Guild Wars 2

Arlee.7038:

MiniEquine.6014:

Galandil.9641:

Arlee.7038:

Galandil.9641:

That’s fine for lvl 80 characters.

But what about other characters, not already 80, but with all the skills already unlocked via scrolls and with all the traits unlocked? I have two characters created way before the NPE, and they have all the skills/“basic” traits (i.e.: all traits except the 5 lately introduced GM) already unlocked, even if they’re both between lvls 40-50.

Do we get a refund of skill points in spirit shards, or all those skill points spent lost? And what about traits?

You’ll get hero points for each level you’ve obtained and for each world skill challenge you’ve done. You’ll get spirit shards for each scroll you’ve used.

Can you provide me some official link on the matter?

On page 1 other people are saying the exact opposite. Keep in mind that I’m not talking about a character who has unspent skill points (like my main toon), but I’m talking about a non-80 lvl char, which has all skills unlocked and 0 skill points available.

No, you don’t get your skills that you unlocked with skill scrolls back. There are no official statements about refunds specifically, but chances are they will not be able to refund the skill points you made through skill scrolls, or the gold and skill points you spent on traits before the patch goes live. In essence, I recommend not spending anything tonight until after the patch hits.

Yours is a somewhat unique scenario in that you got your alts literally everything before they even hit 80. I imagine most people tend to only buy what they want to use, but if you feel like it’s not fair, then you could possibly submit a ticket in game. I don’t think there’s much that can be done, especially since the changes to hero points have been known for months now.

First of all, they said that was how it was going to work on the stream where they previewed this stuff and Colin’s newest post doesn’t change that. Secondly can you people please read the dang dev blogs they have been posting over the last month?

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/updating-your-wallet/

“The conversion of skill points to spirit shards will be automatic. This will happen on a per character basis, so make sure to log in on each character to receive your total count! I think you’ll be surprised at just how many spirit shards you have.”

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/specializations-part-two-reward-tracks-and-elite-specializations/

“Old skill points in excess of those earned by leveling and skill challenges will be converted into crafting materials for the Mystic Forge. Items and activities that were previously repeatable sources of skill points will now also provide that same crafting material.”

Guess what? The crafting material was the later revealed Spirit Shard.

Yeah, I read every blog post that comes out. Like the above poster, it doesn’t address unspent skill points directly. Maybe this is alluding to them with their “You may be surprised at just how many you have!” quote. That would be really cool if they could do it, don’t get me wrong, but as of right now all we have is a vague statement regarding their conversion.

penelopehannibal.8947:

I have 10 characters that now have 100% Map Completion in anticipation of tomorrow’s update. Was this for nothing?

No, map completion still gave you all that karma, hero points for elite specs, all of the waypoints unlocked on all of your characters, and the Gift of Explorations needed to make one of every single legendary weapon (in your case).

Not really much to complain about here. You will still need the excess hero points for Elite specs down the road, so it was not for nothing. Edit: you certainly didn’t need to do map completion to get enough hero points for the first elite spec either. The most you needed was originally somewhere around 67 skill challenges, which is less than a third of them all.

Galandil.9641:

Arlee.7038:

Galandil.9641:

That’s fine for lvl 80 characters.

But what about other characters, not already 80, but with all the skills already unlocked via scrolls and with all the traits unlocked? I have two characters created way before the NPE, and they have all the skills/“basic” traits (i.e.: all traits except the 5 lately introduced GM) already unlocked, even if they’re both between lvls 40-50.

Do we get a refund of skill points in spirit shards, or all those skill points spent lost? And what about traits?

You’ll get hero points for each level you’ve obtained and for each world skill challenge you’ve done. You’ll get spirit shards for each scroll you’ve used.

Can you provide me some official link on the matter?

On page 1 other people are saying the exact opposite. Keep in mind that I’m not talking about a character who has unspent skill points (like my main toon), but I’m talking about a non-80 lvl char, which has all skills unlocked and 0 skill points available.

No, you don’t get your skills that you unlocked with skill scrolls back. There are no official statements about refunds specifically, but chances are they will not be able to refund the skill points you made through skill scrolls, or the gold and skill points you spent on traits before the patch goes live. In essence, I recommend not spending anything tonight until after the patch hits.

Yours is a somewhat unique scenario in that you got your alts literally everything before they even hit 80. I imagine most people tend to only buy what they want to use, but if you feel like it’s not fair, then you could possibly submit a ticket in game. I don’t think there’s much that can be done, especially since the changes to hero points have been known for months now.

Per this post:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Skill-points-and-Spirit-Shards/first#post5187859

Please keep in mind, if:

1) you do WvW almost exclusively and
2) do not have many skill points unlocked and
3) have little to no intention of unlocking them in PvE maps anytime soon and
4) want to unlock elite specializations to use in WvW,

then carefully consider how you spend your hero points tomorrow. You will be able to unlock only all of the base specializations and skills, but no elite spec or skills unless you get additional hero points. You do not have to unlock all of the traits and skills right away, and if you don’t, you can save them for the elite spec.

As far as I’m aware, you do not get to refund these Hero Points to move them around, so once you spend them they are spent. Many peoples’ main characters may be unaffected by this but your alts without much world exploration will certainly be.

phys.7689:

Bettik.4982:

And finally the answer. Turns out ‘grand-fathering’ in wasn’t so impossible after all: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Skill-points-and-Spirit-Shards/first#post5187859

actually thats not grandfathering, they basically gave everyone everything.

Its a possible solution, the main draw back will be how they handle having too many skill points.

Its possible they will increase the amount needed to unlock/get the specializations. However it does resolve the issue of how to handle past accounts. Not great for the long term, but sometimes you cant put a new system in without breaking some things

Having too many skill points might not be so bad though. It would mean that you wouldn’t have to finish a World Completion to unlock everything, just like how you could unlock hero challenges while leveling to have everything unlocked before level 80.

It’s interesting seeing something that isn’t exclusively about HoT’s pricing structure for once during this past week.

That said, I don’t really have too much sympathy for portal farmers (myself included) for a couple of reasons:

1) The fact that the beta times weren’t specified – People were farming for beta access that they neither knew the time nor date for; what do they expect? It makes sense (especially in hindsight but eh) that it would be during Anet’s business hours or some time around them. They could have done it differently, but they never said anything about what time it would be held; we had no reason to assume everyone would be able to play during those times. I farmed a good bit for it and did not find one, but I ended up being busy that day anyway.

2) They were willingly farming for it – There was no requirement to farm for the beta access. Yes, it’s cool to get into the beta, but if it’s information you want, then there will be and have been tons of videos and reviews that will be posted. Your primary purpose for the beta is to hunt for bugs, not to play like normal. You also don’t get anything particularly special for doing the beta like a title, pet, or armor skins (exploits excluded) so you technically don’t miss out.

3) They were still farming Dry Top or Silverwastes – Ultimately the goal of this endeavor was to get a portal, but my wife and I farming these places and doing chest runs with the map netted us well over 200G for the amount of time we were doing it, which really wasn’t too much time. Also, your chances of finding a portal are greater as you spend more time playing, so this would cause a larger percentage of players who played a lot to get portals relative to the amount of people who also got portals but played less often.

The HoT pricing, I believe, is a much larger question to consider rather than that of the portal. There are valid points for and against it for primarily completely different aspects of it with regard to one or the other. For this, they should have been more transparent and consistent, so I agree.

Knighthonor.4061:

Remember the long Dragon Hunter name drama? That’s completely gone now…..see how that works?

It’s gone because most people don’t care about the name. I recall that thread having a majority of its posts being done by the same 20-25 people with occasional visitors popping in to say their piece but never commenting again. The DH name and the HoT pricing structure are light-years apart from each other in terms of importance and size.

Wow, that’s actually really amazing. WvW players will be quite pleased with this news!

GeekDavid.2786:

Yeah, if you feel you’re getting a raw deal, don’t exercise your right to speak about it, just stay quiet and take it or leave it. But by all means don’t disturb the fanbois.

At no point did they say not to complain about it, just that, in their opinion, the complaints are somewhat out of hand. Speak out if you feel like it, but it really has gotten to some ridiculous levels (like trying to file a class-action lawsuit? really?). Anet owes us more communication, clarification, and possibly apologies too, but this forum has been almost literally nothing but repeat threads about the expansion price.

Draknar.5748:

Wow, I can’t believe some of these complaints.

If you are too small for guild halls, then you are too small for guild halls. Deal with it.

You’ve lived thus far without guild halls, you will continue to live without guild halls.

Some have put the time into cultivating a healthy guild (120+ active members) and guild halls are perfect for that.

Not every guild needs to have a hall. No one expects a band of 3 buddies to own an entire territory anyway. You guys will be nomads. If you want to have a guild hall, then the 3 of you guys need to sit down and consider joining another guild or do some recruitment.

Seriously, I don’t know what they expect. Maybe Anet could implement smaller guild halls that a high-population guild would not enjoy/be able to use, but they offer less to do or something. It would be fun if they could get them, and maybe they can, but only if the 3 of them could clear the Mordrem. If they end up taking longer to upgrade their guild halls too, well, that’s to be expected; less people producing resources, less gets built.

IchbinVol.5407:

“Stay calm and just pay up”

Pretty much. Instead of giving valid reasons as to why this small expansion is worth $50, they just convey how great a game it is, so we just need to blindly support them.

While there are some that believe that Anet shall not be questioned for they are our lord and savior, there are others, like myself, who think that there are valid reasons for the expansion being priced at this point IF the following occurs, and I have a suspicion it might:

1) Unlike GW1, GW2 has shown a B2P model where not all of the content is released all at once. Whether you consider Living World, Silverwastes, Dry Top, Southsun Cove, etc. to be “free” or paid, it hardly matters. These things did not come out with the base game and were added later as a bonus to people playing the game. In the case of LWS1, only people who were playing it at the time get to benefit from its existence and people like me are waiting for its return through the fractals or some such method. Undoubtedly, while HoT is not starting out with a lot in terms of map area, they will certainly be adding more maps, with more events, more bosses, more jumping puzzles, and more “challenging content” (I’ll get to this in #2). Consider this particular expansion as the beginning of the expedition deeper into the jungle. What is the full extent of the content by the end of HoT? The entire area west of Metrica Province/Rata Sum is the Maguuma Jungle, and it is pretty big. If they develop all of that eventually, then I would bet hardly anybody would be complaining.

2) The challenging content. We don’t know what this is just yet. I really hope they announce it soon because it’s been the carrot on a stick for many people. They hired former raid and dungeon designers to work on whatever this is, so we are getting some form of end game progression, hopefully actually challenging, which is what the community has been dying for ever since level 50 fractals have become a breeze for more than just a handful of players.

3) Ignoring the map, what else do we get? Many would, rightly so, argue that the remaining things we get are not worth $50, but outside of the context of an expanding jungle is really only where this makes sense. HoT players get access to a new class and 9 elite specs, Guild halls that are non-instanced and exist in the world (outside of the Verdant Brink too), gliding (which I’ve heard is quite fun even by itself), precursor crafting, etc. for example. This is adding a huge variety to classes we already play, and it’s turning the meta on its head in some cases. They also incorporated a new PvP mode/map (hopefully more to follow, we’ll see) and a revamps WvW map that has a lot of new mechanics. These are put in for people even without HoT. They could have locked these behind the expansion too, but they didn’t. Maybe that’s their fault and that shouldn’t be considered, but it is something they are doing so that the PvP/WvW community doesn’t get split into the haves vs. have nots.

There are plenty of reasons why people defend this. Ignore the people who think Anet is some god and can’t be wrong, but don’t ignore people who do have valid points.

There’s nothing to say they will or will not. It’s also probably unsafe to assume that the numbers aren’t looking at least reasonable. For as many people that don’t like the price, a good number have bought the pre-purchase despite that or have pre-purchased it because they feel $50 is fair. There is also a large number of people both here and on reddit that don’t feel the price is deserved, but it’s hardly talked about in-game. Chances are their sales are not booming but they are probably not regretting the decision.

It would be interesting to see the numbers, but they don’t seem to announce financial stuff about the company here on the site. You would have to look at the quarterly earnings reports to find out the effects of this pre-purchase.

karik.8293:

Wow looking at that comparison,you would be mad to preorder hot.
It seems crazy to me how they keep drip feeding us one new feature at a time.
Why not tell us how many new zones were going to get and if there are gonna be new dungeons.
At the moment its just looking like a living world update to me.

Which is why we probably shouldn’t pre-order/pre-purchase HoT to begin with. The problem with doing that for any game is that you are buying something without know everything about it. You are making a personal investment and making it more difficult to back out if you change your mind, albeit not impossible.

If for no other reason, we shouldn’t pre-purchase this game or any other game based on principle.

Gray.9041:

Oldirtbeard.9834:

Random.4691:

Some of us are taking the stand on the principle that they duped people into buying the core edition, were not honest about it (in fact they tried to hide it), some appreciation should be should to those of us who made this expansion possible with our wallets, and basically just don’t be scummy about it. Be up front, listen to us, and for the love of god, give us some form of an explanation.

It’s pretty bad when reviews are asking why they haven’t explained them selves yet.

I read on Reddit that refunds are being offered for at least 2 months, just saying.

refunds, yes, but in doing so the user loses any bought gems, any heroic edition upgrades, all progression, and quite possibly the ability to link to a GW1 account.

it’s true that people can get a refund, but:

• that’s a legal requirement
• the user loses progression/gems
• this is only an issue because Anet didn’t change their FAQ sooner.

Actually, the person in question had no progress lost. They posted an update post to reddit sometime earlier today.

briggah.7910:

xbutcherx.3861:

briggah.7910:

xbutcherx.3861:

The funny part is that the main thread about this has 4100 posts which 4000 are players complaining about this vs 100 that think is a fair price.
Numbers don’t lie.

Seeing as everyone doesn’t post here and pretty much only those that want to share their opinions do. I’d say numbers do not matter.

You really think people want to make happy threads when they are constantly de-railed/high-jacked by someone else and then it just turns into a flame war?

When or if anet releases that amount of copies they have sold of HoT. Numbers will not really mean anything.

Really? number don’t mean anything? example of 3 players
1 player buy HoT = $50
2 leave because they think is not worth OR
3 players buy at $29 or $39 each.
Do the math genius.

Yes numbers don’t mean anything unless anet gives us a number of how many copies they sold.

Example:

So say the first day they sold 10,000 copies of HoT but have 4,000 threads of complaints. Which number is greater then?

Unless you know for a fact how many copies were sold you can not use numbers of threads to make your point. For all we know they may have sold 5 copies or maybe they even sold 50,000 copies.. We just don’t know.

I haven’t counted the unique replies to that thread, but I know, for example, that Dragonhunter Name Feedback thread had over 2000 replies but most of it was the same 10-15 people going around and around in circles. Occasionally a few people would jump in, but the number of people in that thread was relatively small.

I would like to see what they manage to sell for the pre-purchase. I think it would be interesting for comparison to when HoT releases. Though, they have definitely sold more than 5 copies (albeit that point is a bit pedantic).

xbutcherx.3861:

Robotmoxie.4025:

Dude, read the news! You want a link “proving” something?

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/

Scroll this page for a WHILE.

You want to hear them talk about their new tech, and what the new classes can do?

https://www.youtube.com/user/arenanetofficial

Browse these videos for A WHILE.

Like, seriously. Follow their content updates! They keep telling us all this stuff that’s going to be in HoT, and people keep missing it because they don’t read the articles.

I’m not here to do your homework for you, but you can do all the homework you want, reading the blog posts and watching the videos to get all caught up on the features.

I’ll say again, Arenanet messed up by not giving us like, a rolling summary page or something, that updates with new features as they talk about them. Nobody knows what the heck’s going into this expansion because you have to read the friggin’ Library of Congress just to get it all figured out!

You really think they going to give you all that in 1 expansion? think again. Probably a year will pass before all that.

Funny thing is, that year will still be within the expansion. All of the future content updates are going to be for HoT, so if they have not released a new expansion in that time frame, then they will still be putting stuff out for HoT. We’ve been in a content drought because they are developing HoT, but after it gets released we will certainly see more.

Swizzle.7982:

the noobiniser.7465:

45 euros for the xpac isn’t that much of a hastle.

why would any of you think we won’t get another bunch of free feature packs on top of the expansions promised content?

So if my $50 dollars for the expansion is also for the “free feature packs” (which may or may not exist at some point in the future) then how exactly are they free?

What I am (or am not) paying $50 for is the expansion. THATS ALL. I am NOT paying retroactively for the last two years of updates and I am NOT paying for potential future updates. I am paying for the expansion, nothing more, nothing less. If anet decide to throw out FREE (FREE, as in, not paid for) content in the future, then great, thanks a bunch. But that is not what my $50 dollars is for.

Technically, the “free” feature packs even for the base game aren’t free. You bought the core game, so you now have access to core game feature packs. If you buy HoT, you will then have access to the HoT feature packs. Pretty clear. And yes, there will be feature packs for HoT. Almost all of the new content updates will be exclusively for the expansion. If you are okay with not getting updates for the base game anymore (except holidays), feel free to keep playing the base game.

Robotmoxie.4025:

[[I GOT REALLY CARRIED AWAY AND WROTE AN ESSAY, I’M SO SORRY]]

-snip-

Holy poop nuggets. That was beautiful.

+1

obastable.5231:

Things that are GW2 updates, and not part of the expansion:

- Stronghold
- WvW Borderlands map
- Guild Halls
- Mastery System (however there are area specific mastery lines that are inaccessible without the expansion).
- Raid type content, however / whenever they implement it

While these things are being released simultaneously WITH the expansion, they are not exclusive to those who purchase it. Anet has already said that we will be able to use Guild Halls, Raid content (when it comes), Masteries, and both new PvP maps whether we buy the expansion or not.

IMHO that means they aren’t to be considered in the cost of it.

and

webtoehobbit.4201:

Yes but if they’re being added to the base game without having to pay extra for it, then we the playerbase need to be asking, “What ARE we paying for?” If we are paying $50 for exclusive HoT features, then there better be a lot of them, or why pay more when I can just enjoy these new feature for free with the base game?

Why should it not be considered? The reason they are not adding these things in particular as part of the payment for the expansion is because it would divide guilds into two groups; get the expansion or get out. It would divide worlds into two groups; the expansion players that need to constantly be in the new map or else they will lose the PPT game. They would be splitting the community.

Would you rather they locked the WvW map, PvP map, Guild Halls, all masteries, etc behind that wall just to feel better about the price? Under normal circumstances in a traditional MMO setup, you’re absolutely right that this would not be considered because it would be replacing something else. GW2 never did and still doesn’t fall into the same category as a traditional MMO, and they have to find a way to implement these changes without alienating the community members because they don’t want to do that.

webtoehobbit.4201:

MiniEquine.6014:

MarkoNS.3261:

butch.8136:

MonoSodiumGlutamate.4217:

+1 Thank
you for showing us the facts number don’t lie.

Need to take into account the context.
Gw1 and Gw2 are two very different games.

of course there is someone talking about context, same company same stuff they got lazy and greedy.

You literally cannot ignore context. To do so would be extremely foolish. Taking context into consideration doesn’t release Anet from their need to supply a game that their consumers will want to buy, but it does have an affect on the perspective.

Did the previous GW1 expansions or stand-alones come with content patches too, or is this what came with them out of the box? I don’t recall too many games back then with huge content patches, but I could be mistaken on this. Either way, HoT will have more content released over time, so this chart would have to be updated in kind. We’re also still not sure what goes in that “raid/dungeons” slot. Something will, and I hope they release that information soon, even if it is bare bones for now. Nobody knows at all what to expect with it.

This future content you speak of is the Living World right? As far as I remember, Living World is free as long as you log in while it’s live. So why, if it’s free, am I paying up front for it with the expansion?

Not exclusively. When you bought the original game, the Living Story was “free” in the sense that you didn’t pay again for it, but you only had access to it because you bought the game when you did. Similarly, you only have access to LS3 if you buy HoT. If you buy HoT a year from its release and you miss 4 chapters, then those don’t become free and you have to pay to unlock them (like you do now with LS2). The content I’m referring to specifically though is anything added in the new maps or instances. We know there will be more than the Verdant Brink, we just don’t know how much. There was recent data showing that they nudged Rata Sum ever so slightly to the East, which could be indicative of something even that far down (though not necessarily).

I mean I see your logic in this argument, but what is clearly the issue here is they must be hurting for gem sales. So instead of having me paying for future, supposedly free content, make the playerbase happy, and happy players will buy gems, well, as long as you put really neat things in there.

Yes, if I recall correctly they have mentioned that gem sales have not been providing them with the income they desired. That, and the community’s call for an expansion as opposed to just slow rollouts of content was seen as an opportunity for Anet to launch an expansion (player request) and to get an infusion of sales (NC Soft requirement).

Also, this comparison was done with features AT LAUNCH (sorry didn’t specify earlier) for each expansion. Regardless of future content or not, this comparison is what was given to us at launch of each of these xpacs.

Which is not necessarily the whole picture. There are some expansions that do give a large amount of stuff right up front, some that spread it out in 3-4 big chunks with the first being the bigger chunk, and some that don’t put out that much in the beginning. If they are expanding this region and they don’t have a date or plan for the next expansion, then that means, at least for the foreseeable future, that they will be putting out content for HoT over the next few years. They have a team for Living Story, but the rest of the devs are working on something else.

I agree, what they are starting out with does not look too appetizing in terms of quantity (possibly quality too?) of content. They acknowledged it would be like this in a much earlier interview. However, 3 years from now when we look back at HoT, I would put money on the total amount of released content, that we had to pay a minimum of $50 for and no more, would be a reasonable or even more than reasonable amount. They did it with the core game and I have not seen anything to show they won’t do it with the expansion. I’m still not pre-purchasing because I think that’s a bad practice, but I will buy the game when available.

Zok.4956:

I thought the new PvP Map, the new WvW map and the new guild halls will be available also to players that did not by HoT. Am I wrong?

Guild halls are located in the Jungle, so I’m not sure how this would work for those without the expansion. The PvP and WvW maps are included, so far as I know.

MarkoNS.3261:

butch.8136:

MonoSodiumGlutamate.4217:

+1 Thank
you for showing us the facts number don’t lie.

Need to take into account the context.
Gw1 and Gw2 are two very different games.

of course there is someone talking about context, same company same stuff they got lazy and greedy.

You literally cannot ignore context. To do so would be extremely foolish. Taking context into consideration doesn’t release Anet from their need to supply a game that their consumers will want to buy, but it does have an affect on the perspective.

Did the previous GW1 expansions or stand-alones come with content patches too, or is this what came with them out of the box? I don’t recall too many games back then with huge content patches, but I could be mistaken on this. Either way, HoT will have more content released over time, so this chart would have to be updated in kind. We’re also still not sure what goes in that “raid/dungeons” slot. Something will, and I hope they release that information soon, even if it is bare bones for now. Nobody knows at all what to expect with it.

Yea… that is not how gamers act, at all.

Then the people who want to buy it now will, those who want to buy it but don’t want to pre-purchase it won’t buy it now but will buy it later (I’m in this group), and those who don’t feel it is worth their money will just not buy it.

Pre-purchasing/pre-ordering is a bane on gaming in general. Too many games are sold like this now, despite the only reasonable option being to only wait until all information has been revealed and the only thing remaining is the game itself.

ReiCH.6273:

Morning everyone, so still no dev response to this?

There was a dev response back on page 68 or so. They are well aware of the community concerns and it will be relayed to the team.

What this means is that it’s known that there is discontent among the community, but not that something will or can be done about it. For the sake of the devs, I really hope they announce the challenging content soon. I’m going to buy the expansion when it comes off of pre-purchase and I know what I’m paying for, even if it’s not fully worth it right now, because I have gotten more than my share of enjoyment out of the game so far. I just don’t like the idea of pre-purchasing that the gaming community and developers think is the way of the future. Anet might not be the shining angel in the sky we once thought, but they are certainly better than many other devs out there and I see no reason for I, personally, to not continue to support them, eventually.

I bought the game in January for $10 and I /age’d my account last night. I have over 450 hours clocked, which means I’ve paid a grand total of $0.0222/hour to play this game. Compared to when I played WoW, I paid about $0.1533/hour to play that game. GW2’s cost/hour will continue to decrease for me but WoW’s never did because of the sub fee. I do not believe that WoW gave me almost 7x more content than this game does. I only really played WotLK and Cata, so essentially BC and Vanilla content was worthless to me outside of a way to get my characters to 80 and 85 respectively.

I may buy the $100 package from them with my wife when it launches for sale, but I don’t think I will give them money for pre-purchase just on principle of pre-purchasing being bad for the gaming community. There’s a lot of potential with this expansion, and just because the initial content at launch isn’t necessarily going to be big doesn’t mean that they aren’t going to be releasing content patches; because they are.

Diovid.9506:

Gray.9041:

I’d love to get my facts right.

and when Anet provide some, I’ll make sure to keep them in mind.

for now, we know almost nothing about how many maps we’re getting, so you can’t argue we’re getting to few or too many. you can argue we_might_ have too few or too many, but we still don’t know either way.

We don’t know much, that much is true. However we do know the people saying it is just one map with 3 biomes are wrong. We know that there will be at least 2 maps, each with 3 biomes.

we get maybe 1/3 a region, maguuma jungle is not as big as you think and i have played GW1 from the start…i should know…

Looking at this map makes it appear like there is room for about 5 maps I’d say. I’m expecting at least 3.

Pretty much everywhere west of SW, DT, Metrica Province, and Rata Sum, maybe even slightly north of SW has the potential of having maps added. If they really extend the jungle that far down (releasing one map at a time like an expedition), that could be even larger than all of the revealed Orr maps are. There’s a lot of potential with this expansion, and as long as they continue to work on this one and don’t go on to the next one before they finish the content here, we may very well be getting a very good amount of content.

The kicker is, I bet they don’t know the full extent of the expansion themselves. Right now they are only going to release a certain amount of content, but like with other expansions, content patches will come. Even if it’s 3 maps in total, the land area of the triple-stacked Verdant Brink is larger than both of the Maguuma Wastes maps combined, so that’s probably about 4x the amount of area as those two in total, at a minimum.

RabbitUp.8294:

MiniEquine.6014:

He also called them out on the FAQ thing. I don’t see how people can call WP and BO shills if they’re saying things like this. Obviously, they benefit if people say that they were the reason they pre-purchased, but that probably makes them more upset at the situation. Any reasonable people would know that merely scolding the consumers would not bring them “to the light” to pre-purchase this game; it might just take time or it might take intervention on Anet’s part to change the pricing model.

Either way, nobody wins here and they know it.

He didn’t really have the option of not mentioning that issue, when those that protest are fully aware of that, and the rest only need to scroll down to the comments. This is only damage control.

In any case, he gets money from views and a side bonus from referrals. He’s got himself covered either way, regardless of where the public opinion sways to.

If he’s covered either way, it only means he has less reason to lie. I’ve been watching his videos the past 4-5 months (since I started this account really) and he’s one of the more level-headed and informed people I’ve seen. He also has some pretty good insight and access to the 3D Tyria, which is pretty cool. I don’t have any reason to doubt him, only the marketing division (or NC Soft; jury is still out on that one).

RabbitUp.8294:

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

And yet, WoodenPotatoes encourages his viewers to NOT pre-purchase. That’s some bias toward ArenaNet.

He said there’s room for improvement and repeated some suggestion that have already been made. His final thoughts were that for him, the expansion is worth the price tag.

Still, he also mentioned that, although he figured it would be about $50 without a character slot, it doesn’t make it ideal. Like him, I too will be purchasing the expansion with my wife. We just have to decide if we want to do it now and get beta access (and possibly do the ultimate packs since it is technically better. We do buy gems every now and then anyway…).

He also called them out on the FAQ thing. I don’t see how people can call WP and BO shills if they’re saying things like this. Obviously, they benefit if people say that they were the reason they pre-purchased, but that probably makes them more upset at the situation. Any reasonable people would know that merely scolding the consumers would not bring them “to the light” to pre-purchase this game; it might just take time or it might take intervention on Anet’s part to change the pricing model.

Either way, nobody wins here and they know it.

You shouldn’t be deleting characters with things in their inventory. However, try to contact customer support and see if they can revert your character to post-purchase or something. They can most likely help, but if it’s in your wardrobe (it will be if you used it when HoT arrives) then it’s really not too big of a deal. They hand 10 free transmutation charges out every month.

No, unfortunately not. This would also leave a lot of accounts around without the expansion that would need to be bought again, leading to the same issue.

This example isn’t perfect. Technically, your BOB you have at home has a bunch of aesthetic features and unlocked content on it for having been used throughout the years. You can pick up a new BOB that comes with its own expansion, so you have a new BOB with nothing on it but the expansion, and you have the old BOB with all your old stuff. Or, you can buy the expansion and attach it to your BOB at home, but in removing the expansion from new BOB you need to break the new BOB.

It’s still mostly correct, but it needs to be worded different.

DiogoSilva.7089:

Don’t delete anything yet. Anet still has time to correct their silly mistake.

I don’t think you’ll need to worry about deleting them anymore

PS (please check your mail before deleting them!)

How so?

Sounds like Zoso just sent them enough gold to buy enough gems to buy a character slot. If that’s what they really did, that is awfully kind of them. Why this needs to be done though is a sign that Anet has not done a good job relaying to us why the expansion is going to cost the amount it does and does not come with a slot by default.

Have them contact customer support. I’ve been hearing things about people being able to contact them and informing them of their situation, and Anet might be able to help them get the pre-purchase for something less.

They have not released anything official, but people like your friends are the real victims out of this; not veterans and definitely not players who never bought the game before.

There’s a lot of people upset now, and somewhat rightly so, but I also think that some of that anger is either misdirected or misplaced.

Are veteran players really upset that for the past 2-3 years they have been able to play an excellent game for the cost of $60 and nothing else mandatory the entire time? ($540 in monthly subscriptions for WoW, plus the cost of any expansions that came out during that time period, so we’ll call it a cool $600). They may feel a jaded because a new player can pay $50 for the expansion and get access to the core game and expansion, but they don’t get to experience the Living World S1 at all (yet) and if they want to play Living World S2 they need to buy $20 worth of gems. When LWS1 does eventually release in some manner, it may cost an additional $20-$30. I don’t understand so much the veteran players of many years being so upset.

The second group of people are those who bought the game during massive sales. In January, March, and April there were -75% sales where you could get the entire game for $10. I was one of those people. I have no issue eventually paying whatever they require for the expansion, but I’ll hold out for now just in case they sweeten the deal some (unlikely).

The third group is actually negatively affected by this announcement; severely. Anybody who recently (past couple of months or so) bought the core game in anticipation of the expansion for the regular price of $40-$60 will now have to buy everything again, essentially forcing them to pay $90-$110 for the game and expansion. This is what it costs for the veteran players, but this group of people did not get to experience the game yet. I’ve heard Anet is trying to remedy this situation, but they’ve announced nothing official so far. People have been “forseeing” Anet’s downfall probably since the beginning of the game. This won’t change much.

As for not buying the expansion yet, I think it’s reasonable if you don’t at the moment. For now, we don’t even have all of the information about it, so I feel it’s kind of silly to just throw money at the screen without a full list of content. There is still a lot to do outside the expansion, so you’ll still definitely be able to enjoy things while waiting for any changes to the expansion.

This is not customer discrimination. They only have one product for sale at the moment and that is the combination core + expansion. Everybody has access to the same product and they are not restricting access for anybody.

If there is any legal trouble (extremely unlikely at all, this seems way out of proportion), then it will not be about this particular item.

A little OT, but this is probably a record for the fastest a thread has grown in GW2 history. It’s putting the Hobosacks and Dragonhunter threads to shame.

Back on topic:

I think a lot of people are lumping all players who currently own the game into this “veteran players” category. What does it mean to be a veteran? How many years? Months? People who have owned the game for 3 years, 2 years, heck maybe even 1 year I don’t think this is really something they should be complaining too much about. I still think it should come with a character slot…but still.

People who bought this game during those -75% sales too, like I did back in January, I feel like this price is of little consequence. I’ve easily clocked over 1000 hours since I got this account, which amounts to a measly $0.01/hour of gameplay. Okay, that’s all good. I’ll buy the expansion.

HOWEVER, over the past few months and weeks, when there has been no such sale, many people have been buying the $40 core game with the anticipation of the expansion, especially since the FAQ was stating that the core game would be required and the expansion would be a stand-alone expansion product. This is not the case. I know Anet has made some less-than-official statements regarding refunding or upgrading accounts for people who were recently misled, but they need to make official posts regarding this policy! The rollout of this expansion pre-purchase is very clunky, the wording confusing, and it needs to be amended, AT LEAST for the players who purchased the game recently without the discount.

You can use this current offer to upgrade your account as well. The wording is weird, but people have bought it and confirmed that the serial code they give can be used to either upgrade an existing account or start a new account with HoT access upon release.

That wording in the newsletter was before they announced the pre-purchase and is widely considered as misleading, seeing as it implies that the base game would need to be purchased prior to HoT. With the recent revelations, it is shown that the base game is no longer purchasable without HoT, which is why there is uproar.

Lydon.1890:

When I heard that you guys finally released the Pre-Purchase for the game, my boyfriend and I rushed to your website to purchase the Heart of Thorns expansion. We don’t care that you chose to give the game free to new players because we’ve spent three years loving your master crafted game. The amount of dedication poured into the making of this MMO is apparent. The quality of life in this MMO greatly surpasses your competition and we have been avid fans of this franchise ever since we discovered Guild Wars 1 in 2007.

It’s disheartening to us to see that the standard edition of the expansion pack doesn’t come with an additional character slot for its unexpectedly high price. You can’t imagine how frustrating it must be to put so much effort into playing a game and when you finally release the pre-purchase for its expansion we realise how much money we’re going to have to pay to enjoy all of the new content without deleting existing characters or grinding for gold.

My point is, I’m super hyped for this expansion, but I’m sorry that I won’t be purchasing it as matters currently stand.

This is sort of how my wife and I feel too. I was just browsing the livestream notes on reddit and the final edit was “HoT is now available for pre-purchase!” and I was like, “oh? OH?!” I rushed to the website to be greeted with a $49.99 pricetag minimum with no character slot or anything and it felt like the hype train hit the brakes pretty hard. We decided to not purchase it just yet. The expansion isn’t going to be any more expensive than this, and if there’s any possibility of it dropping in price then it will be without the inclusion of either the beta access or the base game; both of which we neither need nor want.

We both also wanted to make Revenants, but it either means grinding out 160G each or spending another $20 on character slots we probably should be getting with a $49.99 with the level of content they have talked about thus far.

It’s going to take a while to get the hype train chugging along again.

Edit: Why the heck does $ and 50 together get censored?

Nobody knows for certain yet. The devs are staying completely silent. HOWEVER…

Notice the wording for purchasing the game on the website. Buying this particular version comes with the base game and access to the betas. I have a strong suspicion that there will be a less expensive version that excludes this beta access and didn’t come with the base game.

I’m hoping, but I am almost wary to hope too much. If the $50 even came with a character slot or 800 gems I would have bought this in a heartbeat. I…I hope they know what they are doing and can clarify this soon…

Brother Grimm.5176:

spoj.9672:

It still shouldnt matter for the casual player. There are no gear requirements to complete content (apart from agony resist in fractals) and there are no DPS checks that require any significant investment.

The stat difference is larger. But its still pretty small.

Some players will always be convinced that having BiS is a MANDATORY part of the game itself and anyone that disagrees is not a REAL player….

Isn’t that sort of their fault for thinking that though? This game does not require you to have ascended gear to do anything aside from higher-level Fractals, no matter how someone feels about it.

Putting it in perspective, the new armor changes will be around 40 primary stat and 25 minor stat greater for ascended over exotics. This is not a lot at all; it’s like 1.5 stacks of might.

skowcia.8257:

MiniEquine.6014:

Not sure why Consume Condition has this change. If traited, you can wipe your conditions for a big heal but then get 10 Vulnerability and something else?

Will be fun to see necro fear/immo themself on a heal skill <cough cough>

Maybe it won’t be random. What if it’s ability-specific (which it might be anyway). Say, if it applies 10 stacks of Vulnerability and X stacks of Poison, maybe it isn’t so bad. You just got your heal anyway, presumably after eating a whole bunch of conditions, and your heal will be back off CD faster.

This has yet to be seen though.

Gibson.4036:

3) A couple months later: “You’re still upset about that? It’s in for good, get over it and adapt.”

Do people really say this? I could see some people being so silly as to think this is a good argument, but this is the only one that is objectively bad. Code can be changed, it just takes some time. What’s true is that we haven’t seen these changes fully implemented yet so we won’t know how it will work in game, but if they need to change something later on then it is do-able.

CodeHavoc.7926:

Necro. Punished for using elites and the most powerful condi clense heal ICD was increased as well as thrown a random condition on it because reasons. When we say necro needed something, we didn’t mean more nerfs.

You are only punished for using Plague, not the other elites. It’s more flavorful, I suppose, but this could make it even less desirable to take…especially with that trait. A 33% CD reduction is awesome, but at the expense of what additional condition? If it’s random and you give yourself chill or slow you’ll probably smash your face into the keyboard.

Not sure why Consume Condition has this change. If traited, you can wipe your conditions for a big heal but then get 10 Vulnerability and something else?

I honestly didn’t use either of these abilities much, but they just seem so…unappealing. I don’t like to hurt myself to help myself.

Relshdan.6854:

TooBz.3065:

Ok. Where is the point where ascended gear breaks anything?

Not 5%, not 10%… is 50% ok?

honestly….probably closer to 50% than 10%.

a huge chunk of your stats are on trinkets/backpieces…..these are very easy to acquire (moreso than exotic to be honest)….almost everyone has these already.

weapons are easy to make, but do cost a bit…..make a few weapons to share among alts (GS/Staff/LB/sword/focus)

its really only the armor that drains your money/resources/time…..and armor is the least important to upgrade over exotic considering the low stat numbers.

so practically speaking, the % diff between ascended and exotic, in order for it to matter, would have to be pretty high.

This is exactly it. Why bother making Ascended armor at all if it’s hardly any better? It doesn’t need to be crazy good or even required, but it should be decent enough for you to want to spend all the time and resources it does take to make the stuff. You will likely still be able to complete even the most difficult content with full exotics if you’re a good player, and you will likely still not be able to complete that same content in full ascended if you’re a poor player.

Gibson.4036:

velmeister.4187:

Stark.1350:

I want to hear why this change was made – you’ve completely reversed your position on tiers now.

Mudflation .. here we come!

Cost of material will skyrocket like crazy alienating casual playerbase.

Watch it go!

http://www.gw2spidy.com/item/19748

It’s taking off now, but it’s gone through these cycles before. For the entire Fall of 2014 the cost was higher than it is now by almost 50s. When the changes come in and the markets cool down it may eventually settle out or even drop down again. More people will be farming the new area salvaging gear and the markets may even see an overabundance of materials until maybe a few months after release when people want to keep crafting again.

Gryph.8237:

The level of dev love to this already top tier class is sick. It’s a ridiculous level of bias. So bad. If Necro’s actually got this level of love….

But no, let’s make a top tier class more powerful. Thanks Anet devs. No bias here lol

Engies had probs with condi’s not anymore. Have traits don’t even need skill, condi on you now automatically gives you boons. Lol at anet

They always had the “Transmute” trait in their alchemy line. Not sure what you mean by this being anything new.

phys.7689:

MattyP.6954:

phys.7689:

Coulter.2315:

Pino.5209:

Coulter.2315:

The traits are all more worthy of taking now, they have made every choice valid and have cut the pointless rubbish. You have more valid choices now just less pointless choices. Its a better move for diversity not worse.

This not entirely true. You have less choices and flexibility now. Less pointless choices, which you can’t avoid while being lock into a line, just because you want to get a specific useful trait in that line. I wouldn’t call it better move for diversity. It’s a better move to dumb down the traits, less complicated for the simple minded. Just like when they dumb down leveling, NPE. Not only this, the nerf bats that come with this new system is enormous, just to poor salt into the wound.

Old example, say you’re a Necro from a few years back and you want to take Dhuumfire you then are forced to take the 2 “least worst” options in Adept and Master – now because of the combining of traits and several useful choices at each level you now can get better options. Thats before I even mention Mesmers getting IP as baseline (a MASSIVE freedom), all classes getting 1/2 their bottom line effect and more.

The removal of redundant traits and the enpowering of all choices gives you more choice. Yes it makes it harder to make a bad choice but is that really “flexibility?”

you dont have to get rid of choices in order to make some choices better, thats a fallacy.
yes, they cut choices, and improved some choices at the same time, but they didnt have to.
they could just have had more choices which were better choices.

its like someone saying the only way you can have good food is if their are less types of food. simply not true, you can have choices AND high quality at the same time. Which gives you the ultimate amount of diversity and quality.

Actually, if you watch some of those shows where they fix-up failing restaurants (Restaurant Nightmares, Restaurant Impossible, etc), one of the most common things they do is remove the under-performing items from the menu, because having too many options a.) overwhelms customers and makes them take more time make a selection and b.) complicates the operations of the kitchen by having to maintain rotating stocks of several different ingredients that often go to waste.

Having a ton of choices doesn’t matter if, to be viable, you have to disregard most of them (like not ordering the obviously kittenty items from a menu). It’s not true choice—it’s the illusion of choice.

bull

more options doesnt hurt consumers.

it does however help restauranters. that i agree with.

this whole idea of getting rid of bad options is a lie, very rarely are options bad, they are generally subjective. There is nothing objectively inferior or superior about curry goat, hamburgers a salad, jerked chicken or spagetti.

a streamlined store may only sell hamburgers, that doesnt mean hamburgers are the best food.

I don’t think you’re addressing what MattyP brought up there. The reason that menu items might be cut from a particular restaurant is because they are either:
1) Underperforming
or
2) Have low order frequencies and stocking the materials costs more than the revenue from sales

Sometimes having more options does hurt consumers. If you go to a restaurant and they hand somebody a menu with 20 pages, a lot of people don’t even know where to start. Similarly, if you hand them a sheet of paper with 3 options on it, they probably will be wondering why so little is offered. With that in mind, having too few options can also negatively affect the performance.

We’re not talking about subjective taste here either, at least exclusively. If data shows that 90% of players put trait III in their adept slot, 7% put trait II, and 1% put traits I, IV, and VI in, but nobody uses trait V for some reason, the data is indicating that something is wrong with trait V and possibly trait III. Trait III might be so good that hardly anybody feels like they even can take anything else, and trait V might be so niche that taking it for anything aside from that one event in the corner of the world where it sometimes helps is a bad decision.

A lot of what they seemed to do is merging traits, so now they buffed II and IV, then they merged III and V, II and I, and IV and VI. If they focus on smaller groups of them, they can balance the system better and will have it so more people could theoretically play around with the options they have instead of feeling forced to take that trait III.

Sariel V.7024:

With apolgies to the great Kevin Kline:

Whenever someone uses the word, “Strawman,” my kitten begins to twitch.

It’s the name for the fallacy. There’s not much I can do about that.

I’m going to start making Ascended armor, but only because I feel like it. It’ll be a nice progression to eventually upgrade my armor to the next tier. The stat boost isn’t totally necessary, but it is nice.