed but gives you some easy acess for swiftness. Beside ofc looking good.

We already have mounts
the magic carpet
the witch’s broom
the tunnel digger
and for swiftness you get the sandstorm kites off the tp

Yeh and these mounts are fantastic ideas, not one animal or horse or bird like creature yet because the devs used imagination. But I would love to see something like a drake with a pink ribbon on its head, a pink collar and pink bootees, a raptor, a nasty looking spider then crazy things like an asura designed skateboard, a charr omni cycle, and so on. I would also love to see a speed buff on them and durability.

Im happy to compromise on that mounting and dismounting having a time that is prohibitive to using them for the benefit of rushing into a fight or escaping one. It should just be an alternative means to get around fast to wps and asura gates and to the current limited speed buffs which imo are boring.

Valento.9852:

If a dev could enlighten us…

Yup hoping to see dev input or advice from Gaile now the weekend is through

Funny I started to use my maize balm for the fun of guildlies and other players in the area and not just me but I was disappointed the things die so fast. Its just a waste to me not to give them veteran status so more people can join in on the fun and get bags.

OMNIBUS.2913:

joneb.5679:

This is a game not real life so their needs to be some sort of compromise and a player with a thousand hours or more of play has shown a certain amount of conviction to the game, has helped keep the game world populated and alive. Just because they haven’t farmed like mad specifically for a Legendary or ascended gear shouldnt mean they cant have one or have significant help to get just one character a legendary or full ascended gear.

It doesnt mean a player who has ground and farmed into the ground is devalued unless that player is looking for some sort of vain bragging rights. That player would also get the option after so many hours of gameplay to get the same benefit and therefore he wold have more than one of these very special items where most of us will only have ever one if we get help to get it.

Its distressing to see any one game encourage such an extreme unhealthy playtime on a computer that some players put in on an MMO.

If you want a legendary do the work like everyone else has to to get one(aside from really rich people in rl, and those rng luky people which could possibly b u)…. u realize by making legendaries easier to get. Every person in this game will be running around with one. Then the legendary status is void, they are alrdy startign to become fairly common as is. If u cant put in the commitment to get one there are plenty of other great weapon options! And btw almost all of toons wear exotic zerk gear. I personally never felt the need to upgrade to ascended and im doing fine. 1000 hours of gameplay doesnt mean u deserve a legendary… I have played over 5000 hours and only have 1 so far. Currently working on the second. I never complained or asked for it to be easier i just did it. If you really want something to complain about try account bound rng. You can literally farm teq or fractals for the rest of your life and never get the weap u seek if luck isnt on your side. At least a legendary you put in the time and you get one forsure.

You completely ignored my post and just spewed out the usual work for it lecture. Its a GAME!!! I work in real life. I have my priorities right.

Taku.6352:

3 Engineers.
3 Elementalists.
3 Warriors.
3 Mesmers
2 Rangers.
2 Thieves.
2 Guardians.
2 Necros.

What can I say, too much time and money and I like to play dress up on different race/armor weight combinations. 12 of them are lvl 80 and rest are getting there slowly.

I can help you with spending that money.