Guild Wars 2

Blade Syphon.4325:

cesmode.4257:

My topic was closed. Not even moved. Thanks mods.

This is greed. Log in, or pay. Vs a sub based game where you pay 50 cents a day for a month(15 dollars a month) and get all content ever released. I can log into WoW right now and go do Baradin Hold dallies from 2 years ago.

Not turning this into sub vs free game argument. But I do think its crap that arenanet made the conscious decision to place this content behind gems(even if its 200), instead of making it free like they said it always would be.

I haven’t logged in to play for weeks, I dont plan on it for another few months. When I return, if I ever return(cuz Wildstar is awsome), I’ll be so far behind that I’ll need to dish out the $$. Or, I have to remember every other week to log in. Like a freakin’ chore.

..You realize that you’re complaining about Anet offering you content, literally, for free, and you’re upset because you can’t be bothered to take not even two minutes of your day to log into the game, unlock the content, and then log out.

You have to do that once every two weeks. Literally one time, every two weeks, for 2 minutes, and that content is forever unlocked to your account. You don’t have do the content that day, nor do you have to do anything other than watch the toast pop up saying “You have unlocked a new episode!”.

I could understand people being irate if you had to finish the episode to permanently unlock it, but you don’t. You have to, again, log in, and it’s yours. Forever.

There is nothing to complain about this system. Nothing, Nothing. The buying past episodes is strictly for people who have no access to their PC for that two weeks for whatever reason, and is there so that they don’t feel totally left out on missing content like they did in season 1 because they were unable to get on the game.

For those of us that aren’t interested in playing GW2, but still have it installed, we can simply click the launcher, log in, and in two minutes, new content is waiting for us whenever we care to play it.

I’m all for criticizing Anet for stupid design decisions, I do it plenty of time (see: Wardrobe, LS1, the Marionette, etc.). But this? This is not one of those stupid design decisions. In fact, this is probably the smartest decision Anet has made for this game since it launched.

I do understand the complains about playing 200 gems per episode. It’s not a problem for the active players but it is for those who did leave for a longer time or new players. For them it’s also much more as 200 gems so they need to pay much more for something that is important for the game (the story) but is not really expansion-like content. I do understand that Anet wants to have people keep logging in so that they sort of set a penalty for not doing so but then 200 gems to unlock all previous episodes would be better imho.

However I also don’t really understand cesmode’s point in this one. If you are willing to pay a monthly fee for a game then this should also not be a big problem one would think. Not to mention the login requirement to skip it because I can understand that if you are leaving for another game for multiple months you don’t feel like logging in, also not once every 2 weeks. You simple forget about the other game.

pdavis.8031:

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

We don’t know if they will charge for season 1 or not. Hell, they haven’t even started devoting any resources to see if they even can. Let’s not get our panties in a bunch.

Personally, I could see season 1 being free to those that participated, and purchasable for those that did not. Thus logically following the model they have set forth. If they can even do it.

Amen!!

I like how many people are automatically assuming that Season 1 will be available through the journal at a later date TBD. The only this ever said about Season 1 and the Journal was 1) that it was not built with the journal in mind, 2) It won’t be available at launch of the journal, and 3) that they hope to add season 1 in the future. This implies that the open world mechanics of season 1 are incompatible with the mechanics of the journal and would require require an extensive reworking of all the content to make it compatible. Since we know nothing about season 2, and how its going to be presented, anything discussed on the matter is purely speculation at best.

As for the paying gems because you missed an episode? I don’t see it as a big deal. Many people have said before if content, past or future, were available for purchase on the gem store, they would gladly pay for it. Thats basically what this is. For those who are already convinced that Season 2 is going to be as bad or worse (in their opinions) than season 1, they forget that they don’t have to buy it OR play it. Many others are looking forward to it, and don’t mind having to pay $2.50 USD/convert gold to play if they missed it. Either way Anet has made their decision, it’s not going to break the game, the sky isn’t falling, and people will leave and more people will join, and life goes on.

They said it will come back, not that they hope it come back. It is just a matter of when. http://www.twitch.tv/guildwars2/c/4412034 13:27

Funny how you did get all the information they said seconds before saying season 1 will come back at some point but that sentence itself you did hear as that they hope it would come back.

Just to get your facts strait.

On a more general note. Now I think about it, did they ever say that you would not be required to play a previous episode in order to play the later episodes? Everybody assumes that is the case (including me) but you never know. It might be one of those things then become apparent after the patch is released. Because that would also shine a whole new light on the “paying for past content” thing.

Kohlteth.3715:

anzenketh.3759:

Kohlteth.3715:

Exactly this !!

Although I did ask a few days ago ( being new) what there was for 80’s to do as far as PvE lvl 80 content lol.

As there does only seem to be 1 zone for 80’s .

I agree totally about the new talents sucking, having to be lvl 50+ to get some of the lvl 30 traits you want unlocked, it does not seem to be “play it your way” but morelike " play it your way BUT only how we say you may play" unless you pay lost of gems to convert to gold and use skill points you will need later to unlock stuff you need / want now from a trainer as we messed up how to unlock the traits for you .

Would be good to see some of that HUGE map we see in game unlocked and explorable even if you have to be lvl 80 to do it. seems a bit dumb having such a huge map that is 80% smudged out and unexplorable after nearly 2 yrs still…….

Having access to LS1 would be good as a newer person, as would be good to be able to see / play what is in all the videos advertising GW2… Unlike another MMO ( WoW) that take crap out and it is never seen again, yet leave remnants that are broken for new players and stories that make so sense ……

Hence why moving to GW2 in the first place !

The advantage in Guild Wars 2 is the leveling curve from 1-80 is the smoothest and easiest to get out of any MMO. Enjoy the journey. You will be level 80 before you know it.

Also there is nothing to say that the new zones will not be only for level 80. They could add lower level open world content but have the story be for 80 only.

A bit reason why they are only having the story be level 80 is due to how it falls in the timeline. The Living world takes place after your personal story. If you do not play your personal story the living world may not make sense in the future.

I agree that it should be 80+ I am just curious why they made the map so big when only a very small part of it is even accessible and how after almost 2 yrs it is still 70-80% smudged out. I just hope that more of it gets uncovered, as my avatars love " exploring" not into PvP and WvW not really appealing. But overall loving GW2 compared to that other MMO

Am I the only one wondering what ‘crap’ you are talking about? It’s mainly GW2 that did take out a lot of stuff and planned on never putting it back in. Now after a lot of complains for over a year they decided that that maybe was not a good idea after-all.

Also I sort of agree with the +80 problem but also sort of disagree. Leveling in GW2 while maybe not the hardest is sort of boring and in many ways unrewarding. There are no quest-lines to follow, no rewards to set your goal on and help you level (for example leveling a craft is mainly gold-grind not really hunting down cool recipes for cool items and level up that way, or as ranger hunting down rare pets and so on) and even exploring is not really a thing in GW2 because maps are very compacted and all the POI’s en vita’s make it more of striping of a list then really exploring and because everything is so gold-driven you get punished for leveling an alt because your drops are worth less. Lastly a lot of things are account-dailies not character dailies. For exmple JP’s (like the WvW JP’s and SAB 2). In SAB I leveled (unlocking all weapons and so on) on all my alt’s in SAB 1 in SAB 2 I only did it on my main because it was just not rewarding anymore with the alts.

However they did also make some improvements like the wardrobe system and making WvW XP account-bound.

Now on the other had, making it only for 80’s at least is a reason to level alt’s. Now if they would only make that more fun or also put in some elements (some episodes) that help you level lower level alts (in a fun way) that would be even better. So it’s a little double if it comes to the lvl 80 requirement. Story wise I don’t really see it. It supposed to be after the PS but you are not required to have the PS (what I BTW do not have on any character, I don’t play an MMO for a SP experience and find it sort of boring. I do then also hope the story system will not be to much like the PS)

Myst.5783:

Devata.6589:

Myst.5783:

The carrot on the stick is the main attention holding aspects of MMOs, therefore this is kinda obvious…

Anyways, having crafted two legendary weapons myself and playing for a year and a half GW2 ran stale for me. My patients in ANet releasing fluff rather than meaningful update to the game wore thin. The broken rewards for WvW and the lack of ability to fix the issue was the final straw.

I already have a max level stalker in Wildstar and I’m not looking back. GW2 was fun for awhile but the apparent lack of resources and/or wrong allocation of resources along with the money grubbing attitude broke it for me. Hope NCSoft doesn’t kill Wildstar the same way.

“the money grubbing attitude” Ncsoft is responsible for much of the money element so likely also how they grub the money. With that knowledge it’s how do I say that polite… Not super smart to go for another game by the same publisher. That’s how they seem to work. Squeeze out the money from one game move to the next and the players willing follow throwing in the money again.

So if you don’t like the money grubbing attitude then move to an non-Ncsoft game. Now you are complaining about exactly what you are supporting.

Wildstar is set up differently, to a degree. Hopefully it will keep the NCSoft money grubbing away for a long time. Otherwise, I’ll play the game till it goes to kitten, then move on. The same thing I did with GW2.

I believe it also comes down to the development team as well.

But as long as you keep moving on to another Ncsoft game you are supporting what you are against. Maybe the development team has to do with it but i think it’s at least 50/50.

Wildstar uses a sub so that by itself is a moneygrabber.

Anyway good luck there, but where you to find out the same there then think twice before moving over to yet another Ncsoft game

Boneheart.3561:

haviz.1340:

Boneheart.3561:

No you didn’t. You mentioned farming derogatorily, but now that you’ve cleared that up: time-investing (I don’t actually think you meant to include this, but to clarify with an example, you want to spend five hours in a dungeon/area? We just wanna get to the heart of what you want), farmable and skill-based, lucrative?

What I meant by ‘mindless farming’…

… let’s not go from one extreme to another.

I didn’t ask you any of that and you haven’t addressed the subject. But let’s pretend you typed ‘yes’: you want fights to last longer, I’ll assume you don’t just want an increase in health, but moments where the boss requires some mechanic to make him vulnerable or take different damage, maybe even just becomes unattackable. Or just improved AI?
You want to be able to do this all day, in one area/zone/instance.
And you can’t just be familiar with your profession, but not necessarily “breathe” it. It should require a firm grasp on the ins and outs of what you play?
Finally, no matter how long farmers scour an area or zone, every loop/run-through of the content you want will net you more gold/potential gold than any of the content currently available, correct?

Why talk about gold? The whole gold-grind element is why so many people find GW2 boring (warned Anet about that for a long time). Talk about special content-specific cool unique or rare rewards.

Lothirieth.3408:

Aegis.9724:

rolling a new char without having the oppressive feeling of wasting my time if i’m not maximizing the gold/hour ratio.

This. So this. I have a such a hard time with this… thinking about making money all the time.. run these dungeons, gather this mat.. ugh.

The ’ gold is everything’ is a big problem in this game. But it’s what you get if you don’t put most rewards in the game but in the cash-shop or but them in the game as very rear general drops. Then the only way to get anything (ingame) is with gold.

Myst.5783:

The carrot on the stick is the main attention holding aspects of MMOs, therefore this is kinda obvious…

Anyways, having crafted two legendary weapons myself and playing for a year and a half GW2 ran stale for me. My patients in ANet releasing fluff rather than meaningful update to the game wore thin. The broken rewards for WvW and the lack of ability to fix the issue was the final straw.

I already have a max level stalker in Wildstar and I’m not looking back. GW2 was fun for awhile but the apparent lack of resources and/or wrong allocation of resources along with the money grubbing attitude broke it for me. Hope NCSoft doesn’t kill Wildstar the same way.

“the money grubbing attitude” Ncsoft is responsible for much of the money element so likely also how they grub the money. With that knowledge it’s how do I say that polite… Not super smart to go for another game by the same publisher. That’s how they seem to work. Squeeze out the money from one game move to the next and the players willing follow throwing in the money again.

So if you don’t like the money grubbing attitude then move to an non-Ncsoft game. Now you are complaining about exactly what you are supporting.

But what for people who don’t like to grind gold but work directly for the rewards.
80% of getting a legendary is grinding gold to buy what you need. That is fun to some but not to all.

Except for WvW I don’t think there is real end-game content (well grinding gold) and the end-game rewards are mainly in the TP or shortcuts are provided with the TP (!got to love cash-shops). However they did say that in season two they would add in more repayable challenging content all with it’s own rewards. Lets just hope that’s not all single-player stuff but maybe also dungeon or raid-like content and that the rewards are superior to what they put in the TP (else the whole point of rewarding is gone). So with a little bid of luck as of July 1st we should start seeing some end-game.

cesmode.4257:

mtpelion.4562

Invalid analogy.

A correct pant-wiping analogy would be this:

I can choose to wipe myself.
I can choose to pay someone else to wipe me.
I can choose to trade some monopoly money in exchange for someone else wiping me.

Honestly, of all the unfounded complaints I’ve seen in my many years using the internet, yours stands tall as a particularly unfounded one.

They are giving you TWO methods of getting the content COMPLETELY 100% FREE and one method of paying for it and you accuse them of being greedy? Seriously?

At least I win at something.

And yes, Im upset because…for a… free to play game…, If I leave for 3 months and come back, Id like to be able to play the content?

Well it might have become more of a F2P game then anything else but officially it is a B2P game so from that perspective it sort of makes sense.

Problem is you only pay for the story (and it’s rewards) not the content (expansions). Still I think 200 gems would be oke if that unlock all the previous episodes. Not 1 episode.

The 200 gems is $2.50 USD so don’t complain argument makes no sense whatsoever.

People complaining about is are ‘active’ or at least active enough to log in on the forums so also active enough to log in to the game. That means that for those people it’s 0 gems.

So why do they ten complain? Not because they don’t want to pay 200 gems because they are not going to have to but because they want the best to the games and that also means new and returning players and then it’s never about 200 gems. It’s more. Every two weeks he is gone it adds another 2,50.

Is a pay-wall of a max of 65 dollar a big problem for a year? Not if it’s an expansion of some sort. But the problem here is that it’s likely not an expansion, so people are less willing to spend money on it however it’s part of the story and there are many rewards locked behind it so while not an expansion and so less willingness to pay it is something people do want. Meaning the pay-wall of lets say 30 dollar might indeed be a reason for them not to come back / start.

Thats why I have suggested to simply sell a service of 200 gems to unlock all previous episodes. Now then the “The 200 gems is $2.50 USD so don’t complain argument” would make sens, now it does not.

OtakuModeEngage.8679:

You get what could be compared to an expansion for free, as long as you pick up each piece within their respective 2 week periods… what other game does that? Even GW1 you had to pay for the expansions. Its not too much to ask for you to simply log on and receive free content is it?

And I do believe this season will expand playable maps, enemies, and missions at the very least.

It’s not an expansion more the story. And I would rather pay for an expansion so they can make money that way then get an expansion for free but feel the cash-shop influence.

But anyway I don’t think the episodes are really comparable to an expansion it will be pure story. If they add in expansion-like content that will always be available.

SemmlerTh.2685:

€: another thing: please dont use the word “pay wall” in this context. That is just incorrect.

For most part I am positive about it (as long as it doe not become to much PS).

But the gems per episode is a pay-wall for resulting or new players. For them it’s not 200 gems but 800 or 1000 or more.

And I am not even against pay-walls if you get real content for it but in this case it’s likely not the expansion content that is behind the pay-wall but the story. Something people do feel is important but are likely less interesting to pay a 1000 gems on. Not to mention the rage you will get if an episode is not so good.

This is no problem for active players but it can be a problem for returning players. That’s why I say to just offer a service of “unlock all previous episodes” for 200 gems in stead of unlock 1 episode for 200 gems.

Galen Grey.4709:

Devata.6589:

Isn’t point 3 in favor of what I say. People into a story will be more likely to stay (especially if it’s good content) anyway, so the 200 gem might be enough to change there mind if they think of going away. Getting people back is harder. And if you slowly lose people but it’s hard to get them back you end up with less. If you attract people you end up with more.

If you would pay 200 gems per episode people would indeed not buy them all I think so money-wise it would not be a big difference, still people need to come back to get other players tell them, get this or that episode and they might not come back if they see a pay-wall for the story (not a real expansion but still something important for the game)

Anyway I guess we have to agree to disagree here then.

And I do hope thinks change. I am still in favor of them earning there money with yearly expansion in stead of the cash-shop. So yes I know thinks can change and I even hope it does.

Well it isnt impossible ofcourse but if you’re invested in the story its unlikely you’re going to leave just cause you can come back and get it back for $2.5. Even if that happens to be the case there is nothing you can do about that subset of players. I mean how can you get them to stay? as for a barrier to come back if you watched the stream it really isnt. Because if all they want is experience the story they can do that off a friend / guild mate who’s unlocked it already. All thats locked behind the paywall is the rewards and the achievements.

Well technically you already got most of the stuff you were asking for with regards to the living story. You get the story permanently and you get to work on the rewards for as long as you need so you should be mostly happy

As for the expansion well we’ll need to see how S2 plays out. I am hopeful it will shine enough that people will see LS can deliver the same stuff an expansion would.

I did see the video and yes they can play it but still they see the pay-wall.

Yeah if it comes to permanent content I am very happy with this, it seems to be close to what I have been asking for (of course need to see in in action, I just hope it will not be to much like the PS), also how he gave the example in the video that some signs might be temporary but the big stuff that matters would be permanent is very similar to some examples I gave as how I would like it to be.

If it comes to expansions it’s another thing. I do think they can deliver that in the LS but I don’t want them to because then they would still need to use the cash-shop to make money. For my preferred game-play the cash-shop influences the game in a very negative way so I would want them to sell expansion and make money that way so they can drop the cash-shop focus. That is however another discussion I am not going into here (and I think you know my viewpoints on that anyway) but at least one of my two biggest issues with how the game works at this moment, the temporary content, seems to be history. So I am very happy about that.

Galen Grey.4709:

Devata.6589:

Yeah it’s true that it might be easier to switch as you maximum have to pay 200 gems to get back. However that also means it’s easier to come back (only 200 gems). I however think the system as I present it would be less imposing.
Sure they could (and I would expect them to) release cheaper packs or whatever but it’s still a pay-wall for something thats likely not expansion-like content (I don’t see them locking maps and races behind episodes) but is something you would want to get have unlocked (so are then people willing to pay +-15$/€ or is that +-15$/€ keeping them away?).

Also with what you say (cheaper packs) again you increase the reason for people to wait.. Lets go play GW2 again.. oow wait I missed 10 episodes, better wait till the end of the season before returning because then it’s cheaper to get all episodes. Meanwhile you have people who did pay to unlock the episodes and the next week suddenly see a drop in price so they are mad.

All in all I believe my way is less imposing and so more friendly towards the player-base what also means the player-base is more happy about ArenaNet.

I think we are on a similar page however you focus more on “people should not leave”. I look at that as well but focus more on “people should also be more willing to come back”.

Well you cannot fight two battles at once. Either they’re going to focus on retaining players or they’re going to focus on making it easier for them to come back.

They’re two opposing things if you make easier coming back then its harder to keep players playing. I dont think you can have it both ways.

I do think focusing on keeping players playing is probably a better choice though.

1. it makes the game richer by having more players around.
2. its easier to achieve then making players come back if they leave.
3. I dont think its much of a barrier I mean if you’re into the story you’re probably be looking forward ot the next release and if all you care is new content to play you dont need to buy the episodes you lost cause you have new stuff to play anyway. You’ll maybe buy 1 or 2 if there is a reward attached to them that you’re interested but I doubt you’ll want them all.

Well that happens all the time, People playing MMOs should be used to it by now. I mean discounts is the least of the issues here what about p2p games that offered lifetime subscription that subsequently went free to play or people who payed subs for years whose game then went free to play etc..You cant really expect these things to remain constant they never do.

Isn’t point 3 in favor of what I say. People into a story will be more likely to stay (especially if it’s good content) anyway, so the 200 gem might be enough to change there mind if they think of going away. Getting people back is harder. And if you slowly lose people but it’s hard to get them back you end up with less. If you attract people you end up with more.

If you would pay 200 gems per episode people would indeed not buy them all I think so money-wise it would not be a big difference, still people need to come back to get other players tell them, get this or that episode and they might not come back if they see a pay-wall for the story (not a real expansion but still something important for the game)

Anyway I guess we have to agree to disagree here then.

And I do hope thinks change. I am still in favor of them earning there money with yearly expansion in stead of the cash-shop. So yes I know thinks can change and I even hope it does.

Galen Grey.4709:

Devata.6589:

~

Yes I too think a big reason for doing this is to keep people logging in, just said it in another post in fact. However what you propose would be counter to that. You’d be basically taxing people $2.5 every 3 months for not logging in rather then incentivising them to log in. I mean I imagine that a main reason for doing this is to try to avoid people jumping game. Say this next interesting MMO gets released you dont want players to go play it and get overly invested in it while forgetting about your game completely. Every game is engaging some wway or another and a new game has the novelty factor on its side. Like this people are still free to go checkout any game they want but you’re also keeping them coming back to yours every 2 weeks. with what you propose they can just pay $2.5 and completely forget about your game for the next 3 months. Not exactly ideal.

Devata.6589:

Now you don’t have a big-pay-wall for returning players. A pay-wall that is likely not going to give you an expansion as most of that content will be available anyway (some people are comparing it with an expansion and sure there are some comparison but I don’t think one season can be seen as 1 expansion). You will also not stimulate people waiting with unlock the episodes but you do keep it so that people will log in regular to prevent having to buy them. And would people have stopped logging in anyway it’s only 200 gems to be back at the same level with the rest, not 800 because you did not log in the 4 months.

Let me also be clear that I am not negative about this change.. while having some reservations (like being afraid it might become to much like the PS) but we will see that in game. This seems to be a huge improvement I just think they should do the ‘pay to unlock’ a little bid different for best result.

I do agree this is a bit tough on new players who may join a few seasons down the line, not very tough or unfair after all plenty of other MMOs have you paying for every expansion they release but certainly a lot more expansive then what people who joined on day one had it. However they can tackle that issue in a different way.

For example a lot of MMOs loose their client price as the years go by. What Anet could do is keep the full price but include every season as they’re finish. IE next year it would still cost $60 to buy gw2 but you’d get S2 for free. the year after still $60 but you get S2 and S3 for free.

Thats one option. the other option could a bundle. Buy Gw2 and S2 for $80 instead of $120

Or even simply $2.5 per epsiode or say $40 per season.

plenty of ways how they can keep the player logging in incentive on while being nice to new players.

Yeah it’s true that it might be easier to switch as you maximum have to pay 200 gems to get back. However that also means it’s easier to come back (only 200 gems). I however think the system as I present it would be less imposing.
Sure they could (and I would expect them to) release cheaper packs or whatever but it’s still a pay-wall for something thats likely not expansion-like content (I don’t see them locking maps and races behind episodes) but is something you would want to get have unlocked (so are then people willing to pay +-15$/€ or is that +-15$/€ keeping them away?).

Also with what you say (cheaper packs) again you increase the reason for people to wait.. Lets go play GW2 again.. oow wait I missed 10 episodes, better wait till the end of the season before returning because then it’s cheaper to get all episodes. Meanwhile you have people who did pay to unlock the episodes and the next week suddenly see a drop in price so they are mad.

All in all I believe my way is less imposing and so more friendly towards the player-base what also means the player-base is more happy about ArenaNet.

I think we are on a similar page however you focus more on “people should not leave”. I look at that as well but focus more on “people should also be more willing to come back”.

lordkrall.7241:

juno.1840:

lol, because I’m secretly plying for an expansion pack. Charging for content is the first step on that road.

Once ANet charges for content then they have to deliver something worthy of buying it in the first place. I think many players would agree that little in LS Season 1 was worthy of purchase.

So in a round about way, I’m lobbying to make the game better by channeling revenue towards content instead of cosmetic fluff.

Anyway, that is my motivation — pure and simple.

To be fair it is not uncommon for companies to released paid expansions that still sucks.

As you know, quality good expansions on a yearly base and then getting rid of the cash-shop putting all that stuff in the game is the best option imho. However the episodes are likely not comparable to an expansion so we are really discussing a completely different subject here.

Galen Grey.4709:

Devata.6589:

Moss.5371:

I agree with OP here. With all the “you can take a break we’ll be here” and Living Story being sold as “free updates”, having to pay if you missed a chapter seems a bit shady to me.

I mean, one of the points of this feature, besides replyability, seems to be not punishing returning player for missing the “free content updates”, so why punish them anyway?

They likely do it mainly to prevent people from leaving. Then can say people can leave but they don’t want people to leave. So this way they try to keep people logging in. Meanwhile they also seem to use it to try and earn some extra money.

So that makes sense and I am not against it. The problem just is that asking 200 gems per episode is likely going to have a negative effect (like I explained before). I stay with the idea that if they would simply ask 200 gems to unlock all previous episodes and x upcoming (not having to log it then to unlock them) they would have the same positive effect’s likely even sell more and would not have the negatives. And I am really not saying they because I am afraid I would have to pay to much. I log in once every two weeks anyway.

I really say this because I think doing it that way is much better for the game then selling it per episode.

You know the problem I see with your idea is if they’d go for it, it would most certainly not work the way you’re imagining. If they decided 1 episode is worth 200 gems and they give you a bundle of 5 episodes they’re not going to charge you 200 for it they’re going to charge you 1000 or maybe 800 if you’re lucky. The problem there is it doent work for people who are just missing 1 or 2 episodes.

Worst yet is you’re pushing for the idea of pre-purchase and if they went with that they’d probably end up doing the same thing every other MMO that sells content as part of the micro-transaction model do. IE forget about all of this and pay X amount (where X ranges between $10 to $60 depending on the game and the amount of content involved) to get access to that content and you dont get any of it free.

Your idea is noble I Get that have people still pay but in addition to the content you also get the piece of mind you’re also getting the next few issues for sure regardless if you’re busy or not. The problem with it is it doesnt balance player convenience with business needs. In most markets a bundle costs less then having to buy every single item individually but I’ve never seen a bundle sold for the same price of a single item.

I think you did not completely got what I was saying or what my point was.
My first comment here explains it better: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/livingworld/lwd/Paying-for-past-content/page/3#post4094962 but I will try to explain it again.

I do think they want to use the episodes to earn some money however I do think the biggest reason for them to ask gems for missed episodes is not to earn money on it but to keep people logging in.. They log in to prevent having to pay for a missed episode.

You basically say “one episode has the value of 200 gems” but forget about that for a moment. You can get them for free so you could also say they have a value of 0 gems (yes it cost money to develop, but they try to earn that in other ways else they would charge everybody 200 gems for every episode).

So with those things in mind (it’s mainly to keep people logging in) I say they should not ask money for 1 episode.. There is no option to unlock 1 specific episode. The only option there is, is to unlock all previous episodes and that cost you 200 gems.
Purely to prevent people waiting to do that because they might not be on-line 3 weeks from now you also say.. When you unlock all previous episodes you also don’t have to worry about logging in the next +-5 episodes. Likely they will log in and play (else your not going to unlock the episodes) but you just prevent that they wait (with playing your game).

Now you don’t have a big-pay-wall for returning players. A pay-wall that is likely not going to give you an expansion as most of that content will be available anyway (some people are comparing it with an expansion and sure there are some comparison but I don’t think one season can be seen as 1 expansion). You will also not stimulate people waiting with unlock the episodes but you do keep it so that people will log in regular to prevent having to buy them. And would people have stopped logging in anyway it’s only 200 gems to be back at the same level with the rest, not 800 because you did not log in the 4 months.

Let me also be clear that I am not negative about this change.. while having some reservations (like being afraid it might become to much like the PS) but we will see that in game. This seems to be a huge improvement I just think they should do the ‘pay to unlock’ a little bid different for best result.

lordkrall.7241:

Devata.6589:

Where did you get that information? The blog says you can unlock instance content but also open world content to repeat later.

Here:

Open world content additions to Living World updates will permanently expand or change the world of Tyria and will tie to the theme and story of the episode. This means you can play the open world content and the story content (if you’ve unlocked that episode) anytime you want, on every character you ever make on your account!

I read that part as that all the open-world things will be permanent, but that the story part must be unlocked in order to play it permanently.

Hmm could be, depends on if “unlock” points towards the sentence or only the thing coming directly before it. It’s multiple interpretable. But it would be nice if it would be permanent editions to the world. It’s what am saying al along, they can easily add such content to the world permanently, no need to have it temporary to have a ever changing world. If they now finally came to the same conclusion that would be great.

lordkrall.7241:

Naevius.3185:

I still would like to know whether this change means that LS 2 will have no massive group events like the Marionette fight, or Escape from LA. I don’t see how that kind of event would ever be re-playable at will.

Is it possible that there might be different versions of episodes (e.g. ‘live’ vs ‘re-playable’ ?)

There seems to be difference between story (the replayable, buyable things) and open world.

Those big events can still take place in the open world part of the releases.

Where did you get that information? The blog says you can unlock instance content but also open world content to repeat later.

HyruleanHyroe.1473:

Let me clarify. $50 to buy season 1. People really need to get it through their heads that going forward EVERYTHING IS AVAILABLE FOR FREE IF YOU JUST LOG IN. Let’s see, that’s a double-click to open up the .exe, another click to log in and one to start the game. One last click to start playing a character….. carry the seven…. five mouse clicks! Can you all click your mouse five times every two weeks? Can you ask a friend to do it? I’m confident in my ability to do so.

If they do season 1 the same way it would be unlocked for most players (I guess if you have at least one achievement of an episode?). However people here are not complaining for themselves, not because they are afraid they need to start paying gems. Most people will like you say yourself log In anyway. Many people here are talking about people who took a break for 3 months, 6 months or come back after a year or new players. And also the fact that every two weeks more you don’t log in returning becomes less interesting.

Hope that cleared up your confusion.

Moss.5371:

I agree with OP here. With all the “you can take a break we’ll be here” and Living Story being sold as “free updates”, having to pay if you missed a chapter seems a bit shady to me.

I mean, one of the points of this feature, besides replyability, seems to be not punishing returning player for missing the “free content updates”, so why punish them anyway?

They likely do it mainly to prevent people from leaving. Then can say people can leave but they don’t want people to leave. So this way they try to keep people logging in. Meanwhile they also seem to use it to try and earn some extra money.

So that makes sense and I am not against it. The problem just is that asking 200 gems per episode is likely going to have a negative effect (like I explained before). I stay with the idea that if they would simply ask 200 gems to unlock all previous episodes and x upcoming (not having to log it then to unlock them) they would have the same positive effect’s likely even sell more and would not have the negatives. And I am really not saying they because I am afraid I would have to pay to much. I log in once every two weeks anyway.

I really say this because I think doing it that way is much better for the game then selling it per episode.

HyruleanHyroe.1473:

nexxe.7081:

That’s 20 × 200, which equals 4000 gems.

That’s very unreasonable for a new player just starting out.

That’s $50 US. For a whole season worth of infinitely re-playable content (essentially an expansion) that is totally reasonable. It’s just like any other MMO with expansions. If you want to be up-to-date on the story, you need to purchase all expansions released thus far.

But it likely is not like an expansion. Or are they going to lock of zones and new races and guild-halls and so on behind episodes? If it would be really like an expansion (then just selling expansion would still be my option of choice so they can really earn the money that way from everybody) you would be true but that’s likely not the case. The blog-post at least did no suggest that.

azizul.8469:

does this mean we have a chance to get the molten jetpack from S1 LS…. ?

When / if they add in season 1 it should yes. But that still might take a while.

Kain Francois.4328:

I wasn’t sure about this at first, but now that I think about it, this seems like a great deal.

Think about it. It takes a year to produce a living story season. And how much will it cost? $68. How much is an expansion? $68.

Not to mention, we actually get to use ingame gold by paying 20g per episode.

Best part? We can actually choose which episodes we want to buy!

Although as a fair bit of concern, I am worried we will just be paying for Personal Story v2.0….

But it is not an expansion. There are similarities but it looks like the real expansion-like content (if introduces) will be in the world itself and so available. This are also small instances to go back to. So it’s a list of episodes much like the PS and that’s what you can unlock not an real expansion.

They now put up a pay-wall for something that’s not an expansion. It’s not really a problem that they ask gems to unlock previous episodes and I can see why they do it but they should just have the option “unlock all past episodes for 200 gems and also the upcoming x (no need to log in) .

A pay-wall on itself is not to bad thing if it’s not to big and if it’s for an expansion, but it’s not for an expansion. Sure they might come with reduced prices to unlock a full season at the end but it stays a pretty big pay-wall and you will then up set people who did just unlock a few episodes. I however don’t think people will do it a lot if you ask gems per episode so I even think they would earn more for asking 200 gems to unlock all previous ones (and x upcoming) then if they ask 200 gems per episode. “oow I missed 3 episodes, nah not going to pay 600 gems to unlock them just skip them” vs “oow I missed 3 episodes, I guess I can throw in 200 gems to unlock all missed episodes.”

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Devata.6589:

Anyway it was also completely off-topic. You know I am against the cash-shop for very valid reasons, you apparently never bothered to think about what I was saying meaning I would basically be asking for a way to pay and now you see my comment here, only read the first line and leave a complete off-topic reaction that makes no sense whatsoever.

There aren’t many valid reasons against having a microtransaction shop. The company has a responsibility to make money. If you present players with optional content for real money, key word optional, then it’s the players who decide if they want to pay or not. This becomes a different story when you sell “cash shop” items that grant overpowered advantages over non-paying players. This is call P2W, and it’s a good thing GW2 isn’t like this.

(Also @ Calys Teneb)

There are many valid reasons and some people care about stats other about looks. In a game everything is optional. However my post here was not about the cash-shop in general so I won’t go more into that here. You want to discuss that more with me? Fine but not here.

I have an own thread especially for that: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/A-focus-on-micro-transactions/page/3#post3822508

So go there if you want to talk more about that. Here I am specifically talking about the way paying for episodes work (what this thread is about) and I want to keep that clean and on topic.

DR should not be felt by players, only by bots. When players do feel it it’s not implemented correctly aka it’s buggy (it also does not seem to help for bots seeing the many gold-sellers). So you are suggesting to pay a monthly fee to have this bug removed. Lol

Sarrs.4831:

wait guys
wait
wait
guys
stop

wait

does this mean we’ll be able to buy a SUPER ADVENTURE BOX?

No that is considered a festival.

Silent The Gray.3091:

Hence 200 gems per episode? Have you ever had to pay for anything in your life? Goods and services cost money, they are never free no matter what anyone has told you. You have to pay for them. I don’t understand what is so difficult about this concept for you, you pay 200 gems to unlock previous episodes. You don’t know what the quality will be of them, you assume it to be good though. Let me give you an example. If you watched the series Breaking Bad. You buy Season 1, not knowing if you will like it, but let’s assume you do. So you buy season 2, ALSO not knowing if you like it, but again you assume you will. Please stop littering the forum with your incompetency because you cannot understand that you have to pay for things that cost money, it’s pretty simple. You don’t know what the quality of these episodes/seasons will be so you just deal with it and you will probably buy them anyways because this is a great direction for the game.

Did you in fact read the comment or do you just start insulting? No problem, an insult from some people might be a compliment. First of all I don’t say it should be free all I say they should sell unlocking all the previous episodes, not sell them one by one. Likely they would not earn less as I also detailed explain so money-wise there would not be a huge difference for them. (you could disagree with that but then you tell why. Anyway to disagree with thay you first need to read it)

Secondly what I have always been saying, and I even repeated at the end of this comment is that I was and still am in favor of using an expansions-based model. If I was so against paying or would not understand that a company needs to make money why the heck would I suggest an expansion-based model? I don’t support the cash-shop model (so won’t buy gems) but I have nothing against paying for content. I did in fact by the CE edition of the game. And now I am asking to use an expansion-based model (not what this post was about btw) meaning I would have to pay for it. Releasing an expansion every year would mean I would have already have paid one and where soon going to need to pay another one. While I don’t buy gems so I have now not spend a single dime since release.

So really I ask you, if I would be so against paying money or I would not understand they need money why the heck would I be asking for a model that would cost me more!?

Anyway it was also completely off-topic. You know I am against the cash-shop for very valid reasons, you apparently never bothered to think about what I was saying meaning I would basically be asking for a way to pay and now you see my comment here, only read the first line and leave a complete off-topic reaction that makes no sense whatsoever.

Being heavily against the cash-shop focus that this game has and how it effects this game I am not that heavily against the idea of unlocking the previous episodes for gems. Thats also not very strange as I am in favor of moving to expansion sales to earn the money and strip the cash-shop down (putting all those things in the game) and you can see some similarities between unlocking previous episodes and selling expansions. It’s still far from the same but has more similarities that how the cash-shop worked so far.

However I do think the way it’s done is still not good. Use 200 gems to unlock a previous episode? How about use 200 gems to unlock the previous episodes (and the upcoming 5*). And yes then still 200, not suddenly going up in the price.

The thing is that it would likely not even mean much lose in gem-sales. If somebody has been gone for a while, lets say half a year then he is not very likely to go and unlock every episode for 200 gems paying 2400 gems. Not only that, you will get a huge load of negative feedback over smaller episodes because people did pay money for it. No, at best (not counting exceptions) they unlock two or three episodes that many people still repeatedly do. However a big group will not unlock everything and might in fact not come back to the game for that reason. What they see is a huge pay-wall and not for expansion-like content (because if you guys are going to put that in the game it will be already available for them) but for a huge list of episodes including there events and rewards. So asking money for every single episode makes no sense.

Letting people unlock all previous episodes for 200 gems will be something people will do and are also more likely to do again when having missed a few while if it’s pay per episode they might simply not buy them. *Before I also said that when unlocking all previous episodes they should also unlock the upcoming 5 (or 4 or 6 something like that). Obviously I don’t mean they should be able to play upcoming episodes but I mean that whenever they become available they will be unlocked for them also if they do not log in. This prevents people from waiting with unlocking the previous. Someone might come back from a vacation and have missed 2 episodes but the upcoming 2 months he might also have less time to be online, so just to make sure he does not now spend 200 gems and then misses another episode 3 weeks from now he decides to wait 3 weeks and 3 weeks become 6 weeks eventually not bothering with it at all anymore. This is easily prevented by also unlocking the upcoming x episodes.

Doing it like I say here will mean more people being willing to return or jump into the game at a later time (those that now might stay away) and will likely not drops the total number of sales you will get for unlocking episodes. And because you would have more people playing the overall income might even increase.

I hope you ArenaNet learned something now seeing how what many people did say already a year ago that content should not be temporary. You come to the conclusion the community where right so also take this advice into consideration and don’t wait another half year to conclude that the episode selling did not worked out as you hoped it would.

BTW, I’m still in favor of an expansion-based model because the changes do not remove most of the cash-shop focus related problem. Just to be clear.

So I did read the whole article and let is sink in little.

While keeping my reservations (still need to see in in reality) it seem to be much better then before, it’s in fact similar to one of my suggestion I did almost a year ago.
There are however three (or four) possible problems, but maybe it’s not.. like I said we need to play it to see it.

1 It might be a little to much Personal Story. Personally I totally dislike the PS. I play a MMO to play an MMO not to play an single-player game and the PS was just a single-player game. I in fact have not yet completed the PS on any character, still plan on it.
However maybe thats not the case, maybe most is just open world stuff like we had in Season 1 (little different) and the personal story elements are not much more then an NPC telling a little story. If it would really be like the PS with mainly single player (yes you can take a group) activities that would be a big let-down.

2 I do hope the open world activities will be designed in a way that you can still effectively do them with a smaller group, while also suitable for for bigger groups in the open world Because it’s nice that it’s still available after the event is over but if it’s zergy content like we had so much of in Season 1 thats it’s still not re-playable with a smaller group. I’m not sure if when you do the open world content at a later time you can do that with a party or get thrown in an sort of overflow but even if the last is the case the more episodes you add the less people will end up in those episodes meaning you can forget about doing content that required zerging. So no more content that required zerging.

3 Last concern is that you build up a huge list of episodes that will seem impossible to complete for new comers or people people who would have taken a break. It’s no problem there is so much new content. The problem is that people see a huge list of episodes and then are like “never gonna catch up”. This could be reduces but not removed by having monthly in stead of 2 week updates. There is no real solution for this when using episodes but having an episode pet month, not per 2 weeks would make the problem half the size.

The fourth problem is related to the episode-sales but I will post that in the thread that’s specifically about that.

Link: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/livingworld/lwd/Paying-for-past-content/page/3#post4094962

If it would be true it would be a much better. If they had listened to the many people suggesting this not long after the start of season one thinks could have been much better already. Anyway if it’s true that everything will permanent it might have taken them a little longer to figure out but better late then never. Hopefully it’s then just not yet to late.

About the ’ whining’. Most complains about the LS where related to two thinks. 1 the lack of expansion-like content (something I did not complain about because I rather have that in an expansion) and 2 it being temporary making people have to do thinks against the time.

The temporary complain would be solved, the expansion-like content is not sure yet so people might still be complaining about that if they won’t release about a map per month (as you could except about 12 new maps in a years expansion I think)

Another general problem that turns up also in LS discussion is the gold-grind for everything. That’s related to the cash-shop focus, that’s why I preferred expansion-like content in expansions so they could focus on expansion to make money and put most cash-shop stuff into the world.

Now if stuff would be permanent that problem is not yet solved and even if they would push out expansion-like content then people would go into new maps to do what? Grind some more gold?

So If it’s all permanent but those problems would still exist prepare for some more ‘whining’, but completely justifiable whining. Just to prepare you.

However as long as we don’t know for sure everything is permanent and or we will get truly expansion-like content this is all guessing so maybe better wait a few patches into LS S2 before concluding that they finally listen to the people saying stuff should be permanent.

(Oow and yes I did see the post but we will not know how it works out until it here. One of the complains for example was that returning players missed the stuff and now you need to log in during the event to unlock it, so returning players will still have missed it. It’s a huge improvement for active players none-the less. But lets wait and see.)

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Herr der Friedhoefe.2490:

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

To be fair, there was no mention of Gem exchange to Gold in last week’s Gem Store announcement. So, it’s not been every time.

ftfy

Lol, this thread is so far off the OP that I don’t think it matters. =)

It’s still very much on topic, but the title did not match the OP.

There are already mounts in the game but adding a permanent speed-boost, giving some more variation and making them available in the game-world in stead of only in the cash-shop would be a nice addition indeed. However I would suggest going to this topic: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Suggestion-Mounts/page/22#post4014996 Just to keep all the comments together.

Lobo Dela Noche.5127:

EgonVenkman.1907:

As much as it is driving some players from the game, it is also training/conditioning/brainwashing others. They want them to think of this as the norm. As more and more people fall out of the game, those that are left become more and more tolerant of the status quo. This is their Ultimate GoaI believe. Not just raise profits in the short term, but have a player base that expects and demands content for the Gem Store.

There are many here, even in this thread spouting “The game NEEDS this.” Those are the players Anet wants in their game. Not the Gold->Gems people, and certainly not the players wanting more unlocks available In-Game.

I agree, that’s why I even though I no longer play I still read the forums and chime in. Voices of reason need to be spoken so they can get heard or else the BS becomes the status quo.

The thing I don’t get is how they don’t realize that they would probably make more money by making it possible to grind for a drop rather than buy/grind gold. Players want to have fun in the game and more players would be here to buy the crap in the gem store

The problem they would then have is that if they make everything available in the game what would there be left in the cash-shop and why would people buy it? Not enough likely. thats why that only works if they get there main income from another source, not the cash-shop. A sub-model is not going to work for this game so then expansions are the other option.

EgonVenkman.1907:

As much as it is driving some players from the game, it is also training/conditioning/brainwashing others. They want them to think of this as the norm. As more and more people fall out of the game, those that are left become more and more tolerant of the status quo. This is their Ultimate GoaI believe. Not just raise profits in the short term, but have a player base that expects and demands content for the Gem Store.

There are many here, even in this thread spouting “The game NEEDS this.” Those are the players Anet wants in their game. Not the Gold->Gems people, and certainly not the players wanting more unlocks available In-Game.

With the current model they use you are correct (or at least that thats they group they end up with in the long-term) but the question is if that group is big enough for a good income or getting money from the much bigger group would not eventually make them more money even if it maybe would be less money per person.

Behellagh.1468:

Xenon.4537:

Behellagh.1468:

…The only way something significant will change is if players stop buying gems…

Aaaand we’re right back to the whole point of this thread.

Aaaand you completely glossed over my point that that tactic could just as likely sink the game in it’s entirety. So you’re advocating “do what we want or everyone’s characters die”.

The complains had have been coming in for a long time, at least for a year. So they did have had enough time to make a change. Also a tanker can change it’s course in a year. Eventually if a company makes bad decisions it can get into problems. I rather have the risk the game would fail with the possibility it went into the good direction then the assurance it would not fail but would also stay going in the current direction. Besides I do feel that the current approach is also bad for the long-term life-spawn of the game.

Oow and I don’t think they can’t deliver expansion-like content with the LS (even if so far they failed to do so while saying they would), I think it is possible to do it that way. It’s the negative side-effects of doing it the cash-shop way that I and other people have a problem with. Nice a new zone, so I can go there to grind gold as well? Or a new race to grind gold with?

If less gem-sales is the only thing they might listen to (so much those suggestions and complains that have been coming in for over a year don’t seem to do much) I might hope it’s something people indeed would use to try and change things. I for one never did buy a gem to prevent them from going this way in the first place. While buying a CE edition of the game to do put my money where my mouth is.

Draknar.5748:

Devata.6589:

But even then it would effect the game in a negative way. Not for you as you obviously have no problem with grinding gold. It does however then still effect the game for people that prefer to work directly towards the items in the game.

This is where the argument of gold —> gems can be made. If there were viable methods for a solo player to farm gold in their free time, not requiring pre-planning with a group, or risking a PUG, or being held to a specific rotation schedule (boss timers), then you could still work for specific items in the game--in a sense. But I assume you are talking about something like “oh man, look at those sweet gloves! I have to do X dungeon and kill X boss while naked to get it? Whatever, let’s give it a shot!” versus “Oh man look at those sweet gloves! 400 gems? Alright, well better start running dungeons and killing world bosses to save up gold to convert!”

There are effectively two ways to get items in this game (not including dungeon sets / LS achievement items).

1) Use CC to buy gems —> buy item. Or use CC to buy gems --> convert to gold —> buy from TP.

2) Farm dungeons/bosses —> convert gold to gems --> buy item. OR farm dungeons/bosses —> buy item from TP.

~3 sorta) TP flipping, but I don’t include this as a real method.

Either use your CC or farm dungeons. These are your options essentially and it is clear Anet really wants you to choose option #1, and the more they push it, the more negative it will become.

I can’t really knock them for trying to increase profits, that’s how companies work. But they are looking at the short-term, not the long-term. The more they drive people to the gem-store, the more they drive people away eventually. Sure they will post some nice gains for a number of months, but people will seriously get fed up with it. They need to either ease up on it or risk the game failing.

“then you could still work for specific items in the game—in a sense. ” But not in a fun way. Maybe thats hard to understand for you as you are obviously fine with grinding gold but there are many people (like me) who don’t consider it fun to grind gold to then buy an item. That specific reward being able to drop from content is what make the content more fun and re-playable. It also gives the item more value.

I simply do not find it fun to grind gold to buy the reward. I might in fact be doing the same dungeon over and over again but if I do it to grind gold to then buy x items I would consider it not fun and the item less interesting because it’s just some generic item you can get in many ways (it’s not mainly a reward for being able to do that dungeon). If I did the dungeons the same amount of times for a change for the item to drop I have more fun in the dungeon and would find the drop more interesting. It would have more value. Besides the gold-way pushes you also to whatever content has the best gold-return value while the direct method puses you to all types of different content.

Your example of “while naked” would look like an achievement reward what is also nice (If not only temporary available!) but those sort of items would be account-bound and so not traidable. I have no problem if grinding gold for an item is ALSO possible so having them as an RNG dorp is also just fine (then they can still end op on the TP for those who prefer to grind gold). But an achievement reward once in a while is also nice yes.

However yes I rather have “ok that item drops from that boss, lets start killing that boss”in stead of. That item cost x gold or y gems to lets go do anything to get the gold to buy it.

Indeed what the do not is not good for the long-term life-spawn from the game. It’s what I also have been saying for over a year now however I have a feeling that we already getting into that ‘long-term’ effect meaning we are now at a moment where it already starts to push away people that might never come back already having that negative effect. So if they go to do anything about it they better do it fast and have already caused some irreversible damage. A year ago they could have still prevented that.

lordkrall.7241:

Devata.6589:

Yeah I guess so. It’s btw not just the items in the cash-shop it’s the fact that they are there in stead of in the world and the gold-grind in the world. It’s not that there are items in the cash-shop I desperately want and now I am mad because I can’t get them. Thats not the case. I just want them to be in the game so they are fun to get and add something to the content. Hope you understand that difference.

But what can they add in the gemstore then?
Every single thing they add will be something someone would want to be able to get out in the world.

I suppose they could go the GW1 path and release skills and power buying, but I don’t think many peolpe would want that to be honest.

If they focus on expansions the cash-shop would be extra so there would also be less need. However that they could put in for sure are out of game things.

Name-changer, the full-makeover kit, race-changer, seks-changer, level-resetter, guid-namge changer and so on. All that sort of things.
If they would also give you the amount of character slots as there are professions or races whatever is most they could also put additional character slots. (now they gave not enough character slots to make all professions).

With only sort of things you had a cash-shop that does not influence the game at all. That would be perfect but I could even be oke if they sold a few ingame-items when keeping it very limited. Lets say they would have5 skins, and 6 mini’s in the cash-shop and really keeping it so low, maybe added at most 1 more skin or one new mini when an expansion was released. Also the town-cloth would be a ok for the cash-shop the way they worked before. Now that they are becoming real skins not anymore. So if they really feel the need to have a few more things then only those ‘ouf of game’ items I could life with that when keeping it very limited. Best would be only those out of game things.

Those ou of game things like a name-changer or sex-changer don’t even make sense in the the world.

But focus mainly on the expansions also releasing a CE edition to maybe earn a little more.

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

Devata.6589:

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

GW2 is buy to play, with a micro-transaction gem shop. Yes, the combination of the 2 is their income model. The gem shop is entirely optional though and we knew that to begin with. That has not changed. You can’t say you didn’t know. You can’t claim they changed from b2p to cash shop. They didn’kittens been this way since before day 1.

Free to play games require you to do those micro transactions to play the game in any type of effective manner. To progress, to access content. GW2 does not. You buy the game, you get all the base content of the game and you can play it as long as you desire. There will never be something in the store that requires you to purchase ‘x’ to access race ‘y’ or zone ‘b’. There isn’t component of the game play (and by game play, I’m not talking about collecting minis) that only available if you spend ‘x’ more.

Yes, they have cosmetic items in the store, such as minis and armor, that were added after the initial game content. If you want to consider that content (and I know some people do) Anet again already stated that there is no requirement to purchase that additional content in order to keep playing. It’s completely optional. Just like you didn’t have to purchase factions or nightfall to keep playing prophecies, that was optional additional content. So look at it that way, they are adding ‘new content’ that like factions and nightfall is completely optional to buy, it’s not going to stop or block you from playing your purchased game.

They said they would have a cash-shop and would use the B2P model (thats similar to what GW1 had). That is what they said indeed. However what we have now is the other way around. They have the cash-shop model but also sell the initial game.
That is a difference, a big one.

About how those F2P games make money. Many of them do but no there are also enough F2P games only (or mainly) selling cosmetics that you do not have to buy and that don’t lock of content behind a pay-wall.
Yes in the world of F2P games GW2 would be one of the better one (still not what I wanted because of the way is still effects the game). There is a reason I and many with me did go for GW2 and not for another F2P game. It’s to avoid exactly the sort of things we do now see in GW2.

Indeed, factions was not a required purchase but it did expand the game (added a second one really(. It’s what we should also have in GW2. Expansions to the game. You don’t need to buy them but you can. Meanwhile most of those cosmetics and rewards can just be in the game as part of that expansion. We then pay for the content we play.

“So look at it that way, they are adding ‘new content’ ~” It does not matter how I look at it, the way they do it now negatively effects the game for many people including me. No matter how good the excuse is.

http://massively.joystiq.com/2014/06/03/flameseeker-chronicles-the-strange-case-of-guild-wars-2s-rewar/ have a look at this, it’s similar to what I am saying. He is even trying to defend it sort of and his solution (some more nice general loot drops) is not what would work for me (it’s really strange that that is his solution because in the article he does say that specific loot is better) however it’s yet another person trying to explain how the current model does effect the game in a negative way.

I guess we’re going to have to agree to disagree, as I’m done arguing this point. Maybe it’s because 90% of the stuff in the cash shop doesn’t interest me, I don’t know, but this isn’t any different than GW1 in that respect. I bought the game, I can play it. I can spend more on new shinies that they add in the shop if I so desire. The same way I could in GW1. As an added bonus they update the game with new tidbits for me whether I spend a penny or not. shrug

Yeah I guess so. It’s btw not just the items in the cash-shop it’s the fact that they are there in stead of in the world and the gold-grind in the world. It’s not that there are items in the cash-shop I desperately want and now I am mad because I can’t get them. Thats not the case. I just want them to be in the game so they are fun to get and add something to the content. Hope you understand that difference.

Galen Grey.4709:

Xenon.4537:

You skipped over my question. Anet is not incentivised to produce an expansion. Yes they would get more money and players if they did, but they already have a steady revenue stream. It’s easier for them to just nickle and dime us with the systems they already have in place.

And yes, giving the players what they want is in their best interest. But how do they know what players want? There’s a massive thread with over 1500 replies asking for Cantha that’s been around since launch and is still actively bumped every week. But where’s Cantha? All I see is gem store gem store gem store.

They seem to think that all players want is what they are currently paying for: gems and knick knacks to spend gems on.

No they’re not incentivized to produce an expansion but is that necessarly a bad thing? Personally I think its a good thing. Why?

Well lets say they go with the expansion business model. That means they need to release an expansion as quickly as possible in order to maximize their profit. If they release an expansion per year its more profitable for them then releasing one every 2 years right? An expansion needs to be pretty good, they cant just rush it so what would that lead to? Focusing all of their resources to produce an expansion. Which means if it takes them 1 year or even perhaps 2 years to produce an expansion thats 1 – 2 years we’d have with minimal new content and how do you keep people busy during those 1 – 2 years? well most games do repeatable dungeons and stuff which is what generally drives me away from those games.

With the current business model time isnt a major issue (it still is but not so much) they can afford to release new content every 2 weeks and take say 4 years to finish all the work it would take to create a single expansion. I have a feeling thats exactly what they did. Creating new zones is laborious and they needed time. Its now been 2 years and they’re ready to deliver at least some of them which we got enough hints to think this is actually gonna happen in Season 2 of the living story. Now lets assume they release a new zone every month they’d finish releasing a new continent size of zones in another 2 years but all the while we’d have new content to play every 2 weeks and a new zone every month.

Now that would have taken them perhaps twice as long if they had just focused on an expansion but at the same time we didnt have to live a 1-2 years repeating the same stuff. If thats actually what they’re going to do, for me personally I’d find it a much better model. But we have to see what happens in the next season of living story to be sure for now its just speculation.

Those repeating dungeons might scare people away but so does the LS. Maybe not you but many others.

A good expansion can easily keep people busy for a year. Imagine if all the dyes would be as specific color rewarded or drop from specific content. Do the same with only the mini’s they initially released with and many of the skins.. That sort of horizontal progression could keep people easily busy for a year or more. Part of it would indeed be repeating dungeons or what not.

So if they released once a year they should easily be able to keep people busy. Best is also to have one bigger patch inbetween (so at 6 months).

I don’t know why you seem to think we would get an map a month. You are however correct, to deliver the same amount as a expansion would give they would have to indeed give us a map a month. In S1 they failed doing so. Also I’m not sure why you think that when focusing on an expansion would take them longer to make the expansion then it would take them this way.

tigirius.9014:

Galen Grey.4709:

Devata.6589:

I see some people here talk about grinding gold and if the problem is that they now get less. For many the problem is not getting less when grinding gold but that getting everything requires (grinding) gold.

This not true. Everything available on the TP was actually acquired by players themselves. You can earn stuff yourself but people choose to go the gold route because farming gives a disproportionately high return. If it takes an hour of farming to get 1 corrupted lodestone why farm it when you can spend that same hour farming gold and buy 15 of them!

The point is when you buy 15 of them you bought all 15 from 13-15 people because rewards are so terrible that you can’t farm anything yourself. You HAVE to use the TP seriously or you’ll spend months.

Look at any guide on youtube for any other game and you’ll see that you can actually farm the top tier items needed for anything. Look at guides from youtube about getting what you need for this game, guess what they say, yep, grind gold and buy it.

Yeah that’s indeed what I am (also) talking about.

Galen Grey.4709:

Devata.6589:

I see some people here talk about grinding gold and if the problem is that they now get less. For many the problem is not getting less when grinding gold but that getting everything requires (grinding) gold.

This not true. Everything available on the TP was actually acquired by players themselves. You can earn stuff yourself but people choose to go the gold route because farming gives a disproportionately high return. If it takes an hour of farming to get 1 corrupted lodestone why farm it when you can spend that same hour farming gold and buy 15 of them!

Thats not true. Many items in the game drop as very rare general loot. That means it’s nearly impossible to work towards that directly but it also means it still drops for many people who are not after it. They put in on the TP. So if you need / want that the only really viable way is by getting gold.

Then there are of-course also the RNG cash-shop items that end up on the TP like mini’s that are also unavailable in the game-world.

Draknar.5748:

Devata.6589:

When end-game is looks diversity is also and totally objectively we can say they have different looks so add to diversity in looks. They also tent to be more ‘shiny’ with more effects and moving colours. That’s also objective. Isn’t it P2W if it’s the stuff you want to earn / win in the game? And stats the numbers are objective but if you are interested in it not. You might not care about the highest stats (just as not everybody think one skin looks better as the other skin) so from that perspective the value of stats is also subjective. Not that I see why it should have anything to do with if it’s subjective or not. It even has nothing to do with if it’s P2W or P2Kill or whatever.

The question is if the cash-shop focus influences the game (in a bad way). That’s obviously he case and that’s why it is bad. P2W or not.

My response was specifically to someone’s comment on gem store making GW2 P2W.

I 100% feel the cash-shop focus influences the game in a bad way now. It didn’t originally, but with so much new stuff being funneled into the store following large nerfs to players being able to earn gold in game SOLO, it just feels like the company is blatantly saying “use your CC if you want to progress in this game!” And by progress I mean earn gold, which is pretty much the only way to progress in this game. Everything is a gold sink.

Sure dungeon farming nets decent gold. I typically do 3-4 dungeons/day plus now that I’ve finished all Ascended crafting I can sell the mats for easy daily income (5-6g/day with damask and deldrimor ingots after purchasing all mats from TP + 5-6g/day from dungeons = 10-12g/day in 1-2hrs play time, and that’s if I don’t hit up world bosses every 15min and sell the Rares for 30-35s each, which typically will net me 2-3g/day if I hit 5 bosses or so). So a good day I make 15g essentially, but almost half of that requires dungeon running with 4 other people, which if you PUG could vary your completion times wildly. Thankfully I do not have to PUG.

They need to improve the gold earning methods outside of dungeon running.

But even then it would effect the game in a negative way. Not for you as you obviously have no problem with grinding gold. It does however then still effect the game for people that prefer to work directly towards the items in the game.

tigirius.9014:

~

“They’ll say it’s extraordinarily grindy“ He can say it’s untrue but it very much is true.

When reading on in this article he even describes it. How everything is money driven and you can’t get things in a good other way then gold so the best way to get things are to grind gold. So yeah thats why the game is extraordinarily grindy.

Also “There’s nothing wrong, at a basic level, with offering armor and weapon skins through the gem store” is strage because later he does say that much of the things he mentioned (about how everything go’s by gold) is because of how the cash-shop works. What he means here I think is that he thinks they could tweak it a little. I don’t think they can fix is just by tweaking it a little. The problem is that they focus on it.

Galen Grey.4709:

well Xenon sure Arenanet want more money thats a given but as they’ve shown in the past they’re not shy of reducing their profits for the benefit of the game.

Examples:
When they introduced crafting from the bank that reduced the need to buy inventory expansions.
When they introduced the wallet that reduced considerably the need to inventory and bank expansion

And personally I think the same is true here, nerfing income actually makes this better not worst. The group who has the biggest issue with gems to gold isnt farmers its those who dont farm. Think about it. Lets say they’re now selling this new awesome quaggan backpack for 800 gems (chose 800 simplicity’s sake). let say with the recent nerf now farming instead of earning people 15g per hour earns them 10g per hour. do you think farmers are going to say “ohh my now instead of taking 5hrs for me to farm enough gold to buy myself 800 gems it takes me 8hrs. no thats way too much I need to get out my credit card” 8hrs instead of 5 is not a big deal. You know whats a big deal? non farmers who make 50s an hour and need 160hrs to earn enough gold for that quaggen backpack. $10 vs 160hrs…. yeah here’s the $10. To fix this they dont need to make farming more profitable that will just keep shooting the gold to gem prices up making the situation worst and worst for the non-farmers. They need to nerf the income from farming so prices start falling down.

That there would be a time that we agree well at least partial. The better solution would to put the items in the game so the not farmers can just work towards those items in the game. But except for that you are correct. I think the non-farmers feel it the most. They don’t farm likely because they don’t like farming / grinding gold and the game has become all a gold-grind. So is does indeed effect those the most.

The people grinding gold all day where apparently fine doing so, they apparently had fun earning there rewards that way so for them not much changes one would think?

Chadramar.8156:

I love this quote from the Flameseeker Chronicles article:

All of the little things players are used to seeking out in MMOs — quests with unique rewards and pets, reputation vendors with unusual permanent souvenirs — are pretty thin in GW2, and it’s a shame that this wasn’t expanded on, especially since it’s left the karma, heart and event systems underutilized.

That’s my sentiment in a nutshell. I loved quest chains with unique rewards like minipets or other neat toys or unique-looking gear. Why does GW2 have so little of that? Finishing a karma heart is flat-out boring because the related NPCs very rarely have anything unique, and finishing a map or an event chain is even worse. Oooo, an item my character can’t use with a skin I’ve seen a hundred times and and a stat combo I have no interest in. Oooo, 40 potatoes. And even if it’s 40 orichalcum it’s still boring and meaningless. Why don’t we have some special rewards themed on the zone they’re from? Everything is gemstore this, gemstore that. Aside from the ascended armors, has there even been a single actual in-game armor in the almost two years the game as been out?

The gemstore is the way this game is kept alive, but the way it’s handled — while it certainly could be much worse — is really not done well. I have not spent and will not spend real money on something that irritates me like all the gemstore-only items do, especially the ones that need to be gambled for.

I completely agree.

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

GW2 is buy to play, with a micro-transaction gem shop. Yes, the combination of the 2 is their income model. The gem shop is entirely optional though and we knew that to begin with. That has not changed. You can’t say you didn’t know. You can’t claim they changed from b2p to cash shop. They didn’kittens been this way since before day 1.

Free to play games require you to do those micro transactions to play the game in any type of effective manner. To progress, to access content. GW2 does not. You buy the game, you get all the base content of the game and you can play it as long as you desire. There will never be something in the store that requires you to purchase ‘x’ to access race ‘y’ or zone ‘b’. There isn’t component of the game play (and by game play, I’m not talking about collecting minis) that only available if you spend ‘x’ more.

Yes, they have cosmetic items in the store, such as minis and armor, that were added after the initial game content. If you want to consider that content (and I know some people do) Anet again already stated that there is no requirement to purchase that additional content in order to keep playing. It’s completely optional. Just like you didn’t have to purchase factions or nightfall to keep playing prophecies, that was optional additional content. So look at it that way, they are adding ‘new content’ that like factions and nightfall is completely optional to buy, it’s not going to stop or block you from playing your purchased game.

They said they would have a cash-shop and would use the B2P model (thats similar to what GW1 had). That is what they said indeed. However what we have now is the other way around. They have the cash-shop model but also sell the initial game.
That is a difference, a big one.

About how those F2P games make money. Many of them do but no there are also enough F2P games only (or mainly) selling cosmetics that you do not have to buy and that don’t lock of content behind a pay-wall.
Yes in the world of F2P games GW2 would be one of the better one (still not what I wanted because of the way is still effects the game). There is a reason I and many with me did go for GW2 and not for another F2P game. It’s to avoid exactly the sort of things we do now see in GW2.

Indeed, factions was not a required purchase but it did expand the game (added a second one really(. It’s what we should also have in GW2. Expansions to the game. You don’t need to buy them but you can. Meanwhile most of those cosmetics and rewards can just be in the game as part of that expansion. We then pay for the content we play.

“So look at it that way, they are adding ‘new content’ ~” It does not matter how I look at it, the way they do it now negatively effects the game for many people including me. No matter how good the excuse is.

http://massively.joystiq.com/2014/06/03/flameseeker-chronicles-the-strange-case-of-guild-wars-2s-rewar/ have a look at this, it’s similar to what I am saying. He is even trying to defend it sort of and his solution (some more nice general loot drops) is not what would work for me (it’s really strange that that is his solution because in the article he does say that specific loot is better) however it’s yet another person trying to explain how the current model does effect the game in a negative way.

Xenon.4537:

I was simply saying that the way Anet advertises this, and the way it makes the future look for this game, are not good. It might be good for Anet’s wallet (more like NCSoft’s wallet if you ask me), but the quality of the game may be neglected if all Anet cares about is the gem store.

Think about it this way. Anet wants to earn money. Their customers want a better game experience. Both Anet and the customers don’t want to turn the game P2W. So Anet releases cosmetic stuff like quaggan backpacks. The customers buy these happily. Anet receives a lot of revenue and what do they think? Hmmm these quaggan backpacks sell really well. We should do this more! People obviously want it, and we need the money! So they make another type of quaggan backpack. And another. And another. What do we end up with? A whole lot of quaggan backpacks with not so much in the way of substantial gameplay improvement or expansion. We customers never see a truly substantial expansion pack because Anet is content extracting pennies from us with quaggan backpacks and using the proceeds to drizzle out some living story patches on the side. After 2 years of this they start asking us to buy gems and convert them to gold on top of all the quaggan backpacks.

So by buying gems you are not helping the game forward (something some gem-buyers like to believe to feel special) but you are helping it’s downfall by pointing the game in the wrong direction. Of course they still need money so be prepared to give money but only for expansions.

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

~

“They did tell us long before launch that they would have a gem shop though.” Yeah they said there would be a cash-shop not that they would used the cash-shop model.

“They told us that they were keeping the buy to play model.” Indeed.

“(and they have, you buy the game once – you play as long as you want. there is no requirement to purchase anything else in order continue playing)“ No we are talking about a payment model. It says something about how the company ears (most of) it’s money. GW2 does not earn (most of) it’s money with buy selling the game (and yes expansions are part of the game so count as well). That was a one-time income (it could been a steady flow of income if they focused on expansions). At this moment they earn most of there money with the cash-shop by focusing on that. Yes you need to buy the game but but you can’t consider it a B2P model when we are talking about a payment-model (what we are). At this moment it’s a cash-shop-model where you had to buy the game first.

Usually people talk about 3 payment-models: F2P, P2P and B2P. And that’s based on the 3 things a company usually focus on to earn it’s money. Micro-transactions, subscriptions or box-sales. (those names grew that way while not being completely accurate when literally reading what is says) If I say GW2 uses the F2P model (what is basically does) people would start yelling they don’t because you have to buy the game so by that fact it’s B2P. So I name it the cash-shop model. We also consider WoW a P2P game while in fact they also sell the game so why don’t we then name B2P? Simply because there main income comes from the subscription. GW2’s main income comes from the cash-shop not from game-sales so it does not use the B2P model.

I was mainly referring to that thread to show how people complain about cash-shop effect. Not about the fact that we have adds in the game. That’s just one of the things that comes with a cash-shop model.