Sometimes I wonder if you guys have nothing else better in life to do than bashing various games on the forums and feeling superior by it. Yes, I'm looking at you @Nanfoodle and OP.
Did you forget that you can exchange in-game gold to gems?
Did you forget that you can have people unlocking the story for you?
Should ANet give you money for playing their game?
I guess people like you just want to sit on your arse and get spoonfed with liquid gold. You can unlock the whole season with gold for less than a week.
Yes, if this is the person that you are, then Gw2 is not for you. Also, those chapters WERE offered for free. Your mistake you didn't take an advantage of it.
Are you going to sue Walmart because the discounted Nutella is out? Judging by your reaction I'd say you guys would....
So the first thing I am to be forced to do as a returning play is grind for gold? Ya no. Im not bashing GW2, I have supported it with my cash since beta. I dont support pay walls. They cause bad feelings in most gamers and is a great way to lose players. There are so many smarter ways to get players wanting to give you their money. This video I will post below covers very well what pay walls do to gamers and Anet is making a HUGE mistake.
The first you are "forced" to do as a returning player is to grind for gold IF you want to buy them with gold right away. You can also go with a friend if you want to see the story, buy the gems with gold as you play if you don't want to get them with money (not outright grind it), or just ignore the story sections, imagine that it's like in season 1 where if you missed them, you missed them for good, and play the rest of the related content added to the open world for free for returning player.
I understand that what you're against is pay walls... but TBH I feel it's a bit weird that you keep using as an example one game that (IMHO) has some of the most lenient ones (see my previous post) instead of, for example, DC Universe or TSW where you can't play any of the new content they've added unless you pay, no way around it, or even P2P games like WoW where the whole game is behind a pay wall in the first place.
Note that I'm not against any of those games's monetization styles, just commenting that I find weird that the game you're using as the big example of the evil of paywalls is one of the games that (IMHO) has the most easily walked around paywalls in the first place.
Sometimes I wonder if you guys have nothing else better in life to do than bashing various games on the forums and feeling superior by it. Yes, I'm looking at you @Nanfoodle and OP.
Did you forget that you can exchange in-game gold to gems?
Did you forget that you can have people unlocking the story for you?
Should ANet give you money for playing their game?
I guess people like you just want to sit on your arse and get spoonfed with liquid gold. You can unlock the whole season with gold for less than a week.
Yes, if this is the person that you are, then Gw2 is not for you. Also, those chapters WERE offered for free. Your mistake you didn't take an advantage of it.
Are you going to sue Walmart because the discounted Nutella is out? Judging by your reaction I'd say you guys would....
So the first thing I am to be forced to do as a returning play is grind for gold? Ya no. Im not bashing GW2, I have supported it with my cash since beta. I dont support pay walls. They cause bad feelings in most gamers and is a great way to lose players. There are so many smarter ways to get players wanting to give you their money. This video I will post below covers very well what pay walls do to gamers and Anet is making a HUGE mistake.
But, but using your analogy I should go ahead and make a QQ thread about lost skill points in Eve Online, because you know, I stopped playing that game for over an year and now that they add new ships i am going back. I mean ... surely some people have more SP than me because they kept playing. How could they! Now I have to make skill queues again for weeks at a time
And I think you are overreacting with the video. The content was free. End of story really.
I think what is rubbing people wrong with this is not so much that you are paying for content as much as you are paying for content that was given free to others. If Anet had charged everyone for this content like DLC all along it would have come across differently. But then, I don't think the community would have much liked the idea of being charged every 2 weeks for a tiny bit of new content. Charging people now for this content on a per chapter basis is basically the same thing but with the added rub of making people who had to put the game on hold feel like they are being punished for doing so. A lot of people bought this game because they felt that the B2P model would give them the flexibility to set the game aside at will without feeling like they were wasting money on a subscription that was ticking only to find out that they were going to be charged after the fact for having the temerity to do other things for a while.
The point is that this charge leaves people feeling a bit swindled. It is immaterial if they were swindled in fact or not. Making your customers feel stupid or cheated is not the best way to keep them.
Instead of charging per episode I think it would have come off much better if Anet had done a one time charge off say $20 to unlock access to the whole story journal. Then they would have been selling a major feature rather than the content itself which would have worked better with the whole B2P concept. Never mind that it is a feature that allows them access to that content. The perception would have been much more positive. They kind of blew that opportunity with this who have already returned but they could still pull it off with those yet to return.
Sometimes I wonder if you guys have nothing else better in life to do than bashing various games on the forums and feeling superior by it. Yes, I'm looking at you @Nanfoodle and OP.
Did you forget that you can exchange in-game gold to gems?
Did you forget that you can have people unlocking the story for you?
Should ANet give you money for playing their game?
I guess people like you just want to sit on your arse and get spoonfed with liquid gold. You can unlock the whole season with gold for less than a week.
Yes, if this is the person that you are, then Gw2 is not for you. Also, those chapters WERE offered for free. Your mistake you didn't take an advantage of it.
Are you going to sue Walmart because the discounted Nutella is out? Judging by your reaction I'd say you guys would....
So the first thing I am to be forced to do as a returning play is grind for gold? Ya no. Im not bashing GW2, I have supported it with my cash since beta. I dont support pay walls. They cause bad feelings in most gamers and is a great way to lose players. There are so many smarter ways to get players wanting to give you their money. This video I will post below covers very well what pay walls do to gamers and Anet is making a HUGE mistake.
Id agree with you if this was required content. Or if the game didn't offer it for free if you logged in during when it was available.
Keep in mind that all of this content was originally supposed to be temporary. This is why you can't get ANY of season 1 atm. The content is gone, and if u missed it, too bad. What you're paying for is optional content you may have missed by not playing the game for a while.
And as others pointed out, it's still really easy to get. The 'grinding for gold' you talk about really doesn't take long. And you'd be doing much of what you'd normally be doing anyway.
Silverwastes, Dungeons, Fractals, just loggin into the game (daily rewards) all give you things of value that you can sell on the TP. It's so easy to acquire gold ingame atm that you can quite easily acquire 100G per day, just by doing the above. If you want to seriously grind, you can get even more than that.
- What you're not understanding is that this game doesn't really force you to do anything. You can play exactly how you want to play. If all you want is to check out the new story content, then log in when it comes out and it's free. There's a pretty generous ~2 week window for each episode, and all you have to do is log in for a second to get that content.
For the stuff you've missed there are plenty of videos online that will tell you the story of what happened. If you are determined that you must have it then it's easily obtainable IN GAME through minimal effort, or about 20-30$ worth of gems. Which is cheaper than you'd have spent for the same game with a subscription, by a significant margin.
I think what is rubbing people wrong with this is not so much that you are paying for content as much as you are paying for content that was given free to others. If Anet had charged everyone for this content like DLC all along it would have come across differently. But then, I don't think the community would have much liked the idea of being charged every 2 weeks for a tiny bit of new content. Charging people now for this content on a per chapter basis is basically the same thing but with the added rub of making people who had to put the game on hold feel like they are being punished for doing so. A lot of people bought this game because they felt that the B2P model would give them the flexibility to set the game aside at will without feeling like they were wasting money on a subscription that was ticking only to find out that they were going to be charged after the fact for having the temerity to do other things for a while.
The point is that this charge leaves people feeling a bit swindled. It is immaterial if they were swindled in fact or not. Making your customers feel stupid or cheated is not the best way to keep them.
Instead of charging per episode I think it would have come off much better if Anet had done a one time charge off say $20 to unlock access to the whole story journal. Then they would have been selling a major feature rather than the content itself which would have worked better with the whole B2P concept. Never mind that it is a feature that allows them access to that content. The perception would have been much more positive. They kind of blew that opportunity with this who have already returned but they could still pull it off with those yet to return.
Not a bad idea, and perhaps they should add something to the cash shop like that 'discount to buy the entire season in 1 go'.
As for the swindled part, here's the ironic thing.
Anet announced they were doing this in advance. They were quite clear that this was going to be happening, and no one who played / followed the game was bothered by this change. The change literally only hurts those that stopped following the game entirely and are now returning expected to be handed everything.
It is a purely psychological issue, and a silly one at that. People are responding to the feeling of being cheated, regardless of what the facts say.
I think what is rubbing people wrong with this is not so much that you are paying for content as much as you are paying for content that was given free to others. If Anet had charged everyone for this content like DLC all along it would have come across differently. But then, I don't think the community would have much liked the idea of being charged every 2 weeks for a tiny bit of new content. Charging people now for this content on a per chapter basis is basically the same thing but with the added rub of making people who had to put the game on hold feel like they are being punished for doing so. A lot of people bought this game because they felt that the B2P model would give them the flexibility to set the game aside at will without feeling like they were wasting money on a subscription that was ticking only to find out that they were going to be charged after the fact for having the temerity to do other things for a while.
The point is that this charge leaves people feeling a bit swindled. It is immaterial if they were swindled in fact or not. Making your customers feel stupid or cheated is not the best way to keep them.
Instead of charging per episode I think it would have come off much better if Anet had done a one time charge off say $20 to unlock access to the whole story journal. Then they would have been selling a major feature rather than the content itself which would have worked better with the whole B2P concept. Never mind that it is a feature that allows them access to that content. The perception would have been much more positive. They kind of blew that opportunity with this who have already returned but they could still pull it off with those yet to return.
You are talking as if Living World 2 *STORY* is somehow dampening your character's progression.
There is no legal path to pursue. They never said at any point that all future content releases would be free. You're an idiot, and I truly hope you get smacked in the nuts for clicking "Post Message" in this very, very stupid thread.
So what you're saying is that OP is awarded no points, and may god have mercy on his soul, right? Yeah, probably laughed a little too hard at this one. Thanks
I agree with OP, if your payment plan is pay box for the whole game and then decide to charge gems for small part of the game you don't encourage people to return to the game. Either you have it for free or you don't have the content at all.
Stop defending crap like this.
Iselin: And the next person who says "but it's a business, they need to make money" can just go fuck yourself.
OP, better install some F2P game, you'll have much more content than LS for $2.50...
You know, while you are belittling GW2 specifically with your comment, what you are saying is true - and true for pretty much any game with that.
Just looking at the "Free 2 Play" or the "On sale" section on Steam, and if you're a little bit curious about different styles of games, you can find hours of entertainment for an incredible value.
And a lot of these games are quality, balanced, fun games that do not require to pay for extra content or "to win".
Add to this the fact that all games try to be "replayable" as much as possible these days (with multiplayer, mods, and what have you...) and you can add free hours of fun in a game you like.
This is why on a side note I find it almost impossible these days for me to justify a subscription for an MMO.
I think GW2 model is still the fairest model I've seen so far for an MMO, but unless you are trying to support the game, I wouldn't particularly advise people to buy LS Season 2.
Charging people now for this content on a per chapter basis is basically the same thing but with the added rub of making people who had to put the game on hold feel like they are being punished for doing so.
[snip]
The living story being free during release is meant more to reward players for playing the game. Heck not even play, just for logging in. I didn't even play GW2 during season 2 LS but I logged in and got all of the episodes. That took a total of 20 seconds worth of effort.
It's not much different than subscription reward programs that other MMOs have that reward their players for being subscribed for 3 months, 6 months, year consecutively, etc.. You don't see non-players complain about those and claim they should get those rewards too. The poster claiming it's a pay-wall is being ridiculous because if he had the game already during the living story then it wasn't a pay wall. That content was free to him. Instead of logging into the game for a few seconds for free content, he logged into MMORPG.com instead to complain about it.
I missed a few of the episodes, and noticed that they wanted 200 gems per... and I mean... I get it, they lock the content and want to retroactively be paid for what was free for the others that logged in at least once a month....
But truthfully the living story stuff -- the actual missions themselves aren't worth the cost. In fact they really aren't worth any cost at all because the missions are generally very short... you may have 3 - 5 actually story sections to go through. GW2's story content isn't exactly exciting or enjoyable -- you really just do them for the rewards... and to be honest the rewards are fairly inconsequential. You get most if not all of the same kind of things from completing PvP track rewards.
The living story is more for completionists... if you REALLY NEED IT... so that you can get those achievement points and have everything you can possibly earn from the game... maybe then it would be justified. For me.. I'm only going to do it if I've gotten bored with everything else.
You're talking about suing a company for $17.50? Filling fees might be more then that.
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
Why would I do that? Theres no shortage of other games to play...
Plus, it was not my idea to make the game buy to play, in fact, when I bought the game it said I could play without monthly fees and never stated that I would have to pay for future content... so theres always that legal path to pursue I think.
That's the whole idea of "buy to play".
You buy the chunks/new content that they were on, especially expansions.
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
I think what is rubbing people wrong with this is not so much that you are paying for content as much as you are paying for content that was given free to others. If Anet had charged everyone for this content like DLC all along it would have come across differently. But then, I don't think the community would have much liked the idea of being charged every 2 weeks for a tiny bit of new content. Charging people now for this content on a per chapter basis is basically the same thing but with the added rub of making people who had to put the game on hold feel like they are being punished for doing so. A lot of people bought this game because they felt that the B2P model would give them the flexibility to set the game aside at will without feeling like they were wasting money on a subscription that was ticking only to find out that they were going to be charged after the fact for having the temerity to do other things for a while.
The point is that this charge leaves people feeling a bit swindled. It is immaterial if they were swindled in fact or not. Making your customers feel stupid or cheated is not the best way to keep them.
Instead of charging per episode I think it would have come off much better if Anet had done a one time charge off say $20 to unlock access to the whole story journal. Then they would have been selling a major feature rather than the content itself which would have worked better with the whole B2P concept. Never mind that it is a feature that allows them access to that content. The perception would have been much more positive. They kind of blew that opportunity with this who have already returned but they could still pull it off with those yet to return.
*ding ding ding ding ding*
Honestly, I haven't played GW2 in probably 6 months now. Just so many other games taking priority over it right now, in my opinion, and I don't know if I'll go back now. The problem with this whole model is that you've got your loyal crowd (who would probably pay for an expansion btw), you've got your new customers (who are very costly to acquire at this point and wll probably stick around for 6 months) and you've got your lapsed players (like me). Honestly, it's probably 10 times less costly to bring me back into the game than it is to bring in a new customer (maybe more) so why the hell would you throw up such ridiculous payment barriers? First of all, it simply pisses people off (the ones you're wanting to come back). Secondly, there's probably a much greater opportunity for you to sell me a $10 or $15 quarterly unlock than you ever will to unlock content more regularly. On top of that, for people who actually care, I'm sure there will be apps specifically designed to log you in on a regular basis, so it's not a sustainable model either. I'll bet Nexen came up with it.
Sometimes I wonder if you guys have nothing else better in life to do than bashing various games on the forums and feeling superior by it. Yes, I'm looking at you @Nanfoodle and OP.
Did you forget that you can exchange in-game gold to gems?
Did you forget that you can have people unlocking the story for you?
Should ANet give you money for playing their game?
I guess people like you just want to sit on your arse and get spoonfed with liquid gold. You can unlock the whole season with gold for less than a week.
Yes, if this is the person that you are, then Gw2 is not for you. Also, those chapters WERE offered for free. Your mistake you didn't take an advantage of it.
Are you going to sue Walmart because the discounted Nutella is out? Judging by your reaction I'd say you guys would....
So the first thing I am to be forced to do as a returning play is grind for gold? Ya no. Im not bashing GW2, I have supported it with my cash since beta. I dont support pay walls. They cause bad feelings in most gamers and is a great way to lose players. There are so many smarter ways to get players wanting to give you their money. This video I will post below covers very well what pay walls do to gamers and Anet is making a HUGE mistake.
Id agree with you if this was required content. Or if the game didn't offer it for free if you logged in during when it was available.
Keep in mind that all of this content was originally supposed to be temporary. This is why you can't get ANY of season 1 atm. The content is gone, and if u missed it, too bad. What you're paying for is optional content you may have missed by not playing the game for a while.
And as others pointed out, it's still really easy to get. The 'grinding for gold' you talk about really doesn't take long. And you'd be doing much of what you'd normally be doing anyway.
Silverwastes, Dungeons, Fractals, just loggin into the game (daily rewards) all give you things of value that you can sell on the TP. It's so easy to acquire gold ingame atm that you can quite easily acquire 100G per day, just by doing the above. If you want to seriously grind, you can get even more than that.
- What you're not understanding is that this game doesn't really force you to do anything. You can play exactly how you want to play. If all you want is to check out the new story content, then log in when it comes out and it's free. There's a pretty generous ~2 week window for each episode, and all you have to do is log in for a second to get that content.
For the stuff you've missed there are plenty of videos online that will tell you the story of what happened. If you are determined that you must have it then it's easily obtainable IN GAME through minimal effort, or about 20-30$ worth of gems. Which is cheaper than you'd have spent for the same game with a subscription, by a significant margin.
I'm recently returned to the game and not familiar with Silverwastes, can you PM the details of what runs net the most?
I think what is rubbing people wrong with this is not so much that you are paying for content as much as you are paying for content that was given free to others. If Anet had charged everyone for this content like DLC all along it would have come across differently. But then, I don't think the community would have much liked the idea of being charged every 2 weeks for a tiny bit of new content. Charging people now for this content on a per chapter basis is basically the same thing but with the added rub of making people who had to put the game on hold feel like they are being punished for doing so. A lot of people bought this game because they felt that the B2P model would give them the flexibility to set the game aside at will without feeling like they were wasting money on a subscription that was ticking only to find out that they were going to be charged after the fact for having the temerity to do other things for a while.
The point is that this charge leaves people feeling a bit swindled. It is immaterial if they were swindled in fact or not. Making your customers feel stupid or cheated is not the best way to keep them.
Instead of charging per episode I think it would have come off much better if Anet had done a one time charge off say $20 to unlock access to the whole story journal. Then they would have been selling a major feature rather than the content itself which would have worked better with the whole B2P concept. Never mind that it is a feature that allows them access to that content. The perception would have been much more positive. They kind of blew that opportunity with this who have already returned but they could still pull it off with those yet to return.
*ding ding ding ding ding*
Honestly, I haven't played GW2 in probably 6 months now. Just so many other games taking priority over it right now, in my opinion, and I don't know if I'll go back now. The problem with this whole model is that you've got your loyal crowd (who would probably pay for an expansion btw), you've got your new customers (who are very costly to acquire at this point and wll probably stick around for 6 months) and you've got your lapsed players (like me). Honestly, it's probably 10 times less costly to bring me back into the game than it is to bring in a new customer (maybe more) so why the hell would you throw up such ridiculous payment barriers? First of all, it simply pisses people off (the ones you're wanting to come back). Secondly, there's probably a much greater opportunity for you to sell me a $10 or $15 quarterly unlock than you ever will to unlock content more regularly. On top of that, for people who actually care, I'm sure there will be apps specifically designed to log you in on a regular basis, so it's not a sustainable model either. I'll bet Nexen came up with it.
I don't think its more costly for them to bring in a new player. In fact bringing in new players is specifically how they make their money. With the last sale, they sold plenty of copies. People who didn't get a chance to see the living story and people that are more than likely willing to spend extra money on that content because they didn't have accounts at the time to be granted access to that content.
I'm just saying, it being less costly to have you come back to not spend money isn't nearly as profitable as having a new player come in that is willing to spend money on things they missed previously. At the end of the day with the 5 dollar sale, if they bought all the living story content, they would end up with almost the cost of the original box sale that you paid for in the first place.
More and more each year it seems as though the MMO gaming community is creeping towards an "Entitlement" society of gamers.
If it's not a free game that you can siphon off from then it is a bad business model.
I can't believe I have to pay for a product!
?and the complaints go on and on and on!
GW2 is by far not the example of a perfect MMO (not sure if there is even one out there, WoW included), but it is a great game with hours, days, weeks and months of continual content to enjoy with the box cost. The developers and the company need to make money somewhere.
So less bitching about needing to pay for some content. To me this just shows you really aren't into the game to begin with and need to just move on.
OP "Tried to return" but could not because completely optional content was locked behind a paywall?
The drama is strong with this one!
Paywalling the content may not be the brightest idea (actually a pretty crappy one) but the content was originally planned to be temporary. It only exists because players wanted it as permanent content.
Not very different from the BMP in the original GW. I got it for free but several guildies had to pay for the bonus mission pack - At least the rewards had some nice looking skins there
TLDR; LS Season2 is not needed in any way - OP will be happier elsewhere anyway.
We dont need casuals in our games!!! Errm... Well we DO need casuals to fund and populate our games - But the games should be all about "hardcore" because: We dont need casuals in our games!!! (repeat ad infinitum)
I don't know how I feel about this honestly. I like the TSW B2P model but it sells content equally to all people regardless of when you play it. On the other hand I guess this could be considered a loyalty reward for all those people who played the content when it came out, bought keys and participated in the gem exchange regardless of if they where on the gold to gem or cash to gem side of the equation. ANET doesn't care which side you are on as both are needed to keep it working.
GW2 is a game that needs people playing it and participating in the GEM market to work. These living story quests where incentive for people to keep logging in so I guess I can see where they wouldn't want to give them away for mass consumption after the fact. What they stretched out over 6 months or so someone could probably login and consume in 1-2 days which wouldn't really entice them to use the GEM market would it?
Arenanet told in advance that all chapters of the Living Story were going to be FREE if you logged in during the week to unlock them... It´s a valid way to keep people logging & and playing their content...and for FREE.
So OP....you should of have known...
Anyway you can always get the gems by playing the game anyway...it will take you a while...but hey! You´ll be playing & getting it for FREE again...
Some people want companies to work free & at the user´s pace.....
So a p2p game would charge you $15 just to come back and look at it with out giving you any new content. GW2 might charge roughly the same to see the new content which is optional. If you keep playing GW2 again for more than a month this time, then guess what? You will not be charged again. If you wanted to play another p2p for another month, guess what? You will have to pay them $15 again for the same content you payed and played for the previous month.
I don't feel bad for you OP. All you had to do was log in when the new episode was released. You didn't even have to move your character one inch in the game world.
On a B2P game adding a pay wall for the first bit of content you try will cause this feeling most times. As gamers this is not an action we should defend. I agree MMOs need to make money but there are some things they should not do. P2W and Pay Walls are 2 of the lowest ways to make money. Anet launched this game as a B2P game you can come and go from to play between other MMOs. As they put it, buy the game and come as go as you please. Thats now a lie. Now its go for to long and go through the pay wall before you come back.
You are wrong. The game you paid for with the box purchase is still there for free. You do not, however get to have extra content for free without paying for it. If you cannot handle that, then you are in the wrong genre of games and should perhaps stick with facebook and yahoo gaming.
Seems like a dumb move on Anets part.. Did I also read right that it is per character? That is even more stupid. Thankfully this content is useless / waste of time / garbage so no one is missing anything by not doing them.
Comments
The first you are "forced" to do as a returning player is to grind for gold IF you want to buy them with gold right away. You can also go with a friend if you want to see the story, buy the gems with gold as you play if you don't want to get them with money (not outright grind it), or just ignore the story sections, imagine that it's like in season 1 where if you missed them, you missed them for good, and play the rest of the related content added to the open world for free for returning player.
I understand that what you're against is pay walls... but TBH I feel it's a bit weird that you keep using as an example one game that (IMHO) has some of the most lenient ones (see my previous post) instead of, for example, DC Universe or TSW where you can't play any of the new content they've added unless you pay, no way around it, or even P2P games like WoW where the whole game is behind a pay wall in the first place.
Note that I'm not against any of those games's monetization styles, just commenting that I find weird that the game you're using as the big example of the evil of paywalls is one of the games that (IMHO) has the most easily walked around paywalls in the first place.
What can men do against such reckless hate?
Come on, don't be so narrow-minded.
Everybody has tons of gold in this game.
But, but using your analogy I should go ahead and make a QQ thread about lost skill points in Eve Online, because you know, I stopped playing that game for over an year and now that they add new ships i am going back. I mean ... surely some people have more SP than me because they kept playing. How could they! Now I have to make skill queues again for weeks at a time
And I think you are overreacting with the video. The content was free. End of story really.
I think what is rubbing people wrong with this is not so much that you are paying for content as much as you are paying for content that was given free to others. If Anet had charged everyone for this content like DLC all along it would have come across differently. But then, I don't think the community would have much liked the idea of being charged every 2 weeks for a tiny bit of new content. Charging people now for this content on a per chapter basis is basically the same thing but with the added rub of making people who had to put the game on hold feel like they are being punished for doing so. A lot of people bought this game because they felt that the B2P model would give them the flexibility to set the game aside at will without feeling like they were wasting money on a subscription that was ticking only to find out that they were going to be charged after the fact for having the temerity to do other things for a while.
The point is that this charge leaves people feeling a bit swindled. It is immaterial if they were swindled in fact or not. Making your customers feel stupid or cheated is not the best way to keep them.
Instead of charging per episode I think it would have come off much better if Anet had done a one time charge off say $20 to unlock access to the whole story journal. Then they would have been selling a major feature rather than the content itself which would have worked better with the whole B2P concept. Never mind that it is a feature that allows them access to that content. The perception would have been much more positive. They kind of blew that opportunity with this who have already returned but they could still pull it off with those yet to return.
All die, so die well.
They never stated that you "wouldn't" have to pay for future content either.
Id agree with you if this was required content. Or if the game didn't offer it for free if you logged in during when it was available.
Keep in mind that all of this content was originally supposed to be temporary. This is why you can't get ANY of season 1 atm. The content is gone, and if u missed it, too bad. What you're paying for is optional content you may have missed by not playing the game for a while.
And as others pointed out, it's still really easy to get. The 'grinding for gold' you talk about really doesn't take long. And you'd be doing much of what you'd normally be doing anyway.
Silverwastes, Dungeons, Fractals, just loggin into the game (daily rewards) all give you things of value that you can sell on the TP. It's so easy to acquire gold ingame atm that you can quite easily acquire 100G per day, just by doing the above. If you want to seriously grind, you can get even more than that.
- What you're not understanding is that this game doesn't really force you to do anything. You can play exactly how you want to play. If all you want is to check out the new story content, then log in when it comes out and it's free. There's a pretty generous ~2 week window for each episode, and all you have to do is log in for a second to get that content.
For the stuff you've missed there are plenty of videos online that will tell you the story of what happened. If you are determined that you must have it then it's easily obtainable IN GAME through minimal effort, or about 20-30$ worth of gems. Which is cheaper than you'd have spent for the same game with a subscription, by a significant margin.
Not a bad idea, and perhaps they should add something to the cash shop like that 'discount to buy the entire season in 1 go'.
As for the swindled part, here's the ironic thing.
Anet announced they were doing this in advance. They were quite clear that this was going to be happening, and no one who played / followed the game was bothered by this change. The change literally only hurts those that stopped following the game entirely and are now returning expected to be handed everything.
It is a purely psychological issue, and a silly one at that. People are responding to the feeling of being cheated, regardless of what the facts say.
You are talking as if Living World 2 *STORY* is somehow dampening your character's progression.
So what you're saying is that OP is awarded no points, and may god have mercy on his soul, right? Yeah, probably laughed a little too hard at this one. Thanks
I agree with OP, if your payment plan is pay box for the whole game and then decide to charge gems for small part of the game you don't encourage people to return to the game. Either you have it for free or you don't have the content at all.
Stop defending crap like this.
You know, while you are belittling GW2 specifically with your comment, what you are saying is true - and true for pretty much any game with that.
Just looking at the "Free 2 Play" or the "On sale" section on Steam, and if you're a little bit curious about different styles of games, you can find hours of entertainment for an incredible value.
And a lot of these games are quality, balanced, fun games that do not require to pay for extra content or "to win".
Add to this the fact that all games try to be "replayable" as much as possible these days (with multiplayer, mods, and what have you...) and you can add free hours of fun in a game you like.
This is why on a side note I find it almost impossible these days for me to justify a subscription for an MMO.
I think GW2 model is still the fairest model I've seen so far for an MMO, but unless you are trying to support the game, I wouldn't particularly advise people to buy LS Season 2.
I agree that selling stuff like this is annoying.
It is no disaster, you can pretty easily exchange some gold for gems but it is still pretty cheap by ANET.
The living story being free during release is meant more to reward players for playing the game. Heck not even play, just for logging in. I didn't even play GW2 during season 2 LS but I logged in and got all of the episodes. That took a total of 20 seconds worth of effort.
It's not much different than subscription reward programs that other MMOs have that reward their players for being subscribed for 3 months, 6 months, year consecutively, etc.. You don't see non-players complain about those and claim they should get those rewards too. The poster claiming it's a pay-wall is being ridiculous because if he had the game already during the living story then it wasn't a pay wall. That content was free to him. Instead of logging into the game for a few seconds for free content, he logged into MMORPG.com instead to complain about it.
"If I offended you, you needed it" -Corey Taylor
I missed a few of the episodes, and noticed that they wanted 200 gems per... and I mean... I get it, they lock the content and want to retroactively be paid for what was free for the others that logged in at least once a month....
But truthfully the living story stuff -- the actual missions themselves aren't worth the cost. In fact they really aren't worth any cost at all because the missions are generally very short... you may have 3 - 5 actually story sections to go through. GW2's story content isn't exactly exciting or enjoyable -- you really just do them for the rewards... and to be honest the rewards are fairly inconsequential. You get most if not all of the same kind of things from completing PvP track rewards.
The living story is more for completionists... if you REALLY NEED IT... so that you can get those achievement points and have everything you can possibly earn from the game... maybe then it would be justified. For me.. I'm only going to do it if I've gotten bored with everything else.
Thats a very real possibility of happening.
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
That's the whole idea of "buy to play".
You buy the chunks/new content that they were on, especially expansions.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
*ding ding ding ding ding*
Honestly, I haven't played GW2 in probably 6 months now. Just so many other games taking priority over it right now, in my opinion, and I don't know if I'll go back now. The problem with this whole model is that you've got your loyal crowd (who would probably pay for an expansion btw), you've got your new customers (who are very costly to acquire at this point and wll probably stick around for 6 months) and you've got your lapsed players (like me). Honestly, it's probably 10 times less costly to bring me back into the game than it is to bring in a new customer (maybe more) so why the hell would you throw up such ridiculous payment barriers? First of all, it simply pisses people off (the ones you're wanting to come back). Secondly, there's probably a much greater opportunity for you to sell me a $10 or $15 quarterly unlock than you ever will to unlock content more regularly. On top of that, for people who actually care, I'm sure there will be apps specifically designed to log you in on a regular basis, so it's not a sustainable model either. I'll bet Nexen came up with it.
Crazkanuk
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Azarelos - 90 Hunter - Emerald
Durnzig - 90 Paladin - Emerald
Demonicron - 90 Death Knight - Emerald Dream - US
Tankinpain - 90 Monk - Azjol-Nerub - US
Brindell - 90 Warrior - Emerald Dream - US
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I'm recently returned to the game and not familiar with Silverwastes, can you PM the details of what runs net the most?
I don't think its more costly for them to bring in a new player. In fact bringing in new players is specifically how they make their money. With the last sale, they sold plenty of copies. People who didn't get a chance to see the living story and people that are more than likely willing to spend extra money on that content because they didn't have accounts at the time to be granted access to that content.
I'm just saying, it being less costly to have you come back to not spend money isn't nearly as profitable as having a new player come in that is willing to spend money on things they missed previously. At the end of the day with the 5 dollar sale, if they bought all the living story content, they would end up with almost the cost of the original box sale that you paid for in the first place.
More and more each year it seems as though the MMO gaming community is creeping towards an "Entitlement" society of gamers.
OP "Tried to return" but could not because completely optional content was locked behind a paywall?
The drama is strong with this one!
Paywalling the content may not be the brightest idea (actually a pretty crappy one) but the content was originally planned to be temporary. It only exists because players wanted it as permanent content.
Not very different from the BMP in the original GW. I got it for free but several guildies had to pay for the bonus mission pack - At least the rewards had some nice looking skins there
TLDR; LS Season2 is not needed in any way - OP will be happier elsewhere anyway.
We dont need casuals in our games!!! Errm... Well we DO need casuals to fund and populate our games - But the games should be all about "hardcore" because: We dont need casuals in our games!!!
(repeat ad infinitum)
I don't know how I feel about this honestly. I like the TSW B2P model but it sells content equally to all people regardless of when you play it. On the other hand I guess this could be considered a loyalty reward for all those people who played the content when it came out, bought keys and participated in the gem exchange regardless of if they where on the gold to gem or cash to gem side of the equation. ANET doesn't care which side you are on as both are needed to keep it working.
GW2 is a game that needs people playing it and participating in the GEM market to work. These living story quests where incentive for people to keep logging in so I guess I can see where they wouldn't want to give them away for mass consumption after the fact. What they stretched out over 6 months or so someone could probably login and consume in 1-2 days which wouldn't really entice them to use the GEM market would it?
Not new NEWS...
Arenanet told in advance that all chapters of the Living Story were going to be FREE if you logged in during the week to unlock them... It´s a valid way to keep people logging & and playing their content...and for FREE.
So OP....you should of have known...
Anyway you can always get the gems by playing the game anyway...it will take you a while...but hey! You´ll be playing & getting it for FREE again...
Some people want companies to work free & at the user´s pace.....
You are wrong. The game you paid for with the box purchase is still there for free. You do not, however get to have extra content for free without paying for it. If you cannot handle that, then you are in the wrong genre of games and should perhaps stick with facebook and yahoo gaming.