Curse

DarkWasp · Apr 24, 2009, 04:39 PM // 16:39

Name change cost makes sense to me actually.

Storage cost makes some sense too, but the price should probably be lowered. Why? You get more for your money if you buy a char slot. Sure this is a bit more convienient, but isnt that making money off lazy people? Like gold sellers?

Makeovers, I really don't think they should cost at all. They actually would make an excellent ingame gold sink. It's kind of a deep feature that should have been in the game years ago. I really like the pay once idea though.

Shadowkiller Seth · Apr 24, 2009, 05:00 PM // 17:00

Hm maybe ive missed the line "u have to buy those things" in the update notes

-Makai- · Apr 24, 2009, 06:42 PM // 18:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by DarkWasp

Yeah this is wrong. I think changing hair should atleast be free...

Also!

Characters should be able to mix chapters in initial creation now atleast. This is too big too make us pay for completely, i'm sorry what's happening here is WRONG.

Considering all the awful clipping issues, especially with long hair, we should at least be given a free makeover credit for each character.

I'm really glad they finally got the hair stylist working, but I don't care for cross-campaign swapping. I have a feeling we'll be seeing some really awful combinations in the near future.

Winterclaw · Apr 24, 2009, 06:58 PM // 18:58

Just to add fuel to this discussion: Anet has sold 1 million copies in the past 14 months. So assuming they only get $15 per copy they've still made 15 million dollars in a little over a year. So are they really that strapped for cash that they need microtransactions at this point?

pumpkin pie · Apr 24, 2009, 07:01 PM // 19:01

lol winterclaw,

without the ability to sell PvP unlock, skill and item packs in gw2 i suppose they want to pre-learn their customers to the micro-transaction tradition so that when they go full blown no one will notice :P~

Hyper Cutter · Apr 25, 2009, 12:36 AM // 00:36

The makeover one is reasonable, but the name change price is a little ridiculous imo...

Bryant Again · Apr 25, 2009, 02:47 AM // 02:47

Quote:

Originally Posted by Winterclaw

Just to add fuel to this discussion: Anet has sold 1 million copies in the past 14 months. So assuming they only get $15 per copy they've still made 15 million dollars in a little over a year. So are they really that strapped for cash that they need microtransactions at this point?

Interesting...

eht123 · Apr 25, 2009, 03:00 AM // 03:00

I can't believe ppl are whining about $2 per makeover. You could earn that much in the real world in the time it takes to compose one whiny guru post...

Red Sonya · Apr 25, 2009, 03:19 AM // 03:19

Hey they've always been comparing GW to Magic the Gathering have you checked out how much you'll spend if you get into that game? lol New sets of cards everytime you turn around and of course you have to buy and buy and buy those computer generated foil packs to finally get the ONE card you wanted. lol Of course though there will be fools who will part with their money for things that should be free an included in some new chapter with a hellofalot more content than this silly update. And just look at the time it's going to take a CASUAL player to get that damn Backpack 20 slot lol about a YEAR hahaha just enough time before GW2 comes out eh? And that's just ONE character poor casual people who have 10 characters will take 10 years to get one for each lol.

1337 H4X · Apr 25, 2009, 03:35 AM // 03:35

30k - extreme makeover
10k - makeover

imo

Bryant Again · Apr 25, 2009, 03:37 AM // 03:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by eht123

I can't believe ppl are whining about $2 per makeover...

More the fact I have to spend $10 just to get 1 credit, but that's a personal poke.

Queenie · Apr 25, 2009, 05:21 AM // 05:21

Thanks for the makeover kits Anet! <3

Crystal Of Winter · Apr 25, 2009, 01:49 PM // 13:49

Ohhh my!!

How many characters did I delete and re-make because of their Look, Gender and Name!

It's nice they've added this but I'm sad it wasn't sooner

*looks at my ele and ranger grave yard*

Dante the Warlord · Apr 25, 2009, 02:00 PM // 14:00

LMAO I thought if you bought the service pack it would at least be unlimited credits! Seriously, whats the point...

Guess they really need the money in this tumbling economy!

Bowman Artemis · Apr 25, 2009, 02:05 PM // 14:05

The thing a lot of you are missing is that up until this point, it was impossible for them to do this.

They had to pull a lot of people from the GW2 team and temporarily expand the live team a hell of a lot to get this done. That cost them money and time. Thus, we pay real money for this feature that we've been requesting for a -very- long time, and indeed, offering money for.

The reason that this could be done is because they could afford to spend the money and development hours to upgrade the GW servers and game engine because of the income these changes would bring.

The reason the name change is so expensive, is to stop scammers constantly changing their names so as to escape any bad reputation they may have. I believe this was listed as a reason against the name change feature about a year and a half ago.

These changes to the game cost development time, employee hours and server maintenance time. It's not just a simple matter of designing an interface and whacking in some NPCs, the very server code and character database has to change. That's not a small task.

We've asked for it for a long time, and when we finally get it, what do we say? It's not good enough! We demand it for free! The argument for in-game money is stupid. In-game money doesn't make anet anything, you can't pay programmers in plat. It wasn't possible with the engine as it stood. Anet could have said "screw it, it'll cost too much to do, let them go without." Instead, they put time, effort and money into doing this for us, and even then the whiners come out of the woodwork and complain.

I guess it's true, game development is a business of damned if you do, damned if you don't, and 90% of the people on fansites are ungrateful idiots.

Apollo Smile · Apr 25, 2009, 02:25 PM // 14:25

I JUST HAD AN EXTREME MAKEOVA!!

Silent Coyote · Apr 25, 2009, 04:22 PM // 16:22

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bowman Artemis

We've asked for it for a long time, and when we finally get it, what do we say? It's not good enough! We demand it for free!

Whilst I appreciated the effort it took to change the database and game code etc (I'm currently having to make a change of a similar scale at work which involves major changes to the database, and business logic), I think the main issue here is the price is far to high. Fair enough those 6 million sales does not equal 6 million players but still, even with the most reserved estimates it's still a lot of money if even 1% of the players use this. Hopefully the prices will come down at some point in the future once they have covered the initial cost.

All this being said, I did buy one makeover purely because I had been asking for it for so long. I won't be purchasing any more though unless the price is dropped drastically.

Bowman Artemis · Apr 25, 2009, 09:32 PM // 21:32

Quote:

Originally Posted by Silent Coyote

Whilst I appreciated the effort it took to change the database and game code etc (I'm currently having to make a change of a similar scale at work which involves major changes to the database, and business logic), I think the main issue here is the price is far to high. Fair enough those 6 million sales does not equal 6 million players but still, even with the most reserved estimates it's still a lot of money if even 1% of the players use this. Hopefully the prices will come down at some point in the future once they have covered the initial cost.

All this being said, I did buy one makeover purely because I had been asking for it for so long. I won't be purchasing any more though unless the price is dropped drastically.

I'm going to hazard a guess that the main reason it's set at the price point it is (and the reason the basic makeovers are sold in packs of 5) is that covering the transaction fees for cheaper credit card transactions would get quite expensive.

Maybe if they implemented a system like the Microsoft Points for the Xbox Live Marketplace that wouldn't be so much of a problem.

MisterB · Apr 25, 2009, 09:38 PM // 21:38

One interesting(to me) consequence to this update is it allows sharing user-created character mods from TexMod now. Some character models include the face on armor textures, but with this update, you may change your character to the same as the creator of an armor mod, provided specific details are listed.

Release the clones.

Neo Nugget · Apr 25, 2009, 09:48 PM // 21:48

It costs less to change your gamertag on xbox live, 15 bucks is a bit over the top, imo.
The regular makeover packs are reasonable at 2 bucks a character. Extreme makeover price should be less since it is only adding a gender change, and it's only for 1 character.