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Paying for new content...
Lord.Bachus
Member RarePosts: 9,686
As we all know by now, there will be no monthly fee for GW2, which is a good thing.... It will make the game easilly accessible to everyone.
Arenanet also said they want to generate extra venue through selling more expansion for the game...
But would you also be paying for Monthly content packs, containing new area's, new items, new dungeons but also new parts of the personally story.... (keep in mind that bugfixes and ballancing patches should allways be free)
Or maybe even new classes, playable races, items for your housing area, new min-games and such... would you pay for that?
Best MMO experiences : EQ(PvE), DAoC(PvP), WoW(total package) LOTRO (worldfeel) GW2 (Artstyle and animations and worlddesign) SWTOR (Story immersion) TSW (story) ESO (character advancement)
Comments
Naturaly I rather pay for new content than paying a sub for no content at all. That is the buisness model I like!
Obviously there should not exist an obligation to buy extra content, so people that doesn't want to get new content should be able to play at the same "level" as someone that has some extra content.
I will gladly pay for content. A mmo is seriously not going to be only buy 2 play or free 2 play, people need to get over this...
Their model is great, buy the game, play for free. You pay for the new content they make....perfect. They won't be every month, thats ridiculous..but every few months sure. Obvously the prices aren't released yet, nor the frequency of paid updates... but your almost gaurenteed to save money compared to a subscription mmo which runs for ~180$ in yearly subs even if they do have small updates here and their.(unless they run updates at some absurd price, but I doubt their stupid enough to be even pricier than a sub mmo)
Also, you won't HAVE to buy any content if you don't want to, so you can play at your own rate and possibly save loads of money. And if your a "hardcore" gamer, your going to burn through any mmo out their, but at least your actually paying for what you get, opposed to paying for maintenence related things.
as long as the quality of the dlc is worth the money, then sure, they have to make money somehow.
My thoughts are that it will likely be done much as GW1 with expansions.
Though due to the added size It may be entirely possible that smaller content updates such as Sorrow's Furnace will be sold for smaller prices.
At the end of the day money needs to be made, though I'm sure ANet will be able strike a good balance between cost and quality.
Likely GW2 will be the MMO with the most bang for your buck. It's total size is likely somewhat smaller then other upcoming AAA games but it will be a whole lot cheaper to play.
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If there are monthly exp packs for 15 bucks a month, what's the difference between GW2 and a normal P2P MMO? Like WoW, Lotro, Aion etc?
To your average consumer, its the same thing money wise. Most P2P MMO's normally have free 'content patches' as well which (in WoW's case) contains huge contents.
I'd rather they stick with the B2P model and not try to have the best of both worlds.
Gdemami -
Informing people about your thoughts and impressions is not a review, it's a blog.
Obviously because you dont have to pay for the dlc, its optional, unlike p2p which forces you to subscribe if you want to play.
Yeah, would be kind of crazy to pay over 200 bucks to get the complete game + all the monthly updates when you happen to start out a year post launch.
I'd only pay for additional content if it is a substantial amount; real expansions rather than monthly update packs.
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I totally get that but still, if they were to do monthly exp packs, I dunno. Looks like they are trying to merge B2P and P2P.
Not really a fan of trying to muddy the line to take more money out of their playerbase. I guess it depends on the price/content though.
Poster above me brings an interesting point. What happens if a friend wants to play with you a year later?
"hey, get the Jan/June/July and Dec exp!"
"so 120 bucks?"
"yeah."
Gdemami -
Informing people about your thoughts and impressions is not a review, it's a blog.
If it's just Cosmetic Items (can include cool looking gear & weapons) and Dungeons, which are not release monthly but sporadically, then I would be ok with that. Because I can pick and choose what I want and not having to fork over some cash, every month, for something I feel that I need. Things like new races, new weapons (e.g. Polearm), new professions should be reserved for expansions packs, becuase they all effect the game in a major way.
As long as the prices are set up properly I wouldn't mind this at all. There will be races, classes, content etc that I'm not interested in at all, if I could save some money by not purchasing them it wouldn't bother me. However the price of paying for everything can't be more expensive than a normal xpack of content would be. I don't like this pricing model if it screws with people who do want all of the content.
Did I miss a post about them changing business models? Or am I wrong to assume that they are keeping it the way they did GW1? I thought I read somewhere that they mentioned keeping the same business model, but I could be wrong.
If it's the same, it is silly to speculate when you can just see how they did it with GW1. Which is the same as most B2P games with expansions. You can get bundles, and the price eventually drops etc. Right now for about $10-20 you can get in to GW1, and if you want all the expansions the total cost (if you shop around) will be about $40-$50 I believe.
Or the next boxed expansion could just give access to all previously released content for $50.... or just the new content for $30... This way people could join the game at almost any point without to much overhead costs...
Sometimes thinking out of the box is required to understand new buisness models like this and its possibilities...
Best MMO experiences : EQ(PvE), DAoC(PvP), WoW(total package) LOTRO (worldfeel) GW2 (Artstyle and animations and worlddesign) SWTOR (Story immersion) TSW (story) ESO (character advancement)
It kinda segments the playerbase if this model has new areas though.
"You get early access to these contents but you pay XYZ amount."
Not sure if I am down with that.
*Please note that the model discussed here is pure speculation and can be applied to any game.
Gdemami -
Informing people about your thoughts and impressions is not a review, it's a blog.
The only difference i see is the cash shop which has made
GW1 a joke to me.
The following statement is false
The previous statement is true
nothing is free, I rather pay my 15 per month and actually play the game than keep thinking if I should buy this or that and spend more time in their shop.
And monthly paid content is just BS. That's far more expensive than P2P fee
That is nothing new you dont have to think outside the box for something a company has already done. SOE has given all previous expansions for EQ and EQ2 when you buy the new one for years.
I hope you'll are prepared to be disapointed because companys will always find ways to take the playerbases $ with f2p cash shops or a monthly sub managing an MMO with a development team that the avg developer makes 80k$ a year isnt cheap. The less $ the game makes the less updates you will get after release simple as that if the team cant give a balanced budget then developers will be put on different games.
Expasions worked great for GW1. Its a good way to develop your game and give more content to the fanbase. Its a good way for the us the consumers to pick and choose what to buy and what not to buy.
I misread this poll.
ArenaNet is not about making you pay to play the game. Check out their cash shop, it's vanity items, extra bank/character slots, a mission pack and ways to unlock skills that are all available in game. Oh yeah, mercenary heroes which give you a little extra power like if you want to solo and three necromancers isn't enough, you can get a 4th. Whatever.
Here's an article with ArenaNet's thoughts on the subject. Pay special attention to the clarification at the end.
http://www.pcgamer.com/2010/10/21/guild-wars-2-to-have-dlc-microtransactions/
GW1 had other campaigns and an expansion pack, and yes they did come out fairly frequently. But they were completely standalone and basically entire games worth of content. ArenaNet might do DLCs more frequently if that's what people want, but with a policy that they're not making people pay for power then I can't imagine they're going to be mandatory to pay for. Most likely they'll be additional dungeons which lead to additional armor skins, but not power, or more personal story options.
Cantha and Elona (the settings of Factions and Nightfall) are blocked off from the rest of the world for the initial release, so my guess is they'll just stick to the method of introducing them again in expansions, with teleporting from one to another but otherwise separate games.
I think people are getting worked up like B2P is really going to be P2P in disguise or more expensive. It won't.
"Gamers will no longer buy the argument that every MMO requires a subscription fee to offset server and bandwidth costs. It's not true you know it, and they know it." -Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet, 2007
DLC can be tricky since if it's not done right it will segregate the community. I think if there is any DLC it will be the personal story. Expansions will provide a greater scope of course. The one nice aspect about DLC in comparison to a sub fee is that you have the choice to pay for content. If there is something you don't want, then don't pay for it. With a sub fee you have no choice (oher than to play or not to play). If they do go the DLC route they have to be real careful on implimenting it.
I expect a similar setup as with GW1. New large chunks of content in the form of expansions you have to pay for. And maybe smaller free content updates.
Hopefully the itemshop stays similar to GW1. Services like characterslots, renaming, change look etc. And maybe those costumes.
EDIT: And great events hopefully! First halloween and xmas events were simply awesome. Nowadays, the events only seem to be about grinding titles. They should never have put in those ring games
For some reason I'm fine dolling out $30-40 for big expansions, but start to sweat when companies charge me $5.00 to rent content for a few weeks. With the big expansions, I know they will keep me busy for 2-3 months the way I play. By contrast, paying $5.00 for potions that I will consume, and areas and gear I will outlevel, is very poor value to me. When companies start charging for extra bag space or character slots, I'm gone.
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The only thing that would concern me being sold in the shop would be content and areas tacked on to an existing area. I don't like the idea that you need to check with everyone you group with, if they have the right content pack before going ahead and playing together. Full blown expansions would be fine though, say like Cantha. If I'm in Cantha, I'll know that anyone I come across there is someone I can play Canthan content with.
I don't want to end up with a DDO-like scenario where many of the people you come across, you can't play with because they're missing the specific dungeon or adventure pack you want to run. That happened with a my RL friends quite often. I had the packs and they usually didn't, so we'd spend a good chunk of time sorting out who could run what before actually getting started. Quite the pain and pretty frustrating since I couldn't do the stuff I wanted to do because they didn't have access to it.
As for fluff, put most of it in the store. I'll probably buy quite a bit of it because I'm a fluff fiend and cosmetic stuff does add to my enjoyment. But make some freebie stuff too for those without the funds.
Pay for boxed expansions. Maybe once a year. All other content/updates should be free.
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Of course it should convey bonuses. That's an incentive by which it'll sell, and they do need to sell these DLC expansions, like it or not.
Really, it's no different than any other DLC you've ever bought in your life, not even remotely. It goes like this: You see thing; You buy thing; Thing gives you content that leads to rewards. Think of Borderlands, someone who has one of the DLC packs is obviously going to have access to different rewards than someone who doesn't, that's perfectly reasonable and understandable.
Really, if we're going to be self-entitled enough to say that ArenaNet shouldn't charge for rewards, then we should just remove all rewards for grinding too, and just make grinding something you do with no recompense.
The easiest way to think of this is like DLC, think of DLC from every game, ever. Have you ever played a DLC that hasn't given you advantageous rewards? Even one? Even the mission packs for Guild Wars 1 had similar. The Dead Money DLC for New Vegas opens the door to a bunch of new goodies.
But entitlement is as entitlement does. It's like people telling Notch (Minecraft dev) that he needs to update all the time for free, 24/7, he must never stop coding lest people will rage over how they were ripped off for $10, so he needs to code every second, every breath should be a line of code, and even for new beta accounts he should never charge for expansions.
I just hope ArenaNet don't wuss out with this, they need to fund themselves somehow, and I'll buy it providing it isn't a total cop-out.