Guild Wars 2

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Vayne.8563:

DDO? hahhaha conversation over.

Turbine was a greedy horrible company long before Warner Bros took them over. One of my friends is a DDO player and does nothing but complain about what thieves they are. He used to be in my GW 1 guild and got involved in DDO, which he enjoys. But saying that Turbine’s pricing policies are somehow better than Anet’s? lmao

Okay.

I have yet to pay a single dime for DDO. I’ve bought all expansions by simply playing the game and earning DDO points, and one expansion was gifted to me. So they seem pretty fair to me.

But even if you think Turbine is also greedy, so what? Does that make it right?

Galen Grey.4709:

I am not sure what the holes are supposed to be to be honest. What holes did the living story patch?

I was referring to the fact that we buy a product that will have to be patched shortly after release. This has been the case for the core game, and also for Nightfall and Eye of the North. In the case of GW2, a large chunk of the dynamic quests, and nearly all of the traits and skills were bugged. This will be the case for HOT as well. We don’t pay for a perfectly polished product. We pay for a rough product, and are even given the option to pay for testing it for them.

Galen Grey.4709:

I assume the picture at the back refers to the fight with mordremoth right? I looked hard and wide but didnt manage to find one single statement by an devs saying we will not get to fight modremoth in the expansion. Considering they gave us 0 news on the story I’d find it hard to believe they already spoke on that respect. Do you happen to have a link where they stated no fight in HoT?

Like I said, don’t have a link. Just remember it being mentioned in an interview. People just blindly assume that he has to be in the expansion, and for many this is a reason to buy the expansion. I think it is about time Anet spoke up about it.

Galen Grey.4709:

Which updates in the past 3 years were not free (accessories was an analogy for updates)

I was mostly referring to all the gem store content.

Galen Grey.4709:

Would it though? If every T-Shirt in the world sold for $100, would someone releasing kitten t-shirt be considered overpriced? What people are willing to pay for something is a massive driver for pricing. Just look at housing. 30 years ago houses around here sold for about $100,000ish now a days they sell for about $300,000 though no one would even dream selling the house they bought for $100,000 for anything less then $300,000 because ultimately the price isn’t what an item costs but what people are willing to pay, it may be unfair but its how the business world works.

A lot of games are trying the free-to-play model nowadays. GW1 started the trend, but it is now no longer a unique feature. And companies are trying to find other ways to earn money from their customers. This started in GW1 with the in-game store (which made a lot of people unhappy), and then continued into GW2 to a much larger degree. Now the whole gem store concept, along with constant DLC, has become mainstream. We are seeing pay walls in a lot of games, and more and more companies are trying to exploit their customers.

It started out really innocent, but has slowly but surely been growing into an ugly beast. And it is going to keep doing that, unless we as customers send a clear message. This pre-purchasing concept is a bad deal for consumers. And the only way we’re going to stop it, is by saying no.

There are plenty of people who would pay $60, $70 or even $100 bucks for half an expansion, packed with Living Story left overs, because they think the expansion is worth it. That does not put them in the right. What little we know of HOT does not validate the current price tag. It just doesn’t. And by paying it anyway, consumers are contributing to the problem of overinflated expansion pricing.

What you mean to say is you grinded to get the stuff for free. and there’s no way you can tell me you didn’t grind. I’ve played that game. I’ve played the same stuff over and over again, to get to the next thing I can do. And if you don’t want to grind…you pay. For content. For dungeons. For character classes?

Want to start a monk when you play DDO? When I played it you had to pay to unlock the monk. Or I suppose you could play a class you don’t like for countless hours until you have enough turbine points to unlock the monk. It’s like the cash shop in Guild Wars 2. If you want skins from the TP and you don’t want to buy them with cash you can farm your kitten off. But you don’t need those skins to play.

Having professions and content cut off by this is a whole different story.

phys.7689:

Vayne.8563:

CambrianExplosion.6394:

Vayne.8563:

Because sub games always come out with huge amounts of content and sub games never dumb the game down. lol

Research is your friend. For years WoW players complain about not enough content between paid expansions, they leave in the millions between expansions, and they’ve been complaining about the game being dumbed down.

Blaming this stuff on the buy to play model probably requires a bit more evidence than just saying that’s the reason.

Compared to the older expansions, the recent WoW expansions have been getting less content in between. But compared to GW2, they’ve been getting way more than us. Hell, they recently just got a new raid with new gear like a week ago. The game has definitely had its fair share of ‘dumbing down’ though. Can’t speak for FFXIV.

The expansions are big, sure. The time with no updates at all between expansions however has grown. Which means that those who are subscribed aren’t paying $50 for an expansion. They’re paying $90 plus the price of an expansion in monthly fees. I have people in my guild who play WoW. The last time lasted about six weeks. the expansion came out, they played for six weeks and left again.

Again,. if you’re paying a monthly sub, you’re paying for an expansion all the time. Or you unsub and don’t have access to your game at all.

Subs are a terrible idea for most games. WoW gets away with it because of their longevity and their advertising power. FF gets away with it because Final Fantasy is a very very strong IP. The Final Fantasy series has been popular for a long long time. It’s a stronger brand that Guild Wars ever was.

But ESO had to go free to play and SWToR had to go free to play (and that’s both Star Wars and Bioware), so I’m not sure why you think any game but the very rare exception could possibly go sub.

Ff does it because they offer a very strong product and service. They spent the props of the ip long ago. Ffxiv had a horrible name and expectation attached to it after the first version fell. Everyone predicted it would be a large failure and waste of development.

Here is the real deal. People are willing to pay you if they feel your product is worth the price.

The real reason people dont like this expansion price is because due to past service and what it seems like the expansion is offering, they dont know if its worth it.

The real deal is even with the huge IP, FFXIV is about as popular as Guild Wars 2. That’s the real deal. And for me, it’s completely unplayable. That’s also the real deal.

These are very different games, and if you’re not an FF fan and you’re not interested in what traditional MMOs offer, FFXIV is completely unplayable. I couldn’t even play it if it were free to play.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Vayne.8563:

I disagree. And if you think you can get the same value anywhere else TODAY, good luck to you,. because you can’t. Guild Wars 1 came a time when that sort of thing was possible. I don’t see any value like that around today.

DDO?

Vayne.8563:

Maybe you want to spend the rest of your days looking for that value and never play anything again.

Or alternatively, vote with your wallet, and encourage more game companies to not be so greedy.

Vayne.8563:

Because there is no expansion to Guild Wars 1. It doesn’t exist. So I can’t play it. And there’s no other MMO that makes a game that’s worth playing.

I’m assuming you meant to say GW2, since GW1 obviously has Eye of the North.

Vayne.8563:

So either you spend a few zillion dollars and build a time machine to a time when you can get that value, or you accept the fact that times have changed, or you don’t and play only games and never expansions, because by your reckoning, none of them will be worth it.

Or! Or! You don’t accept it, and show the game industry that they have to be reasonable with the pricing of their expansions. If enough people vote with their wallet, they will have to reduce the price. Yes, even mammoth companies like Blizzard.

DDO? hahhaha conversation over.

Turbine was a greedy horrible company long before Warner Bros took them over. One of my friends is a DDO player and does nothing but complain about what thieves they are. He used to be in my GW 1 guild and got involved in DDO, which he enjoys. But saying that Turbine’s pricing policies are somehow better than Anet’s? lmao

Okay.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Galen Grey.4709:

what I am trying to say, most likely really badly is personally I don’t think you can measure a price by content simply because there is no direct relation there. Price here is more of a raw supply and demand affair.

I disagree. Just because some people are willing to pay more for a product, does not mean that you can’t compare content vs price.

Yes, there will always be fans that will throw down as many dollars as required, regardless of how high the price is. That does not mean that that price is justified.

You seem to be implying that the value of a product is completely abstract, and differs from person to person. And while each person will no doubt attach a different value to any given product, that doesn’t mean that the product cannot be given an inherent value based on its content alone. I don’t think it is entirely subjective, as you seem to suggest it is. With digital products this is perhaps more difficult than with physical products, but it doesn’t make it impossible. In fact, the GW2 core game gives a direct comparison.

If we agree that GW2 was originally reasonably priced at $60, then I think we can also agree that any expansion that has the same price tag, should deliver at least as much content for that value.

I disagree. And if you think you can get the same value anywhere else TODAY, good luck to you,. because you can’t. Guild Wars 1 came a time when that sort of thing was possible. I don’t see any value like that around today.

Maybe you want to spend the rest of your days looking for that value and never play anything again. The value I get from Guild Wars 2 is not all that different from the value I got from Guild Wars 1. That is, it’s the game I like the most, without the monthly fee.

Because there is no expansion to Guild Wars 1. It doesn’t exist. So I can’t play it. And there’s no other MMO that makes a game that’s worth playing.

So either you spend a few zillion dollars and build a time machine to a time when you can get that value, or you accept the fact that times have changed, or you don’t and play only games and never expansions, because by your reckoning, none of them will be worth it.

OMG… Teq represents a challenge now. Call out the national guard.

I’ve played many MMOs and they all have issues like this. Every single one I’ve played. I understand issues are inconvenient. I also think that no amount of testing is going to fix the issues, but delaying content to be tested to that level will certainly delay content.

Frankly I think people expect way too much from programs this complicated.

SkyShroud.2865:

gw2 is still in beta, it has been 3 yrs, i know, but gw2 is still testing and reworking everything.

By that definition WoW is still in beta.

zityz.6089:

Randulf.7614:

Be very careful about comparing NF maps to any GW2 maps, especially new ones. GW1 were generally light on content and had repeat value only for hard mode which was added later. Because of their small size of maps and lack of any real substance, they required substantially and I mean substantially less work work to make and develop than a GW2 map.

Take Dry Top. Dry Top alone has generated more time and content than any single GW1 map across any campaign;
- Coins to collect
- farming
- exclusive crafting reward
- an interesting and unique map mechanic
- a variety of different bosses with different mechanics
- jumping puzzles

By comparison what did Bahdok Caverns or Jahai Plains have? A couple of bosses, most of which had no discernable difficulty, some mobs, some pretty scenery confined by pathing, some non-repeatable quests. And that’s it.

You cannot compare GW2 and GW1 in terms of maps simply because the content ratio is utterly different and more time and effort goes into 1 single map in GW2. That’s why they churned NF out so quickly after Factions.

Sorry I just want to point out the reason NF came so fast after Factions was because they had 2 teams working on the games. The prophecies team started work on Nightfall and the 2nd team that worked on Factions started working on Eotn.

What gets me is if in 3 years this is all they have done with WAAAY more people on their payroll and it may or may not have the final dragon content at the end, when are we going to get to fight all 6 dragons and move onto other parts of Tyria? 12 years from now? I REALLY hope they can start pumping out more add-ons to the current world in a faster time period, they have the man power and a decent quality team.
I would rather take more add ons than small living world content that takes about 1 hour to complete, and I’m not a fan of endless grinding kind of person so those dry top armour pieces don’t excite me.

On another note, that NF:CE is awesome I have the same one. When I pre-ordered Factions I got a free t-shirt with it.

Everything was slowed down because of the combination of the China launch and the change of direcition. I don’t believe we’ll have to wait 3 years for another expansion.

In my mind you get XP for everything anyway, so when HoT comes out, I’m pretty sure I’m not going to go around completing old zones. I’ll be playing the new content and getting experience with everything I do.

The amount of experience in the game is infinite. You keep getting it. Saving a vista or a point of interest or a way point seems counter productive to me.

The reason people usually world complete is to attempt to get black lion keys or to get the gift of exploration required to make legendaries.

Test.8734:

Ayrilana.1396:

Um… wow. Based on your mangling of my argument to twist it as your own, you had no idea what I was talking about.

Ah, that explains why you were trying to mangle my argument about GW2’s poor performance. You would have saved yourself a lot of work if you had just admitted you had no idea what I was talking about.

Ayrilana.1396:

What I was arguing about was your lack of understanding about the financials such as assuming royalties were part of that sales chart for the GW2 trend (which you also mislabeled as being profit) when there was no indication that it was so and could have been part of the Other trend line.

Ah, so now you are claiming that, in your making-believe scenario, the royalties are part of the “Other” earnings? So you still haven’t bothered to go take a look yourself, and yet you are trying to talk about something you admit you haven’t seen? Right.

Really, you are trying to dance around the issue. GW2’s earnings have fallen, almost continually since release. The China release was very weak. Between both of those, it’s little surprise they are not overpricing HoT, in order to make up for the loss in earnings since release. It may be a good solution for them, but not for us.

Sorry but you’re just guessing. As far as game’s earnings falling since release, it happens to a huge percentage of games, probably well over 90% of them. That’s normal for all games, including most MMOs.

You can bet the business plan expects profits to fall over time, in any entertainment venture. That’s normal. Business plans show expected profits that taper off. And yes, I know this for a fact, it’s not just some theory. When you produce a book, you expect to make most of your money in the first 30 days, and most of the rest of your money in the next 90 days. The book will still sell, but in virtually all cases, the next ten years don’t equal the first 90 days. Games are the same way. That’s why they usually drop so far in price after launch.

Guild Wars 2 has always met expectations, according to the information we’ve gotten from NcSoft directly. So your theory about NcSoft overcharging based on your personal opinion that it’s not worth it, is just that. Your theory.

If this game wasn’t living up to expectations we’d have seen some layoffs. Anet is still hiring.

CambrianExplosion.6394:

Vayne.8563:

CambrianExplosion.6394:

Vayne.8563:

Because sub games always come out with huge amounts of content and sub games never dumb the game down. lol

Research is your friend. For years WoW players complain about not enough content between paid expansions, they leave in the millions between expansions, and they’ve been complaining about the game being dumbed down.

Blaming this stuff on the buy to play model probably requires a bit more evidence than just saying that’s the reason.

Compared to the older expansions, the recent WoW expansions have been getting less content in between. But compared to GW2, they’ve been getting way more than us. Hell, they recently just got a new raid with new gear like a week ago. The game has definitely had its fair share of ‘dumbing down’ though. Can’t speak for FFXIV.

The expansions are big, sure. The time with no updates at all between expansions however has grown. Which means that those who are subscribed aren’t paying $50 for an expansion. They’re paying $90 plus the price of an expansion in monthly fees. I have people in my guild who play WoW. The last time lasted about six weeks. the expansion came out, they played for six weeks and left again.

Again,. if you’re paying a monthly sub, you’re paying for an expansion all the time. Or you unsub and don’t have access to your game at all.

Subs are a terrible idea for most games. WoW gets away with it because of their longevity and their advertising power. FF gets away with it because Final Fantasy is a very very strong IP. The Final Fantasy series has been popular for a long long time. It’s a stronger brand that Guild Wars ever was.

But ESO had to go free to play and SWToR had to go free to play (and that’s both Star Wars and Bioware), so I’m not sure why you think any game but the very rare exception could possibly go sub.

Well no, I mean they get large content updates in between expansions too. In the time since WoD was released, they got two raids and a new zone 3 times the size of SW. While we’ve just gotten SW.

WoW and FF both get away with it because people feel the game is worth paying a monthly subscription for. The people who play those games aren’t morons who pay the monthly sub for some reason other than that. Perhaps most people don’t feel ESO and SWToR are worth the subscription, which is why most people don’t pay the subcription, simple as that. Also, I never said any game can get away with a sub. Games that leave people justified in paying a sub, can get away with having a sub.

We didn’t just get SW though. You ignore all the story quests we got, which you may not like but you can’t say they’re not content. And everyone I know that plays WOW, as an expansion approaches, simply tells me how bored they are, and that there’s no new content.

But you’re still paying for it all the time. Every month you play the game, you’re paying. So if you don’t like raids, and I don’t, Guild Wars 2 is offering me more content than WoW would.

Stark.1350:

lordkrall.7241:

We have had 8 blog posts about HoT the last two weeks. I would say that is rather far from not having anything for a while.

8 blog posts about one specific part of the expansion.

Sure but it’s not only a major part of the game, but it’s also how its’ done. Usually we only get information about 1 aspect of the game per week anyway. This one was just done in more detail.

And if you’ve ever seen the expansion reveal from Pax South, you’d have seen the audience reaction when guild halls were mentioned. In fact, it got the biggest reaction from the audience of any feature in the expansion.

CambrianExplosion.6394:

Vayne.8563:

Because sub games always come out with huge amounts of content and sub games never dumb the game down. lol

Research is your friend. For years WoW players complain about not enough content between paid expansions, they leave in the millions between expansions, and they’ve been complaining about the game being dumbed down.

Blaming this stuff on the buy to play model probably requires a bit more evidence than just saying that’s the reason.

Compared to the older expansions, the recent WoW expansions have been getting less content in between. But compared to GW2, they’ve been getting way more than us. Hell, they recently just got a new raid with new gear like a week ago. The game has definitely had its fair share of ‘dumbing down’ though. Can’t speak for FFXIV.

The expansions are big, sure. The time with no updates at all between expansions however has grown. Which means that those who are subscribed aren’t paying $50 for an expansion. They’re paying $90 plus the price of an expansion in monthly fees. I have people in my guild who play WoW. The last time lasted about six weeks. the expansion came out, they played for six weeks and left again.

Again,. if you’re paying a monthly sub, you’re paying for an expansion all the time. Or you unsub and don’t have access to your game at all.

Subs are a terrible idea for most games. WoW gets away with it because of their longevity and their advertising power. FF gets away with it because Final Fantasy is a very very strong IP. The Final Fantasy series has been popular for a long long time. It’s a stronger brand that Guild Wars ever was.

But ESO had to go free to play and SWToR had to go free to play (and that’s both Star Wars and Bioware), so I’m not sure why you think any game but the very rare exception could possibly go sub.

Mr Snotty Pants.3980:

Forgotten Legend.9281:

let’s compare build diversity in the old system to build diversity in the new system by comparing two builds…. Minon Master Necro, and longbow ranger.
…

there are many more variants for builds now, compared to the old system.

At best, you showed there are more variants for META builds now. But since folks are complaining about losing their non-meta builds…

Yep you nailed it. People are complaining about losing their builds. I played Guild Wars 1 for years and during those years, there were many times balance patches killed builds. Nothing to do with more variety or less variety. People are saying I have this build and I want to keep it.

And when I hear that, I say to people the same thing I say on every MMO forum. Too bad. You don’t get to keep your builds when the game evolves. This isn’t a complaint that’s unique to Guild Wars 2 or the Guild Wars series, or even a complaint that has to do with a complete conversation of how traits/specializations are handled.

This is the same complaint we see over and over again, that people don’t want change. And if you don’t want change, the one genre you should absolutely avoid entirely is MMOs.

It happened very very late in Guild Wars 1’s evolution too. It wasn’t something that was done for a very long time. It certainly wasn’t like that during the time when Guild Wars 1 games were still being released.

Because sub games always come out with huge amounts of content and sub games never dumb the game down. lol

Research is your friend. For years WoW players complain about not enough content between paid expansions, they leave in the millions between expansions, and they’ve been complaining about the game being dumbed down.

Blaming this stuff on the buy to play model probably requires a bit more evidence than just saying that’s the reason.

I preordered too and I’m happy with my purchase.

phys.7689:

Ayrilana.1396:

usernameisapain.7163:

50 dollars is only for expansion without character slot, a pre-purchase “bonus” doesn’t count as it is not included in the package per se, therefore it makes sense to say that it is 60 bucks.
Regardless there has been many shady issues, among others the different value of the 60/100 dollar versions on the international market, which by the way, cannot be explained by the taxation.
Furthermore it is being sold as a digital product at this moment, which means it cost Anet nothing to distribute or produce.

And there is plenty of reason to call this out as being overpriced. People keep returning to the “if you get x hours of fun out of it, it is worth it” or “I can afford it”
Well that’s great, however the price is still overpriced, and if everyone jumps into that boat it will legitimize the company to sell the next base expansion for 5-10 dollars more.
And it was never a question of being able to have x amount of hours of fun. The fact is it is easily 5-10 dollars too much. It is a principle of making it clear “this is too pricey, we know it, we think it is too bad” I don’t think anyone is expecting the price to change, or Anet gluing the char slot to the expansion instead of the pre-purchase.

The issue is, that if people don’t make a case out of these kinds of practices, it will only get worse going forward. We can all afford it, but we can also see that the price is off.
The same way that I can see that the price is off if my eggs or milk has risen exponentially even though the farmer hasn’t changed his prices. or a white t-shirt at a clothing store that normally cost between 10-15 across a wide variety of stores, and all of a sudden cost 25 at one, the quality isn’t necessarily better than those 10 other stores.

Let’s say that Anet had instead of having Revenant be part of the expansion that they had instead released it with last week’s large update. We also go under the assumption that it was always going to be a part of that update. Would you have any issues then even if you didn’t have any character slots? What if they instead were not doing an expansion but continuing on with the living story and provided the class as part of that?

If someone gives you something and you have to spend extra money to use it, its one thing.

If someone sells you something many people expect it to work without additional purchases.

I guess that depends on how many people already have an extra character slot, or haven’t even used all the ones they have. There are a bunch of people who probably only have a couple of characters. Not everyone fills everyslot.

That said, I’ve always been of the opinion that the game should have come with a free slot for everyone who buys it.

Be glad you weren’t here at launch and had to wait 5 years. Just saying. Maybe you’re not used to the way the company works, it’s entirely possible, but this is what happened last time. They announce it and then they release information in drips and drabs.

I don’t think the hype is supposed to be maintained at a consistent level.

Devata.6589:

Galen Grey.4709:

Devata.6589:

Vayne.8563:

The problem with “objectivity” and logic is that it only works if you have all the information. Even if you knew every single thing that was in the box, it doesn’t tell you what else you’ll get for owning that box after the fact.

Vayne, we talked about this so many times. Yes without having all the numbers you do not know for sure what is going on or make predictions with 100% certainty.

However, as I told you in the discussions we have had, you can still work with the information you have, you can make use of common sense and get an idea about something with that information. Name it an educated guess.

Nearly all prediction, decisions and gathering of information is done in this way. If you look at the weather they do not have all the information, they even have a real small piece of all the information (that is why they are not extremely accurate) but do still predict the weather based on that.

It is how the world works. It might be useful in a discussion to come with this statement in a way to try and dismiss what a person is saying, but it’s not a really good argument.

This just doesnt work let me illustrate why.

So right now we dont know how much content HoT is going to have but we do know what Anet did so far.

So Person A might look at the LS and say ohh they were tiny 2 hr updates at most. Anet has a history of releasing small updates so based on what I know I have no doubt HoT will be tiny. $60 for a tiny update not worthed.

Person B looks at the LS and goes. wow an update every 2 weeks while working on an example. Thats a ton more then competing MMOs do. They generally release 3-5 updates while we wait, Anet released 40-50… This Expansion is going to be X10 larger then competing expansions.

Who’s right? probably neither but both are valid interpretations of the data thats available.

Vayne is right without the facts all we’re doing is guessing. There just isnt enough information not even for an educated guess.

Sure, but you can still look at what the market does.

Investing in the market without current, valid and complete information is likely to lead to disaster.

I’m not sure what you’re arguing here? Are you suggesting we do have enough info for a valid comparison?

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Vayne.8563:

But to say there’s not enough content, when we don’t know about the content is pointless. As I said earlier, you can’t compare Nightfall or EotN or anything to HoT because we have all the detail of those, but we don’t have all the detail about HoT. The best you can do is just guess.

It’s too early to tell.

It’s the price of a full game, for something that is not a full stand alone game. I’d say there is a solid basis for criticism there.

I don’t know, I find it in line with most MMO expansions, which are also not the size of a full game. So I’m not sure what the basis of comparison is. Basically if you compare the amount of content in an MMO at release, and the amount of content in an expansion, you’re virtually always going to have less content. So you can say no MMO expansion is worth it ever, or you can ask why it is that way.

Because it is that way.

Belorn.2659:

I see a few people that state that we don’t have all the facts yet so any conclusion about content is wrong.

I thus propose a deal. For every single person that did a uninformed purchase of the pre-order, an other person will be allowed here to make a uninformed decision to not purchase the game at all . Both will then have done the same amount of rational thinking regarding this.

Everyone else can then wait and see what the final game will be before doing a informed decision if the asking price is fair for the amount of content that HoT has.

Not really a deal. I’m not posting on the forums saying this game is worth or it isn’t. Only that it’s worth it to me. I didn’t make a thread to compare it to a game we know everything about. Someone else did that.

You see there’s a difference between making a decision about myself, which could be based on intuition or emotion, or posting a thread that makes claims to compare two things, without knowing enough about one of them.

Now, if I made a thread saying this game was definitely worth it, I’d be wrong. The OP is wrong for comparing a game we know everything about, with a game we know quite a bit less about.

phys.7689:

Vayne.8563:

…

Making decisions based on all the currently available info leads to accurate conclusions, based on your info. Should new info come to light you re evaluate your conclusions, thats sound reasoning.

Your basically gambling on anet. Which is fine but its a gamble none the less. The only thing i think people should go by is what anet presented. Anet has told people in the past to measure them by the things they commit to, not the things one might assume, because their process and goals change as they go.

I dont think you can really discuss the possible value of the expansion based on what they may one day release.

Of course this discussion is underway with the caveat of what we currently are aware of. Thats a given. Should they announce 10 new zones and 20 new challenging battles with a 15 hour story arc, we will change our analysis. Should they commit to 30 hours of story and 2 new elite specializations within 4 months after hot release, that would also be considered.

But just believing it with no reasons? We cant really expect to judge the value of the expansion based on random gambles of what we hope may be tbe case. Thats hardly sound advice.

I disagree with your entire premise. Without adequate info, you really shouldn’t draw conclusions. It happens all the time. People think they know everything about a situation and they make decisions based on it. Then they learn something they didn’t know before and suddenly it all falls apart. That’s what intuition is all about.

Intuition takes things into account the conscious mind really can’t. But in this case, you don’t enough enough information to formulate any conclusion. That information is not present. There’s a huge difference between saying wait and see and saying there’s not enough content.

Too many people are drawing conclusions without adequate knowledge to support the conclusion. My conclusions are based on experience with the game, and also knowledge of myself. I know I’ll enjoy it, and $50 is a very small price for me to pay for my entertainment time.

But to say there’s not enough content, when we don’t know about the content is pointless. As I said earlier, you can’t compare Nightfall or EotN or anything to HoT because we have all the detail of those, but we don’t have all the detail about HoT. The best you can do is just guess.

It’s too early to tell.

phys.7689:

Vayne.8563:

phys.7689:

Vayne.8563:

@phys.7689

Well you see that’s the thing. Having experienced many, many MMOs I’ve yet to find one with all the features that I like. Not one.

So I don’t really want to do a bunch of static quests, like in FF or ESO. Those things don’t really interest me. Even though the quests in ESO are voiced, they feel so much the same old. It doesn’t feel organic to me, and that’s really the issue. This game does feel organic and most others don’t.

I don’t want to have to compete with someone for kills or nodes. That’s a big thing for me. I want to be happy when I see other players. Nor do I want to play a game that claims to be free to play, but you really have to sub. I don’t mind paying a sub. I don’t like people saying their game is free, when it’s only free in name. I’ve played too many of them.

I prefer active combat, to passive combat. I don’t really love cartoony graphics like WoW or Wildstar. And I don’t love games that focus on instances. And I don’t like the holy trinity.

You start going through that list and suggest to me one other game that has what I like and I’d be happy to try it. The fact is you can count on one hand games that don’t really focus on instance that don’t have a trinity.

That’s all down to what Anet has created. HoT is an extension of that creation. When you add in stuff like Guild Halls (and the guild halls in most games aren’t going to be entire guild zones) and you add in not raising the level cap or adding a new tier of gear (that’s certainly unusual for any MMO expansion), then you have something that’s very different. Maybe you’re looking in different places than I am.

In fact, I’m not sure how many MMOs there are that won’t add a new tier of gear and won’t add more levels. That’s a major selling point for me.

Those are differences that matter, but they arent getting expanded on in Hot.

Hot so far has shown nothing that seems to enhance most of the things or ideas you mentioned there. So while yes gw2 is unique, hot is not. Which is fine, but if an expansion is primarily about playing a similar game in slightly new areas/situations then it needs enough new areas and situations to make it worth upgrading. One still has gw2 core, that offers many of those things

Wow, I can’t believe I have to say this. I thought it was obvious.

I like the game and hot expands the game. New territory. New story. New adventures. Gliding. Guild Halls.

What am I going to do? Take the only MMO that’s reasonable fun for me and not play the new stuff because I don’t want to spend $50 on it, because someone doesn’t think there’s enough content? That’s ludicrous.

HoT has done the only thing it needs to do. It expands the game I love WITHOUT raising the level cap and WITHOUT adding a new tier of gear.

But there’s one more thing. HoT also offers me horizontal progression through masteries, which to me alone is worth the price of admission.

Those who don’t buy hot can’t grow their characters at all, and can’t explore the new territory. They won’t be able to take advantage of the new AI.

Seems like a no brainer to me.

Valid points but essentially you are saying even a small offering is worthwhile because you love the base game so much.

Other people are trying to compare it more objectively and relatively. So yeah you were going to buy it regardless, barring an insane price or some earth shattering change. But that doesnt make you the best person to accurately discuss its value.

Actually that’s what I’m doing too. You’re just not seeing it.

This game is unique. There’s no MMO like it. If you want to continue your experience in this game, if you want to add progression to your character, it really is a no brainer. Because I’m absolutely convinced that no matter what comes in the box, there’s plenty of free content that will come after.

The problem with “objectivity” and logic is that it only works if you have all the information. Even if you knew every single thing that was in the box, it doesn’t tell you what else you’ll get for owning that box after the fact.

Let’s say you like Fractals. That didn’t exist when Guild Wars 2 launched. It was added later.

Trying to apply logic without all the information only leads to bad conclusions. If people really think an MMO expansion would eventually be worth $50, by all means they shouldn’t buy it. But an MMO isn’t a racing game. You’re not just buying it for what’s in the box. And in my opinion, if you are, you really haven’t been paying attention.

phys.7689:

Vayne.8563:

@phys.7689

Well you see that’s the thing. Having experienced many, many MMOs I’ve yet to find one with all the features that I like. Not one.

So I don’t really want to do a bunch of static quests, like in FF or ESO. Those things don’t really interest me. Even though the quests in ESO are voiced, they feel so much the same old. It doesn’t feel organic to me, and that’s really the issue. This game does feel organic and most others don’t.

I don’t want to have to compete with someone for kills or nodes. That’s a big thing for me. I want to be happy when I see other players. Nor do I want to play a game that claims to be free to play, but you really have to sub. I don’t mind paying a sub. I don’t like people saying their game is free, when it’s only free in name. I’ve played too many of them.

I prefer active combat, to passive combat. I don’t really love cartoony graphics like WoW or Wildstar. And I don’t love games that focus on instances. And I don’t like the holy trinity.

You start going through that list and suggest to me one other game that has what I like and I’d be happy to try it. The fact is you can count on one hand games that don’t really focus on instance that don’t have a trinity.

That’s all down to what Anet has created. HoT is an extension of that creation. When you add in stuff like Guild Halls (and the guild halls in most games aren’t going to be entire guild zones) and you add in not raising the level cap or adding a new tier of gear (that’s certainly unusual for any MMO expansion), then you have something that’s very different. Maybe you’re looking in different places than I am.

In fact, I’m not sure how many MMOs there are that won’t add a new tier of gear and won’t add more levels. That’s a major selling point for me.

Those are differences that matter, but they arent getting expanded on in Hot.

Hot so far has shown nothing that seems to enhance most of the things or ideas you mentioned there. So while yes gw2 is unique, hot is not. Which is fine, but if an expansion is primarily about playing a similar game in slightly new areas/situations then it needs enough new areas and situations to make it worth upgrading. One still has gw2 core, that offers many of those things

Wow, I can’t believe I have to say this. I thought it was obvious.

I like the game and hot expands the game. New territory. New story. New adventures. Gliding. Guild Halls.

What am I going to do? Take the only MMO that’s reasonable fun for me and not play the new stuff because I don’t want to spend $50 on it, because someone doesn’t think there’s enough content? That’s ludicrous.

HoT has done the only thing it needs to do. It expands the game I love WITHOUT raising the level cap and WITHOUT adding a new tier of gear.

But there’s one more thing. HoT also offers me horizontal progression through masteries, which to me alone is worth the price of admission.

Those who don’t buy hot can’t grow their characters at all, and can’t explore the new territory. They won’t be able to take advantage of the new AI.

Seems like a no brainer to me.

Lyp Sao.1375:

Vayne.8563:

All Anet did is put an item up for sale. They didn’t say you must buy this at this second. More info is coming. So wait and decide when it comes.

yes, they did only that with much advertising and a price. naturally we ask what we get. with no answer.

of course i am waiting before i buy something unknown. i am not supid.

there a two opinions and a little battle. i think that is what the OP says. and that is ok.

GW is as fighting game

Well, the thing is, Anet has always released info in this way. They time and stagger announcements and if you don’t know it by now, you should…everyone who’s been around should. They’re not going to talk about something before they’re ready to announce it. There are a lot of reasons for this, some of them more valid than others, but it’s still done for a reason.

So saying they haven’t answered, when no one should have expected an answer is sort of odd to me.

phys.7689:

Vayne.8563:

IndigoSundown.5419:

The more options there are, the more it’s possible for someone to come up with something that most others have not discovered, but which works really well. The less options there are , the more likely it is that any build you come up with is used by a large number of others. Since this lack of surprise is what Anet has been aiming for all along, it should not be a surprise that the current system accomplishes this aim. Frankly, the old system did not have a lot of surprises in it, though the new system does have fewer.

But the new system isn’t really complete yet and the old system was. I wonder how that will change when elite specializations come into play.

The old system wasnt complete. Near release jon peters said he planned to add a ton of traits per class. One of the reasons they had made a change to their pre beta trait systems, was so they could add traits more easily.

That never came to pass. Most likely because they saw problems with the system. And began thinking of new systems. Or they decided less options is better.

The old system was complete as in self contained. It’s pretty obvious to me, there’s a major piece of this puzzle missing that will come when elite specializations are released.

I believe that the original trait system was supposed to last us, whether they added new stuff or didn’t. It was still a completely system.

I seems that a lot of traits weren’t getting used at all, and there doesn’t seem to me any real reason to add new traits when old traits are being unused. So Anet decided to change the system to provide more useful traits. But at the same time, it’s also designed to allow for modular expansion as more specializations come out.

Lyp Sao.1375:

Vayne.8563:

… it only adds fuel to the fire.

I think its not against you, but anet who dont answer to our complaints. We are supposed to buy, but dont know exactly what. the game has tons of bugs and we complain. the so called white knights defend every of anets steps. this might be the reason. i dont know but this makes the forum a forum. in every game.

All Anet did is put an item up for sale. They didn’t say you must buy this at this second. More info is coming. So wait and decide when it comes.

People try to equate putting a game up for sale with telling people they must buy it now. That’s not really the case.

Now if Anet doesn’t do the deep delves on difficult content and release information on how much content before the deadline for prepurchase, than I’d say that there’d be more of a reason to say something.

Right now, it’s obvious there’s enough info for some of us and not others.

@phys.7689

Well you see that’s the thing. Having experienced many, many MMOs I’ve yet to find one with all the features that I like. Not one.

So I don’t really want to do a bunch of static quests, like in FF or ESO. Those things don’t really interest me. Even though the quests in ESO are voiced, they feel so much the same old. It doesn’t feel organic to me, and that’s really the issue. This game does feel organic and most others don’t.

I don’t want to have to compete with someone for kills or nodes. That’s a big thing for me. I want to be happy when I see other players. Nor do I want to play a game that claims to be free to play, but you really have to sub. I don’t mind paying a sub. I don’t like people saying their game is free, when it’s only free in name. I’ve played too many of them.

I prefer active combat, to passive combat. I don’t really love cartoony graphics like WoW or Wildstar. And I don’t love games that focus on instances. And I don’t like the holy trinity.

You start going through that list and suggest to me one other game that has what I like and I’d be happy to try it. The fact is you can count on one hand games that don’t really focus on instance that don’t have a trinity.

That’s all down to what Anet has created. HoT is an extension of that creation. When you add in stuff like Guild Halls (and the guild halls in most games aren’t going to be entire guild zones) and you add in not raising the level cap or adding a new tier of gear (that’s certainly unusual for any MMO expansion), then you have something that’s very different. Maybe you’re looking in different places than I am.

In fact, I’m not sure how many MMOs there are that won’t add a new tier of gear and won’t add more levels. That’s a major selling point for me.

IndigoSundown.5419:

The more options there are, the more it’s possible for someone to come up with something that most others have not discovered, but which works really well. The less options there are , the more likely it is that any build you come up with is used by a large number of others. Since this lack of surprise is what Anet has been aiming for all along, it should not be a surprise that the current system accomplishes this aim. Frankly, the old system did not have a lot of surprises in it, though the new system does have fewer.

But the new system isn’t really complete yet and the old system was. I wonder how that will change when elite specializations come into play.

Lyp Sao.1375:

Vayne.8563:

Lyp Sao.1375:

ODB.6891:

… to spend more time on the forums battling white knights …

yeah, the knights are obvious

Of course being obvious doesn’t mean you’re wrong, nor does saying something negative automatically make you right. Just saying.

oh yes, just saying.
do you think i am saying something negative? just watching the forum…

If you watch the forum enough, you’ll find that many people try to use the term ‘white knights’ to imply blind devotion. It doesn’t necessarily apply. By bringing up white knights in a forum where it’s become a means to discredit, it only adds fuel to the fire.

When someone posts an opinion that the forum is more fun right now, it’s really not helpful to the game in any way. If you go to any game, near the launch of an expansion, you’re going to find bored people. Next time you have a chance and the WoW expansion is going to come out, go to their forums a couple of months earlier. Or any forum, where the content is unchanged for a while.

You’ll find the same sorts of posts here. Sure, we’re not getting massive amounts of new content and when that happens, you’ll have done everything.

Many people who play WoW take a break for months at a time until the new expansion comes out, when they buy it and again pay a sub until they’ve finished all the content. It’s just business as usual in the MMO world.

Bubi.7942:

I bought LoL for a grand total of 0.

Don’t even get stated on enjoyment, cause as we all know, division by 0 has serious consequences:

http://i172.photobucket.com/albums/w36/Spike_Fury/1212074861826.jpg

But it’s not an MMORPG. It’s much cheaper to make without a giant open world. Without any story to speak of. I compare MMOs to MMOs, because the people who make them have the same issues to deal with as each other. The people who make other games have different issues to deal with.

If it costs me $5 to make a movie and someone else $1 million, the million dollar movie has to make more money. It’s standard business.

League of Legends is in many ways a much simpler game. It’s nice that you like it. But then, there’s not a whole lot of PvE, and some of us are PvE’ers.

XYLUM.7286:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

It would mean reworkng all the maps to apply the invisible walls, strong currents, icy winds, etc. it would mean spending time going over each and every map looking for way to break out of the maps and checking JPs from different approaches. All this would take hours of work and Dev time they currently don’t have. The reason the HoM bug hasn’t been fixed in months is because they’ve said the bug came at a time their resources were stretched to the limit (that expansion they are doing, you know). If they don’t have the time/manpower to fix that bug then they most certainly don’t have the time/manpower to rework all the vanilla maps.

So in other words if it = work for devs to do right, then the answer is just rush through and half kitten it because gw2 players don’t care if they get half finished content, or design choices that make next to no sense… is that what you are saying?

Either do things right, or don’t do them at all.

If it’s too much work to do right you mean. Everything is work. Anet could put every dev on right now, trying ot make water look better, but it wouldn’t positively affect the game. The fact is, no one really knows how much work it is or how hard it till take to allow gliders to let you go through old content.

It’s entirely possible that the amount of work would be prohibitive to making new stuff. What if Anet has people working on all sorts of new content that’s actually updated to make use of the gliders, instead of making it compatible with old content which most people have been playing for 3 years.

This isn’t a question of laziness. It’s a question of limited resources vs. the reward for putting time into code.

You’re making the assumption most players would rather have that than more new areas. Or more masteries. Or more story.

And I don’t think that’s true. And I do think it would be a tremendous amount of work and take a very long time.

phys.7689:

Vayne.8563:

phys.7689:

Ayrilana.1396:

phys.7689:

Ayrilana.1396:

Development costs are not the same. Do you really believe that development costs for Diablo 2 were the same as Diablo 3? How about Super Mario Bros to Super Mario World? Or Daggerfall to Morrowind? If you do then I’m shocked. If you don’t then how could you think that they would be the same between GW1 and GW2 core game/expansion? Higher costs tend to translate to higher prices.

Prices for games has not gone up in general since 2005. Nor has size gone down.
Ffxi cost 15 a month and had 40 dollar expansions 10 years ago. Ffxiv costs the same thing right now, and its very profitable.
Dark souls i cost 60 and dark souls 2 cost 60. Street fighter games costed 50 in the 90s and cost the same today.

Point is game prices have not inflated and game content has not deflated. So using that as an excuse is a fallacy

I wasn’t arguing about the price level of the industry. I picked those games to show that production costs would be different between sequels as they’re more involved and general larger in scale. Dark Souls vs Dark Souls was only a 3 year gap compared to like 9 with Guild Wars. High costs tend to result in high prices unless they can minimize this through other ways such as economies of scale or additional revenue from sources beyond the game’s sale.

Production costs effecting prices is not an accurate defense if, for the industry as a whole, it has not effected prices.
Dark souls was one example.
Final fantasy 11 and final fantasy 14 was another. They are 10 years apart.

Production costs are not the reason for the chosen price. The monetization policy they have profits even if they sold it at cost. This is simply the number the marketing dept came up with that they think people are willing to pay.

They just think the market is willing to bear this price. The only real question is do the consumers agree.

You state this as fact though it’s really just your opinion. Unless you’re working for NCsoft and Anet, you pretty much are just guessing.

My guess is that the amount of work required to make all the changes they’re making to the game, including designing the new tech for new skills and such, bears out the cost of making the game.

It’s absolutely possible that companies can make stuff more efficiently. It’s also just as possible that its easier to make stuff efficiently when you’re working with a tried and true formula and just repeating it.

What you are suggesting is that anet is noticeably less effecient at making their game tham everyone rlse. So much so that they cannot compete at the same price as other games. I find that highly unlikely, especially considering they are top 10 in eRnings in the genre, and based on when they claimed they started development, the game was not in development overlong.

Really if you are right it would mean anet cant compete with their competition

Nowhere did I say everywhere else, so you’re misquoting me. What I’m saying is that when you break the mold it takes longer to make stuff, because there’s no hard and fast rules and if you want to be in the forefront of stuff, you pay for that priviledge. If you prefer to play the old, annoying MMOs (which I can’t stomach at all), by all means, go play them. They may come out with content faster, but to me they’re far more annoying and less fun than I have in Guild Wars 2.

What I said was Anet is competing with their competition by being new and different rather than being fast and efficient.

I’d rather have new and different than fast and efficient in many cases.

Bubi.7942:

What about those players who never played WoW, nor any sub game, yet still think HoT in it’s current state (at least from the info we got so far) is not worth it?

Also, just stop it with the $ / hour reasoning.

I got FFXIII for 7 euros on steam, and played it for 150 h+, so it was better right?

I got FTL for 1.39 euros, my playtime is 70 hours and I play it almost daily. So much better.

Then again, I play LoL since 3 years now, and that’s F2P. Best value ever.

Edit:
Also buying a beer is 1-4 euros, and only brings 5-15 minutes of enjoyment. Never buy beer!

It’s not really relevant whether you’ve played WoW or haven’t, because this discussion is about the price and some people are comparing that price with what you get from other expansions in other MMOs. That’s true whether or not you’ve played those MMOs.

It’s factually true that of the three most popular MMOs in the west right now, two of them charge sub fees and those sub fees need to be factored into what you’re paying to play the game.

Now you can compare Guild Wars 2 to single player games, and you can compare Guild Wars 2 to sub games, but neither comparison is right.

As for the number of hours of entertainment you get out of it, your example is flawed. That’s because you waited until games were cheaper to buy them at that price, and during that time, you didn’t get to play them…and that works for some people.

But with an MMO it’s a bit difference since things do change. For example people who bought Guild Wars 2 at launch at a chance to experience some things that are currenty not in the game. They have the chance to get some loot that’s not in the game, and may never return to the game. I have plenty of things new players can’t now get.

So all things being equal, if you’d bought FFXIII at launch for full price, then by all means HoT at full price is probably a better value.

If you wait to buy HoT, it will go down in price. And you can do that. And when it doesn, then you can compare it to the older games that you bought at a steep discount.

Lyp Sao.1375:

ODB.6891:

… to spend more time on the forums battling white knights …

yeah, the knights are obvious

Of course being obvious doesn’t mean you’re wrong, nor does saying something negative automatically make you right. Just saying.

Ricky.4706:

fair enough, i can see why it’s working better for you than me….

I’m pretty much a pug player, my enjoyment is going around to different events meeting new people making new strategies, learning new stuff and simply being free spirited, lone wolf merc for hire. – this path gets repeatedly stomped by these changes. I find fun popular places, popular things to do – some before they even get popular, they pop up on the radar – get changed …die …again and again.

why don’t they work on places that aren’t popular and stop killing popular things just so people go to less popular places ? the old daily was fun because I had my favorite spots to visit, the new daily forces you to go to less visited spots. maybe they are less visited because they are less fun ? maybe ?

Maybe it’s time you spread your wings. As the game changes, how you approach it has to change. This is true for all MMOs. There was a period of time when I did fractals like mad. I did them for months. Then I did other stuff.

When an MMO changes, you go out and you find what works for you, because it’s very very easy to get into a rut, and it’s even easier to think the rut is the game.

Remember the Queensdale champ train? Do you know how many people logged on and pretty much did nothing but that all day? Sometimes for hours. But it’s not the game. And when it got nerfed, some people were mad. They complained that they game was ruined because there weren’t so many champs in starting areas.

But there was just as many people, probably more, who loved that change too.

@Ricky

I didn’t say the game has gotten more fun. I said it’s more fun than the forums. It’s about as fun as it was for me. But that’s because I’m playing in a guild with cool people and we’re having fun together.

I you’re soloing MMOs, sure they’re just repetitive. That’s true of pretty much all MMOs. You do the same things over and over.

I have the advantage of playing all aspects of the game, including minigames, and the advantage of being an altoholic. That said…

The PoV changes were a nice QoL improve, the wallet changes were a nice QoL improvement, the personal story and leveling changes were nice improvements/fixes, and the new skill system gives me stuff to play around with, to try to find different builds that I like.

My biggest problem so far is the mesmer, and I’m trying out a bunch of different builds to see what sticks.

Also, because you can now save your WvW and PvE build I have to make builds for both on characters.

I enjoyed the karka hunt achievement in Lion’s Arch too, and I’ve yet to touch the new jumping puzzle, but I love jumping puzzles.

I still do guild missions with my guild and we still have a good time. In fact, doing the karka hunt with the guild was a blast.

I’ve enjoyed exploring the new LA, too.

And I’m leveling a new character and checking out the leveling changes.

Stuff like Teq is actually more interesting to me now, now that there’s a chance to fail. I actually have to do some work and hope other people are doing the work too. You can succeed at Teq. I guess some people would find the game more fun if it took no effort at all.

Scaled down dungeons are harder now than they were too. Not much but some.

phys.7689:

Ayrilana.1396:

phys.7689:

Ayrilana.1396:

Development costs are not the same. Do you really believe that development costs for Diablo 2 were the same as Diablo 3? How about Super Mario Bros to Super Mario World? Or Daggerfall to Morrowind? If you do then I’m shocked. If you don’t then how could you think that they would be the same between GW1 and GW2 core game/expansion? Higher costs tend to translate to higher prices.

Prices for games has not gone up in general since 2005. Nor has size gone down.
Ffxi cost 15 a month and had 40 dollar expansions 10 years ago. Ffxiv costs the same thing right now, and its very profitable.
Dark souls i cost 60 and dark souls 2 cost 60. Street fighter games costed 50 in the 90s and cost the same today.

Point is game prices have not inflated and game content has not deflated. So using that as an excuse is a fallacy

I wasn’t arguing about the price level of the industry. I picked those games to show that production costs would be different between sequels as they’re more involved and general larger in scale. Dark Souls vs Dark Souls was only a 3 year gap compared to like 9 with Guild Wars. High costs tend to result in high prices unless they can minimize this through other ways such as economies of scale or additional revenue from sources beyond the game’s sale.

Production costs effecting prices is not an accurate defense if, for the industry as a whole, it has not effected prices.
Dark souls was one example.
Final fantasy 11 and final fantasy 14 was another. They are 10 years apart.

Production costs are not the reason for the chosen price. The monetization policy they have profits even if they sold it at cost. This is simply the number the marketing dept came up with that they think people are willing to pay.

They just think the market is willing to bear this price. The only real question is do the consumers agree.

You state this as fact though it’s really just your opinion. Unless you’re working for NCsoft and Anet, you pretty much are just guessing.

My guess is that the amount of work required to make all the changes they’re making to the game, including designing the new tech for new skills and such, bears out the cost of making the game.

It’s absolutely possible that companies can make stuff more efficiently. It’s also just as possible that its easier to make stuff efficiently when you’re working with a tried and true formula and just repeating it.

Strange, I find the opposite true. I find the game more fun now than the forums.

There isn’t really enough info to make a decision on whether you want to purchase HoT, unless you happen to love the game so much where you’ll purchase it even if it doesn’t have enough content.

See what HoT is doing it rewriting the way the game is played, in everything from specializations to masteries. It’s a very different game in some ways. Some of the long term problems we’ve had have already been solved, ie condition damage (well on the way to being solved once adjustments are made) and first person point of view. Anet isn’t charging for those updates, but to me, it’s all part of the game. I’m paying to keep playing. Sure I could play all the old stuff over and over again if I wanted, to, but I also want to see the story going forward, experience the new zones and, yes I want to glide and take advantage of the mastery system and guild halls.

For me, that’s enough to buy the expansion, because I believe I’ll get hundreds of hours out of hot. However, I feel like I only need to get 50-100 hours to make HoT worth buying to me.

Anet hasn’t really gone into enough detail about that content of the game, not the structure of the game. Yes we get a new class, but that’s not really content. Zones and what’s in them are content.

I believe there’ll be enough content, though it may be on the light side at this time. I also believe we’ll get more free content that expands on the content. So I won’t just be buying what’s in the box, but I"ll access all the stuff that comes later. Some people say that’s not justification for buying the box. I think it is.

Because if you don’t buy the box, you don’t get access to the stuff that comes later, particularly the continuing story. I’m also sure if they release new zones after, you won’t have access to those.

If you’re like me, plenty of information. But knowing how much content there actually is would go a long way to placating people.

Ricky.4706:

well this should make for an interesting read on topic ^.^
http://www.forbes.com/sites/olliebarder/2015/06/26/the-witcher-3-kept-its-budget-low-because-it-was-self-published/

i wonder how much ncsoft has their hands in this and throwing a hot potato in arenanets lap!

one thing in particular i noticed from the ncsoft quarterly report – was their unusually low packaging / distribution costs – this may be why there is no collectors edition. maybe we need to bail anet from ncsoft ? lol

Dear NCsoft, Arenanet is not a potato, stop with those crazy meetings and let them focus!! We the players have spoken!

The witcher 3 isn’t an MMO. It’s not going to constantly provide free content after you beat it.

I’ve played Guild Wars 2 for thousands of hours for the price I paid for it. Are you suggesting you can play Witcher 3 for thousands of hours. I sort of doubt it.

MMOs aren’t like stand alone games, because they’re constantly being updated. For example, I own the Witcher and Witcher 2, and I’ve played them. But I don’t get content updates for them with any regularity. I haven’t spent a hundred hours playing either one. So the price I paid for them, even if it was $10, it’s still more expensive per hour than Guild Wars 2 is for me.

The same goes for an expansion. If it gives you ten, fifteen times the amount of play a stand alone game gives you, it’s a kitten good deal.

Many.8419:

Vayne.8563:

I wonder how many people have thought about the future as they introduce more specialization lines, particularly elite specializations.

This is a preparatory step to the new advancement. That and masteries.

Elite specializations could have been introduced with old trait distribution system. However they decided to reinvent the wheel again. And elite specs won’t be additional lines but replacing one of core lines in the build so the only question to take elite spec will be “is it better than X”. So much diversity.

And you know that how? Considering the nature of specializations, I’m not really sure that’s true. Saying so, doesn’t make it so.

The idea is to have a platform to build on. Adding skills and traits in the old system would have yielded a system similar to Guild Wars 1. While some people wish that that system was here, it is in fact, almost impossible to balance.

Saying a company can do something, without knowing their long term plans has far more chance of being wrong than right.

I wonder how many people have thought about the future as they introduce more specialization lines, particularly elite specializations.

This is a preparatory step to the new advancement. That and masteries.

phys.7689:

Vayne.8563:

ZeftheWicked.3076:

Caution! Logic ahead! Enter at your own risk!

So let’s see “HoT” is more expensive because it’s an expansion…
Riiiiiiiiight.

So by that logic an xpansion that is smaller then core game, has already base game’s foundation (financial incomes, art & programming assets, general gameplay mechanics and direction, playerbase), should not be cheaper then the core game that has more of everything, is build from scratch facing much more challenges on every front then the xpac, and right now is way cheaper then the expansion…

Because you know….reasons!

HoT is more expansive because the entire landscape has changed, internally and externally and you ignore that.

My dad used to talk about getting into the theater for a nickle. I don’t pay a nickle anymore. Theaters are much more expensive and many of them aren’t really making much of a profit anymore. Times change.

Anet is a company that pays more employees, more rent, more to voice actors, the currency itself has inflated, the internal differences between working on a pathed game with no Z axis that’s entirely instanced makes a huge difference in both delivery time and the amount of work to produce the game, but you think it should cost $20 because it has “less content” when all the content has yet to be revealed.

For example, Nightfall had 250 plus quests and 20 missions. Seems like a lot. But we have nothing really to compare it to. Zones aren’t quests. They’re zones. They’re pathed.

I think I’ll wait to see what’s coming before comparing, but even if I do compare later…it’s still much later, and just about everything has changed.

There’s much more logic here than insisting you get the same deal on something 8 years later, between not only different games, but different genres of games. Guild Wars 1 was a lobby game…a CORPG not an MMO. It does make a huge difference in development time.

All the inflation talk might make sense if the price of games or the size of games had dramatically changed from 2005 to 2015. It hasnt. Games have been 40-60 dollars and been about the same length from then till now.

This game is substantially smaller as far as what we know, and costs more. Thats not really how other games price vs content has evolved.

I think anet justifies thia because they look at HOT as a subscription to thw future. But since they arent willing to talk about that future, its a pretty hard sell. (not to mention gw2 future is extremely changeable)

Actually it still makes sense. There are two ways to save money in the creation of a product. You can charge more, or offer less.

Many times companies pair down offerings and charge the same price, which is the same thing as raising the price. It’s hard to see people selling games for $80 or $100 dollars, so they use different strategies to raise the price, everything from cash shops to DLC to prepurchases, to pay to win.

Every single company is using some strategy to make ends meet in this time of ultra competitive gaming. WOW charges for their expansion, they charge a monthly fee, and they still have a cash shop and charge for transfers and renaming. When even sub games have a cash shop, you know the industry has changed.

Many games have an optional subscription that you pretty much have to buy. Lotro and DDO sell items that you’d have to grind forever to get, or you can pay cash. I assure you most players don’t have the hours available to grind that kind of stuff. And so they pay cash.

There’s more than one way to raise the price of a product.

Thanks for a positive post, OP. Plenty of people enjoying the game.

Your logic is faulty OP.

Let’s pretend I spent $60 for 500 hours of gameplay and I’d have to pay $50 for say 250 hours of gameplay.

Obviously the first game has more value than the second. But then what if the other games that I could get only give me 100 hours for $50.

The problem is, you can’t judge on absolutely value. You can only judge on comparative value.

And of course, you can judge on what comes out for free that you’d also be getting for that $50. Just as you’re including some stuff that came out after release in your first consideration.

You may not believe you can get is much, so it behooves you to wait. I believe I’ll get a lot of playtime. Whether it’s as much or not is not relevant. I’m happy to get 250 hours playtime out of $50. That would stretch my entertainment dollar quite far.

But you know, it’s all about perspective.

ZeftheWicked.3076:

Caution! Logic ahead! Enter at your own risk!

So let’s see “HoT” is more expensive because it’s an expansion…
Riiiiiiiiight.

So by that logic an xpansion that is smaller then core game, has already base game’s foundation (financial incomes, art & programming assets, general gameplay mechanics and direction, playerbase), should not be cheaper then the core game that has more of everything, is build from scratch facing much more challenges on every front then the xpac, and right now is way cheaper then the expansion…

Because you know….reasons!

HoT is more expansive because the entire landscape has changed, internally and externally and you ignore that.

My dad used to talk about getting into the theater for a nickle. I don’t pay a nickle anymore. Theaters are much more expensive and many of them aren’t really making much of a profit anymore. Times change.

Anet is a company that pays more employees, more rent, more to voice actors, the currency itself has inflated, the internal differences between working on a pathed game with no Z axis that’s entirely instanced makes a huge difference in both delivery time and the amount of work to produce the game, but you think it should cost $20 because it has “less content” when all the content has yet to be revealed.

For example, Nightfall had 250 plus quests and 20 missions. Seems like a lot. But we have nothing really to compare it to. Zones aren’t quests. They’re zones. They’re pathed.

I think I’ll wait to see what’s coming before comparing, but even if I do compare later…it’s still much later, and just about everything has changed.

There’s much more logic here than insisting you get the same deal on something 8 years later, between not only different games, but different genres of games. Guild Wars 1 was a lobby game…a CORPG not an MMO. It does make a huge difference in development time.

phys.7689:

Vayne.8563:

Lord Kuru.3685:

Mo Mo.1947:

Let’s not forget the entire expac was based on community request and required them to change their business model.

LOL. As if Anet decided to do expansions because the community requested it.

More like LS was a total failure because new content releases did not come close to the “every two weeks” they advertised (and when it did come, it was extremely small bits of content).

So they probably took a hit on sales and gem sales. And so now they’re trying the expansion model.

The funny thing is, only their model for selling and releasing their content has changed. So if they were unable to create a decent amount of content for LS, there’s no reason to believe they’re able to create a decent amount of content for this new model. And judging from HoT previews, it does indeed look like there is a lack of content in this expansion.

As I’ve said multiple times in the past, I believe the reason the living story didn’t come as frequently as it was supposed to was because they were working on an expansion. You say the Living Story slowed down because they couldn’t keep up the rate. More logically, it slowed down because they were working on large background projects, some of which would make major changes to the game.

The pressure to come out with an expansion is just as likely a reason that they didn’t keep the two week cadence, and they just couldn’t do it. Suppose that all the devs who now work on the expansion and the changes that are required to make the expansion work were all working on LS.

Then they could probably have kept the two week cadence. Just a guess, but I think it’s a good one.

Nope they always had issues with two week cadence even from before they say they started work on the expansion.

And i think this expansion is going to fail at feeling like sn expansion.
Its going to be a version update, which is nice, but as far as pve content/adventure is the name of the game.

I think there’s more that they haven’t showed us yet. I guess we’ll see soon.

Purple Miku.7032:

Miss Lana.5276:

7 dungeons with 4 paths, 1 dungeon with 5 paths, fractals with 50 levels.

That’s effectively 83 dungeon paths for you to experience.

I don’t think gw2 really needs any more dungeons at this time – and I don’t think any more will be released for the base game itself.

Tons of the paths have SO much overlap that you are exaggerating a lot. CoE for example are all the same paths just with 1 boss changed lol

COE is a lot more than one boss changed. There are are different bosses and mechanics beside the main boss in different paths of COE. But yes, you can’t call each path of a dungeon a fully new dungeon either.

However, dungeons like CE and COF do have very different paths as well. You chose one illustration to try to prove a point, but ignored others that really do operate very differently.

Lord Kuru.3685:

Mo Mo.1947:

Let’s not forget the entire expac was based on community request and required them to change their business model.

LOL. As if Anet decided to do expansions because the community requested it.

More like LS was a total failure because new content releases did not come close to the “every two weeks” they advertised (and when it did come, it was extremely small bits of content).

So they probably took a hit on sales and gem sales. And so now they’re trying the expansion model.

The funny thing is, only their model for selling and releasing their content has changed. So if they were unable to create a decent amount of content for LS, there’s no reason to believe they’re able to create a decent amount of content for this new model. And judging from HoT previews, it does indeed look like there is a lack of content in this expansion.

As I’ve said multiple times in the past, I believe the reason the living story didn’t come as frequently as it was supposed to was because they were working on an expansion. You say the Living Story slowed down because they couldn’t keep up the rate. More logically, it slowed down because they were working on large background projects, some of which would make major changes to the game.

The pressure to come out with an expansion is just as likely a reason that they didn’t keep the two week cadence, and they just couldn’t do it. Suppose that all the devs who now work on the expansion and the changes that are required to make the expansion work were all working on LS.

Then they could probably have kept the two week cadence. Just a guess, but I think it’s a good one.