Guild Wars 2

For 850, I suggest a Y50
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA4P02P41185

899, sure but its 40 more and you get the following upgrades for that 40 bucks

i5 dual core to an i7 quad core(really needed for this game)
GTX750M to a GTX860M, thats nearly 30% faster.
1600×900 to a full 1080p LCD
750GB HDD to 1TB Hybrid SDHDD (8GB SSD Flash in the HDD)
4GB of ram to 8GB of ram
MSI to Lenovo(Formerly IBM)

IMHO Y50 is a better buy.

nosleepdemon.1368:

I hope it’s a lot, like genuinely loads. The game is too flipping easy and one of the coolest ways to introduce meaningful content is to actually award the player with meaningful new skills to work toward.

Inb4 casual “but hardcore players will be better than me!” Yes, of course they will. They live and breathe this game, and deserve to be better.

yea cause time sinks are ‘fun’ right?

Snake.5132:

SpyderArachnid.5619:

Was actually in your shoes when I first came to GW2 back in beta. Was a huge WoW player (still jump on it occasionally), and was trying to transition to GW2 from that.

Easy path? Warrior is easy sure, so is Ranger. Ranger plays almost like the Hunter, without all the pet taunts (at least until higher levels) and such. But otherwise, it’s very comfortable and easy to work with to get a first hand experience. If you want to be in the front lines though, Warrior is the way to go. Simple hack and slash game play.

Stay away from Engineers and Mesmers mostly though, till you got a bit more experience. They seem to be the most complex class to do well with. Elementalist was actually easy for me as well, as it just felt like a typical glass cannon spell caster. Necromancers will fill your Warlock hole if you were a fan of Demonology, as they can summon all kinds of minions. You’ll actually find them more fun than Warlocks. I’m personally a Well/condition spreader type.

One thing I will mention, throw mostly everything you know of WoW type game play out the window. When it comes to “questing”, you won’t be doing anything like what you did in WoW. There is no quest hubs with tons of quests to pick up. Everything is dynamic events with little “helping hand” type quests here and there.

It’s going to feel weird, yeah. But give it time. It takes some getting used to. You’re gonna want to quit cause it takes you from your comfort zone pretty quick, but don’t. Stick with it, and it will grow on you. Just have an open mind is all.

Thanks so much dude , It’s goin fine so far , i created a female norn warrior and reached lvl 10 , love the gameplay style and map completion thing , also the graphcis are awesome , btw any helpfull websites ?? like wowhead i mean

Also, no Holy Trinity in GW2. (Tank, CC, Healing)

If you want to play a good PVE Dungeon class that can sustain a group in EZ mode I suggest also rolling a guardian. with the changes to the traits this last patch they are rather OP now about group healing. And Play easier then a Elementalist.

Warrior is awesome in its own right, but you have 5 Character slots…use them all :-)

Extreme.8350:

sirsquishy.8531:

Extreme.8350:

Miriam.2506:

Would be long time that we get this. Every modern computer can choose how he is running things. Low machines running 32 Bit and DX9 and powermachines 64 BIT with DX12. That should not really a big problem.

Its a problem for me cuz my pc can run max dx 11 and there is almost none dx 12 games so it should be a big problem…

DX11 cards can support a lot of the DX12 API. There are already benches with the CPU load aspect on DX12 using DX11 based cards. So no, its not really a problem.

Thats interesting but im not touching win10 in its current state. mostly cuz of bugs but also cuz of the weird privacy policy.
I have a friend who uinstalled after a plethora of bluescreens.

Win10 is fine, it just need a few adjustments. But if your friend is getting a ton of BSOD’s they are doing something wrong.

DX12 Benchmarks

http://www.anandtech.com/show/8962/the-directx-12-performance-preview-amd-nvidia-star-swarm/3

Extreme.8350:

Miriam.2506:

Would be long time that we get this. Every modern computer can choose how he is running things. Low machines running 32 Bit and DX9 and powermachines 64 BIT with DX12. That should not really a big problem.

Its a problem for me cuz my pc can run max dx 11 and there is almost none dx 12 games so it should be a big problem…

DX11 cards can support a lot of the DX12 API. There are already benches with the CPU load aspect on DX12 using DX11 based cards. So no, its not really a problem.

There is so much gambling in this game. And it has been this way since day one. Why complain about it now?

its why I do not play the RNG factor with the Mystic Toilet or the Black Lion keys. I mean if a BLK drops ill use it, but I will in no way put time/gold into a BLK farm for a 1% Chance of getting the *number of scrape to make 1/5 weapon tickets for those skins. Just wont do it.

Same goes for the precusor Mystic toilet stuff too.

So why also waste the time/items on a NPC that uses the same % payout as the mystic Toilet?

This is on you OP, you should know better by now.

Guardian should have become a paladin IMHO. Thats more inline with the idea behind the Guardian’s skills and abilities.

Dragonhunter feels cheap, and while the LB addition is welcome (better then staff for ranged IMHO) I cannot see myself using it on my guard.

Torsailr.8456:

Hmm…the more memory sticks a computer can access at the same time the faster it’ll get and having memory sticks with the same amount of memory on them is better than different.

Latency is the measure of how slowly the memory does it’s job. The lower the number the better.

not the more memory sticks, the more memory channels. If you populate 2 memory sticks per channel you incur a latency cost. Ideally you want 1 stick per channel so that you remove that latency.

The memory sticks themselves have a CAS rating, the lower that rating, and the tighter their timings, the faster that ram will perform. Hence CL11 is slower then CL9 at 1600mhz.

Ricky.4706:

they could try to emulate 64 and have the choice of 32bit or 64bit. the extra ram would help a ton. the graphics would look far more intense in true 64 bit dx11 though. but expect many laptop tears because true 64 dx11 is a resource hog.

Dx12 will eventually be a huge deal though, because then the amd based video cards will be on equal footing as nvidia but more cost effective.

it’s a big deal, but not mainstream news yet, that’s a revolution ready to happen :p

https://community.amd.com/community/gaming/blog/2015/05/12/amd-enables-incredible-directx-12-performance-in-new-3dmark-api-overhead-feature-test

There is no ‘emulating’ 64bit. The only option for that under 32bit is to enable PAE. Which still limits each application thread to a 32bit memory space. It just means the core application that enables PAE can live in a 64bit memory space. But operationally its still 32bit and still has 32bit limits.

going 64bit requires a rewrite, which costs money and that is why we dont have it yet.

64bit would address the Character limit setting. If your system can handle the high setting performance wise, having a 64bit client would eliminate the OOM crashses from GW2.exe.

DX11,12, or Mantle would address the CPU bound issues IF it was coded correctly. Currently there is a lot of player based vector math drawn up on the CPU that could be broken down into more threads or split between CPU/GPU more. Thats why the more players on the screen the lower the performance, also same when you enter combat with other players on the screen. All that dynamic content (calculating other players movements/skills for your client) kills the CPU.

PaxTheGreatOne.9472:

I like the game as is, but I think a good multithreaded game would be very benificial to a considerable part of the player base. preferably with a 64 bit engine and a directx 12 with only DX 11 instructions would be nice. problem is they would cut all computers older then 4 years from the playerbase. and while you all might have pure gold on your table, some ppl play with old iron and they might be abel to afford the box(ed game) but not the box(ed computer)

Game requirements makes a slight hint about POSSIBLE RISING minimum requirements.

getting a DX11 or a DX12 card is not expensive. you can pay 109~ for a 360X and that would perform well for this game (80-100FPS). Going to DX11+ will just make every CPU perform better. So old iron boxed users should see an inprovement as well.

Crise.9401:

I don’t think they want expansions to become regular thing, because expansion equals huge gaps in their usual release cadence. If we think about it we have had two types of rolling content updates LS for story and feature packs for random improvements and changes in mechanics. Thing is this is now what some people have grown accustomed to, I know I had… so it might not be desirable for them to continuously disrupt this.

I believe they even said in a few places that HoT is a foundation, because the things coming in HoT are things that would have been impossible with either of their past release models for content. Outside of that HoT serves as a means for them to regain retail presence outside of first party purchases. So I can see them doing expansions as their needs require (ie. either in terms of things they want to develop or change being outside the scope of live development or their concurrent player counts, which are tied to gem store revenue, needing a potential boost bad enough).

I say this because they obviously really don’t like to fragment the playerbase and with each expansion this will happen, even with their business model changes and with each expansion for whatever influx of new and returning players they bring it also means drop in concurrent players as their cadence changes to accommodate the expansion development.

Only ANet has the data about these things, and they won’t have all of it until after HoT ships and live development returns to more active role… they probably don’t even know for sure themselves which mix of the two content models gets them the best return on investment yet.

I like to think of GW2 as being a living breathing machine. A machine that does not know what is going to happen month to month. But even then so that machine knows it needs to wake up every morning, brush its teeth, and meet all of its friendly users. We know that much, and im sure Anet knows a bit more then that. I really see no reason they cant be all ‘this is our plan for GW2 over the next year’, even if they drop anything that would lead to expectations.

What i would LOVE to see is a core game update with the API and fundamental coding of the game. And have that promised and roadmapped to the customer base. Nothing is more sad then paying 3k on a gaming system to pull 32FPS at an event like Modnir or Savnir Shaman While you pull 210FPS+ elsewhere in the game.

Duncanmix.5238:

Yearly expansions are wishful thinking. Even world of warcraft, with its massive budgets has expansions only every 2 years. And WoW is slowly but surely losing more and more players, because of lack of good content etc…

It is not easy to produce high quality, and high amount of content in such short period of time. Not to mention, they still have to keep people entertained by some minor updates on the side as well.

yea totally, I dont think anyone is asking for a yearly expansion or anything the like. But more of an more in depth explanation of their current new business model. There are questions that should be answered. Per my OP.

Inflation is what drives up costs usually. But my concern here is their mention of the expansion+base game rollup with every expansion release into a baseline cost. I can easily see the base game jumping to 79.99 for the latest expansion after 1 or 2 more expansions are released. As it is, the average WoW gamer pays 168/year to play the game with out including the expansion costs. If GW2 is going to roll with an Expansion yearly release, they are slowly entering that territory.

TJgalon.5012:

sirsquishy.8531:

MiniEquine.6014:

It does give you a code. There is nothing stopping you from giving that code to somebody else. My wife and I both bought our HoT upgrades using my PayPal (and my email); we just applied the codes afterward to both accounts.

Buy the game upgrade through the website, and send the code as the gift. Make sure only that person gets the code though! The safest way is to get them a gift card for the amount, but that extra tax makes it a pain.

except that the codes are automatically applied to your accounts. The codes are for reference only and are not actually usable.

My friend, she bought me the core game back then with a code. atm, I forgot where, but she sent me the code from her buying the game, and I linked it to my account, the website does not know what account you have. also if you can’t send the code to anyone, why would the buy page right now have a thing for buying up to 3 at once?

well, I upgraded my wifes account from the webpage last night. She was logged in to account management and the upgrade purchase auto applied the key to her account. Maybe a bug with the purchase system? But it behaved just like the in game upgrade purchase.

Ayrilana.1396:

They likely won’t provide a release schedule just like they won’t provide a release date for the current expansion.

Release schedules and release dates are entirely different things.

Release schedule is more of a projected road map, much like the AMD/Nvidia/intel release plans. They are estimated quarter’s for that year.

And letting the player base/customer base know that their expansion release schedule is planned per year or every 2 years is something important enough to share IMHO. And maybe add in what their plan is for the roll-up updates in between expansions as well. Many other much bigger companies release road maps like this already and so can Anet/NCsoft.

MiniEquine.6014:

It does give you a code. There is nothing stopping you from giving that code to somebody else. My wife and I both bought our HoT upgrades using my PayPal (and my email); we just applied the codes afterward to both accounts.

Buy the game upgrade through the website, and send the code as the gift. Make sure only that person gets the code though! The safest way is to get them a gift card for the amount, but that extra tax makes it a pain.

except that the codes are automatically applied to your accounts. The codes are for reference only and are not actually usable.

gift them a pre-paid visa card. and then tell them to buy the expansion with it. that would be your best bet, until Anet decides to retail box HoT.

Ayrilana.1396:

They’ll still be doing living story as well so expansions are not the only content although it appears you’ll need the expansion to access them.

well that is why I am asking about the content release schedule moving forward. If we are to expect an expansion every year, and inside that expansion we are going to get the ‘living story’ that ads value to that new ‘yearly subscription’ costs.

Lots of users are talking about ‘uninformed purchase decisions’ and I think this topic can help to address them. Hell I am curious myself here.

Tkosh.1923:

Hey Sir Squishy How is your ram increasing your FPS so much? Video is the hog, are you using onboard graphics?
I can see memory decreasing load times like an SSD drive but not video performance.

I think you miss directed this to me.

But, RAM will make a difference over all depending on what the starting configuration is compared to your upgrade configuration. Mainly in channels. Single channel vs Dual channel is a 50% increase to 100% since the RAM’s speed is nearly double by having matching sticks. Triple channel is about an 18% increase over Dual channel, and quad channel is about another 18%. But the application may not see such increases depending on how it accesses memory pages.

GW2 uses GPU to a certain extent. The issue is that GW2 cares more about how fast your CPU can execute instructions more then how much graphical power your GPU has. For an example, an FX8350 with a GTX970 will perform slower then a i7-4790K and a gtx970. Even if the FX8350 and 4790K are clocked at the same speed. And that’s because the FX8350 executes code slower then the 4790K(we are talking a CPU from 2012 vs a CPU from 2015 mind you as well, but its just an example).

Kendra Nightwind.8734:

Of all the things promised to be in Guild Wars 2 when it shipped; an x64 client was not one of them. What was promised, but we still don’t have nor will ANet even acknowledge, is DX10 support.
I was there when she (Gaile Gray) was asked about both DX 10 and a 64 bit client. She confirmed that Guild Wars 2 would support DX10, but she did not know anything about if there was going to be a 64 bit client.
It irks me no end that we are stuck with DX9c and even worse that we are stuck with a 32 bit (x86) client that won’t even distribute itself (some what) evenly across all available cores.. Shoot, even Guild Wars would take advantage of multi-core systems better than Guild Wars 2 does.

Today I would vote for DX12. Win10 is almost here and will be a free upgrade for most of the users here (Unless you are still on XP/Vista), and that brings DX12 support to the table. And cards that run DX10 and 11 can support a lot of DX12. Really they just need to multithread the rendering and do more of the vector math in the GPU for character dynamic content(that is what kills the CPU for performance when you are near a zerg) and that would ‘fix’ most of the issues with the engine. That is until they do another series of Bolt-ons lol

Entenkommando.5208:

sirsquishy.8531:

RAM Speeds (Lowest CL on the highest speed possible for your OC)
Highest Single core IPC (4790K stock is the FASTEST cpu, period)
Fastest PCIE bridge (Version 3)

Is what makes FPS faster

OT: none of this will give you a noticeable performance boost in real world usage.
RAM never limits anything graphic wise.
Even the 4 year old 2xxx Intels deliver enough performance. It’s always the GPU power that limits first.
There is no difference between pcie 2.0 and 3.0 because you never have such a huge data transfer in simple games. 2.0 bandwidth is more than enough not to limit your fps.

Don’t spend too much money on fancy CPU or RAM. It’s still the GPU you wanna care about most.

Sorry, you are just wrong.

for GW2 its CPU that limits the performance. GW2 will run on a GTX480 or a HD7790 at 1080P and yield 80-110FPS easily if the CPU has fast enough IPC per core.

So lets discuss the ‘New Business model’ AKA ‘Expansion Release schedule + Cost summary’

We all know that they updated their Core business model with HoT and this Blog post here > https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/pre-purchase-community-address/

Business Model Clarification

We want to be clear about our business model for future expansions now that we are approaching our first paid expansion for Guild Wars 2. We believe that to keep the game dynamic and vibrant with a constantly growing community, it should be as easy as possible for new players to get into Guild Wars 2. For Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns, we didn’t want the core game’s price to be a factor in a new player’s decision to begin playing Guild Wars 2. In the future, if we release further Guild Wars 2 expansions, we plan to offer all of the prior expansions, the core game, and the latest expansion for one single purchase price.

Now there are 2 things that were not very clear in this address

1. Price scheme moving forward
2. Expansion release schedule

If they want to release each expansion at 49.99(Current pricing Model) every year, your monthly subscription to keep the game up to date becomes $4.16 – $8.11 depending on your purchase options. This moves GW2 from a Buy to Play to a Yearly Subscription to get updated content. Granted the cost here is minimal compared to other MMOs, but I think this fact is being seriously overlooked. And yes, you do not have to upgrade your game to continue to play it. Nor do you have to update on their release schedule either. But this is about getting new content as soon as its available.

Now if they want to release an expansion every 2 or 3 years that cost obviously drops quite a bit. But that also staggers content releases.

But they also didn’t go into any details on their planned pricing model moving forward. Are we going to continue to pay the current ‘market fair price’ on every expansion. Or is it going to be Core Game cost + each expansion after the fact. So in 3 Expansion releases, instead of paying 49.99, we are paying 79.99?

Now, I do not mind paying X(X = Fair market value here) for new content in GW2. I think the game (over all) is great, and by far the best MMO in existence right now. But lets just be clear here. They ARE moving the game from a buy to play to a “yearly” subscription to keep content updated for ANYONE who wants an ‘up to date’ game experience.

And really I want clarification on their pricing model and release schedule moving forward. As if the Games update cost is going to increase with each expansion I will probably not continue with this product. Also, it would be nice to have a good understanding of Anet’s plans for content releases moving forward.

Extreme.8350:

sirsquishy.8531:

Extreme.8350:

sirsquishy.8531:

The following changes need to happen to GW2 for it to be ‘competitive’ down the road

1. 64bit client support so that the application can poll more then 3.25GB of ram
2. API upgrade to support multithreaded rendering
3. better GPU vRAM usage utilization
4. more vector math done at the GPU rather then CPU (AKA Character model limit settings)

Until these things are done, the game is going to be in 2010. No matter how ‘pretty’ it looks. And as new content gets added its just going to keep on getting slower and slower.

Agree with all those things for the time being ram speed seem to be a bandaid solution for fps even more so than cpu clockspeed.

RAM Speeds (Lowest CL on the highest speed possible for your OC)
Highest Single core IPC (4790K stock is the FASTEST cpu, period)
Fastest PCIE bridge (Version 3)

Is what makes FPS faster

I upgraded from 12 to 24gb ram about 4 months ago and i got a huge fps boost.
It dosent use more than 3gb ram but the ram speed in trippel channel did help.
Maybe not on better chipsets but i can play this on high settings with 80-120 fps.

Speed Increase from a RAM upgrade will depend on the old Memory configuration.

Going from Dual channel to Triple channel is really a 8-18% increase depending on the application though. More so its the size of each DIMM. 12GB could be a 8GB and 4GB chip, meaning that only 4GB was in Dual channel while the last 4GB on that 8GB module is in single channel mode. That can account for the performance increase.

Also going from a higher CAS Latency to a smaller CL will do more as well. Such as dropping from CL11 down to CL9 will give a pretty decent speed increase. On top of the channel change as well.

so tons of reasons why the memory upgrade could help.

Hammersmash Ureface.2650:

It probably won’t happen until GW3.. Too many people hanging onto dinosaur computers, same reason it took OS’s so long. Catering to the weakest link.

yea, your reasoning is flawed.

1. They do not need to ‘dump’ the 32bit client to introduce a 64bit client
2. Same goes for the API, Going DX12 does not have to remove support for DX9

its about $$$ and nothing else.

Extreme.8350:

sirsquishy.8531:

The following changes need to happen to GW2 for it to be ‘competitive’ down the road

1. 64bit client support so that the application can poll more then 3.25GB of ram
2. API upgrade to support multithreaded rendering
3. better GPU vRAM usage utilization
4. more vector math done at the GPU rather then CPU (AKA Character model limit settings)

Until these things are done, the game is going to be in 2010. No matter how ‘pretty’ it looks. And as new content gets added its just going to keep on getting slower and slower.

Agree with all those things for the time being ram speed seem to be a bandaid solution for fps even more so than cpu clockspeed.

RAM Speeds (Lowest CL on the highest speed possible for your OC)
Highest Single core IPC (4790K stock is the FASTEST cpu, period)
Fastest PCIE bridge (Version 3)

Is what makes FPS faster

milumilu.1759:

So did Anet do a “New Coke” campaign? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Coke

or they really conceded “victory” to veterans?

More like..

Use of stimulants in formula
An early Coca Cola advertisement.

When launched, Coca-Cola’s two key ingredients were cocaine and caffeine. The cocaine was derived from the coca leaf and the caffeine from kola nut, leading to the name Coca-Cola (the “K” in Kola was replaced with a “C” for marketing purposes).⁶⁴⁶⁵

The following changes need to happen to GW2 for it to be ‘competitive’ down the road

1. 64bit client support so that the application can poll more then 3.25GB of ram
2. API upgrade to support multithreaded rendering
3. better GPU vRAM usage utilization
4. more vector math done at the GPU rather then CPU (AKA Character model limit settings)

Until these things are done, the game is going to be in 2010. No matter how ‘pretty’ it looks. And as new content gets added its just going to keep on getting slower and slower.

Test.8734:

Vayne.8563:

Well it may come as a surprise to most of you, but I never doubted Anet would come through and do the right thing. I even may have said so once or twice. lol

Thanks for post, Anet!

You know, Vayne, you should thank US.

If you had what you wanted, everyone would have been quiet and avoided any complaint. Meanwhile, we worked hard to make our point to ArenaNet and let them know how their course of action wasn’t ideal.

As a result, thanks to our work, you will get one more character slot, while all you did was stand on the way.

I think you should name your character “Test Was Right”. Just so you remember who you should be thankful for it.

Lol. No doubt that the community is 100% to blame for the ‘free’ character slot here. But conceited much?

Iavra.8510:

No, they gain protection while they are running to their targets.

/edit: The distortion won’t prevent them being shattered, either, if that was the question.

Ah ok, thanks. that is what I had thought. But its worded badly IMHO.

So how does this one work exactly?

Protected Phantasms: Newly summoned phantasms gain distortion for 1 second. When you use a shatter skill, all illusions gain protection for 2 seconds.

Shatters destroy illusions, so if you shatter and your illusions gain protection does that mean they are staying in play? (Have not logged in yet, just curious)

So I rewarded Anet with 1 account upgrade for adjusting the character slot on pre-order. I am going to hold my other upgrades(5 of them) until they address the following concerns/issues that remain

1. Character slot needs to be part of all the expansion order levels. Pre-ordering is not an acceptable means of getting it for the 49.99 baseline package. Its just not.

2. So moving forward on the price model, can we expect each and every Expansion to run at the current price model? Or are we going to see more like, 39.99+X, where X is 9.99 for each expansion after the other. Meaning, 2 expansions after HoT, the new base price is 39.99+9.99+9.99+9.99 for that expansion? Or are you going to roll the previous expansion(s) up into that baseline price of 39.99 and we only have to worry about 49.99 moving forward? This needs answered, as it will immediately decide my future with GW2 starting now.

VashingKnives.3620:

Thanks for those suggestions Anasu. I’m always over 30fps without too much noticeable visual quality difference now.

Are you using max ingame settings? if so, start off by disabling FXAA and set Reflections to Sky. I would set character limit to medium for normal game areas and low for zerg/wvw content.

that should make a decent enough difference.

IndigoSundown.5419:

sirsquishy.8531:

ANET has nothing to do with the pricing on HoT, and really neither does NCSoft either.

Its their Financial report Analysis that does, as stated on Jan8th of 2015;

Portions of financial reports that contain financial analysis are generated by the company, usually by a Financial Analyst or a similar position. This report is then vetted by management and included in the report as a service to stockholders or prospective stock buyers. The data comes from records of past performance and — in the case of a price on a new product — from the price set by company executives. If you want us to believe there is a third party (i.e., not ANet and NCSoft executives) setting the price, you’ll need a citation from something other than an NCSoft financial report.

Your issue seems to be that companies want to increase profits. This is what happens almost every time a “for-profit” company prices a new product. If you don’t believe that HoT is worth the price, then you obviously should not buy it.

No one knows if HoT is worth the current price point. No One. And All I am saying is before HoT was announced, it was projected in the report then 3 days later HoT was a registered Trade mark THEN they started to really dive into the development work (it left the whiteboard, sorta speak). Out of the gate they valued HoT at the current prices (49.99 being the baseline they will not go below). The other 2 Price points are for players that want more.

My main complaint is the Character slot. Why did they make an awesome class and then expect players to pony up Gems(or gold/Cash) in order to play that content After paying the HoT price?

My second complaint is that the Base game is not separated from HoT. The bundle is fine, but I have the base game and don’t need it. I would like to be able to ‘Gift’ it to a friend, or build a Bank account (I have one already).

And my last complaint is more of a systematic issue with the current players that CAN refund their GW2 as long as its 30days or less, they get HoT for 9.99 (base game cost them 39.99). Sure they lose all their exp/characters/Whatever, but in that model HoT is 9.99 not 49.99 as they get a refund for a game they already bought and that base cost gets rolled into the HoT purchase. That violates the 49.99 baseline Price that NCSoft is pushing on everyone else. Even with those players sacrifices they have to make.

pretty cut and clear I think.

Tell ya what, for 49.99 give us that 1 character slot and separate the base game from the expansion so that if we want to create ‘yet another account’ we can.

Problem solved. like seriously.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Here’s the economic equation.

• ANet decides they will make more money from new players if they value the core game at $0. They don’t go F2P because that means an endless supply of free accounts for RMT kittens and for laurel farmers, which would upset the equilibrium of T6 mats on the TP. So, they tie the “free” GW2 core to a HoT purchase..
• If ANet is correct, the new player equation favors them.
• However, say some veterans choose not to spend the $50 they would otherwise have spent (very important here). The number of new players they gain that they would not get without the “bonus” has to exceed the number of non-paying vets for the equation to pay off.

So, just how many vets are cheesed off enough to never pay unless Anet relents? If you pay later, you’re the one relenting. I’m certainly seeing posts from the usual suspects in these threads, along with posts from others I’ve never seen. The numbers might or might not rival the numbers who protested the 4/14 trait system — which did get changed. I’m pretty sure they don’t rival the protests against the Ascended horror, which kind of did and kind of didn’t get changed.

Then there’s the possibility that this is just people engaging in one of humanity’s oldest predilections, trying to get more for less. If people were concerned about the principle of the thing, they’d be challenging whether HoT is worth $50 at all, not missing and poaning about Anet trying to hook new gem store customers with the hope that they might catch a whale or two.

Regarding vets “subsidizing the new player bonus?” Get real. ANet values HoT at $50 and GW2 core @ $0. You wouldn’t be subsidizing anything.

ANET has nothing to do with the pricing on HoT, and really neither does NCSoft either.

Its their Financial report Analysis that does, as stated on Jan8th of 2015;

Also, in 2015, NCsoft is expected to roll out an ex
pansion pack for
Guild Wars 2
,
which
has sold more than 3mn copies since its release in
2012 in the US and Europe.
We
assumed in our 2015 earnings estimates
Guild Wars 2 expansion pack sales of around
2mn copies (US$50 per copy), and note that the expa
nsion packs for
Guild Wars 1
have
sold almost as much as the original game in the yea
r of their release.

Source – http://www.kdbdw.com/bbs/download/192028.pdf?attachmentId=192028

And that was even before the beta’s, any previews, or PR surrounding HoT. That was just days before Anet registered the HoT Trademarks, and they already had set a Unit price of 50USD….Even Before diving into the content they were going to provide.

Yet you all can’t see ANYTHING wrong with this?

The way I see it is like this. NCSoft is expected to make 100M from the HoT expansion (2,000,000 Copies at $50USD each), as per that report. I call this enforced profits (Must make). And instead of NCsoft finding other ways to divide this debt up, they put it all into one basket. Forcing it on its user base (new and old). They then fluff it by adding 2 more expensive options with more virtual bonuses.

And what happens if NCSoft cant make 100M in profits from GW2 in 2015? its only going to come back on the Customer base…again.

Sorry, I cant get behind this scumbag move.

Seth Moonshadow.2710:

Thank You!
For the work you have put into the HoT expansion! I am anxious to see where our story winds up with Caithe having “taken” Glint’s Egg. I look forward to the beta’s and hope to explore more of Verdant Brinks and possibly other maps. I have a suspicion about Rytlock’s path on his journey to retrieve Sohothin, and am curious if I am 1) right and or 2) we will be taken on that journey also?

Thank You!
For Guild Halls! I have been eagerly awaiting news of Guild Halls and thus far I am very pleased with what I have seen and read about them. I cannot wait to start building our new structures with our unlocked guild The ability to decorate Guild Halls and the way it appears to be implemented is sweet! I can’t wait to craft more decorations and explore designs of our Guild Hall.

Thank You!
For the new Revenant profession. “Ha, that’s a fair price, I’ll take two my good friend!” ~Home instance citizen. I will make 2 as I bought a spare char slot in case one was not included with the expansion. It was a joy to play in the closed beta test and I will enjoy them after launch.

Thank You!
For The Revenant Finisher, Guild Hall decoration, Title, Mini Revenant Rytlock, and Glider Skin for use now and in the future.

Thank You!
For the Mastery System and seeing the players side of things and allowing us to craft precursors for both existing and new legendary weapons. Even though it is only 1 it is better than none. I can’t wait to level up in the system and earn my glider, jumping powers, and Itzel features.

Thank You!
For Specializations. I think the new design for traits is awesome and I really enjoy we do not have to buy them or scour the world to gather them. It, to me, seemed only natural that we gain them through leveling.

Thank You!
For considering small guild in the new guild hall system. I hope it will allow small or low representation / inactive player base guilds to achieve as much as the large guilds. I hope the new system has more of our members swapping back to our guild to help out and that we may help out other similar sized guilds.

Thank You!
For rebuilding LA and helping us see our efforts pay off to help return LA and Tyria to it’s spectacular glory.

Thank You!
For a wonderful two plus years of a magnificent ride through the world of Tyria, from our first characters and steps in Queensdale, Wayferers Foothils, Plains of Ashford, Metrica Province, or Caledon Forest through Orr, SouthSun Cove, Dry Top, Silverwastes and beyond. Can’t wait to see the future of Guild Wars 2!!!

I am sure HoT will have its challenges for us to enjoy, cry, and laugh through. I am glad it is getting closer to release.

Through all the criers there are some who still enjoy and look forward to each and every day of Guild Wars 2! See you in game

Thank You
For putting your 100M worth of debt back on the player base with this one purchase!
Thank you thank you THANK YOU!

Blazing Liger.1236:

‘ArenaNet supporters’, as you seem to enjoy calling yourselves, here’s the deal. We’re not telling you not to buy HoT. We’re not talking smack about ANet. So please, just listen for a moment, because we’re not on the same page.

$50 is not a financial burden for you, I understand. Your opportunity cost (what you’re giving up the opportunity to buy by purchasing HoT instead) would be another game, or maybe some other form of entertainment. You’ve enjoyed GW2 a lot, and so you’re happy to use that money to buy HoT. Congratulations on your financial security. It’s nice that you don’t have to give that a second thought.

But spare a moment for those of us who do. We’re not balking at the price tag because we’d rather buy another game. There are those who have the money, and just don’t see it as a worthwhile investment; it’s their money to do with as they please. But for others of us, our opportunity cost is not another game. It’s a bag of groceries, or a tank of gas. It’s rent money, tuition, or medication. $50 is a financial burden for some of us. We were expecting the expansion to be a little cheaper. The only thing feeling light right now is our wallets. And we would just like a little empathy from you. So please don’t put words in our mouths, or make assumptions about us.

As for myself, I was in a much better financial position when the game was released. I bought the Collector’s Edition and have probably spent about $300 to date on gems. I have supported the game plenty. I would just appreciate not being priced out of a game I enjoy. Thank you.

see the issue here is quite simple (you really do sum it up quite nice, but let me add one thing)

Anet needs to make 100M for the rest of 2015 per their financial annalist’s report. That’s 50USD for 2,000,000 copies of the expansion.

That is the root of the issue here, they are pushing their financial burden directly back on the users.

that is morally wrong. Period.

vincecontix.1264:

There is a reason for the $50 price tag http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/3adxq0/the_real_reason_for_hots_50_price_tag/

I think just adding an extra character slot for players that already own the core copy of gw2 would be good.

And really, this is our issue how?

If Anet needs to raise 100,000,000 for 2015 they need to come up with better business strategy. To expect 100m from 1 product launch off its ENTIRE player base is just a stupid move. Talk about putting all your eggs in one basket.

They should drop the Expansions cost to a traditional 39.99, build a ‘recruit a friend’ system where aged accounts gain benefits for bringing in new sales, and do BETTER work on the gem store (whip sword is a cool idea, but they needed a better delivery on it IMHO, same with the black angel wings).

That is how you do business, you don’t screw your ENTIRE kittening customer base to make that ‘projected’ require profits for the rest of the year. You just don’t!

I don’t care for an apology, Anet making the changes to the Expansion is apologetic enough.

34.99-39.99 price range + Character Slot, for existing accounts.

then we are good.

Greymelken.1892:

I would be inclined to believe you but you keepo popping up in threads. If you are so mad at anet and you are ging to boycott everything that you dont like, then the best thing you can do is leave.

If you leave and never post again, that will hurt anet more then crying about how mad you are at anet. Publicity is publicity, negative or not. Every post you make brings these forums and this game closer to the top of google’s search results, and when they come, they might just get enlightened while they sift through all the garbage posts about how Anet is the Beast.

Every one of you hating on Anet secures a sale for Anet.

If I am wrong, and any of this expressed negativity would hurt anet, they would have deleted the topics, even if they had to invoke the reasoning that every one of them spirals off topic.

You obviously don’t understand how Google’s spider crawler works here, so please don’t try.

and I am not ‘hating’ on Anet. I am making my opinion known about the business decision they made towards the expansion. Not once did I say I was going to stop playing or be done with Anet/NCsoft products…not yet anyway.

But when companies (For profit) pull moves like Anet did, they ultimately lose the bottom line (sales). And that is what will happen here if they do not come up with a solid strategy to overcome their short sightedness.

This whole Disney thing just has me kittened off, to be honest and was completely off topic…as I said. But i guess you didn’t read ANY of it, did ya?

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

You know, I spent a lot of money during Guild Wars heyday buying multiple accounts because there was no option to purchase additional character slots. The option to purchase additional character slots was not added until 15 months after release. The only way to add character slots to your ‘main’ account was to purchase another campaign and ‘give up’ some of the slots allocated with said campaign and add the two remaining slots to your ‘main’ account.

We are fortunate we no longer have to do that; we can even obtain additional character slots by merely exchanging in-game Gold for Gems!

yes, but that does not negate the fact that the Rev is a bait and switch tactic to get ppl to buy more gems. Unless you want to spend 74.99 out the gate….

I for one will boycot Disney over this, and yes that means all subsidairies along with them (Lucas, Marvel…) and I dont care.

What does this have to do with Anet? Nothing. I just figured its a good read and gives us all something more important to think on while we wait for Anet’s response.

Thanks to reporting from The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times and Computerworld, the American public is getting a glimpse of the H-1B’s primary purpose. Recent, egregious examples took place at Disney and Southern California Edison (SCE) — two companies that earned billions in profits last year — where hundreds of information technology workers were laid off and replaced with H-1Bs. But first, the U.S. employees were required to train the H-1B workers who would soon be sitting at their desks, doing their jobs.

H-1B rules allow employers to displace and replace U.S. workers with foreign tech workers. The only restriction applies to companies where more than 15 percent of the workforce are H-1Bs: They are permitted to replace U.S. workers only if the H-1B holds a master’s degree or is paid over $60,000. Hatch recently suggested increasing this displacement exemption to $95,000, rather than prohibiting displacement altogether. Hatch’s proposal falls short, because companies will still be allowed to replace workers, as well as vastly underpay H-1Bs compared to U.S. workers in the same occupation and geographic region.

While employers must pay H-1B workers the legally defined local “prevailing wage” — a rule intended to prevent undermining U.S. wage standards — employers have the option of paying the Level 1 “entry-level” wage, or the Level 2 wage, both of which are well below the average wage local employers pay for workers in similar jobs. In theory, the wage level must correspond to the H-1B worker’s education and experience, but in practice, the employer gets to choose, and the government isn’t checking. Unsurprisingly, the Government Accountability Office reported that 83 percent of H-1Bs are certified to be paid below-average wages (Level 1 or 2).

How do corporations benefit from this? Major savings: Many of the workers laid off at Disney and SCE earned $100,000 a year or more. Government data indicate the H-1B workers replacing them earn around $60,000.

The companies that usually do the actual replacement — offshore outsourcing firms like HCL, Infosys and Tata — are the top recipients of H-1B visas, and get about half the allotted visas every year. Their business model is based on replacing U.S. workers and shifting jobs overseas. Their clients that replaced U.S. employees with guest workers include companies like Fossil, Pfizer, Northeast Utilities, Harley Davidson and Cargill.

Instead of expanding the H-1B program, Hatch should work to fix it, to prevent the kinds of abuses that occurred at Disney. The law should be changed so that it’s illegal to replace U.S. workers with H-1Bs. Employers should be required to recruit and hire qualified U.S. workers before hiring an H-1B, and be required to pay their H-1B workers no less than the true local average wage for the jobs they fill. Requiring a higher wage would be even better, because it would ensure that employers use the H-1B only when they can’t find local talent, and to hire highly skilled individuals that complement and add value to the workforce, rather than as a way to cut labor costs.

Daniel Costa is the director of immigration law and policy research at the Economic Policy Institute.

Moira Shalaar.5620:

I am not going to argue with the price. Plenty here have (tbh I did not read much past the first 5-6 pages). Yet the very vocal, passionate response of the player base ought to convey something. As I write this there are 56 pages devoted to this topic, way too long for me to read without this being my paid job (and it isn’t!). The OP for this page (merged, I know) posted 17 hours ago. I don’t know that I have seen another topic that has received this much attention this fast ever. IMHO the bundling part (HoT + Base Game free) was the major marketing misstep.

Yet for as unhappy kitten many are, I don’t know that this marketing misstep can be corrected at this point. It seems to me that ANET is pretty much locked into this course of action. They CANNOT take away the base game bundle now. Marketing-wise, that simply is not an alternative. There have been those who have already pre-ordered (despite some calls for boycotting), so any other changes would have to be retroactive in some sense if they are going to avoid an even worse misstep by further alienating those early adopters who have been willing to pay immediately. If they add in a character slot to the $50 base package kitten many have demanded, then they invalidate a solid chunk of the value and reason for those who have ALREADY preordered either of the premium content editions (Deluxe/Ultimate). So then they have to do something else to make it up to the people who might otherwise have bought the lower edition because it had everything they really wanted. It would become a cascading chain of complaints and adjustments.

Early on I saw a suggestion that they offer the base game as a separate code. I think that would be the most viable alternative, at least if my logic above is sound. I am not terribly interested in having another account, I did buy one when the $10 sale was going on ankitten ot unhappy about that purchase. But that would at least more or less level the playing field between new customers and those of us who have been playing since pre-ordering the base game back in 2012.

what they need to do is offer a stand alone expansion upgrade code for accounts that have the base game. They can do this already in the Gem store with the deluxe upgrade version, so their base line code is already in place for this.

That is the ONLY step i can see them taking at this point. Baseline HoT only upgrade for 34.99 with no character slot, or 39.99 with a character slot.

its 2 more game codes they need to offer, its not rocket science here.

then, problem solved.

I manage IT of a company that pulls in 560M/year, we had something like this hit the distribution channel a couple years ago, because of upper managements decisions the following year we lost 20% of our profits. Not until after that horrible year was over did the upper management do the right thing and fix the issue from the previous year, by added the appropriate credit to the affected accounts. and we are talking some accounts getting 1.5m in credit. Just sayin.

I know Anet can do the right thing here, the question is ‘will they’ ?

we dont need business examples here. we need a response from Anet on this matter.

we need the price adjusted, and we need the core expansion to include a character slot. That will fix the issue for 98% of us.

‘it takes months to find a good solid customer, but only seconds to lose 1’

Anet – Your clock is ticking here.

coso.9173:

why SHOULD it include a character slot? I’ve played multiple MMOs with lots of new expansions and having a new character slot is not the default at all.

It’s simple really. Expansion comes with a new Class, after 3 years. That’s why.

Rod.6581:

xKratos.4758:

Now, the damage has been done. ANet will never revert the price and the best we could hope for is for them to add a free character slot at MINIMUM to the standard pack. Since the fanbois already preorder so reverting the prices is not possible and will be unfair to them.

Since this is a Pre-Purchase with Access to All Beta Weekend Events and Exclusive Title, we can hope they’ll give us slightly different option after launch.

Let me get this right, you are OK with PAYING them to be a beta tester then? I mean, that is how i read your statement there. Saying that the Beta ‘should’ be more expensive and that the actual launch ‘might’ be priced better?

If so, no thanks all together.

My complaint is more along the line of what is included and not included with the base package.

1. There is no character slot. I mean really? This should be required!
2. There is no benefit to veteran players by buying the Expansion in its current form.
We loose the 5 character slots, we loose the Starter packaged Items (like the one time Guild Rep bonus)….ect.

That is it really. IMHO the expansion should be between 34.99 and 39.99 for ANY player that already owns the base game and that SHOULD include a character slot.

In its current state, I will not be buying the expansion.

MashMash.1645:

Nibi.3572:

I seriously don’t understand why the core game comes with it

at least let me give the core game i just now got again to a friend

Or let us have it as an extra copy, that we can use ourselves or give to friends.

thats all fine and dandy, but what if we do not want another base game? We should not be stuck with something that does not benefit us.

gavyne.6847:

sirsquishy.8531:

gavyne.6847:

There are always people that complain about expansion prices, I remember seeing similar threads in EQ, WoW, etc.. My take is that be lucky you are playing a game that actually release expansions and updates. You could be playing one of many many other MMO’s that are on maintenance mode and barely upgrade or release content anymore. And for a game that does not charge monthly subscriptions unlike other titles, I think the price is well justified.

For $50 you’ll get so many hours of entertainment, it’ll make you feel silly for paying $150 a month for cable bills.

Except its 49.99 × 4 accounts. Do the math there.

First of all, that’s your problem if you have 4 accounts. Secondly, what’s ironic is that you only need to pay $49.99 × 4 once. Where as within 2 months you would’ve paid more than that for cable tv which you likely don’t even spend that much time watching anyway. I’m using cable as an easy comparison, but we all know we spend a lot of money on other things that we don’t spend a fraction of the time using.

My point is you’ll get hours upon hours of entertainment value out of this. It’s cheap as heck if you think about it. And with no monthly subscription charges, the price is well worth it.

I can’t believe how blind some of you are being about this.

HOT+Base game for 49.99
If you have the base game, you get no benefits from the added ‘bundle’

HOT should cost us between 34.99 and 39.99 and not a penny more since most of us here (you need a base account for forum access, yea?) have the base game already.

But if you just wanna throw your money away, thats on you. I’m going to fight this until Anet changes this. Or Ill just wait until next year when HoT is on sale for the correct price it should be.

Either way, you guys do NOT need to make comparisons against Sub MMOs and Cable TV (none of which are in the competition here, as I pay for Neither. I use OTA TV and I play LoTRO/Tera when i get bored in GW2)