Guild Wars 2

You still get your glider skin (which for me is a strong incentive to farm gems for deluxe upgrade if i buy HoT), mini, finisher and w/e is in there. And you can never have too many character slots, if only for key farm character, or a mule to hold some stuff.

GW2 – where a long begged for fix for broken mechanic turns out to be a bug.

Asides addressing the main complaints about shady pre-purchase tactics here are 4 easy steps for you to make those pre-purchase copies moving:

1. determine and announce release date. It can be an estimation like spring 2016, but give your prospective buyers something to hang on to.

2. Announce the size and number of PvE zones in HoT.

3. Announce plans regarding LS3 – if it will happen and what sort of stuff will you throw in it (new maps? new skills? just story and achies?).

4. Announce beta schedules and open betas – no better way to get ppl who are on the fence to pre-purchase then giving them a taste of the actual thing. Unless it sucks and you know it, that is.

There, couldn’t lay it out simpler if I tried, and you’re welcome btw.

And it still gets more expensive…

Here’s something for you then, you’re welcome to get really offended now:> (from 3:20)

That aside:
Character slot being part of basic package for all (vet and newbie alike) and not “buy cat in the bag” pre-purchase deal.

Unique skin sets for long time players, for example something like a scar, special eyepatch, emote, additions to home instance and unique glider skins for veterans who buy HoT. Newbies would get them after some time in the game.

Cool visual stuff that lets vets claim their bragging right of “i’ve been here for a long time” and can’t be obtained otherwise then by sticking with the game for longer time.

These are but basic incentives i would use to make vets feel more welcomed and give them the feeling gw2 is their mmorpg home and they should feel most comfy here.

Recently i read a story of polish elecronics inventor who in 70’s invented computer 10 times faster then 80’s american models. Why no one heard of it? Cause “If you did it americans prolly already did it 10 years ago already!” is what he heard and got shoved outside the door.

But hey, many top mmorpgs have great business model and marketing teams telling devs exactly what to do to make it a success and raking in huge profits…right after they go F2P after a disastrous crash, from which the ignorant and dark-age minded players warned them on forums for ages….but hey i’m just one guy and americans know better;)

Any vet out there can see that the deal he gets with HoT is essentially far worse then the one new player gets. Especially with new slot being a bait for pre-purchase, rather then industry standard for any and all x-pac buyers.

But the question is..what is a-net aiming at. If survival, fine, i was never here. But if it’s expanding their playerbase and growing it’s service..then few words of bitter wisdom will be shared here.

You see running a successful mmorpg is like picking up a woman. It’s one, and difficult enough thing to get her attention and have her invested in you for a while.
It’s a wholly different mountain to climb if you intend to keep her for long term.

Right now any vet who played the kitten out of GW2 these recent years is faced with rather lackluster offer of x-pac for 50$ + character slot bait only if he does pre-purchase. Outcry about that is high enough here.

What remains in shadows, is that GW2 is not alone out there. There are other big MMORPG, some good some worse, but part of them unexplored. Someone who played GW2, and now is faced with 50$ shell-out time, is also at the same time faced with offers from these other mmorpg, that he has yet to know.

I for one never ventured into FF XIV farther then pre-release beta, and if i put my money there, there’s a whole game’s of content (+xpac) inside there for me, for smaller price (3rd party retailers are chepear then official site).

On the flipside, the very same can be said about HoT offer for newcomers who may have migrated from other games. They also get full game’s worth + xpac, rather then standalone x-pac in their game.

But this is not true growth. Because while you’re very good at attracting new players, you’re doing equally “well” at bleeding out old ones, and that will result if much smaller growth the could be, and having the most tried and true customers row their boat elsewhere.

Only by keeping vets happy, and reeling in new players with amazing incentives and quality will this game truly flourish. If you neglect to keep old players happy (with all the competition left and right), you will only maitain status quo or barely grow and no telling for how long (though with this game’s quality you can pull it off still).

And if old vets are forced to pay nearly full new game’s price with missing character slot traps, and very little information of the content and total size of said xpac…well, competition will be sending you fruit baskets soon enough…

Haha, this is good, this is dropping down to same sex marriages discussion level.

So from the top before it escalates.
Free Extra character slot when launching expansion with content that needs empty character slot to experience is a long term industry standards. Heck F2P games respect that even for most part.

While here we’re being duped into thinking it’s a “privelege” that chosen few (pre-ordering veterans) will get, and others have to pay for it.

Everyone should get one free slot upon purchase of HoT, be it now or after launch. Revenant requires making a new character so a new slot is a reasonable expectation. But ofc someone wanted to monetize rather then stick to basic decency standards when it comes to launching expansion. And seems they’re not very fond of letting go of the chosen path…

@adormtil.1605

There is another;) One that finally got off it’s feet 2 years ago;)

I’m worried about the amount of content in Heart of Maguuma. This (along with release date) is the make or break for majority of players starved for information. I’m not even expecting betas there yet, or videos. Just plain old fashion statement like "we’re working on [insert number here] amount of zones, each with it’s 3 biomes.

Given they’re awfully silent on the matter i’m not too optymistic.

Stochastic – there is an easy way to get cheaper HoT. Don’t pre-purchase, why would you? You don’t even know full details or release date yet.

Instead hold your money, wait for launch. At 3rd party sellers you’re bound to get a better deal up to the point you’ll save 10$ even, enough for that extra character slot without having to throw your money at them now and no guarantees it’ll be worth the costs.

Well easier access for new players and building up a player base are ofc logical and noble reasons.

Now how about the less noble ones? “Certain mmorpg” (whose name i can’t mention due to forum rules) had an expansion release y-day. Now i don’t have it but if I wanted to buy it together with x-pac, then it’s $60. On official website that is.

But it’s already out at 3rd party retailers, and after bit of snooping i found out i can grab core + xpac for around 38,5$.
That game has a sub, so ofc it’s gonna be more then that over time. But what i mean is if A-net asked players to pay let’s say 30$ for core + 50$ for HoT, latter being a pre-purchase without a release date, and not a ready, just launched product, like over at competition…well that might’ve not been the best for their sales…

So sometimes being nice to your playerbase pays off a bit…and majority of the time pays off bigtime.

It is serious, as is the issue. It’s long industry standard to provide ingame means to play new payed content when there’s a serious chance players won’t be able to by default (full slots).

This is about principle and our interest.

1. Before – no cash shops, character slots for new classes bundled with x-pac.
2. Today – cash shops, gotta fight tooth and claw to get a slot as a pre-purchase bonus to the standard package.
3. Tommorow? – 1st day DLC with x-pacs? two new professions and 0 character slots in any of packages? branching story behind paywall?

I get they want money, but get that they’re not on our side of the fence. If we don’t oppose this and make sure that quality stays high, and cashgrab attempts are curbed, it’ll turn into next activision-bli$$ard.

If they want more money, they need to provide us more value, and not more marketing tricks.

I mean new players have to buy it to play it.

Genavelle.9516:

ZeftheWicked.3076:

Actually it was me. I didn’t want the thrown as baseline. Would be fine with them being thrown as option, like some suggested, but not bing force to aim them everytime.

Reason: long cast and looking for cursor, while i got a thief on me and want a fast, reliable trap where i stand.

What are you talking about? Before this patch, you had to have a TRAIT to let you throw and ground-target traps. If you didn’t have that specific trait, then you would just drop them at your feet like you do now post-patch.

Exactly. And back then i hated it already. I wanted the larger radius. I didn’t want the aiming, just a fast no battle-with-cursor trap under feet.

Leo G.4501:

Man, for vets, you guys seem to fall into more traps and pitfalls than a n00b.

See you when you try to play LS season 2 (*evil grin)

Hell yeah! And if both stealth, the first backstabber loses?
It’s called mexican stand-off and Clint Eastwood approves this change;)

Actually it was me. I didn’t want the thrown as baseline. Would be fine with them being thrown as option, like some suggested, but not bing force to aim them everytime.

Reason: long cast and looking for cursor, while i got a thief on me and want a fast, reliable trap where i stand.

I just saw the thread about new LA being awesome, and well, since current marketing is not going too well for a-net, here’s a friendly hint how to get this thing done right:

The new LA if it is as good as you say is a nice, small step to boost HoT sales – it shows your capability for creating interesting and new pve maps, a display of your current skill.

Now the big smart thing you should do is open beta tests of HoT PvE zones with specializations.
Think about it – majority of “I’m not pre-purchasing HoT” crowd asides from dissatisfied vets, are the very large group of “I’ve seen to little to belive it’s worth it’s price”. Now if i was running things, I’d do my darnest to ensure that it’s this group of ppl that gets to ride on in into beta so they can see, believe and awe at what’s coming. Little sells better then a try out of the future game!

And seeing how…“hot” you are for raking some money in here and now…i would definitely consider it if I were you.

Also i would make that slot for vets a feature of all HoT packages, no pre-purchase conditions attached.

Remember where you stand what what you ask – pre-purchase is a very one sided deal in your favor, a-net. If you want to get such deal done you need to put your customers in a really good mood, and build strong player confidence in the quality of your product.

And not try to go for backdoor cashgrabs.

This is diamonds! Finally ice bows got the nerf bat and AC is no longer “elementalist + those other guys”:>

It’s simple really. They want sales, and these get achieved by not making players hate them from the very start.
Ah nvm, I did forget A-net stated before that you must own core game to use x-pac, which was ninja changed. That explains why. Still…

…from business point having a person pay 110$ in short succession is simply asking them to get kittened and not buy HoT, just stay with core game (if they’re lucky) or walk away livid and not return. Not a very good business. Refund ensures them much better relations with new players and keeping them around – good business!

The most fertile ground is made from ashes after a fire;)
At the end of the day they want to sell it and we want to buy it, and such struggles lead to finding the golden middle when they get to sell a looooot of units for the price and conditions majority of us find attractive/acceptable;)

Well i enjoy a good flame personally, hell i enjoy the inferno that was the forum and reddit for past few days. It’s good to see players standing up against companies leaving good old tried and true standards behind for more $.

That aside, asides the joy of letting them know very loud and very clear I am well aware that most likely it’s been the poor sales of pre-purchase bundles that made them act, rather the towering flames raising from this forum’s depths. But that’s good and healthy. Voting with wallet made them realize something is up.
And this nice BBQ here might have given them a “slight” hint what that may be;)

half true – server infrastructure, customer service (and theirs is good), marketing expenses etc. – these things are real and grow along with more sales. Though it’s also hard to call this good fully limited by production costs per unit.

I must say i’m astounded by defenders of pre-purchase deals and especially when they use the “A-net is a company, not charity” argument.

Well..DUH. So while we’re there….ever heard of free market, dear fellow knights?
You know the place where the price is dictated by supply and demand? That demand part meaning players. To bargain, haggle or right down taunt and shout at certain practices and conditions one side presents to another is simply the way this thing works.

If a-net was soo poor, so bashed and so bullied…they would close up and go home.
Understand this (and i say this as an economics MA) – this is free market – it’s natural to pull your end of the rope, because you can be kitten sure a-net’s marketing team is pulling theirs.

And all those flames, and bashing is extremely beneficial for a-net. Because a client that shouts nags and discusses is a client that can be negociated with and met with somewhere halfway, leading to a sale. Much worse is the case when no one says nothing, just takes a look, goes “eee. no” in his own mind and walks away.

If it was not as I say, a-net would not offer that extra slot for owners of base game in pre-purchase. That’s them giving us inch of the rope, while still pulling hard their end. It’s called business. Same reason our job is pull our end and not give them an inch. So they get more sales, because we get a good offer.

Oh if that’s how bullying looks like then i pray for the safety of all bullies of the world.
A-net got big flaming “We vets are not happy, we should get character slot baseline in every HoT version”
A-net responded – “If you’re a vet pre-purchasing gets you free slot”.

Result: poor bullied a-net gets more sales and money for giving up on a small good if we pre-purchase, while basic developer ethics would dictate that thing be free baseline, no conditions save “buy HoT”.

MiniEquine.6014:

ZeftheWicked.3076:

Veterans players are not getting character slot for for simply buying base HoT package.
They will get it if they pre-purchase. If you’re a vet who buys it at release day or later – sorry you get zip save x-pac itself.

This makes sense as it is a pre-purchase bonus, not a HoT-buying bonus. Why offer the base package for the same as pre-purchase? Why would anybody, then, pre-purchase the game?

That question didn’t seem to bother them at all, until yesturday, if you catch my drift.

It was a wet gloomy day, John was about to drink his afternoon mug of daily sewege affectionally called coffee over at A-net HQ when suddenly he found a scale on the floor near A-net’s executive border room. The scale was odd green/black hue and as fa….oops wrong theory!

ekhum

Now we all know A-net had done and we-know what with them prepurchases.
However as i look at A-net’s behaviour i cannot help but to feel something’s foul afoot.
Simple booting up of my brain and processing what’s been going on has led me to certain interesting possible scenario.

What if a net is desperate for money?

After taking into consideration their “marketing” of HoT i can only come up with two answers:
1. They’re strapped for cash and need it fast. Be it to please shareholders, afraid of massive competition at launch, or running out of funds for development.
2. Their marketing team has an ameba level IQ.

Just answer yourself these simple questions:

1. Why would they drop the bomb (price) without even properly hooking us in with full overview of features, and a release date, which is a mandatory trust builder when pre-purchasing goods? Few idiots would want “pay now, get when the seller feels like it” deal.

2. Why would you price your good high, but then still try to milk money by charging for something that should be “baseline” at such price. The moment you priced your good at a “high quality price” you set yourself on a shelf where there are some standards, and cheap tricks like this don’t fly, causing more harm then good.

3. Why would you further try to partially sneak away with that trick when caught, instead of just promptly apologizing and seting it straight, preventing more damage to already breached trust and good name? You were already caught once, why you thought you won’t get busted this time? (I mean extra character slot only for vets who pre-purchase the game, not all vets in general). The loss of good name and customers will be inmeasurably greater then already thinned out potential gain…

If this was nature then A-net would be eating it’s own toenails for dinner, because a predator that spoils his own ambush by jumping out too early is a predator that doesn’t get to eat that day.

Which at least in nature means two things asides “unforseen circumstances”:
1. The predator was that hungry.
2. The predator was that stupid.

I wonder which…

Veterans players are not getting character slot for for simply buying base HoT package.
They will get it if they pre-purchase. If you’re a vet who buys it at release day or later – sorry you get zip save x-pac itself.

I am glad people did notice this. It’s the world old tactic of lowering product quality called “two steps forward, one step back”.

They launch forward something unacceptable by common standards, then after outrage take one step back, making the deal better and gaining player support for the change, all the while the deal after change is still worse then what was upheld as a standard till that time.

one correction. They’re pushing pre-purchase, not pre-order.

@above – character slots should be standard when game introduces new professions, at least in case of games where you have to create a new character to try out the new class/profession. So EotN not having slots wasn’t a crime – it had no new character classes to put in said lacking slots.

Here however we do have revenant that is a mandatory new character if you want to try it.

Yes. And after these 2 years of playing, i can still go full sleeze and get 5 slots for free by choosing to set up new account with HoT i purchased rather then 0 by linking it to old account (given i buy HoT after official realease that is).

50$ worth in extra slots + both games, or 0$ worth in extra slots + xpac alone.

Ofc there is a small matter of starting from scratch, but the incentive to go against the natural order of “vets stay with their accounts, new guys make new” is pretty kitten strong with that one.

The OP’s point is quite valid. Any veteran player that buys and links HoT to his old account should get something.

It’s simple matter of fairness. New players get core game + HoT rolled into one for price of x-pac alone. Old players who do not choose to make new account (taking up server space and other resources), but instead link HoT to their old account, should get something too. Like that extra character slot.

Still at least A-net moved a bit torwards us veterans (and it’s own interest along the way). For me personally now it’s more of an “50$ is ten bucks too much for me”, rather then “I won’t support this sleeze”.

Sorry but it’s not anyone’s fault but your own if you deleted your character to make room for a profession that is not yet released, heck, does not even have a set release date.

It’s like me expecting flood in next 10 years, moving all the stuff to the roof, and then complaining my life sucks cause all my stuff’s on the roof and there’s no flood today…

Sakara Prime.5370:

So you pay $60 and have unlimited access and free content updates monthly, dont think your getting value? go play wow…

Fixed that for you.

If they expected it, half of their office would be filled with rows and rows of fire extinguishers;)

Don’t you worry prices will go down and soon after launch. Not A-nets digital download mind you, but at 3rd party retailers we’re sure to find a sweeter deal soon:)

And someone suggested on this forum that a-net gets a lot less profit from these sales then their online shop, so double win (we pay less, and they get punished with less income per unit).

We’ve yet to confirm the size of these layers. Can be for example, that root biome will have just few small holes and passages, while the middle biome will be a huge map we’re used to.

And if you learn math, that’s a cool extra for you.
You forgot prices. x-pac is 50$, character slot $10. so if 1/4th of buyers gets the slot they’ll make 1/20 (5%) extra on sales extra in that case.

Now is that worth getting in bad with players and having their good name tarnished? I’ll let a-net provide an answer to that.

I just stated what i would worthy of being called an expansion in terms of pve maps. Also it’ll definitely be more then 2 maps. Can you imagine following scenario?

Verdant Brink – pact refugees muster what they can after their crushing defeat to survive mordrem onslaught during the night.

Next map – heavily battered, barely surviving, remnants of the pact move in to 2nd map to kill modremoth!

A-net would be laughing stock for months if not years to come!
“Where’s the final boss?…On the 2nd map!”
“How do you beat a dragon? Survive a night, then jump the fence!”
“What do you call 2 three leveled maps? An expansion!
“Did you hear the one about the guy who took 6 hours to complete xpac? After 4 hours on the toilet he started playing!”
Husain Bolt returned HoT. Said it was too quick for him!
How much bigger is x-pac from LS maps? About 50$ bigger.

and so forth and so on;) They can’t be this suicidal;)

So these “3 maps” are just verdant brink’s biomes? Well as great of map it may be, it’s nowhere near x-pac worthy pve addition. I do hope and expect for it to be more, much more.

I honestly suspect something along 5 pve zones (each with 3 biomes) + golden city. And that’s my base expectation, not be be mistaken with “royal treat”.

Let’s not forget all those faster endurance regen traits. Before vigor = cap, so they were useless in 90% of cases. Now they’ll be able to stack with vigor and have some meaning.

Bottom line, if you calmly wait a bit, you should be able to get a more reasonably priced HoT package at realease or not long after. I’m hip with that idea.

Yeah, but mediamarkt’s offer is 5 euros more expensive then a-net’s package, and saturn’s the same price point. Little gain there, unless you’re out to punish a-net with lesser share of the profit.

In gw2 one skill can be worth 3 skill in other rpgs.

For example thief’s blinding powder – it’s your party stealth, but also insta blast finisher, and blind. If traited also condi cleanse and regen application.

it can be used for any single one of these purposes for for few at once. So little skills is not true, the options and syngergies are massive, that’s why i love this game.

Still they did mess up with the basic preorder package, that one i won’t defend.

This is enlightening. Didn’t know there is such a huge difference in profit for them from their online store, and retail versions sold by 3rd parties. Now i’ll think twice where to purchase my copy when i feel like getting it.

I got it sorta by accident. When i saw prepurchase go live in my map, ppl were talking about buying HoT (or at least deluxe upgrade) with gems. Fearing gems would skyrocked i quickly bought the gems i could with my gold (which turned out to be 800 gems, leaving few gold coins for basic needs). After that i settled for getting extra char slot cause i miss 2 professions on my account.

Few hours later i discovered HoT basic bundle would not feature character slot for revenant…

My feelings on the pre-purchase are all over the forums. Still there is the iron logic fact that i got 2.5 year of great playtime for 43$ of so from the base game.

The thing is this game needs money, but not with this expensive and sleezy (no extra slot on basic version, recent buyers of core gw2 having to now apply for a refund) way.

Also i think it’s fair to say, content was coming slow compared to sub based games.

So what i suggest is the easy, tried and true way of financing a game – a subscription.
An optional one, based around non harmful features. For example:

$10 sub would give the players choosing to go that way would get monthly 4-5 black lion claim tickets for skins, a character total makeover kit, and few boosts, such as friend teleport stone to use.

The shameful RNG on best skins allevated, game gets steadier money flow, regular players still have old method of acquiring items. As long as no one gets greedy (hi gw2 economist) and to stray from the honest model, you could kill two birds with one stone, rather then being forced or at least partially pushed into seeking rip-off tactics when selling your xpansions.