Guild Wars 2

Ithilwen.1529:

I’ll tell you what people have told me on forum for years now; LEARN TO PLAY.

Mesmer finally got boosted to a class with some real damage? Have to deal with condi now instead of just ignoring it and slamming the Mesmer?

LEARN TO PLAY and stop relying on zerk style to save you.

He/She’s trying to learn…if you would just answer the OP’s question. -_-

^ What he said. A-net plans for every profession to have at least 3 elite specializations to choose from someday.

Can someone post a screenshot, please?

I feel like I’m the only one who finds it better :\

Only thing missing is an activation condition like: ally at 90% or less.

There is a HUGE balance patch about to hit within less than 24 hours, so be ready for that. Besides that, not too much has changed. Or at least nothing I recall, but I’ve been unable to play much lately so I may not be the best person to answer.

Hybarf Tics.2048:

My only fear is that this so called HOT game is only the living story 3 disguised as anexpansion and shoved down our trought at the same price as a full expansion.
Barely worth $30.

I know now it has a character slot but I don’t need one and I don’t consider Guild Halls a s maps. They are only digital stuff I don’t need.

Keep in mind that purchasing HoT will not only give you the content coming with the expansion, but also all the “free” content coming post-expansion. A-net announced that those who do not purchase HoT will be unable to continue receiving content updates after HoT hits (or at the very least story updates, I can’t remember exactly what).

I may be wrong, but I think I remember ready that physical copies will reach select retailers in the US on the 23rd.

I think you will be most surprised on where exactly one can reach and explore.

Heck freaking yes, a HoT CE would be hot.

Keep in mind that purchasing HoT will not only give you the content coming with the expansion, but also all the “free” content coming post-expansion. A-net announced that those who do not purchase HoT will be unable to continue receiving content updates after HoT hits (or at the very least story updates, I can’t remember exactly what).

Quiznos.4296:

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Does this mean I win? I guessed that we’d be up to 100 pages till they finally responded. Where is my celebratory cookie?

It’s included for free with your purchase of the chocolate chips. :p

You get 1 cookie point. Only 8,887 more to go for a free cookie.

Fernling.1729:

I still don’t think the expansion has enough to warrant that price. I hope there is a lot more to it than what we’ve seen.
It’s nice that they are including a character though.

Keep in mind that you are not just paying for your access to HoT content, but also all the “free” content following HoT’s release. Because without HoT installed you cannot enjoy that content.

Astaroth.5146:

Razor.9872:

Oh boy, another car analogy xD

Alrighty, I’ll give it a shot.

Yes. I think it is fair because you ALSO own that bonus car ahead of time. Not only that, but that car of yours has grown into [insert dream car here] and can mash and transformw with that 30,000 car you’re buying. While the new buyers are driving around feeding their freeby, you’ll be flying around in space shooting car-lasers.

People are making this an issue of fairness by acting over-entitled and not looking at the big picture.

I can agree with your last point, though. I believe a free character slot for vets would be a fair compensation.

I took the car analogy only cause it was used previously in this particular thread. The truth is mostly anything can be used as a parallel but we really don’t have to.

The base point I’m trying to make is same price same product. I’m not arguing the price although it’s a bit expansive to my liking, I’m not arguing the fact that Anet made the decision to not include a free character slot in an expansion featuring a new playable class, I’m not arguing the fact that the package they are offering in pre-purchase are lacking in goodies to make it worth spending money on something that don’t exist yet (Usually the companies would reward people giving money ahead of time with exclusive things or something from the cash shop and they aren’t in this case – Access to Beta doesn’t count since you’re basically working for Anet while doing so :P )

So as you see, I disagree with some of Anet’s decision in this matter but I’m not arguing with them about those because all of that is their decision to make. I understand your point of view, I bought the game almost 3 years ago and got plenty for what I paid for, no complaint here. I still disagree with you on the package thing. They decided to add the core game as a free bonus, everyone should have it, that is now part of the package. It might sound kind of twisted but to me, saying Some get X + Y and Others get Y for 50$ feel like discrimination. It’s not as bad as race, sex, religion discrimination, but it’s similar to me.

I think Anet has to do something about it anyway because as it is now, they are not winning by not doing anything. Money wise, they will diminish their revenue by not answering this issue.

Here’s what will happen if they do nothing v/s if they find a way to “compensate” those who already have the game:
- New players: Little change, most will join the game whatever happens except some that know a player that feels cheated : Little loss if nothing is done but probably negligible
- Players that don’t see a problem: No change whatever Anet do
- Players that feel cheated: Some will still buy the game, some will wait for a sale and some will not buy it and leave: Some loss v/s no loss, hard to evaluate but there’s gonna be some loss there

Of course whatever Anet does, some people already left the game and won’t come back, some will not buy the game because it’s too expensive to their liking, etc., but those are gone whatever Anet do lol. Business wise for the matter at hand, giving us customers more options, a different “bonus” for those who already have the base game or just plain giving an additional core game key if you already have it = more people buying the expansion = more money.

We can debate all night (actually we did lol) but I believe we’ll both stick to our opinion on that matter. I won’t convince you or the others that think like you and you won’t convince me or the others that think like me. But I think we can both (all) agree that more options = more money for Anet and thus would be a good business decision to try to please more people

Alright, off to bed for me, have a good one

Actually, now that your wording has changed and a few finer details were clarified, I agree with most of what has been said here. I would also like to add that many of the problems that A-net are facing right now are a product of poor communication. Hopefully these situations will be eleviated shortly.

Astaroth.5146:

Razor.9872:

matrix seishin.5312:

Razor.9872:

That makes perfect sense in my opinion. You have had 3 years to trick out your awesome car (which has clearly risen in value). They get a crummy lemon with the potential to be as good 3 years from now.

If it’s compansation you want, then the only thing I can imagine is if they threw in an extra seat for vet car owners.

But really this whole shinannigan is just one fat overblown sense of entitlement.

I see your point. But in that case 50$ for the expansion is a bit much. It wont have the same amount of content as the game 3 years ago, but it is the same price. I can’t compare to GW1 since I didn’t play it. But I know that making new content got harder since then. A character slot and a 10$ decrease in the price would be perfect… I would settle just for slot too.

Well, technically you would be paying $50 for the expansion and all the “free” updates coming to the game afterwards. So that 50 is well spent. On another note. Understand that A-net cannot lower the price further than $50. They had that price set for them by an outside source.

The price itself is not the issue, that is the price Anet have set for the product they are selling. From there, customers decide if they buy it or not. Same thing apply on whatever merchandise you buy.

Lets take the car example as a parallel: So you have a car but would like to have a minivan in addition. You find one that is sold for 30 000$, some people will think it’s too expansive but you like that one and think the price is fair. The salesman now tell you that if you don’t already own a car, they’ll give you a small car as a free bonus but if you already have a car, you only get the minivan for the 30 000$. Does that seem right to you? Would you still want to pay the full 30 000$ for the one minivan while others get a minivan AND a car for the same price from the same dealer?

My point is the price is set by the vendor, as a customer you get to chose if you are willing to pay that amount for the product or not. The issue here is that some people are getting more for their 50$ than others. It’s not entitlement, it’s fairness: same price same product.

As I stated in a earlier post, the minimum Anet has to do is give everyone the same thing, 50$ for GW2 and HoT. While I don’t really want a second base game and would ratter have the option to substitute the base game for a free character slot, at least that would be fair.

Oh boy, another car analogy xD

Alrighty, I’ll give it a shot.

Yes. I think it is fair because you ALSO own that bonus car ahead of time. Not only that, but that car of yours has grown into [insert dream car here] and can mash and transformw with that 30,000 car you’re buying. While the new buyers are driving around feeding their freeby, you’ll be flying around in space shooting car-lasers.

People are making this an issue of fairness by acting over-entitled and not looking at the big picture.

I can agree with your last point, though. I believe a free character slot for vets would be a fair compensation.

RabbitUp.8294:

Razor.9872:

Yes, yes they are just giving you the option to buy the set of tires. You are just confused because the tires are the same price as what you previously paid for your car. You are not forced to buy anything. Hell, by all means, if it makes you feel better in the slightest, then just wait a while for them to release more information first.

Another anolgoy? Alrighty, here goes… :P

The thing about this magic ketchup is it doesn’t show up unless you have never eaten a sandwich before (feaking creepy ketchup).

It’s always saddening to hear good players such as yourself leaving, but I can’t — and won’t -- hold you back. If anything, I hope you find what you are looking for :\

Besides the fact you ignore the shady FAQ business, you completely fail at basic economics.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There_ain't_no_such_thing_as_a_free_lunch

Nobody gives you free cars. There’s a production cost for these cars, as well as an opportunity cost, as the company could sell them for a profit instead of gifting them to you.

You cover these costs.

And while Anet doesn’t sell a physical product, they would still be losing money if they gave GW2 away for free instead of selling it. Instead, the $50 price tag covers both games, with veteran players paying more so that newcomers can get the bundle cheaper.

This whole bet of their relied on marketing smoke-and-mirrors to work. Thankfully, a good portion of the playerbase have above average understanding of economic principles and marketing tricks.

I’m not ignoring he shady FaQ issue, it just didn’t come up. While I agree the issue was wrong, I think we each see it in a different light. I believe A-net was trying to do good by correcting their wording. However, they did do in a silent and communication-lacking manner that was a poor decision in hindsight.

Lets be clear with one thing. I am not failing at all in economics. If anything it is you who has failed to comprehend something. While this rule you mentioned may hold true for many things, it did not for HoT. You see, the price for the expansion was already set in stone before A-net decided to include the vanilla game. If you look back through this thread, you will find the quote I’m paraphrasing (on mobile so I will try to get it later). I have also heard rumor that this deal is only temporary. We are not paying for this deal because A-net made the economical decision that they would make far more base sales, and thus far more future micro transactions, if they structured this deal so. In other words: as long as the free lunch makes people buy more sandwitches later, the future profits will be higher and pay over the cost loss that occured from the original gambit.

True, the overall strategy is a “trick” to get people to pay more in the long run; but I do believe A-net’s true intentions were to make it easier for new players to join the game.

matrix seishin.5312:

Razor.9872:

That makes perfect sense in my opinion. You have had 3 years to trick out your awesome car (which has clearly risen in value). They get a crummy lemon with the potential to be as good 3 years from now.

If it’s compansation you want, then the only thing I can imagine is if they threw in an extra seat for vet car owners.

But really this whole shinannigan is just one fat overblown sense of entitlement.

I see your point. But in that case 50$ for the expansion is a bit much. It wont have the same amount of content as the game 3 years ago, but it is the same price. I can’t compare to GW1 since I didn’t play it. But I know that making new content got harder since then. A character slot and a 10$ decrease in the price would be perfect… I would settle just for slot too.

Well, technically you would be paying $50 for the expansion and all the “free” updates coming to the game afterwards. So that 50 is well spent. On another note. Understand that A-net cannot lower the price further than $50. They had that price set for them by an outside source.

matrix seishin.5312:

Razor.9872:

I have. Actually, just purchasing the expansion is the only option (excluding the other packages bonuses). Your analogy makes sense logically, but the semantics are off. You are going to buy tires, sure, but you don’t buy a whole new car — you just buy the tires. The difference is people who have not had the car up until this point are able to purchase the tires w/ the car for roughly the same price. This is fair seeing as your car is super tricked out by now and probably is loaded with goodies, while theirs doesn’t even have a sterio.

This is just one more example of poor communication. That’s the Heat of this Thorn-y issue (I’m sorry, I had too).

Not bad communication, simply unfair. You buy a car 3 years ago, spend time tricking it out. Now you buy new tires for the same price as the car was back then just because someone wants to buy those new tires but doesn’t have a car. That makes no sense. 3 years ago people bought the game and spent all this time developing characters. Now they want to buy expansion but they pay the same price as someone who does not have the game – he gets it for free just because he didn’t play for 3 years. Whether he gets it for free with 50$ expansion, or buys both separately for a bit more is the same in relation to his lack of development. New players get a discount, old players get the finger.

That makes perfect sense in my opinion. You have had 3 years to trick out your awesome car (which has clearly risen in value). They get a crummy lemon with the potential to be as good 3 years from now.

If it’s compansation you want, then the only thing I can imagine is if they threw in an extra seat for vet car owners.

But really this whole shinannigan is just one fat overblown sense of entitlement.

AquaDaze.9804:

Most players didn’t even had the chance to try out the closed-beta to know if there is enough content to justify the cost. The veteran players need to do the leap of faith and pay $50 to know whether it’s worth it. Meanwhile the new players gets a good deal by paying $50 for the core and expansion. Sounds unfair for the veterans here.

If it’s information you want, then just wait. Noone is forcing you to pay now.

Silent The Gray.3091:

Razor.9872:

Silent The Gray.3091:

Razor.9872:

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

AlexanderFalkor.4765:

its a video game either you buy or dont simple. as. that all this forum nonsense is uncalled for and your physical lifes are not affected by it in any shape or form if it is then thats a you problem no reason to drag the rest of us along with you on your pity fest for your own mistake

Why are you defending a company that just scammed a lot of its customers? Isn’t this forum the only place where such grievances should be vented? People paid real money for this, and so it does affect their lives. Anet should be held accountable. I’d be furious if there wasn’t this huge kittenstorm about it.

In other news, it seems that Anet has finally decided to respond to… oh… no wait…. they are doing something else…

How has A-net scammed anyone? They were not allowed to sell a price lower than $50; they decided it was best to give new players a break who have not had the 3+ years we had to progress; and no one is being forced to buy HoT right now. Feel free to purchase it later after they release more information.

This isn’t scamming, this is just an over-inflation result of some poor communication choices and unfortunate standards.

Have you taken a look at the before and after FAQ on HoT? And the fact that the people that already own the game and have owned the game cannot purchase just the expansion, they don’t even give you the option. It’s similar to going to buy tires for your car and they will only sell you a car and throw some tires in for free. We don’t want to pay the price of a brand new car just to get a new set of tires, we just want to buy the tires. I don’t think people believe it is a scam, but it is definitely the opposite of the vision that Arena-net has portrayed in the past and if this is the new vision, I think a lot of players would like to know that up front so that they may find another game that is worth their time and money. It’s apparently never occurred to the person(s) in charge of this pricing & marketing scheme, that if you simply give people what they are asking for they will be content. We just don’t want to pay the new car price for a set of tires & we want the option to buy just the tires, I don’t see what is so difficult about that, and it isn’t asking for anything different than what 100% of other companies provide, Anet seems to be the only ones who don’t get it.

I have. Actually, just purchasing the expansion is the only option (excluding the other packages bonuses). Your analogy makes sense logically, but the semantics are off. You are going to buy tires, sure, but you don’t buy a whole new car — you just buy the tires. The difference is people who have not had the car up until this point are able to purchase the tires w/ the car for roughly the same price. This is fair seeing as your car is super tricked out by now and probably is loaded with goodies, while theirs doesn’t even have a sterio.

This is just one more example of poor communication. That’s the Heat of this Thorn-y issue (I’m sorry, I had too).

Yeah, see, the thing is, they aren’t allowing us the option to just buy a new set of tires though, that’s the point. If we do decide to get a new set of tires we are forced to get a whole new car as well. I don’t want ketchup on my sandwich, but they are only selling a sandwich with ketchup on it and that is their right, they can sell whatever kind of sandwich they want for whatever price they determine, but I will take my business elsewhere, just as many others will, so that I may buy the sandwich that I want.

Yes, yes they are just giving you the option to buy the set of tires. You are just confused because the tires are the same price as what you previously paid for your car. You are not forced to buy anything. Hell, by all means, if it makes you feel better in the slightest, then just wait a while for them to release more information first.

Another anolgoy? Alrighty, here goes… :P

The thing about this magic ketchup is it doesn’t show up unless you have never eaten a sandwich before (feaking creepy ketchup).

It’s always saddening to hear good players such as yourself leaving, but I can’t — and won’t -- hold you back. If anything, I hope you find what you are looking for :\

ratche.6204:

umm the base game is not free… I picture the pricing conversation as going something like this:
Person 1: “……..so we’ll throw in the old game and charge 50 bucks for it.”

Person 2 “Oh kitten, the vets are gonna be mad we’re charging them for the old game again when they won’t even be able to use it, we better make something up to tell them”

Person 1 " lets just tell them the base game is a freebie added in, they will buy that"

Person 2 “nobody’s going to believe that , anyone with even the most basic knowledge of economics will realize that’s not true”

Person 1 “who cares? lets go take a money bath!”

person 2 “Yay”

Ummm, the base game is free…..

Just temporarily, though. This will pass. And this is only the case for those who have not had the game up till now.

Elia.7193:

Razor.9872:

Elia.7193:

New players give 50£ and get base game + HoT
I will give 50£ and I will get just HoT …eeemmm why
Anet has decided for me that I will pay the same money but I don’t get a second base game(which would be fine by me, I can use it as storage etc)
Also I am certain that the price is so high because we all paying to make up for the “free” game the new players will receive

Because you have potentially had 3+ years to establish yourself and progess, while newer players have had nothing of the sort.

If I pay for it I want to get it …..

Get what? The expansion? Sure you will, just not for a while because that’s how prepurchasing works. But no rush dude, just get it later when you feel more comfortable with released information.

Gray.9041:

Razor.9872:

Elia.7193:

New players give 50£ and get base game + HoT
I will give 50£ and I will get just HoT …eeemmm why
Anet has decided for me that I will pay the same money but I don’t get a second base game(which would be fine by me, I can use it as storage etc)
Also I am certain that the price is so high because we all paying to make up for the “free” game the new players will receive

Because you have potentially had 3+ years to establish yourself and progess, while newer players have had nothing of the sort.

in case you forgot, we paid for those years.

I did not forget. This is my point.

Gray.9041:

Razor.9872:

I wish this just so it will hopefully get the crazies here in these forums to get their pants off their heads.

Just a note: A-net could not list a price lower than $50. Unfortunate, but so it goes.

• character slots.
• separate keys for HoT and GW2.
• more bag/bank slots
• various in-game items

any of these would have gone a long way to appeasing people, and at almost no real cost to Anet. (sure, they won’t have as many people buying gems for these things, but compared to the various levels of boycott and loss of trust, I think it would’ve been the more profitable decision)

they don’t need to price it below $50. they need to show the players the value them, and when they can do that at almost no cost, not doing so is just bad business. (it is significantly easier to keep a customer than to gain one)

I can agree on the character slot (for sure) and maaaaayyyyybee the bank slots (pushing it).

Silent The Gray.3091:

Razor.9872:

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

AlexanderFalkor.4765:

its a video game either you buy or dont simple. as. that all this forum nonsense is uncalled for and your physical lifes are not affected by it in any shape or form if it is then thats a you problem no reason to drag the rest of us along with you on your pity fest for your own mistake

Why are you defending a company that just scammed a lot of its customers? Isn’t this forum the only place where such grievances should be vented? People paid real money for this, and so it does affect their lives. Anet should be held accountable. I’d be furious if there wasn’t this huge kittenstorm about it.

In other news, it seems that Anet has finally decided to respond to… oh… no wait…. they are doing something else…

How has A-net scammed anyone? They were not allowed to sell a price lower than $50; they decided it was best to give new players a break who have not had the 3+ years we had to progress; and no one is being forced to buy HoT right now. Feel free to purchase it later after they release more information.

This isn’t scamming, this is just an over-inflation result of some poor communication choices and unfortunate standards.

Have you taken a look at the before and after FAQ on HoT? And the fact that the people that already own the game and have owned the game cannot purchase just the expansion, they don’t even give you the option. It’s similar to going to buy tires for your car and they will only sell you a car and throw some tires in for free. We don’t want to pay the price of a brand new car just to get a new set of tires, we just want to buy the tires. I don’t think people believe it is a scam, but it is definitely the opposite of the vision that Arena-net has portrayed in the past and if this is the new vision, I think a lot of players would like to know that up front so that they may find another game that is worth their time and money. It’s apparently never occurred to the person(s) in charge of this pricing & marketing scheme, that if you simply give people what they are asking for they will be content. We just don’t want to pay the new car price for a set of tires & we want the option to buy just the tires, I don’t see what is so difficult about that, and it isn’t asking for anything different than what 100% of other companies provide, Anet seems to be the only ones who don’t get it.

I have. Actually, just purchasing the expansion is the only option (excluding the other packages bonuses). Your analogy makes sense logically, but the semantics are off. You are going to buy tires, sure, but you don’t buy a whole new car — you just buy the tires. The difference is people who have not had the car up until this point are able to purchase the tires w/ the car for roughly the same price. This is fair seeing as your car is super tricked out by now and probably is loaded with goodies, while theirs doesn’t even have a sterio.

This is just one more example of poor communication. That’s the Heat of this Thorn-y issue (I’m sorry, I had too).

Elia.7193:

New players give 50£ and get base game + HoT
I will give 50£ and I will get just HoT …eeemmm why
Anet has decided for me that I will pay the same money but I don’t get a second base game(which would be fine by me, I can use it as storage etc)
Also I am certain that the price is so high because we all paying to make up for the “free” game the new players will receive

Because you have potentially had 3+ years to establish yourself and progess, while newer players have had nothing of the sort.

If it’s the value that is the problem…why not just wait for more information? No one is forcing you to buy it now, that is the nature of prepurchase. Sheesh.

I wish this just so it will hopefully get the crazies here in these forums to get their pants off their heads.

Just a note: A-net could not list a price lower than $50. Unfortunate, but so it goes.

Entenkommando.5208:

It is OK if people have concerns. But how can you say it’s not worth it if you simply don’t know the features yet? (which is about 95% of the threads here)

That’s the system of pre purchase.

So we do have the right to call those people hilarious. Because they simply don’t have any arguments. They judge the add on by 3-4 information they know until now. This doesn’t mean it has to be enough for them to pre purchase. But you also simply can’t say how much it is going to be worth.

Just to name the biggest “arguments”
-you don’t know how many maps will come nor how big they will be
-you have no idea what the challenging group content will be

But these 2 things make 90% of the people here say it’s not worth their money. Because all we have are false information.

Don’t forget “I don’t want to pay for the base game AND the expansion.”

I chuckle a little (then sigh) every time someone posts that.

matrix seishin.5312:

Believe it or not, some of us understand. Here is the problem: 50$ for HoT is a bit too much considering GW2 was that price. Therefor, HoT must have about the same amount of content in order to have such a price. Furthermore, with buying an expansion with a new profession, there must be a character slot in case we don’t have free ones. Even more of a problem is that GW2 was on sale multiple times last year. They got HoT hyped up, people bought the game so they can play HoT later and now they find out they could have gotten it for free with pre-purchase. That is a marketing trick and I dislike anyone who uses such tricks to make money. It means they don’t trust the loyal players to keep playing and buying.

It is one they were forced to make. However, I do wish they would allow a character slot for those purchasing the base 50.

Beryl.1493:

The cheapest the core game has ever been is $10.

When you buy the expansion, the core game is not actually free, as ArenaNet claims it is. They’re just charging you an extra $10 for the core game — even if you already own it.

Shady and doesn’t feel right. I’m going to wait for HoT to see its first sale before buying.

Proof?

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

AlexanderFalkor.4765:

its a video game either you buy or dont simple. as. that all this forum nonsense is uncalled for and your physical lifes are not affected by it in any shape or form if it is then thats a you problem no reason to drag the rest of us along with you on your pity fest for your own mistake

Why are you defending a company that just scammed a lot of its customers? Isn’t this forum the only place where such grievances should be vented? People paid real money for this, and so it does affect their lives. Anet should be held accountable. I’d be furious if there wasn’t this huge kittenstorm about it.

In other news, it seems that Anet has finally decided to respond to… oh… no wait…. they are doing something else…

How has A-net scammed anyone? They were not allowed to sell a price lower than $50; they decided it was best to give new players a break who have not had the 3+ years we had to progress; and no one is being forced to buy HoT right now. Feel free to purchase it later after they release more information.

This isn’t scamming, this is just an over-inflation result of some poor communication choices and unfortunate standards.

Baconplease.1657:

until anet publicly apologizes for their shady practices I have ceased buying gems and will not log in. I have found other things to do it with my money and time until/ if they ever want me back

In my opinion, nothing A-net has done to this point is “shady.” There are a lot of missconceptions flying around for sure, but very few of them are something A-net is at fault for. It’s sad to see another good player such as yourself exodus as a result of over-inflated drama. I hope you find what you are looking for. :\

Miri Fala.5813:

Because we are having to effectively buy the original, from the looks of it. The vanilla game doesn’t seem to be for sale anymore. Going forward, it appears as if Anet is only going to be selling core + HoT, not core on its own. In which case, original + HoT is the core game as of now. This is forcing existing owners to repurchase an entire software package if they want to upgrade, and then not even giving them two useful copies from it. Even Microsoft gives me a better deal than that.

This is likely a temporary QoL thing. I can imagine some people with get madder still if A-net was “gready enough to be keeping selling the base game when the expansion comes hidden with the base.” Etc…

Many.8419:

You can’t take seriously any anet promoted youtuber/streamer like bogotter or wooden potatoes. They can’t be trusted because they benefit from advertising this game.

WP wouldn’t do that. I can’t speak for Bog, though.

Wondrouswall.7169:

People are choosing to voice their opinions and concerns, and that’s fine. I agree that no one should impose on the other to do so. I can also see the other side and as to why those people want to see complaints reduced (or at least the amount of threads).

Like it or hate it, vote with your wallet, and move on.

Last time I participated in a gw2 vote Kiel won…
I still can’t get over that.

People feel like since the game is now available to prepurchase, that they MUST PURCHASE IT NOW. A-net is just offering that option to those who wish to. If you don’t want to buy it yet — then don’t. That simple. I can understand the argument that the base $50 version should come with 1 character slot. I think that’s reasonable. However, understand that A-net cannot lower the $50 base any furthe: it is not their decision to make.

My only “gripe” is that HoT isn’t coming with a Collector’s Edition. I was really hoping to give Rytlock some company :\

A-net has no control over the $50 price. That is as low as it can go. There are other options besides lowing the price, but I’m just noting that the price is stuck.

MiniEquine.6014:

ReiCH.6273:

Morning everyone, so still no dev response to this?

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

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

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

This.

agrante.2810:

I don’t care about offering the core game free with the expansion, although I understand why some veteran players may feel outraged about this.

For me it’s just that considering what we expect to get and the previous pricing policies (also for other games) it feels overpriced, with a poor bundle of extras for a pre-purchase. Some of the features like guild halls should’ve been in the core game from the beginning anyway!

I think bundling in an extra character slot and lowering the price 10 €/$ for the base package would’ve been the consensus and the sweet-spot to have most of the community happy and spreading hype all over the internet, instead of outrage and boycott.

This whole thing looks like terrible PR and I’m not sure how much it will actually hurt the company – not only economically but also in morale – and if a more modest pricing and generous bundling wouldn’t have payed out more in the long run. I guess we’ll never know for sure.

The whole silence after the community’s reaction isn’t helping, either.

While a character slot would have been nice, they cannot lower the price further than it is now.

Otokomae.9356:

Razor.9872:

You don’t know that. Don’t make baseless assumptions. For all we know it actually could make a dent. Again – not saying it would as that would be assuming too — I am just saying we no nothing. A-net is most definitely not a billionaire business

It looks like you’re the one making a baseless speculation. I mean, Kim Taek-Jin, the guy who sold most of ArenaNet to Nexon back in 2012, is worth over 1 billion dollars all by himself! That’s factual information that you could have looked up in minutes, without needing to be a stock holder or seeing the company’s financials.

Forgive me, its late and I’m being a forum junkie. But is he using all his money to fund A-net right now?

Altapir.2571:

Razor.9872:

Altapir.2571:

Razor.9872:

I may be wrong, but If A-net’s marketing/business plan cannot allow them to decrease their price of $50 or add a compensation for vets, then I think the best course of action would be to simply and honestly release some response:

Saying that they can’t.

Sure… they can’t give us 800 gems /free slot instead of the core game we already have, because that will wreck a billionare bussiness plan. But upgrading hundreds of accounts to deluxe after the beta-events did not…

Dude, that is just not true.

They can, they should… they must give us that extra.

You don’t know that. Don’t make baseless assumptions. For all we know it actually could make a dent. Again – not saying it would as that would be assuming too — I am just saying we no nothing. A-net is most definitely not a billionaire business

Guess again. Check NCsoft annuals and cash flows

Do you honestly believe NCsoft places their whole value on A-net? I’d guess A-net gets a sliver of a crumb of what NCsoft owns.

Otokomae.9356:

Well, people keep speculating about why HoT was $50 at all, saying that the free game for new players is factored in, or because Warlords of Draenor was $50 (the most expensive expansion in WoW’s history, and tied w/ HoT for the most expensive MMO expansion ever, atm), or that maybe there is just a mountain of new content that Anet hasn’t shown us yet that makes this kitten expansion.

But, if you go back to January 8 (a few weeks BEFORE HoT was even announced), you can find a a 2015 Yearly Projections statement made by Daewoo Securities, currently the LARGEST stock brokerage and investment bank in South Korea, in which they said that NCSoft would release an expansion called Heart of Thorns (weeks before the announcement) and then projected that Anet would sell at least 2 million copies of the expansion at $50 each. This is not a “guess” by analysts about the positive outcome, this was the largest brokerage in Korea saying “You need to sell 2 million copies of this expansion for $50 each or you will NOT make your quarterly projections for the end of 2015”.

You can read a summary of this on Daewoo Securities website here: http://goo.gl/ziO33b

This is essentially like Goldman Sachs telling a company “You must raise the price of your products by 15% this year, or your stock price will drop”. Goldman Sachs, of course, has no authority to actually raise those prices, but as the largest investment bank in the US, they can do more than just predict how stock prices will move.

So that’s it. $50 is the price. It kind of has to be. Maybe Anet will throw in some extras, I don’t know. But if you’re wondering “Why are they giving away the core game w/ the expac”, it’s it NOT entirely because they want to increase the game’s population in order to give everyone playing a better experience. It’s not even about adding more customers to the Gem Store, or anything like that. NCSoft was given a mandate from the most powerful investment bank in the country that essentially said “You must sell 2 million copies of this product at $50 each just to meet yearly projections… or else!”

So yeah, don’t expect a price drop.

Thank you. This was enlightening. Many don’t realize just what goes on behind the scenes. Really not envious of A-net right now. I hope everything resolves itself somehow

Meanwhile I can do almost nothing while I see people jumping off the hypetrain and on to the hate bandwagon…

Altapir.2571:

Razor.9872:

I may be wrong, but If A-net’s marketing/business plan cannot allow them to decrease their price of $50 or add a compensation for vets, then I think the best course of action would be to simply and honestly release some response:

Saying that they can’t.

Sure… they can’t give us 800 gems /free slot instead of the core game we already have, because that will wreck a billionare bussiness plan. But upgrading hundreds of accounts to deluxe after the beta-events did not…

Dude, that is just not true.

They can, they should… they must give us that extra.

You don’t know that. Don’t make baseless assumptions. For all we know it actually could make a dent. Again – not saying it would as that would be assuming too — I am just saying we know nothing. A-net is most definitely not a billionaire business

Pyriel.4370:

Again, it does not matter how you think it should be, people feel cheated and angered by Anet, Anet ignores them while putting up stuff about guild halls, people feel ignored, angry and cheated, Anet still keeps silent on the whole thing which angers the player base even more.

Lil hint, “just calm down, and chill” will also annoy people as it can be seen as patronising when someone is angry.

What Anet should do is at least make a proper statement on the issue and either justify the $50 price tag or throw in a character slot to the basic package.

Also don’t underestimate what goes on the forums and reddit, social media is a force to be reckoned with nowadays as any major company will tell you

To this day we still have to deal with people who think the game is dead due to that “game is dead” trend that happened a few months after launch :P

InfinitytheSoulWarden.5963:

This whole thing has seriously made me unmotivated to play GW2…. i dont want to be unmotivated ive only owned the game for 45 day

;-;

Please don’t be put off by this dark time in GW2 history. This whole ordeal with pass eventually, and the forums with once again go back to complaining about Longbow Rangers and their new double-rapidfire.

ProtoGunner.4953:

And again the outrage in the forums only is like they announced they will shut down the game and we all have to pay 100 $/€ for nothing. The real life and even in game feeling is this: “Okay, the price is a bit steep and/or they could have added at least one character slot to the cheapest expansion option but nonetheless I will buy it.”

For kitten’s sake: just calm down, and chill. It’s not the end of the world and it’s especially not needed to open a kittenload of threads and complaining and whining. Especially from people who played this game and never ever bought anything with real money.

Right? While I can understand the viewpoint of both arguments, it feels like the GW2 playerbase has been spoiled rotted with free content, and now can’t accept something valuable they actually have to pay for.

Albet we still don’t know many of the features coming with the product, so that is something that should be fixed.

I may be wrong, but If A-net’s marketing/business plan cannot allow them to decrease their price of $50 or add a compensation for vets, then I think the best course of action would be to simply and honestly release some response:

Saying that they can’t.

Explaining their intentions / clarifying misconceptions.

And overall just addressesing the community.

As much as I can understand trying to not be hasty to otherwise just fan the flames, I think that being silent and letting the flames burn is equally as bad a decision. :\

I’m not sure about the passive working in shroud, but I would live for the ICD to be removed.

MESMERS. Good mesmers are impossible.

Zorby.8236:

The upside to HS is the on-demand cleanse/waterfield, if that goes it’s going to hurt HS severely. We’ll have to see what they have in mind. The Idea of changing TU into a signet and HS to survival is interesting, but I feel that could possibly harm CondiSurvival builds.

Razor.9872:

TheFantasticGman.9451:

Razor.9872:

In other words, the secret is being optomistic — but not having high expectations.

That’s a fine line you walk, sir. I can respect that.

Thank you. I find it rewarding on an emotional level.

Walking along a Razor’s edge? Oh god tell me your forum name isn’t chosen just for this…

Ha! It does fit, doesn’t it xD