Guild Wars 2

Elorna.5329:

Other than chronomancer, the core professions don’t seem to be any better in PvE with an elite spec compared to without it. Maybe reaper, but necros get hated either way I don’t think reaper does anything about that. Druid and engie spec still remain, but I’m doubting those will change anything in PvE either. Adding more damage and complications to engies’ already high damage and very complicated rotations doesn’t seem likely and unless druid adds some unique type of group buffing Spotter/Frost spirit is still gonna be the thing rangers bring.

Given the big damage buffs Reaper greatsword is getting for the next BWE, I think Reaper might end up meta for PvE Necromancers. It was already approaching (but not surpassing) dagger DPS in the last BWE, and its damage is going to be meaningfully higher now. It doesn’t really help the Necromancer’s “selfish” nature of not having many boons to spread around, but it definitely helps their poor on-paper DPS.

And yeah, you’re right about Chronomancer—it’s going to be awesome for PvE Mesmers. Even aside from the damage buffs and quality-of-life it can provide (shatter without losing our phantasms? Aw, yeah), Continuum Split will do wonders for our utility. With it, we can put out 20 seconds of uninterrupted Time Warp—24 seconds if we take Temporal Enchanter. That is beautiful and is only one example of the stuff it’s going to let us do with our utilities and elites.

Moonlit.6421:

Did I really just read a thread that said pve is abandoned lol? X3

The OP hasn’t played in a while and probably hadn’t heard the raid announcement—and, let’s be honest, group PvE hasn’t seen new content in a long time.

Loony.3714:

I was expecting someone else to have said this by now but I’m pretty sure signet of ether is the best heal in PvE by a fair amount. Its in a really good place and doesn’t need to be changed, especially with the signet trait so readily available

Signet of the Ether isn’t a popular heal in PvE because of its healing—it’s popular because it recharges your phantasm cooldowns, and that’s immensely important for our sustained damage.

Making it better very slightly better at actually healing wouldn’t affect its PvE popularity one way or the other.

Personally, I wish that PvE Mesmers weren’t so tied to it, much like many Mesmers wish Dueling was less mandatory in builds. If there were other ways to get phantasms out quickly, I think you’d immediately see most PvE builds switch to other heals. You’d probably see Mantra of Recovery a lot, actually, given that many PvE builds are already taking Harmonious Mantras.

Fay.2357:

Quadox.7834:

A recurring problem is that, despite fairly strong skills, most off hands never see any high level play because they aren’t defensive enough to play on standard shatter marauder mesmer. Even staff had/has problem surviving vs multiple people compared to the stealth on torch. I think the correct way to handle the problem would be to nerf stealth somehow, rather than buffing other mesmer offhands. Not sure how.

So just to be clear here… You acknowledge that torch is used over all the others because non-torch offhands don’t have the defense to let mesmers survive in matches. Therefor, you conclude that torch should be nerfed.

The abuse of logic here makes my eyes water.

It’s not that far off, really. While I think Illusionary Riposte could use some love to increase its use in PvP, and maybe Phantasmal Warden too, it’s pretty hard to say that anything about Mesmer should be buffed right now. I don’t agree that we need a serious nerfing, but I also don’t think we need any buffs in PvP.

(We do need bug fixes and some usability improvements to abilities, though, like Illusionary Leap.)

Our stealth also really is probably too strong. While I don’t think torch itself needs to be nerfed, Prismatic Understanding could use a small amount of toning down (not back to pre-trait revamp levels, but a little lower than it is now). When one offhand is dominating because it offers one skill that is just way too good to pass up, something is clearly wrong, and we’re already strong enough that it would feel wrong to buff us.

I’d appreciate this, myself. I generally think that most games should have an “I don’t need a tutorial” option.

Many Pesky Monk.3140:

Agent Noun.7350:

- Dungeons are probably abandoned. They’ve even started calling fractals “fractal dungeons” so that when they say “dungeon” in the future they can say, “Yeah, we meant fractal dungeons.”

- Fractals are being overhauled. Now it’s one fractal per run, so that fractals can have a lower time commitment per run—probably a good idea, given the next point. They’re also changing the reward structure, adding new rewards to them, and letting fractals lead you to a legendary backpiece.

- Raids are being introduced. We don’t know much about them at this time except that they’re 10-person parties, will have three bosses in the first released “wing,” and that they’re going to use the Mastery system (like gliding during boss fights). Colin said they want to promote the use of control and support, not just damage, for raids. Also, raids will offer legendary armor sets.

Whether that addresses any of your concerns, I don’t know! But I’m hopeful for raids and the new fractals stuff, at least. I just hope they don’t abandon them for the next shiny idea and keep releasing new fractals and new raids after launch.

Yeah that pretty much addresses most of my concerns. I don’t understand why they would abandon dungeons, though. That’s a lot of PvE content right there for players.

And I do hope that they make new and challenging DEs not just in the expansion area, but throughout the world. Was hoping there would be updates to existing DEs, but maybe in due time.

I think they have motivation to keep improving the core Tyria zones, because they’re implementing a map reward system intended to keep level 80 players returning to those maps over time. Hopefully that means they’re going to work to make sure those zones stay fun and exciting.

They’re also apparently using the dynamic event system in raids to prevent linearity and have a good variety of activities in them beyond just fighting bosses—I hope that works out well, better than explorable dungeons. Hopefully the years between release and now have taught ArenaNet how better to design PvE content.

As you can tell, I’m hopeful! Cautiously hopeful, but still.

- Dungeons are probably abandoned. They’ve even started calling fractals “fractal dungeons” so that when they say “dungeon” in the future they can say, “Yeah, we meant fractal dungeons.”

- Fractals are being overhauled. Now it’s one fractal per run, so that fractals can have a lower time commitment per run—probably a good idea, given the next point. They’re also changing the reward structure, adding new rewards to them, and letting fractals lead you to a legendary backpiece.

- Raids are being introduced. We don’t know much about them at this time except that they’re 10-person parties, will have three bosses in the first released “wing,” and that they’re going to use the Mastery system (like gliding during boss fights). Colin said they want to promote the use of control and support, not just damage, for raids. Also, raids will offer legendary armor sets.

Whether that addresses any of your concerns, I don’t know! But I’m hopeful for raids and the new fractals stuff, at least. I just hope they don’t abandon them for the next shiny idea and keep releasing new fractals and new raids after launch.

Quadox.7834:

-Torch is very very strong.
-Temporal curtain is really good, phantasmal warden makes the weapon worse than it should be in pvp.
-Pistol #55 is strong, #4 is alright too. The reason it doesn’t see play in pvp is mainly because torch stealth is pretty op and is a low countplay way to deal with pressure.
-Sword is really lacking. The phantasm is strong, much much better than the torch phantasm. The #4, however, is really bad and would probably need to change to a duration block, a reflect, or something similar, to be viable.
I don’t know about shield yet.

A recurring problem is that, despite fairly strong skills, most off hands never see any high level play because they aren’t defensive enough to play on standard shatter marauder mesmer. Even staff had/has problem surviving vs multiple people compared to the stealth on torch. I think the correct way to handle the problem would be to nerf stealth somehow, rather than buffing other mesmer offhands. Not sure how.

Shield will be strong on an interrupt build like pistol, I think, because Tides of Time can stun multiple enemies. Plus, it has two blocks to use. That said, it’s held back by extremely long cooldowns, so that’s a factor as well, and it doesn’t have as strong of a phantasm.

The wings aren’t an actual item you can wear—they’re a skin that you turn another backpack into. They should’ve come with a backpack that you can wear just for the sake of transmuting the wings onto. Check your inventory and see if there’s something you can wear on your back, then use the Wardrobe tab to transmute the backpack into the wings.

None of you “invested” anything in Guild Wars 2. You bought things that were for sale. You got the things you bought. Done. That’s how transactions work. (Sure, people should probably be refunded for things like the infinite SAB coin unless SAB comes back right quick, but that’s a separate issue.)

I’ve been trying to avoid the word “entitlement” here, but holy crap, some of you are making that very difficult.

Serbianwolf.1652:

I absolutely hate this change, and I can not express amount of my hate toward ANET’s policy tonight and toward this specific free-to-play change.

I haven’t expected this announcement to be so fkd up and devastating.
But ANET did it like they always do.

This means GW2 failed as mmo, as any other that switched to F2P policy shortly after(TERA, TESO etc…). It failed because there was no end-game content in the time to entertain us vetarns, but there where made unnecessary changes to whats not broken(TP, NPE, STORY CHANGES, INVENTORY, UI).

This means that developers will receive less money hence new players will be 10 year old whining kids that will resent everyone around and poison the community.

I, who played GW2 since the very start, for 3 YEARS AND INVESTED QUITE AMOUNT OF TIME AND REAL MONEY INTO GW2 ADDITIONALLY , only to get ugly looking skin on my charr(which has worst armors out there) and middle finger in my face saying:

THANK YOU FOR INVESTING YOUR TIME AND MONEY IN US, ALL WE CAN DO IS GIVE YOU THIS SKIN. NO GEMS, NO SPECIAL ITEMS NOR ABILITY TO DECIDE WHAT I COULD CHOSE AS 3YEARS OLD GIFT + VETERANSHIP.

But hey, thanks for your money. Thank you for buying infinite SAB coin that you will never use again. Because you guys bought this game we decided to make it FREE TO PLAY so 10 year olds could join. Lets not make it even 10, no, 5 bucks. But nope, NO refunds or kitten given whatsoever.

We can expect much more toxic community , economy fall and above and community driven by 10 year olds. Thanks ANET.

DO YOU EVEN KNOW HOW I FEEL AFTER 3 YEARS OF LOVE WITH THIS GAME?

I feel so betrayed. So brutally FUC**D. All this love toward this game.. all gone….

TL;DR: Just another ex-fan that feels fkd by latest change of ANET. RIP GW2, you will be missed.

We are not owed a refund. We are not owed even the skin that we got. We paid for a game that we played, and then the game’s price changed. That is how prices work.

Plus, look at those restrictions. This is a glorified free trial. This is intended to funnel people into buying Heart of Thorns—that’s all. You lower the barrier of entry, you juice your playerbase, and maybe you retain some. It’s a good idea.

All I can say is that maybe you should take a deep breath, calm down, and think about what would happen if every company was obliged to offer refunds to people who bought their products multiple years ago every time they drop the price.

(The Infinite SAB Coin is some bullcrap, though, you’ll get no argument from me there. SAB better come back right quick or they need to refund people for that.)

I’m also not sure we’ll see them relying more heavily on the gem store. This is essentially a glorified free trial—the end goal isn’t to have a population of long-term F2P players, but to bring in a bunch of new players who will eventually buy Heart of Thorns.

What I mean is, I think we can expect them to funnel new skins to the gem store at about the same rate they do now (i.e. too much, but clearly we put up with it already).

Conncept.7638:

On the other hand, you got charged for a free game.

No, I didn’t. I bought a game three years ago that has received a rather dramatic price drop today. That’s what happened. What you’re saying is like… if you bought a game on Steam for $60 three years ago, it’s on sale for $5 today, and you start saying, “I got charged $60 for kitten game!” It’s an absurd statement.

The free players coming in today did not get to play for those three years. I did. They also lack a lot of the privileges that I have as a paid player.

Let’s pretend that VIDEOGAMES ADVENTURE is released on Steam in 2012 for $60. I buy it, play it, and buy all its DLC. I still play it regularly today because I enjoy it.

In 2015, VIDEOGAMES ADVENTURE is included in a Humble Bundle with all of its DLC included. Someone could pay $1 and get the whole thing, everything I paid for included.

In this scenario, what does the game’s developer owe me?

(The answer is nothing. To insist that you should somehow be compensated for a price drop, even to 0, on a product you bought years ago is absurd. I can understand being upset if you bought the game, say, two months ago at full price and didn’t get the HoT bundle. That would sting. But everyone saying “I’ve played for THREE YEARS this is a SLAP IN THE FACE” is being ridiculous.)

dane.4638:

maddoctor.2738:

dane.4638:

After all that everything I paid for and worked for is just free to everyone else if they want it. My money (which I work for and dont have tons of) means nothing to Arenanet obviously and if I want to play the new content I have to pay the same amount as someone who never supported this franchise who get everything I have paid hundreds of dollars for. I have to pay this outrageous amount for each of my 6 accounts!

So the loads upon loads of releases you got for free mean nothing to you? You got up to 40 completely free content releases (based on when you bought the game) and you still complain?

I didnt complain about what I got in content. Im upset that I have the pay the same ammount as someone who just buys the expansion and get everything I paid for for included which amounts to a large sum where I come from. No worries though I guess my investment has just become basically a ftp account because I wont buy hot for 6 accounts at that price and doubt if Id even pay once the price drops as Id already be so far behind everyone Ive played with this long.

You’re not owed anything. Neither am I. I preordered this game before launch, played in the betas, and I’ve played for three years. ArenaNet doesn’t owe me crap, because I got the game I paid for.

And you still have more than a free account does! Quite a bit more.

Mufasa.8415:

PvP should be barred until they reach lvl 30-45. it’s f2p for the core game; they should have to play the core game before being able to branch off same as it is for wvw.

PvP is part of the core game.

reddie.5861:

why it had to go f2p? i know the trick is to slam people into HoT and giving new people a piece of the cake by handing over gw2 for free but jesus?
the servers seem healthy (pve wise) it didnt need this basically the game was F2P already…

if one cant afford to pay 20 to 40 bucks on the game, then no offense but in my opinion you shouldnt be playing the game then.. why? cus again no offense but once your past 16 u should have atleast your own money to buy whatever you want if u dont then obviously u have other stuff to do..

alot of brainless tards will invade gw2 now, gw2 had best community (nicest player i have met among mmo’s) i ever seen i could ask most kittened question and still got a proper answer without any1 screaming any bad words in chat. well say good bye to that.

also just wanted to add
Lock WvW completely just let them play EoTM theres always salty people who will lvl a alt on enemy server just to ram players into eternal battle ground to keep people stuck in queue.. EoTM was designed to test stuff no? well enjoy free 2 play accounts with your EoTM test PvP..

lvl 60 in this game is nothing even lvl 80 is kitten easy, i bought gw2 3 weeks ago for my wife she didnt know kitten about game and she was lvl 80 in 2 weeks with pretty casual play style and more focused on completeling god kitten lowbie maps then actually pushing to high lvl zones. so imagine a guy who wants alts just to annoy his enemy on borderlands he will lvl up to 60 in no time..

bad move tbh u should rethink this stuff FAST.

Honestly, dude, I’m more worried about someone who comes on here to complain about hypothetical “brainless tards” than I am about any free-to-play player.

The more people complain about this change and the pettier there complaints get, the more I’m glad that it’s happening. This is going to be fine, holy crap.

I’m not even that worried about the gem store changing that much, either, given that the end goal (given the restrictions) seems not to be for free players to play for free in the long term (and thus be milked for gem sales), but to ultimately buy Heart of Thorns.

Menadena.7482:

Agent Noun.7350:

Yeah, I think they’re doing this right. We can expect a big influx of players, but that’s a good thing.

No.

It will stop being a good thing the moment a FTP person realizes they can fill a map where people are about to do a boss then not do it. The TP problem is obvious, Bots …. yeah, get back to me when someone invents the perfect spam filter, ’kay?

That’s why there are TP restrictions on what items they can trade, and why individual characters can’t leave the starting zone until level 10. And why free accounts can’t send items or gold through the mail, even to friends.

That first scenario you came up with would require someone to either organize dozens of people to troll a single map, or to spend a ton of time to register a bunch of F2P accounts and level characters to 10 then run them to the boss map and then log them all on and…

Basically, you’re panicking over nothing.

Yeah, I think they’re doing this right. We can expect a big influx of players, but that’s a good thing.

If you read the restrictions, this is essentially a non-level and non-content limited free trial. You can technically do everything in the core game, but there are enough restrictions that you’ll feel prodded to buy the game.

There are very few PvP-related restrictions, though, so players who are only interested in PvP can probably play for free indefinitely (provided they don’t want elite specs or Revenant, of course).

xinkspillx.3914:

Giving f2p accounts log-in rewards is a serious slap in the face. :/
We need an official statement about this that includes all the details.

That’s why THEY DON’T GET THEM.

https://help.guildwars2.com/entries/95982157

https://help.guildwars2.com/entries/95982157

Free accounts:
- Do not get daily login rewards.
- Cannot map chat.
- Cannot mail non-mutual friends.
- Cannot enter WvW until level 60.
- Need to unlock squad chat and LFG individually on each character by reaching level 30.
- Can only sell selected items on the TP.

Late For Tea.1846:

RIP WvW
/15char

Free accounts can’t enter WvW until level 60.

The restrictions he mentioned are:

- No map chat.
- Can only start a new whisper conversation every 30 seconds.
- Can only trade certain items on the Trading Post.
- Can’t mail items or gold to other players.
- Can’t enter WvW until level 60.

There’ll be more, apparently, but that’s a good start. It gives you the entire game, but with a few restrictions to prevent abuse.

He’s about to talk about what restrictions they’ll have for free accounts, thankfully.

Still looks like the full core game is free, though.

Mike O’Brien just confirmed free core GW2 starting today.

Dinks.2478:

+1 agreed. Rewards needed to be redone. Adding levels, yes. Nerfing fractals into casual mode? no, anet really needs to stop catering to the casual plague on MMOs.

They built the game for casual players.

Have you missed all the stuff about raids, too?

They’re not going to make more dungeons—that’s all but confirmed at this point. What they’re doing is taking fractals and letting them take the place of dungeons, probably because they’re more easily expandable in the future. Raids will be the new “hardcore” group content.

How about “Disco Inferno?” A classic for a reason.

Like someone earlier in this thread pointed out, I bet they’re lowering the time commitment of individual Fractal runs specifically to provide short PvE group content to contrast the long PvE group content that raids will be. They want to have a good balance and they’re banking on raids being more satisfying for what the OP wants than fractals.

I expect there will be new fractals, or they wouldn’t have bothered overhauling how they work. I hope they turn some of the Living World Season 2 stuff into fractals, actually—some of the bosses were pretty clever.

Healix.5819:

Agent Noun.7350:

The average troll is probably going to get tired of finding new ways to authenticate an account every time they get banned.

You can generate an authenticator as fast as you can copy and paste a line of text. The entire setup process could easily be automated.

Requiring authentication to unlock certain features is simply an attempt to reduce the number of hacked accounts. Remember, people actually fall for the in-game phishing mail that requires you to manually enter that long URL. If people managed to fall for that however, they’re going to fall for getting their authenticator phished (enter your code 3 times to allow the attacker to remove it).

I mean, you’re definitely right. I’m just talking about your average trolling middle school kid. Eventually, jumping through the hoops of authenticating in different ways every time they want a new smurf account is going to get old.

It’s definitely not a solution to every issue, but it is a step in the correct direction. I hope that ArenaNet has continued to consider the safeguards they’re going to have to put in place for it. They definitely were thinking about it in 2014, when that_shaman datamined the free trial info, so I’m sure they’re going to at least try to maintain the integrity of the game experience.

All of this is likely why they’re requiring SMS or other authentication for accounts from now on. The average troll is probably going to get tired of finding new ways to authenticate an account every time they get banned.

Jski.6180:

@ Agent Noun.7350
It sounds like you are going for that point of view if you think it going to have a major changes to it. The last even went well with this system to have major changes to it will cause a lot of new problems. You may not be aiming to sound like its going to be a bad thing but your point of view is going to come to the conclusion that it is.

Your simply not applying your point of view to the real effects of going full f2p. Your not critically thinking about what will happen. I hope not by chose to my your point of view seem more ture.

But I do think there will be restrictions. ArenaNet has clearly considered that—like I said, another thing we can learn from the datamining is that ArenaNet is aware there are things that have to be considered when opening the game up for free, even in a limited way. If they were thinking about restricting limited trial accounts’ ability to communicate and trade, they’ll definitely do the same for free full accounts.

My prediction is:
- No content restrictions for the core game. The whole core game will be free.
- Communication restrictions, likely similar to the datamined ones. Free accounts will have limited use of map chat and can’t whisper people who haven’t added them as a friend.
- Trading restrictions. I expect free accounts will be able to trade, but may be limited in how often they can sell things on the Trading Post each day. They probably won’t be able to send gold or items through the mail at all.

Other restrictions really wouldn’t be necessary. Limited ability to trade and lack of ability to send items through the mail helps limit the effect botting would have, and communication restrictions helps prevent gold sellers and trolls from easily spamming people by using free accounts.

The new SMS/authenticator requirement helps, too. Gold sellers will certainly get around it, but for average people, this will prevent things like creating a dozen accounts to camp characters at JP chests. Not everyone, obviously—there are always ways around it—but these restrictions are often made with the intent of limiting consequences, not entirely erasing them (which is often impossible).

Dawdler.8521:

Agent Noun.7350:

The datamined free trial information is not relevant.

Perhaps.

But this part is still very much relevant:

In order to keep the Free Trial enjoyable for everyone, we’ve placed some restrictions on what characters on Trial accounts can do. For example, to minimize gold spamming, Trial characters can only whisper and send mail to people who have added them to their Friends list. Map chat, sales on the Trading Post, Gems, and WvW battlegrounds (excluding the Edge of the Mists) are also restricted.

So… what has changed since then? They dont want the game to be enjoyable for everyone anymore? If Anet would drop this bomb without any restrictions at all they are basicly saying kitten you to everyone (and themselves).

Oh, I agree with that. I forgot to mention in my post that there’s one other thing we can learn from the datamining, other than to know that ArenaNet experimented with a free trial in the past: it’s that ArenaNet have already considered, and likely are still considering, the impact that opening the floodgates will have.

Ultimately, I’m optimistic about free to play. My guess is that there will be no content restrictions—anything currently in the core game will likely be free—but rather restrictions on trading and communication to prevent botting from crashing the economy and prevent gold sellers from having an even easier time spamming.

Jski.6180:

Its very hard to make an argument vs ppl who see things and think things are always going to go bad i would not try to use to much logic or time on them.

I never meant to suggest this would be a disaster, or that there would be no restrictions. I only mean that the datamined info probably can’t tell us what restrictions there will be, because it’s old enough that things have likely changed drastically.

Jski.6180:

Could we call you out if your wrong then?

That would only be fair.

A thought experiment:

Let’s say you buy VIDEO GAME, which is developed by COOL DEVELOPER STUDIOS, on Steam for $60 when it launches, and play it a bunch, and buy some DLC for it along the way. You still play it sometimes because it has good replay value.

Three years later, it goes on Steam sale for, let’s say, $5, all DLC included. Do you deserve something more in the game than someone who bought the game for a lot less does? Does COOL DEVELOPER STUDIOS owe you your money back because the game you paid $60+DLC prices for three years ago is now so cheap as to almost be free? (I realize this is not a perfect analogue, as the game is not literally free in this situation, but it’s an extremely similar scenario.)

That’s my problem with this argument of “I paid full price for this game three years ago and now some jerks are going to get it for free, I deserve something special” that I’m seeing. Those of us who bought the game on launch—like me—do not deserve anything special for it. You know what we got for our money? Three years of access to the game that a free-to-play person did not have. Price changes—even when the price changes to 0—have no bearing on what something cost in the past.

Notice, too, how you can’t even buy the base game from ArenaNet’s website anymore. You can only buy Heart of Thorns. This is probably to avoid situations in which someone buys the base game, say, on August 25, and then free to play launches a week later, and they get screwed. It’s a bit of an ethically-gray way around it—“you bought Heart of Thorns, not the base game!”—but it’s a lot better than the alternative. I could understand being upset in that case, especially if you decide you don’t like the game and never end up playing Heart of Thorns (in a free to play scenario, you’d have tried the game for free and decided you didn’t like it).

I can’t wait for everyone insisting that this is going to be trial accounts only to react when ArenaNet announces tomorrow that the core game will be fully free.

The datamined free trial information is not relevant. It is no more relevant than the datamined Elementalist sword skills were relevant when new datamining turned up warhorn instead. ArenaNet puts tons of things into the game client without actually following up on them. What this datamining shows is that, in 2014, they were considering adding a free trial option—that’s all.

It doesn’t mean that’s what this “F2P” will be. It doesn’t mean that it isn’t, either. It just means that the datamined information is old enough that it does not matter to this discussion one way or another, no matter how much you want it to.

XJamo.1930:

Because im not looking forward to destroying the friendly community of GW2. Just take a look at call of dutys

You know that Call of Duty costs money, right?

Ranael.6423:

I think the easiest way to see it is :
- GW2 : F2P game
- GW2: Heart of Thorns : B2P game

The difference with what already exists on the market is that both games can interact together. Let’s be fair the main development going to the game will be on the HOT part not on the core.
On the other hand, every Gw2 player will encounter tons of player playing a subclass they can’t or access loot they can only dream of…. it will attract them to buy GW2:HOT.

This is my guess, too.

Basically, at any time, a new player can play the core game for free. That includes all of the current areas, dungeons (and maybe fractals), sPvP, and WvW. Then, you basically buy the current expansion for “expansion access” and paid status. Keep in mind, too, that all future expansions are intended to include previous expansions as well.

wmtyrance.3571:

Raider coming to GW2. This won’t go over so good. F2P core game. Get ready for a lousy player base.

Keep in mind that we’re not going to have a gear treadmill—that alone will remove the worst part of raids and raiders.

Connor Obrian.8420:

Hm now. Let’s think about this whole situation.

ArenaNet has stressed a couple of times that they want to have a buy to play game, not a f2p game. If they wanted to show that their base game is becoming f2p, why do they not call it f2p? Instead they call it play for free. Is it maybe the same as always? Could it be that ArenaNet is stuck in time and play for free means still that it has simply no subscription costs?

Then it would mean this is just a campaign to make marketing for buying HoT or cheaper GW2 base game keys.

Because “free to play” and “play for free” mean the same thing, and the second one sounds a lot friendlier.

People are grasping at straws here.

The news about new accounts requiring SMS authentication (or another approved authenticator) suggests to me that free-to-play accounts will have no restrictions at all, beyond not being able to play Heart of Thorns stuff until they buy it.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/news/SMS-Restrictions-and-New-Accounts

It’s a relatively weak restriction—a person with a phone could easily register several accounts each using a different form of authentication—but it would prevent the average person from, like Qugi pointed out above, making 50 accounts to buy Heavy Crafting Bags with laurels.

Killyox.3950:

did you even read it? This is more like a Trial GW2 than F2P :P

Sorry, but I don’t think you’re right about that. Unless you’ve somehow seen the actual IGN article that was taken down, I have to assume you’re going off of the datamined info about the free trial, information that is over a year old. It’s not likely that it’s still relevant unless it’s still in the game client now. Remember, people datamined Elementalist sword skills, too, and that didn’t bear out. ArenaNet puts a lot of things in the game client that they don’t actually release.

Khisanth.2948:

xarallei.4279:

yorick.1305:

Unless raids are ‘paid’ content.

Ouch.

Raids will be HoT related most likely. So yes, they will be paid content. There’s nothing wrong with that. They want to raid, they need to buy HoT.

Now charging gems to raid….that’s an abomination.

They could take a tactic from other F2P … 1(or some other static number) try of the raid per day for F2P. Unlimited runs for paid.

Raids will probably be purely paid content and won’t be available to F2P players, given that they’re going to be HoT content.

Dhorghar.5249:

The restrictions were datamined by the almighty that_shaman long ago.

Only one or two character slots

Limit of level 15

Seems like a limit on how high a “rank” you can get (specific to trial or possibly PvP related)

Only able to send mail to friends.

Can’t send items or gold through mail

Can’t speak in map chat

Can’t access Team Arenas

Can’t access main WvW maps (EB and Borderlands)

Can’t sell items on TP.

http://thatshaman.blogspot.com.es/2014/07/upcoming-features-from-entanglement.html

Like we’ve said a lot in this thread, these do not gel with what’s said in the leaked trailer, and that datamine is from over a year ago. It’s not necessarily relevant.

It does, however, show that ArenaNet is aware that restrictions need to exist to protect the game’s economy.

xarallei.4279:

I don’t like it, but it does make sense. They are already giving away the core game for free with HoT and this would allow more people to try out the game. Still, they are going to need some kind of restrictions or this will wreck the economy and Anet has always disliked things that mess too much with the economy…

Yeah, that’s why I think there’ll be restrictions on trading and mailing especially. ArenaNet is very protective of the game economy.

gavyne.6847:

Games breed toxic communities. A lot of the games you see with toxic communities aren’t due to those games being F2P, but because of certain aspects of the games where they pit players against each other. WoW for an example, for the longest time subscription game, had damage meters. On raids & dungeons if you didn’t do top tier damage or top tier heals, you were laughed at and harassed. That’s just one example where toxic communities were bred from what the game allowed rather than whether a game is F2P or not.

And if people don’t think there are toxic segments of the GW2 community, you need to either open your eyes more or play different game modes. There’s plenty of that to go around in GW2.

Also note that the way GW2 is designed, players are not playing against each other for loot in PvE. This alleviates a lot of the issues that creates a toxic environment. You see this in other MMO’s. GW2’s PvE is designed so everybody’s rewarded for participation. If you didn’t get something, you get angry at the game rather than at other players.

I think F2P will work fine in GW2. You’ll get bad apples for sure, but overall with this game 3 years old, they deserve props for wanting to grow the game rather than let it sit stale and dwindle in player population. You simply can’t rely on vet playerbase forever, people leave. F2P is a good way to bring new blood into the game.

This is what I was trying to argue above but you did it better.

Basically, listen to this post. If GW2 does have an especially great community, I guarantee the game’s price tag is not the reason for it.

Hey, uh… maybe it’s possible everyone mourning the loss of this game’s “great community” is playing a different game than I am, because this game has its fair share of trolls, elitists, and all-around jerks.

Whatever is good about GW2’s community comes about as a result of what kind of game it is, not a monetary barrier of entry. WoW costs money and its community is toxic as all getout because of what kind of game it is. I seriously question the premise that the core game going F2P will inevitably destroy the game’s community long-term, especially when expansions remain paid. The people you’re worried about destroying the community? Many of them probably won’t like GW2 enough to stick around, because it is not a game that facilitates ruining other people’s play, nor does it offer the kind of framework required to satisfy the kind of people that ruin community’s like LoL’s.

Wildkitten.3872:

Agent Noun.7350:

Wildkitten.3872:

nehezbegar.1065:

Wildkitten.3872:

http://thatshaman.blogspot.ca/2014/07/upcoming-features-from-entanglement.html

As you can see, this is NOT F2P.

This post is from one year ago.

And it’s this datamine everyone is going on.

No we aren’t. We’re going on the IGN leak and the leaked free to play trailer.

YES and that is where IGN got their info from. That’s what is in the files now.

It most definitely is not. Unless you’re suggesting the trailer on YouTube is somehow in the game files and is also a year old?

nehezbegar.1065:

Agent Noun.7350:

More players = more potential gem sales.

And tons and tons fo problems for exisitng players. I defended ArenaNet when they included free core game with HoT. But this f2p nonsense (if its going full f2p) is not defendable, sorry.

Those problems are all preventable and solvable. While I’m skeptical of ArenaNet’s ability to do so, I want to see what their plans are before I declare the death of GW2.

Also note that I was only presenting ArenaNet’s justification for doing it, not a defense of the move. For what it’s worth, I think it’s entirely within the realm of possibility that it will work out as a net positive for the game, but it’s going to take a very careful and very thoughtful ArenaNet to do it.

Wildkitten.3872:

nehezbegar.1065:

Wildkitten.3872:

http://thatshaman.blogspot.ca/2014/07/upcoming-features-from-entanglement.html

As you can see, this is NOT F2P.

This post is from one year ago.

And it’s this datamine everyone is going on.

No we aren’t. We’re going on the IGN leak and the leaked free to play trailer.

Wildkitten.3872:

GW2 is NOT going F2P. This is a trial account period. Like a max level of 20, max pvp level of 10 and quite a few other restrictions.

Sorry, but that doesn’t gel with… well, anything we know. If you’re going by the datamining, that was from over a year ago and does not necessarily reflect on what’s going to be announced Saturday. It may well represent an abandoned initiative that ArenaNet played with but didn’t follow through on.

This trailer is pretty unambiguous: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n3qU4zDPFhU

The core game will be free and expansions (or at least Heart of Thorns) will be paid for. They’re probably doing this because bringing in new players is important, and gem sales generate a lot more revenue than game sales do. More players = more potential gem sales.

Behellagh.1468:

I imagine this will be coordinated with the release of HoT. When HoT goes live central Tyria will become abandoned except for those still leveling a character to 80 who own HoT and those players who didn’t buy it yet. A F2P core game will keep this area populated.

Map rewards are probably going to help with this, too.

Interestingly, the IGN press release that came with the video was worded like F2P would be effective immediately. It’s possible they’re going to launch F2P before the release of HoT, probably to drum up more interest in HoT from people who haven’t played GW2 and would try it when it’s free.

gavyne.6847:

GW2 is at a point where it needs new players. Not just returning vets, but brand new players that haven’t tried GW2 yet. Going F2P will do just that. It’ll fill the servers up again, and get more people into WvW/PvP.

3 years into a game’s launch, they either do this or continue downward spiral…slow but still downward spiral. I think they’re making the right choice to make sure more people join this fine game. I’m ok with it.

You have to take the good with the bad. The game needs more players and company seeking more revenue from a game that should by all means garner more popularity. If I look at GW2 it has smooth combat controls, smooth animations, fast action combat, and a pretty world. It also have PvE, PvP, and WvW modes to cater to everybody. If more people and increased revenue is what it’ll take for Anet to spend more dev resources on GW2, then so be it.

This is a very true post.

My guess is that we’re going to see a model where the core game is free going forward, and then ArenaNet sells expansions separately. This would let them do something like they did with the first Guild Wars, where each campaign (except Eye of the North) was standalone and didn’t require any of the others to play. In this case, each expansion would be effectively standalone, because the base game that they require would be free.

It’s not a terrible model. If they take the necessary steps to prevent botters and gold sellers from aggressively abusing free accounts—limitations on who you can communicate with, how you can trade items, etc.—then I think this will end up being a net gain.

Could it be botched horribly? Yes, obviously. Anything could. But it doesn’t have to be.

I wonder which model they’re going to go with. Either:

- Core game free, Heart of Thorns and all future expansions bought separately (sort of like GW1’s campaigns)
- Core game free, only the most recent expansion costs money, meaning Heart of Thorns would go free when the next expansion is released (seems less likely)