shit guild wars 2 is gonna do good. Its buy 2 play. Even if 5 million people buy it and half of them stop playing it dosent matter..... just matters on box sales.
Except it kind of does... Those people need to stick around for expansion packs.
except they dont. they already have your money. all they have to do is keep selling the original box.
Generally after the first few weeks there will be a major drop off in said people buying GW2 vanilla.
shit guild wars 2 is gonna do good. Its buy 2 play. Even if 5 million people buy it and half of them stop playing it dosent matter..... just matters on box sales.
Except it kind of does... Those people need to stick around for expansion packs.
except they dont. they already have your money. all they have to do is keep selling the original box.
Generally after the first few weeks there will be a major drop off in said people buying GW2 vanilla.
i agree. but they would still only have to market the inital box to other player bases to make more money. the casual nature is a good thing for a b2p game. i can burn myself out in a month if i want to, and then revisit it, given i had fun, in 6 months when they put out an expansion. they dont need to have a solid playerbase for it be successful. they just have to sell boxes.
The game is gonna have a cash shop, so it's actually not far off of a f2p. The only real difference is the cash shop isn't required to play comfortably, oh and you have to buy the box and expansions.
We'll just have to wait and see how greedy they get with the cash shop. If they go the GW1 route players might be able to buy their skills instead of earning them in the game.
Selling skills for cash would be pointless for a game like GW2. This is because it takes about 20minutes (according to TotalBiscuit beta preview) to unlock all skills for a particular weapon. Ya I agree the time to unlock all skills are subject to change, but because there won't be like 400+ skills which guild wars had, there would just be no point in purchasing skills sets :P. Maybe they will sell utility skill sets instead? Then again, its far more fun to just collect them as u progress further in game and its not like u have 100 utility skills to collect.
You can say that ArenaNet was 'greedy' to sell costumes at such high prices. However, do u REALLY need that costume?
They may release DLC via cash shop, and that is something to get a little worried about. Though I don't think it will be a major problem given that u just get SOOO much gameplay for the box price.
F2P, B2P, WTF, LOL. Have you guys booted up GW1 lately? I can't wait to see the rage quit from the GW2 fans when they finally figure out how Arenanet is going to milk this monster of a game.
They will have you "buy" the tail. Ha! but seriously. You think you're going to get a game of this scope for just the price of the box? Somebody will be paying the money. Look at GW1, right out of the box you can hit up the store and go buy every skill, unlock every equipment upgrade and whatever else. I took a look at the store last night and cringed. I thought "What's the point of even trying this game out again?"
It was pretty creepy. I expect GW2 to be a killer product but I know there's going to be a catch at some point. Wether it's that $9.99 "perk" that makes things so much easier, or endless amounts of "downloadable content" that will get ya for a few bucks here and there.
It'll be interesting to see how it pans out.
Your arrogance and ignorance is just astonishing. Have I played Guild Wars 1? Yes, I have and for me it is 10 times more fun than 99.99% of the MMOs on this website and it actually requires skill and it's not mindless grind pressing which requires you to press 2 buttons while watching TV.
But you clearly know nothing about it. Can you please not comment on a game which you have clearly not played? Or did you just boot the demo? I doubt you even did that.
Like I said i'm playing it right now for the first time in many years. Thought I would give it a try to see if there was some story I could get into for the GW2 release evenetually. I'm lvl 7 and getting out into the post searing stuff.
So what about my post just spewed ignorance? I'm pretty sure it was just 16 hours ago I checked into the online store and I could buy like 3 skill unlock packs for $9.99 each or whatever that unlocked every skill in the game for each expansion. And then there was some kind of PvP access kit, and another kit that unlocked every item for PvP if I remember correctly.
I'm just saying that Arenanet is going to pull in some major cash somehow or another. I don't expect to be "forced" into purchasing anything whatsoever, hell I'll even buy some shit if it's a good option, but man did it really kill the mood when I saw their online store last night. Definitely a sign of things to come.
Edit: spelled "definitely" wrong for the 15,000th time in my life.
Ooh sorry, didn't know you started playing recently :P These skill packs are pvp packs which unlock the skills for PvP only. I have never bought any of them. They are there for people who want to play PvP only. They unlock all skils for PvP and they give you access to the game. You can actually buy the PvP packs without any of the other games and you are all set for PvP. Of course, if you buy the packs but not the games you will not be able to play PvE.
All the other items in the store give you no advantage. You have things like character slots, special editions upgrades (say if you bought the GW regular edition but wanted to get the goodies of the Guild Wars Special Edition) and costumes. Costumes are quite good for cosmetic purposes but they don't give you any advantage as they virtually have no stats and they can't be traded. They also have a small mission pack in the store which consists of 4 missions which give you some further insight into the lore. I have bought all the expansions and some character slots but that's about all I've bought from the store.
Mission in life: Vanquish all MMORPG.com trolls - especially TESO, WOW and GW2 trolls.
I have no problems paying for a game giving me enjoyment, no matter what payment model they use as long as it is within reason.
That being said, 1 million beta sign ups within 48 hrs? Impressive.
actually its higher then that, they were forced to cut it off at 1 million.
NO thats not what happend. The extended the sign-up window a little so it came close to 50 hours to reach the 1 million mark.
When 1 million was reached the window closed. Impressive anyway
and to OP , i dont, think GW1 have that many accounts as it have been stated that they have sold over 6 millions standalone games, (proffecies, faktions and nightfall) but many of them had been tied together in a single account.
And to predict- between 3 and 4 million first year of GW2 , not counting expansion
I never been a GW fan, i did play the original one and their expanstions back in the day - but i didnt get into the lore, gameplay and the whole atmosphere it portrayed. After looking at the countless media GW2 has, i am coming to the conclusion that i wont enjoy this game, or if i did, i would play maybe a few hours then quit.
Im waiting for Diablo 3, after playing the beta, it seems that i will be hopping onto the boat there.
Will see how all the game communities divide when GW2 comes out. This year will be big again with games - such as like GW2, TSW, TERA, Diablo 3 (not mmo but big community), and a few others i cant remember off the top of my head right now. The community will be split once again into sections, older games start to loose subs, newer ones gained.
I always like the first 3 months of a new big franchise game come out and see how it goes just out of curiosity.
GL to GW2 and all the others.
Also i don't see the point of fighting over which game is better - all games have their advantages and disadvantages. Comes down to personal oppinion - what many people fail to see due to their lack of reason and ability to accept that their game of choice is not loved by EVERYONE. I find it hillarious honestly.
All in all - im a gamer by heart and will play games that i will enjoy and that will get me the most entertainment from the free time i have inbetween family, work and other commitments around.
My opinion is that in the long rung the b2p model gives you much more content than a sub based MMO. If I look at the expansions that Anet brought out for GW1 between 2005-2007 (3 campaigns and 1 expansion pack), they each have so much content that they could be sold as a seperate game. They each had a huge campaign comparable to the main game, 2 new classes, new PvP modes, hundreds of new skills and new game mechanics (like Heroes in Nightfall). While your typical p2p MMO's bringt out two new dungeons every two months or so.
The items in the itemshop of GW1 are purely cosmetical and you do not need to buy them at all. Skill unlock packs are only for PvP and heroes. The rest is just extra slots for your storage chest, character slots, hero slots and costumes and a bonus pack that offers much more hours of play than your typical DLC pack, but isn't mandatory at all to enjoy the game. If they do the same for GW2 I dont have any problems with it.
Maybe people just want to see what this insane hype is all about. I also applied and only because I just hope to see if this game is any good or at least half as good as fanbois say. With hype like this I cannot hope for much onjectiveness in reviews. If it's any good I'll buy it and play as a 2nd game. My 1st will be TSW.
Guess you stopped being a SWtoR fanboi and moved on, I had interest in TSW to but I'm not going to let myself be forced to P2P with a cash shop, that will probably turnout to be a P2W game anyway.
Anyone want to predict how many boxes they will sell in their first year I say 3 million. GW1 has sold over 5 million accounts.
When this game comes out it's going to drag a lot of gamers from other MMO's where you pay monthly fees like SWTOR.
These greedy companies don't understand yet that a F2P model is the way too go. Most new MMO's are testing the waters with Paying monthly fees but eventually they take the F2P route.....
It's B2P, that means buy to play, which means you buy the game, then you play it. They also have a shop.
When will you greenhorns learn, MMOs that started out P2P and go F2P are crappy games, that is why they went F2P.
My opinion is that in the long rung the b2p model gives you much more content than a sub based MMO. If I look at the expansions that Anet brought out for GW1 between 2005-2007 (3 campaigns and 1 expansion pack), they each have so much content that they could be sold as a seperate game. They each had a huge campaign comparable to the main game, 2 new classes, new PvP modes, hundreds of new skills and new game mechanics (like Heroes in Nightfall). While your typical p2p MMO's bringt out two new dungeons every two months or so.
The items in the itemshop of GW1 are purely cosmetical and you do not need to buy them at all. Skill unlock packs are only for PvP and heroes. The rest is just extra slots for your storage chest, character slots, hero slots and costumes and a bonus pack that offers much more hours of play than your typical DLC pack, but isn't mandatory at all to enjoy the game. If they do the same for GW2 I dont have any problems with it.
This. Most people on this website don't even have the slightest idea of how much content this game received through expansions. Factions and Nightfall introduced 2 HUGE continents, 4 new classes, and over 800 new skills, gazillion new items and skins, a lot of new features. These two expansions were released in 1 year. The only reason they stopped pumping xpacs like crazy was because they started working on GW2 (I hated that game at the time). They even had a new xpac planned called Utopia which was to introduce yet another huge continent and 2 new classes (one of them being a chronomancer!)
Even now GW1 has more content than the vast majority of MMOs on this website. GW1's world is huge and would've been the biggest world in the genre if they continued to release new xpacs for GW1.
Mission in life: Vanquish all MMORPG.com trolls - especially TESO, WOW and GW2 trolls.
My opinion is that in the long rung the b2p model gives you much more content than a sub based MMO. If I look at the expansions that Anet brought out for GW1 between 2005-2007 (3 campaigns and 1 expansion pack), they each have so much content that they could be sold as a seperate game. They each had a huge campaign comparable to the main game, 2 new classes, new PvP modes, hundreds of new skills and new game mechanics (like Heroes in Nightfall). While your typical p2p MMO's bringt out two new dungeons every two months or so.
The items in the itemshop of GW1 are purely cosmetical and you do not need to buy them at all. Skill unlock packs are only for PvP and heroes. The rest is just extra slots for your storage chest, character slots, hero slots and costumes and a bonus pack that offers much more hours of play than your typical DLC pack, but isn't mandatory at all to enjoy the game. If they do the same for GW2 I dont have any problems with it.
This. Most people on this website don't even have the slightest idea of how much content this game received through expansions. Factions and Nightfall introduced 2 HUGE continents, 4 new classes, and over 800 new skills, gazillion new items and skins, a lot of new features. These two expansions were released in 1 year. The only reason they stopped pumping xpacs like crazy was because they started working on GW2 (I hated that game at the time). They even had a new xpac planned called Utopia which was to introduce yet another huge continent and 2 new classes (one of them being a chronomancer!)
Even now GW1 has more content than the vast majority of MMOs on this website. GW1's world is huge and would've been the biggest world in the genre if they continued to release new xpacs for GW1.
I know right? Sub games cost a guild wars expansion every 2 months. So GW is still cheaper and you don't have to do expansion.
F2P, B2P, WTF, LOL. Have you guys booted up GW1 lately? I can't wait to see the rage quit from the GW2 fans when they finally figure out how Arenanet is going to milk this monster of a game.
They will have you "buy" the tail. Ha! but seriously. You think you're going to get a game of this scope for just the price of the box? Somebody will be paying the money. Look at GW1, right out of the box you can hit up the store and go buy every skill, unlock every equipment upgrade and whatever else. I took a look at the store last night and cringed. I thought "What's the point of even trying this game out again?"
It was pretty creepy. I expect GW2 to be a killer product but I know there's going to be a catch at some point. Wether it's that $9.99 "perk" that makes things so much easier, or endless amounts of "downloadable content" that will get ya for a few bucks here and there.
It'll be interesting to see how it pans out.
Edit: And don't get me wrong, I could give two shits about paying good money for a product. I have bought, payed for, tried out hundreds of games over the years. I'll drop $60 on a game and play it for 2 hours and never look at it again, the money I spent on gaming doesn't bother me. But don't get all spoiled brat cranky when a lot of you fan boi's figure out that in a lot of ways there's going to be a subcription attached to this product.
You honestly have NO idea what you are talking about. The GW1 store was brilliant, and contained NOTHING, I repeat NOTHING you actually needed to play the game and be competitive. All it had was stuff like character slots, heroes, etc. etc. The GW1 store was done EXTREMELY WELL, and GW1 was not "pay to win" at all.
Want proof? I have over 800 hours played of the original guild wars, and I never once bought anything from the store, and I honestly didn't notice. There will not be a "subscription fee attached" to GW2, if it's ANYTHING like the original Guild Wars. I just want to make sure people are aware of this.
I have no problems paying for a game giving me enjoyment, no matter what payment model they use as long as it is within reason.
That being said, 1 million beta sign ups within 48 hrs? Impressive.
actually its higher then that, they were forced to cut it off at 1 million.
That's not true, they kept it open for 48 hours and had almost one million, so they kept it open a little longer to go over the 1 million mark. For fun.
I have no problems paying for a game giving me enjoyment, no matter what payment model they use as long as it is within reason.
That being said, 1 million beta sign ups within 48 hrs? Impressive.
actually its higher then that, they were forced to cut it off at 1 million.
That's not true, they kept it open for 48 hours and had almost one million, so they kept it open a little longer to go over the 1 million mark. For fun.
"Forced." Lol. Quite the opposite.
Yeah, they kept it open a whole 2 extra hours and got 6,000 more sign-ups. They were really struggling there. Just squeaked by.
I wouldn't say 6000 registrations in 2 hours is "squeaked". It was on relatively short notice, it was only 48 + 2 hours.. 1 million sign ups is pretty good i'd say. They left it open because they wanted to see it break the 1 million, they probably would have closed it after the 48 hours if the sign ups were really slowing down, like only a few hundred if at all, or if it would have dropped significantly far below 900k.
About the Guild Wars 1 cash shop:
I can only say that i clocked over 2000 hours in Guild Wars and never felt like i have to buy something. Sure, an extra storage chest pane would have been nice often enough, especially as i missed the one from the 4h anniversary, but if you buy all the campaigns, you got 4 already, and if you do not keep *everything* it's okay. Also, buying new char slots is actually the better way of acquiring new storage, as a character has more slots then a single storage pane.
I also got 8 char slots, 4 initial + 2 per campaign, so 8. Every profession once. If you do not like a profession, make another twice, or make a PVE char because you like a profession, but also make a PVP char of that profession because you do not have to wait.
The costumes are nice and all, but they have absolutely no stats. No, not *bad stats*, but no stats. Visuals only. And they only added an extra costume slot long after release. The costumes also fit into the holiday events or ingame events like War in Kryta/Winds of Change, allowing you to look similar to an enemy with the later. It's not just random stuff. Still, they have no advantages in game,. I also think they are disabled in PVP like minipets or transformation tonics are, so they do not offer any advantage by looking different there aswell.
You can acquire all minipets and transformation tonics ingame, from other players. Some have only been offered as exclusive items for some versions of the game, like an collector editiion or Korean Promo Versions..but they are tradeable, and most can be acquired through characters birthdays, drop from enemies or as random content from special gifts acquired from NPCs for doing ingame stuff. Unless you are bound on acquiring *all* the pricy ones, you can easily make enough money to fill your Hall of Monuments AND get that one or two you or your (often girl)friend love so much.
It's not like the Celestial Steed from WoW, $25 for a special looking mount with hours of wait time in the queue that was there because they could.
The skill packs are for PVP, which you do not need if you played PVE, as you can unlock all skills there, either by visiting a trainer of your (secondary) profession, or by using tomes, which are quite cheap for normal skills. Even the elite skill tomes are nothing to worry about if you played for a while. And you can acquire them cheaper by capturing them from bosses.
I considered buying the bonus mission pack, because of the back story, and the new weapon skills, but like someone else here, i felt it was not worth it. And even if, there are full blown games that offer less content if you're set on doing it the fastest way possible.
There is also the make-over pack which allows you to change some things about your character, like the hair style and stuff. Not sure what you can change, as i never felt the need to buy it. I know someone who bought it more or less regularly, but she never complained about feeiling "forced" or it being to pricy. She simply loved to change her char, so why not? Still less money then a subscription.
If there ever was reason to trust someone with the cash shop, ArenaNet has proven it to me in the last 7 years - by the time Guild Wars 2 will be released, maybe already 8 years (since the world preview events..Guild Wars itself will not have hit the official 8th birthday) that they can make a sensible cash shop.
Of course, developers and publishers change, i wouldn't have imagined some things other companies do some years ago, but seriously, why being suspiscious of ArenaNet, when you do not really care what EA or Blizzard etc. are doing? ArenaNet is no miracle worker, they can make mistakes like everyone else, i do not always agree with the thigns they do, like, fixing "perfectly fine" classes like Mesmer or Elementalist while leaving the Paragon in the dust, who really isn't needed for anything, not even as the sole thing they can truly do, as the main skill for the "Imbagon" is a warrior skill, and the other skills are not related to the primary attribute, either.
ArenaNet also wants to make money, yes, but so far i have seen nothing that even suggests that they might do something stupid with Guild Wars 2, whether it be the cash shop, not having enough content, or having the idea of leaving game breaking bugs literally everyone *WILL* encounter in to see how people react when they discover the main quest/opening the inventory/having sound being played by the game/whatever *WILL* make you crash, like some other developers, whether MMO or not, seem to love.
There is absoutely no indication for anything this. Many of the initial members of ArenaNet are from Blizzard/Blizzard North, which then was considered to be the pinnacle of what a developer can achieve, and they put out a game that had a somewhat fresh setting (no major IP at least), tried a new payment model, had a cash shop that was fair, and are still adding new content to the game - for free.
In the meanwhile Blizzards reputation has suffered quite a bit, like most other developers,, and yet people go and buy the 20th iteration of the same game from the developer/publisher they swore 19 times to never touch anything from them again simply because they put up that page from 3 years ago up again (including the date), where they promised to finally have fixed all the bugs that made you swear not to touch anything made by them in the previous 10 installments - instead of thinking "hey, there was a reason i liked Blizzard back then, they were great, those guys were involved before the shit hit the fan, but not after" or "there is a reason i swore not to touch anything made by xyz ever again every year again (and broken subsequently, like new years resolutions..), so even if ArenaNet will turn out as bad as they, at least there is chance this will not happen"
No, people try to the skeleton in the closet of some games (not only Guild Wars 2, but it's one of the most popular, so more people try to find it) so they can go back to whatever game they were playing before, ignoring the graves dug by themselves, only to demand something new on the next occasion - and the cycle continues.
Sometime i feel like ArenaNet and some other folks doing a good job should do it the Vorlon way. It's no longer "when it's done". It's "you are not ready for Guild Wars 2".
I'll wait to the day's end when the moon is high And then I'll rise with the tide with a lust for life, I'll Amass an army, and we'll harness a horde And then we'll limp across the land until we stand at the shore
I see LadyNoh and Snaylor blabbing about that this isn't a one time buy, but the thing is if it follows the same model guild wars did then its not necessary to buy the expansions, it doesn't give anyone an advantage, I could still use my first warrior in pvp to this day, effectively, its not like wow where you fall behind everyone because you didn't dish out the extra 120 bucks or w/e it is for the expansions. You're making assumptions and running with them, because what you're saying is entirely opposite of the truth.
Comments
Generally after the first few weeks there will be a major drop off in said people buying GW2 vanilla.
I don't care about innovation I care about fun.
i agree. but they would still only have to market the inital box to other player bases to make more money. the casual nature is a good thing for a b2p game. i can burn myself out in a month if i want to, and then revisit it, given i had fun, in 6 months when they put out an expansion. they dont need to have a solid playerbase for it be successful. they just have to sell boxes.
I've got the straight edge.
Selling skills for cash would be pointless for a game like GW2. This is because it takes about 20minutes (according to TotalBiscuit beta preview) to unlock all skills for a particular weapon. Ya I agree the time to unlock all skills are subject to change, but because there won't be like 400+ skills which guild wars had, there would just be no point in purchasing skills sets :P. Maybe they will sell utility skill sets instead? Then again, its far more fun to just collect them as u progress further in game and its not like u have 100 utility skills to collect.
You can say that ArenaNet was 'greedy' to sell costumes at such high prices. However, do u REALLY need that costume?
They may release DLC via cash shop, and that is something to get a little worried about. Though I don't think it will be a major problem given that u just get SOOO much gameplay for the box price.
Looking forward to EQL and EQN.
Ooh sorry, didn't know you started playing recently :P These skill packs are pvp packs which unlock the skills for PvP only. I have never bought any of them. They are there for people who want to play PvP only. They unlock all skils for PvP and they give you access to the game. You can actually buy the PvP packs without any of the other games and you are all set for PvP. Of course, if you buy the packs but not the games you will not be able to play PvE.
All the other items in the store give you no advantage. You have things like character slots, special editions upgrades (say if you bought the GW regular edition but wanted to get the goodies of the Guild Wars Special Edition) and costumes. Costumes are quite good for cosmetic purposes but they don't give you any advantage as they virtually have no stats and they can't be traded. They also have a small mission pack in the store which consists of 4 missions which give you some further insight into the lore. I have bought all the expansions and some character slots but that's about all I've bought from the store.
Mission in life: Vanquish all MMORPG.com trolls - especially TESO, WOW and GW2 trolls.
Luckily they'll have both.
NO thats not what happend. The extended the sign-up window a little so it came close to 50 hours to reach the 1 million mark.
When 1 million was reached the window closed. Impressive anyway
and to OP , i dont, think GW1 have that many accounts as it have been stated that they have sold over 6 millions standalone games, (proffecies, faktions and nightfall) but many of them had been tied together in a single account.
And to predict- between 3 and 4 million first year of GW2 , not counting expansion
I also applied because i want to see of the gfx is good, and the pvp system and dynamic events.
Its pretty just a normal test to see if i want to buy in..
I applied just for the hell of it.
I never been a GW fan, i did play the original one and their expanstions back in the day - but i didnt get into the lore, gameplay and the whole atmosphere it portrayed. After looking at the countless media GW2 has, i am coming to the conclusion that i wont enjoy this game, or if i did, i would play maybe a few hours then quit.
Im waiting for Diablo 3, after playing the beta, it seems that i will be hopping onto the boat there.
Will see how all the game communities divide when GW2 comes out. This year will be big again with games - such as like GW2, TSW, TERA, Diablo 3 (not mmo but big community), and a few others i cant remember off the top of my head right now. The community will be split once again into sections, older games start to loose subs, newer ones gained.
I always like the first 3 months of a new big franchise game come out and see how it goes just out of curiosity.
GL to GW2 and all the others.
Also i don't see the point of fighting over which game is better - all games have their advantages and disadvantages. Comes down to personal oppinion - what many people fail to see due to their lack of reason and ability to accept that their game of choice is not loved by EVERYONE. I find it hillarious honestly.
All in all - im a gamer by heart and will play games that i will enjoy and that will get me the most entertainment from the free time i have inbetween family, work and other commitments around.
My opinion is that in the long rung the b2p model gives you much more content than a sub based MMO. If I look at the expansions that Anet brought out for GW1 between 2005-2007 (3 campaigns and 1 expansion pack), they each have so much content that they could be sold as a seperate game. They each had a huge campaign comparable to the main game, 2 new classes, new PvP modes, hundreds of new skills and new game mechanics (like Heroes in Nightfall). While your typical p2p MMO's bringt out two new dungeons every two months or so.
The items in the itemshop of GW1 are purely cosmetical and you do not need to buy them at all. Skill unlock packs are only for PvP and heroes. The rest is just extra slots for your storage chest, character slots, hero slots and costumes and a bonus pack that offers much more hours of play than your typical DLC pack, but isn't mandatory at all to enjoy the game. If they do the same for GW2 I dont have any problems with it.
Guess you stopped being a SWtoR fanboi and moved on, I had interest in TSW to but I'm not going to let myself be forced to P2P with a cash shop, that will probably turnout to be a P2W game anyway.
It's B2P, that means buy to play, which means you buy the game, then you play it. They also have a shop.
When will you greenhorns learn, MMOs that started out P2P and go F2P are crappy games, that is why they went F2P.
This. Most people on this website don't even have the slightest idea of how much content this game received through expansions. Factions and Nightfall introduced 2 HUGE continents, 4 new classes, and over 800 new skills, gazillion new items and skins, a lot of new features. These two expansions were released in 1 year. The only reason they stopped pumping xpacs like crazy was because they started working on GW2 (I hated that game at the time). They even had a new xpac planned called Utopia which was to introduce yet another huge continent and 2 new classes (one of them being a chronomancer!)
Even now GW1 has more content than the vast majority of MMOs on this website. GW1's world is huge and would've been the biggest world in the genre if they continued to release new xpacs for GW1.
Mission in life: Vanquish all MMORPG.com trolls - especially TESO, WOW and GW2 trolls.
I know right? Sub games cost a guild wars expansion every 2 months. So GW is still cheaper and you don't have to do expansion.
You honestly have NO idea what you are talking about. The GW1 store was brilliant, and contained NOTHING, I repeat NOTHING you actually needed to play the game and be competitive. All it had was stuff like character slots, heroes, etc. etc. The GW1 store was done EXTREMELY WELL, and GW1 was not "pay to win" at all.
Want proof? I have over 800 hours played of the original guild wars, and I never once bought anything from the store, and I honestly didn't notice. There will not be a "subscription fee attached" to GW2, if it's ANYTHING like the original Guild Wars. I just want to make sure people are aware of this.
That's not true, they kept it open for 48 hours and had almost one million, so they kept it open a little longer to go over the 1 million mark. For fun.
"Forced." Lol. Quite the opposite.
Yeah, they kept it open a whole 2 extra hours and got 6,000 more sign-ups. They were really struggling there. Just squeaked by.
I wouldn't say 6000 registrations in 2 hours is "squeaked". It was on relatively short notice, it was only 48 + 2 hours.. 1 million sign ups is pretty good i'd say. They left it open because they wanted to see it break the 1 million, they probably would have closed it after the 48 hours if the sign ups were really slowing down, like only a few hundred if at all, or if it would have dropped significantly far below 900k.
About the Guild Wars 1 cash shop:
I can only say that i clocked over 2000 hours in Guild Wars and never felt like i have to buy something. Sure, an extra storage chest pane would have been nice often enough, especially as i missed the one from the 4h anniversary, but if you buy all the campaigns, you got 4 already, and if you do not keep *everything* it's okay. Also, buying new char slots is actually the better way of acquiring new storage, as a character has more slots then a single storage pane.
I also got 8 char slots, 4 initial + 2 per campaign, so 8. Every profession once. If you do not like a profession, make another twice, or make a PVE char because you like a profession, but also make a PVP char of that profession because you do not have to wait.
The costumes are nice and all, but they have absolutely no stats. No, not *bad stats*, but no stats. Visuals only. And they only added an extra costume slot long after release. The costumes also fit into the holiday events or ingame events like War in Kryta/Winds of Change, allowing you to look similar to an enemy with the later. It's not just random stuff. Still, they have no advantages in game,. I also think they are disabled in PVP like minipets or transformation tonics are, so they do not offer any advantage by looking different there aswell.
You can acquire all minipets and transformation tonics ingame, from other players. Some have only been offered as exclusive items for some versions of the game, like an collector editiion or Korean Promo Versions..but they are tradeable, and most can be acquired through characters birthdays, drop from enemies or as random content from special gifts acquired from NPCs for doing ingame stuff. Unless you are bound on acquiring *all* the pricy ones, you can easily make enough money to fill your Hall of Monuments AND get that one or two you or your (often girl)friend love so much.
It's not like the Celestial Steed from WoW, $25 for a special looking mount with hours of wait time in the queue that was there because they could.
The skill packs are for PVP, which you do not need if you played PVE, as you can unlock all skills there, either by visiting a trainer of your (secondary) profession, or by using tomes, which are quite cheap for normal skills. Even the elite skill tomes are nothing to worry about if you played for a while. And you can acquire them cheaper by capturing them from bosses.
I considered buying the bonus mission pack, because of the back story, and the new weapon skills, but like someone else here, i felt it was not worth it. And even if, there are full blown games that offer less content if you're set on doing it the fastest way possible.
There is also the make-over pack which allows you to change some things about your character, like the hair style and stuff. Not sure what you can change, as i never felt the need to buy it. I know someone who bought it more or less regularly, but she never complained about feeiling "forced" or it being to pricy. She simply loved to change her char, so why not? Still less money then a subscription.
If there ever was reason to trust someone with the cash shop, ArenaNet has proven it to me in the last 7 years - by the time Guild Wars 2 will be released, maybe already 8 years (since the world preview events..Guild Wars itself will not have hit the official 8th birthday) that they can make a sensible cash shop.
Of course, developers and publishers change, i wouldn't have imagined some things other companies do some years ago, but seriously, why being suspiscious of ArenaNet, when you do not really care what EA or Blizzard etc. are doing? ArenaNet is no miracle worker, they can make mistakes like everyone else, i do not always agree with the thigns they do, like, fixing "perfectly fine" classes like Mesmer or Elementalist while leaving the Paragon in the dust, who really isn't needed for anything, not even as the sole thing they can truly do, as the main skill for the "Imbagon" is a warrior skill, and the other skills are not related to the primary attribute, either.
ArenaNet also wants to make money, yes, but so far i have seen nothing that even suggests that they might do something stupid with Guild Wars 2, whether it be the cash shop, not having enough content, or having the idea of leaving game breaking bugs literally everyone *WILL* encounter in to see how people react when they discover the main quest/opening the inventory/having sound being played by the game/whatever *WILL* make you crash, like some other developers, whether MMO or not, seem to love.
There is absoutely no indication for anything this. Many of the initial members of ArenaNet are from Blizzard/Blizzard North, which then was considered to be the pinnacle of what a developer can achieve, and they put out a game that had a somewhat fresh setting (no major IP at least), tried a new payment model, had a cash shop that was fair, and are still adding new content to the game - for free.
In the meanwhile Blizzards reputation has suffered quite a bit, like most other developers,, and yet people go and buy the 20th iteration of the same game from the developer/publisher they swore 19 times to never touch anything from them again simply because they put up that page from 3 years ago up again (including the date), where they promised to finally have fixed all the bugs that made you swear not to touch anything made by them in the previous 10 installments - instead of thinking "hey, there was a reason i liked Blizzard back then, they were great, those guys were involved before the shit hit the fan, but not after" or "there is a reason i swore not to touch anything made by xyz ever again every year again (and broken subsequently, like new years resolutions..), so even if ArenaNet will turn out as bad as they, at least there is chance this will not happen"
No, people try to the skeleton in the closet of some games (not only Guild Wars 2, but it's one of the most popular, so more people try to find it) so they can go back to whatever game they were playing before, ignoring the graves dug by themselves, only to demand something new on the next occasion - and the cycle continues.
Sometime i feel like ArenaNet and some other folks doing a good job should do it the Vorlon way. It's no longer "when it's done". It's "you are not ready for Guild Wars 2".
I'll wait to the day's end when the moon is high
And then I'll rise with the tide with a lust for life, I'll
Amass an army, and we'll harness a horde
And then we'll limp across the land until we stand at the shore
price to buy, free to play. = buy to play. The best thing since sliced bread. thumbs down to monthly fees
I see LadyNoh and Snaylor blabbing about that this isn't a one time buy, but the thing is if it follows the same model guild wars did then its not necessary to buy the expansions, it doesn't give anyone an advantage, I could still use my first warrior in pvp to this day, effectively, its not like wow where you fall behind everyone because you didn't dish out the extra 120 bucks or w/e it is for the expansions. You're making assumptions and running with them, because what you're saying is entirely opposite of the truth.