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Guild Wars 2: Microtransaction Goals & Systems Detailed
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
The Guild Wars 2 blog has been updated with a most interesting post by Arena.Net founder Mike O'Brien. In it, O'Brien discusses the framework for the microtransaction system and the goals that Arena.Net has in mind.
Much of the post centers around this: Here’s our philosophy on microtransactions: We think players should have the opportunity to spend money on items that provide visual distinction and offer more ways to express themselves. They should also be able to spend money on account services and on time-saving convenience items. But it’s never OK for players to buy a game and not be able to enjoy what they paid for without additional purchases, and
Guild Wars 2 has been built, says O'Brien, for microtransactions from the get-go rather than as an afterthought similar to the original Guild Wars. The game will have three currencies: Gold that can be traded and used for ordinary transactions; Karma which cannot be traded and is used for purchasing unique items in-game; and Gems that players purchase and use for microtransaction purchases.
From a player’s perspective, RMT companies have all the wrong motivations: the more money they make from selling gold, the more they spam ads in the game, run bot networks to farm gold, and hack accounts to loot them for gold. Conversely, under our system, players have all the right motivations. If a player buys gold from another player, he gets the gold he wants, the selling player gets gems she can use for microtransactions, and ArenaNet generates revenue from the sale of gems that we can use to keep supporting and updating the game. Everyone wins.
Read the full post on the Guild Wars 2 blog.
Comments
Pure win if u ask me.
Here’s our philosophy on microtransactions: We think players should have the opportunity to spend money on items that provide visual distinction and offer more ways to express themselves. They should also be able to spend money on account services and on time-saving convenience items. But it’s never OK for players to buy a game and not be able to enjoy what they paid for without additional purchases, and it’s never OK for players who spend money to have an unfair advantage over players who don’t.
I like their philosophy on Microtransactions, wish more companies would adopt such.
One big question that I would love for mmorpg.com to ask anet on the beta.
Can you buy gems for money and buy gold with those gems to become wealthy in-game??
It sounds to me like you can actually just buy gems and become instantly rich ingame... no $$ from me for Anet... for now at least.
All cash shop items can be bought with in-game gold! How is this pure win? (if you were thinking on P2W?)
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It is pure win because I can elect to either spend my time or my real money for items in the cash shop. I can't imagine a fairer system.
I think this system is great, because it will eradicate gold sellers.
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As a non-future-GW2 player, I think it'll be fine as they have detailed it. STO is set up the same way in that you can buy and sell c-points in the game for dilithium. Last I checked though, the conversion rate was so high that only the trully wealthy (i.e. those that can afford to buy a Galor on the exchange) would actually be making the conversions.
Maybe I'm wrong, but I think the players will balance this out themselves and it won't be a real problem for anyone except the crybabies who need to complain about everything.
Edit: btw Suzie, could you get the mods to start cleaning up the multitude of "GW2 cashshop" threads that popped up?
I want a mmorpg where people have gone through misery, have gone through school stuff and actually have had sex even. -sagil
This actually looks very bright
In the blog, he does say that you can purchase gems with money, and that you can sell gems ingame to other players for gold. However, I didn't see anything about buying gold with money. I think they want to keep players involved in the commerce. If players could simply buy gold from the game for money, then the value of gold would drop continuously.
It's already answered in the blog
But what they have is just one layer of abstraction from directly buying ingame currency with gold. I know the main reason they did this though is to prevent RMT but its a bit hard to swallow still....
This is about as close to perfect as you can get in a Microtransaction supported game.
No one loses.
Player 1 - No time, has some real life money, can either buy cash shop items with Gems, or sell Gems on AH for Gold.
Player 2 - Plenty of time, no real life money, can earn MT items via farming in the game, buying Gems for Gold in the Trading post.
Player 3 - Med Time/Med RL Money can do a little bit of both.
What I'm really liking about this more than anything is, it's more support to the in game economy.
Lastly, it really discourages gold farmers simply because it'll be likely easier to purchase Gems directly from Arenanet and sell them on the Trading Post for Gold, rather than go outside the game.
GW2 Microtransaction System = FLAWLESS
I think its a win so, congrats arenanet
I'll be avoiding this until I see how it affects the economy. Since GW2 isn't gear-based (and the pretty stuff comes from Karma, non-tradeable) this may not hurt it. If however, it does deflate the value of gold, I'll avoid it and simply spend money on the item mall as I originally planned to. I can't be arsed to farm. Anet's track record and philosophy are the only thing that's keeping me calm and logical, the current game doesn't really allow a reason to horde gems for anything other than what it's meant to be used for (cash shop items), but the foundation is now there for something worse and it will now be one more thing for Anet to constantly keep balanced as they bring new content to the game.
"Forums aren't for intelligent discussion; they're for blow-hards with unwavering opinions."
The best part is that now I can get more character slots, bank space, and (omg) even home server transfers with in-game gold.
"Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind." -Dr. Seuss
I like it. The game is based on skill, so what's the big deal if someone wants to pay real life cash to look how he wants to look.
Quit trying to make this game a hardcore grind and play it as a skill based game. Brainwashed grinders need to re-examine your definition of "fun". If you really need to spend 1000 hours grinding to get a unique look so you feel special, there's other games on the market that let you chase your carrot... or maybe you just need to go ask your mom for a hug.
If you want to stand out in this game, be the better player and build your reputation as being that superior player.
Let the money milking being. "time-saving convenience items" could basically mean anything from movement speed items to currency boosts o/
This sounds almost like STO cpoints<Dilithium model
Even the best weapon/armor and enhancements are bought with kharma. We'll see, but this sounds like a win win setup except for gold sellers.
I have ALWAYS hated the F2P cash shops and such.
But I have to say, Anet... doing it right.
They(along with LoL) may get me to finally give up my crusade against F2P/cash shops.
We really need separate forums for every newly launched game. There can be the anti-<MMO> one and there can be the 'what general discussion should be' one. All the lamenting can happen together where each can find solace in like minded can't-move-on-ers leaving the rest of us to actually move forward and discuss meaningful and relevant topics.
The more I think about this system the more it makes sense.
Player A (the poor hard worker) :
Damn I really want that micro-transaction golem banker, but I don't have (IRL) money to spend on it.
Wait a minute, I can use my in-game gold to purchase gems from another player and still get it any way!
Player B (the rich lazy guy) :
I want this cool looking armor but I really don't feel like farming a lot of gold.
Wait a minute, I'll just buy some gems and sell them to players. I get the armor I want that way!
In essence player B payed for player A's micro transaction and player A simply provided a service to player B in return (in-game gold). There's no money creation, because the money was hard-earned gold by player A all along. This is great because it does not affect the economy!
Player A gets his micro transaction.
Player B gets his shiny armor.
ArenaNet gets paid.
Since ArenaNet is fond of acronyms with 3 W's I'd call this a win-win-win situation!
In addition, you can't buy dungon gear with gold, karma, or gems and GW2 not being gear driven
Well that would depend on if there was anyone in game with a lot of gold to sell it to you. In addition, what exactly could you purchase by being wealthy? With everything being scaled, gear being a non factor, and power equalized the only real thing you would buy is to change your looks.
Playng Devil's advocate here. Bear with me.
So If i buy the game I won't be able to get distinguished items unless I pay more? In other words, I will have a buttload of clones of my toon unless I spend more money on gems?
Or farm for gold- because I need gold to buy gems. How do I farm when the game is based on dynamic events? Are we going to need to run dungeons over and over? Do WvWvW offer gold on player drops?
If gold buys gems as well as real money, Anet doesn't make money from the sale of gems bought this way, yes? So gold IS a huge commodity. Farming will be a common practice then.
::shrugs::
I may be way off, but just making some points to stir the hornets nest