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Anet decides to screw the Guild Wars 2 community with the latest update
The.agG
Member Posts: 119
Where to begin, where to begin....
Ok the first thing then,
You can convert gold to gems in-game only in Multiple of 400 now in the name of Simplicity for newcomers. Nothing else is allowed. Prices of 400 gems have already skyrocketed to around 75 Gold which is a lot. This post on Reddit explains it really well.
Thread - http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/2jxnrk/they_changed_the_way_you_buy_gems_with_gold/
This is the kind of bull**** that shows Anet has no interest in respecting their players. They use the guise of 'simplicity' to set up a market that is both cumbersome and unfair to players in order to force a marginal amount of players to spend real money on gems when they can't afford to exchange in denominations with actual gold. The same thing Microsoft got in a heap of shit for doing a few years ago[1] .
For those who don't understand what I mean, here's an example:
A player who doesn't have a lot of time, but has a lot of money (they have a job) buys gems. They buy 800 gems and purchase a 500 gem item. They have 300 gems left over. Then, they decide they want to purchase a 400 gem item, but they need 100 more gems. On the new system they cannot only convert gold into 100 gems, they need to convert at least 400 gems worth of gold. But they don't have that much gold, and because they don't have a lot of time to play, they can't farm it (and 400 gems isn't cheap, it's over 75 gold right now). Thus, this person must spend more real money on actual gems, at a minimum of $10 for 800 gems, even though they only wanted 100 gems.
This kind of practice is not "eliminating confusion", it's a practice to squeeze more money out of players and is basically one step below extortion. To make matters worse, it's being intentionally presented to players as helping them. THAT is truly despicable.
Oh, and by the way, take a look at what's in the store. Costumes priced at 700 gems, and accessory hats priced at 200 gems. Want them both? That's 900 gems. But you can't buy 800 gems and then convert gold for another 100. You need to convert at least 400 gems worth of gold. Can't convert that much? Then you're forced to buy another 800 gems. Anet knows EXACTLY what they're doing.
And the thing is, they probably planned this, too. They probably knew at least a few people would know exactly what they're doing. And I bet you they ran some metrics that said that the decrease in revenue by people who would get infuriated by this change was far less than the increase in revenue by players who are forced into buying gems in the new system. And in the world where players are numbers and not people, that's a total win.
Then they say that it was done so that it is less confusing to newcomers essentially shifting the blame. Basic maths is hard these days apparently. Also, they wanted it to be more like a shopping experience.
Forum post (Page 4)- https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/Lets-talk-about-the-new-Gem-conversion/page/4#post4503369
Reddit Thread - http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/2jy4rj/gaile_gray_addresses_concerns_regarding_gem/
Best part, people are angry over this; they come out and say that the community is RANTING.
Forum post (Page 6) - https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/Lets-talk-about-the-new-Gem-conversion/page/6#post4503483
Gem Store prices are also being reported to have creeped upwards (new prices that aren't divisible by 400 conveniently).
They have also hidden the gem to gold conversion prices of the past few days. Now here is the interesting part. People who keep a personal exchange tracker noticed that the rate suddenly went up as soon as the new patch went live.
So yea, this is just some of the stuff which has happened. I think this deserves some kind of special award.
Comments
Looks to me like the "community" screwed the community... But that is to be expected.
Still one would think that Anet would have a lot less naive look on their own community by now... But i am glad to see they remain ever the optimist.
This have been a good conversation
What?
This is sad. About 80% of my guild just rage quit, lol.
https://dviw3bl0enbyw.cloudfront.net/uploads/forum_attachment/file/170704/gw089.jpg
So, in the pic above, what if you bought 800 gems and want to convert them to gold? You'll have 77 gems left over. Great, huh?
I'm not sure what the hell is going on at ANet these days. They've got lots of employees, but barely update GW2 and no expansion is in sight. When QoL updates come out, they're half-decent and half-idiotic.
The best part is you will never be able to use those 77 gems as most of the stuff in the Store tends to be in upwards of 100 (last i checked, haven't played for a couple of months but i keep an eye on the game hoping for interesting releases which seem to be a pipe dream now). Those 77 will remain wasted until you buy more gems so that the waste from the new gems adds up to the old one.
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Man i'm totally screwed then. I have less than 100 gold and it will take me forever to get 800 gem worth of gold by farming. I don't want to spend real money either because that is $10 per 800 gem. I would rather spend that $10 on some steam games on sale! I have always been casually farming gold and then trade it for gems to buy things like armors, costumes, weapon skins that I really like occasionally. Now it seems like I'm being forced to farm really hard to trade for gems and if I don't want to waste a lot of time farming, then I have to spend real cash!
No, not cool!!!
I'm a big GW fan since GW1 and I haven't logged on ever since the last update with the pvp Assassin signet costing 10 gold! I'm so turned off by what the dev is doing with GW2.
Won't be loggin back on for a long long time!
Sincerely
GW long time fan
THIS.
If ANET spent as much time on their game as they did on their CASH SHOP it would actually be a good game.
When I wake up, the real nightmare begins
Wardrobe monitized PvP skins which were free.
Account bound dyes removed unident dyes to sell dye packs.
The low level experience rework was just a way to remove key farming.
Sold continue coins for SAB then permanently removed it when the money went dry.
Destroyed Lions Arch to sell airship portals only to rebuild it once that money went dry.
Every single patch for 1.5 years has been a money grab disguised as a feature.
That is indeed an extremely shitty move.
Not unheard of, as most companies who use a manner of coins / gems / points set this up that way. But much more apparent because they started out with a better system and are now screwing with people.
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I'm not surprised. All updates to the game also updated the cash shop. They always gave a lot of attention to it. No matter what.
It was plain for a while that the updates are mainly cash grab. With this and other decisions like this (more down the line I reckon) game is well on the way to crash. And I wouldn't be sad to see it....
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I want to see how the usual GW2 shills will spin this into a positive. If they respond at all.
This is the harsh reality of monetizing a no sub game.
I guess all the people saying that they like F2P as long as the shop only sells cosmetics didn't buy enough cosmetics. I guess what they meant by 'cosmetics' though was "stuff that i don't ever have to, and of course won't ever, buy".
Take away the sub from a AAA MMORPG and it seems people expect it to run on fresh air and just be provided as a gift to them for entertainment.
F2P, and B2P, advocates are reaping the seeds they helped sow.
Don't really see why people complain. The cash shop is the only continuous way ANET makes any money off GW2, it would stand to reason that they would try to make it as enticing as possible. And honestly, the fact that you can earn in-game any of the cash-shop items (priced at market forces) is more than what many F2P games offer anyway.
Last time I checked GW2 doesn't have mandatory gear progression for gated content, or gear-based competitive PvP like *other MMOs* other there. So there is no reason why gold would allow one to see and do more content than anyone else. They even flippin' removed repair costs so bad players wouldn't be punished so much currency-wise.
The damn cash-shop itself is for fuff like equipment skins, pets, etc. And it's not even priced badly!!! (Neverwinter 40$ mounts anyone?) Anyone reacting "OMG they actually want us to PAY for entertainment?!?!?" is nuts imo...
Now...come and talk to me about lack of solid meaningful content updates, or lack of class optimization and we'll share a cup of tea and biscuits!
People expected it to run on money from expansion packs, just like GW1 did. Besides, it's not a gift when you have to pay for it.
Nice CS armor skins are enticing. The new dress they released is enticing and people are happy about it. Gambling boxes and this change are shady. In fact, this change makes buying gems less enticing for the reason I posted earlier.
At least when I'm playing a P2P game I know I don't have to deal with sleazy dev tactics to disguise money grab ploy as a feature, and the constant power struggle between cash shop vs content focus.
Not to mention when your business model is so volatile (you don't know how much revenue you're getting month over month unlike in P2P), it is extremely hard to plan any long-term content development outside expansion packs that are expected to pay for themselves.
FFXIV and GW2 are the prime examples of what can happen. Meaty content updates every 3 months on the dot + expansion packs every year and a half. Promised features are actually released. When your game is B2P your promises amount to nothing outside maybe expansion packs. Everything depends on the ROI which the B2P devs can't anticipate ahead of time.
GW2 was released a full year before FFXIV yet the signs seem to indicate the latter is getting its first expansion before the former. This is ridiculous considering how much of the game's value rests on the expansion packs for the players in GW2. I don't know what the hell ANet is doing, letting a P2P game get ahead of them on this. The players are getting royally screwed here.
Wait, I heard a ton of people talking about how it's cash shop would be super cool and just like the one in GW1. As in mainly cosmetics. They were fine with a cosmetic cash shop, probably for the reasons given above.
The fools that argued for the brilliance of F2P/ B2P never understood where that road would take them, despite being told about it a million times. Again and again me and others spoke about the slippery slope and how these games were really monetised in other territories They knew better and thought that cosmetics would be the end result. They are now learning the hard way.
Boobs are LIFE, Boobs are LOVE, Boobs are JUSTICE, Boobs are mankind's HOPES and DREAMS. People who complain about boobs have lost their humanity.
I fully agree.
Even in 'F2P', such as AA which i am playing now, I just buy a sub and ignore the cash shop.
Given the choice I would have every game 100% sub all the time every time.