Guild Wars 2

Wanze.8410:

Tenrai Senshi.2017:

Usually when determining the market price of an item, you would use the trade value of the resources needed to craft it, if it is craftable. If it isn’t, then it would be a case of supply vs demand. Right now, precursor values are purely based on that supply vs demand scenario, but once they become “craftable”, I think their prices will be determined by the amount of effort and resources required to craft them.

But precursors have an average forging value based on the average amount of rares/exos you throw into the forge. And the price of mithril, elder wood and t5 fine mats mostly determines the price of the popular pres.

Some events in the past awarded lots of these materials (halloween, wintersday, SW).
Most people claimed the price for pres went down earlier this year because of the announcement but it was mostly access to cheap t5 mats (snowflakes) from Wintersday, which let their prices drop. Thats why since then, prices have been rising continously, as no new content went live and mats for crafting rares went up in price, with elder wood the main culprit.

Supply and demand wont have that big of an influence because if demand goes down and prices with it, people will stop forging them and once a popular pre drops 100-200g in price, demand will rise again.

And as already mentioned, the mastery tracks for old precursors wont be the first choice of most people, they either will work on the new pres (which arent tradeable anyways) or the other Maguuma masteries.

So i guess wether the prices for old pres (at least the popular ones) will go down or not, will mostly be determined by the output of t5 common and fine mats once HoT goes live.

bold mine

Whatever new demand is created by a drop in price evaporates as the price climbs.

I think it would be more accurate to say that the post-HoT price of legacy precursors will be determined by the output of t5 materials and the new crafting recipe requirements. If the crafting recipes requires fewer materials than MF discovery, then we can expect to see the long term price of Legacy precursors fall and for more precursors to become unprofitable to discover via the MF. If the materials required for each method are similar or if the crafting recipe requires more materials, then we can expect the price of legacy precursors to remain on the course they are on now.

Until we know more about the recipe requirements, it is difficult to make any predictions.

I don’t think we can apply industry standard definitions and descriptions to HoT. Perhaps Pokemon offers a solution with HoT being the evolved form of GW2.

Mordalus.8146:

I know what you mean. For me it seems to be always about ownership of some sort for it to feel meaningful. DAoC sieges (not the musicals chairs of WvW), Eve and sovereignty and player run economy, GW1 and the HoM and guild halls, Rift’s housing, SWGs housing and crafting, etc. Once I feel like I can make a home in the game world, it starts to feel meaningful. GW2 does none of these things. There is a lot to love about GW2, but meaningful content is not one of them. It’s a dessert type of game and not a main course.

Our personal instances could supply that sense of ownership and to a degree that would put some of your examples to shame.

OP, if you are willing to wait, I think it would be a waste to spend 1000g on Dusk. Imo, the only way the highest priced precursor 1.0’s will go up in price is if the recipe for Legendary 2.0’s require Legendary 1.0’s.

I think the most important influence on the future aggregate price of Precursor 1.0’s will be the recipe unlocked by the new achievements. I expect the price of Precursor 1.0’s to settle at the cost of the required materials or just below due to them still dropping in the open world. There may also be a small premium charged for completing the achievements but I think it will be minimal.

The workload parity to gather the materials is as important as the workload parity to buy the materials with gold. After all, when we trade t1 thru t6 and fine crafting materials on the TP we are trading the decision to gather the materials ourselves or pay someone else.

Wanze, thanks for starting a new thread specifically about ascended armor weight workload parity. I think your first post addresses both gathering and gold workload parity; light and medium armor would cost the same in time or gold, heavy would take less time but, possibly, slightly more gold. The second post describing changes to the recipe for leather squares increases gathering workload disparity for sake of hypothetical gold workload parity.

I would keep the Elonian square recipe as is, and depend only on the increased demand for more squares and squares faster to increase the gold price.

Aidan Savage.2078:

Psientist.6437:

Pardon the bluntness but I consider what you’re describing to be fundamentally flawed game design. Weight-locked insignias would increase the disparity for players who spend time for the sake of hypothetical parity among players who spend currency.

Your predictions are hypothetical, they do not take into account the wide range of possible player reactions. For instance, the change in TP demand for silk could be accompanied by a decrease in the TP supply of silk as both medium and heavy armor crafters move towards more reliable sources of leather and ore.

False. Neither you nor I will know whether it will increase disparity or not. The point of weight-restricted insignia would be to decrease the high demand for the various fabrics required, while at the same time increasing the demand for the various ores and leathers by the, on paper, same amount. Whatever the true result of that is, no one knows. As it stands now, I, personally, refuse to mine mithril as weapon and heavy armor salvage gives me what I need. I also vendor about a stack of thick leather sections once or twice a week (more if my work schedule permits more play time). Silk I often dont have because it’s being refined into damask’s T7 material, which, again due to play time currently, is usually 1-1.5 a week. Do I complain about my limited play time keeping me from farming silk or damask? No, why would I? If I was going to do that, I’d complain about elonian leather (being able to buy not applicable), deldrimor ingots (being able to buy not applicable), and spiritwood planks (being able to buy not applicable) because I’m similarly limited from crafting those as well.

Second, and this is going to be rather blunt, but of course my predictions are hypothetical, I’m not an economist, Jon Smith, OR Uncle Pennybags. Obviously my limited theoretical knowledge and (enough to get by) practical knowledge means I cant say, “silk is going to do this.”

Third, what reliable sources of leather? You mean the same exact ones that silk can come from? You know? Salvage and containers? Even if the supply decreases, that too would be temporary. If the demand is that high still, a drop in supply pushes value, which then creates incentives to go out and supply silk. Same is true of leather and mithril.

Had more, but gotta spend my time efficiently while I can x.x

Weight-locked inscriptions will increase the gathering workload disparity between armor weights. Compare the material amounts between Bolts, Squares and Ingots:

An Elonian Leather Square requires 62.5% of the material units of similar acquisition reliability/frequency than a Bolt of Damask.

A Deldrimor Steel Ingot requires 57.5% of the material units of higher acquisition reliability/frequency than a Bolt of Damask.

There is already a disparity in how long it takes to gather the materials to craft the different ascended armor weights, and weight-locked insignias increase that disparity. That statement is not a prediction, just math.

I do not think a guaranteed increase in the workload disparity to gather materials is worth a hypothetical increase in the workload parity to buy the materials with gold.

I think a universal insignia recipe that uses one each of the time gated materials (bolt, square, and ingot) would be a more effective way to increase the parity of both gathering and buying workloads. The recipe for each time gated material would need to be available to all three weight classes.

Aidan Savage.2078:

Psientist.6437:

Weight locked insignias would increase the cost disparity, measured in time, between armor weights. The majority of materials needed to craft heavy armor would come from 100% reliable, high frequency sources. Combine this with an increase in the number of days required to craft time gated materials and more players may fill their demand quantity by gathering and not by turning to the TP. An increase in the TP price of ores is not guaranteed.

Not entirely. The lack of demand being so high for cloth would contribute to the price decreasing by, currently, an unknowable amount. Leather, now needing more for medium armor, would increase in price from the pathetic level it is now. Yes, this can impact light armor’s crafting “cost,” but if you’re buying everything to craft the ascended stuff, a few gold here or there isnt anything to complain about when you’re already looking at close to 500g (regardless of weight).

An increase in price is guaranteed for mithril as a result of this change. Permanent? Maybe not, but it may last a few weeks because of the delays needed to craft it. Not like AoLA’s spinal blade market stroke, where things like the t3 dust catapulted to something like 27s a piece within an hour, and then crashed back down to a more normal price. Additionally, even if they come from 100% renewable sources, that does not guarantee people wont be reaching out to the TP as it’s often far more efficient to allocate your time earning funds for resources instead of heading out trying to harvest 100% of the raw resources.

That’s part of the reason elder wood is pretty cheap. A vast majority of it probably comes from weapon salvage, less so from from open-world harvest.

Finally, beyond all that, it depends on the demand for the armor. For all we know, even if they add weight-restricted insignia (which could simply be for ascended ones, to reduce cost impacts on other armor tiers), cloth could stay the same or increase in price because light armor classes are the majority of those actively played. Or, if heavy armor is the preference, mithril could become the new silk, and silk could become the new mithril.

Pardon the bluntness but I consider what you’re describing to be fundamentally flawed game design. Weight-locked insignias would increase the disparity for players who spend time for the sake of hypothetical parity among players who spend currency.

Your predictions are hypothetical, they do not take into account the wide range of possible player reactions. For instance, the change in TP demand for silk could be accompanied by a decrease in the TP supply of silk as both medium and heavy armor crafters move towards more reliable sources of leather and ore.

Weight locked insignias would increase the cost disparity, measured in time, between armor weights. The majority of materials needed to craft heavy armor would come from 100% reliable, high frequency sources. Combine this with an increase in the number of days required to craft time gated materials and more players may fill their demand quantity by gathering and not by turning to the TP. An increase in the TP price of ores is not guaranteed.

Wanze.8410:

Psientist.6437:

Wanze.8410:

Mikuchan.7261:

It’s nice that you’re not minding it, but I’m not proposing it to make things cheap though. I’m proposing it to make things balanced.
It will make it worse for leathercrafters since their leather will grow more expensive.
It will make it better for tailors since their cloth will grow cheaper.
Metal may become more expensive as well, but that will also mean that more people will go out and mine metal and supply it, which will make all of the materials cheaper in the long run. The same will happen with leather and cloth if gathering nodes are implemented.

If you just want to balance things out, remove the different kinds of common mats and merge leather/cloth/metal/wood into 1 material that is available in 7 tiers.
So it doesnt matter anymore, if you chop some elder wood, salvage some leather armor and a greatsword, you will always get the same material and it can be used for every armorcraft and weaponcraft.

Easy fix which would balance everything out but you would lose alot of variety and immersion.

I think gathering nodes for leather and clothe would have the same effect, preserve variety and immersion, and still promote P2P trading. The only reason for a ‘time cost to gather materials’ differential is to promote P2P trading and the use of currency.

But Anet doesnt want to bring the cloth price down as long as it ensures that ALL armor classes need a long time to craft.

Imo, the role of cloth in Ascended armor recipes has more to do with promoting economic activity than time gating crafting the armor itself. Even if the role of cloth were to slow down production, we are left with the disparity between armor weights.

Wanze.8410:

Mikuchan.7261:

It’s nice that you’re not minding it, but I’m not proposing it to make things cheap though. I’m proposing it to make things balanced.
It will make it worse for leathercrafters since their leather will grow more expensive.
It will make it better for tailors since their cloth will grow cheaper.
Metal may become more expensive as well, but that will also mean that more people will go out and mine metal and supply it, which will make all of the materials cheaper in the long run. The same will happen with leather and cloth if gathering nodes are implemented.

If you just want to balance things out, remove the different kinds of common mats and merge leather/cloth/metal/wood into 1 material that is available in 7 tiers.
So it doesnt matter anymore, if you chop some elder wood, salvage some leather armor and a greatsword, you will always get the same material and it can be used for every armorcraft and weaponcraft.

Easy fix which would balance everything out but you would lose alot of variety and immersion.

I think gathering nodes for leather and clothe would have the same effect, preserve variety and immersion, and still promote P2P trading. The only reason for a ‘time cost to gather materials’ differential is to promote P2P trading and the use of currency.

I don’t think trying to directly manage the aggregate price of silk is appropriate. If there is a cost difference, in Tyrian gold, between crafting a set of heavy, medium and light Ascended armor; that difference only warrants attention if there is also a corresponding difference in the cost, measured in time, of gathering the materials directly.

There is a difference in cost, measured in time, of gathering the materials directly.

All three armor types require the same amount of materials except for ore, leather and clothe. The material needed is not relevant; only the number of units required, the reliability of an acquisition attempt to discover a specific material, and the frequency with which a player encounters an opportunity to attempt acquisition.

(For instance, a mithril ore node and the home instance watchwork node have 100% reliability but vastly different frequencies. Mithril ore nodes are plentiful while the single watchwork node must refresh every 24 hours. Materials only available by salvaging drops have a low reliability but very high attempt frequency. Imo, that frequency is still lower than nodes )

A full set of Heavy Ascended armor requires 86% of the t2-t5 material units required for a full Light armor set. 37% of the units needed for a full heavy set can be acquired from a 100% reliable, high frequency source.

A full set of Medium Ascended armor requires 89% of the t2-t5 material units required for a full Light armor set. Both medium and light armor materials share the same reliability and frequency.

Even if all materials where gathered from a node that never ran out and never had to refresh; a player collecting to craft a full Light set would have to gather materials for a longer amount of time.

Astralporing.1957:

Doghouse.1562:

(There’s also quite bit of “wiggle room” in John’s statement, by the way; it’s not a full description of the GW2 economy. For example – if I buy gems with real currency, then spend those gems on in-game purchases, are those gems removed from circulation? Or do, or can, some or all of them become available for in-game purchase with gold? Even if all new gems are bought with real currency, and even if gems used to make purchases are taken out of circulation, what about the game pool of gold that the market also needs to operate? Is that also left entirely to market forces – does it come entirely from player earnings in-game (because ANet could equally affect the exchange rates by changing the amount of gold in that pool)? And come to that – whilst it’s not actually impossible that both gold and gem pools were empty at launch, it seems unlikely, because otherwise the market could at minimum have been downright frustrating, and possibly highly volatile as well (the first gems would have needed to come from real currency; the players who bought them wouldn’t have been able to exchange them for gold from an empty pool; players wanting to buy gems with in-game gold wouldn’t have been able to do so until people had swapped gems for in-game purchases – and if those gems were then taken out of circulation, they still wouldn’t be available, come to that, so there would need at minimum to be some gold to exchange gems for; and at times there could potentially have been high demands chasing limited supply, meaing exchange rates potentially off the scale. Not something I’d expect ANet would have wanted. So there was almost certainly at least a degree of pump-priming. How big was it, compared to the current market? And is it still in there, or has it been removed? And so on.)

…sigh
All of those points were explained already by many dev statements up until now. Unless of course you assume that you are being lied to, in which case you can keep assuming whatever you want.

(but in case you missed those statements: the system, as we were told, works like this:
- whenever someone buys gems with gold, gems are removed from gem pool, and gold gets added to gold pool
- whenever someone buys gold with gems, gold gets removed from gold pool, and gems are added to gem pool
- the exchange price is based upon the gems to gold ratio of those pools
- there is a hidden tax on both transactions that removes some fo those gems/gold from the system (this is also the reason why exchange rates of gems to gold and gold to gems are slightly different)
- at the start of the game, both pools were seeded by anet, but in both cases those seeds are long gone (and are a drop in the bucked compared to the market now)
- those are the only ways gems and gold gets added/removed to those pools.
- while anet could possibly micromanage this, by modifying pools, they don’t see any reason to do so. This is unlikely to change (as i understand, the chances of the gem market getting unbalanced to the point where intervention would be desirable is extremely unlikely).

I see no reason why Anet might want to intentionally mislead us on this info. You, of course, can disagree.

I agree with your main point, that Arenanet would not risk the exchange by adding or removing gems and gold to the pools unless the exchange were about to rip kitten in the Tyrian universe. The exchange will function best if it is left alone.

However I am bored so…

1) The gems and gold from the initial reserve could still outnumber the gems and gold added by players. For most of the game’s lifespan the exchange rate has trended upwards, indicating that gems were leaving the exchange faster than they were being replenished. Even if player purchased gems now outnumber reserve gems, every gem retains the information of those reserve gems.

2) Hidden tax? I don’t remember ever seeing anything about a hidden tax within the exchange. If you are referring to the 30ish% difference in the exchange rate direction, that difference does not remove gold from the exchange pool, only slows down how quickly that gold could re-enter general circulation. Unless there is a hidden tax, then the exchange does not destroy gems or gold. Only players can do that by either purchasing gems and spending them within the gemshop or purchasing gold and spending it on a gold-sink.

To get back to the thread topic….

If Arenanet made HoT available for gems, they would make less new money than if they didn’t; don’t think there is any way to argue that they would. Whether or not they can afford to do that is up to them.

Osculim.2983:

To the dude that says gold – gems is not profit it is. The cash have already been generated its like having a investor give you money upfront to do something later. So if Anet use that money for something else its not anyones concern but Anet’s. I for one would like to see it in the gemstore. Unlike most folks im one of those poor gamers money is extremely tight. I do however agee that it would cause major gem price issues. So maby wait a month or 2 after release.

Assuming I am the dude…

Please explain how a player using Tyiran gold to purchase gems generates income. That is lost revenue that can only be recouped by players purchasing gems to exchange for gold. The gem exchange as a whole is only profitable if the number of gems bought with real money to convert into gold exceeds the number of gems purchased with gold that would have been purchased with real money instead (not everyone who used gold to buy gems would have used real money instead). Theoretically, the gem exchange as a whole could cost Arenanet revenue.

Investors expect to be repaid, the gem exchange is nothing like an investor.

I am not trying to tell Arenanet or other players how to behave, just trying to describe the realities involved.

Yes. All the bug fixes we have been asking for since the release of the original game will be included in the paid expansion.

It would be amazing to get a big bug fix update to go along with HoT. Well, before HoT since HoT will have its share.

My bet is on 34.99-39.99 US$ with them adding a character slot to the offer. I agree that the expansion looks pretty slim, but who knows it may seem bigger when they describe it better.

Black market gold sellers have nothing to do with this conversation. No one in their right mind would pay a black market gold seller real money for Tyrian gold and then use that Tyrian gold to purchase gems.

ZeftheWicked.3076:

Geeze just reading these comments (save arena.net’s staff member) gives me the headache. It’s like you people never saw cash shops before and are wondering how this UFO flies at all.

So here’s some facts for you:
1. Gems trades in gold<->gem exchange in Black Lion Trading company ARE PROFITS for A-net. So buying expansion there would not rob a-net of profits, maybe even make more, as there are not boxing, distribution, dvd burning and retailer costs. On top of that gemstore is less confusing then website’s purchase forms, least to people who are already ingame and that option might shovel some extra sales for a-net.

2. That being said, putting x-pac in gem store would indeed cause massive skyrocketing of gem prices in gold that might lead to serious stalemate between buyers and sellers on tp and a clog in gem<->gold exchange. Upgraded version is one thing, but expansion is not something you can so easily ignore. Quite a few would hoard goal (from more or less honest sources) to get their gems and buy out the x-pac if it’s confirmed to show up as gem store item.

How will arena.net go about this, that’s something they know. But gemshop is the source of their income, only question they themselves have to answer is wheather this time putting x-pac in there would ramp up the profit for a while, or adversely shoot it down due to price wars.

Rude and inaccurate.

The conversion of gold into gems does not directly generate revenue. The conversion of gold to gems eliminates revenue. Many players use gold to purchase gem shop offerings rather than spend real world money. The conversion of gold to gems only generates revenue indirectly by increasing the exchange rate for converting gems into gold, prompting players to purchase gems to convert into gold.

Currently, there are thousands, perhaps millions of gems that have been purchased with gold and if those gems were used to purchase HoT, those sales would generate no new revenue. Any new gems purchased with gold would also be lost HoT revenue that could only be recouped if enough people purchases gems to convert to gold to cover the lost revenue from gold to gem purchases of HoT.

Most sales will likely be digital downloads anyway, and the website isn’t confusing enough to prevent people from purchasing from the website.

Offering the HoT expansion in the gem shop will generate more revenue only if there will be future HoT gem shop products and the long term revenue from those new products exceeds the revenue lost from people buying the expansion with gold.

edit: That being said, Arenanet may value us playing their game enough to risk making less guaranteed revenue.

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

BilboBaggins.5620:

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

To qoute Colin “A maxed out character today, will still be a maxed out character tomorrow”.

CONFIRMED! HoT releases tomorrow!!!

lol, If only.

Colin is apparently trapped within game time since HoT picks up after the Pact attack fails.

Fishing and expanded use of the Home Instance.

Uman.6150:

Psientist.6437:

That also isn’t accurate either since many people who have exchanged gems for gold would never have used black market gold sellers even if Arenanet did not offer RMT services.

Well, I think it was meant to solve both the issue of people that would have gone through the black market, and people that wanted to buy gold with real money, but couldn’t as they wanted to respect the terms of service.

Sorry if I was unclear.

You had better be sorry!

Neither of one of us is privy to Arenanet’s plans and they may offer the expansion for gems sometime in the future. I just think it is very unlikely HoT will be available for gems when it is released. There are many players who have thousands, tens of thousands of gems now and whose purchase of HoT with gems would have no effect on the exchange rate and therefore not even the potential for new revenue.

Uman.6150:

Sorry if I wasn’t clear enough.

I wasn’t trying to advertise gold seller in any way, nor I do understand that it ruins the game and arenanet makes no profit out of it.

I was saying that the Gem store exchange was introduced to GW2 so that people that would go buy money from gold seller could do it legally (as there isn’t a way to stop them behaving as such).

And if a lot of people buy gem from gold, the price would skyrocket to that only few people would be able to buy gems from gold. People then who have money and wants gold would buy gems, and get gold in exchange. In the end, the gem price would still rise as it would get more useful than just getting cosmetic items, and more people would buy gem with real money and sell them as they would get more gold out of it.

The revenue stream you are describing is not a guaranteed revenue stream. If HoT were offered for gems, many players including myself would use gold to buy HoT and the gem to gold exchange rate would indeed rise. However that is not a guarantee that players would then purchase gems to exchange for gold.

Making HoT available for gems could also have a massive deflationary affect on Tyrian gold.

Gaile Gray.6029:

Uman.6150:

~ snip~

People without money can get it with gold (anet still get paid though, by people that would have gone through gold sellers)…

I may be reading this wrong, but we don’t make a cent from people who buy gold through gold sellers. The only transaction that benefits ArenaNet and funds our continued support of our games and the development of new content and the expansion pack is the sale of gems through the Black Lion Trading Company.

If I misread, I apologize. But I’d never want someone to believe that buying from any random real-money trading company somehow benefits us. Such transactions actually costs us money because we have to take out the account thieves related to RMT, remove the advertising spammers, spend time tracking and dealing with people illegally trying to profit from our content, and so forth.

Thanks for letting me clarify: If you want your gold purchase to benefit ArenaNet — to support our games, to fund future development — please purchase directly and only through the Black Lion Trading Company and/or our official Gem Store.

I don’t think that is what they meant, but was referring to people who purchase gems to exchange for gold as being “people that would have gone through gold sellers”.

That also isn’t accurate either since many people who have exchanged gems for gold would never have used black market gold sellers even if Arenanet did not offer RMT services.

I think their comment is just confusingly worded and based on inaccurate assumptions and not intended to condone black market RMT.

Donari.5237:

Psientist.6437:

I wasn’t able to watch the announcements, did they confirm that HoT includes the story of defeating Mordermoth?

They did not. They told us the beginning of what we’ll find, not the climax. So we know we’ll be going into a set of jungle zones, and there will be many new things in there, but in the lead up story review Colin noted that the Pact and many of the various race’s forces loaded up on the ships and got destroyed. So we are now without our armies. He said the rest of us are what remain to fight. (Since around 40K people watched this, that’s a darn good army size … )

There were no comments on any Personal Story changes. They did say they want to make the game even more social, make you happy to see another player arrive because things will only get better; that might preclude instancing the players away.

Thank you. HoT may end being the stage for a continued LW. Even if HoT includes defeating Mordermoth, the LW could tell horizontal stories similar to the Southsun Cove arc. That was my favorite arc so far because it progressed horizontally, told the story of what it meant to be a commoner in Tyria.

Many people are asking about the future of the Living World; it is a valid question. Of course, no one else has managed the OP’s flair for the dramatic.

Perhaps the threads asking about the future of the LW could be merged and we could steer the conversation away from name calling and jousting with vocabulary.

Uman.6150:

Johnathan Ralston.5871:

Not a chance

The company need revenue and will not be allowing base games or expansions to be purchased with gems.

Only the non-essentials will be available for purchase in the Gem store.

Well, the “gems” you can buy with gold are purchased by real money by people trading them for gold. I can’t see why they wouldn’t win money by going with that.

That is not how the gem exchange works. The gem exchange includes large reserves of gems and gold that player exchanges add to and subtract from; Arenanet does not directly make money from the gold to gem exchange. Gold exchanged for gems just raises the gem to gold exchange rate, potentially increasing the number of gem sales.

If HoT is made available in the gemshop, Arenanet would make much less money.

Gaile Gray.6029:

Wait, Prince Rurik? So he can lead you on a merry chase again, all the while telling you touching stories of his youth?

I called a guild mate the Prince Rurik of our guild because of his playstyle and had to explain what I meant to crickets chirping….

I was sad

I would summon:

Gwen because she was angry enough to likely still be angry enough to fight anything!
Oink

Guys, they are clearly Vorlons from the Babylon 5 universe….

Aedelric.1287:

roachsrealm.9284:

I’ll just be happy to be on the friendly side of Spectral Agony for once.

Exactly what I was thinking.

Would be fun to see Spectral agony evolve into skills we could use.

Kentaine.4692:

Here’s what living world does, at least so far… it builds into the next dragon. I completely understand why the actual dragon story should be an expansion. I don’t want to wait the 2-3 years of LS releases something this scale would require. I’d be 60 by the time we killed the last dragon and finally opened the sea routes back to Cantha.

Edit:

Ideally, the next LS would branch away from Maguuma (perhaps head into northern Shiverpeaks or further east into uncharted Ascalon) as something comes up deserving a bit of our attention regarding Jormag or Kralkatorikk as those who bought the expansion take down Mordremoth and help out whenever we have a spare moment to WP away from Maguuma. Those who don’t get the expansion will be the first strike into the next Dragon’s domain.

I wasn’t able to watch the announcements, did they confirm that HoT includes the story of defeating Mordermoth?

The Living World may/ will likely continue being released the same way it is being released now. The episodes, though, would take place within the new regions included with the expansion.

Debating whether or not the content included with the expansion could have been free is just so much wheel spinning.

A good question would be whether or not unlocking future LW episodes requires the expansion. If unlocking does require the expansion, anyone who can not purchase the expansion before the next LW episode may continue to not purchase the expansion as the cost of unlocking episodes grows.

edit: Gating story behind a paywall is not unheard of within mmos, consider LOTRO.

mtpelion.4562:

Psientist.6437:

I don’t dislike the direction of the story, never had a pet theory. My criticism is directed at how the writers find their path and in my opinion they are forging a path parallel to that of a Marty Stu’s. Please make a note of that

Would this firm connection be firmer than the connection between you and your tomatoes?

That would be impossible to say at this point. I was merely pointing out that there are “levels” to the meaning of the word “from”. Until we have more data, we cannot exclude ANY of those levels from the realm of possibility. This means that jumping to the conclusion that “from” means “minion” is premature.

I don’t care how contrived it sounds, but Mordermoth needs to be raising Sylvari as food….
500 chef confirmed?

mtpelion.4562:

Psientist.6437:

mtpelion.4562:

Konig Des Todes.2086:

I’m sorry, but “we come from the jungle dragon” kind of says they do, indeed, come from the jungle dragon, and in turn that they are indeed dragon minions.

Tomatoes come from my garden, does that make them my children?

This a false equivalency, a reduction to the absurd, that doesn’t offer any insight into what a Syvlvari means by “we come from the jungle dragon”.

Konig, I understand and appreciate your way of looking at the lore and I agree that the Sylvari story is contrived. I think it has been from been from the beginning. Would Tyria, a world filled with potentially dangerous magical artifacts, produce fathers willing to bring back an object with such clear indications of being dangerous and filled with unrealized potential back to their families and then plant that unkown, likely dangerous entity as a tribute to their family? A farmer in Vietnam would be as likely to bring back unexploded landmines and bury them where their children play. The Sylvari’s origin story is of father’s pathological naivete and lack of concern for the outcome of his actions passed off as sentimentality and grief.

I have learned not to chase writers through worlds where anything can happen and past ‘happenings’ can be re-written. Looking for logical patterns within a plastic universe can be frustrating. I would accept the lack of similarity between the Sylvari and other dragon minions as obvious ploys to prolong the suspense.

Forgive me if this comes across as a rant, but I see Tyria becoming the ‘The Island’ from a Lost; a source of plot twists and not a genuine place.

Your opinion is duly noted and discarded as being irrelevant. Your dislike of the story’s direction has clouded your ability to discuss this issue in a logical manner.

We do not know what “from the dragon” means yet, only that a firm connection to the dragon has been established.

I don’t dislike the direction of the story, never had a pet theory. My criticism is directed at how the writers find their path and in my opinion they are forging a path parallel to that of a Marty Stu’s. Please make a note of that

Would this firm connection be firmer than the connection between you and your tomatoes?

mtpelion.4562:

Konig Des Todes.2086:

I’m sorry, but “we come from the jungle dragon” kind of says they do, indeed, come from the jungle dragon, and in turn that they are indeed dragon minions.

Tomatoes come from my garden, does that make them my children?

This a false equivalency, a reduction to the absurd, that doesn’t offer any insight into what a Syvlvari means by “we come from the jungle dragon”.

Konig, I understand and appreciate your way of looking at the lore and I agree that the Sylvari story is contrived. I think it has been from been from the beginning. Would Tyria, a world filled with potentially dangerous magical artifacts, produce fathers willing to bring back an object with such clear indications of being dangerous and filled with unrealized potential back to their families and then plant that unkown, likely dangerous entity as a tribute to their family? A farmer in Vietnam would be as likely to bring back unexploded landmines and bury them where their children play. The Sylvari’s origin story is of father’s pathological naivete and lack of concern for the outcome of his actions passed off as sentimentality and grief.

I have learned not to chase writers through worlds where anything can happen and past ‘happenings’ can be re-written. Looking for logical patterns within a plastic universe can be frustrating. I would accept the lack of similarity between the Sylvari and other dragon minions as obvious ploys to prolong the suspense.

Forgive me if this comes across as a rant, but I see Tyria becoming the ‘The Island’ from a Lost; a source of plot twists and not a genuine place.

I believe the Heart of Thorns revelation of the Sylvari as minions was planned from the beginning and is actually the reason for the ‘lore inconsistencies’. The Sylvari story strikes me as being written backwards, with the HoT revelation being written first and their creation story designed to fuel speculation about their true nature.

Is there a direct reference to ‘E’ being a mister as in male? A deep voice does not mean ‘E’ must be male. At the least, the person who accosts Marjory could have been disguising their voice.

Consider how Marjory reacts to ‘E’…

" Arms wrapped so intimately around me that my fight or flight instincts never kicked in."

Would Marjory react that way to a man?

I suspect Ela Makkay

Bunnikk.2146:

I am just hoping that Sylvari PCs will be have a separate story or at least something more than responding dialogue options. It will feel really wrong if Sylvari have the same story was everyone else given all that has/will happen.

I absolutely agree. What the writers/developers are doing with the Sylvari is risky and giving Sylvari PCs the same flavor of personal story would be such a waste of the risk.

Perhaps PC Sylvaris could be offered a a form of Ascension or vaccination? Or allowed to become LOTRO type creeps!

Astralporing.1957:

Naps Elif.7438:

Belenwyn.8674:

Naps Elif.7438:

Everyone should be ready and willing to pay for the expansion BUT!!! please don’t place this expansion in the trading post like you’ve done with the Digital Deluxe Edition. If they do then they will get far less money in the long run. Cause even I would spend my time vs my RL money to trade gold into gems and buy the expansion.

They will get the same amount of money. Each gem offered in the trading post was bought for real money.

You can trade in game gold for Gems >.<

Yeah, but the gems supposedly come from the pool created by people trading gems for gold.

There was a pre-existing pool of gems and gold within the exchange when the game went live. Player created gold and gems are added and removed from that reserve. Arenanet does not directly make money from players exchanging gold for gems, and spending those gems in the cash shop. Arenanet indirectly makes money from gold to gem conversion because it increases the exchange rate for gems to gold, thereby increasing the likelihood of players spending money on gems and converting them into gold.

Zero Day.2594:

DeceiverX.8361:

aspirine.6852:

Some people think that Anet is sponsored by Santa or something. Things cost money, games cost money. Dont expect them to give games away?!

They do, but by their current expected revenue they can afford to pay every single one of their employees over a $100k annual salary, including bottom-tier customer support workers while still maintaining their infrastructure, building expenses, etc.

The money has already been spent if the content is complete, anyways, seeing as ANet has repeatedly stated they will make no announcements until the content is guaranteed to be released, due to the outrage from lack of delivery of certain WIP items which could not be finished before.

ANet fully paid for all development costs of the game and way more before the game even released. Gem store users account for revenue likely in the hundreds of millions annually. I get that games cost money, but it’s not like they’re hurting for cash, and the cost has already been paid for.

Also to add, GW2 isn’t the only product that’s keeping ANet’s, or should I say NCSoft’s, pants up.

*:/ It’s a bit strange how people believe and think that games NEED either a subscription or some sort of money flow… * Hell someone a while a go even wanted to throw more money at ANet and proposed a kick-starter event to fund an expansion. Lol…

Please tell me you are being sarcastic!

DeceiverX.8361:

aspirine.6852:

Some people think that Anet is sponsored by Santa or something. Things cost money, games cost money. Dont expect them to give games away?!

They do, but by their current expected revenue they can afford to pay every single one of their employees over a $100k annual salary, including bottom-tier customer support workers while still maintaining their infrastructure, building expenses, etc.

The money has already been spent if the content is complete, anyways, seeing as ANet has repeatedly stated they will make no announcements until the content is guaranteed to be released, due to the outrage from lack of delivery of certain WIP items which could not be finished before.

ANet fully paid for all development costs of the game and way more before the game even released. Gem store users account for revenue likely in the hundreds of millions annually. I get that games cost money, but it’s not like they’re hurting for cash, and the cost has already been paid for.

Your comment just killed an investor who expects a profit from their investment. The money to make the game came from somewhere, from someone who expects to see a return on that investment.

Zero Day.2594:

Vayne.8563:

wouw.5837:

ZudetGambeous.9573:

I can’t wait to see all the whining when they announce the level cap increase. They said if they ever did an expansion they would increase the level cap, but people seem to always just put their fingers in their ears and hum when it is brought up…

Proof?

Eric Flannum did say it in an interview, but Id’ have no idea how to go about looking for it. What I believe he said is that they’d like to raise the level cap.

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/13tuac/im_the_studio_design_director_on_guild_wars_2_ama/c7762pk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLHfq2lJY5A

0:58:34 in time.

http://www.nowgamer.com/guild-wars-2-interview-arenanet-talks-release-date-beta-level-cap-personal-stories-esports/ (ctrl+f level)

Just remember guys, they have that VERY LARGE table that they keep piling stuff on… I’m sure it’s still on that table, whether they manage to find it and retrieve it from that table is a completely different subject.

One thing to point out, the youtube and the nowgamer link is before the game was released… so the idea has been around even before the release of the game…
Still wouldn’t get my hopes up, there has been so many flops in the past couple years when it comes to mmorpg’s and sequel releases….

Thank you for the links. At least now people can see what Arenanet’s stance on lvl cap has been. Hopefully they answer the question directly at PAX.

Vayne.8563:

wouw.5837:

ZudetGambeous.9573:

I can’t wait to see all the whining when they announce the level cap increase. They said if they ever did an expansion they would increase the level cap, but people seem to always just put their fingers in their ears and hum when it is brought up…

Proof?

Eric Flannum did say it in an interview, but Id’ have no idea how to go about looking for it. What I believe he said is that they’d like to raise the level cap.

I can’t find the video either. I think his wording was something like…

“When we consider an expansion it has always been our intention to raise the level cap”

That being said, their intentions could have changed.

I expect some kind of paywall for the new content that can not be overcome with Tyrian gold.

This won’t end well…..

Everyone is missing the obvious…..

Fishing

Avariz.8241:

Psientist.6437:

I am torn.

One one hand, I think Sylvaris as dragon minions is equivalent to Sylvaris as race of Mary Sues. The writers were able to keep the truth or logic of their true nature hidden by making the mechanics of their true nature unique. I don’t consider that good writing, I consider that three card monte.

On the other hand; a player controlled race that turns out to be unwittingly and in some cases, intentionally, working for the enemy could prove to be a very dynamic environment for story telling. I just hope the writers have a handle on how dark this environment could get.

In Guildwars 2 beta, all players were corrupted by Krakaltoric, and players as themselves were fighting against other players who had the misfortune to have been corrupted by Krakaltoric. In the end Krakaltoric won as all players turned evil. This happened in all servers in NA and EU.

Pardon my confusion, but which of my comments are you referring to? And are you offering events and mechanics that occurred during beta as canon?

The ‘cinematics’ of Canach are likely glimpses of future content found in HoT.

Waypoints provide near instantaneous travel within Tyria and are part of the lore. News would spread very quickly when waypoint travel combines with word of mouth.

I am torn.

One one hand, I think Sylvaris as dragon minions is equivalent to Sylvaris as race of Mary Sues. The writers were able to keep the truth or logic of their true nature hidden by making the mechanics of their true nature unique. I don’t consider that good writing, I consider that three card monte.

On the other hand; a player controlled race that turns out to be unwittingly and in some cases, intentionally, working for the enemy could prove to be a very dynamic environment for story telling. I just hope the writers have a handle on how dark this environment could get.

Gnat.9405:

Wanze.8410:

Gnat.9405:

Wanze.8410:

Gnat.9405:

Wanze.8410:

I think Heart of Thorns is a good title for LS Season 2.

So maybe, after the final chapter gets released, there will be a boxed bundle including all 8 chapters that players, who pick up the game after LS S2 finished can buy.

Instead of paying 150 gems for each episode, they can buy it for 800 gems or 10 bucks, if Anet decides to put out a box to put in stores (for extra visibility).

This is part of current speculation and it’s admittedly not necessarily a bad idea. I just don’t think that they would promote a large panel to announce content that players have already completed.

Maybe i missed it but how is trademarking Heart of Thorns in any way related to PAX?

My fault, this is speculation on my part that the PAX announcement will be GW2: HoT.

So they gonna announce GW2:HoT at PAX without being able to use the Logo until 8th of April?

Is this something that is a requirement of new trademarks? I know nGumball brought it up. Also if that’s the case, are they not allowed to use it for advertising purposes as well?

Not sure, but I don’t see why they couldn’t use it; just without the protection of trademark law.

Vlad Morbius.1759:

lordkrall.7241:

You are aware that most employees are probably not even up yet, right?
If we go the whole day (their time) without a word, I would agree, but right now they most likely haven’t even seen it yet.

Yes I know they may not even be up but there are in other countries where the game is so believe me when I tell you that if this was not a reality someone would be getting a phone call and they would squash this ASAP. This won’t be any normal backlash, it’ll be in every online site and would be disastrous to say the least.

The time of day is irrelevant. When Arenanet et al filed for a trademark, they knew word would get out almost immediately and will have already discussed when and if they should respond to hype.

Listen to Vayne and Wayne and others who are cautioning against the expectations inherently part of traditional expansions. Arenanet et al has been promising us something ‘like an expansion’ but not monetized as a traditional expansion for a while. Maybe ‘IT’ is finally ready.

Gnat.9405:

Join ArenaNet president and co-founder Mike O’Brien and Guild Wars 2 game director Colin Johanson for an exclusive sneak peek at what’s next in Guild Wars 2 and be among the first to hear how we’re setting up a new framework for how an MMO can grow its universe. The Living World was just the beginning.

Don’t expect a traditional boxed expansion.

I agree Gnat; I expect we will see something very different than a traditional expansion. Though that leaves the question of how will new content be monetized. I expect core mechanics such as classes, skills and zones will be free. DLC story content will be monetized. For instance, we would pay to play as Scarlett through content covering her life prior to her appearance in the LW and Rytlock’s adventure. The LW would remain free to play as a central plot trunk but side plots, adventures into the past would be pay to play.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

In Ghosts of Ascalon, it takes at least 3+ days of night travel to reach Ascalon City from Ebonhawke. And they went more or less straight, whereas we players have to go around – and still take less than 30 minutes. So basically take that distance, and expand it wide enough to take 3 or 4 nights of travel with resting during the day.

Like Psientist said, I think the scaling changes. Arguably, I’d say that the dungeons are the “most accurate” when it comes to locational scale, but they still may be a bit on the small size. Southsun Cove I’d argue may also be rather accurate in size, but the rest much bigger than we see it as making it not so intrusive in the Sea of Sorrows as it seems in our world map.

Aside from the distanced maps like Southsun, however, I don’t think zone scaling changes (that much).

Overall, I’d say the world map of Tyria we see should be at least the size of Europe. Though Orr is repeatedly called a continent on its own right (I presume mistakenly but you never know).

To the bold;

I think that is very difficult to measure. All of the zone maps are rectangles which can’t be realistic. I think the zone maps are abstracted representations of geography and the scaling fluctuates within zones as well.

Neural.1824:

Interesting stuff. Hope they learn more about it. It would be neat to have more solid info.

Here is a link with more info and less mystery:

http://news.discovery.com/history/archaeology/atlantis-legendary-metal-found-in-shipwreck-150106.htm