Free to play?

saeben

Is GW really F2P? ie no monthly charges? Lets examine this
EQ2 say about $50 retail plus $15 a month, over a year thats ~ $215 a year (one month free)
GW $50 retail plus say they release 3 expansions this year @ $50 a pop ~200 a year

I'm assuming that you have to buy an expansion to advance in lvl or something. They seem to be about the same to me. I'm making alot of assumptions here but they have to make profit somewhere. I doubt that they are gonna run servers and support a persistant gameworld for free.

skulldraco

gw is free and u dont have to buy the expansion to lvl up its just for some extra land and stuff but u dont have to buy it if u doing want to it should explain it on the website on the faqs

Munka

Yup, it's free to play. Like all other games, the expansions are not required, but mearly a perk.

jd269

3 expansions this year? who told you that... arena.net has only stated there will be an expansion every 6-8 months... there are 12 months in a year.

EQ2 is already announcing their first expansion, and recently charged $5 for an adventure pack.

$49.95 for original game, $49.95 for expansion (if they cost the same price) brings guild wars to $150 a year tops... if you don't want the expansions.. and you don't have to buy them. You do have to pay the monthly fee for EQ2 just to log in.

saeben

anything at this point is just speculation (sp?) im just curious as to how this company plans on making the money to cover development and server upkeep over the long haul. I'm skeptcal when someone gives away stuff for free.

jd269

Actually, 6-8 months between expansions was stated in an interview in an interview with one of their spokesperson's so it's a little better than speculation.

Dookz

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Originally posted by saeben
anything at this point is just speculation (sp?) im just curious as to how this company plans on making the money to cover development and server upkeep over the long haul. I'm skeptcal when someone gives away stuff for free.

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I think you should ask that to other compannies who charge monthly fees. Its 2005 and technology cost should not be expensive as it was a decade ago. This was covered in some interviews with the Devs (forgive me but I'm lazy in trying to find the excerpt in regards to server upkeeps). It's the low bandwidth and making the missions instanced (there are way more pros than cons in instanced missions, well I think there are no cons as far as I know) thats saving them the 'high' cost of server upkeeps. Gaile, the community relation manager for GW, has said that revenues will not come from the first chapter of Guild Wars, but rather through the expansions. I wish I found the interview because it explains it in great detail.

saeben

thanks Dookz, i found an interview with gaile and i does answer alot.....i went from being skeptical about buying this game to wanting to purchase it...I read through alot of the dev interviews and am excited about this one now. I guess i'll be checkin it out next week.

Question: Well, right out of the bag, how can you afford to offer this game without a monthly subscription fee?

Gaile: We can offer Guild Wars without charging a monthly subscription fee because our on-demand streaming technology allows us to adopt an expansion model. This gives gamers what they want: choice. We certainly intend that each chapter in the evolving Guild Wars universe will offer enough cool new stuff that you will want to buy every one of them, but the choice is yours. You can always play with the content from the chapters you have purchased, and more importantly, you can always play with your friends, regardless of which chapters they have purchased. It's a win for our customers, because they never have to feel like they are paying the cable bill, and it's a win for us, because we hope to have a much larger online community!

khanezhyray

ummm the expansions are about $15-30 not $50....

Nellus

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Originally posted by khanezhyray

ummm the expansions are about $15-30 not $50....

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Source? I haven't seen anything on prices for expansions - aside from CM's and Dev's declining comment for now.

Dookz

This is the only official word from ArenaNet. Its not definitive but you can interpolate from http://www.guildwars.com/faq/default.html

How much will Guild Wars cost? How much will additional chapters cost?

Guild Wars will be priced at a comparable cost to other first-tier PC games. The subsequent chapters of Guild Wars will also be comparably priced in relation to other games.

saeben

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Originally posted by khanezhyray
ummm the expansions are about $15-30 not $50....

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I was just throwing some numbers out there

Ackbar

Well they have said the expansions will be competitively priced... they also said that the next chapter wont be available until around 2006 so its not gonna be some crazed expensive thing getting all the expansions like some people think... Ill be happy if they put out 3 a year thats a ton of content. Theyve also talked a lot about adding new content on the fly for free to the game. Obviously theyre going to do this because their streaming update engine supports it so well....

 

Veragon

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Originally posted by Ackbar

Well they have said the expansions will be competitively priced... they also said that the next chapter wont be available until around 2006 so its not gonna be some crazed expensive thing getting all the expansions like some people think... Ill be happy if they put out 3 a year thats a ton of content. Theyve also talked a lot about adding new content on the fly for free to the game. Obviously theyre going to do this because their streaming update engine supports it so well....

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 Ok, just to clear some things up, expansions will cost $30. The map you see now of the Beta's, more than liekly going to change as of release. If you all remember back in November when they stated that they are going to give us a SMALL piece of what GW is actually going to be.
 Yes, they are going to be updating the game constantly, and yes they will be adding new content constantly. If what I've read is correct, than expansions will only be for things such as adding more quests that progress the storyline, adding new major areas, adding new weapons, armor, and classes. I'm not too sure about this, but this is an educated guess.
 YAY FOR GUILD WARS!

Dookz

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Originally posted by Veragon
Originally posted by Ackbar
Well they have said the expansions will be competitively priced... they also said that the next chapter wont be available until around 2006 so its not gonna be some crazed expensive thing getting all the expansions like some people think... Ill be happy if they put out 3 a year thats a ton of content. Theyve also talked a lot about adding new content on the fly for free to the game. Obviously theyre going to do this because their streaming update engine supports it so well.... Ok, just to clear some things up, expansions will cost $30. The map you see now of the Beta's, more than liekly going to change as of release. If you all remember back in November when they stated that they are going to give us a SMALL piece of what GW is actually going to be. Yes, they are going to be updating the game constantly, and yes they will be adding new content constantly. If what I've read is correct, than expansions will only be for things such as adding more quests that progress the storyline, adding new major areas, adding new weapons, armor, and classes. I'm not too sure about this, but this is an educated guess. YAY FOR GUILD WARS!

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thats pretty much right. It has also been stated there will be races in the upcoming expansions. Major things is expected in the expansions such as INDOOR Areas. The intial release version does not have INDOOR areas. Pretty much they have done a good job on the outdoor areas. From an interview with the GW Community Relation Manager, half of the ArenaNet team are working on the first chapter for Guild Wars as we speak, while the other half will continue throughout release, streaming in updates/fixes on a regular bases, refreshing contents, creating seasonal, holiday theme events,etc.

ColinIRL

Another way they may be covering the cost is threw advertisement, i mean think about it. 100ks of people playing a game everyday, thats a nice little market for advertisement, they may stick a banner at the top of the server screen... but i could be completely wrong i havn't played GW yet

GaileGray

Advertisements? In the game? *shudder* Don't even go there!   There will be no advertisements in the Guild Wars world. No billboards, or guild capes with golden arches, or product placement of Dr. Pepper bottles in the Ruins of Ascalon, or an in-game advertisment whisper to type /burrito to have tasty food delivered to your home.

Let me expand on what I said in that interview quoted above: We're able to offer Guild Wars without subscription fees because it's really about scale. Most online games capture a relatively small playership. The fact is that no one wants to pay a monthly fee, and a large percentage of gamers simply refuse to do so. So if one of the typical games with a monthly fee attracts X number of people, we believe that a great online game without a monthly fee will attract XXX number of people. With that greater scale of support, the montly fee is simply unnecessary.

Members of our team were instrumental in moving the gaming experience from paid monthly service to free online gaming in the form of Battle.net. We see the free monthly play of Guild Wars as being another generational jump forward, to the benefit of gamers worldwide.

See you in Tyria on the 28th.

macfos

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Originally posted by GaileGray

Advertisements? In the game? *shudder* Don't even go there!   There will be no advertisements in the Guild Wars world. No billboards, or guild capes with golden arches, or product placement of Dr. Pepper bottles in the Ruins of Ascalon, or an in-game advertisment whisper to type /burrito to have tasty food delivered to your home.
Let me expand on what I said in that interview quoted above: We're able to offer Guild Wars without subscription fees because it's really about scale. Most online games capture a relatively small playership. The fact is that no one wants to pay a monthly fee, and a large percentage of gamers simply refuse to do so. So if one of the typical games with a monthly fee attracts X number of people, we believe that a great online game without a monthly fee will attract XXX number of people. With that greater scale of support, the montly fee is simply unnecessary.
Members of our team were instrumental in moving the gaming experience from paid monthly service to free online gaming in the form of Battle.net. We see the free monthly play of Guild Wars as being another generational jump forward, to the benefit of gamers worldwide.
See you in Tyria on the 28th.

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Thats brilliant Gailegray, its great the way you've done this, and I think all those hardcore gamers who love to pay monthly fees at the moment will eventually be turned to the 'free to play Guild Wars' side its just a matter of time.

 

They'll soon get tired of paying all that money for games that basically don't offer the new content and support that Arenanet is providing.

 

See ya on th 27th !!   ( As I have the preorder )

Nellus

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Originally posted by GaileGray

Advertisements? In the game? *shudder* Don't even go there!   There will be no advertisements in the Guild Wars world. No billboards, or guild capes with golden arches, or product placement of Dr. Pepper bottles in the Ruins of Ascalon, or an in-game advertisment whisper to type /burrito to have tasty food delivered to your home.
Let me expand on what I said in that interview quoted above: We're able to offer Guild Wars without subscription fees because it's really about scale. Most online games capture a relatively small playership. The fact is that no one wants to pay a monthly fee, and a large percentage of gamers simply refuse to do so. So if one of the typical games with a monthly fee attracts X number of people, we believe that a great online game without a monthly fee will attract XXX number of people. With that greater scale of support, the montly fee is simply unnecessary.

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I have no idea if you'll check back and see this, but it's worth a shot.

What's the failsafe if Guild Wars doesn't reach the number it needs to keep the monthly fee out of the game? This would mostly apply to several months from now and the expansions, since I have no doubts that Guild Wars will easily beat whatever magic number you guys (and girls) have in your heads.

Oh, and.. in-game ads are great! Just a few suggestions:

1) Name Change - "Burger King Jalis Ironhammer"

2) Red Dye - Sponsored by Polaroid (Read it quickly if you don't get it.)

3) Class Selection - Ultimate Warrior, sponsored by World Wrestling Entertainment (He's not there, I know.)

4) Class Selection - Mighty Morphin Power Ranger - Sponsored by Saban Entertainment / Toei Company

5) Name Change - Prince Rurik > Prince Macaroni - Sponsored by www.princepasta.com

6) Crafters fire placard, sponsored by Lignetics Pres-to-Logs.

7) Rename crafter to "GAP Clerk".

8/9) The addition of vehicles for transportation. Sponsorships from Ford Motors and Firestone Tires. (Hey, if that guy went on "The Bachlor" they'll surely sponsor Guild Wars!)

10) In-game clock, sponsored by Timex.

C'mon now.. who wouldn't like that?!

saeben

thanks Gaile, thats just what i wanted to hear lets hope that it all works out...as for me i'll be picking up GW friday hopefully

terstax

10) In-game clock, sponsored by Timex.
[/quote]

Something similar has happened. Swatch was the official timekeeper of Phantasy Star Online for the Sega Dreamcast.