Guild Wars 2

MiniEquine.6014:

IndigoSundown.5419:

phys.7689:

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

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

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

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

Not soloing dungeons. Open world stuff. Want to focus on the use of Death Shroud.
Metabattle tends to be useless except for Dungeons and PvP.

I am looking for a build that focuses on Death Shroud and staying alive for solo PvE. Any suggestions?

PseudoNewb.5468:

Is false.
Sorry to call out on this. But Anet shouldn’t mis-represent things…

There is also Season 2 to buy, so you can buy. HOT, then, if you want, you can buy Season 2. 2 things to buy, not one.

Am I being unreasonable in saying that this statement is false?

Source for your quote in your title? Your whole thread rests on this very fact, so you need to provide the source of the said quote.

Malligma.3459:

I have a PC but my wife plays on an Apple. I can pre-order for me, but I am not seeing anywhere I can order for her. Is the Apple release date the same?

You just order the game from the same page. At the bottom of this page they show the minimum requirements for Mac as well.
http://buy.guildwars2.com/store/gw2/en_US/html/pbPage.heartofthorns?_ga=1.266296463.1252463005.1439142220&cid=91:5::::Global:166:::

Buck.7562:

Is to lure players in and wring as much money out of them as you can with microtransactions. The naked greed has been a turn off, and so has creating a game that gives advantages to people with more money to spend away on a game. You’ve introduced income inequality to the traditional meritocracy of gaming. Even though you still can’t buy skill the game is much more tedious to play with inadequate storage slots, and there’s other things in the gem store that make the game easier to play.

I overlooked this, but I thought I was buying the whole game. But I don’t think I’ll be buying the expansion.

boo freakn hoo. It doesn’t cost that much to get more inventory space, and you end up paying far less than a monthly subscription. You need to realize the point of MMOs it make more money beyond the sales of the game itself. They could have charged you $15 a month to play this game, which would have been $540 after 3 years, and that is far more than what it would cost to max out inventory space in this game.

Mark Katzbach.9084:

Sorry, but those shirts were never offered to the public because they were meant for players to be able to easily identify our staff at trade shows, and since we’ve changed our show shirts for Heart of Thorns, it’s very unlikely that more will be printed.

Additionally, any of the shirts that did make their way to the public were mostly signed by our staff here and given to individuals from various giveaways. At this time, we don’t have plans to make more of these shirts/make them available to the public.

But I am assuming I am allowed to replicate that shirt on my own, and have it printed for myself, right?

Mirta.5029:

Manasa Devi.7958:

If you got what was advertised when you bought the game, you were not cheated. It’s that simple!

well we did not? How about the countless promises of:

- dueling incomming after the game’s release
- extra classes will come in after the game’s release
- living story is our way of doing expansions, we won’t do real expansions ever. Buy the game once, enjoy forever!
- you’ll be able to do a scavenger hunt for precursors (expansion locked now)
- we’ll add more things to do for guilds (expansion locked now)
- legendary armour is incoming! (expansion locked now)
- ascended items will be gotten only from fractals and useful only in fractals (makes sense as to why I had to grind EVERYTHING ELSE to get gear whose main purpose is to slot in agony resistance for fractals)
- no extra gear tiers! (Except that ascended stuff that we put in later)
- we’ll never do raids!
- we’ll never go F2P!
- SAB will return! (that was said around 2 years ago. Where is it then?)

There were so so so many lies told. Then half the promises are repeated for the expansion pack and for that one they are already saying “this will come later, after release!”, how much are we going to bet that that “after release” will turn into “it’s a feature in the next expansion!”.

And to all of those saying “oh, but you got season 2 LS for free!”. Anyone that couldn’t log in that half a year didn’t. There are plenty of veterans that didn’t.

Nice to see you make up complete lies here. How do I know that you are lying? Cause you already gave a link to one of those things you listed in a different thread, and that link did not say what you said it did. So stop lying, and don’t make up stuff that the developers never stated.

RLD.7439:

As someone who was here from the very beginning I feel a cheated.

A FTP player can join the game for zero dollar investment, but has to purchase HoT to receive that content. Okay, no argument there until we look at how unfair this is to veterans.

Original GW2 was what $60 for standard? HoT is $49 for standard. So basically A FTP player can get everything for $49, yet veterans have to pay a total of roughly $110?

Seems to me veterans should be getting HoT for free. Correct my logic any way you see fit. I’d like to be enlightened.

Did you feel cheated when the game frequently went on sale for $10-$15, or how every other place on the internet (Amazon for example) was selling it for $10-$15 as the regular price. You paid $60, someone come in a year later and got it for $15, did you expect some kind of refund for that? For the last year the game was basically $10 from Arenanet, and $10 in so many other places. So really, them giving it away for free with heavy restrictions at a $10 discount is nothing to feel cheated about.

isendel.5049:

Just a quick question..If I prepurchase now with the 44€ version, do I get the free character slot or it is included only in the more expansive bundles?

You will get the additional character slot, the other 2 more expensive bundles get 2 extra character slots in total.

kissofthehell.3720:

Where do i find the Royal Guard outfit. I havent played for quite a while.

It will be in your in game mail box.

Mirta.5029:

eisberg.2379:

Other games you are thinking about also have a subscription model, either required or optional with great benefits/advantages. So it is not a fair comparison at all. They can afford to have a cheaper price for current customer vs new customers because they have a better revenue stream. If GW2 had an optional subscription model or a required subscription, I am sure they would sell the expansion for cheaper.

I honestly have better value for my money playing those games with optional sub and not subbing as pretty much not a single one of them is even as bad restriction wise as GW2 free account is (except perhaps SWOTOR). Meaning that perhaps GW2 should get an optional sub, seeing as right now they’re botching up both the expansion price, leaving many veterans unhappy and F2P rights as a lot of people would have far more freedom in for example Tera even.

Again, you are comparing games with an optional sub, which means they have a better revenue stream, which would be a consideration when it comes to expansion pricing.
They are not botching anything up at all, more like people feeling entitled to something they have no right to feel in the first place.

kissofthehell.3720:

So i havent been playing for a while and i heard that the basic part of the game is now free to play with its restrictions. Are “veteran” players that purchased the game going to get some sort of “bonus” or something? I was readin the FAQ but didnt see anything being said there.

We all got a new outfit, otherwise No. Free players have heavy restrictions and missing features. Veterans don’t need a bonus.

Mirta.5029:

MiniEquine.6014:

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

no.. That would be how most MMOs work.

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

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

Other games you are thinking about also have a subscription model, either required or optional with great benefits/advantages. So it is not a fair comparison at all. They can afford to have a cheaper price for current customer vs new customers because they have a better revenue stream. If GW2 had an optional subscription model or a required subscription, I am sure they would sell the expansion for cheaper.

Ephemiel.5694:

Only thing i find stupid is how they made so much money by selling the core game, then made more money by adding it for free if you pre-purchase HoT, THEN they go “well, core game is 100% free now”.

May have restrictions, but it’s still a little shady.

Core being included with HoT was never a pre-purchase bonus to begin with. It is included as a base feature of the expansion pack. Right after they released the pre-purchase of the expansion they stated that going forward all expansions will include core and previous expansions for free.

There is nothing shady about any of this.

Envy.1679:

because my usb ports on my 200$ walmart laptop broke

:’(

I mean, I can try to touchpad my way through raids. but kitten .

Depending on if your Laptop has a slot for it, you can get an Expresscard USB adapter for your PC. You just slide it into your expresscard slot and you will have USB back. They only cost like $20 or so. You just have to make sure you get one compatible with your laptop.

They will stay
/15char

Todd.8162:

Arena Net must drop the SMS verification nonsense. Who wants to need their phone with them whenever they want to play the game? Mine is usually in my coat pocket, upstairs, in the closet.

You don’t need it every time you log on. They have a Trusted computer feature as well, when you authorize a computer as a trusted computer you no longer need to use the SMS verification. I used the SMS verification 1 time, and haven’t used it since.

Chameleon Dude.1564:

Sorry, but these systems need hard caps, not once or twice every so often. One account could post one message, one hundred accounts could post one hundred messages. Spam would get through.

Plus there needs to be some incentive to buy the game.

There is incentive to buy the game. It would cost $40 just to get the same amount of character slots and bag slots that a paid account has, and they would still have all the restrictions in place, so for only $10 more they can get the expansion instead and get the same amount of character/bag slots a paid account has as well, no restrictions, and access to all content.

Kittiko.2318:

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

So you want new players to have to pay $100 right now in order to play the game and expansion? All that does it create a big boundary for new players when they see then need to pay $100 to get the same content that everybody else has.

Donari.5237:

I’m sure the economics experts will swoop in on this with detailed reasons but for now I’ll give you the gist:

It acts as a necessary gold sink.
It prevents people using the TP as a storage unit.

Yup, it boils down to this.

Gold sinks are a good thing, it helps out the economy. This game doesn’t have a lot of gold sinks, seems like mainly from the TP, Gold/Gem conversions, and buying stuff from vendors (like salvage kits)

Mirta.5029:

eisberg.2379:

Guild Wars 2 has always been an MMO in a category all by itself. I cannot think of any other Buy to Play MMO that doesn’t have a subscription option as well with an in game cash store.

yet it doesn’t matter as in majority of MMOs all you get is currency if you subscribe. And stop saying B2P. You can be on an even field as a free account, meaning we’re F2P now. It’s not a trial, you’re not excluded from any content. It’s as F2P as F2P gets.

eisberg.2379:

Legendary gear that someone can buy from the TP is still gear that someone else earned, being transferred to someone else has a net effect of zero. Buying gear that has stat increases on it that wasn’t earned in the game but bought from a store is completely different story.

still doesn’t detract from the fact that you can be the worst player ever and earn your gear simply trough your wallet. Actually levels too as you could have just gems -> gold -> crafting materials and craft your way to 80.

Free players won’t be excluded from expansion content? If yes, therefore the game is still buy to play, and they have only given a highly restricted access to the game that really amounts to it being a demo/never ending trial. If no, then why is there a price for it?

As to your second paragraph. Doesn’t matter, the fact is everything is still earned in some way in the game, it is only being transferred from one player to the next, the net effect is still zero. Actually in the case of gem/gold conversions, gold is being taken out of the economy which is good for everyone.

Notsoperky.4291:

eisberg.2379:

tomlin.8204:

Kordash.2197:

hildegain.2106:

eisberg.2379:

Why don’t you want to use the SMS? Extra security is actually a good thing.

I don’t like giving companies my phone number. I tend to get spam calls all the time when I do. Companies will sell your number.

I can assure you ArenaNet didn’t sell mine. Oh, yeah, and sold none of the ones they got actually.

Go ahead, assure me.

Considering that I set up the SMS when it became available, and to this day I still do not get any kind of solicitation calls on my smart phone.

That doesn’t assure me- it just means that you rank so low on the metrics that your number never ends up on the marketing lists. Alternatively, they just haven’t sold the list (yet) and are waiting to hit 1 million numbers before they cash in.

Of course, if Anet’s telephone number database gets hacked then that could also be fun and games.

On the other hand, loads of people use twitter and facebook and post there all the time in supposedly private albums and then find to their cost they weren’t secure either, so what’s one more data source/risk….

Maybe it’s a generational thing, and in another two or three generations the whole concept of privacy will be gone (it’s actually quite a recent invention anyway).

Oh trust me, I would be high on a telemarketing list, I am right in the key demographics for that kind of stuff.

Arenanet and NCSoft also have a privacy policy, they are not going to sell your phone number to anybody.

I only give my phone number/personal information to places that have a privacy policy where they do not sell my personal information. And this is why, after all these years I never had any telemarketing calls on my phone.

Raven.1524:

Someone said that on the next expansion, the expansion before that will become free for core game owners. I personally believe they shouldn’t do that.
Maybe lower the price of HoT to 20-30$ when the next expansion comes after some years, but not free.
I mean, I would love it if I were to own a core game only and suddenly get a lot of content for free, but I rather pay and know that the company will keep getting a nice amount of income to keep creating amazing content for the future.

Also, I believe having a F2P version with account restrictions is awesome considering the fact that WoW is launching a new expansion and Wildstar going F2P (being also from NCSoft). Maybe we should focus first on beating up the competition first :P

PD: I’ll still be testing wildstar btw….. sorry xD (but I promise I’ll buy every friggin expansion after HoT since I already own that one, because I love the Lore in the game)
Oh! and for all the readers in here, buy the books! they are awesome! also the music too xD (don’t quite like the fluffy charr doll though lol)

Personally I believe for their next expansion, it includes all content from Core game and HoT. But free players will always stay with the core game only and not given access to any expansion content till they buy an expansion.

Mirta.5029:

eisberg.2379:

Because GW2 is still a buy to play game, them giving people a restricted game for free is basically a demo version of the game. Not the same thing as what Rift is doing.

Also with Tera, they have gear with very much stat increases on it:
https://store.enmasse.com/tera/item/dragonsilktrousseau1/dragon-silk-innerwear

The restricted game’s restrictions are not better nor worse than your regular F2P titles. You can still enjoy personal story, PvP, PVE and WvW to its fullest. All you’re locked out is laurel gear, TP restrictions (rift has this too), guild bank restrictions and chat restrictions. Meaning you might as well call the game F2P with payed expansion and a chance to upgrade your account. That’s all it is now.

And about Tera:

“These great new equipment pieces have the same abilities as ones currently in-game, but offer new looks and a chance to fine-tune your play style. And if you’re curious about how they’ll look on you, remember that you can preview all costumes and accessories in the new in-game Dressing Room.”

it’s in no way stronger than equipment in game. Indeed it’s weaker than anything you would get from raiding at end game. GW2 is far less straight forward, but you could gems -> gold and get a legendary, which stat wise is BEST IN SLOT in the whole game.

Legendary gear that someone can buy from the TP is still gear that someone else earned, being transferred to someone else has a net effect of zero. Buying gear that has stat increases on it that wasn’t earned in the game but bought from a store is completely different story.

Mirta.5029:

MiniEquine.6014:

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

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

that’s exactly my point. Neither Rift nor Tera is pay to win either, as exclusion from rift without purchasing an expansion pack is even lesser than exclusion in GW2 that completely free accounts will suffer. Neither of these games have a forced sub fee either. They are, just like GW2 now is F2P.
And no, you can no longer compare GW2 to other B2P titles (such as Elder Scrolls Online or The Secret World) as for the most part it’s now F2P. Except it has a harsher model than Rift, forcing you to buy the expansion if you want the expansions content.

Those other games also give huge benefits for subscribing, so they are still basically a subscription game with subscription money coming in, with an addition to their in game store income. So yes, they can give the expansions for free since they have multiple ways for income. Guild Wars 2 has zero options for a subscription, and must rely on store and the sales of the game only.

Guild Wars 2 has always been an MMO in a category all by itself. I cannot think of any other Buy to Play MMO that doesn’t have a subscription option as well with an in game cash store.

GuzziHero.2467:

BeckaPL.2670:

Why don’t people who don’t want to use the SMS validation just use the verification code version? It doesn’t involve your phone number and the notifications still don’t show up. SMS isn’t their only two step security

If you mean the PC version… see above. Because it is buggy and gets detected as malware.

Only gets detected as malware on crappy security programs. The fact is, WinAuth is not malware at all, crappy security programs are giving a false positive. For the fact that WinAuth is open source, people would have found the malware in WinAuth a long time ago and it would have been big news. But that never happened, because it is not malware at all, and that is a fact.

Mirta.5029:

eisberg.2379:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Because GW2 is still a buy to play game, them giving people a restricted game for free is basically a demo version of the game. Not the same thing as what Rift is doing.

Also with Tera, they have gear with very much stat increases on it:
https://store.enmasse.com/tera/item/dragonsilktrousseau1/dragon-silk-innerwear

Empowered Dragon Silk Shorts
This comfortable black undergarment not only ups your game, but also increases your Power! Increases HP by 3436 and Power by 8.

Fortified Dragon Silk Shorts
This comfortable black undergarment not only ups your game, but also increases your Crit Factor! Increases HP by 3436 and crit rate by 16.

Performance Dragon Silk Shorts
This comfortable black undergarment not only ups your game, but also replenishes your MP! Increases HP by 3436 and MP by 144 every 5 seconds.

Fitness Dragon Silk Shorts
This comfortable black undergarment not only ups your game, but also increases your max HP! Increases HP by 3436 and overall HP by 7.2%.

Insulated Dragon Silk Shorts
This comfortable black undergarment not only ups your game, but also increases your Endurance! Increases HP by 3436 and endurance by 6.

Empowering Dragon Silk Smallclothes
This comfortable black undergarment not only ups your game, but also increases your Power! Increases HP by 3436 and Power by 6.

Fortified Dragon Silk Smallclothes
This comfortable black undergarment not only ups your game, but also increases your Crit Factor! Increases HP by 3436 and crit rate by 12.

Performance Dragon Silk Smallclothes
This comfortable black undergarment not only ups your game, but also replenishes your MP! Increases HP by 3436 and MP by 108 every 5 seconds.

Fitness Dragon Silk Smallclothes
This comfortable black undergarment not only ups your game, but also increases your max HP! Increases HP by 3436 and overall HP by 5.4%.

Insulated Dragon Silk Smallclothes
This comfortable black undergarment not only ups your game, but also increases your Endurance! Increases HP by 3436 and endurance by 3.

Empowering Dragon Silk Boxers
This comfortable black undergarment not only ups your game, but also increases your Power! Increases HP by 3001 and Power by 2.

Fortified Dragon Silk Boxers
This comfortable black undergarment not only ups your game, but also increases your Crit Factor! Increases HP by 3001 and crit rate by 4.

Performance Dragon Silk Boxers
This comfortable black undergarment not only ups your game, but also replenishes your MP! Increases HP by 3001 and MP by 36 every 5 seconds.

Fitness Dragon Silk Boxers
This comfortable black undergarment not only ups your game, but also increases your max HP! Increases HP by 3001 and overall HP by 1.8%.

Insulated Dragon Silk Boxers
This comfortable black undergarment not only ups your game, but also increases your Endurance! Increases HP by 3001 and endurance by 1.

Dinks.2478:

Seera.5916:

DarkMagister.7429:

Backing this up. I have no interest in providing my cell phone to everyone interested in it and I also consider current security level sufficient.

By the way: I see a chance of loosing a phone much higher then the chance of loosing e-mail box.

But ~90% of the people who have their GW2 account hacked, have a compromised email as well.

Sounds like a personal problem for people who use the same password for everything. Maybe they should be encouraging good security practices instead of just sweeping the problem under the rug with these stupid systems that require a phone number or installing shady software on your computer.

WinAuth isn’t shady. They don’t sell your phone number either.

tomlin.8204:

Kordash.2197:

hildegain.2106:

eisberg.2379:

Why don’t you want to use the SMS? Extra security is actually a good thing.

I don’t like giving companies my phone number. I tend to get spam calls all the time when I do. Companies will sell your number.

I can assure you ArenaNet didn’t sell mine. Oh, yeah, and sold none of the ones they got actually.

Go ahead, assure me.

Considering that I set up the SMS when it became available, and to this day I still do not get any kind of solicitation calls on my smart phone.

GuzziHero.2467:

eisberg.2379:

Why don’t you want to use the SMS? Extra security is actually a good thing.

Because it is buggy as all hell.

I installed the PC version, worked fine till I restarted the computer, then locked me out of the game. My PC security picked it up as a potential threat.

I wont install malware.

That “Potential” threat is a false positive. WinAuth is not a walware at all. it is open source, if it was malware people would have found that a long time ago and exposed it. You were having troubles with it, most likely something on your computer was conflicting with it.

Dinks.2478:

There is no “no thanks”, They will keep harassing you every time you log in. They claimed in one post that its only once every 5th login but any of us that refuses/refused to do it know that that was a lie. It harassed me every single time I logged in, several times a day. I eventually set up a VM to run that winauth program because I’m not running such shady stuff on my system. and because I got tired of the harassment. I’ve been using 2-step on my account since the first week of GW2 and all of a sudden that is not good enough and they need to harass me, it really kittened me off.

What makes Winauth a shady program?

Many Pesky Monk.3140:

ProtoGunner.4953:

OP: they were preparing the expansion the past year, so that’s why we didn’t have a lot of updates. ‘Abandoned’ is a very strong word and isn’t true. It’s true for the dungeons, which is strange and sad, but we know that since about 2 years…

That makes sense, thanks!

Also, did they give a reason why dungeons were abandoned?

I am guessing they were not very popular. Looking at the LFG for dungeons, and there are very few people LFG, and has been like that for a very long time.

Why don’t you want to use the SMS? Extra security is actually a good thing.

ham.8209:

Zalladi.4652:

ham.8209:

it is a shame that in the USA Anet one is using game stop which is not that great by any means . if they went with another one like amazon it would give a more better and easy way to get this game. since from what i get there will be no disc,s at all coming with this game at all . so we in the USA are stuck with our choice of game stop or the gem store. not sure how that works out for thos wanting a second account. maybe after the game comes out Anet will let amazon sell it too

Both AmazonUS and AmazonUK sell Heart of Thorns for pre-purchase, only that the former is a digital serial code and the latter is a box with the code on a pamphlet.

i see but the Amazon Us with the digital serial code i tend to think Anet says that is not legal for some stupid reason . but it would be nice to have another choice with getting this game then getting it from game stop down load,s which with game stop downloads for me is very pain full .

Amazon US is an authorized seller for the expansion. I live in the US, and I just bought the expansion from Amazon yesterday and entered my code onto my account. So if you want to buy the game other than from guildwars2 website or Gamestop, you can buy the expansion from Amazon because they are in fact an authorized seller and is on the list on this site as an authorized seller for the expansion.

dane.4638:

Some of the arguments are not even related to the topic. HoT for someone who hasnt already bought the Core game is priced well in my opinion. Having to pay the same as those who have not already bought the core game for people who did is a bad deal all day long.

Some of you are comparing it to entitlement and to time enjoyed etc. I bought many games many years ago that I still get to enjoy when I feel like it. I still have PS1 games that I go back to from time to time. I still play GW1 from time to time. I bought this game so that I COULD enjoy it as much as I wanted.

Some are arguing that games like WoW would charge us monthly but I didnt buy WoW for that reason! I bought GW2 because I want to have permanent access to the games I spend my hard earned money on. If I am not mistaken (which is possible as noone is always right) the reason that most people who gave Guild Wars a chance is because they advertised that there was no monthly fee! Thats why I bought GW1 and thats also why I bought GW2.

I want to hear Anet say that my purchase is invalid and Ive used up my time with the game now that Ive had 3 years to enjoy it. It doesnt matter if you feel Ive had my moneys worth. If you feel like you have then you go ahead and pay again to renew your purchase and Im sure noone will try and stop you. We did not buy a time gated game and we did not buy a subscription based game and at least in my case this was done on purpose so the amount of time I got to enjoy it is irrelevant.

Renew your purchase? You will still have access to everything that is in the core game when the expansion releases. Your purchase is not invalid at all because you still have access to everything you purchased, there is no time gate on it at all, other than the servers being shut down sometime in the future.

You are not losing anything at all. You are given an opportunity to buy an expansion for the game, and if you do not, you have not lost anything you have already purchased.

Mirta.5029:

Reviera.5183:

WoW you pay what 15 a month for? and you gatta pay for expansions? don’t know, Ide say GW2 is being nice about it. sure they could drop the price for the core gamers but still, Gw2 isn’t a sub game, its a buy to play game, XD they don’t ask you for 15 a month + the content price.

I picked WoW as the overpriced example (the price point that GW2 is copying), Tera, Rift and other free to play games that you would think we are copying (especially keeping in mind stores with gamble boxes in them) do their expansions much cheaper. For example current Rift’s expansion base is 18£ versus 35£ of Guild Wars 2.

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

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

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

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

scerevisiae.1972:

I agree, it’s pretty bad value, especially when you consider you don’t even get a char slot to play the new class that comes with the expansion, essentially making it a $60 expansion.

Yes you do if you pre-purchase before the expansion goes live. All 3 tiers of the pre-purchase get an additional character slot for anybody who has bought the core game prior to January 2015.

JUN YANG.4328:

how anet treat us as veteran. an outfit for exiting players. and open the core for everyone.
is it fair to us? is it fair to the retail store. we spend real money on the game..
so what about the retail store still have the core game on the shelf..

we still spending same price on HOT.

A free player can buy that retail version to get themselves 3 extra character slots, 2 extra bag slots, and all the restrictions taken off of themselves.

Also it is misleading to call it “4 maps” when the 4 maps have ~ 3 biomes each, effectively making it ~ 12 maps. Core game, each map was 1 biomes, with an occasional jolt in a cave below. Now think of a core map, and then having the same size above the ground and below the ground, so yeah, more like ~ 12 maps.

Mirta.5029:

eisberg.2379:

No, they said purchase once and never have to pay for a subscription. They never said what you stated. Also I have never seen them promise to add more classes to the game.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-07-03-its-unlikely-guild-wars-2-will-ever-get-an-expansion-pack

this is only one of the examples as there were a lot of promises and statements made by Anet that later got changed.

Except that isn’t an example of what you are trying to claim at all. Read that article again, and you will see where they actually made no promises, and how they did not say expansions was not a possibility, let alone stating “pay for the game once, get all content through updates for free” like you claimed.

Mirta.5029:

TJgalon.5012:

No your not, you choose to donate, that not the same as people forced to pay 15$ a month to keep their character and game alive. I know i am not saying this the best, but gem buying as a choice should not make you, or make other belive your owed more, cause you get a values out of using them too how ever you use them.

sure, it’s not forced, but at least a) no content is taken away from you and b) you will never be able to spend your money to purchase an item that gives you absolutely nothing. Gamble boxes, gamble dye packs, infinite continue coin for content that we haven’t seen for over a year.

So yes, it was my choice to donate. However when you pick up how you’re being treated versus how they treated you at the start of the game… I don’t feel like any further money is welcome from me. And it’s fine and dandy because you shouldn’t feel like your input would ever matter as you’re a mere replaceable number to them.

When Guild Wars 2 just launched they had some nice practices though. Like you would at random be gifted a future store item, just for spending money that quarter (my boyfriend and me received the kite for free for example). You were told that there were more classes added over time, the game advertised as “purchase once and get all the future content trough the updates!”. They really turned their backs on all that.

No, they said purchase once and never have to pay for a subscription. They never said what you stated. Also I have never seen them promise to add more classes to the game.

Free stuff? Like a free outfit? Free birthday gift? Free black lion stuff 5 times a month just for logging in? Free character slot for pre-purchasing Expansion.

So getting more now, than what we used to get around the beginning is treating us wrong? You have very fuzzy logic there.

Mirta.5029:

eisberg.2379:

Mirta.5029:

TJgalon.5012:

Mirta.5029:

official answer in this thread:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/hot/Good-Customer-Service/first#post5437150
really has upset me.

especially when in other games this:
http://eu.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodestone/help/option_service/veteran_rewards/
exists.

I understand trying to keep everyone on an even ground, but I don’t think that rewarding trust and money spent would insult anyone. As it stands a veteran player that made multiple gem purchases is only worth as much as a new player that just decided to buy HoTs. That’s not really encouraging people to spend money in my opinion.

Gem buying does not mean a thing, it was a donation to the game, seeing how you bought the game, that the only part of the money that should count, and even then, you got your money worth x10 i bet.

really? Because I could have just as easily gold -> gems instead. If there’s no appreciation for being both a long time player and devoting your money to the game, then what’s the incentive to continue to do so? If you’re only ever considered the exact same as a free account (except that they get screwed over out of one time events, such as SAB, which I still have to ask why, especially having in mind that Anet sold an infinite continue coin and then took it down permanently over a year ago), why not spend your money with the competition instead?

The difference between a free account and paid account are actually huge. Just to get the same amount of character, bag slots, and access to Season 2 content it costs $56 for a free player to get that a non free account has, and the free account still has all kinds of restrictions to go a long with it. That is far from being “exact same as a free account”

I actually missed the Season 2 and had to buy it with real money. So it was sort of free, if you had the luxury to log in.

eisberg.2379:

Feel free to spend $15 a month in order to play FF14 if you feel that is a better deal.

and I am doing! I was spending 20£ on gem cards a month before to support the game, however with each developer post after the expansion announcement I felt worse and worse. So I moved on to watch if the situation improve even a little bit.

You voluntarily bought GEMS for a game that did not require any form of payment beyond the purchase price, which means you can decide to not buy gems for a long time and still be able to play the game. meanwhile if you decide to not pay the $15 a month for FF14, you lose access to the game you bought.

I can only imagine how upset you were when the game was being sold for much less than than what you bought it for.

As for season 2, you are saying that during season 2, you could not log in at least 1 time during a 2+ week period to get access to each of the season 2 episodes? I wasn’t playing during that time either, but I was able to spend a couple of minutes every 2+weeks to get the episode onto my account.

Mirta.5029:

TJgalon.5012:

Mirta.5029:

official answer in this thread:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/hot/Good-Customer-Service/first#post5437150
really has upset me.

especially when in other games this:
http://eu.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodestone/help/option_service/veteran_rewards/
exists.

I understand trying to keep everyone on an even ground, but I don’t think that rewarding trust and money spent would insult anyone. As it stands a veteran player that made multiple gem purchases is only worth as much as a new player that just decided to buy HoTs. That’s not really encouraging people to spend money in my opinion.

Gem buying does not mean a thing, it was a donation to the game, seeing how you bought the game, that the only part of the money that should count, and even then, you got your money worth x10 i bet.

really? Because I could have just as easily gold -> gems instead. If there’s no appreciation for being both a long time player and devoting your money to the game, then what’s the incentive to continue to do so? If you’re only ever considered the exact same as a free account (except that they get screwed over out of one time events, such as SAB, which I still have to ask why, especially having in mind that Anet sold an infinite continue coin and then took it down permanently over a year ago), why not spend your money with the competition instead?

The difference between a free account and paid account are actually huge. Just to get the same amount of character, bag slots, and access to Season 2 content it costs $56 for a free player to get that a non free account has, and the free account still has all kinds of restrictions to go a long with it. That is far from being “exact same as a free account”

Mirta.5029:

official answer in this thread:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/hot/Good-Customer-Service/first#post5437150
really has upset me.

especially when in other games this:
http://eu.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodestone/help/option_service/veteran_rewards/
exists.

I understand trying to keep everyone on an even ground, but I don’t think that rewarding trust and money spent would insult anyone. As it stands a veteran player that made multiple gem purchases is only worth as much as a new player that just decided to buy HoTs. That’s not really encouraging people to spend money in my opinion.

Feel free to spend $15 a month in order to play FF14 if you feel that is a better deal.

Yes, it will be given the privilege of a full account with no restrictions like the free accounts have.

OtakuModeEngage.8679:

Pandaman.4758:

OtakuModeEngage.8679:

Believe me, I understand that the value of a product decreases over time, and i dont have a problem with that. However, there is a difference between the prise dropping over time, and dissapearing all together. you can’t go to a computor store and buy a brand new lap top and get all previous generations of the brand for free. which is essentially what gw2 is offering.

Except when you but a brand new laptop you get all the functionalities of previous generations of laptops with it and said previous generations are discontinued. This is what GW2 is essentially doing: they’re discontinuing GW2 Core and making HoT this generation’s product, which includes all functionalities up until now.

My real isue is purely on the matter of principle, the favoring of new players with this great deal, while doing nothing for vets in return. how is it that new players don’t have to face the pay wall, while old players do, why does that policy only service them? in that matter, they are being treated better than current players. that is a fact. if anets policy is to not create a paywall, it should go benifet the entire comunity, not just the newest addition.

Then stop playing.

I’m serious. If you want to get the same great deal as future players, stop playing. Wait until all the expansions are out, ANet announces that GW2 is going into maintenance mode like GW1, and pick everything up at a single low price of $50. By your arguments you would have absolutely nothing to complain about if you did that, because you’re getting a much better deal than everyone else.

But I shouldn’t have to quit playing just to get a fair deal…

New and current players paying $50 for expansion is a fair deal, they are paying the same amount. What you have paid 3 years ago is actually completely irrelevant, especially since new players cannot go back to 3 years ago and get everything we have received. If you want to save money on the game, than just keep on playing the core of the game for some unknown years and then buy the last expansion when it is announced as being the last expansion for the game.

OtakuModeEngage.8679:

eisberg.2379:

OtakuModeEngage.8679:

skullfaerie.7203:

I bought a laptop in 2011. Today someone asked where and if they could purchase that very same laptop at a fraction of the price. Yes, I replied. That is possible. It may surprise you that I did not launch into a tirade over how unfair it is that they can now purchase the same product for which I paid full price for a bit of change. This is because I applied something called logic to the situation.

Products depreciate in value over time. That’s simple common sense. You got your money’s worth, and now you claim it’s not enough and want more and hope that overly dramatic posting will achieve this. This is an unfortunate, unreasonable and unrealistic attitude.

Believe me, I understand that the value of a product decreases over time, and i dont have a problem with that. However, there is a difference between the prise dropping over time, and dissapearing all together. you can’t go to a computor store and buy a brand new lap top and get all previous generations of the brand for free. which is essentially what gw2 is offering.

My real isue is purely on the matter of principle, the favoring of new players with this great deal, while doing nothing for vets in return. how is it that new players don’t have to face the pay wall, while old players do, why does that policy only service them? in that matter, they are being treated better than current players. that is a fact. if anets policy is to not create a paywall, it should go benifet the entire comunity, not just the newest addition.

Actually the difference between the price dropping and disappearing is only about $10. Not enough to be complaining about, completely negligible price difference and it nothing more than complaining for the sake of complaining. You can get that $10 value by just buying the expansion right now since they will give you an extra character slot.

There is a paywall, new players have to pay for the expansion if they want to play the expansion. New players and current players get the same thing, they both have to pay $50 for the expansion.

I agree with that assessment if it was only regarding this expansion, which they made a fair deal, but when the next one comes out, this one drops to $0 value, and when the expansion after that comes out, it drops to $0 dolar value too.

Yeah, and there is nothing wrong with that. If you have a problem with that, than just don’t buy the expansion and wait for some undetermined years to continue past the core of the game, and then buy the last expansion. The rest of us will enjoy the game as it is given to us and updated, playing with our characters earning all kinds of rewards and have experiences with the content while it is new instead of being several years old.

OtakuModeEngage.8679:

skullfaerie.7203:

I bought a laptop in 2011. Today someone asked where and if they could purchase that very same laptop at a fraction of the price. Yes, I replied. That is possible. It may surprise you that I did not launch into a tirade over how unfair it is that they can now purchase the same product for which I paid full price for a bit of change. This is because I applied something called logic to the situation.

Products depreciate in value over time. That’s simple common sense. You got your money’s worth, and now you claim it’s not enough and want more and hope that overly dramatic posting will achieve this. This is an unfortunate, unreasonable and unrealistic attitude.

Believe me, I understand that the value of a product decreases over time, and i dont have a problem with that. However, there is a difference between the prise dropping over time, and dissapearing all together. you can’t go to a computor store and buy a brand new lap top and get all previous generations of the brand for free. which is essentially what gw2 is offering.

My real isue is purely on the matter of principle, the favoring of new players with this great deal, while doing nothing for vets in return. how is it that new players don’t have to face the pay wall, while old players do, why does that policy only service them? in that matter, they are being treated better than current players. that is a fact. if anets policy is to not create a paywall, it should go benifet the entire comunity, not just the newest addition.

Actually the difference between the price dropping and disappearing is only about $10. Not enough to be complaining about, completely negligible price difference and it nothing more than complaining for the sake of complaining. You can get that $10 value by just buying the expansion right now since they will give you an extra character slot.

There is a paywall, new players have to pay for the expansion if they want to play the expansion. New players and current players get the same thing, they both have to pay $50 for the expansion.

OtakuModeEngage.8679:

Very well, it seems I’m the minority, and my opinion falls on death ears, anet hates my topic so much they decided to silence me, because my opinion is apparently not worth discussing. very well, I won’t post here any more.

You have an unreasonable opinion. You have a hard time accepting that the base game has devalued for being a 3 year old game.
Besides, a new customer has not option but to pay $16.00 if they want season 2, where as a vet player had the option to get season 2 for free.

If you want what ever “same benefits as a new paying customer” then buy the expansion as a new account. Then you can get all the same benefits as a new paying customer.

Or you can buy the expansion for your current account now, and get an extra character slot ($10 value). That $10 value is about the value of the base game with no restrictions at this point.