I know it's hard to accept that your game is like this or going to be like this, hell been a number of articles online stating that this game could cost you more then a standard sub based game.
and whats with the /sarcasm? you really think thats funny? I think it just proves many points on these forums about GW2 players and in general how much they truly know about these shops.
Of course. F2P/B2P generally "cost" more than P2P games, that's a proven fact by so many different articles. However they cost more for people who will actually buy staff, people who either can't or don't want to buy can compete on all levels without buying anything, it's not P2W, and that's the whole difference.
Yes I think it is funny how people make a great deal out of the Cash Shop while it only offers vanity items.
Block the trolls, don't answer them, so we can remove the garbage from these forums
I know it's hard to accept that your game is like this or going to be like this, hell been a number of articles online stating that this game could cost you more then a standard sub based game.
and whats with the /sarcasm? you really think thats funny? I think it just proves many points on these forums about GW2 players and in general how much they truly know about these shops.
Of course. F2P/B2P generally "cost" more than P2P games, that's a proven fact by so many different articles. However they cost more for people who will actually buy staff, people who either can't or don't want to buy can compete on all levels without buying anything, it's not P2W, and that's the whole difference.
Yes I think it is funny how people make a great deal out of the Cash Shop while it only offers vanity items.
So you know for a fact that when launch comes, or even after launch that those items will be vanity? I hope your right Seridan I really hope so! Having played the game itself, I find it fun and exciting! But just afew things on the shop itself makes me wonder about afew things, don't mind spending afew bucks here and there, the things that concern me is this, if they don't end up selling alot of items in the shops how the hell are they going to fund more expacs? or even release more content? this is where I believe P2P shines through, prime example, Rift, F2P till what lvl 23? then you pay 15 a month and your getting aton of content updates on a regular basis.
APB was a F2P/B2P Game that was insanely fun, however the company bottom out , because they didn't make enough money, this is how companies work, they need alot of money to pay for their projects and the people that work for them, without that, well, you know :P
So you know for a fact that when launch comes, or even after launch that those items will be vanity? I hope your right Seridan I really hope so! Having played the game itself, I find it fun and exciting! But just afew things on the shop itself makes me wonder about afew things, don't mind spending afew bucks here and there, the things that concern me is this, if they don't end up selling alot of items in the shops how the hell are they going to fund more expacs? or even release more content? this is where I believe P2P shines through, prime example, Rift, F2P till what lvl 23? then you pay 15 a month and your getting aton of content updates on a regular basis.
APB was a F2P/B2P Game that was insanely fun, however the company bottom out , because they didn't make enough money, this is how companies work, they need alot of money to pay for their projects and the people that work for them, without that, well, you know :P
Your concern is obviously valid and I have the same hope as well. We still have some time until release and if they add "equipment" or P2W items on the Cash Shop I'll be the first to stop playing and demand a refund (if that's even possible at that moment)
Edit: Don't underestimate the power of vanity items. GW1 is a prime example of a game that's been active for more than 5 years without a new expansion = new revenue, it is still funded by a vanity item cash shop. Aion F2P seems to be similar now that's it is totally free. Also there are programs (or websites) who survive on donations, I think the Cash Shop works more like that. Now the game will attract lots of players and I don't know what will happen, more players isn't always good without a sub. We'll see how it goes
Block the trolls, don't answer them, so we can remove the garbage from these forums
So you know for a fact that when launch comes, or even after launch that those items will be vanity? I hope your right Seridan I really hope so! Having played the game itself, I find it fun and exciting! But just afew things on the shop itself makes me wonder about afew things, don't mind spending afew bucks here and there, the things that concern me is this, if they don't end up selling alot of items in the shops how the hell are they going to fund more expacs? or even release more content? this is where I believe P2P shines through, prime example, Rift, F2P till what lvl 23? then you pay 15 a month and your getting aton of content updates on a regular basis.
APB was a F2P/B2P Game that was insanely fun, however the company bottom out , because they didn't make enough money, this is how companies work, they need alot of money to pay for their projects and the people that work for them, without that, well, you know :P
Your concern is obviously valid and I have the same hope as well. We still have some time until release and if they add "equipment" or P2W items on the Cash Shop I'll be the first to stop playing and demand a refund (if that's even possible at that moment)
I 100% agree with you Seridan, I too hope thats not the case, because I love this game, so much better than the first one :P
like I said if I have to pay ya know 10 - 20 bucks a month I'm ok with that, and I'm sure even yourself, you would be good with that as well.
Well, the typical MMO usually goes through a few stages for me:
1) The game either "captures" me, or it doesn't. In 90% of the cases for me, it actually doesn't succeed in that after 1-2 months (or even after a day/week). Of course, the amount of friends playing the game also adds or detracts from this.
2) If it has "captured" me, the longivity really depends on content + social aspect.
Inevitably the friends you've brought to the game, or have met in the game, start to get bored and disappear one by one, it's only a matter of time then before the same happens to you. That is the inevitable fate of any MMO.
The time it takes depends on how fast content is rolled out and the type of content that is rolled out. Content that allows you to explore the game in new ways with your mates is often much more likely to keep people and bring them back.
3) You either come back, if the game promises to bring something radically new and exciting to the table, or you don't because you have been burned out so much. How much you've been burned out again depends on what content the game made you go through.
For GW2, it seems like the game has a lot of freedom in social choices: you can develop your guild in different ways for example. It also offers an ever changing PvP area as well as the ability to organise tournaments etc yourself. The level-up experience also seems fit to capture and draw in people.
However, the PvP areas for WvWvW in question are not extremely diverse and I can see them getting old after the 10th matchup between servers or so. The mechanics will also not differ much.
So I'd say the game as I've seen it now would hold me over for a good 6 months or so (if it keeps my attention through the first stage: leveling), what they roll out during those months will determine the longevity however.
Feel free to use my referral link for SW:TOR if you want to test out the game. You'll get some special unlocks!
As long as it would need to get at least two characters through most of game's content. Add an expansion content on top of that maybe.
This is really a relative question. I saw myself playing WoW perhaps month or two, but heck, i spent 4 or 5 years on it 'till they came Cataclysm way. I can see myself playing this game at least as long as i played WoW, but who knows. Maybe Anet decide to release an Cataclysm type of expansion all of sudden. That could result in much shorter gameplay period than WoW one.
Only time will tell
Main MMO at the moment: Guild Wars 2 Waiting for: Pathfinder Online
that wasn't my meaning at all, I was commenting on quality, and having been playing games for over 25 years yes I know what makes a good game and mechanic wise, shit looks at LOTRO amazing graphics hated the game play, found it to slow.
But all you got out of my statement was, textures? Really? LOL come on now.
Quality & production value are 2 completely different things. For example, the Harry Potter movies had some really high production value, but some of the CG, writing, and acting was horrible. When it comes to public perception, 'quality' becomes a lot more subjective than it does within the industry.
Also, not to be mean, but being able to play a game and make one are 2 very different thing. A lot of mechanics look good on paper, but don't work in a practical setting. I know some people who have been gaming longer than I have, but have terrible taste for what's good & what isn't. I also know people who barely game, but have a really good eye for what makes a good game or not. There's also a lot of people on these forums (not saying you're one of them) that don't know the difference between graphics & art style. Why I focused on the texture statement, is because that's what you chose to go on when talking about the game's production value. And again, with a few exceptions, it wouldn't have mattered which of the areas you chose to focus on, my initial point remains the same. The game has high production value, period. A ton of effort, and talent, was poored into every aspect of the game. It is a AAA MMO after all.
The reason I didn't talk about the cash shop point you had, is because that issue has been done to death. There's been pleanty of threads as to why Anet (and thus GW2) is not currently following the same trend as a lot of F2P games.
I already said it in another post, you get what you pay for.
Lets say we have 2 games, the X game and the Y game... the X game has a subscription fee thus the budget is higher than the Y's that doesn't have one.
How could you expect a company/game with a dramatically less budget to create/develop/update better and faster ?
Because if there are fundamental flaws or "clone" feeling in game X, they may be so busy trying to fix things so that they won't be able to create/develop/update better and faster than Y.
I already said it in another post, you get what you pay for.
Lets say we have 2 games, the X game and the Y game... the X game has a subscription fee thus the budget is higher than the Y's that doesn't have one.
How could you expect a company/game with a dramatically less budget to create/develop/update better and faster ?
GW2 production quality is already higher than most P2P MMOs and it's rather obvious. The problem with P2P is that they focus on systems that will keep the players resubing, mostly worthless grinding, while in B2P GW2 has shown that there is another way to keep people interested.
same can be said for F2P Games, just build up the cash shop and make their players spend countless amounts of cash to unlock area's of the game ( by rights you should have access too ) because you purchased that game,yet ALOT of F2P games have worthless grinding, I rather spend 15 bucks a month then spend 20-30 month on crap in a cash shop.
Also, speaking about GW2 production quility is higher then most P2P games is not true at all, I found in the beta of GW2 that alot of the textures were soso, even though I still very much enjoyed the game, just making comments like that tells me you haven't played alot of mmos in the past.
That is just so completely not true. I've been around the genre for almost 14 years and have played or tested almost all the AAA titles and a few lesser titles as well. The production value and quality across the board for GW2 are completely top notch and put almost every MMORPG seen since WoW launched to shame. That the game offers what it does with out a subscription fee just sends it's cost/value quotient through the stratosphere.
I'm a graphics snob. I notice when a texture is out of place or a high res texture is missing. This game is near flawless in it's texturing, everything blends together perfectly and the number of instances I've witnessed during 80+ hours of play testing were a high res texture was clearly missing could be counted on one hand. There were a lot more texture mismatches and blurry, low res textures in SWTOR at launch than I've seen in GW2 BWEs. Don't even get me started on TSW, where the clash of low res models/textures in an otherwise beautiful game environment provide a near contsant distraction that varies only in the degree of distracting elements one experiences from moment to moment.
The lack of time sinks and grinds in GW2 isn't just related to the lack of a subscription fee. It also comes down to the absolutely massive game world and plethora of content. This effect is further amplified by the nature of PVE content dilivery. There is not only much, much more content in the game than needed to level to the cap, but Dynamic Events and the branching personal storylines ensure that even if you tread the same ground, the actual experience can be very different each time you play through a given zone.
Arenanet have already commited to adding new Dynamic Events to all zones across the game world on a regular basis, for free, after the game launches. They won't detail the new events in patch notes, they will be added with little fanfare and will add to the feeling of a living, breathing, changing game world. As more new events are added, some events will be rotated in and out. They have said that if a zone launches with 100 Dynamic Events, by the end of the first year there may be 300 DEs associated with the same zone, with the combination of events changing over time.
The size of the game world and redundancy of game zones, including a level 2-15 and level 15-25 zone for each race and at least two zones for every level range from 25-80, are completely unmatched by virtually any AAA MMORPG we've seen since WoW launched. As noted, all that land mass and content is just amplified by the reliance on Dynamic Events to provide most of that world content.
It is very safe to say that GW2 offers one of the largest game worlds and possibly even the most game content of any AAA MMORPG at launch, ever. There is absolutely no compromise on quality/quantity of content due to the B2P & Cash Shop business model. GW2 would put most of it's peers to shame even if there was a subscription fee.
Hard to tell at this point because I lack the power of foresight.
But my expextation is it will keep me interested and entertained for years. It does everything I want of a game particularly well from what I've seen so far. Indeed feels like THE game for me.
My main focus is on PvE with PvP to mix it up because I also like that (I'm about 70/30 % PvE/PvP).
PvE the way it stands can keep me entertained for a long time already because I love the way it's done, I'm sick of dungeon / raid crawling (and gear progression) of other games so even if they would lack in that aspect that many like to call end game (but this game isn't about), it won't affect me. There's a lot of stuff to see and do that I enjoy compared to other games and i'm interested in all classes and all races so a lot of alting to keep me entertained. By the time I get the feeling I've seen and done it all there will probably already have been multiple content patches and / or xpack(s) to give new stuffs to do. Because I also mix it up with WvW and the more casual form of sPvP it will take even longer.
MMO players are some of the most backwards group of people. I mean seriously, only an MMO player would make such a stupid topic. And I say stupid because nobody would ever ask such a question from any other video game genre.
Guild wars 2 is b2p like all console games are, as long as it gives me more entertainment than the cost of the box that is good enough. Given the b2p nature of the game, people are gonna be more likely to keep playing since even if they are bored they aint paying for anything.
I'm curious why so many people actually ask for amateur prognosticators. Has there ever been any shortage of those?
Answering the op: Not scared.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
I've actually already gotten plenty of time put into this game and it hasn't even been released yet! I've put about 50+ hours into the beta weekends, and thats actually FAR more time than I usually put into a new 60 dollar game. And I havn't even seen half of what this game has to offer yet! This game is just a monster of a deal, that NOBODY should miss out on.
1 time payment of 60 bucks means people can play at their leisure and not pay again if they don't want to. People are going to be interested in the game for as long as the servers remain up because they can always come back and enjoy the game whenever they like even after putting the game down for a month for a new game that comes out.
Comments
Of course. F2P/B2P generally "cost" more than P2P games, that's a proven fact by so many different articles. However they cost more for people who will actually buy staff, people who either can't or don't want to buy can compete on all levels without buying anything, it's not P2W, and that's the whole difference.
Yes I think it is funny how people make a great deal out of the Cash Shop while it only offers vanity items.
Block the trolls, don't answer them, so we can remove the garbage from these forums
So you know for a fact that when launch comes, or even after launch that those items will be vanity? I hope your right Seridan I really hope so! Having played the game itself, I find it fun and exciting! But just afew things on the shop itself makes me wonder about afew things, don't mind spending afew bucks here and there, the things that concern me is this, if they don't end up selling alot of items in the shops how the hell are they going to fund more expacs? or even release more content? this is where I believe P2P shines through, prime example, Rift, F2P till what lvl 23? then you pay 15 a month and your getting aton of content updates on a regular basis.
APB was a F2P/B2P Game that was insanely fun, however the company bottom out , because they didn't make enough money, this is how companies work, they need alot of money to pay for their projects and the people that work for them, without that, well, you know :P
Your concern is obviously valid and I have the same hope as well. We still have some time until release and if they add "equipment" or P2W items on the Cash Shop I'll be the first to stop playing and demand a refund (if that's even possible at that moment)
Edit: Don't underestimate the power of vanity items. GW1 is a prime example of a game that's been active for more than 5 years without a new expansion = new revenue, it is still funded by a vanity item cash shop. Aion F2P seems to be similar now that's it is totally free. Also there are programs (or websites) who survive on donations, I think the Cash Shop works more like that. Now the game will attract lots of players and I don't know what will happen, more players isn't always good without a sub. We'll see how it goes
Block the trolls, don't answer them, so we can remove the garbage from these forums
I 100% agree with you Seridan, I too hope thats not the case, because I love this game, so much better than the first one :P
like I said if I have to pay ya know 10 - 20 bucks a month I'm ok with that, and I'm sure even yourself, you would be good with that as well.
Well, the typical MMO usually goes through a few stages for me:
1) The game either "captures" me, or it doesn't. In 90% of the cases for me, it actually doesn't succeed in that after 1-2 months (or even after a day/week). Of course, the amount of friends playing the game also adds or detracts from this.
2) If it has "captured" me, the longivity really depends on content + social aspect.
Inevitably the friends you've brought to the game, or have met in the game, start to get bored and disappear one by one, it's only a matter of time then before the same happens to you. That is the inevitable fate of any MMO.
The time it takes depends on how fast content is rolled out and the type of content that is rolled out. Content that allows you to explore the game in new ways with your mates is often much more likely to keep people and bring them back.
3) You either come back, if the game promises to bring something radically new and exciting to the table, or you don't because you have been burned out so much. How much you've been burned out again depends on what content the game made you go through.
For GW2, it seems like the game has a lot of freedom in social choices: you can develop your guild in different ways for example. It also offers an ever changing PvP area as well as the ability to organise tournaments etc yourself. The level-up experience also seems fit to capture and draw in people.
However, the PvP areas for WvWvW in question are not extremely diverse and I can see them getting old after the 10th matchup between servers or so. The mechanics will also not differ much.
So I'd say the game as I've seen it now would hold me over for a good 6 months or so (if it keeps my attention through the first stage: leveling), what they roll out during those months will determine the longevity however.
Feel free to use my referral link for SW:TOR if you want to test out the game. You'll get some special unlocks!
How long will it keep me interested?
As long as it would need to get at least two characters through most of game's content. Add an expansion content on top of that maybe.
This is really a relative question. I saw myself playing WoW perhaps month or two, but heck, i spent 4 or 5 years on it 'till they came Cataclysm way. I can see myself playing this game at least as long as i played WoW, but who knows. Maybe Anet decide to release an Cataclysm type of expansion all of sudden. That could result in much shorter gameplay period than WoW one.
Only time will tell
Main MMO at the moment: Guild Wars 2
Waiting for: Pathfinder Online
I will probably play for a few months off and on.
Then stop for a few months and play for a few weeks, repeat.
That's the beauty of no subscription.
Quality & production value are 2 completely different things. For example, the Harry Potter movies had some really high production value, but some of the CG, writing, and acting was horrible. When it comes to public perception, 'quality' becomes a lot more subjective than it does within the industry.
Also, not to be mean, but being able to play a game and make one are 2 very different thing. A lot of mechanics look good on paper, but don't work in a practical setting. I know some people who have been gaming longer than I have, but have terrible taste for what's good & what isn't. I also know people who barely game, but have a really good eye for what makes a good game or not. There's also a lot of people on these forums (not saying you're one of them) that don't know the difference between graphics & art style. Why I focused on the texture statement, is because that's what you chose to go on when talking about the game's production value. And again, with a few exceptions, it wouldn't have mattered which of the areas you chose to focus on, my initial point remains the same. The game has high production value, period. A ton of effort, and talent, was poored into every aspect of the game. It is a AAA MMO after all.
The reason I didn't talk about the cash shop point you had, is because that issue has been done to death. There's been pleanty of threads as to why Anet (and thus GW2) is not currently following the same trend as a lot of F2P games.
Because if there are fundamental flaws or "clone" feeling in game X, they may be so busy trying to fix things so that they won't be able to create/develop/update better and faster than Y.
That is just so completely not true. I've been around the genre for almost 14 years and have played or tested almost all the AAA titles and a few lesser titles as well. The production value and quality across the board for GW2 are completely top notch and put almost every MMORPG seen since WoW launched to shame. That the game offers what it does with out a subscription fee just sends it's cost/value quotient through the stratosphere.
I'm a graphics snob. I notice when a texture is out of place or a high res texture is missing. This game is near flawless in it's texturing, everything blends together perfectly and the number of instances I've witnessed during 80+ hours of play testing were a high res texture was clearly missing could be counted on one hand. There were a lot more texture mismatches and blurry, low res textures in SWTOR at launch than I've seen in GW2 BWEs. Don't even get me started on TSW, where the clash of low res models/textures in an otherwise beautiful game environment provide a near contsant distraction that varies only in the degree of distracting elements one experiences from moment to moment.
The lack of time sinks and grinds in GW2 isn't just related to the lack of a subscription fee. It also comes down to the absolutely massive game world and plethora of content. This effect is further amplified by the nature of PVE content dilivery. There is not only much, much more content in the game than needed to level to the cap, but Dynamic Events and the branching personal storylines ensure that even if you tread the same ground, the actual experience can be very different each time you play through a given zone.
Arenanet have already commited to adding new Dynamic Events to all zones across the game world on a regular basis, for free, after the game launches. They won't detail the new events in patch notes, they will be added with little fanfare and will add to the feeling of a living, breathing, changing game world. As more new events are added, some events will be rotated in and out. They have said that if a zone launches with 100 Dynamic Events, by the end of the first year there may be 300 DEs associated with the same zone, with the combination of events changing over time.
The size of the game world and redundancy of game zones, including a level 2-15 and level 15-25 zone for each race and at least two zones for every level range from 25-80, are completely unmatched by virtually any AAA MMORPG we've seen since WoW launched. As noted, all that land mass and content is just amplified by the reliance on Dynamic Events to provide most of that world content.
It is very safe to say that GW2 offers one of the largest game worlds and possibly even the most game content of any AAA MMORPG at launch, ever. There is absolutely no compromise on quality/quantity of content due to the B2P & Cash Shop business model. GW2 would put most of it's peers to shame even if there was a subscription fee.
Want to know more about GW2 and why there is so much buzz? Start here: Guild Wars 2 Mass Info for the Uninitiated
Hard to tell at this point because I lack the power of foresight.
But my expextation is it will keep me interested and entertained for years. It does everything I want of a game particularly well from what I've seen so far. Indeed feels like THE game for me.
My main focus is on PvE with PvP to mix it up because I also like that (I'm about 70/30 % PvE/PvP).
PvE the way it stands can keep me entertained for a long time already because I love the way it's done, I'm sick of dungeon / raid crawling (and gear progression) of other games so even if they would lack in that aspect that many like to call end game (but this game isn't about), it won't affect me. There's a lot of stuff to see and do that I enjoy compared to other games and i'm interested in all classes and all races so a lot of alting to keep me entertained. By the time I get the feeling I've seen and done it all there will probably already have been multiple content patches and / or xpack(s) to give new stuffs to do. Because I also mix it up with WvW and the more casual form of sPvP it will take even longer.
MMO players are some of the most backwards group of people. I mean seriously, only an MMO player would make such a stupid topic. And I say stupid because nobody would ever ask such a question from any other video game genre.
Guild wars 2 is b2p like all console games are, as long as it gives me more entertainment than the cost of the box that is good enough. Given the b2p nature of the game, people are gonna be more likely to keep playing since even if they are bored they aint paying for anything.
I'm curious why so many people actually ask for amateur prognosticators. Has there ever been any shortage of those?
Answering the op: Not scared.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
I've actually already gotten plenty of time put into this game and it hasn't even been released yet! I've put about 50+ hours into the beta weekends, and thats actually FAR more time than I usually put into a new 60 dollar game. And I havn't even seen half of what this game has to offer yet! This game is just a monster of a deal, that NOBODY should miss out on.
1 time payment of 60 bucks means people can play at their leisure and not pay again if they don't want to. People are going to be interested in the game for as long as the servers remain up because they can always come back and enjoy the game whenever they like even after putting the game down for a month for a new game that comes out.
As long as it's fun...
http://www.arena.net/blog/is-it-fun-colin-johanson-on-how-arenanet-measures-success
I'm amused that you actually have two different sets of people talking about GW2.
1. GW2 will be an inferior game because it doesn't make as much money as a subscription game so has inferior quality.
2. GW2 will cost way more than paying a subscription, thanks to the evil cash shop.
I feel like the two people should listen to each other, then they can both be happy!
1. GW2 will be the BEST GAME EVER because it'll be the most expensive to play!
2. GW2 will cost way less than paying subscription, because subscriptions take more money!
Not that the views make sense together no matter which way you look at it.
(Though I kind of amused by the idea that thanks to GW2s cash shop it'll be the BEST GAME EVER thanks to high price to play!)