Curse

Chrisworld · Aug 30, 2010, 05:04 PM // 17:04

I bought all the panes and I even have a second account, as well as a lot of extra character slots on my main accounts. It's convenience. If it dosent appeal to you or fit your budget no need to say it fails.

Playing Is Srs Bsns · Aug 30, 2010, 05:20 PM // 17:20

anet is trying to make money

Cuilan · Aug 30, 2010, 05:44 PM // 17:44

I love micro-transactions. That's one really nice thing about Guild Wars. Hopefully Anet will add more to their store. It's so wonderful Anet has a way to make money to keep the game running and for whatever future plans to become better developers.

*lemming* · Aug 30, 2010, 06:21 PM // 18:21

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cuilan

I love micro-transactions. That's one really nice thing about Guild Wars. Hopefully Anet will add more to their store. It's so wonderful Anet has a way to make money to keep the game running and for whatever future plans to become better developers.

As opposed to... Blizzard being evil for offering microtransactions because they have an income stream already?

Sirius Bsns · Aug 30, 2010, 06:36 PM // 18:36

Quote:

Originally Posted by lemming

As opposed to... Blizzard being evil for offering microtransactions because they have an income stream already?

LOL this gave me a chuckle. Pay to... PAY to play!

Wracks · Aug 30, 2010, 06:37 PM // 18:37

What I really don't understand is how Anet don't consider paying 9.99$ for a 1 freaking storage pane a rip off/scam scheme

So for 4 panes, i.e, 9.99x4 = 39.96, I can practically buy a different game and play that game instead of GW

I've never seen a sky high rip off scheme in any other games in terms of convenience and micro transaction, even in terms of playing free games that don't require any purchase to play the game whatsoever

headlesshobbs · Aug 30, 2010, 07:20 PM // 19:20

We've been through this enough to conclude buying another account is a more worthy investment. I'm just wondering when are they ever going to consider an "all-for-one" $9.99 special?

shoesbags · Aug 30, 2010, 07:22 PM // 19:22

Quote:

Originally Posted by Iuris

Although I WOULD like to hear some numbers about just how well microtransactions have worked out...

It's a very successful system if priced fairly for those who do and do not partake in the system. Successful enough for ANet that GW2 will seem to follow the same philosophy. There's been a steady rise in F2P games over the last few years, and I wouldn't be surprised if it became the new standard MMO pricing model over the monthly fee within the next 5-10 years really. I've heard that only around 10-15% of customers use the micro-transaction system, but they spend enough money to keep the game profitable and online.

I love micro-transaction systems, personally. I really hope it takes off. I've bought all storage panes; I felt it was worth the money.

Blizzard must be making a lot of money on the items they release on their store for World of Warcraft. It seemed everywhere I looked someone either had one of the micro-transacted mounts or non-combat pets. Those were $25 and $15 respectively.

headlesshobbs · Aug 30, 2010, 07:42 PM // 19:42

People just have too much to spend don't they?

Cuilan · Aug 30, 2010, 07:53 PM // 19:53

Quote:

Originally Posted by lemming

As opposed to... Blizzard being evil for offering microtransactions because they have an income stream already?

Nope. I don't think I've ever said having multiple ways of producing profit was bad.

jazilla · Aug 30, 2010, 09:42 PM // 21:42

the other end of the spectrum for people that think storage panes are better because of convenience are missing the argument that i can use the extra character slot as PvP only and play it as a dedicated class in PvP and get new minis and PvP armor and weapons for it etc. Or I can roll a new PvE character and still use the leftover slots for storage. No one is wrong here, it just boils down to opinion.

gremlin · Aug 30, 2010, 09:56 PM // 21:56

Anets marketing strategy is probably similar to many other companies.
You work out what you think you can reasonably get away with over and above your production costs.

Price too high and no one buys, price too low and thousands buy maybe so many that it overloads the server, just guessing here I don't know how such things work.

Point is there are many players who have enough spare cash that shelling out $10 $20 or maybe $50 or more is an unimportant sum, I wouldn't do it but many will.

Rehnahvah Gahro · Aug 31, 2010, 12:51 AM // 00:51

*speaks in grumbly grandpa-voice*

Well kids, I remember a time where we had to cope with just one storage pane (20 slots) and no equipment packs.
On the other hand *painful coughing followed by painful sneezing* on the other hand there were no 217bazillion types of consumables, so I guess we didn't have much to store. Unless you were a crap-hoarder like 'ol billy was. He had every unique weapon in the game, but he overmuled. Last time we saw him was when he furiously searched his chars mumbling something like "where's my bow, where's my bow".

Long story short: Get your f***ing sh*t together and delete or sell your junk! It takes time, but you will feel refreshed and born anew

Anon-e-mouse · Aug 31, 2010, 01:32 AM // 01:32

Quote:

Originally Posted by Skyy High

Games that have smaller transactions generally require you to buy "e-gold" or whatever first, because charging $1 on a credit card is just not profitable. ANet decided against that system, for whatever reason, but it does mean that they aren't constantly nickel and dime-ing us on tiny cosmetic things.

Whilst that may be true, I wish people would stop calling $10 a micro payment, IT ISN'T.

Iuris · Aug 31, 2010, 10:15 AM // 10:15

It is, you're just complaining about the prices.

Grav · Aug 31, 2010, 09:22 PM // 21:22

Quote:

Originally Posted by Iuris

It is, you're just complaining about the prices.

Exactly.

I picked up a couple of panes the last time there was a deal doing for them, and had been hanging out for several months for another opportunity to pick up another two on the cheap. In the end I just gave up waiting and paid for them at the normal price.

Sure it works out cheaper per pane to add characters instead or whatever, but as somebody else already said, there is the price of convenience to consider. Constantly switching characters for the sake of saving a couple of dollars? Yeah, nah.

Besides, from Anet's perspective, I can imagine that if they had these deals often enough, more players would simply wait until the next one came around, as I tried to do; the flow-on effect being nobody ever buying them at the full price anymore at all. So for them, having deals as an exception rather than the rule is just good business sense.

OP just needs to harden up.

Yawgmoth · Aug 31, 2010, 11:08 PM // 23:08

The main problem with the storage panes is that they give such a miserable, almost negligible value for the money spent. The only 'micro' thing about those 'microtransactions' is the size of the storage received.

They clearly went wrong way with them, making them attractive only to clueless players who think they can "support Anet" by buying them - those players who would buy almost anything thrown at them.

If they instead worked just a little harder and instead of what we got provided something like one single Massive Storage Upgrade, including at least 4 panes and a big bunch of specialized storage solutions (for Minipets, Dyes, Tomes, Consumables, maybe something else too, as specialized storage can likely be at least 30x lightier on server resources than general slots) and sell it for a reasonable price of $20-25 or even $30 if it was really huge, I bet they would make more money, possibly much more. I would buy that for sure! (back when I was still actively playing the game, if value received per $ spent would be good, and last year, obviously not now, too late to invest in a dying game). I think most people with a brain want to feel a real difference when they pay money for something, and so many who now completely ignore the pitiful $10 panes would buy them instead of another discount account at a supermarket.

But Anet's a bi*ch, instead of making a good high value product - a storage upgrade really worth buying - they instead chose to continuously generate heavy pressure on players' inventories by making lots and lots of new items "worth keeping". Just look at how many things are being added every year, look at how many of the crap that fills our storage didn't even exist before the 4th Anniversary update. Look at lots of new minipets that they keep adding and adding, or for example at the WiK stuff - those War Supplies, Confessor's Orders, Royal Gifts, Medals of Honor can eat a lot of slots, and if you want to play the WiK content you should always have slots for them available, and god forbid if you try to open some of those Gifts...

*Darcy* · Sep 01, 2010, 01:55 AM // 01:55

Yup, there it is - mean, nasty ArenaNet. After all, they only started putting things in the store after years of begging and screaming from players. WE WANT STORAGE! WE WANT TO CHANGE THE HAIR! WE WANT TO CHANGE THE NAME! WE WANT COSTUMES!

It was constantly clogging up the forums and drove the rest of us crazy. They wanted everything they could get in other online games. So ArenaNet started giving us additional stuff little by little. I think the Material Storage pane was first (a freebie). But that just increased the screaming. Then they gave us more stuff and waited to see how it was accepted. It was loved, proven by the number of people who bought as much as they could.

So now that we have everything which the players were demanding, here come the threads full of resentment for getting it. No one is ever happy.

Riot Narita · Sep 01, 2010, 07:50 AM // 07:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by Yawgmoth

The main problem with the storage panes is that they give such a miserable, almost negligible value for the money spent. The only 'micro' thing about those 'microtransactions' is the size of the storage received.

They clearly went wrong way with them, making them attractive only to clueless players who think they can "support Anet" by buying them - those players who would buy almost anything thrown at them.

Your real gripe is the price, and you could have just said that much...

...without the "clearly" bit where you try to make your opinion appear "right" without giving any justification... and without trying to make out that the only people who bought them were morons who thought they were supporting A-net - which simply isn't true. eg. I bought them because I wanted that extra convenience, and I was prepared to pay for that luxury.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Yawgmoth

If they instead worked just a little harder and instead

Yeah, they could have. But they didn't - deliberately, I'd say. Because even if you bought all the storage panes, they still want pack-rats to buy character slots. They have some business sense.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Darcy

Yup, there it is - mean, nasty ArenaNet. After all, they only started putting things in the store after years of begging and screaming from players. WE WANT STORAGE! WE WANT TO CHANGE THE HAIR! WE WANT TO CHANGE THE NAME! WE WANT COSTUMES!

It was constantly clogging up the forums and drove the rest of us crazy. They wanted everything they could get in other online games. So ArenaNet started giving us additional stuff little by little. I think the Material Storage pane was first (a freebie). But that just increased the screaming. Then they gave us more stuff and waited to see how it was accepted. It was loved, proven by the number of people who bought as much as they could.

So now that we have everything which the players were demanding, here come the threads full of resentment for getting it. No one is ever happy.

So true.

Aleta · Sep 01, 2010, 11:51 AM // 11:51

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chrisworld

I bought all the panes and I even have a second account, as well as a lot of extra character slots on my main accounts. It's convenience. If it dosent appeal to you or fit your budget no need to say it fails.

Exactly.

I have 3 accounts and I've purchased extra panes for all of them and now I need more. I save a lot of stuff lol

It's a good idea and very convenient.