Guild Wars 2

Orochimaru.4730:

-9 Elite Specializations

Changes to mechanics which players SHOULD NOT have to pay for EVER!

Additions, not changes. Added content should not be assumed to be free.

-1 new Class (Revenant)

Yes 1 new class, after 3 years.

They weren’t going to do this at launch. It’s a relatively new thing.

-Raids

Based on the PvE that is terrible, I dont hold much hopes for this.

Remains to be seen, but you could be right. We’ll see when it launches.

-Guild Halls (with such things as new Guild Armors, Guild Weapons, and Scribing)

Not exactly playable content, so again we should not have to pay for this

Sorry, but that’s incorrect. It absolutely is playable content and content all the same. See above: Added content should not be assumed to be free.

-4 new Maguuma maps

This is supposed to be an expansion, 4 maps is not enough!

It all depends on how big they are. Verdant Brink is a decent size from the betas, and we even haven’t seen the half of it. Number of maps means absolutely nothing without context. If they gave you 100 new maps but they were all just the inside of small houses, you would not be very pleased now would you?

-Masteries

More mechanic changes, should not be charged for!

See above: Added content should not be assumed to be free. Also, most of the masteries exist within expansion zones, so even if they were accessible to core-only, it would be pointless.

-Access to the Living Story: Season 3

Cos LS 1&2 were so engaging. Sorry but again, if each one can be completed in a couple of hours, no way in hell is it worth it.
Note again these are not in the expansion! They are potential future updates.

Now if Anet want to include these in the price then they should not be selling the past episodes in the gem store! So this point is straight away mute as if it is included in this price, none of the LS episodes should be in the gem store at all and available to all players, new and old for free! Cos we’ve paid for it already based on your comment by buying the core game and expansion!

I would like to see another sale for LWS2. They had one recently, actually, but it has since ended. The problem is, if they bundled LWS2 with the bonus packs then people would complain about that as well. Also, LWS3 is in the expansion; not as a potential update but as an actual update down the road. Potential means it could be done but isn’t necessarily.

So again, what we are being asked to pay for is nowhere near enough a full expansion’s worth of content, or even half an expansion!!!

If you don’t feel it’s worth the cost, simply don’t buy the expansion just yet. If you wait two or so years, you can pick up this expansion and the next one for $50.

The Tempest is getting a lot of flak and rightly so, but in terms of WvW? The Tempest actually looks pretty good for front-lining. Throw some soldier armor on with Runes of the Soldier (5-ally AoE condi-cleanse on shout), full shout build, and X/Warhorn (taking the 5-ally AoE stunbreak trait) and you have something interesting.

It usually means, of course, you lose your staff, which is what most Elementalists run in WvW, but it is a new way to play and could make for a good commander.

Artmi.3745:

MiniEquine.6014:

Go into any retro/used game store and demand to pay original retail price for the games on the shelves. There are very few exceptions to games decreasing in value over time, and those exceptions are limited to physical hardware of rare or popular games. The game data itself is nearly worthless at this day and age because of emulators and rom hacks of the older game, so anybody can play it (sometimes illegally, but I digress)

You might say that this is only addressing reduced price games, but it can apply to free as well. Especially considering that the free core game is $56 the inferior of the standard core game ($56 to buy everything that would make it equal to the core game) and that’s without taking into account the level restrictions.

I am not saying not to reduce price… but reducing prices is done gradually over time give me an example of a game that cost 50$ on sunday and went free on monday?
a game doesn’t cost 50$ one day and free the next…
also what you are talking about is true regarding single player games mostly…
you cannot hack in to guild wars to open an account for free, you might be able to make it run locally or make a private server out of it, but not fully play with the community under the support of Anet…

The game didn’t go from $50 to free over night. At launch, the game was selling for $60. At least as early as January of 2014, when my wife’s account was made, the standard edition was selling for $40. January of 2015, when my account was made, the game went on sale for $10. Only now, 3 years after launch, is the core game valued at $0 by Anet. The game has been reducing in price over the years, slowly; there is nothing newsworthy about any of this.

Artmi.3745:

regarding the cost… no core game sales any more…
from now on you only buy extra content and get the original content for free with full privileges… no level restrictions or anything for the price of 50$ so i have no idea what you are talking about with core game costs 56$

What I mean is that the free core game version is lacking an amount of things that requires either real money or a ton of in-game gold-to-gems to make up for it being a free account. The things that “cost money” are the character slots and bag slots per character, of which the free accounts have 2 and 3/character respectively, compared to 5 and 5/character.
Character slots = 800 gems * 3 = 2400 gems
Bag slots = 400 gems * 2/character * 5 characters = 4000 gems (1600 gems if only buying for 2 characters)
Every 800 gems it costs $10 or, right now, ~160G (which new players will not have). The very minimum they could pay to make their two characters similar to a regular game character is $20 for the 4 bag slots, but to get 5 characters with 5 bag slots they would need to pay $80. This is how far behind a free account is and, like I said, they also have chat and level restrictions up the wazoo.

Artmi.3745:

This is totally wrong…

It actually isn’t.

Go ahead. Go into any retro/used game store and demand to pay original retail price for the games on the shelves. There are very few exceptions to games decreasing in value over time, and those exceptions are limited to physical hardware of rare or popular games. The game data itself is nearly worthless at this day and age because of emulators and rom hacks of the older game, so anybody can play it (sometimes illegally, but I digress)

You might say that this is only addressing reduced price games, but it can apply to free as well. Especially considering that the free core game is $56 the inferior of the standard core game ($56 to buy everything that would make it equal to the core game) and that’s without taking into account the level restrictions.

I think the Herald is a “must-have” because of how the upkeep skills are balanced. While not using your elite, you can run 3 of the 4 utilities/heal continuously and not lose (or gain) any additional energy. If you are fine with reduced recharge, you can maintain one or two facets permanently (swiftness anybody? truly awesome). I found myself running Shiro/Glint and staying in Glint most of the time to get good use of the facets.

What I think emphasizes this is that the other spec upkeep skills drain your energy far too quickly, or the skills cost seemingly too much energy to make sense to use. The Herald feels balanced and fair, but the other specs feel like they aren’t worth the reward (especially Mallyx with that leap skill that gives you cripple…)

I dunno. I definitely will have my Revenant rock the Herald spec.

Considering the gem store is a way for Anet to make money, I doubt they will try to control much of the gold-to-gems exchange rates. Gems have always been $10 for 800 Gems, so gem value hasn’t decreased or anything. In-game gold has inflated and depreciated in value.

If anything, new players will see how long it takes to make enough gold to turn it into a useful amount of gems and will either decide to not get gems entirely or just throw $10 here and there to get what they want.

They won’t be getting another Legend this time around, but they also won’t be stopping at 6 either. Next expansion they’ll get another Legend, and the expansion after that they’ll see a 7th.

She would be an interesting legend to have though, and highly relevant to modern Tyria.

Lakshmi.5941:

Ayrilana.1396:

Read it again.

“This final collection unlocks the recipe to craft the polished final iteration of the precursor. For all of our existing precursors, this is a tradable exotic weapon”

If they have since changed from that, please provide the source.

Hmm, I also understood this differently too. Maybe they did change it.

So maybe he’s talking about selling quested precursors before the price on the TP crashes. I wonder how many people will leave their buy orders up for launch?

I thought this was worded differently before as well…in fact I’m pretty certain that they originally had it where crafting precursors through the mastery track made the precursor and legendary account bound, but I suppose this is not the case.

Regardless, you can only craft each precursor once per account, so you could sell it afterward, but then you would not be able to make another one. It may not be account-bound, but it seems like a guaranteed opportunity, with enough work put in, for every account to get one without needing to rely on RNG (though it seems like it will take a while regardless, which is good).

Run Sword/X Glint/X and use UA with the might facet. With a couple of allies nearby, it is incredibly easy to get up to 25 stacks of might. Having the evade for the duration is the other real purpose for it; not necessarily pumping out massive deeps.

ProtoGunner.4953:

Are you still talking about the price? I mean 50€/$?

My flat costs about 2’200€/month. When I eat at MacDonalds, I pay 11€ for one meal, I go out for dinner, I pay about 50-70€ for one person alone.

Okay, I may live in an expensive country, but you can sink thousands of hours into this game while a dinner is maybe 3 hours.

There will be future discounts for sure.

3 hours for dinner? You truly must be European. But your point is correct. Weigh your allocation of money based on value you can receive. You always have the choice not to capitalize on that value, but by far Guild Wars 2 provides a greater amount of entertainment-hours per cost compared to many other things (like going to the movies/cinema, going to dinner, etc.).

I’ve never felt more in danger than when trying to dodge on the Daredevil. I find that quite ironic. I really like the concept, but there’s got to be a way to make these dodges instant and fluid like the regular dodge. They can’t just be skill animations because they aren’t skills; they’re a fundamental game mechanic.

Yup, dodges are making me focus more on the lack of usability of dodge and less on actually trying to fight. They definitely need to make the new dodges instant and more fluid. It actually feels dangerous to dodge right now, and when your whole traitline revolves around dodging, well…

Also, staff 2 seems hard to control…not sure if you guys are seeing that too. I feel like it should be targeted.

PopeUrban.2578:

I seriously doubt that hero points will remain a limited quantity going forward. They’re a leveling and unlocking mechanism. They separated them from shards so that the currency used to unlock skills and traits didn’t compete with the currency to get stuff from miyani.

Unless they have changed what they said, the intent of Hero Points was to be a limited resource because it didn’t need to be an unlimited one. As they released new expansions and elite specializations, they would release new Hero Points. By the time the final expansion is released you should, in theory, have exactly 0 Hero Points if you have everything unlocked.

That is, of course, if nothing changed since they revealed the update.

They currently have literally no purpose aside from unlocking your traits and skills, so Anet would need to provide a sink for them if they are unlimited.

DevilLordLaser.8619:

Random.4691:

There’s a very good reason Thieves don’t have 1200 range, it’s been explained multiple times. No I won’t look it up for you, you can go digging for the multiple threads all on your own.

Your ‘very good reason’ equates to ‘nobody in PvP wants to get head-shotted by a stealthy guy with high mobility, so Thieves should never have a ranged set!’

Fun fact for you – my flamethrower Engineer is more mobile than the majority of Thief builds. Often by a significant factor. Thieves are hardly the only class in the game that can build to be difficult to pin down. As for stealth and one-shots?

Don’t put a C&D equivalent on the ranged weapon set. Build the ranged weapon around numerous small hits (AR/SMG-style rifle skills, rather than sniper cannon), rather than single larger strikes. Done. I’ve had plenty of ideas for new and intriguing ranged sets for Thief that don’t center on BOOMHEADSHOT, both for potential Rifle and rebuilds of Pistol. Doesn’t matter what I think would be cool, though – that’s in ArenaNet’s hands.

Unfortunately. Since Arenanet pays undue attention to their PvP folks, and most of those are of the completely erroneous opinion that it’s impossible for Thieves to be built in such a way as to not be C&D spammers.

Why give them yet another range weapon that relies on fast, small hits? P/P and Shortbow basically does this already…the “Sniper” archetype is something it doesn’t already have and could use. Though, I do agree with not giving it base stealth on the weapon (not that it would prevent you from slotting Shadow Refuge and Blinding Powder).

eisberg.2379:

Got to put in some context of what a “whale” is though. A “Whale” doesn’t spend as much as you might think. Over the years of reading various professional articles based on studies and interviews with professionals in the industry, “whales” are anybody who spends more than the average spender does. The average spender spends about $40-$50 a year, so anybody who spends more than $50 a year would be considered as a ’Whale". So yeah, you can be considered as a “whale” when you are actually spending a lot less than a subscription game.

It’s all relative. GW2 doesn’t have a subscription and can’t be directly compared to games with a subscription. It can, however, be compared to itself at the very least. After three years the core game has purchase value of about $20 per year for people that bought it right way. Basically, anybody who spends more than that is better for the company’s revenue. Some people do also spend thousands of dollars, so I guess whales just come in all shapes and sizes

You have got to be joking, right?

Not baited. Troll post 0/10.

PopeUrban.2578:

MiniEquine.6014:

Only if they didn’t carry over to PvE, sure.

That’s silly.

WvW is now, and always has been the “little bit of both” mode.

They’re not going to change that.

Heck, they completely removed the glory system from sPvP for the same reason. They realized some people actually play multiple types of content and wanted their progress to be more universal. They realized pvp skins you can only wear in pvp were less compelling rewards than skins you can take with you anywhere.

WvW isn’t about fair fights. It’s about massively unfair fights. They even added WxP to make it even MORE unfair because it’s a hybrid game mode that praises both PvP skill and PvE style acquisition of wealth.

Auto-Unlocking anything in WvW only would be counter to what the game mode is all about.

It’s not silly because of how Hero Points exist right now. They aren’t a currency like the old skill points were; they’re supposed to be a set amount that has a limit. This isn’t about restricting a class-building tool to a certain game mode; it’s about managing the class-building tool across two different game modes.

Right now, WvWers do not have to worry about any hero points at all so long as they are level 80. They can unlock everything without channeling a single HP. Anet did this because it would have been unfair to take away things they may have already earned. What they have not necessarily earned are the elite specs or the hero points to activate them fully. If a WvWer has enough HP to get the elite spec, good on them; they can use it. If they do not currently have enough, then they can earn the limited class-building tool like the rest of us. If you offer a way for WvW players to convert their tokens to HPs, then you also need to implement a way to make existing HPs worthless if they activate them. Also, tokens are account-bound, so you could WvW on one character for 1000 hours and then get another, new character to max skills without doing a single challenge or putting any effort into them at all. This is currently impossible in PvE.

I don’t think that’s the direction Anet went with the skill point changes.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Donari.5237:

That’s going to be a lot of hours trotting around the maps (and having to go into WvW to get past 180 it seems) to make them all able to use Elite specs if I need to get to 200 each.

There are 189 Challenges in core map completion and 11 in DT/SW. So, you should not have to get the 13 in WvW. Too bad WvW players can’t say the same about PvE.

The issue with WvW was solved with the HP update. You no longer have to do any hero point/skill point challenges to get anything finished for WvW; you just hit 80 and go. This is obviously for the core specs only, but that was all that could possibly be agreed upon. What’s the solution? There is only one that makes sense and even then it shouldn’t be necessary:

Split WvW from PvE completely. Just like sPvP, if they split WvW so that there are no equipment, HP, utility requirements, then they could give all WvWers the elite specs only in WvW. If you want to play PvE though, you gotta do PvE stuff.

Still, this would only be nice if they did it; not necessary.

PopeUrban.2578:

Elite specs are intended to be a form of advancement, just like WvW ranks are a form of advancement.

What they need to do is let you pay badges for hero points, problem solved. You can advance by normal WvW play.

Only if they didn’t carry over to PvE, sure.

IndigoSundown.5419:

phys.7689:

as to the second point, I recently realized that people have forgotten the nature of business. Trade, on both sides is about trading value for value. Prices are never really absolute, Anet makes infinitely more from a discounted sale, than a non sale. Expressing the fact that you dont like a current deal, is definately people saying lower the price, or add more to the product.

I am certainly not against people expressing their opinion of the current value offered by HoT. However, the nature of the protests also tends to demonstrate the same lack of understanding of how business works as some of the counter-arguments.

This, and what Phys stated isn’t 100% true in the full context. They make infinitely more in sales revenue, but that doesn’t account for any psychological effects that could potentially lead to spending money in the gem store as the result of not needing to pay for anything up front. In fact, the mobile gaming market relies on this very principle to make money by offering free games and apps but relying on “whales” who spend thousands of dollars in-game. GW2 obviously doesn’t have the same structure, but having an extremely low barrier-to-entry will allow some more whales the opportunity to decide where to spend their money without risking any in the first place (like if they didn’t enjoy the game after spending $50).

Zero Day.2594:

MiniEquine.6014:

Zero Day.2594:

So about the commonly seen argument or the notion of “hours of entertainment per dollar” metric. Like some people use it as argument that you paid $X (say $50) and played for thousands of hours (say 3000 hours), clearly you got your money’s worth.
Personally I think the original/vanilla was worth the price, but I’m not basing my judgement on how many hours I’ve played.
Similarly to how I wouldn’t judge a book to be good based on the number of pages I’ve read and the amount I paid for it.
Or going to a wonderland, getting a day ticket from the time they open and staying there till I’m kicked out – just to get the most hours per dollar of entertainment out of it.
Or I don’t count the number of chews/time I was chewing a bubble gum and the amount of I paid for it, to say if I liked it or justify buying and buying it again.
Or I wouldn’t choose not to go to a movie because it’s 2 hours long and costs $15 while another is 3 hours long and also costs $15. (Nevermind comparing the movies to games…)
This kind of “hours of entertainment per dollar” metric seems to fly way past my head.

On a deeper level… Fulfillment in life isn’t determined by the age of a person.

It’s not a poor metric to use. The argument is that what you spend your time doing is what you value more than that which you don’t spend your time doing.

For example, say you work a 40hr/week job that you don’t particularly like. The reason you continue to work for it is because you value what it gives you more than you value what you would have without it; money. If you could get by without having to work that job, you would likely fill your time with something more fulfilling or entertaining.

Similar thing with entertainment. You have a limited amount of time on this Earth and you allocate how you spend it to different things. A game that costs $50 and gives you 3000 hours of entertainment that you enjoy is extremely efficient at providing you that entertainment. A 2 hr movie for $15 is, relatively, extremely inefficient at delivering entertainment, but you may still enjoy it all the same. Perceived value and actual value may vary greatly as you may feel you loved the movie more than the game, but you have devoted 2998 more hours of your life playing the game than watching the movie, so you value that more, ultimately.

If only things were so mechanical, the world would be so simple – that and Hollywood would be so empty…

It doesn’t make it any less the reality. Perceived value and Actual value sometimes don’t match up, but it absolutely is important to consider both. When they both vary tremendously for an individual person, that person is making some interestingly weird decisions.

If a person perceives value of doing something much greater than anything else but never does it, then they don’t actually value it quite as much as they think they do. If a person perceives no value of doing something as opposed to anything else but they do it all the time, then they do value it more, ultimately.

Perception is subjective, but actuality is objective.

Myxam.2790:

I’m warning you now ANet, when this goes live, it’ll be a firestorm. It’ll be on any and every team comp for sPvP, and it’ll take over as the sole meta for PvE. Seriously, reconsider making this Elite Spec.

You sort of had me sympathizing with you until this part, which is actually quite far into your post so kudos to you.

However, Daredevil is the Elite Spec that will be released. Thieves do need better ranged options and I have no doubt this will come with a future E.Spec, but not this time. Daredevil looks fun and interesting, but it’s really just a dodgebot. If you think that’s going to completely destroy the meta well…I don’t know what to say. How about you just hang tight and see how it balances out, eh?

We’re sort of getting cross-classes with the specializations in a GW2 style though. This will be far more apparent when more elite specs are eventually released. Looking at the numbers, the current specialization setup offers us 196,830 unique trait builds (10 traitline combinations, 27 choices per line cubed). With the elite specs we double the number of options to 393,660 just by adding one trait line (20 line combinations). Elite spec #2 brings us 688,905 combinations and Elite spec #3 brings us 1,102,248. It will take some time, but we will have a lot more customization that explores the different aspects of the classes.

Also, it’s not just the thief, but the Revenant as well that would encounter a number of issues.

Mirta.5029:

MiniEquine.6014:

FF XIV can’t be compared because of its monthly fee. You are automatically spending nearly 6-7x more on that game every year than you are on GW2. After two years it’s 14-15x as much money. WoW can also not be compared for the exact same reason. Those MMOs make most of their money off of the subscription, not selling the game itself.

in that case as we are F2P let’s compare to other F2P games.

- newest SWOTOR expansion $19.99 USD
- Rift NightMare Tide, £18.99 to access equipment from that expansion pack, base content for free to everyone. Then to catch up to everyone else you’ll have to spend £25.99 + £18.49, to have all the possible classes.
- Tera Fate of Arun, free for everyone

B2P:

- The Secret World costs 54,99€ for anyone that wants to start right now and have all the content, 29,99€ for just the base game, 79,97€ + 29.99€ for anyone that was purchasing all the DLCs and the base game separately. Once again, new players do not get all the DLCs with the purchase of the base game.

Not a single other game has their new DLC price as high as GW2 HoT (The Secret World DLCs are 24€ each) AND not a single one of them give everything but the newest expansion to a new player for free while forcing the veteran to pay oh so much more. So it would make just so much more sense if Anet also sold HoTs unbundled.

You just said Secret World “costs 54,99€ for anyone that wants to start right now and have all the content”, which is more expensive than GW2:HoT is for more players; 79,97€ + 29.99€ for anyone that was purchasing all the DLCs and the base game separately, which is more than GW2 core game plus HoT separately as well. I don’t think the price comparisons are quite as farfetched as you are making them seem. New players to GW2 don’t get the Living World S2 for free either and must pay $20 for that if they want it or save up ~350G to buy it in-game.

Mirta.5029:

MiniEquine.6014:

What would be unfair is if you got HoT for less or nothing when a new player had to pay the same price, which is the exact opposite of what you stated.

no.. That would be how most MMOs work.

For example FFXIV. Two years ago it went for 30£. Today it’s 10£. The expansion pack costs 30£. There are bundles for a newly starting player, but they’re still 40£. So while the veteran payed 60£ total, a new player still had to pay 40£ for base game and expansion. And yes, the price will continue falling over time, but base game + expansions will never be the same price as the newest expansion.

HoT is seen as that kind of bundle, because it also includes base game. It’s also more expensive than expansions for a lot of other MMOs. So it’s only natural to perceive that if you’re buying JUST the expansion it should be cheaper. And it doesn’t feel really fair that you can’t discount the base game in it.

FF XIV can’t be compared because of its monthly fee. You are automatically spending nearly 6-7x more on that game every year than you are on GW2. After two years it’s 14-15x as much money. WoW can also not be compared for the exact same reason. Those MMOs make most of their money off of the subscription, not selling the game itself.

Kajan.7410:

For ripping me off? Yeah, i do. And i honestly don’t care how you feel about it. That will not change the fact that i feel i paid 100 bucks for a free product. Why the hell should i pay any money if its going to go free down the road anyway?

You might enjoy being made a sucker, but i do not.

Feel absolutely free to not buy any of the game until it is fully released. It’s absolutely a reasonable way to play to pay the least amount of money, but it requires that you do not play the game until everything is fully released. If you are okay with waiting about a decade or more without playing this game (more than you already own), nobody is stopping you. The requirement is that you do not have access to the content unless you pay.

The final expansion will not be given away for free. It will include the core game and the previous expansions all for the final price ($50 or whatever at that time). You will, however, miss out on a decade or more of playing the game. That is your trade-off.

Jiggawattz.2697:

The show never ended, that’s the thing. I paid for the show in its entirety, and they did not. You created a fallacy to attempt to make mine seem negative and only proved my point without realizing it.

Yeah, you can rewatch the recordings of the old show. You paid for the old show, not the old show plus the new show. They are now also able to watch the recordings of the old show. They too, however, must pay if they want to see the new and old show combined.

And no, I didn’t make a fallacy. My analogy is almost exactly like what it is now. The core game will not be getting any content updates, only QoL improvements and bug fixes.

Jiggawattz.2697:

I am not saying everyone has to agree with me, I just know that a large portion of the community is like myself livid over the show of bad faith from ArenaNet to its actual customers, and worse.. to its long term LOYAL customers, showing everyone that to Anet see’s loyalty as a resource they can USE not as a gift given by the players, and that leaves a sour taste in your mouth.

Loyalty (with regard to loyal customers) is measured by time spent playing, money you spend for the game, and money you brought the company through spreading the word. It’s a combination of all three. Not saying you are, but a customer that visits a store every day of their life only to window shop and maybe buy a couple of things here and there is far less valuable than a customer who visits once but spends loads of money when they do.

It’s best just not to be loyal to companies in the first place. Exchange your money for their product if you wish, but they are not your friend.

Kittiko.2318:

MiniEquine.6014:

Basically not at all like that. Every other day somebody will post saying almost the exact same thing as you and they, like you, are incorrect.

If you value any time you spend playing the game at $0 (read: don’t value playing the game at all), then yes. However, you apparently don’t value the game at $0 as you do play the game in lieu of other things. You value your time playing the game more than not playing it.

You bought the game when it first came out for $50. You have almost assuredly spent enough time in game to far surpass what people generally consider $50-worth of entertainment. Now the core game is old and devalued. People get it for free now. I got mine for $10 back in January. This is how the real world works.

There’s a whole lot of assumptions there. Again, I don’t expect everyone to share my opinion, however, I still have the right to have it.

The only assumptions are how much you actually paid for the game and how much time you spent playing it. The rest of the statements are not assumptions though.

It would be impossible for you to value the game at $0 on a personal level because you paid money for it. Even if you perceived $0 value of the game, you play the game instead of doing other things so you value your game-playing time more than not. The core game is older and devalued, and Anet decided it is now $0 from their store.

You have every right to your opinions, but stating incorrect things about value and pricing is not an opinion. It could be your opinion that the game is overpriced, for example. What would be unfair is if you got HoT for less or nothing when a new player had to pay the same price, which is the exact opposite of what you stated.

Zero Day.2594:

So about the commonly seen argument or the notion of “hours of entertainment per dollar” metric. Like some people use it as argument that you paid $X (say $50) and played for thousands of hours (say 3000 hours), clearly you got your money’s worth.
Personally I think the original/vanilla was worth the price, but I’m not basing my judgement on how many hours I’ve played.
Similarly to how I wouldn’t judge a book to be good based on the number of pages I’ve read and the amount I paid for it.
Or going to a wonderland, getting a day ticket from the time they open and staying there till I’m kicked out – just to get the most hours per dollar of entertainment out of it.
Or I don’t count the number of chews/time I was chewing a bubble gum and the amount of I paid for it, to say if I liked it or justify buying and buying it again.
Or I wouldn’t choose not to go to a movie because it’s 2 hours long and costs $15 while another is 3 hours long and also costs $15. (Nevermind comparing the movies to games…)
This kind of “hours of entertainment per dollar” metric seems to fly way past my head.

On a deeper level… Fulfillment in life isn’t determined by the age of a person.

It’s not a poor metric to use. The argument is that what you spend your time doing is what you value more than that which you don’t spend your time doing.

For example, say you work a 40hr/week job that you don’t particularly like. The reason you continue to work for it is because you value what it gives you more than you value what you would have without it; money. If you could get by without having to work that job, you would likely fill your time with something more fulfilling or entertaining.

Similar thing with entertainment. You have a limited amount of time on this Earth and you allocate how you spend it to different things. A game that costs $50 and gives you 3000 hours of entertainment that you enjoy is extremely efficient at providing you that entertainment. A 2 hr movie for $15 is, relatively, extremely inefficient at delivering entertainment, but you may still enjoy it all the same. Perceived value and actual value may vary greatly as you may feel you loved the movie more than the game, but you have devoted 2998 more hours of your life playing the game than watching the movie, so you value that more, ultimately.

Coulter.2315:

If you add all the time you spent writing posts and reading in this thread you probably could have leveled whatever you want crafted by now. You can also buy the time gated end products from TP – the time gate is installed so people can sell and make money from crafting (something that was missing at launch).

If they are anything like me, I hardly ever browse the forums if I could instead be playing the game. The computer I’m not now can’t run GW2, but the forums are a nice way to keep up with the game community even if I can’t play.

Draknar.5748:

Well I happened to have just checked the numbers site, and it shows GW2 concurrent population higher than WoW by millions. I’m serious! If you don’t believe me, check the numbers, OP, it’s crazy!

The key difference between both games is, with no monthly fee, nobody playing GW2 feels like they must play this game constantly for it to be worth it. People can take breaks from this game and enjoy it at their leisure.

I remember my days of WoW. I absolutely had to get my dungeons and raids in every week because it would be a waste of money not to. Glad those days are over too.

The second expansion will include the core game and HoT plus the new expansion for the cost of the new expansion. It will probably be $50 again.

If you want to avoid paying for each expansion as it releases, wait for about a decade and then come back to the game. At that point you will be able to pick up the core game and the previous 3 or so expansions for about $50.

Good luck.

Kittiko.2318:

So basically, since I bought the game when it first came out and paid $50, what this all comes down to is they want me to pay a total of $100 (base and expansion) while new players only have to pay $50 for the same thing? Seems a bit unfair to me.

Basically not at all like that. Every other day somebody will post saying almost the exact same thing as you and they, like you, are incorrect.

If you value any time you spend playing the game at $0 (read: don’t value playing the game at all), then yes. However, you apparently don’t value the game at $0 as you do play the game in lieu of other things. You value your time playing the game more than not playing it.

You bought the game when it first came out for $50. You have almost assuredly spent enough time in game to far surpass what people generally consider $50-worth of entertainment. Now the core game is old and devalued. People get it for free now. I got mine for $10 back in January. This is how the real world works.

Jiggawattz.2697:

maddoctor.2738:

Dager.2390:

The thingh is that we didn’t buy only the game but also we contract a service (every mmo is a service) and here is the problem in the moment we bought the game the say to us that the game was b2p but now is a f2p.

I’m not agaist new players but I’m agaist what Anet is doing the things

And your service is still valid, you bought the service to play the game forever without paying again and that’s what you got, that never changed.

But the value of the offer has changed drastically. You pay 60 dollars to go to a show, and as you get there and get seated they announce that because 50% of the seats are empty they are letting everyone else in for free. Outrage will insue for anyone that values money and carefully chooses the things they enjoy enough to invest in. As somone who is physically disabled and has to manage my money carefully I made a very active decision to save the money to pre-purchase gw2 because I love the title and the company despite many of my posts on this forum.

All of your posts are completely riddled with logical fallacies and the sort. Let’s spell it out using your analogy.

Say you bought GW2 1-3 years ago. I paid $60 for your “ticket” to the show. You have been watching this show for the past 1-3 years. Other people looked at either the price of the ticket or the show advertisements and said, “nah, I can’t/don’t want to do that”. You said, “Yes, I do want to do that”, so you bought your ticket and have been watching the show while they were not watching the show.

Show’s over now. There is nothing about “empty seats” or 50% off; the show has ended. However they release a new show for the same price that allows you to continue watching the old show parts and new parts. You must pay $50 this time around regardless of who you are, but if you saw the old show you also get a complimentary drink. Maybe your drink tray is full, but they offer you a drink anyway. At one point, as the old show was finishing up, they sold tickets for the exact same price as this drink. They now let people into the old show alone without having to pay, but they moved the chairs out, however you can upgrade and see the old+new show like everyone else for the $50.

You chose to watch the show earlier than everyone else. Market trends clearly display that shows lose value as more people watch it (less viewers remaining). This means that at some point the old show by itself was going to either become less expensive or free at some point or another. Either that, or it won’t even be offered at all. You could very well wait 60 years before watching a recording of this show when you can get it and the sequels for a grand total of $5 in the discount bin at Big Box Mart, but then you’d have to wait that long.

Mirta.5029:

eisberg.2379:

Actually the current expansion for Rift is free, but they put some stuff into a bundle related to the expansion that really is pay to win. If you do not get the lowest bundle, you cannot wear some gear, there is a group you can join that can give you extra rewards that you buy membership to through those bundles, the rest of the bundle is a title and inventory bag slots.

Prior to going Free To Play, their first expansion was sold for $39.99, and included the base game, and the game had a required subscription fee. So yeah, their one paid expansion was $10 cheaper than GW2s, but you also had to pay $15.00 a month to play it.

Tera Online expansions are also free. Tera Online store is also pay to win since you can buy items that give gives more Health/Power when wearing the item.

So you used two very bad examples that didn’t prove your point at all.

wait, how is the rift part any different from GW2 trial to GW2 real account? You just consider the purchase of expansion as necessary, because otherwise you’re playing the “trial” version, however unlike GW2 HoT you still have access to the new content. Here you just have access to the base content, but then you can’t access guild bank, you only have half the bag space of a real player, what you can buy off TP is limited, you get no laurels, meaning no ascended accessories for you, meaning you ARE getting screwed out of gear. So if Rift is P2W then GW2 is too.

Now for the Tera store:
https://store.enmasse.com/tera
NO ITEMS HAVE STATS. It’s the exact same store as the GW2 store, except that gamble boxes are guaranteed to have at least some costume pieces, versus GW2s “you may just get a booster”.

GW2 is in no means Pay2Win. There is nothing you can do with real money that would give you an edge over players that in-game money cannot do in the same levels. If you have a free account, you are locked out of certain things, yes. This, however, does not affect the core game. Less bag space does not affect combat, nor does the number of character slots you have.

Also, I’ve read through all your posts here and continually fail to remember that GW2 has no subscription fee. 100 hours in this game alone results in a total cost of 50 cents/hour for playing the game at the new price point. After 1000 hours you are only paying 5 cents/hour. GW2 pricing structure should only be directly compared to other Buy2Play games. I don’t know any of these off the top of my head aside from GW1, but that also had really high RoI for the cost.

I predict this to be an excellent move on Anet’s part. People from all over don’t have to invest that $50 up front any more just to try the game out and it will bring a lot of people into the game (especially PvP). I am considering getting my dad to try it out now, since he and I used to play WoW together until it got too expensive and we both dropped it. It would be fun to be able to play again with him without having to worry about him losing money if he didn’t enjoy it after all (though he might enjoy it anyway).

Too late for them maybe, but there are still plenty of people who know about it and are excited to try it. Who knows? Maybe they would come back to try it again.

Are you going to refuse to participate in raids or higher fractals out of principle, or are you, too, going to enjoy them? If the latter, then what’s the point of this post?

bladezero.9470:

MiniEquine.6014:

Ascended items already drop relatively frequently in Fractals, and now that you can convert all ascended weapons and armor through the Mystic Forge for no more than 10g per item, it’s easier than ever to deck yourself out in the ascended gear of your choosing.

Also, Zalladi is probably right. Anything dropping Legendary pre-cursors might also be dropping ascended loot too. We’ll have to wait and see, but it’s not that bad.

You need ascended gear in order to play Fractals at the level where ascended gear reliably drops. Gear most certainly does not drop frequently for players without agony resistance.

My highest fractal level is 6 or so and I have numerous ascended armor, accessory/ring/amulet and weapon pieces on a few of my characters. I have only ever crafted 3 of the pieces I have and they were all weapons (I have only been playing since this January too). You do not need ascended anything for <10 Fractals. You can save up Laurels to purchase rings, amulets, and accessories all with slots from a laurel merchant. You can also max your agony resistance through 4 agony slots if you have really high agony infusions, or with a couple more if you don’t have them.

It’s really not difficult. If you refuse to craft just because you don’t want to craft, that is entirely your choice, but the fact remains that it is stupid easy to level crafting in this game and they only real restriction is the 100g or so you need if you don’t have any materials to max your crafting.

Ascended items already drop relatively frequently in Fractals, and now that you can convert all ascended weapons and armor through the Mystic Forge for no more than 10g per item, it’s easier than ever to deck yourself out in the ascended gear of your choosing.

Also, Zalladi is probably right. Anything dropping Legendary pre-cursors might also be dropping ascended loot too. We’ll have to wait and see, but it’s not that bad.

Kaz.5430:

One thing that would have been nice, would have been a single ‘elite’ trait added to each of the existing core lines, that you only get if you pick that core line as an ‘elite line’.

That way a player would pick two core trait lines in slots 1 and 2, and then slot 3 would be where they pick a new elite specification, or pick the third core line, and get the special new elite trait from that line.

This would mean that players that pick the same 3 core trait lines would have a variation depending on which of the 3 core lines they selected as the ‘elite’ line.

Well, if the intent of the Elite Specializations is to add a new way to play but not add a strictly stronger traitline, then this wouldn’t work. All they need do is make sure the core trait lines are still just as appealing as the elite specs and it would be fine. Many people will be playing Elite Specs at first, but these numbers will change as new meta information comes out.

Conncept.7638:

Still not playing a class with 1/10th the customization choices of every vanilla class.

I thought your number was exaggerated there but I did some rough calculations and the Revenant does indeed have about 9.09% of the customization as other classes. This does not include elite specs (that percentage actually goes down).

It’s interesting to see. One thing this doesn’t take into account is repeated combinations of utility skills, so the number might actually be more like 11%, but still insignificant.

All of this will make much more sense as more elite specializations are released. The system is in its early stages with only one iteration right now, but elite specs are the additions to the core classes. As stated earlier, the elite specs are not themselves new classes.

ham.8209:

Kidel.2057:

please no rng

yes it would be much more nicer if they just keep this to a mmo . but some how i do not see it . and we can only wait and hope but if they do add more rng leg,s hope it,s a small version or something lol

I would be fine with a subset of RNG items. Say, maybe 20 items you have a chance to get, but only one drops at a time and they are all significant (like ascended weapons or something). Having a chance at literally anything in game is troubling most times.

Mrbig.8019:

Auesis.7301:

People need to get out of the notion that Grandmaster traits are just that, Grandmaster traits. They aren’t. Traits are just choices within a Specialisation now.

That, plus: this is FAR more interesting than the other Elites. We’re not stuck with a crummy replaced Dodge that we don’t like, we can pick from THREE, and they all benefit us in different ways. The extra base 50 endurance benefits pretty much any build ever, as well.

Honestly, I’d say we got far more benefits than, say, Tempest. Overloads are TERRIBLE.

I’m not saying they’re not good or cool.

Infact they’re.

problem is we objectively have one less GM when compared to other professions.

I’m not even sayig it won’t work, it will.

I’m complaining about the fact that we’re the only proff having to PAY for its added mechanic.

It’s stupid.

How is this any different from any other trait though? Take the Dragonhunter, for example. You get the updated Virtues automatically, but if you want them to do extra damage (WoR) or last longer (SoC), then you need to slot two additional traits. Want your Reaper shroud to be more effective? There are 2 additional traits you need for that. Tempest Overloads also require you to invest in additional traits to improve their mechanics. I think Chronomancer is the only elite so far that does not have this.

Besides, you get to choose your mechanic you want. You aren’t shoehorned into one style, and sometimes the choice itself makes a world of difference.

Cartune.6143:

Take a look at it. Mesmer, Necromancer, Guardian, Elementalist and Revenant (and now …..Thief) can use Staff….then why not give it to everybody now, Warriors probably also need it…So many classes can use it and only…ONLY, Warrior and Engineer can use the Rifle, it would have been WAY more interesting to give the Rifle to the Thief and have some variations between the weapons used in the game.

There are few if any arguing that the Rifle should not have more utilization amongst the classes. However, they didn’t end up going with Rifles this time around. What that doesn’t mean is that the staff (or as you condescendingly state a “stick”. I mean, seriously? Martial weapon archetypes include the staff in almost every source, so this is not farfetched at all.) isn’t useful or a good weapon choice. Of your listed professions, only one of them uses the staff as a melee weapon and even then it is focused around a more supporting play-style. Melee staves are not a bad thing. Also, you didn’t mention that Druids will also be getting the staff. If it makes you feel better, the second round of Elite Specs will likely have no staves added in.

That’s the other point; the second Elite Specs. There will be more of these later on. It is almost undoubtedly the case that Thieves may get rifles next time. Either that or maces, so they would just be trolling us at that point, but we’ll see.

Gabriell.4856:

Effects on dodge isn’t new to thief nor is being able to dodge more than 3 times….

Effects on dodge aren’t, but changing what dodge is, is. It becomes a whirl finisher with condi daggers, or a leap, or a long-range dash.

Also, no other class has access to three dodge rolls in a row without any additional buffs. This is certainly a different mechanic, just not what we were expecting.

I’m interested to see if Steal does actually change any or not (does it grant endurance?). Being that the Daredevil gets a 2-H weapon, the mechanic is supposed to change but not add a new facet (unlike the 1-H weapon elites). That said, stof is probably right in that the mechanic in this case is more about dodge (a game mechanic) rather than Steal (a class mechanic). They aren’t lying, but it is different from the other classes for sure.

Michaeas Magister.1589:

Thanks to everyone for all the replies.

I am really not hating on the Elite spec, I just did not give it much of a go during the last Beta weekend and was a bit concerned about it being an “Elite” spec, per se.

I might give it some more tries on the next Beta. I was just really not happy with the changes to the Virtues nor the fact that the Virtues trait line (which I take in all my builds) does not appear to affect them once they are changed.

And I was a bit concerned about there being TONS of flying things in the new expansion that I might just have to sit and look at while my companions use all their ranged abilities on them if I did not have a longbow equipped.

Thanks again.

The Virtue traits were effecting the new virtues except for one trait and that only affected Spear of Justice. If they weren’t being affected, it was a bug. Also, Guardians have always had that issue. At least now we potentially have a way to deal with it if we so choose.

Gray.9041:

MiniEquine.6014:

Black Box.9312:

Expect about the quality of traits you’ll find in Tempest or Dragonhunter. Or lack of quality, rather.

You are truly the most negative person here (and on every single thread, mind you). Could the same be said about what they did with the Reaper, Chronomancer, Herald, and Berserker? What indication do you actually have that the traits will be bad when they are quite good on at least 4 of the revealed E.specs and at least decent on DH.

I try to be positive, but the last 4 E-specs weren’t Karl.

It doesn’t mean they can’t be good though.

Tempest feels uninspired, but it’s basically because Elementalists can do everything except physical melee or tanking already and they do it all very well, so there is little to work with. In fact, I would hate to be on whatever team has to keep making up specs for the Elementalist because of what it already offers. Tempest does have a lot of potential for WvW and PvP (8 AoE stunbreaks?), though I probably wouldn’t take it into open world PvE.

A lot of people want to hate on DH, and it has its downsides, but the traits aren’t bad and if you’re going for a long-range build it is a must-have. I thought it worked fairly well in the Beta, and they have upped the numbers since then too.

Chronomancer is awesome with passive +25% move speed, Berserker is awesome with the new fire-y mechanics, Reaper is awesome with the new AoE capabilities, and Herald seems quite nice too (but we’ll see when we actually get to play it). Ultimately, my point is that there are going to be less-appealing E.specs, but it would be unfair for it to be assumed in advance that it is going to be bad. They really haven’t set such a precedent.

Black Box.9312:

Expect about the quality of traits you’ll find in Tempest or Dragonhunter. Or lack of quality, rather.

You are truly the most negative person here (and on every single thread, mind you). Could the same be said about what they did with the Reaper, Chronomancer, Herald, and Berserker? What indication do you actually have that the traits will be bad when they are quite good on at least 4 of the revealed E.specs and at least decent on DH.

style.6173:

Michaeas Magister.1589:

So, if we forgo using the new Elite spec will we still be viable? Is anyone else thinking of keeping their original character but just ignoring the Elite traits/spec?

Thanks.

ANET made a huge mistake by calling these “Elite” specs. Instead, they should have been named “Exclusive” or something else to indicate new trait lines that are only available to those who upgrade. The “elite” trait line should be an alternative to the other trait lines. It shouldn’t be stronger than any of the others.

The terminology, whatever it may be, is in place to indicate that you can only ever have one of them equipped at a time. You will always only be able to use one elite spec at a time, but not two at once. This will be more apparent when the next round of elite specs comes out.