My first thoughts about this started at the original announcement in 2007 that GW2 was going to be made barely 2 years after GW1 was released. This annoucement set alarm bells ringing in my head that the original GW model wasn't making as much money as planned and they could not keep up with content releases at the rate they had been, so announcing GW2 early would free Arenanet up from making more chapters for GW.
I wonder why your first thougts where not 'hmm not only has GW1 paid the shareholders, it has funded the development of a pretty ambitous AAA title (GW2)? If you want to debate what 'current events' 'prove' you really need to go beyond 'your fist thoughts' and lay out something a bit more rigurously thought out.
Incidentally GW1 did not actually make as much as they had 'planned' (hoped) mainly because they did not bang out new content quite as quick as they had planned. The model was sucessful and could easily be more so.
My mind doesn't think that way I'm a realist and if the GW1 model had been majorly profitable they would have continued releasing chapters, this is how most MMO developers do it, (Blizzrad hasn't stop development of WOW because Titan is in the works have they?) and that would have funded GW2 but they did not. As I said in my OP the only reason they announced GW2 so early was to have a reason to stop further development of GW1.
They want GW2 to be bigger than GW1. A-net is nowhere near the size of Blizzard so most of the employees were moved to work on GW2 after EoTN was completed. Every company wants to make MORE money. If GW1 wasn't majorly profitable GW2 would never have been green lit. NCSoft wouldn't have given A-net their resources for GW2 if GW1 performed poorly.
I don't know if Anet really cares about cash shops or not. But I do know this.
NCSoft itself is completely dedicated to the idea and the origin of that dedication started from a particualr incidient in City of Heroes.
CoH had a wedding between two developers they did in game. For this occasion they made a special costume pack that had some wedding types clothes (tuxedos etc). They sold this for $5 for anyone interested. This was not meant as a money making venture it was meant for flavot so people could dress up for the wedding. This was before there were any cash shops at all. It was simply a small expansion pack.
It sold gigantically. It made so money that they actually funded the development of the Villain Epic Archetypes with it.
Ever since then NCSoft has been a believer. There was never any way GW2 was not going to have cash shop with microtransactions. The success of DDO and LOTRO shops cemented that.
However the nice thing about this lesson is that they made a ton of money on cosmetic things and didn't even plan on it.
NCSoft is not dedicated to the idea of Pay to Win. It is of course a VERY serious temptation for whoever itemizes the store. Better performance is always an obvious and serious inducement.
It is also something, that I personally believe, can completely destroy your game and therefore destroy you ability to make money.
There will be missteps along the way. The temptation to try to sell advantages is too large. But they know for a fact they can make good money, in fact probably their best money on flavor and convience items.
Things like new powersets and novel costume pieces really do just sell better than 10% experience boosts. Like alot better. Amazingly better.
We will see what happens but I think that if NCSoft (and I believe that is who truly drives the cash shops of these, I believe many developers are semi-ambivalent ) gets a feeling that any advantage they are selling truly upsets a significant portion of their game they will yank. They know where their bread is buttered.
You see one of the lessons of the cash shop era, is that power is overrated. People really will pay alot of more to look good than to be good. This seems utterly foreign to power gamers. It also happens to be true and actually fits in very closely to the real world.
Now tell me, what is better, having a sub fee that forces people into playing the game or making it free after the initial purchase and instead, including a cash shop that only provides account service, items for convinience and cosmetic items and that any of these can be purchased with ingame gold?
Remarks like the part highlighted here fail as well as they go completely against the very fundamental concept of personal accountability; taking responsibility for one's own actions. It also always makes me laugh and/or shake my head in amazement, especially with how often I hear or read it. I don't know if people really think this way, or if they think it's a convincing way to damn subscriptions by placing the individual in some kind of victim role. People love that victim card.
How can you (you in general) be "forced" into playing any game at all? The answer, quite simply is, you can't. You buy the game by choice. You subscribe to the game by choice. You play the game by choice. Nothing in the entire exchange is ever forced. Everything is voluntary. If you feel forced into playing a game you've voluntarily bought and subscribed to, then perhaps you need to re-evaluate your choice of entertainment and wonder why you're buying things you don't enjoy; or that you feel you don't have enough time to make the purchase worthwhile.
Doing some basic research about the game beforehand and comparing it against your own circumstances and preferences to see if it would be a good choice also helps. It's not like the information isn't out there and readily available these days.
Also, the "not able to play enough to make it worth the subscription" doesn't fly either, because short of some emergency situation coming up in one's life that they were not prepared for and could not foresee, I'd think most people would have a pretty good grasp on how much time they have to dedicate to gaming in their day-to-day lives, and could make the decision of whether it would be a worthwhile purchase before spending a dime. If someone buys a game they don't have enough time to play, that's their problem, not the developer's.
If I have about 1.5-2 hours of free time to go see a movie and I hate romantic comedies, I'm not going to buy a ticket to see a romantic comedy that's 2.5 hours long. If I do anyway, I'm going to accept that I won't be able to see the whole movie in one sitting, and I'll have to catch the portion I missed at a later time. I'm not going to go out and demand my money back. I'm not going to blame the movie's makers for making the movie a romantic comedy, and making it too long for me to see in one sitting. I knew what the movie was and I knew how long it ran. I chose to spend the money to see it anyway. My problem. Not theirs.
Of course, I've been around the MMO scene, and gaming in general, long enough to know that many gamers seldom ever take responsibility for their own decisions or choices; hence why the word "forced" is thrown around so freely. To read some forum discussions as an outsider, you'd think gamers were slaves, bound and chained, being forced to do things against their will under penalty of death or something.
So, it only follows that when someone decides to buy the game, even though they should realize they don't have the time to make it seem worthwhile to them, they'll naturally pass the blame on to the developer, claiming they were somehow forced into their situation. Even now as I type that, I chuckle at how ridiculous and transparent a claim it is.
TL;DR: In short, if someone buys a game that requires a subscription fee and/or a lot of time investment, and finds they can't play as much as they'd like due to real life circumstances they knew existed prior to buying it, it's the individual's fault for not thinking it through more thoroughly. They have not been forced to do anything. The only thing they are forced to do is deal with the results of a poor and shortsighted choice they voluntarily made.
In the end, ArenaNet still holds true that triple A mmorpg games can still succeed without any sub fees so long as they have a cash shop to supplement the box fees.
I changed that statement of yours so it more accurately reflects the reality of the situation. I realize that's the line ANet was using a while ago to gain the favor of people who might have wondered why the game couldn't just be F2P, or whom prefer subscriptions. Many people however, myself included, knew it was all just a blatant spin job on the situation. It's pure sanctimony to damn companies for charging a flat sub fee every month, when your game has a cash shop than can potentially bring in much more than that, from any given player, per month.
Now you might say "well I never spent a dime, and neither do others, so your argument is false!" Only it isn't. All it does is illustrates that ANet doesn't really care where the money's coming in from, only that it's coming in. It doesn't matter if it's coming in from you, or anyone else. Just that it's coming in.
The point is, they need the extra income just as much as any other MMO developer does. The only difference is how they choose to gain it. Considering it's been proven time and again that cash shops can be far more profitable than a flat sub fee, it seems to me that not only was ANet being dishonest when they claimed they needed only the box fees, they also opted to go with the more profitable approach to supplementing it by using a cash shop. Really kinda takes all the wind out of their whole rant against subs, nevermind their claim of "box sales are enough".
This is proven even further by the fact that ANet has since stated that the cash shop brings in more funding needed to further develop the game. So, no, box fees alone are not enough to sustain and maintain the game indefinitely. Not that this surprised me or many others; we knew their original "box sales only" claim was a crock to begin with.
Now, I realize you focus primarily on the server costs and such. The problem there is you quite conspicuously ignore the fact that server and bandwidth fees are only one small part of ANet's expenses, or any business's expenses for that matter. I won't go down the list of what other standard business expenses entail, as I'm sure you're just as aware of them as I am. Suffice to say, you paint a very incpomplete picture in your paragraph there.
So, since ANet has the box sales bringing in revenue, and they have the cash shop bringing in ongoing supplemental revenue, it seems they really aren't taking any higher road here. They're selling boxes. Sub-based MMOs are selling boxes. ANet is supplementing their revenue via a cash shop to fund further support and development of their games. Sub-based MMOs are supplementing their revenue via a flat sub fee in order to further support and development of their games. The only difference is that in ANet's case, they can make potentially far more via cash shop sales than a flat subscription could bring in for a sub-based MMO.
At the end of the day, ANet needs the supplemental income just as much as any sub-based MMO dev does. They're doing everything they can to spin the situation and make it seem like they're taking some moral higher ground. But that's all it is, spin. When you look past the hyperbole, misdirection, carefully scripted talking point responses and expertly written PR, they're just like any other MMO developer.
GW2 is not really any different than Turbine's shops except Turbine actually have a few items that affect character development in a disparate way (stat tomes in LOTRO).
I actually find they are significantly different. The way that stands out most to me, which was also the reason I quit playing DDO was the armor skins they sold in the shop. It wasn't the quality and it wasn't the price. It was the fact that you could only apply them to a single piece of armor and once you upgraded to something new, you lost the skin. It couldn't be transferred to another armor piece and, if I remember correctly, the armor was bound to your character so you couldn't even trade it to another character on your account (even if you had another character that could use it). So if you want to use those nice armor skins, you had to keep buying them everytime you wanted to move up to better armor. They weren't really cheap either, comparatively.
With GW2's shop, when you buy a new armor skin, not only is it yours forever, it's available to every character on your account. As far as I know, *anything* you buy in the shop, you buy for your account so all of your characters can benefit from it.
To me, that's a gigantic difference and ended up being a deal breaker with Turbine's shop. When I started feeling I was being nickel and dimed, I opted out -- out of the shop and out of the game.
I won't even go into the artifical scarcity of mana pots in the game and how casters often feel forced to buy them from the shop, just so they can continue to ply their trade as wielders of magic. Nope, won't go into it.
I don't think that "recent events" as you put it have proven anything else than that it's the purpose of a company to try to maximize profits.
NcSoft/Arenanet have prolly figured that their fans will accept a cash-shop like in any other F2P game, with the only difference that in GW2 you also have to buy the client. From the forum reaction it seems that the fans happily buy into the concept.
If that isn't good business sense from NCSoft I don't know what is.
GW2 is not really any different than Turbine's shops except Turbine actually have a few items that affect character development in a disparate way (stat tomes in LOTRO).
If GW2 lets you buy something that gives you a 15% xp boost, yet you can level to max level in say 5 days. Then seriously who care? If that is your definition of Pay to Win then I have a really big problem with your definition such that we can probably never come to an agreement about it.
For me Pay to Win comes in when you must pay money to get something that gives you significantly superior stats or abilities or when not paying is so incredibly adruous that most normal people would not do it.
Examples:
1) a state tome that raised stats enough that you did say 15% more damage than a non-payer
2) It takes 1 year to advance to max without paying and it takes a week with paying.
3) some super duper ultra mega weapon that will never exist via in game drops
That is pay to win. Although I do not like the idea that advancing to max level is "winning" since its not, but if advancement is so incredibly boringly slow without paying then that is an inducment. However I would like to point out that #2 is also REALLY bad business. Making your game completely unrewarding like that will only cause a small number of crazy people to pay you a large number of people will simply leave.
Also keep in mind that a small number of people pay large amounts of money and a large amount of people pay almost no money at all in many micortransaction games. If a game is truly Pay to Win and 80% of people are paying no money then it must be true that 80% of people are not "winning" whatever that means. According to the stats many of these games release you would surprised how much money a small number of people spend on things and how little the majority spends.
And in what way has your post anything to do with what I said? Are you just randomly hitting the quote button?
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Is there some sort of unknown rules that B2P games cannot have CS?
P2P = CS = yes sure why not
F2P = CS = yes sure why not
B2P = CS = P2W? = Hell no?
Is it me or there is something wrong with the " no CS on B2P " people mindset?
And the worse thing everyone opinion is based fully on their assumption, no black and white.
It is more like:
P2P with extremely limited CS = okay
F2P with CS = okay, as long as it is not too much mandatory to win different contests
B2P with extremely limited CS = okay
GW2's CS goes beyond the level of acceptance that a significant amount of people set for P2Ps and B2Ps. However, GW2 brings a very different AAA MMORPG to the table, which is why we may choose to swallow the pill nonetheless.
And in what way has your post anything to do with what I said? Are you just randomly hitting the quote button?
Uhh.... maybe your crime was in suggesting GW2 had a cash shop similar to f2p cash shops? NOT SURE though Hopefully he'll be along soon, reread your post, reread his post and realise oops!
NCSoft is not dedicated to the idea of Pay to Win. It is of course a VERY serious temptation for whoever itemizes the store. Better performance is always an obvious and serious inducement.
It is also something, that I personally believe, can completely destroy your game and therefore destroy you ability to make money.
There will be missteps along the way. The temptation to try to sell advantages is too large. But they know for a fact they can make good money, in fact probably their best money on flavor and convience items.
Things like new powersets and novel costume pieces really do just sell better than 10% experience boosts. Like alot better. Amazingly better.
The problem is that the GW2 cashshop includes both RMT and boosters, both of which are paying to cheat.
Had the GW2 shop consisted of lots of cosmetic items, and non-ingame stuff like character slots , it would have been well on its way to be the game of the year. Now however, GW2 is on the verge of getting a permanent premium-F2P stamp on it. Just from one small offical blog entry and a couple of leaked images.
The only reason I am even considering GW2 any more is because no other MMO looks to offer the same large scale open world cooperative PvE, and I was really looking forward to that. But if I buy the game now, I will buy the cheap version, not collector's or deluxe digital that I would have done before. And I will definitely not buy any gems, not with cash, nor with gold. If I don't have the willpower to boycott it completely, I will at least make sure that their decisions gives them less money from me than it would have if they had shown a bit more restraint.
Because that is the main thing to remember if you want better products. Don't reward companies for doing greedy things.
Uh oh... buying character slots? I'm having horrible memories of FF XIV now. In FF XIV you could actually pay for an account with no character slots in it. I believe there it was $3 per character slot but for some odd reason you could elect to pay the baseline $10 a month and not have character slots.
How many free character slots does GW2 give you?
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Uh oh... buying character slots? I'm having horrible memories of FF XIV now. In FF XIV you could actually pay for an account with no character slots in it. I believe there it was $3 per character slot but for some odd reason you could elect to pay the baseline $10 a month and not have character slots.
How many free character slots does GW2 give you?
You start with 5 (in the beta at least), which is high enough to allow you to play every race, but not high enough to let you have one of every profession...Basically the altaholics among us will buy these and people who focus on 1 or 2 characters won't really notice at all.
Assuming that number doesn't change, that would mean you can get the game and 5 character slots for 10$ + the cost of 5 character slots.
I used to TL;DR, but then I took a bullet point to the footnote.
I gotta say I'm a little surprised that people don't see there are more evils to be had in a cash shop then just pay to win. Lets take a loot at their cardassian lock boxes for a second. Now the first thing I say to myself is with the ability to trade gems for gold why would they have these in any other place in the game, they want you to buy the keys. However for this example lets say there is a vendor that sells them for a decent chunk of cash not wallet breaking but not cheap either. Say in 5 hours of making gold you'd be able to purchase 3 of em.
So I decide I'm gonna play GW2 today and you know I'm just gonna go with the flow of DEs and maybe do a few hearts when I'm in the area. I play for 5 hours and during that time I acquire 6 lock boxes. Cryptic had their lock boxes dropping so frequently ppl were complaining thats all they got. For now I'm gonna hope arenanet doesn't go to that extreme atleast not all the time. So maybe 1-2 an hour of play time isn't to bad, again they want you to buy keys, if the lock boxes were rare who would be buying these keys.
Now because I wasn't focusing on making gold, I only made enough to buy 1 key so now I'm at 5 lock box. The next day I decide I'll go out and make some money to open these boxes I got taking up inventory space. Again I play for 5 hours, I also make enough gold for 3 keys. However during the time I was making the gold I also got another 4 lock boxes . So I'm back up to 6 lock boxes that I don't have the gold to open. Now I'm starting to wonder if I should purchase more inventory space cause while I can sell the boxes, I don't know whats in them, and it could be something really cool.
And thats how a non-p2w item can vastly alter a games experience when a cash shop is added. And thats stating they even stick them in with a normal vendor, I think they won't because its a way to encourage everyone to buy gems. These are also a potential economy reset button. Lets say a few months go buy and theres enough gems in the player market place that arenanet is begining to worry about their value dropping to far. All they have to do is announce for a limited time a unique skin will be dropping in these boxes with this announcement they also increase the drop rate of the lock boxes, gem demand goes up and their value increases. After the economy restabalizes they can put the drop rate back to where it was and there should still be a surplus of boxes to gems.
I'm not stating this will happen, but its certainly more possible to consider now, then it was back before they altered the wording of their faq. No I don't call this pay to win so much. But those that pay will have a superior experience.
First off I am going to post this at the beginning and end of the thread so if nobody reads any of this then they might read this very important fact.
If you don't read any of this remember this one thing it is us, the gamers, that make these games fun without us they will be nothing. Good luck, and have fun!
I'm just going to list my thoughts in such a random placed out way because I have no clue where to begin. In other words these massive online player rpg cash models are fubar.
I'll start with my return to World of Warcraft with the Scroll of Resurrection.
Don't get me wrong it was awesome, but in the long run I will always be suffering. Why should I keep paying to play? I can also go into more detail as to why I won't return.
Rift has almost the right idea, it is very close to perfection, but it suffers from one fatal flaw. These types of games rely on players & their attitudes, and most gamers aren't friendly so it will age quickly. They even offer free character transfers every 7 days for subscribers, poking WoW with a sharp stick much. A 100 yearly sub fee for a limited time for the one year anniversary, don't know why they don't just make the subscription 8.25 a month for everyone (I guess the world hates poor people). But like I said I am one year to late, people who are level cap won't help me and that is the sad truth. It only hurts everyone since it will take time to get to their level, they will have already quit playing. We both rise our characters through the levels to only see the clear picture that it's always lonely at the top. This game does have world encounters via rifts which helps strengthen world player comradery which is what most MMO games are missing. If I had to choose between SWTOR & Rift I would go with Rift. I know stupid choice since SWTOR actually has a massive playerbase, and isn't as old.
B2P
The only true successful method since the beginning of video gaming. Anybody remember Guild Wars? No level increases with every added expansions, each being buy to play. I mean what more can players ask for? If Guild Wars 2 isn't going this route I won't have much to play since I am on the fence about Diablo III.
F2P
Great to see a game, and enjoy it. Bad for the paying customer I can go into more detail if you like. This is the last resort for a game, it is headed for the bone yard. Steer clear of them, don't let the allure of it consume your mind. All joking aside if you see one you would like to try out then do so just never spend a single dime. I know that is wrong to say, but there is no reason to spend any money. You don't have to be pretty, and you don't have to be powerful. For once the game, since most guilds don't care about others outside their clique, actually appreciates having players fill its empty world.
Subscription
Great for the developer, bad for the newcomers & aging players if the level cap increases or is just a few months old. If the level cap increases or is just to high there will be to wide of margin to group together and be social because of insufficient level requirements or stats. The only answer I would have to this type of gameplay would maybe be to reset the world after a set amount of months, and have multiple servers that restart at different times of the year so newcomers can join in without worrying about missing the first few days. Sort of like a tournament timed leaderboard based progression style MMORPG.
Multiple Servers (Realms)
This already proves to me that the game really isn't that massive so why make it a locked in feature for your character. Allow longer names, and let us choose the realm we log into after selecting the character. It doesn't matter if guilds are dispersed amongst the realms as all the crap that guilds requires that I've seen in these games is done in instances anyways. Wish I could just go back in time and replay Guild Wars all over again they actually got it right.
Auction Houses
They suck get rid of them gold farming is a cesspool of greed and player comradery time sink manipulation. They aren't necessary players should be willing to share & help each other to strengthen the bond of the playerbase and world.
Event Based Currency
It works as long as it is soulbound, but it also requires a way to get players to form together on a whim. Also requires a dedicated friendly playerbase for it to work. It works out great because each player is actually rewarded for his efforts, and not just because he got a random epic drop that allowed him to buy his way to increasing his stats. And not just because he is the dictator that runs the guild when it takes everybody to down a boss not just him. Sorry to burst your bubble, but it is more of a democracy. You can't just go in with all of one class to kill a certain boss, well at least in theory you shouldn't be able to. Now to the point that means everybody counts, or in other words everybodies vote counts.
Guilds
Time manipulation, aren't necessary and can hurt playerbase life expectancy since most guilds won't care of other players outside of their clique. Hurts both parties in this circumstance, the loner, and the guild. If it has to have them then let the guild itself survive on it's own based upon player voting systems, and do not allow a dictator to manipulate the core functions. If the guild as a whole wants to vote you out then let it come to a vote, it's just that simple. Yes the guild can have leaders and ranks, but no one person should get to dictate everything. Make every vote count even the guild newcomer.
In-game currency
See Auction Houses above.
Cash Shops
These are ok as long as they don't give the players an advantage in PVE or PVP, they should only be vanity. And for the people who don't see it this way, maybe you should go find a copy of Maya or 3DS Max and see how long it takes you to model something. Should you be rewarded for your work at least in some fashion? I know they could give stuff like this away for free in the form of events, but sometimes it takes a ton of man hours to model and they do deserve something in return if they are hurting financially. But things don't always last, and debt occurs nobody can predict the future.
Paid Expansions
As long as the level cap doesn't increase, and the content is added in the same scale as the original game, which means it needs to have content from beginning to end of level cap then it will be succesful. But again it relies on players and their attitudes.
One game that comes to mind that really doesn't belong in any of what I say here is Team Fortress 2 so leave it alone.
Diablo III RMAH
It will fail, or will be manipulated by Blizzard employees or family & friends of them. No single player client. With increased fear tactics of ISP maybe monitoring packets for pirates I won't have an internet connection soon. Not because they will catch what I do, simply because I won't take to having my privacy monitored via some deep packet inspection either through human or scripted inspection.
Online Required Gaming
If gaming goes this route I will move on to becoming a hacker (maybe even Black Hat). This includes thin client style gaming such as OnLive.
Dungeon Fighter Online
Great fun won't pay a dime.
Vindictus
Great fun won't pay a dime.
Realm of the Mad God
Great fun won't pay a dime.
Age of Conan
Great fun won't pay a dime.
League of Legends
Great fun won't pay a dime.
Soon to be Vanguard SOH F2P
Wish with all my heart that it will be great fun, but again won't pay a dime.
What I think we all see from this is that MMO games probably don't require subscriptions because if they can survive with a buy to play or cash shop then the backend servers and maintence don't really require much money to keep them running beyond the up front flat fee for the game. I wonder how other non mmo based servers survive without subscription fees? We are being fooled, and you should wise up to throwing your hard earned money at these fubar games. It's not our fault they overspent during development, and we shouldn't pay the price as gamers.
At the current moment in time I feel like the only company I would support would be ID Software since they release source code to their games after a few years of making money off of it. Way to go John Carmack, and everyone who works for this company. Mojang is a close second with that game they created in a weekend giving the donators source code to the game they made, Catacomb Snatch, and the money went to charity.
And last but not least if you don't read any of this remember this one thing it is us, the gamers, that make these games fun without us they will be nothing. Good luck, and have fun!
My mind doesn't think that way I'm a realist and if the GW1 model had been majorly profitable they would have continued releasing chapters, this is how most MMO developers do it
I already posted why ANET didnt continue to make chapters -- but so many posts in this topic you probably missed it
I'll admit to being an Arenanet fanboy for the most part, but even i have to admit to some concern about some of what im seeing in the leaked cash shop. Im not the least bit troubled by the inventory slots or account storage or charachter slots or server transfer. We all expected those and are fine with it. Same with the armour skins. I would have a problem with the transmutations stones except that they have already clarified that those will also drop in game some time ago.
Since ive actually been following the game for years now and generally been on top of all the info, im not the least bit concerned about the 1 hr exp, karma, crafting or item drop boosters since they add so little that i wont feel the need to ever invest in them even if they were only 1 gem each. The crafting one doesnt even up your chances to craft a better item, just get more xp from crafting so im ok with it. I actually kind of think someone would have to be a completely uninformed moron to invest in any of those. Part of me wonders if NCsoft pressured Arenanet into adding things to a cash shop and Arenanet came up with these so that way they can tell NCsoft that they have all these items would would matter in a normal mmo, but given the differences in GW2 dont really matter at all, just to fool the suits at NCsoft.
But what does give me cause for concern is the keys to the locked boxes and the megaphone. The lock boxes make me think that it would be like in GW1 but you cant buy with gold, in game keys or lockpicks. That experience in GW1 would have had me quitting pretty quickly if i had to open those through cash shop purchases. Also the megaphone item in the cash shop seems to imply that there will be no server wide general chat channel. If that is the case i cant help but see this as a huge mistake. While it is true that in some games the general chat devolves into bad 4chan memes from 5 yrs ago and chuck norris jokes, in other games it helps the community actualy feel more connected which is something that GW1 suffered from a lack of. I would be willing to risk general chat becoming mini-4chan if there is still a chance it could actually help build the server community. At least if general chat does go the wrong way, i can turn it off. But if this means there will be no general server chat, im concerned.
Anyone comparing WOWs store to GW2 is being completely dishonest. WOWs store has pure fluff in mounts and companions. If that's all the GW2 store had then no one would care.
GW2 is more along the lines of F2P stores. The GW2 store can only get worse over time as they add items, it can't get better.
Anyone comparing WOWs store to GW2 is being completely dishonest. WOWs store has pure fluff in mounts and companions. If that's all the GW2 store had then no one would care.
GW2 is more along the lines of F2P stores. The GW2 store can only get worse over time as they add items, it can't get better.
wait wait. GW2 is not out. why are so many people talking about what the game is like and its not even out.
This reminds me dearly of Mortal Online
Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.
My first thoughts about this started at the original announcement in 2007 that GW2 was going to be made barely 2 years after GW1 was released. This annoucement set alarm bells ringing in my head that the original GW model wasn't making as much money as planned and they could not keep up with content releases at the rate they had been, so announcing GW2 early would free Arenanet up from making more chapters for GW. That set me to thinking that if box sales were not enough how would they fund an ongoing developement project like an MMORPG?
ANET never said they were not making enough money from box sales in 2007 - thats your assumption
2 years later, in 2009, ANET claimed that had sold over 6 million boxes
heres what ANET said regarding the cancellation of Utopia (goto link for longer explanation)
Each campaign that’s been added to the Guild Wars world—three in total—has added another layer of design that, in the name of making things easier for new players, has actually ended up creating barriers to entry as they try to sort through multiple training areas, increasingly intricate tutorials, and an ever-ballooning list of skills.
“We’re battling against complexity,” Strain adds. “We don’t want to make complicated games. We want to make fun, easy-to-grasp games that are easy to get into and not frontloaded with complexity.”
As the team considered its situation – how to uncomplicate the current campaign model and add new, cool features without making the game any more Byzantine – what began as a brainstorm about Campaign 4 evolved into the blueprint for a completely new game.
“We kept changing the scope of what we were doing, until it became Guild Wars 2,” Flannum says with a shrug and a smile.
I never said anything about Arenanets official stance I was making my own conclusions to why they announced a game 5 years before it released that basically was an announcement that their previous game would stop having expansions made. No company leaves money on the table and with the GW2 project being at such an early stage in development they could have just pushed out smaller campaigns that tied into the original stories to keep some revenue coming in and players would have loved that but they stopped developing extra chapters altogether and no matter what their PR machine comes up with it is still suspicious to to me.
This doom and gloom thread was brought to you by Chin Up the new ultra high caffeine soft drink for gamers who just need that boost of happiness after a long forum session.
My first thoughts about this started at the original announcement in 2007 that GW2 was going to be made barely 2 years after GW1 was released. This annoucement set alarm bells ringing in my head that the original GW model wasn't making as much money as planned and they could not keep up with content releases at the rate they had been, so announcing GW2 early would free Arenanet up from making more chapters for GW. That set me to thinking that if box sales were not enough how would they fund an ongoing developement project like an MMORPG?
ANET never said they were not making enough money from box sales in 2007 - thats your assumption
2 years later, in 2009, ANET claimed that had sold over 6 million boxes
heres what ANET said regarding the cancellation of Utopia (goto link for longer explanation)
Each campaign that’s been added to the Guild Wars world—three in total—has added another layer of design that, in the name of making things easier for new players, has actually ended up creating barriers to entry as they try to sort through multiple training areas, increasingly intricate tutorials, and an ever-ballooning list of skills.
“We’re battling against complexity,” Strain adds. “We don’t want to make complicated games. We want to make fun, easy-to-grasp games that are easy to get into and not frontloaded with complexity.”
As the team considered its situation – how to uncomplicate the current campaign model and add new, cool features without making the game any more Byzantine – what began as a brainstorm about Campaign 4 evolved into the blueprint for a completely new game.
“We kept changing the scope of what we were doing, until it became Guild Wars 2,” Flannum says with a shrug and a smile.
I never said anything about Arenanets official stance I was making my own conclusions to why they announced a game 5 years before it released that basically was an announcement that their previous game would stop having expansions made. No company leaves money on the table and with the GW2 project being at such an early stage in development they could have just pushed out smaller campaigns that tied into the original stories to keep some revenue coming in and players would have loved that but they stopped developing extra chapters altogether and no matter what their PR machine comes up with it is still suspicious to to me.
Work on GW2 was actually started during the development of the Eye of the North expansion. Actually they did continue to have a live team pushing out content for GW1 after Eye of the Norths release. All of the guild wars beyond content for example. The difference being that they were not as hard up for money as you seem to believe seeing as how those were free content updates.
My first thoughts about this started at the original announcement in 2007 that GW2 was going to be made barely 2 years after GW1 was released. This annoucement set alarm bells ringing in my head that the original GW model wasn't making as much money as planned and they could not keep up with content releases at the rate they had been, so announcing GW2 early would free Arenanet up from making more chapters for GW. That set me to thinking that if box sales were not enough how would they fund an ongoing developement project like an MMORPG?
ANET never said they were not making enough money from box sales in 2007 - thats your assumption
2 years later, in 2009, ANET claimed that had sold over 6 million boxes
heres what ANET said regarding the cancellation of Utopia (goto link for longer explanation)
Each campaign that’s been added to the Guild Wars world—three in total—has added another layer of design that, in the name of making things easier for new players, has actually ended up creating barriers to entry as they try to sort through multiple training areas, increasingly intricate tutorials, and an ever-ballooning list of skills.
“We’re battling against complexity,” Strain adds. “We don’t want to make complicated games. We want to make fun, easy-to-grasp games that are easy to get into and not frontloaded with complexity.”
As the team considered its situation – how to uncomplicate the current campaign model and add new, cool features without making the game any more Byzantine – what began as a brainstorm about Campaign 4 evolved into the blueprint for a completely new game.
“We kept changing the scope of what we were doing, until it became Guild Wars 2,” Flannum says with a shrug and a smile.
I never said anything about Arenanets official stance I was making my own conclusions to why they announced a game 5 years before it released that basically was an announcement that their previous game would stop having expansions made. No company leaves money on the table and with the GW2 project being at such an early stage in development they could have just pushed out smaller campaigns that tied into the original stories to keep some revenue coming in and players would have loved that but they stopped developing extra chapters altogether and no matter what their PR machine comes up with it is still suspicious to to me.
Work on GW2 was actually started during the development of the Eye of the North expansion. Actually they did continue to have a live team pushing out content for GW1 after Eye of the Norths release. All of the guild wars beyond content for example. The difference being that they were not as hard up for money as you seem to believe seeing as how those were free content updates.
I never said they were hard up for money as NCSoft clearly saw value in Arenanet and the GW IP to purchase the company which they did in 2002 and with that kind of backing how could they be hardup? I said they were not making as much money as planned with the GW Buy2Play model.
This doom and gloom thread was brought to you by Chin Up the new ultra high caffeine soft drink for gamers who just need that boost of happiness after a long forum session.
Where is the info coming from that "everything" available for RL cash will be attainable in game?
That's not my understanding at all due to statements made. If you mean you can grind out gold to buy gems then sure, but well yeah, that's a grind and how is that acceptable? I shouldn't have to farm to get the crap I want IMO.
Their statement in a barebones fashion was they don't feel players should be able to buy an advantage with cash over time.
So because you can't go to a vendor and get the things in the cash shop for a cheap price from an npc item seller it's somehow unfair?
Meanwhile you can readily get gems and items from cash shop by converting ingame gold to gems or buying them off people. And realistically what items in there are so detremental that you're so peeved that it's unfair? Exp boost? Useless really. Karma boost? Oh man they had a grand total of another dynamic event or two of bonus karma in that hour... Seriously the cash shop stuff isn't amazing nor over powered. It's just small boosts that people may want for what ever reason.
Myself I will probably be saving up gold to buy the outfits, or just buy them with cash when I can. Other than that the rest of it is meaningless except to a few. You're all just complaining about silly stuff.
Everything in the itemshop you can get with out spending real money.
As such... the hell is the problem?
If you think it's unfair because they can get consumables like the exp boosts, then buy some yourself. They don't do a whole lot if you think about it. The outfits and such likewise. GW1 had a "worse" cash shop if you think being able to save up ingame gold for a outfit is somehow unfair in anyway.
Anywho... silliness is too silly.
People complaining about stuff they seemingly don't even have a reason to.
Comments
I don't know if Anet really cares about cash shops or not. But I do know this.
NCSoft itself is completely dedicated to the idea and the origin of that dedication started from a particualr incidient in City of Heroes.
CoH had a wedding between two developers they did in game. For this occasion they made a special costume pack that had some wedding types clothes (tuxedos etc). They sold this for $5 for anyone interested. This was not meant as a money making venture it was meant for flavot so people could dress up for the wedding. This was before there were any cash shops at all. It was simply a small expansion pack.
It sold gigantically. It made so money that they actually funded the development of the Villain Epic Archetypes with it.
Ever since then NCSoft has been a believer. There was never any way GW2 was not going to have cash shop with microtransactions. The success of DDO and LOTRO shops cemented that.
However the nice thing about this lesson is that they made a ton of money on cosmetic things and didn't even plan on it.
NCSoft is not dedicated to the idea of Pay to Win. It is of course a VERY serious temptation for whoever itemizes the store. Better performance is always an obvious and serious inducement.
It is also something, that I personally believe, can completely destroy your game and therefore destroy you ability to make money.
There will be missteps along the way. The temptation to try to sell advantages is too large. But they know for a fact they can make good money, in fact probably their best money on flavor and convience items.
Things like new powersets and novel costume pieces really do just sell better than 10% experience boosts. Like alot better. Amazingly better.
We will see what happens but I think that if NCSoft (and I believe that is who truly drives the cash shops of these, I believe many developers are semi-ambivalent ) gets a feeling that any advantage they are selling truly upsets a significant portion of their game they will yank. They know where their bread is buttered.
You see one of the lessons of the cash shop era, is that power is overrated. People really will pay alot of more to look good than to be good. This seems utterly foreign to power gamers. It also happens to be true and actually fits in very closely to the real world.
I actually find they are significantly different. The way that stands out most to me, which was also the reason I quit playing DDO was the armor skins they sold in the shop. It wasn't the quality and it wasn't the price. It was the fact that you could only apply them to a single piece of armor and once you upgraded to something new, you lost the skin. It couldn't be transferred to another armor piece and, if I remember correctly, the armor was bound to your character so you couldn't even trade it to another character on your account (even if you had another character that could use it). So if you want to use those nice armor skins, you had to keep buying them everytime you wanted to move up to better armor. They weren't really cheap either, comparatively.
With GW2's shop, when you buy a new armor skin, not only is it yours forever, it's available to every character on your account. As far as I know, *anything* you buy in the shop, you buy for your account so all of your characters can benefit from it.
To me, that's a gigantic difference and ended up being a deal breaker with Turbine's shop. When I started feeling I was being nickel and dimed, I opted out -- out of the shop and out of the game.
I won't even go into the artifical scarcity of mana pots in the game and how casters often feel forced to buy them from the shop, just so they can continue to ply their trade as wielders of magic. Nope, won't go into it.
And in what way has your post anything to do with what I said? Are you just randomly hitting the quote button?
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It is more like:
P2P with extremely limited CS = okay
F2P with CS = okay, as long as it is not too much mandatory to win different contests
B2P with extremely limited CS = okay
GW2's CS goes beyond the level of acceptance that a significant amount of people set for P2Ps and B2Ps. However, GW2 brings a very different AAA MMORPG to the table, which is why we may choose to swallow the pill nonetheless.
Uhh.... maybe your crime was in suggesting GW2 had a cash shop similar to f2p cash shops? NOT SURE though
Hopefully he'll be along soon, reread your post, reread his post and realise oops!
the poster formerly known as melangel :P
The problem is that the GW2 cashshop includes both RMT and boosters, both of which are paying to cheat.
Had the GW2 shop consisted of lots of cosmetic items, and non-ingame stuff like character slots , it would have been well on its way to be the game of the year. Now however, GW2 is on the verge of getting a permanent premium-F2P stamp on it. Just from one small offical blog entry and a couple of leaked images.
The only reason I am even considering GW2 any more is because no other MMO looks to offer the same large scale open world cooperative PvE, and I was really looking forward to that. But if I buy the game now, I will buy the cheap version, not collector's or deluxe digital that I would have done before. And I will definitely not buy any gems, not with cash, nor with gold. If I don't have the willpower to boycott it completely, I will at least make sure that their decisions gives them less money from me than it would have if they had shown a bit more restraint.
Because that is the main thing to remember if you want better products. Don't reward companies for doing greedy things.
Uh oh... buying character slots? I'm having horrible memories of FF XIV now. In FF XIV you could actually pay for an account with no character slots in it. I believe there it was $3 per character slot but for some odd reason you could elect to pay the baseline $10 a month and not have character slots.
How many free character slots does GW2 give you?
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Lol you have to use the cash shop to talk to the world, I am not playing this game.
(-_-)
You start with 5 (in the beta at least), which is high enough to allow you to play every race, but not high enough to let you have one of every profession...Basically the altaholics among us will buy these and people who focus on 1 or 2 characters won't really notice at all.
Assuming that number doesn't change, that would mean you can get the game and 5 character slots for 10$ + the cost of 5 character slots.
I used to TL;DR, but then I took a bullet point to the footnote.
I gotta say I'm a little surprised that people don't see there are more evils to be had in a cash shop then just pay to win. Lets take a loot at their cardassian lock boxes for a second. Now the first thing I say to myself is with the ability to trade gems for gold why would they have these in any other place in the game, they want you to buy the keys. However for this example lets say there is a vendor that sells them for a decent chunk of cash not wallet breaking but not cheap either. Say in 5 hours of making gold you'd be able to purchase 3 of em.
So I decide I'm gonna play GW2 today and you know I'm just gonna go with the flow of DEs and maybe do a few hearts when I'm in the area. I play for 5 hours and during that time I acquire 6 lock boxes. Cryptic had their lock boxes dropping so frequently ppl were complaining thats all they got. For now I'm gonna hope arenanet doesn't go to that extreme atleast not all the time. So maybe 1-2 an hour of play time isn't to bad, again they want you to buy keys, if the lock boxes were rare who would be buying these keys.
Now because I wasn't focusing on making gold, I only made enough to buy 1 key so now I'm at 5 lock box. The next day I decide I'll go out and make some money to open these boxes I got taking up inventory space. Again I play for 5 hours, I also make enough gold for 3 keys. However during the time I was making the gold I also got another 4 lock boxes . So I'm back up to 6 lock boxes that I don't have the gold to open. Now I'm starting to wonder if I should purchase more inventory space cause while I can sell the boxes, I don't know whats in them, and it could be something really cool.
And thats how a non-p2w item can vastly alter a games experience when a cash shop is added. And thats stating they even stick them in with a normal vendor, I think they won't because its a way to encourage everyone to buy gems. These are also a potential economy reset button. Lets say a few months go buy and theres enough gems in the player market place that arenanet is begining to worry about their value dropping to far. All they have to do is announce for a limited time a unique skin will be dropping in these boxes with this announcement they also increase the drop rate of the lock boxes, gem demand goes up and their value increases. After the economy restabalizes they can put the drop rate back to where it was and there should still be a surplus of boxes to gems.
I'm not stating this will happen, but its certainly more possible to consider now, then it was back before they altered the wording of their faq. No I don't call this pay to win so much. But those that pay will have a superior experience.
Finally a post that is worthy of a response.
First off I am going to post this at the beginning and end of the thread so if nobody reads any of this then they might read this very important fact.
If you don't read any of this remember this one thing it is us, the gamers, that make these games fun without us they will be nothing. Good luck, and have fun!
I'm just going to list my thoughts in such a random placed out way because I have no clue where to begin. In other words these massive online player rpg cash models are fubar.
I'll start with my return to World of Warcraft with the Scroll of Resurrection.
Don't get me wrong it was awesome, but in the long run I will always be suffering. Why should I keep paying to play? I can also go into more detail as to why I won't return.
Rift has almost the right idea, it is very close to perfection, but it suffers from one fatal flaw. These types of games rely on players & their attitudes, and most gamers aren't friendly so it will age quickly. They even offer free character transfers every 7 days for subscribers, poking WoW with a sharp stick much. A 100 yearly sub fee for a limited time for the one year anniversary, don't know why they don't just make the subscription 8.25 a month for everyone (I guess the world hates poor people). But like I said I am one year to late, people who are level cap won't help me and that is the sad truth. It only hurts everyone since it will take time to get to their level, they will have already quit playing. We both rise our characters through the levels to only see the clear picture that it's always lonely at the top. This game does have world encounters via rifts which helps strengthen world player comradery which is what most MMO games are missing. If I had to choose between SWTOR & Rift I would go with Rift. I know stupid choice since SWTOR actually has a massive playerbase, and isn't as old.
B2P
The only true successful method since the beginning of video gaming. Anybody remember Guild Wars? No level increases with every added expansions, each being buy to play. I mean what more can players ask for? If Guild Wars 2 isn't going this route I won't have much to play since I am on the fence about Diablo III.
F2P
Great to see a game, and enjoy it. Bad for the paying customer I can go into more detail if you like. This is the last resort for a game, it is headed for the bone yard. Steer clear of them, don't let the allure of it consume your mind. All joking aside if you see one you would like to try out then do so just never spend a single dime. I know that is wrong to say, but there is no reason to spend any money. You don't have to be pretty, and you don't have to be powerful. For once the game, since most guilds don't care about others outside their clique, actually appreciates having players fill its empty world.
Subscription
Great for the developer, bad for the newcomers & aging players if the level cap increases or is just a few months old. If the level cap increases or is just to high there will be to wide of margin to group together and be social because of insufficient level requirements or stats. The only answer I would have to this type of gameplay would maybe be to reset the world after a set amount of months, and have multiple servers that restart at different times of the year so newcomers can join in without worrying about missing the first few days. Sort of like a tournament timed leaderboard based progression style MMORPG.
Multiple Servers (Realms)
This already proves to me that the game really isn't that massive so why make it a locked in feature for your character. Allow longer names, and let us choose the realm we log into after selecting the character. It doesn't matter if guilds are dispersed amongst the realms as all the crap that guilds requires that I've seen in these games is done in instances anyways. Wish I could just go back in time and replay Guild Wars all over again they actually got it right.
Auction Houses
They suck get rid of them gold farming is a cesspool of greed and player comradery time sink manipulation. They aren't necessary players should be willing to share & help each other to strengthen the bond of the playerbase and world.
Event Based Currency
It works as long as it is soulbound, but it also requires a way to get players to form together on a whim. Also requires a dedicated friendly playerbase for it to work. It works out great because each player is actually rewarded for his efforts, and not just because he got a random epic drop that allowed him to buy his way to increasing his stats. And not just because he is the dictator that runs the guild when it takes everybody to down a boss not just him. Sorry to burst your bubble, but it is more of a democracy. You can't just go in with all of one class to kill a certain boss, well at least in theory you shouldn't be able to. Now to the point that means everybody counts, or in other words everybodies vote counts.
Guilds
Time manipulation, aren't necessary and can hurt playerbase life expectancy since most guilds won't care of other players outside of their clique. Hurts both parties in this circumstance, the loner, and the guild. If it has to have them then let the guild itself survive on it's own based upon player voting systems, and do not allow a dictator to manipulate the core functions. If the guild as a whole wants to vote you out then let it come to a vote, it's just that simple. Yes the guild can have leaders and ranks, but no one person should get to dictate everything. Make every vote count even the guild newcomer.
In-game currency
See Auction Houses above.
Cash Shops
These are ok as long as they don't give the players an advantage in PVE or PVP, they should only be vanity. And for the people who don't see it this way, maybe you should go find a copy of Maya or 3DS Max and see how long it takes you to model something. Should you be rewarded for your work at least in some fashion? I know they could give stuff like this away for free in the form of events, but sometimes it takes a ton of man hours to model and they do deserve something in return if they are hurting financially. But things don't always last, and debt occurs nobody can predict the future.
Paid Expansions
As long as the level cap doesn't increase, and the content is added in the same scale as the original game, which means it needs to have content from beginning to end of level cap then it will be succesful. But again it relies on players and their attitudes.
One game that comes to mind that really doesn't belong in any of what I say here is Team Fortress 2 so leave it alone.
Diablo III RMAH
It will fail, or will be manipulated by Blizzard employees or family & friends of them. No single player client. With increased fear tactics of ISP maybe monitoring packets for pirates I won't have an internet connection soon. Not because they will catch what I do, simply because I won't take to having my privacy monitored via some deep packet inspection either through human or scripted inspection.
Online Required Gaming
If gaming goes this route I will move on to becoming a hacker (maybe even Black Hat). This includes thin client style gaming such as OnLive.
Dungeon Fighter Online
Great fun won't pay a dime.
Vindictus
Great fun won't pay a dime.
Realm of the Mad God
Great fun won't pay a dime.
Age of Conan
Great fun won't pay a dime.
League of Legends
Great fun won't pay a dime.
Soon to be Vanguard SOH F2P
Wish with all my heart that it will be great fun, but again won't pay a dime.
What I think we all see from this is that MMO games probably don't require subscriptions because if they can survive with a buy to play or cash shop then the backend servers and maintence don't really require much money to keep them running beyond the up front flat fee for the game. I wonder how other non mmo based servers survive without subscription fees? We are being fooled, and you should wise up to throwing your hard earned money at these fubar games. It's not our fault they overspent during development, and we shouldn't pay the price as gamers.
At the current moment in time I feel like the only company I would support would be ID Software since they release source code to their games after a few years of making money off of it. Way to go John Carmack, and everyone who works for this company. Mojang is a close second with that game they created in a weekend giving the donators source code to the game they made, Catacomb Snatch, and the money went to charity.
And last but not least if you don't read any of this remember this one thing it is us, the gamers, that make these games fun without us they will be nothing. Good luck, and have fun!
I already posted why ANET didnt continue to make chapters -- but so many posts in this topic you probably missed it
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/post/4842311#4842311
the information is available, no need to make assumptions that boxes were not selling enough
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Guild_Wars_Utopia
EQ2 fan sites
I'll admit to being an Arenanet fanboy for the most part, but even i have to admit to some concern about some of what im seeing in the leaked cash shop. Im not the least bit troubled by the inventory slots or account storage or charachter slots or server transfer. We all expected those and are fine with it. Same with the armour skins. I would have a problem with the transmutations stones except that they have already clarified that those will also drop in game some time ago.
Since ive actually been following the game for years now and generally been on top of all the info, im not the least bit concerned about the 1 hr exp, karma, crafting or item drop boosters since they add so little that i wont feel the need to ever invest in them even if they were only 1 gem each. The crafting one doesnt even up your chances to craft a better item, just get more xp from crafting so im ok with it. I actually kind of think someone would have to be a completely uninformed moron to invest in any of those. Part of me wonders if NCsoft pressured Arenanet into adding things to a cash shop and Arenanet came up with these so that way they can tell NCsoft that they have all these items would would matter in a normal mmo, but given the differences in GW2 dont really matter at all, just to fool the suits at NCsoft.
But what does give me cause for concern is the keys to the locked boxes and the megaphone. The lock boxes make me think that it would be like in GW1 but you cant buy with gold, in game keys or lockpicks. That experience in GW1 would have had me quitting pretty quickly if i had to open those through cash shop purchases. Also the megaphone item in the cash shop seems to imply that there will be no server wide general chat channel. If that is the case i cant help but see this as a huge mistake. While it is true that in some games the general chat devolves into bad 4chan memes from 5 yrs ago and chuck norris jokes, in other games it helps the community actualy feel more connected which is something that GW1 suffered from a lack of. I would be willing to risk general chat becoming mini-4chan if there is still a chance it could actually help build the server community. At least if general chat does go the wrong way, i can turn it off. But if this means there will be no general server chat, im concerned.
Anyone comparing WOWs store to GW2 is being completely dishonest. WOWs store has pure fluff in mounts and companions. If that's all the GW2 store had then no one would care.
GW2 is more along the lines of F2P stores. The GW2 store can only get worse over time as they add items, it can't get better.
wait wait. GW2 is not out. why are so many people talking about what the game is like and its not even out.
This reminds me dearly of Mortal Online
Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.
Please do not respond to me
I never said anything about Arenanets official stance I was making my own conclusions to why they announced a game 5 years before it released that basically was an announcement that their previous game would stop having expansions made. No company leaves money on the table and with the GW2 project being at such an early stage in development they could have just pushed out smaller campaigns that tied into the original stories to keep some revenue coming in and players would have loved that but they stopped developing extra chapters altogether and no matter what their PR machine comes up with it is still suspicious to to me.
This doom and gloom thread was brought to you by Chin Up the new ultra high caffeine soft drink for gamers who just need that boost of happiness after a long forum session.
Work on GW2 was actually started during the development of the Eye of the North expansion. Actually they did continue to have a live team pushing out content for GW1 after Eye of the Norths release. All of the guild wars beyond content for example. The difference being that they were not as hard up for money as you seem to believe seeing as how those were free content updates.
I never said they were hard up for money as NCSoft clearly saw value in Arenanet and the GW IP to purchase the company which they did in 2002 and with that kind of backing how could they be hardup? I said they were not making as much money as planned with the GW Buy2Play model.
This doom and gloom thread was brought to you by Chin Up the new ultra high caffeine soft drink for gamers who just need that boost of happiness after a long forum session.
So because you can't go to a vendor and get the things in the cash shop for a cheap price from an npc item seller it's somehow unfair?
Meanwhile you can readily get gems and items from cash shop by converting ingame gold to gems or buying them off people. And realistically what items in there are so detremental that you're so peeved that it's unfair? Exp boost? Useless really. Karma boost? Oh man they had a grand total of another dynamic event or two of bonus karma in that hour... Seriously the cash shop stuff isn't amazing nor over powered. It's just small boosts that people may want for what ever reason.
Myself I will probably be saving up gold to buy the outfits, or just buy them with cash when I can. Other than that the rest of it is meaningless except to a few. You're all just complaining about silly stuff.
Everything in the itemshop you can get with out spending real money.
As such... the hell is the problem?
If you think it's unfair because they can get consumables like the exp boosts, then buy some yourself. They don't do a whole lot if you think about it. The outfits and such likewise. GW1 had a "worse" cash shop if you think being able to save up ingame gold for a outfit is somehow unfair in anyway.
Anywho... silliness is too silly.
People complaining about stuff they seemingly don't even have a reason to.