Guild Wars 2

Zoltreez.6435:

1st I tough we don’t need mount’s bicous all the teleports.
well after a long time playing I know I was freaken wrong im starting to fell a sleep from going from A to B sometimes it takes so mutch time that I want to cut my legs down so that I get a wheelchair to get a little speed.

there should NOT be Epic , Legendary , Instance drop Mount’s

just some Nice looking Faction mounts for each faction that you can simply buy from one of the main cities.

that give a MAX 50% speed boost. it would be enough.

There should NOT be Epic , Legendary , Instance drop Mount’s

Why not? I would love that. Finally a good reason to do dungeons and finally that ‘epic’ feeling when the mount you want finally drops.

In stats they should be the same but have some rair mounts drop at a few places is great.

Galen Grey.4709:

Devata.6589:

Chronicals of Spelborn?
http://www.1up.com/previews/chronicles-of-spellborn

Not that I really care if it would just be s small difference. I think it is fine if they add an extra level of gear that is for the people who like to go for that but only if it’s profit is so small people will not be able to not do content or get kicked out of parties or will really have a big disadvantage in WvW. So if every item would have 1 power (for example) it would be fine. With ascended it is a little more (3 per item) but the problem is that while the stats are still only a little more it’s the agony resistance that makes you really require it to play content. Anet already stated they would use agony more in the future.

I don’t know if the ascended armor is also getting slots for agony resistance but if it does it means everybody needs it and it’s not just some nice extra for the people who want to go for it like mini’s are for other people.

Besides.. naming dailies not a grind because you have some form of choice seems a little strange. It is still a grind. Many thinks keep coming back and at some point you are just running around killing thinks purely for the daily. I did stop doing dailies a few months ago and now only do them when I get them just by playing.. what should be every day I play but in reality it only happens once in a while, or when I see that I have 4/5 and there is one option that is fairly easy to get.

It’s very dull content.

I rather would indeed do quest (not the same but in most games you can not even do the same quest multiple times.. only with another char) or challenging raids or something like that to get the armor I need. Then at least I have fun getting there. (and that was the topic about)

What in Chronicles of Spellborn you could earn gear without playing the game? or sigils? cause even though armor in spellborn had no stats you still needed to play the game to get it.

Isnt that what they did? Ascended gear gives you between 5% – at most 10% advantage over Exotic Items depending on infusions and if you’re factoring a weapon which due to the fixed damage used for all calculations gives more then the 5% difference of the other pieces. Even going with the full 10% thats not an big disadvantage by any measure especially compared with other stuff you might come across in WvW.

Not that I am aware of, as far as I know they never said that they planed to use agony outside of fractals, do you have a source for that? Actually what they said suggested otherwise:
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/linsey-murdock-unveils-new-high-end-ascended-gear/

“Eventually, you’ll be able to kit yourself out with a full set of Ascended gear and high end Infusions to help give you the edge in end game content.”

Give you the edge means its not going to be required but is a nice bonus to have. So far that holds 100% true.

I am always surprised by people saying they seldom complete the daily by playing. What kind of content do you play ? Like what could you possibly play where you dont get to kill 50 critters? or some veterans? or a single champion? or Dodge? or inflict some conditions? or revive some npcs / pcs ? or gather a few nodes while walking around? or kill different kinds of mobs? Or a couple of group events? Or recycle some stuff? or gain a level? or gain 3 skill points? etc.. There is such a large variety of stuff you can do .. sure you will not complete the daily every single time, sometimes you get a few thing to finish off before logging off not saying it happens always but rarely? not in my experience.

Yes there where sigils but only sigils is of course a big difference from the whole armor set + sigils.

Like I said I don’t mind myself if the armor does not also include possibilities for agony. I did read that but I might be wrong. Still it would mean you could not do fractals. So if the armor does not give an agony profit I have no problem with it. Else it makes the game even more alt unfriendly so then I do have a problem with it.

kokocabana.8153:

I don’t know how it is on other servers, but on SBI zerg trains are running in circles day and night farming the champs.

So I’m wandering around doing stuff for my dailies and head into the troll cave to do the grub event. I finish that and see the troll runestone has spawned. I start the event and nearby players help kill the troll. Then the zerg train comes in and starts calling me kitten names for inconveniencing them and that I should be telling them whenever I start a champ event. I tell them that they are inconveniencing me and whoever else is around the area for having to wait for them and they say that there’s more of them and that they are leveling up the fastest way so I should be listening to them. Now I don’t usually care about what other players do to level or farm gold until they started harassing me with whispers.

We haven’t had them on our server until now. I would suggest activating as many events as you can if they are being rude. Thats the only way to scare them away.

It’s not the zerg train I have a problem with. It’s the fact that they are rude towards players minding their own business.

eisberg.2379:

Devata.6589:

eisberg.2379:

Devata.6589:

eisberg.2379:

as to the topic at hand, I remember an interview with Colin in 2011, in that interview Anet was not sure how exactly they were going to introduce all the new content, the only thing they knew for sure is the living story was going to introduce new content, but they were not sure if they would have expansions, or just add new content to be bought from the Gem store. So if before the game even released they were not sure if there would be expansions or not, there is no reason to believe that they are afraid to release expansions.

Are you sure that was in 2011. Because I did hear exactly the same interview. However that was this year. They where at that moment talking about that because they first announced they wanted to use the living story “if we do this correct we don’t ever get an expansion” and they got a lot of negative feedback about that. Before the release I never did hear them ever speak about the ‘living story’.

Have a look here: http://www.guildwars2hub.com/news/guild-wars-2-colin-johanson-twitch-transcript can’t find the interview itself.

I know that interview that you linked very well, and it is not the one I am talking about. Living story has been talked about long before the game released, and I do remember in 2011 an interview talking about how they will introduce new content, and living story was at that point the only one they knew for sure would be one way to introduce some content, they still were not sure how they would introduce other content. In that recent interview they showed they want to lean more towards introducing the same stuff in an expansion through the living story and do it over time instead of one big package.

What I recall from before release is that they talked about a ever evolving breading world, and usually they then where mainly talking about how dynamic events would so that. But I never did hear the term “living story” before and also never the discussion on if they would release new content that way.

They didn’t coin the phrase “living story” till after the game launched, but in interviews prior to launch they described what is now called Living Story.

Like I said they where talking about a breading living world and how dynamic events would be the cause of that.

That however does not mean they can not use expansions to generate the most of there income and does also not mean that breading living world must be based purely on micro transactions and would have the same content as expansions would.

Morrigan.2809:

So this is what they said before the game launched.
this is from 2011:
This is was and still is as far as I know their stance on stand alone expansions.
http://www.joystiq.com/2011/06/15/guild-wars-2-to-avoid-retail-mmo-expansion-model/

This is thier view on micro transactions, and the possibilty of an add on expansion. Note that they have since said they do not know how they will introduce this add on but that they would like to do it via the living story.
http://www.videogamer.com/news/guild_wars_2_expansions_a_sure_thing_says_arenanet_2.html

Those are the facts
thread/

Yeah those are the facts and I will give you that. In that last interview they did give micro transactions a bigger role then I ever read they planned. Thats bigger, but not based on micro transaction.

However did you really read the articles yourself? Because while it did give micro-transactions a bigger role then I ever hearth them say it does not yet say thats their main source of income. It even comes closer to what I want and totally disproves eisberg’s previous statements.

They also do not say they don’t want expansion.. They do not want stand alone expansions. I also don’t want that I want expansions of the game. In the literal word of the name expanding the game. So no standalone expansion that is not really an expansion.

What they did say was “We support ourselves with micro-transactions and expansions. So we’ll have retail expansions for sure,” and they say "

“The main thing is that the buy-the-box model enables us to make it a great, super high-quality game. We can afford to spend the development resources on that. And then the micro-transactions allow us to keep developing the game.”

So they even agree that box sales are able to “make it a great, super high-quality game” while apparently to them (I totally agree) a game based on micro transactions won’t?

They are saying we will base on income on expansions and micro transactions.

They do not even say if one of the two is the main source of income. I want the expansions to be the main source. What Anet is doing now is using the micro transactions as main source and they said that if they would do it right they would not ever have an expansion.

Meaning that what I ask for is closer to their original statements then the road they are going now. Luckily the expansions are ‘still on the table’.

BTW even if they planned to go full micro transactions from the beginning that would not change my view that basing it on expansions would be better but it’s nice to know that expansions did have a important role to generate income in the previous plants. Now let them do back on that path please.

Vayne.8563:

Devata.6589:

eisberg.2379:

Devata.6589:

eisberg.2379:

as to the topic at hand, I remember an interview with Colin in 2011, in that interview Anet was not sure how exactly they were going to introduce all the new content, the only thing they knew for sure is the living story was going to introduce new content, but they were not sure if they would have expansions, or just add new content to be bought from the Gem store. So if before the game even released they were not sure if there would be expansions or not, there is no reason to believe that they are afraid to release expansions.

Are you sure that was in 2011. Because I did hear exactly the same interview. However that was this year. They where at that moment talking about that because they first announced they wanted to use the living story “if we do this correct we don’t ever get an expansion” and they got a lot of negative feedback about that. Before the release I never did hear them ever speak about the ‘living story’.

Have a look here: http://www.guildwars2hub.com/news/guild-wars-2-colin-johanson-twitch-transcript can’t find the interview itself.

I know that interview that you linked very well, and it is not the one I am talking about. Living story has been talked about long before the game released, and I do remember in 2011 an interview talking about how they will introduce new content, and living story was at that point the only one they knew for sure would be one way to introduce some content, they still were not sure how they would introduce other content. In that recent interview they showed they want to lean more towards introducing the same stuff in an expansion through the living story and do it over time instead of one big package.

What I recall from before release is that they talked about a ever evolving breading world, and usually they then where mainly talking about how dynamic events would so that. But I never did hear the term “living story” before and also never the discussion on if they would release new content that way.

Right, because they didn’t come up with the living story till after release.

They did try adding dynamic events and they, by and large, got ignored. So they brainstormed and came up with another approach.

Clearly they see the approach as successful…otherwise why would they have added teams to it.

What is successful?

I believe Anet looks at concurrency numbers and places a large stock in those.

“Right, because they didn’t come up with the living story till after release.”
Thats what I said. Eisberg did say they where talking about this before.

I do believe Anet does look at number just as all companies do but I don’t know if you would say the ‘living story’ is a success. It did get many negative feedback and we lucky haven’t seen a real LS patch the last month. SAB was not really a living story, Tequatl was not really a living story and the TA dungeon was linked to it but also not really a living story in the way we did see them before the SAB patch and Halloween is also not really a LS patch.

I must say that I do like that we haven’t seen a real living story patch for some time now. Them upping the teams is because that was simple required to get what they wanted.

maddoctor.2738:

Devata.6589:

I do however agree that I do not think they are “afraid” so far they simply made another decision and might come back on that. I don’t like the way they are going however and want them to use the GW1 payment model (that what I call B2P) by what I mean they should generate there main income by expansion sales not micro transactions. There happy?

They will never do that, the benefits of fast releasing expansions are too little compared to the drawbacks and they’ve said so in the past. It might’ve worked in an instanced game, but in an open world game it’s not so simple.

That doesn’t mean we won’t get expansions, they will probably release some new big landmass through an expansion but not on a regular basis, the GW1 model cannot work without instances. Typical expansions aren’t always good for a “living” world, changing the existing world can have a far better results han adding new zones, if done correctly. Which is exactly what the devs want to do, with very little results so far I admit, but it has potential.

I’ll take changes (real changes) to old zones, progress on many storylines, like what happens after Ulgoth dies in Harathi Hinderlands, what happens after the Ogres are defeated in Fields of Ruin etc over some new landmass and neglect of the old areas. That’s what living breathing world is, that’s Anet’s vision, an ever changing world, that is not something that can happen through expansions. Currently it doesn’t happen through their Living Story either, but that’s a completely different topic.

Thats where out opinions change then. I do think it will work also for open world.

Sadly enough GW2 does not have an open world. It are all instances, but I would love to seem them really converting it to an open world. I agree an ope world would make thinks a little harder but I am convince it would also work with an open word.

The world can of course change with expansions but it would indeed not do that all the time. A living story OR patches in-between would be better for that. Then again the LS did also not change the world that much so for in that way yet. And in the end personally I feel that the positives with expansions based income out-way the negatives but I am very willing to agree that indeed it has it’s negatives and this changing world is part of it. However in reality the world does not also changes that fast.

eisberg.2379:

Devata.6589:

eisberg.2379:

as to the topic at hand, I remember an interview with Colin in 2011, in that interview Anet was not sure how exactly they were going to introduce all the new content, the only thing they knew for sure is the living story was going to introduce new content, but they were not sure if they would have expansions, or just add new content to be bought from the Gem store. So if before the game even released they were not sure if there would be expansions or not, there is no reason to believe that they are afraid to release expansions.

Are you sure that was in 2011. Because I did hear exactly the same interview. However that was this year. They where at that moment talking about that because they first announced they wanted to use the living story “if we do this correct we don’t ever get an expansion” and they got a lot of negative feedback about that. Before the release I never did hear them ever speak about the ‘living story’.

Have a look here: http://www.guildwars2hub.com/news/guild-wars-2-colin-johanson-twitch-transcript can’t find the interview itself.

I know that interview that you linked very well, and it is not the one I am talking about. Living story has been talked about long before the game released, and I do remember in 2011 an interview talking about how they will introduce new content, and living story was at that point the only one they knew for sure would be one way to introduce some content, they still were not sure how they would introduce other content. In that recent interview they showed they want to lean more towards introducing the same stuff in an expansion through the living story and do it over time instead of one big package.

What I recall from before release is that they talked about a ever evolving breading world, and usually they then where mainly talking about how dynamic events would so that. But I never did hear the term “living story” before and also never the discussion on if they would release new content that way.

Morrigan.2809:

Devata.6589:

Morrigan.2809:

MrRuin.9740:

GW2 is B2P. You buy the box, you play it. That’s it. This is really inarguable as the cashshop microtransactions are not needed in any way, shape or form to play. Those are completely at the discretion of the player.
I would imagine he mentioned Pay-to-win, because many F2P games generally take this route as they have no box sales and no other source of income, thereby putting things in the cashshop that are needed for endgame to force people to use the chashshop, forcing cashshop income.
Thats the greatest difference between GW2’s B2P model and F2P (B2Win)….Anet has nothing, absolutely nothing, in the cashshop you need to buy to play. Many people, myself included, have not spend a dime in the last year and have actually played the game free since the box purchase.

By not having expansions thus far and providing a free Living Story (whether anyone agrees it is a good thing or not), they are also sticking to being B2P. You are not paying for any new content, its all free for everyone. You are not paying for endgame gear. You are not paying a monthly sub. You are not paying for anything game-altering from the cashshop. You dont not need to use the cashshop at all and can have gone the entire last year without even looking at it.
Just because they throw luxury items in the cashshop does change the fact this game is 100% free to play after the box purchase.

Thank you
You get the point perfectly

Yeah he did get your comment. However that has nothing to do about the discussion how generating income with micro transactions affects the game in another way that generating income with expansions does.

You want to have a discussion about how to call those models, fine by me but totally not the point in that discussion.

and yet it has everything to do with all your millions of posts in this thread because you keep using incorrect terms for things so that you can cherry pick to get your point across.
You are the one insisting that a B2P game must have pay for box expansions.
That is not part of the definition.- it can be but it is not.

F2P games, P2P games can all have expansions.
Heck Single player games have expansions

Regardless of why, Anet said that they do not wish to do it that way ( seperate box) and have not decided.
They have good reasons why they haven’t decided and no it has nothing to do with the kitten cash shop.
I have already stated what those reasons are and I am not going to repeat myself.

If there was a facepalm button I would hit it so hard right now, seriously

Since you say my comment has nothing to do with the discussion let me address the OP:

Are you kidding me?
Your title is ridiculous and provocative
They are not “afraid” of making an expansion- do some research

“You are the one insisting that a B2P game must have pay for box expansions.”

No I insist that the fact that GW2 is generating main income with micro-transactions influence the game in a bad way and that imo it would be better for the game if the generated the main income with expansions.

You are the one that started a discussion about the meaning of a word. So no it has nothing to do with it. Whatever the name is you give it has nothing to do with it at all.

“F2P games, P2P games can all have expansions. 
Heck Single player games have expansions” and also this has nothing to do with anything I have been saying.

“If there was a facepalm button I would hit it so hard right now, seriously“
Funny because I have exactly the same idea about your comments. You keep getting tings into it that are not even related. The meaning of a word, the fact that F2P and P2P games can also have expansions…? Yeah so?

I do however agree that I do not think they are “afraid” so far they simply made another decision and might come back on that. I don’t like the way they are going however and want them to use the GW1 payment model (that what I call B2P) by what I mean they should generate there main income by expansion sales not micro transactions. There happy?

eisberg.2379:

as to the topic at hand, I remember an interview with Colin in 2011, in that interview Anet was not sure how exactly they were going to introduce all the new content, the only thing they knew for sure is the living story was going to introduce new content, but they were not sure if they would have expansions, or just add new content to be bought from the Gem store. So if before the game even released they were not sure if there would be expansions or not, there is no reason to believe that they are afraid to release expansions.

Are you sure that was in 2011. Because I did hear exactly the same interview. However that was this year. They where at that moment talking about that because they first announced they wanted to use the living story “if we do this correct we don’t ever get an expansion” and they got a lot of negative feedback about that. Before the release I never did hear them ever speak about the ‘living story’.

Have a look here: http://www.guildwars2hub.com/news/guild-wars-2-colin-johanson-twitch-transcript can’t find the interview itself.

Morrigan.2809:

MrRuin.9740:

GW2 is B2P. You buy the box, you play it. That’s it. This is really inarguable as the cashshop microtransactions are not needed in any way, shape or form to play. Those are completely at the discretion of the player.
I would imagine he mentioned Pay-to-win, because many F2P games generally take this route as they have no box sales and no other source of income, thereby putting things in the cashshop that are needed for endgame to force people to use the chashshop, forcing cashshop income.
Thats the greatest difference between GW2’s B2P model and F2P (B2Win)….Anet has nothing, absolutely nothing, in the cashshop you need to buy to play. Many people, myself included, have not spend a dime in the last year and have actually played the game free since the box purchase.

By not having expansions thus far and providing a free Living Story (whether anyone agrees it is a good thing or not), they are also sticking to being B2P. You are not paying for any new content, its all free for everyone. You are not paying for endgame gear. You are not paying a monthly sub. You are not paying for anything game-altering from the cashshop. You dont not need to use the cashshop at all and can have gone the entire last year without even looking at it.
Just because they throw luxury items in the cashshop does change the fact this game is 100% free to play after the box purchase.

Thank you
You get the point perfectly

Yeah he did get your comment. However that has nothing to do about the discussion how generating income with micro transactions affects the game in another way that generating income with expansions does.

You want to have a discussion about how to call those models, fine by me but totally not the point in that discussion.

MrRuin.9740:

GW2 is B2P. You buy the box, you play it. That’s it. This is really inarguable as the cashshop microtransactions are not needed in any way, shape or form to play. Those are completely at the discretion of the player.
I would imagine he mentioned Pay-to-win, because many F2P games generally take this route as they have no box sales and no other source of income, thereby putting things in the cashshop that are needed for endgame to force people to use the chashshop, forcing cashshop income.
Thats the greatest difference between GW2’s B2P model and F2P (B2Win)….Anet has nothing, absolutely nothing, in the cashshop you need to buy to play. Many people, myself included, have not spend a dime in the last year and have actually played the game free since the box purchase.

By not having expansions thus far and providing a free Living Story (whether anyone agrees it is a good thing or not), they are also sticking to being B2P. You are not paying for any new content, its all free for everyone. You are not paying for endgame gear. You are not paying a monthly sub. You are not paying for anything game-altering from the cashshop. You dont not need to use the cashshop at all and can have gone the entire last year without even looking at it.
Just because they throw luxury items in the cashshop does change the fact this game is 100% free to play after the box purchase.

“they are also sticking to being B2P. You are not paying for any new content” So now when you pay for mew content it means is not B2P anymore? You know GW1 required you to pay for new content and it very well know as B2P.

Anyway, GW2 is at this moment using micro transactions as main source for income thats also inarguable. That was what I have been referring to the whole time and I was also clear about that. You don’t want to call that the F2P model.. then call it something else. You don’t want to call a game that generates main income on box sales and expansions B2P then call that something else. I don’t really care how you call it and I am not here to have a discussion about how you call it as the name is not even close to the point here. So call it whatever you want.

The idea however that you (always?) get B2W in games that have no box-sales while games with box-sales would (never?) get them however is flawed. If a game uses box sales and then keeps going for another 10 years making money on micro transactions then the money they get from the box sales are not even interesting anymore. That principle even has a mathematical name.. can’t recall it at this very moment but its like 6*X+8 where 8 is the box sale and x is the years. The more years you get the less interesting the 8 becomes.

When GW2 generates it’s main income with gems they will need to convince people to buy gems. They are already doing that and no there is no P2W.. not really. The infinite SAB coin can be seen as a form of P2W just like the vote boosters during the politic patch and I hear a lot of complain about yet another item they now put in. But for the argument it does not really matter how they convince people to buy gems. They need to get people to buy gem, thats the point. No mather if thats B2W or not.

Like I also said. What winning is for PvP, flulff is for PvE and this game is based more on PvE then on PvP so P2W would not even make that much of sense anyway.

eisberg.2379:

Devata.6589:

eisberg.2379:

Xcom.1926:

Ok I spent sometime and looked at NCSoft’s releases on sales. Please be aware, that generally the developer only gets 10% to 15% of the total revenue and NOT all of it.

Unit : Korean Won in Millions

3Q 12 = 45,841
4Q 12 = 119,013
1Q 13 = 36,382
2Q 13 = 28,899

Without an expansion we will keep seeing drops. The only way to rejuvenate their revenue is a new expansion. They know this better than anyone else, which is why I am 100% sure there will be an expansion. It would be silly not to have one.

Not enough time there to get a trend on an MMO. The first 2 quarters are during the huge box sales, and we know they sold ~500,000 copies between the 1Q and 2Q. Eventually the game will not sell as many boxes, and we will be seeing sales that come from mainly the gem store. At the very least we need another 2 quarters to get a good idea if things are really falling, or just stabilizing.

However is does show that during box sales the income is more as double that of when gem sales are the main source of income. Even when they would stabilize. While expansions might sell less this is at least a good argument to why using expansion as a main source of income in stead of micro transactions might very well work.

We also see the same in many other games. It’s known that during expansions the playerbase increases a lot.

If you look over the NCsofts Financials from 2005 to 2007, the period that they released the GW1 games, Guild Wars 2 has made more sales in 6 months than in any given Year between 2005-2007 for Guild Wars 1 (2006 = 52 W Mn, 2 new campaigns released that year), and Guild Wars 1 was released in more markets than Guild Wars 2 has been.

So using data from the time Anet used the model you want, it makes a good argument that Microtransaction sales is the better choice for income.

I think you are looking a little wrong at the numbers. Of course GW2 made more money. It is a much bigger name / game, it’s a real MMORPG I would be surprised if they would not make more money.

I am just looking at the moment of box-sales vs moment of non box sales. I also look if I can see a similar trend with other games (like WoW) and there I see the same. The fact that GW1 had less sales in not relevant for this. You are proving that GW1 had way less people and sold way less copies but thats really not relevant to the question if expansions boost sales and if a company would be able to run good focusing on expansions for income.

Your data does not proof micro-transactions are better they proof a bigger game with more people are better. Besides I also stated that I think generating income on expansion will mainly have a higher profit on the longer run. But thats another discussion as the only point in the my comment you did reply on was that expansions boost sales and that those numbers might also be a good argument to why using expansions as main source for income in stead of micro transactions might work very well. Not that micro transactions might not work.

Morrigan.2809:

Devata.6589:

No I am saying GW2 is not really B2P!
B2P means you generate your main income by box-sales that being the original game and expansions. GW2 now uses micro transactions to generate it’s main income so there is a need for thinks like RNG boxes. And would they do that away something else bad will come in it’s place. Generating your main income on micro transaction is called a F2P payment model. Thats what GW2 is using with the only difference is that they did charge money for the initial box. Looking back on that now it is sort of rude to give a F2P game experience but asking money for the game.

Anyway.. What I am saying if if they would indeed turn back to using a real B2P model and so generating their main income with expansions, not with micro-transactions then they can get rid of RNG-boxes, the gold-driven economies (gold is better then farming items them-self) and the many other examples I have given over and over again in this and some other threads.

Sorry but you cannot say that just because you think so.

Here is the definition of B2P from the Urban Dictionary:
1. B2P
Meaning “buy to play.” It is used to describe MMORPG’s that you only have to pay for once to play it.
Guild Wars is a B2P game.
that is what it is

It is also not a case of GW2 “now uses micro transactions”… the business model was announced before launch. They have done exactly what they said they were going to do.

Just so you understand what F2P actually is:

1. f2p
Free to play. Ussually used in games that have a free as well as a pay version or mode.
<Player1> u cant use that item in f2p
<Player2> There are better items out there

As in- sorry you can’t run because you are f2p
Sorry that dungeon is premium only
etc etc

and last but not least
Pay to Win:
~

Because it is in the Urban Dictionary it’s true?
Just think logically here. We are talking about a payment model! A payment model describes how a company generates income. Can a company generate it’s income on a game that it keeps developing (Like the idea of MMORPG games) just by the initial box sale? No they can’t. Your own example might not describe it very good but even they give Guild Wars as an example. Guild Wars, not Guild Wars 2. GW based there income on expansions and guess what, you where not able to play the expansion when you did not buy it.

But then again.. the name is not even the point here. It’s about how they generate the income by expansions or by micro transactions and if you want to give that another name then B2P then go ahead. But thats what I clearly stated in the comments. So I don’t know why you are now wanna stat a fight about the definition of a name.. I stated multiple times I was talking about how they generated income.. anyway whatever you want.

Anet did say there would be a gem-store and I don’t have a problem with that. They however did not state they would use the gem-store as main source of income and looking at there name as B2P company (You know like they have that in GW1, you can gave it any other name so lets name it the GW1 model) GW1 model company it is normal to believe they would use the same B2P/ GW1 model as they did in GW2 and so would not use a model mainly based on micro transactions.

The F2P example is also a little strange because for many F2P games there is no paid version available. Or they do not have premium option. They just sell items in-game to generate money. Often that are indeed B2W items but that is not really a requirement. BTW what winning is for a PvP game is so called fluff for PvE games.

Not sure why you also give a definition about B2W.

Anyway like I said it does not even matter what name you give it. I did state in many comments that I talked about how they generated the income. F2P games mainly do that with micro transactions. GW2 at this moment does that also mainly with micro transactions. So from a business viewpoint there is no real difference and it effects the game in a similar way. Thats what we are talkign about here isen’kitten

Mathias.9657:

I dunno, I’m half and half on expansions. It’s easier to release a ton of content with them because you have a lot more time to develop but then again I doubt an expansion could be placed on the gem store. A lot of people are happy with buy once – forever free content.

I think the major reason LS doesn’t hype people up or bring them back to the game as an expansion would is because it’s mostly just temporary content. If ANet kept everything permanent and the world kept expanding, LS would be a lot better imo.

“I doubt an expansion could be placed on the gem store”
I do not get this sentence.

“If ANet kept everything permanent and the world kept expanding, LS would be a lot better imo.” You would still keep the negative side-effects from them trying to get you to buy gems. Funny enough the fact that is was so temporary can be directly be because of that reason. It gave them a good excuse to put temporary items in the gem-store and so generating a sense of urgency so people would buy gems. If they would now make it permanent we would still see other bad side effects from there focus on the gem-store for income. And thats the real reason I want them to base there income on expansions in stead of on micro transaction.

Xcom.1926:

chemiclord.3978:

I find myself forcing myself to play to make that month’s investment worth it.

That is a good thing. MMOs should make you feel like you have to play them. Not randomly log on here and there. Which is exactly why GW2 has things like dailies and temp content. They want you to log on and have the urge to log on.

No a good MMO should make you want to log in. Not make you feel you have to log in.

(For a game to be good. a commercial standpoint may be differend but if you need to log it is almost mains you get burned out faster so that only works in the short run)

Xcom.1926:

Devata.6589:

But while in a way it is a P2P model you do not have the timer above your head and P2P models have failed for over the last 9 years. No MMO was able to hold it up longer then 2 years so we must conclude that P2P does not work.

There are just as many F2P games that have failed including recent examples. Games don’t fail because of their business model. Games fail if they are bad games period. Players will play games regardless of payment models if they are good games. Not one person has told me they quit SWTOR because of subscription, they told me they quit because it was a bad game.

The market will not allow average games to charge subscriptions anymore. Your game has to be great if you want to charge subscription.

But to a developer it is probably better to have subscriptions than B2P/F2P. This way they dont’ have to worry about monetizing content every month.

Read again. I simply stated the P2P model (not the game) did fail all the time over the last 9 years. Does that mean they have not released any good MMO’s over the last 9 years? I do not think so.. Is the payment model the only reason they failed. I don’t think so. It is a combination. However I personally do look at the payment model. I don’t like P2P because of a timer over my head and I don’t like F2P because the game is always trying to get you to buy items from there cash-shop in one way or the other. That was also the main reason I went for GW2. Anet had a good name for really having a B2P model with GW1, by charging money for GW2 they suggested having the same for GW2. To bad they are now trowing away that name with GW2. Maybe they will turn back to a real B2P model, we will see.

Whatever it may be, the facts are that a payment model DOES effect the game in some way and the fact is that the P2P model (or the game itself) did fail for all MMORPG’s over the last 9 years.

dcypher.2590:

Devata.6589:

The whole idea is that with the B2P you lose the RNG boxes you buy for real cash or have to grind grind grind to exchange gold for and all other negative side effects from the F2P model. In a way B2P is a P2P model but you do not pay per month but per expansion. Cash/shop would become more an optional thing where you can maybe buy a few special skins or stuff like extra bank slots and char slots.

But while in a way it is a P2P model you do not have the timer above your head and P2P models have failed for over the last 9 years. No MMO was able to hold it up longer then 2 years so we must conclude that P2P does not work.

Thats why I like B2P so much. It has best of two worlds and is a fair way because everybody pays for the content.

Companies don’t go for it because they think they will not make enough money and maybe on the short run they will make less (not so convinced of that tbo) I also think it has a longer life-spawn. Besides, a few years ago those companies did also not think they could make money with B2P and GW1 already proved that it can work.

I’m sorry, but are you trying to say RNG boxes aren’t in GW2 because it is B2P? Because they are quite clearly in this game (maybe not at this exact moment) as they were one of the main driving forces behind the southsun patch and you could definitely buy them off the gem store. That is the epitome of trying to milk the player base knowing people will buy bundles of them trying to get the tickets for weapon skins.

~

No I am saying GW2 is not really B2P!
B2P means you generate your main income by box-sales that being the original game and expansions. GW2 now uses micro transactions to generate it’s main income so there is a need for thinks like RNG boxes. And would they do that away something else bad will come in it’s place. Generating your main income on micro transaction is called a F2P payment model. Thats what GW2 is using with the only difference is that they did charge money for the initial box. Looking back on that now it is sort of rude to give a F2P game experience but asking money for the game.

Anyway.. What I am saying if if they would indeed turn back to using a real B2P model and so generating their main income with expansions, not with micro-transactions then they can get rid of RNG-boxes, the gold-driven economies (gold is better then farming items them-self) and the many other examples I have given over and over again in this and some other threads.

About subs. I hate subs because you have a timer over your head. The quality of the games can be good and everything usually is in the world like it should but when you are not playing you are like.. damm I did play and then the month is over and you feel like playing.. Not my thing.

Thats why I like the REAL B2P model so much. Everything can be in the world and there is no timer over your head. In a way it is similar to a P2P model. But you don’t pay per month but per expansion (so per year / year and a half). Overall it might even cost the same. People who will play every month might pay less but many people do not play / pay every month in sub-games. So in the end it is about the same. There is no timer over your head and because the company behind the game does not uses the micro transactions as main income everything can be in the world like it should and the game will not have mechanics build around the idea of getting you to buy gems.

You just don’t have access to a part of the content if you do not buy the expansion. It really is the best of two world (F2P / P2P).

One more thing about P2P. It does not work. Over the last 9 years many many games did try to have a P2P model and they ALL (Western) failed with that model within maximum 2 years.

I did go over the list of all released mmo’s and there where only 2 that had been released over the last 9 years (after WoW) that still had P2P but those games where considered a failure themselves and only have a very small player-base left. Other games that have P2P are older games. (FF14 has not yet proven it will be able to stay popular and contain it’s P2P model)

You say subs don’t work because of the games. I see that argument and then they always defend some upcoming game. Like you are now defending Wildstar. I did see the same thing in the ArcheAge forums from the people who wanted P2P, needles to say in there eyes Wildstar will fail with P2P but ArcheAge would not. Over the last years I have seen the same being said in all forums of all those games. Fact is they all failed with the P2P model. BTW Wildstar is a not really a P2P model. It’s more a F2P with the obligation to buy items. Because if you buy gems you get the playtime for free. Wonder how that works but I don’t like it anyway.

eisberg.2379:

Xcom.1926:

Ok I spent sometime and looked at NCSoft’s releases on sales. Please be aware, that generally the developer only gets 10% to 15% of the total revenue and NOT all of it.

Unit : Korean Won in Millions

3Q 12 = 45,841
4Q 12 = 119,013
1Q 13 = 36,382
2Q 13 = 28,899

Without an expansion we will keep seeing drops. The only way to rejuvenate their revenue is a new expansion. They know this better than anyone else, which is why I am 100% sure there will be an expansion. It would be silly not to have one.

Not enough time there to get a trend on an MMO. The first 2 quarters are during the huge box sales, and we know they sold ~500,000 copies between the 1Q and 2Q. Eventually the game will not sell as many boxes, and we will be seeing sales that come from mainly the gem store. At the very least we need another 2 quarters to get a good idea if things are really falling, or just stabilizing.

However is does show that during box sales the income is more as double that of when gem sales are the main source of income. Even when they would stabilize. While expansions might sell less this is at least a good argument to why using expansion as a main source of income in stead of micro transactions might very well work.

We also see the same in many other games. It’s known that during expansions the playerbase increases a lot.

chemiclord.3978:

Lord Kuru.3685:

IMO, there is no way they won’t have an expansion. When MMO players who have quit a game hear the word “expansion,” they almost instinctively come back to try it out. It’s a tried-and-true way of getting people back and excited about a game again. The word has too powerful a connotation that Anet will not be able to resist.

And this is the reason why we will most likely see one. The market doesn’t like big changes. It’s why you still see posts here thinking that GW2 should bring back the classic “trinity.” Or cries for “moar loot!”

Same thing here… the same trap players are falling into. Expansions are familiar… safe… they’re what they know. Arena.net could package up content they’re doing now, burn it to a DVD, call it an expansion, and players would gobble it up.

Funny to see this sort of argument also. Something you also see in politics when one group wants something and the other don’t the the group who wants it says the group who won’t is afraid for changes. It is bull but it helps in a psychological way also on the voters because you don’t want to be that afraid person.

The reality however is that not every change is a good change or not every change is progression.

Tell me what is the trap? A trap means it is bad so what is bad about expansions?

Besides generating income mainly on expansions is also pretty unique / new. GW1 did it but thats about it. Most go for P2P or F2P and many of those do NOT have expansions. Not in the traditional form where you buy them in a show anyway.

If you really think people would be happy if Anet would have sold 1 extra ‘dungeon’ and 1 extra map as an expansion it’s not really possible to have a discussion with you because everybody knows that is also bull. Just like the ‘people are afraid’. Of course you also know yourself that people would not be happy with this. You say it just to make your argument stronger. Same reason as the “they are afraid for change” statement.

So if you are correct why do you need this sort of statements about how people are afraid of change and how people would be fine with an expansion if they got what they did now get?

Lastly there is still the problem of generating income by gems or by expansions and how that affects the game. For my thats the main reason I want expansions.

I do think that expansions have more advantages like generating more publicity and so getting new players, overhauling thinks like making GW2 a real open world in stead of every map being an instance and so on. Many of those thinks might be done in an expansion and I don’t think they will be done with the living story (because it would be a bigselling point for an expansion but not so much for an living story patch) however they could be done in the living story. I do belief races and maps could and would be released in the living story.

For me the main reason is the influence gem-store focus already has on the game. I want that influence to go away, I want mini’s to be put in the world, hairstyles be put in the world, gold driven should be lower so farming what you need is more of a possibility, no temporary items in the gem-store or anywhere else and so on.

Those thinks that are there this way because Anet now gets there income from micro transactions will only go away of they would change focus for income to expansions.

Galen Grey.4709:

Gnat.9405:

Using “fun” as a core metric is a pretty convenient fail safe for pushing out mediocre content Actually. That developer article is flashy and decorated just right but anyone can see that by saying “fun=success” can always be justified by “well fun is subjective”

Look at ascended gear. The biggest time gate in the game, the best gear that you have to keep logging in for just to get. The hypocrisy is overwhelming. The manifesto is laughable, a PR stunt at best.

In the end though, when you take the game for what it is and find some area of enjoyment in it, it’s easy to overlook . Is GW2 a bad game? No. Is it what I thought it would be? Far from it.

And please tell me in which game do you get gear without even logging in!

people keep talking about time gates as some kind of uber effort when in fact they’re a great way to remove grind. The whole point of ascended gear was to give people who wanted a goal that took time to achieve. In other MMOs that would be raiding/doing dungeons/grinding reputation through repeatable quests for months. Dailies still take that amount of time but instead of forcing you to repeat the same generally long content over and over again leave you free to play whatever you choose. In any case in no game are you going to get your BiS gear without logging in.

So can we stop this daily forces you to log in every day non sense. No game in the history of MMOs ever gave you best in slot in return for not even playing the game.

Chronicals of Spelborn?
http://www.1up.com/previews/chronicles-of-spellborn

Not that I really care if it would just be s small difference. I think it is fine if they add an extra level of gear that is for the people who like to go for that but only if it’s profit is so small people will not be able to not do content or get kicked out of parties or will really have a big disadvantage in WvW. So if every item would have 1 power (for example) it would be fine. With ascended it is a little more (3 per item) but the problem is that while the stats are still only a little more it’s the agony resistance that makes you really require it to play content. Anet already stated they would use agony more in the future.

I don’t know if the ascended armor is also getting slots for agony resistance but if it does it means everybody needs it and it’s not just some nice extra for the people who want to go for it like mini’s are for other people.

Besides.. naming dailies not a grind because you have some form of choice seems a little strange. It is still a grind. Many thinks keep coming back and at some point you are just running around killing thinks purely for the daily. I did stop doing dailies a few months ago and now only do them when I get them just by playing.. what should be every day I play but in reality it only happens once in a while, or when I see that I have 4/5 and there is one option that is fairly easy to get.

It’s very dull content.

I rather would indeed do quest (not the same but in most games you can not even do the same quest multiple times.. only with another char) or challenging raids or something like that to get the armor I need. Then at least I have fun getting there. (and that was the topic about)

Direksone.3867:

Devata.6589:

maddoctor.2738:

Devata.6589:

If you base you income on expansions (like GW1) you should do it faster once every year / year and a half.

And then you have a community spread all over the place, which was one of the main problems of the expansion system of GW1. Also, players not being able to play together was another big issue, I had loads of guildies with access only to Prophecies that couldn’t come to play Factions, while other newer players started with Factions. The regular expansion system has lots of benefits yes but it also has loads of drawbacks too.

Spreading the community might be a good thing because it means there are people everywhere not almost everybody in one spot. I also don’t see this problem in other mmo.. I mean I see the spreading, I don’t see the problem. In GW2 they are also spread out. BTW how did it spread the community in GW1? In GW1 you where always in instances.

Yes new members and directly after the release will not have full access true. But how long does it normally takes before people will buy the expansion, and the fact that other guild member can go there only is a reason for people to buy the expansion.

Of course it has benefits and drawbacks but if I put them next to P2P or F2P (so the income generated by a cash-shop) then the benefits of a B2P payment model where Anet focuses on expansions for income far outweighs the drawbacks.

The only thing they really need to be careful of is a pile of expansions that is a problem for new players. 5 expansions down the road it would become to expensive to start playing the game if you need to buy them all. Best way to do that is to work with a system where you have a little cheaper and a little more expensive expansion every time switching. Next you only require the original game and the last two expansions where the for-last expansion gives you access to all previous expansions.

DCUO does something along those lines: small expansions for 10euros with cool additions. Can play the majority of the game without, but they do contain good stuff, such a price is perhaps also more attractive and more people can buy that. But they do have a different business model so it might not work.

Do agree with ya, would never get a new acc on WoW for that reason alone (obviously theres more but w/e)

Personally I would prefer full (and so also more expensive) expansions to also get a more full experience in stead of small separate editions but I guess the result might be about the same. I don’t know that game so hard to say.

Charak.9761:

Xpac is definitly not a solution. I’d be done with the game and play something else.

I was so happy when Cata came for WoW, I could finally put that game down for the rest of my life.

Very nice but if you also tell why that would be more interesting. Besides WoW had 3 expansions before Cata so it does not seem like expansions in general are the problem.

Silvercyclone.1462:

Banewrath.5107:

Silvercyclone.1462:

Hey pplz there already is mounts. The witches broom and the tunneling tool are technically mounts. I would love to see more mounts like these as long as there is no speed buff. Tyria doesnt need them. The only people that want mounts r the ones that say “OMG thats 2 silver to wp across the world? I’m now broke cause I have 2 silver less than 100 gold. DX”

What is the point of a mount if it doesn`t have a speedbuff? Mounts wouldn`t make waypoints disappear you know. You could still take a waypoint while I ride my horse wherever I wanted to. For a “play your way” kind of game, some of you guys sure like being limited a lot. I myself don`t like limitations I like freedom of choice and options. Answer me this though, and try to come up with your best justifiable answer, not just duh we have waypoints already! Ok, here is the question to answer, more like a scenario I guess. You are running around fireheart rise playing the game doing events or whatever. You look up and see me ride by on a horse! How does that effect how you play the game in a negative way. I`d love to hear an answer besides that we already have waypoints. Plenty of other games had waypoints and fast travel but still had mounts for the playerbase that liked them. Let`s hear these answers!

The so called champ trains are a good reason not to. If there were mounts ppl with lots of money would get to the champ and have him dead before ppl that actually need the money or xp.

Or you make sure the game is not so gold-driven anymore. Thats bad anyway and thats the main reason for the champ trains. You also forget that there are now classes in the game that are much faster then other classes. So if that could be a problem it would already be a problem.

Not putting in mounts because another part of the game is bad does not seem like a good excuse. Better fix what is bad and put in mounts.

Banewrath.5107:

Devata.6589:

Banewrath.5107:

Silvercyclone.1462:

Hey pplz there already is mounts. The witches broom and the tunneling tool are technically mounts. I would love to see more mounts like these as long as there is no speed buff. Tyria doesnt need them. The only people that want mounts r the ones that say “OMG thats 2 silver to wp across the world? I’m now broke cause I have 2 silver less than 100 gold. DX”

What is the point of a mount if it doesn`t have a speedbuff? Mounts wouldn`t make waypoints disappear you know. You could still take a waypoint while I ride my horse wherever I wanted to. For a “play your way” kind of game, some of you guys sure like being limited a lot. I myself don`t like limitations I like freedom of choice and options. Answer me this though, and try to come up with your best justifiable answer, not just duh we have waypoints already! Ok, here is the question to answer, more like a scenario I guess. You are running around fireheart rise playing the game doing events or whatever. You look up and see me ride by on a horse! How does that effect how you play the game in a negative way. I`d love to hear an answer besides that we already have waypoints. Plenty of other games had waypoints and fast travel but still had mounts for the playerbase that liked them. Let`s hear these answers!

Because WoW.

Is that the best you got? Mounts have been in games a lot longer then world of warcraft. Everquest, Dark Age of Camelot? I think even lineage 2 was out before warcraft and that game had mounts and that game sucked! World of warcraft was the first mmo that mainstreamed the genre of game so it only natural most people only know mmo`s by that. But 3d mmo`s were around for years before warcraft was even thought of. Hell, some of the devs who made everquest went to work for blizzard to make warcraft.

So in short, you are saying that because of world of warcraft, I am not allowed to own a mount in guild wars 2 because we already have waypoints and everyone should just settle for that?

That was not my personal opinion. I do want mounts and I think they are good for the game. But “because WoW” is basically the main reason behind all the excuses why people don’t want mounts.

Banewrath.5107:

Devata.6589:

Banewrath.5107:

Montezuma.1436:

so many words on a simple matter? Of course mounts will never be introduced, because Way Points system was designed specifically to compensate the lack of mounts. You can’t have the both. Either mounts, or waypoints.

Haha. That is the most narrowminded excuse I have ever heard. You can`t have both! If Anet wanted to make some serious cash from their gemshop they would add mounts. They would sell like hotcakes. Even the people who say they don`t want them would probably see one they like and buy it. Until then it`s bunny ears and waypoints for everyone else.

Put them in the gem/store. Please now. That would take a lot of fun out of the mounts. Just like mini´s are no fun to collect now. It´s time Anet stops with it´s bad gem/store focus and go´s back to a real B2P model where they get income from expansion. Those mounts can then also be introduces in the expansions and you can get them in many ways in the game itself. Not from a boring gem-shop.

The gem-store focus is already destroying the game. Time for that to stop.

they could have a stables ingame where you could buy a horse for gold. But if I were a dev, I would put the real fancy mounts in the gemstore and make a few unique mounts that can be obtained from dungeon quests.

You also have to understand too that the gemshop is what is helping pay for some of the new content we get. You buy the game and there`s no monthly fee and so far all the content updates have been free. You don`t have to buy a questline or unlock a mission like some of the other mmo companies do. This is all free until they release an addon expansion like nightfall or factions. The only surefire way to generate money is to make fancy looking stuff and upgrades for the shop. In guild wars 1 I had a few different sets of eleite armor on my characters and when I saw the balthazaar costume I opened up my wallet and pulled out my credit card and that’s what they need to do to make money.

I don’t want to go into that discussion here as well because I already talk about that in multiple other threads (problem is, it is linked to so many aspects of the game).

The thing is. they are now indeed relying on gem-sales for income but that effects the game in some way. Like you say.. they want to make money so if they make mounts put them in the gem-store. But imo that is not the best for the game. Best for the game is put most of them in the world. Maybe 5 in the gem-store but the other 50 all over the world. Some as drop, some as achievement, some form dungeons, some from crafting and some just from an NPC selling them. That would be the best for the game, forgetting about the money.

Thats why I don’t want them to focus on the gem-store to generate money because it means they need to compromise the quality of the game. I want them to release regular expansion and base there income on that. Then they can put the mounts just in the world. Thats much better for the game.

If you want to discuss more about this go to one of the active threads about expansions. Or read my 2 comments long comment here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Paid-more-for-gems-than-a-sub-fee-this-year/page/4#post2966022 I think that explains it just fine.

I think you get my viewpoint. But you are right IF they keep using the gem-store as main source for income it will have them be put in the gem-store thats why I don’t want that so coming back to mounts I would like them to put them really in the game-world itself.

MrIllusion.5304:

Devata.6589:

So thats an example where the cash-shop focus for income makes a compromise to the game quality. The quality of the game becomes lesser because they have to answer the question “How do we get people to buy gems”. Just like mini’s are now mainly gem-store related so going into the world colling them is gone..

The question “how to get people to keep buying expansion” simply results in a better game.

Thats why you would want to pay for expansions.. to get a better game.

There is this common perception that expansions will bring new landmasses like Cantha or Elona, and that expansions imply “quantity” in addition to “quality”. But if people are unhappy with the content of the Living Stories, there is no guarantee that consolidating all those content and releasing it in one single expansion will have any positive impact.

Of course there is never a guarantee it will be better, you are correct there but like I did show with the barber examples. The fact is that because the game-design is no build around selling gems there are xome compromises for the game-quality that have to be done. With expansions that element is gone so it’s possible to make a better game. No guarantee but with those limitations away it can be better. Then it’s only hoping they will also make it better.

“For a cash shop, new hairstyles have to be of a quality that would entice players to buy them. If the hairstyles were terrible, would any player fork out gems to get a makeover kit?”
So you are basically saying.. they can get away with lesser quality hairstyles but if that was the way they would go it meant the whole expansions would be of a lower quality and that would not be in there best interest because then they would have problems selling the next expansion. So it’s not like they can now forget about if people want to buy stuff. Yes some of the stuff that now is in the gem-store could be of a lesser quality without anybody complaining but personally I would take that over the current approach.
But the overall expansion needs to be good for them to sell a second expansion.

“Would anyone buy an expansion just based on new hairstyles alone? I would think that people are going for something meatier than a new hairdo. “ that would also mean that the more important pars would get more priority then the less important parts. Isn’t that in fact something positive.
Beside I never denied there are no negative sides about a expansion focus for income by in my opinion overall it is the best compromise.

“Also, the MMO industry doesn’t occur in a vacuum. If you check the patch notes of major MMOs, most of them will show some activity or content patch before the release of a competitor. “ I am not expecting them to have nothing in-between the releases but it would be less then we see now. Then again I do expect the overall quality to go up like I said before.

“Of course, if every MMO had this rapid update model, then we are all back to square one. But as it stands, GW2 is in a very unique position.“

But is it unique in a good way. There are many complains about the living story and myself I also don’t like it so much. It really burn you out fast. Just separate form the whole B2P / F2P discussion. With a game based on expansions they are also pretty unique. So that would not change much I think. Games will always been competing each other and so far GW2 has been lucky. Since the release over a year ago the only other major release has been F14.

maddoctor.2738:

Xcom.1926:

maddoctor.2738:

Or people on the 4-5 best spots and nobody anywhere else, creating an empty game. Lots of MMORGPs are like this, when the expansion is out everyone is playing at the new areas (which also offer higher character level) while the rest of the game slowly but surely becomes a barren wasteland.

Most, if not all, servers in GW2 are like this already. So it isn’t like the expansion would create a problem that doesn’t exist.

What do you recommend they do to upstart their sales? You might be asking why I case about their sales. I do because less sales = worst game. Period. It has gone down drastically in the last 2 quarters.

It won’t “create” a new problem but it will make a current problem that you admit exists even worse.

Funny. Some people say the problem is players are all on the same spot other people say the problem is players would get split up (so not all be in the same spot). Personally I see them all being in the same spot as a problem.

Anyway. So the current problem according to you is they would all be in the same spot. With an expansion you are afraid they would also all move to the then best spot (not true if they don’t add higher level and gear btw). How that that make the problem bigger? It would just be a differed spot.

Galtrix.7369:

Devata.6589:

Galtrix.7369:

Yargesh.4965:

RyuDragnier.9476:

Anet has already said they are NEVER doing expansions for this game. Deal with it.

They said they don’t know how they will release the expansion. They may have made up their minds by now though. They where unsure of whether to do a business as usual box release or feed it through the living story. The content will come one way or the other.

If I don’t want the content if it’s free, why the hell would I want to pay money for the content in box-form?

Because of the bad side-effects from the gem-store approach. Now Anet focus on the gem-store for income the question becomes “how do we get people to buy gems” and that effects the game in a negative way. Nothing is free you see.

I did already gave multiple examples with the mini’s in the game and the gold-driven part and so on but I will keep it to one example here.

Lets for a moment forget about money. You just want to create the best game there is. How would you go about hairstyles? Would you put new hairstyles in some separate part from the game where you pay a lot of gold to change your hair onetime (using the gold / gem rate here) or would you put a barber ingame where everybody can just go and cut it’s hair for a few silver.

But money is a factor, the company needs to make money so now lets suggest they make money with expansions. How would they then do it. They might put the barber in the next expansion or already put him in now but lock multiple hairstyles behind an expansion. Anyway, the barber is in the game and you can change your hair whenever you like for a few silver. You have the expansion? Then you have more hairstyles.

Now lets say you generate income with the gem-store what would you then do. Well you need to make money so you will luck the hairstyles behind some cash-shop most likely in a totally separate part outside of the game (that is not required btw) that means a you can not just go to the barber and cut your hair for a few silver whenever you like but you need to pay a lot of gold or some money. They need to make some money somehow so who can blame them if they have a F2P game.

So thats an example where the cash-shop focus for income makes a compromise to the game quality. The quality of the game becomes lesser because they have to answer the question “How do we get people to buy gems”. Just like mini’s are now mainly gem-store related so going into the world colling them is gone..

The question “how to get people to keep buying expansion” simply results in a better game.

Thats why you would want to pay for expansions.. to get a better game.

1. Anet has enough money from RNG box sales to feed the world 90 times.

2. Anet promised that the gem-store would revolve only around cosmetic purchases, which they did. Unfortunately, the entire game revolves around cosmetic items, leading to more transmutation stone purchases or outfit purchases. Anet has made enough money from these.

3. Expansions do not guarantee a better game. WoW declined over time because it tried to “improve” the game by making the expansions better. I don’t see how Guild Wars 2 could get worse, but Anet can make that happen. I foresee much RNG, more gem-store items, and farming nerfs so that people cannot make gold to pay for gems. Anet will make you pay real money for gems soon.

I would not buy an expansion, I would not play expansion content, and I certainly would not encourage others to buy an expansion until Anet comes up with better content. They have so much money from rng boxes, yet they make crap content every two weeks. They need to learn to give over some of that money to make better content, and only then would I be slightly interested in playing expansion content.

Basically you are supporting what I am saying. Especially with part 3. (I dit not really understand1 btw)

Of course an expansion would indeed only be a good idea if that would also mean they change there approach to get off the bad model they are using now and improve the game-world. But then they have that option. Now they are required to rng-boxes or other bad thinks to make money.

Morrigan.2809:

@ Devata
you keep saying the same thing essentially over and over and we get it by now.
The more you post it doesn’t mean that Anet will suddenly go and say oh yes- I guess we should change our business model.

You don’t like how they do it- that is fine.

I can’t help feel that you are drumming up support for your point of view, which is also fine. It does not however mean that they will change their model to what you want.
That is not going to happen- so either deal with it or not

Correct because people don’t read the thread and then keep asking the same questions over and over again. So I keep answering the same answer over and over again.

You don’t know if they won’t change it and I don’t deal with what they are doing now. As you can see.

I am also not somebody who likes to switch form one game to another especially with MMO’s. So then I will first try all in my power to make sure they improve what is wrong.

Oow and it is not so much and getting ‘support for my point’ as there are already many people asking for expansions and complaining about the thinks I call negative side-effects of the gem-store. So that ‘support’ already exist.

What I try to do is showing people how the gem-store focus is related to thinks in the game. It’s then up to them to do with that what they want. Of course I am also here in the hopes of getting Anet employee to think about this them-self and so maybe they are able to change it. I want this game to be a success but the way they are going now is the wrong way.

Direksone.3867:

Devata.6589:

Galtrix.7369:

Yargesh.4965:

RyuDragnier.9476:

Anet has already said they are NEVER doing expansions for this game. Deal with it.

They said they don’t know how they will release the expansion. They may have made up their minds by now though. They where unsure of whether to do a business as usual box release or feed it through the living story. The content will come one way or the other.

If I don’t want the content if it’s free, why the hell would I want to pay money for the content in box-form?

Because of the bad side-effects from the gem-store approach. Now Anet focus on the gem-store for income the question becomes “how do we get people to buy gems” and that effects the game in a negative way. Nothing is free you see.

I did already gave multiple examples with the mini’s in the game and the gold-driven part and so on but I will keep it to one example here.

Lets for a moment forget about money. You just want to create the best game there is. How would you go about hairstyles? Would you put new hairstyles in some separate part from the game where you pay a lot of gold to change your hair onetime (using the gold / gem rate here) or would you put a barber ingame where everybody can just go and cut it’s hair for a few silver.

But money is a factor, the company needs to make money so now lets suggest they make money with expansions. How would they then do it. They might put the barber in the next expansion or already put him in now but lock multiple hairstyles behind an expansion. Anyway, the barber is in the game and you can change your hair whenever you like for a few silver. You have the expansion? Then you have more hairstyles.

Now lets say you generate income with the gem-store what would you then do. Well you need to make money so you will luck the hairstyles behind some cash-shop most likely in a totally separate part outside of the game (that is not required btw) that means a you can not just go to the barber and cut your hair for a few silver whenever you like but you need to pay a lot of gold or some money. They need to make some money somehow so who can blame them if they have a F2P game.

So thats an example where the cash-shop focus for income makes a compromise to the game quality. The quality of the game becomes lesser because they have to answer the question “How do we get people to buy gems”. Just like mini’s are now mainly gem-store related so going into the world colling them is gone..

The question “how to get people to keep buying expansion” simply results in a better game.

Thats why you would want to pay for expansions.. to get a better game.

And you’re still here why? <.<

Because I think it can still be fixed and the guild.

Galtrix.7369:

Yargesh.4965:

RyuDragnier.9476:

Anet has already said they are NEVER doing expansions for this game. Deal with it.

They said they don’t know how they will release the expansion. They may have made up their minds by now though. They where unsure of whether to do a business as usual box release or feed it through the living story. The content will come one way or the other.

If I don’t want the content if it’s free, why the hell would I want to pay money for the content in box-form?

Because of the bad side-effects from the gem-store approach. Now Anet focus on the gem-store for income the question becomes “how do we get people to buy gems” and that effects the game in a negative way. Nothing is free you see.

I did already gave multiple examples with the mini’s in the game and the gold-driven part and so on but I will keep it to one example here.

Lets for a moment forget about money. You just want to create the best game there is. How would you go about hairstyles? Would you put new hairstyles in some separate part from the game where you pay a lot of gold to change your hair onetime (using the gold / gem rate here) or would you put a barber ingame where everybody can just go and cut it’s hair for a few silver.

But money is a factor, the company needs to make money so now lets suggest they make money with expansions. How would they then do it. They might put the barber in the next expansion or already put him in now but lock multiple hairstyles behind an expansion. Anyway, the barber is in the game and you can change your hair whenever you like for a few silver. You have the expansion? Then you have more hairstyles.

Now lets say you generate income with the gem-store what would you then do. Well you need to make money so you will luck the hairstyles behind some cash-shop most likely in a totally separate part outside of the game (that is not required btw) that means a you can not just go to the barber and cut your hair for a few silver whenever you like but you need to pay a lot of gold or some money. They need to make some money somehow so who can blame them if they have a F2P game.

So thats an example where the cash-shop focus for income makes a compromise to the game quality. The quality of the game becomes lesser because they have to answer the question “How do we get people to buy gems”. Just like mini’s are now mainly gem-store related so going into the world colling them is gone..

The question “how to get people to keep buying expansion” simply results in a better game.

Thats why you would want to pay for expansions.. to get a better game.

nekretaal.6485:

Here’s the thing. At the time GW Nightfall was released, the other two games were still on the market at full price.

So if you wanted to play guild wars and be competitive in price, you needed to have all 3 expansions. Key skills were expansion exlusive. This meant that if you were a new player, starting the game was a $120 proposition. That’s too much to ask for new players of an old game.

The micro transaction model is better for new players than the buy to play expansions model. Otherwise, you price your new customers out of the market.

I already told how they had to fix that even before anybody mentioned it in this thread.

I will copy paste it.

The only thing they really need to be careful of is a pile of expansions that is a problem for new players. 5 expansions down the road it would become to expensive to start playing the game if you need to buy them all. Best way to do that is to work with a system where you have a little cheaper and a little more expensive expansion every time switching. Next you only require the original game and the last two expansions where the for-last expansion gives you access to all previous expansions.

Of course it would also be wise to drop the prise of the original game at some point. most likely at the release of the first expansion and then one more time at the release of the second expansion.

The total price would then most likely still go up to about 100 dollar in total what is a lot but you don’t need to buy everything at once. Going for the original game + for-last expansion would mean you where only one expansion behind and if you have not so much money you can then save for the last expansion.

In the end.. yes you need to pay the content.

Banewrath.5107:

Silvercyclone.1462:

Hey pplz there already is mounts. The witches broom and the tunneling tool are technically mounts. I would love to see more mounts like these as long as there is no speed buff. Tyria doesnt need them. The only people that want mounts r the ones that say “OMG thats 2 silver to wp across the world? I’m now broke cause I have 2 silver less than 100 gold. DX”

What is the point of a mount if it doesn`t have a speedbuff? Mounts wouldn`t make waypoints disappear you know. You could still take a waypoint while I ride my horse wherever I wanted to. For a “play your way” kind of game, some of you guys sure like being limited a lot. I myself don`t like limitations I like freedom of choice and options. Answer me this though, and try to come up with your best justifiable answer, not just duh we have waypoints already! Ok, here is the question to answer, more like a scenario I guess. You are running around fireheart rise playing the game doing events or whatever. You look up and see me ride by on a horse! How does that effect how you play the game in a negative way. I`d love to hear an answer besides that we already have waypoints. Plenty of other games had waypoints and fast travel but still had mounts for the playerbase that liked them. Let`s hear these answers!

Because WoW.

Silvercyclone.1462:

Hey pplz there already is mounts. The witches broom and the tunneling tool are technically mounts. I would love to see more mounts like these as long as there is no speed buff. Tyria doesnt need them. The only people that want mounts r the ones that say “OMG thats 2 silver to wp across the world? I’m now broke cause I have 2 silver less than 100 gold. DX”

No I want mounts because it’s fun to travel in the world on them.. of course that also means they need a permanent speed-boost. They can then take away many of the waypoints.

I also want mounts because I like to collect them. That is a part of end-content that misses in this game. Crafts don’t send you out in the open world, mini’s don’t and mounts also don’t because there are no mounts.

It doesn’t even make sense what you are saying because the mounts will most likely also cost you money or effort to get. Some might drop as loot but by doing the ‘dungeon’ that drops them you already made more many that 30 waypoint uses would cost you.

Banewrath.5107:

Montezuma.1436:

so many words on a simple matter? Of course mounts will never be introduced, because Way Points system was designed specifically to compensate the lack of mounts. You can’t have the both. Either mounts, or waypoints.

Haha. That is the most narrowminded excuse I have ever heard. You can`t have both! If Anet wanted to make some serious cash from their gemshop they would add mounts. They would sell like hotcakes. Even the people who say they don`t want them would probably see one they like and buy it. Until then it`s bunny ears and waypoints for everyone else.

Put them in the gem/store. Please now. That would take a lot of fun out of the mounts. Just like mini´s are no fun to collect now. It´s time Anet stops with it´s bad gem/store focus and go´s back to a real B2P model where they get income from expansion. Those mounts can then also be introduces in the expansions and you can get them in many ways in the game itself. Not from a boring gem-shop.

The gem-store focus is already destroying the game. Time for that to stop.

dcypher.2590:

Devata.6589:

dcypher.2590:

Lonesamurai.4852:

Eurhetemec.9052:

Lonesamurai.4852:

So basically you’re saying most people who left GW2 want a WoW clone

Well they have one coming with Wildstar

Yep and yep. And right now at least WildStar is like WoW plus massive time requirements. Be interesting to see how that does with people with jobs/kids/friends.

I was genuinely gutted that Wildstar was going to be a standard pay to play sub game, it looks fantastic, and annoyingly, the dev from Wildstar I said that to after the gW2 dev chat at eurogamer was surprised to think anyone would want it free to play

Well, I feel you on not wanting to pay a sub. I wish the standard was more around 8 bucks a month instead of 15, but it’s kind of taking the good with the bad…free 2 play games, yes they are awesome they are free, but they are really just games that want to milk you for everything you are worth, nickel and dime.

In Wildstar thy are having an incredible player housing system and if it were a free to play game I bet most of the stuff to decorate, instead of going out in the world and finding, would just be sold off a store. Also, f2p games notoriously bring in the worst gamers imaginable. All said and done, I’d much rather pay a sub if it’s a good game than to deal with all the nickel and diming.

True. Luckily there is the even better system B2P where you pay the game with initial box sales and expansions.. You know the system that made ArenaNet and Guild Wars big. To bad they dropped it for GW2 and we not have the F2P model with all it’s negative side-effects.

Well I still have an issue with B2P…I guess it’s a little more convenient than f2p, but you can still see things like RNG boxes you buy for real cash or have to grind grind grind to exchange gold for. It’s just a bad system, imo. I’d rather them just take 15 bucks and not put any of that dumb stuff that makes them design everything around an auction house in the game. The games end up being all about the auction houses, trading posts, etc instead of the world.

The whole idea is that with the B2P you lose the RNG boxes you buy for real cash or have to grind grind grind to exchange gold for and all other negative side effects from the F2P model. In a way B2P is a P2P model but you do not pay per month but per expansion. Cash/shop would become more an optional thing where you can maybe buy a few special skins or stuff like extra bank slots and char slots.

But while in a way it is a P2P model you do not have the timer above your head and P2P models have failed for over the last 9 years. No MMO was able to hold it up longer then 2 years so we must conclude that P2P does not work.

Thats why I like B2P so much. It has best of two worlds and is a fair way because everybody pays for the content.

Companies don’t go for it because they think they will not make enough money and maybe on the short run they will make less (not so convinced of that tbo) I also think it has a longer life-spawn. Besides, a few years ago those companies did also not think they could make money with B2P and GW1 already proved that it can work.

juno.1840:

< start of flagrant speculation >

There’s no expansion because the profit margin is not as high as the stuff players are buying now in the gem store. It doesn’t cost ANet much NRE (non-recoverable engineering) to make some skins and random loot boxes.

The LS has NRE but honestly the LS is very small compared to a true expansion.

If you think LS is a 1-for-1 substitute content-wise for an expansion then I think your’re being a little naive. It’s about the bare minimum you can crank out every two weeks to cover new additions to the gem store.

This is most likely the reason or better they think the profit margin is not as high as the stuff players are buying now in the gem store.

Then again I do think that expansion based income has a longer life then this and might even be better at keeping people so in fact it might not be true for sure not over the longer period.

Another problem is that the company gets a lesser name of it. Anet had a very good name and that was because of their fair B2P model.. that name is what made GW2 popular. If they not keep going with this F2P model who is then gonna buy another game of them. They already lost a lot of trust. The only way to take that back is by saying sorry publicly and saying they will turn back the original model and then releasing an amazing expansion.

So in the long run that might be better for income but indeed in the short run this F2P model might be better.

Morrigan.2809:

See OP

Before GW2 was released Anet said that they have no intention of using the same expansion model as GW.

You have that statement. I know they said that they would also have a cash-shop to generate income (what is fine.. as long as the focus is on expansions) but as far as I know, and I did follow the news pretty good, they never said they would not use the same model as GW1.

If they had said that I would not have both the game I can tell you.

Besides, if they would go for a F2P model like we now see, so focusing on the gem-store for income why did they then charge money for the original game? Then they should have really make it free to play. By charging for the initial box they even more suggested they would use the same model as GW1.

“When they made GW2, they made it persistent, open-world and as such, an expansion model consisting of either stand alone games or an add-on is not ideal from that stand point.” a real stand alone is not an option no but an expansion for sure is. Thats works just fine.

I am gonna work here with the idea that GW2 indeed is an open word.. it is not (what makes it even easier) but I really hope that at some point it would become that.

When you release the expansion you can add land. This can be on the current continent and on other continent. Usually you do a combination. People who have the expansion have access to the new continent people without don’t but they do have access to the new maps on the current continent. However many new abilities are not available for them. Lets take the hairstyle example. If they go to the ingame barber they see 10 hairstyles while somebody with the expansion might see 20. They can not go into new dungeons and if the game would introduce mounts they can not use them.

It would work perfectly.

dcypher.2590:

Lonesamurai.4852:

Eurhetemec.9052:

Lonesamurai.4852:

So basically you’re saying most people who left GW2 want a WoW clone

Well they have one coming with Wildstar

Yep and yep. And right now at least WildStar is like WoW plus massive time requirements. Be interesting to see how that does with people with jobs/kids/friends.

I was genuinely gutted that Wildstar was going to be a standard pay to play sub game, it looks fantastic, and annoyingly, the dev from Wildstar I said that to after the gW2 dev chat at eurogamer was surprised to think anyone would want it free to play

Well, I feel you on not wanting to pay a sub. I wish the standard was more around 8 bucks a month instead of 15, but it’s kind of taking the good with the bad…free 2 play games, yes they are awesome they are free, but they are really just games that want to milk you for everything you are worth, nickel and dime.

In Wildstar thy are having an incredible player housing system and if it were a free to play game I bet most of the stuff to decorate, instead of going out in the world and finding, would just be sold off a store. Also, f2p games notoriously bring in the worst gamers imaginable. All said and done, I’d much rather pay a sub if it’s a good game than to deal with all the nickel and diming.

True. Luckily there is the even better system B2P where you pay the game with initial box sales and expansions.. You know the system that made ArenaNet and Guild Wars big. To bad they dropped it for GW2 and we not have the F2P model with all it’s negative side-effects.

Eurhetemec.9052:

Grileenor.1497:

Charak.9761:

The players they’ve lost won’t come back for an expansion.
The new players they get can’t even keep up with the new content.

Wrong, most players who have left would only come back with a decent expansion. 80% of my guild stopped playing and waits for either a good new MMO or an expansion worth of content. LS only offers new content for some hours a month. This might be enjoyed by active players, but nobody who has already left really cares for this temporary mini content.

The point is: GW2 currently lacks competition. There will be some bigger titles in the next half year and GW2 will loose big chunks of players, if they don’t offer (much)more than they do now. I would buy an expansion, just to be able to play with my guildmates again for a longer period of time. I would buy another promising game for the same reason as well. I am not the only one thinking this way.

I just wanted to point out that the above is pretty much nonsense.

Most people who have left GW2 and have not come back at all for the Living Story stuff would not come back for long, if at all, for an expansion. This is because they are not looking for a game with slow, limited vertical progression, or where you are meant to keep looking around the world, exploring, doing new stuff and so on.

They will come back. They are looking for something GW2 misses and they hope the expansion will bring.

Of course Anet needs to do a good job on the expansions because the change they come back again when the expansions turns out to be a failure does drop.

maddoctor.2738:

Devata.6589:

If you base you income on expansions (like GW1) you should do it faster once every year / year and a half.

And then you have a community spread all over the place, which was one of the main problems of the expansion system of GW1. Also, players not being able to play together was another big issue, I had loads of guildies with access only to Prophecies that couldn’t come to play Factions, while other newer players started with Factions. The regular expansion system has lots of benefits yes but it also has loads of drawbacks too.

Spreading the community might be a good thing because it means there are people everywhere not almost everybody in one spot. I also don’t see this problem in other mmo.. I mean I see the spreading, I don’t see the problem. In GW2 they are also spread out. BTW how did it spread the community in GW1? In GW1 you where always in instances.

Yes new members and directly after the release will not have full access true. But how long does it normally takes before people will buy the expansion, and the fact that other guild member can go there only is a reason for people to buy the expansion.

Of course it has benefits and drawbacks but if I put them next to P2P or F2P (so the income generated by a cash-shop) then the benefits of a B2P payment model where Anet focuses on expansions for income far outweighs the drawbacks.

The only thing they really need to be careful of is a pile of expansions that is a problem for new players. 5 expansions down the road it would become to expensive to start playing the game if you need to buy them all. Best way to do that is to work with a system where you have a little cheaper and a little more expensive expansion every time switching. Next you only require the original game and the last two expansions where the for-last expansion gives you access to all previous expansions.

moiraine.2753:

Every MMO that i have played till now always took it’s sweet time to release an expansion.I don’t expect GW2 to be different.
Normally from release till 1st expansion of MMO it takes 2 years.
As i heard only EVE is different because they release expansions every 6 months

Depends. Games that base there income on subscriptions usually take about 2 to 3 years indeed.

If you base you income on expansions (like GW1) you should do it faster once every year / year and a half.

Anet however stated that they prefer to have the living story and no expansion. (so they would then base there income on the cash-shop like F2P games). Reading your post you are not aware of that statemet but thats what many people are so negative about.

I don’t know about EvE but a real expansion every 6 months?

Montezuma.1436:

so many words on a simple matter? Of course mounts will never be introduced, because Way Points system was designed specifically to compensate the lack of mounts. You can’t have the both. Either mounts, or waypoints.

Or just remove many of the way-points. They shrink down the world anyway. That was one of the main excuses for people not wanting mounts because they would shrink the world down. Excuses because the real reason was… No mounts because WoW has mounts.

Try switching to the RP servers. Because there are no official RP servers the unofficial RP servers are mixed wait it good for the game and good for the atmosphere.

I do wonder at what times you play however because killing bosses seems to be one of the only few thinks people are still doing. Because the game is so gold-driven they do that to get gold to buy what they need.

If I am correct the NA unofficial RP server is Tarnished Coast and the EU’s one is Piken Square.

Katz.5143:

Some great suggestions in this thread. To me the best change would be to be able to see chat from all guilds AND for influence to go to all guilds. If that would happen I would join one of the larger active guilds. Right now I won’t because my own small friends and family guild needs the influence.

I added yout suggestions. Also added SchuMidas’s suggestion to have a look at FF14.

Stooperdale.3560:

As soon as you have a paid expansion, the game improvements such as LFG and the wallet no longer come free. They come in the paid expansion. That’s how marketing guys make sure you buy expansions.

The Living Story has problems but a paid expansion is not a solution we should be asking for.

Yeah so what. Then we have all that stuff in the expansion and a better game for it.

Now we get a few thinks ‘for free’ but a lot is locked behind gems. Skins, mini’s, hairstyles and much more plus they make changes in the game based on getting you to buy gems that are not good for the game itself.

I would much rather pay for an expansion to get all the stuff in the expansion and not having the bad side effects from them trying to convince you to buy gems then having 3 things for free, another many thinks not for free and having a lesser game because of the compromises they make on the ground of convincing you to buy gems.

chemiclord.3978:

IndigoSundown.5419:

That would be a cool addition to the game. Nice idea.

Oh yeah, and then have these boards aflame with rage that Arena.net has done ANOTHER 180 on their manifesto by ruining the community and encouraging people to NOT work together in the open world.

That is an absolutely TERRIBLE idea.

True but maybe we should stop looking to the manifesto. Biggest problem is that there are some bad idea’s in there that are still in and some good idea’s on what they indeed did a 180.

About the idea however, I am not so sure about it. The whole karma part and when you claim it other people can use him anymore all a little strange imo. I don’t think it is a good idea.

Well I think stepping of the Holy Trinity was not perse a bad thing and giving everybody some form om healing power was also nod a bad think. The problem however is indeed that they are missing roles like you say.

Taking out the holy trinity is oke but then replace it. When I did read that they would take away the holy trinity I believed them to indeed replace it with something else but they didn’t. Now there are two classes favorite but no class is really needed.

They should still have a role for a tank and a role for a healer but maybe also other roles. Make it so the pets of rankers of there range really becomes of good use in groups. Make sure the portals of mesmers have there own unique useful use, make sure the invisibility from thiefs give there own unique and useful use. But in practice you still need healing and tank but you don’t need anything else so people use the two classes that sort of can give that.. warrior and guardian.

If they can not make a system with more requires roles then they should indeed have kept the holy trinity but removing that by itself is not the problem. Not replacing it with other roles is. You now never have the feeling like you are really contributing your parts you are just all smashing some buttons. It’s more that feeling. With the holy trinity you did feel like participating. As healer making sure everybody had health.. always checking everybody. As tank making sure you kept aggro and as DPS to also see if the healer was not getting agro / protecting him and trying to kill the mob before the tank was down other other mobs would be walking by. You all had task and so you all felt like really contributing to the fight.

In Vayne’s defense (but then again also against him in post (in this thread) where he was telling temporary content was good) he is right that the last 3 patches where more of the ‘permanent’ content type (not full permanent because some linked achivements / rewards still where temporary.. but more permanent).

And while it could be much better, compared the the patches before SAB these where much much better (to bad of the temporary achievements and rewards however), finally you could play the game a little without it feeling like work. Then again it wasn’t really a living Story. SAB isn’t a living story, the revamp of Tequatl isn’t a living story, only the revamp of the dungeon you could see a little as part of a living story. On the other hand.. the whole living story has never felt like a living story.

The last time I felt like there was some story going on in GW2 was back with the lost shore event and ironically that was pre living story.

We should really have more of those events. I know for many people the lost shore event was a big disaster because of very bad timing for NA people and many bugs kicking people out so they should fix that. But a story you see involving while playing the game. Maybe you can do little thinks but please no achievements / unique rewards because that will be temporary and so you get the work feeling again. That story that ends with some big event like the Karka invasion and that literally shapes the world a little and leaves a big chunk of permanent content.

Record the event per server and let people watch it back is some story history. Because you record it per server you can even see yourself and other people who where there in the history. That makes people feel part of a living story, that does not feel like work, that introduces good new permanent content and that is also a good way to keep the story visible for people who like the lore of the game.

Much better then this LS story things that where not more then an bad excuse to put temporary items in the gem-store. You want to get money? Don’t focus on gems for income but expansions. That what you did with GW1 that is (since you charge money for the original box) what many people expect from you with GW2. The fact the living story is what it is and not is would it could be and should be is because it’s all build around getting people to buy gems instead about giving a good game experience.

Btw: The maker of this thread / video does not play GW2 anymore as you can see on his YouTube in the comments. So in a way that proves exactly what he is saying in the video.