I say Yes it has, and for this main reason. It has lost for ArenaNet the Incentive to Expand or Die. Frankly Guildwars 1 was a far superior game to GW2 for the main reason that expansions existed and that constantly made the game more rich and diverse in skills for a team. That and the larger teams as a standard of 8 as opposed to 5 made it possible for a guild to have quality time in dungeons during all aspects of the game Not just during EotN. Indeed factions having a land domination mode made th game Far more enjoyable then this living world BS they are pushing into everyone’s face, Because it had World changing goals that mattered. Blocking off one faction from progress until they either switched factions or fought their way back. Factions Dungeon realms were the prize for domination. BUt I digress. The Gem store in and of itself does not ruin the game, but it does ruin incentives for profit by NCSoft specifically. ArenaNet initially had plans to EXPAND the lands of Tyria as they did in GW 1, to make quarterly profits. Then NCSoft came along and demanded micro transactions, and we got em. That showed they could sit back and do MINIMAL development with ZERO game expansion or added skills or classes and still make money. Just make a new skin, about a 3 or 4 day task and make hundreds of thousands from that. Now do that every few months or so and you make millions. Absent any real development at all happening in your game. So Yes IMHO the GEM store in GW2 is destroying the games POTENTIAL when compared to GW1 which saw expansions in new territories to explore, new classes to develop and most importantly new skills to add to your builds over time. Profession mixes in GW1 keeps that game relevant and fun even today. GW2 on the other hand is quickly becoming a dust collector on far to many shelve because its nothing but a bunch of been there done that content... Even the limited living world concept makes it very hard to come back in when its only there for a few weeks and in REAL LIFE a few weeks means you may get ot participate in it what maybe 1 or 2 times at best because of things like WORK! Sorry the entire gem store really does in my option is support a publisher that has no desire to allow Arenanet the ability to develop and expand their game content; That guilty culprit is NCSoft, the likes of which is only equaled in its ability to kill franchises by EA games. You want to see a real success with GW2? Untie Anets hands and remove NCSoft from the picture. Then and only then will you see what this game can do for the MMORPG genre.
Oh and for the record, the only things I found of value on the Gem store thus far has been the Bank tab expansions, personal inventory expansions, 1 quiver skin for my ranger, The indestructible Pick for resource gathering, and thats about it... I am still sitting on the wasted 2800 gems leftover from launch that I bought expecting eventually to see DLC offerings on the gem store which never came. I'm willing to bet in another 12 months I will still have 2800 Gems sitting cause they still will not have produced more quality account wide services, or expansions or skills via DLCs. Even the ability to use different weapons on other classes would be SOMETHING, but no couldnt be bothered could they?
The game has moved firmly into the P2W grinder camp. Either you grind for 12 hours a day to be relevant/make enough gold to get by, or you get a full time job and buy gems and convert to gold, which is the better option. 1 day of work at minimum wage makes you roughly a months worth of gold from farming in game. This is broken. This is a completely broken system.
So your point is that you don't want to get a job then? Good for you.
Yes, the Gem Store is killing the game for it. It seems like the Gem Store is driving the content rather than the other way around. They release new content for the purpose of driving people to buy the new "limited time" crap that is in cash shop.
The cash shop didn't turn me away from GW2 but rather the game itself did. Now, I personally don't have a problem with cash shops, after all I do understand it is a business and it needs to sustain itself. However the lock boxes that drop from games are a constant annoyance, kinda like a passive aggressive nudge to buy more from them.
The game itself just didn't feel very nice to play for me, I disliked that no matter where I was and what gear I had on I was normalized based on location. Which, is fine for some things, but for me it killed the sense of 'progression'. It would of been better if they just did away with the levels and went from there.
The stuff they sell in the gem store is not pay to win and that´s for sure.
You can play all you want,enjoy all content in the game & be as competitive as evereone else without expending a single coin BUT i really dislike how all the patches are somehow centered/structured the same way over achievements & gem store.
It doesn´t bother me that much anyway...since it doesn´t have subscription fees.
This article is just silly. Of all the cash shops in mmo's GW2's is zero pay to win. And the stuff is mostly cosmetic. This is just to start a debate thread for haters of the game. Nice try lol.
"My friend went ahead and purchased gems, which he then traded for gold, and used the gold to buy crafting materials. It wasn't too long before he crafted his way level 80"
I've never liked how you can level by crafting. The crafting xp and character xp lines should be completely separate. I hate how if I do some crafting I outlevel my current quests. Why do all games that I know of do this?
Let's be honest here, the items in the cash shop are not just cosmetic. it cost me more money to upgrade my bank slots and character inventory slots than it did to buy the game. Unless you enjoy shuffling inventory around all the time those extra slots are a necessity, not a luxury, particularly if you are a crafter. The gathering tools are nice, but it would cost me over $150.00 to outfit all my toons with them, while permanent gathering tools that work with all gathering nodes regardless of level cost a pittance in games like WoW. If you don't buy these tools be prepared to carry extra gathering tools in your limited inventory or be prepared to run out of tools all the time.
The game is not P2W, but it is being killed by the unbelievable grind needed to get some items and the lack of any meaningful, fun or long-term new content. I do not consider the cheesy Living Story to be fun or meaningful content, but just another grind on top of all the other grindy activities in the game. The grind can be avoided to some extent by buying gems for real money and converting them to gold and then using the money to buy crafting mats you would otherwise have to farm forever to get, especially if you have multiple toons.
Yes, you can just pay the box price and play the game forever, but you will have one seriously crippled game play experience until you shell out some in-game gold for gems or real money to buy inventory slots...the same as any f2p game though some of them at least add the occasional xpac or permanent content to keep things interesting.
If you wish to gear out more than one toon in max gear, be prepared for an unbelievably mind-numbing, time-gated grind from Hell or be willing to shell out real world cash to buy gems to convert to gold to buy the mats, because in-game money is hard to come by and the crafting mat requirements needed to craft Ascended gear are insane.
Part,a VERY large part of gaming is the aesthetics so to say it has no bearing in game play is a cop out.Players don't just want the stats,they hope to attain new cool gear and that is VERY easily manipulated if you make better looking gear in the cash shop than you do in game.
Also another famous gimmick,although idk if GW2 is doing it at this point is to allow players to attach their stats onto that new gear,so in essence selling players the gear they WANT.
No matter which way i or the developer tries to spin it,one thing is fact,they are making that gear because they believe players want it and if they want it more so than game gear,there is a problem.
SOE started this cash shop push and that is the big problem there,once you open the door it gets worse and worse until you see what Wow is doing now,selling levels.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
I still cannot get over the WoW selling the levels thing because if you asked me if such a thing would happen 5 years ago I would have sworn right,left and center that such a thing was impossible only those power levelling companies did that .Now I am having to swallow my incredulity.
I didn't like how the game was designed with the gem shop in mind. account shared bank, limited bag space, inconveniencing the players in the name of cash.
As someone who went from WoW to GW2 I can easily say the Gem Store in its current state is easily acceptable and fine. You have Wow which is a monthly fee AND they cut content from game and let you buy for ridiculous amounts. GW2 pumps FREE content out on such a fast pace you easily get your moneys worth.
Azurrel who says gold is hard to get is correct though, and that is intended. It lets gold keep value and not get to stupid amounts like WoW which is easily in the millions. The fact ANY player can get gold and buy items from the cash shop is a extra bonus. You don't NEED any items in there, they are a bonus if you decide you want it, whether that;s with real money or gold.
WoW cutting out game content and making you pay for it? Really? Pets and mounts that are few and no better than everything found in game, equals game content to you? Getting that desperate, are we?
If you are that desperate to defend GW2's item shop by erroniously comparing it to WoW's, come back when WoW's item shop lets you pay for resources, perks, boosts, convient fast travel items, content area's etc like GW2's does lol.
well 60 dollars gives you a lvl 90 char.
So what? Do you honestly think that level 90 character is going to be anywhere close to being on par with the characters that other players have built up from level one? If anything, that 90 is going to be seriously gimped because you'll be playing for a character that you have no idea how to play.
Go ahead and try it. Spend $60 on a level 90 and jump into a raid. See how quickly you are booted when your dps is dragging along the bottom of the charts and pulling the rest of the raid down.
People who actually believe that purchasing a level 90 in a vertical progression game like WoW is P2W seriously don't have the slightest clue about what it takes to perform at a high level in a game like that.
i have 3x80 characters , never used gems, only bough an outfit for my warrior, never had to expand my storage in the bank and never had any problem. And IF i had to buy extra space in the bank , giving 10$ once after all this time playing the game it doent sound bad deal to me, to me it feels like i owe the company some money for the great time i am having playing the game all this time since beta. You have to remember that ehy have to have an income somehow to be able to release new content and updates, they arent gonna work for free. As far as storage on my characters, i crafted 20 slot bags for all of them with money that i got from WvWvW . So i do open PVP, earn money and xp from it (i lvled my 2 characters like that) and i get to craft my storage bags without using gems. So gems by me are for ppl who dont wanna enjoy the game by actually playing the game and growing with it, but for ppl who are lazy or got no time to do so, so they invest in the company by buying gems and thats all, at the end we all have same stuff , difference is how fast we got em.
Tormented echoes of a fallen Eden I longed for her beauty Yet from dust, she returned The dream, an enigma.... silent
I like the GEM shop in general, they do need to make money to pay the bills and I don't think it has harmed the game (that is up until now).
The latest patch to me it was an obvious cash grab by monopolizing on the so-called 'destruction of Lion's Arch', a city everyone used because it was a convenient city with all crafting and the mystic forge all lumped together, and it was intentionally supplanted with the Vigil Keep sans crafting. Why? So that they could push the all new "Captain's Airship Pass!" convenience which basically offers you to buy back what LA had to begin with - everything in one location - which was introduced with the same patch. If they had carried over the crafting to the Vigil Keep no one would have wanted or needed this new "convenience" item. So now there is no single city (or area) with everything except for those of us that have a permanent Royal Terrace Pass or the permanent Captian's Airship Pass. They have successfully altered the content to suite the GEM store's cash generation.
To reiterate my concern: that the content will continue to be altered in intentional and underhanded ways to push people into the GEM store to generate cash.
I guess we all know who Scarlet Briar really works for now...
New—Captain's Airship Pass!
Get free, immediate access to the new Captain’s Airship from any PvE map! With every conceivable convenience from Black Lion Traders to crafting stations to our own Mystic Forge, this is a one-stop shop for all your needs! Purchase a one-week pass to try it out or a permanent pass for a life of luxury! Act quickly – the permanent pass is available this week only!
The Gemshop is for the lazy people, people whining about the grind, do you even play mmos at all or would you all just like to buy your way to max level in a day and be done with the game?
Sure you can grind your heart out if you want to or you can just play the game, only thing I have bought since release is extra bankslots and this is because I have 8 chars and it was worth it.
I play this game with my hole family and I don't think you can get more value out of a game then we have, we are five gamers in one family if we were to play World of warcraft or any other sub game what would our costs a year be with subscription and buying the games for all of us?
Is there anyone who really belive that we could get more value from a mmo then with GW2?
The Gems shop, sure you can spend 400dollars on gems and buying a legendary sword or something else but why? This isn't WOW the items in GW2 aren't that big of a difference from exotic to legendary.
My legendarys I only got for the cosmetics and I did them myself.
Sure you can get all the best gear in the game by buying gems and converting them into gold and buying a full exotic armor set, but you don't really need that much gold to do that so what would be the point. A legendary items costs around 2500-3500 gold and my exotic staff costs 2 gold, and if you feel that grinding 2 golds in hard then I recommend that you quit playing mmos.
And the whole P2W thing I don't get it. Sure if you can get armor like in wow where you go into a battleground and dominate everyone with your storebought armor set, THAT my friends is P2W not spending 400 dollars for gems to do 100 more damage then everyone else which doesn't even do any difference at all almost.
I you feel that GW2 cashshop is P2W then you havn't played many mmos maybe this is even your first one if you really have played a P2W game then you will know the difference.
If GW2 is P2W then every mmo is P2W.
instans lvl 90 in wow = P2W
imperials in ESO = P2W
every game with a cashshop = P2W
guide books for mmos that tells info about the game = P2W
anything were you can get any help for money equals P2W by many peoples criteria.
One could even argue that by having a faster PC gives you an advantage over other players and then it will be P2W.
Lasersurgeory on your eyes to get good vision = P2W
GW2 cash shop totally ruins the game, its a simple explanation why. The endgame is getting cosmetics. They've barely added ANY cosmetics to the game versus those in the cash shop (black lion chests worst still). Game ruined.
Why did the author pick this title? What's the point? MMORPG is never objectively critical about gw2. It always turns out to be a fluff piece with pretend criticism turned into praise.
As for WoW selling level 90s... level 90 won't be relevant soon, when max level is 100, you are still going to have to go through the real work. I don't agree with them selling 90s, but there are some benefits, obviously it is shady and greedy, but it also decimates account selling which makes it less appealing for the companies that provide powerleveling services.
Some people think p2w means the only way to win is if you pay, i accept that connotation, but to me p2w is also anytime you can pay for an in game advantage over the next guy, that includes things like bag space, and boosts, and even "cosmetic gear" if it is better than the gear you currently have. You've paid money and it has saved you time, no different than wow selling leveled up characters... it has given you an advantage of saving time...
They have to keep the $$ rolling in to keep up with content, there's nothing wrong with that, it's an mmorpg after all and they won't work for free. The problem is, a majority of the "content" being worked on is just stuff like BOXING GLOVES and BOWLER HATS for the gem store instead of more game content, some of the armor skins are rad though. Yeah they are releasing it, but not as much as they would if GW2 had a sub fee. Argue all you want, but they have probably a small team of developers who just come up with crap for the gem store to keep the cash shop junkies happy. With a sub fee, that team would be with the rest of the developers, coming up with content for patches, expansions or whatever else the players really want.
The gem store has nothing to do with GW2's failings. It has everything to do with a severely flawed game design. Dynamic events just don't work in mmos, the cartoonish style art work with a poor personal story is not in the least bit entertaining and dumbing down pvp 4v4 was just a bad idea. If it isn't broke don't fix it and the original Guild Wars was never broke. Again in my opinion, the store has nothing to do with it.
Totally useless article from David North... again. But then the title gets is right. Since most of the development after the release oft the game focused more on adding items to the shop than adding lasting content to the game, the game is lacking deeply after some 1,5 years of existence.
The shop did not interest me much during the whole time. But the shop centered path-a-holics at ArenaNet finally drove me of. I always yelled for real expansions. I am finally not even sure a good sound expansion would get me back. But the shop centered development pissed me off, yes, you are right. (For the records: LS is always the same, not worth mentioning. Grind your achievement, listen to 5 minutes of mediocre story, rinse repeat)
The gem store isn't ruining GW2 in any way, shape or form.
Arenanet are doing fine ruining it with the horrible Living Story and tons of design changes that contribute to dismantle many of the ideals the game was built on and which were laid out in the GW2 Manifesto.
Originally posted by discord235 In no way is GW2 "pay to win." All gem stuff is cosmetic or convenience-oriented. If you want P2W, try playing Neverwinter.
Yeah, we should probably just say everything on PWI is that way and forget we ever had this conversation.
Comments
I say Yes it has, and for this main reason. It has lost for ArenaNet the Incentive to Expand or Die. Frankly Guildwars 1 was a far superior game to GW2 for the main reason that expansions existed and that constantly made the game more rich and diverse in skills for a team. That and the larger teams as a standard of 8 as opposed to 5 made it possible for a guild to have quality time in dungeons during all aspects of the game Not just during EotN. Indeed factions having a land domination mode made th game Far more enjoyable then this living world BS they are pushing into everyone’s face, Because it had World changing goals that mattered. Blocking off one faction from progress until they either switched factions or fought their way back. Factions Dungeon realms were the prize for domination. BUt I digress. The Gem store in and of itself does not ruin the game, but it does ruin incentives for profit by NCSoft specifically. ArenaNet initially had plans to EXPAND the lands of Tyria as they did in GW 1, to make quarterly profits. Then NCSoft came along and demanded micro transactions, and we got em. That showed they could sit back and do MINIMAL development with ZERO game expansion or added skills or classes and still make money. Just make a new skin, about a 3 or 4 day task and make hundreds of thousands from that. Now do that every few months or so and you make millions. Absent any real development at all happening in your game. So Yes IMHO the GEM store in GW2 is destroying the games POTENTIAL when compared to GW1 which saw expansions in new territories to explore, new classes to develop and most importantly new skills to add to your builds over time. Profession mixes in GW1 keeps that game relevant and fun even today. GW2 on the other hand is quickly becoming a dust collector on far to many shelve because its nothing but a bunch of been there done that content... Even the limited living world concept makes it very hard to come back in when its only there for a few weeks and in REAL LIFE a few weeks means you may get ot participate in it what maybe 1 or 2 times at best because of things like WORK! Sorry the entire gem store really does in my option is support a publisher that has no desire to allow Arenanet the ability to develop and expand their game content; That guilty culprit is NCSoft, the likes of which is only equaled in its ability to kill franchises by EA games. You want to see a real success with GW2? Untie Anets hands and remove NCSoft from the picture. Then and only then will you see what this game can do for the MMORPG genre.
Oh and for the record, the only things I found of value on the Gem store thus far has been the Bank tab expansions, personal inventory expansions, 1 quiver skin for my ranger, The indestructible Pick for resource gathering, and thats about it... I am still sitting on the wasted 2800 gems leftover from launch that I bought expecting eventually to see DLC offerings on the gem store which never came. I'm willing to bet in another 12 months I will still have 2800 Gems sitting cause they still will not have produced more quality account wide services, or expansions or skills via DLCs. Even the ability to use different weapons on other classes would be SOMETHING, but no couldnt be bothered could they?
So your point is that you don't want to get a job then? Good for you.
Or am I missing something?
The cash shop didn't turn me away from GW2 but rather the game itself did. Now, I personally don't have a problem with cash shops, after all I do understand it is a business and it needs to sustain itself. However the lock boxes that drop from games are a constant annoyance, kinda like a passive aggressive nudge to buy more from them.
The game itself just didn't feel very nice to play for me, I disliked that no matter where I was and what gear I had on I was normalized based on location. Which, is fine for some things, but for me it killed the sense of 'progression'. It would of been better if they just did away with the levels and went from there.
This article is just silly. Of all the cash shops in mmo's GW2's is zero pay to win. And the stuff is mostly cosmetic. This is just to start a debate thread for haters of the game. Nice try lol.
Let's be honest here, the items in the cash shop are not just cosmetic. it cost me more money to upgrade my bank slots and character inventory slots than it did to buy the game. Unless you enjoy shuffling inventory around all the time those extra slots are a necessity, not a luxury, particularly if you are a crafter. The gathering tools are nice, but it would cost me over $150.00 to outfit all my toons with them, while permanent gathering tools that work with all gathering nodes regardless of level cost a pittance in games like WoW. If you don't buy these tools be prepared to carry extra gathering tools in your limited inventory or be prepared to run out of tools all the time.
The game is not P2W, but it is being killed by the unbelievable grind needed to get some items and the lack of any meaningful, fun or long-term new content. I do not consider the cheesy Living Story to be fun or meaningful content, but just another grind on top of all the other grindy activities in the game. The grind can be avoided to some extent by buying gems for real money and converting them to gold and then using the money to buy crafting mats you would otherwise have to farm forever to get, especially if you have multiple toons.
Yes, you can just pay the box price and play the game forever, but you will have one seriously crippled game play experience until you shell out some in-game gold for gems or real money to buy inventory slots...the same as any f2p game though some of them at least add the occasional xpac or permanent content to keep things interesting.
If you wish to gear out more than one toon in max gear, be prepared for an unbelievably mind-numbing, time-gated grind from Hell or be willing to shell out real world cash to buy gems to convert to gold to buy the mats, because in-game money is hard to come by and the crafting mat requirements needed to craft Ascended gear are insane.
Part,a VERY large part of gaming is the aesthetics so to say it has no bearing in game play is a cop out.Players don't just want the stats,they hope to attain new cool gear and that is VERY easily manipulated if you make better looking gear in the cash shop than you do in game.
Also another famous gimmick,although idk if GW2 is doing it at this point is to allow players to attach their stats onto that new gear,so in essence selling players the gear they WANT.
No matter which way i or the developer tries to spin it,one thing is fact,they are making that gear because they believe players want it and if they want it more so than game gear,there is a problem.
SOE started this cash shop push and that is the big problem there,once you open the door it gets worse and worse until you see what Wow is doing now,selling levels.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
I still cannot get over the WoW selling the levels thing because if you asked me if such a thing would happen 5 years ago I would have sworn right,left and center that such a thing was impossible only those power levelling companies did that .Now I am having to swallow my incredulity.
I didn't like how the game was designed with the gem shop in mind. account shared bank, limited bag space, inconveniencing the players in the name of cash.
So what? Do you honestly think that level 90 character is going to be anywhere close to being on par with the characters that other players have built up from level one? If anything, that 90 is going to be seriously gimped because you'll be playing for a character that you have no idea how to play.
Go ahead and try it. Spend $60 on a level 90 and jump into a raid. See how quickly you are booted when your dps is dragging along the bottom of the charts and pulling the rest of the raid down.
People who actually believe that purchasing a level 90 in a vertical progression game like WoW is P2W seriously don't have the slightest clue about what it takes to perform at a high level in a game like that.
Only thing I bought with my own cash, after the initial purchase, was some more character slots.
Otherwise everything was gotten with in game gold.
Tormented echoes of a fallen Eden
I longed for her beauty
Yet from dust, she returned
The dream, an enigma.... silent
I like the GEM shop in general, they do need to make money to pay the bills and I don't think it has harmed the game (that is up until now).
The latest patch to me it was an obvious cash grab by monopolizing on the so-called 'destruction of Lion's Arch', a city everyone used because it was a convenient city with all crafting and the mystic forge all lumped together, and it was intentionally supplanted with the Vigil Keep sans crafting. Why? So that they could push the all new "Captain's Airship Pass!" convenience which basically offers you to buy back what LA had to begin with - everything in one location - which was introduced with the same patch. If they had carried over the crafting to the Vigil Keep no one would have wanted or needed this new "convenience" item. So now there is no single city (or area) with everything except for those of us that have a permanent Royal Terrace Pass or the permanent Captian's Airship Pass. They have successfully altered the content to suite the GEM store's cash generation.
To reiterate my concern: that the content will continue to be altered in intentional and underhanded ways to push people into the GEM store to generate cash.
I guess we all know who Scarlet Briar really works for now...
New—Captain's Airship Pass!
Get free, immediate access to the new Captain’s Airship from any PvE map! With every conceivable convenience from Black Lion Traders to crafting stations to our own Mystic Forge, this is a one-stop shop for all your needs! Purchase a one-week pass to try it out or a permanent pass for a life of luxury! Act quickly – the permanent pass is available this week only!
Playing: varies every day it seems.
The Gemshop is for the lazy people, people whining about the grind, do you even play mmos at all or would you all just like to buy your way to max level in a day and be done with the game?
Sure you can grind your heart out if you want to or you can just play the game, only thing I have bought since release is extra bankslots and this is because I have 8 chars and it was worth it.
I play this game with my hole family and I don't think you can get more value out of a game then we have, we are five gamers in one family if we were to play World of warcraft or any other sub game what would our costs a year be with subscription and buying the games for all of us?
Is there anyone who really belive that we could get more value from a mmo then with GW2?
The Gems shop, sure you can spend 400dollars on gems and buying a legendary sword or something else but why? This isn't WOW the items in GW2 aren't that big of a difference from exotic to legendary.
My legendarys I only got for the cosmetics and I did them myself.
Sure you can get all the best gear in the game by buying gems and converting them into gold and buying a full exotic armor set, but you don't really need that much gold to do that so what would be the point. A legendary items costs around 2500-3500 gold and my exotic staff costs 2 gold, and if you feel that grinding 2 golds in hard then I recommend that you quit playing mmos.
And the whole P2W thing I don't get it. Sure if you can get armor like in wow where you go into a battleground and dominate everyone with your storebought armor set, THAT my friends is P2W not spending 400 dollars for gems to do 100 more damage then everyone else which doesn't even do any difference at all almost.
I you feel that GW2 cashshop is P2W then you havn't played many mmos maybe this is even your first one if you really have played a P2W game then you will know the difference.
If GW2 is P2W then every mmo is P2W.
instans lvl 90 in wow = P2W
imperials in ESO = P2W
every game with a cashshop = P2W
guide books for mmos that tells info about the game = P2W
anything were you can get any help for money equals P2W by many peoples criteria.
One could even argue that by having a faster PC gives you an advantage over other players and then it will be P2W.
Lasersurgeory on your eyes to get good vision = P2W
Why did the author pick this title? What's the point? MMORPG is never objectively critical about gw2. It always turns out to be a fluff piece with pretend criticism turned into praise.
As for WoW selling level 90s... level 90 won't be relevant soon, when max level is 100, you are still going to have to go through the real work. I don't agree with them selling 90s, but there are some benefits, obviously it is shady and greedy, but it also decimates account selling which makes it less appealing for the companies that provide powerleveling services.
Some people think p2w means the only way to win is if you pay, i accept that connotation, but to me p2w is also anytime you can pay for an in game advantage over the next guy, that includes things like bag space, and boosts, and even "cosmetic gear" if it is better than the gear you currently have. You've paid money and it has saved you time, no different than wow selling leveled up characters... it has given you an advantage of saving time...
Totally useless article from David North... again. But then the title gets is right. Since most of the development after the release oft the game focused more on adding items to the shop than adding lasting content to the game, the game is lacking deeply after some 1,5 years of existence.
The shop did not interest me much during the whole time. But the shop centered path-a-holics at ArenaNet finally drove me of. I always yelled for real expansions. I am finally not even sure a good sound expansion would get me back. But the shop centered development pissed me off, yes, you are right. (For the records: LS is always the same, not worth mentioning. Grind your achievement, listen to 5 minutes of mediocre story, rinse repeat)
The gem store isn't ruining GW2 in any way, shape or form.
Arenanet are doing fine ruining it with the horrible Living Story and tons of design changes that contribute to dismantle many of the ideals the game was built on and which were laid out in the GW2 Manifesto.
Want to know more about GW2 and why there is so much buzz? Start here: Guild Wars 2 Mass Info for the Uninitiated
Yeah, we should probably just say everything on PWI is that way and forget we ever had this conversation.
YES!!
I'm not reading any other replies....just my opinion and my 65 year old moms version. The Gem Vs gold swap is murderous...We just gave up.
"This may hurt a little, but it's something you'll get used to. Relax....."