Curse

Sword Hammer Axe · Nov 25, 2009, 10:34 PM // 22:34

Quote:

Originally Posted by DreamWind

Those options are good to you in a PvP game? I don't personally know any competitive player of any game who would follow what you propose. Unless of course you mean leave the game or don't play PvP, which is what the majority of PvP players have already chosen to do.

Let's sum up what I said:

The options you have are:
1) Learn to play well with what you have.
2) Buy more material to add on to your current materials.
3) Stop playing.

... and these don't seem like good options to you? It covers pretty much every option there is except these:

4) Play on and don't give a shit about whether you are on others level or not.
5) Play badly.

If you can mention a single option that I can't say originates from these or these originates from then be my guest. So far "leave the game or don't play PvP" originates from option 3. Now if you can give me any valid reason as to why not follow option 1 then, again, be my guest.

Short · Nov 25, 2009, 10:57 PM // 22:57

Quote:

Originally Posted by beaverlegions

Good job, if you really beleive that GW could have made it like it was at release if it was pay to play you are truly retarded.
Nothing wrong with being retarded, jsut dont make a thread every time you think you have a great idea

Oh brilliant argument. Consistently insulting someone and not even with different insults. Such creativity. If you're gonna answer at least give proper reasoning.

OT: I am kinda on the fence with this. On one hand, I wouldn't have started playing this game if it was P2P. Simple as. Which is probably good. But oh well. On the other hand, if it was P2P, despite what beaverlegions said, this game would be where it is now and possibly further. Yes the appeal of this game was the free st00f to begin with, but I believe that this game's only shortcomings are the very things that it being P2P could solve, as the OP said. So I want it to have the benefits of P2P, but not BE P2P. :3

DreamWind · Nov 25, 2009, 10:58 PM // 22:58

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sword Hammer Axe

Let's sum up what I said:

The options you have are:
1) Learn to play well with what you have.
2) Buy more material to add on to your current materials.
3) Stop playing.

... and these don't seem like good options to you?

So far "leave the game or don't play PvP" originates from option 3. Now if you can give me any valid reason as to why not follow option 1 then, again, be my guest.

Option 1 is the possibly the worst option you can have in a competitive game. The entire idea of competitive games is for players on equal ground determining who is best. What you are suggesting is like us playing Starcraft and I can't use tanks because I didn't pay for the upgrade. I'm not going to "manage to overcome", I'm going to either buy the expansion or not play at all. Anet knows this.

Option 2 is exactly what Anet wants us to do. The expansions will naturallly have a progressive power creep so many players will feel they need to purchase to continue (this works in PvE as well better farming tools etc). This isn't even getting into the fact that they sell skill packs.

Option 3 is what the majority of PvP players have done.

HawkofStorms · Nov 26, 2009, 01:01 AM // 01:01

Quote:

Originally Posted by Short

Oh brilliant argument. Consistently insulting someone and not even with different insults. Such creativity. If you're gonna answer at least give proper reasoning.

It doesn't have the engine to support common MMO features/true 3d movement.

No auction house.

No end game content/raids (the only PvE thing to do once you beat Prophecies was NM FoW/UW).

Crap economy.

Lack of veristle armor/skins.

Instanced structure.

This game simply could not have survived if it had been pay to play.

X Black Chaos X · Nov 26, 2009, 01:30 AM // 01:30

Actually despite what most have posted here i agree to some extent of what the OP said. First off nothing is free. Even if the MMO people say it is. It isnt. P2P games have mroe funding and support to release content quicker and improve many aspects of the game. However just because you have mroe money doesnt mean you have a better game. Alot of people like the PvP design of GW as do I. I havent seen any other MMO w/ a similar design. Although i'm sure the skill updates, maintenece and development of new content has to be difficult to do given the current capicity of GW. I and others expect GW2 to have alot of features where u can buy certain items or advantages in game but still require no subscription to play. That makes sense to me. Even Anet has realized this, that's why they came up with the storage panes and the makeovers and all the other little small things to generate more income. While i dont want GW to be a P2P I can certainly understand if it goes that way. (WoW is like 13USD every 6 months, so thats 26 dollars every year 26*4 is about 104 dollars. If you cant afford 26 dollars a year you need to go get a job and trade in your comp.)

EDIT: if GW was P2P alot more content and development would have been realeased. I can garuantee it.

Bluefeather · Nov 26, 2009, 02:06 AM // 02:06

Quote:

Originally Posted by X Black Chaos X

Actually despite what most have posted here i agree to some extent of what the OP said. First off nothing is free. Even if the MMO people say it is. It isnt. P2P games have mroe funding and support to release content quicker and improve many aspects of the game. However just because you have mroe money doesnt mean you have a better game. Alot of people like the PvP design of GW as do I. I havent seen any other MMO w/ a similar design. Although i'm sure the skill updates, maintenece and development of new content has to be difficult to do given the current capicity of GW. I and others expect GW2 to have alot of features where u can buy certain items or advantages in game but still require no subscription to play. That makes sense to me. Even Anet has realized this, that's why they came up with the storage panes and the makeovers and all the other little small things to generate more income. While i dont want GW to be a P2P I can certainly understand if it goes that way. (WoW is like 13USD every 6 months, so thats 26 dollars every year 26*4 is about 104 dollars. If you cant afford 26 dollars a year you need to go get a job and trade in your comp.)

EDIT: if GW was P2P alot more content and development would have been realeased. I can garuantee it.

Its US$12.99 per month for 6 months. 12.99 x 6 = 77.97. You save US$12 for 6 months if you pay using 6-months plan.

If its $13 for 6 months (2.17 per month), ill transfer to WoW now.

HawkofStorms · Nov 26, 2009, 02:53 AM // 02:53

Supply and demand curves people. You charge more money, fewer people buy the product. This is an elastic, luxury good, with lots of substitutes.

The money A.net would make from charging a monthly fee would not have recooped what it lost from fewer overall sales.

You can armchair quarterback it all you want. But I'm pretty sure A.net has actual accountants to think of this stuff for them and know what they are doing more then we do.

Chasing Squirrels · Nov 26, 2009, 03:36 AM // 03:36

Quote:

Originally Posted by QueenofDeath

Please YES! YES! YES! subscription fees Anet/NCsoft just think of how much more money you will make and get rid of all the frustrating little kiddies of 12 and under and probably 13 to 15 as well since mommy and daddy aren't going to support their $20-$25 a month habit.

)

It would be a ghost town lol. Also kids are not always immature some are mature and there are adults that are immature.

Quote:

Originally Posted by HawkofStorms

It doesn't have the engine to support common MMO features/true 3d movement.

No auction house.

No end game content/raids (the only PvE thing to do once you beat Prophecies was NM FoW/UW).

Crap economy.

Lack of veristle armor/skins.

Instanced structure.

This game simply could not have survived if it had been pay to play.

Ya i hate how guild wars doesn't have an auction house/not much freedom/everything is instanced so its like impossible to meet people outside of towns other than having a guild.

Also when i got guild wars when it first came out i beat it in like 2 weeks playing casually. there wasn't even a lot to do back then for me after i beat all the pve missions

So i just pvp at tombs and eventually moved onto wow cause i got so bored.

WoW was good for me because it had so many things to do and it was impossible to reach some of the goals for me. WoW also had it so if you spent more time on the game you would get better gear unless you were in town picking your nose and afking lol. most people who played WoW and other mmorpg if you ask me love spending countless hours grinding so that they can have bigger e-peen than others.

trialist · Nov 26, 2009, 04:03 AM // 04:03

Quote:

Originally Posted by DreamWind

In the eyes of many the game is already dead. I'm not saying monthly fee would solve things. I'm simply saying the current model has produced what we currently have.

Years to die vs months to die. I think that speaks for itself.

Quote:

Originally Posted by DreamWind

This is a fallacy that I keep seeing in this thread. The reality is we don't know what would have happened if Guild Wars had monthly fees. The reason being is because it probably would have been a completely different game with a completely different playerbase. All we DO know is how the game has been run now under the current model.

Its not a fallacy. Yes, it would have been a completely different game with a completely different playerbase; the playerbase of a p2p game. Which means going directly head to head with WOW from the get go in 2005. Can anyone say suicide?

Don't you remember the amount of pve content prophecies had at release? No Sorrows Furnace and what pve content was there can be beat in a week, a month at most even if you tried to slow things down by smelling every rose on the ground.

With that pathetic amount of pve content, you want them to go p2p? So no it isn't unreasonable to conclude Anet would have gained a permanent membership to the MMO graveyards had it been p2p from the start.

Clone · Nov 26, 2009, 04:04 AM // 04:04

I never would have bought it if it way pay to play, and I wouldn't pay a fee for it in its current state.

Quote:

Originally Posted by maxxfury

Im free! im not grind! come this way if you want to play with skill over equipment! [/B]Man that WAS the hook!

But yes Gw lost its way, from what originally was, could have been, should still be!

/sadtimes

Been what it was wouldnt have lasted if it was p2p

my 2p :P

i REALLY loved what GW used to be!...

I think that sums it up for me too. I loved what it was. It started going downhill when they tried to emulate more grindey pay to play MMOs.

DreamWind · Nov 26, 2009, 06:47 AM // 06:47

Quote:

Originally Posted by trialist

Years to die vs months to die. I think that speaks for itself.

It speaks for itself if you can prove that it would have died in months (which you can't).

Quote:

Originally Posted by trialist

With that pathetic amount of pve content, you want them to go p2p? So no it isn't unreasonable to conclude Anet would have gained a permanent membership to the MMO graveyards had it been p2p from the start.

You are falling into the trap of assuming that all of this would have been the same as well.

For reference though, I am not advocating monthly fees.

shoyon456 · Nov 26, 2009, 07:05 AM // 07:05

GW should have been pay to play in the sense that maybe we'd have little more than skill balances every THREE MONTHS (they couldn't do it this month) and regular content updates after they moved onto GW2. Most dissatisfaction stems from this and from the extra cash they could afford a much bigger team supporting GW now than 3-4 people. Thats pathetic for a "AAA MMO Producer" like Anet.

trialist · Nov 26, 2009, 07:14 AM // 07:14

Quote:

Originally Posted by DreamWind

It speaks for itself if you can prove that it would have died in months (which you can't).

You are falling into the trap of assuming that all of this would have been the same as well.

For reference though, I am not advocating monthly fees.

Neither can you prove it would have thrived. We are arguing in the land of make believe, assumptions and suppositions here, which is pretty pointless. The game is what it is, they are using the same model for GW2. Unless you are a majority shareholder of ncsoft with the clout to change Anet's decided model for GW2 and/or the way GW is currently being handled, we are just gonna have to suck it and accept things being what they are, flaws and all. Arguing this on a forum isn't going to change anything.

GWfan#1 · Nov 26, 2009, 07:30 AM // 07:30

[2 months after Prophecies hit the shelves] My friends and I started playing when we were 14-15 years old and I know for a fact if GW was p2p then none of us would have even bothered with the game. There were 5 of us in total, and all of us went on to buy all of the following campaigns. I speak for a small percentage of players; however, that is 5 copies of GW that would have never been bought and an amazing MMORPG that I would have missed out on.

Exile · Nov 26, 2009, 08:34 AM // 08:34

Quote:

Originally Posted by tasha_darke

It is blatantly open to abuse. Its easy to envisage a scenario where someone through some (not so)complex scheme is able to make ANet staff duplicate items for personal gain. A group gets a load of valuable stuff on an account, passes everything to another account (aka fakes a hack), appeals to staff, gets the stuff back. The rest of the items have been passed around and broken up between different people and players... I know there's holes in this example, but its something that is a possibility. Anet would have to set up a raft of rules as to what could be restored and then you're not necessarily much better off than you are now.

Sure it may be easy to envision your scenario but I highly doubt it would be easy enough to pull off. Especially when they say they can track stuff being moved from your account, and yet it only gets hard for them when 100s of people are involved.

I'd still rather have the ability in place to have your items restored, especially when I get an email from Anet saying that my account had been hacked last month. No, GW isn't my main game anymore.

As for pay to play, I doubt I'd have picked this game up at the time had it been that way. Soon after I did, most of my guild moved off to WoW.

Were it released today as pay to play, I don't know if I'd pick it up either, as it just doesn't seem to hold my interest like it did at first.

Exile · Nov 26, 2009, 09:33 AM // 09:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Drunkard

Apple in no way represents what other companies do. Look at Sony and the crap that they've pulled with their products. For one, sony limited the use a DVD could be acessed to in order to prevent duping. They gave a [email protected] about customers in order to make an extra dime off of their products. If you want another example, EA is another "bad" company. If you do a little bit of searching, you'll find out they took the design of Battlefield from a team of devs and fired them after the realease of the game. Look at how poorly handled the game is. In many cases management wants money, not fans. As long as they give people broken builds and skills, people will want to play the game to get everything and the company gets money. Not all companies do this, (like Apple which you mentioned) but the world doesn't revolve around smiles and hugs and not everyone is a humanitarian.

Now before you try and twist my comment to agree with the p2p method, just becauce a company is getting a lot of money doesn't mean that they're going to listen to their playerbase. WAR didn't until people started quitting en masse because of their updates and by the time they started to listen it was too late in trying to regain the playerbase. Monthly payments give a lot of influence to the players, but that DOESN'T mean the company is going to listen.

Exactly, for proof of that just look at the way SOE handled SWG.

JR · Nov 26, 2009, 11:09 AM // 11:09

Quote:

Originally Posted by DreamWind

This is a fallacy that I keep seeing in this thread. The reality is we don't know what would have happened if Guild Wars had monthly fees. The reason being is because it probably would have been a completely different game with a completely different playerbase. All we DO know is how the game has been run now under the current model.

Sure, it's speculation. This whole thread is speculation. However, I can offer you solid reasoning behind the speculation.

For a start, as you say, if we are talking about a subscription Guild Wars then we are talking about a game that is no longer Guild Wars. This community is not here, we may well be playing something else.

Issue numero uno, ArenaNet would have had to rely hugely on NCSoft for funding. They would have been competing head-to-head with Blizzard in marketing costs and amount of content produced. To be able to release in a similar time frame to WoW they would have had to take on many more staff very quickly, which can lead to problems of it's own.

With NCSoft having much more of an investment in Guild Wars, they would certainly have wanted to have much more of a say in the design of the game. Imagine NCSoft Korea getting their hands on the 'skill over time' kernel of Guild Wars. It would have been butchered. You would have ended up with some abomination that was a cross between Lineage, EQ and whatever future ideas they might have had for Aion at that point.

Again, a subscription Guild Wars would not be the game we know and love. You can say "it could have been more succesful" until you are blue in the face, but it is not going to change the fact that you probably wouldn't be here playing it. The very fact that you are here implies that it couldn't have possibly been anything else. It's akin to saying "Damn, my life would be so much better if my Mom had married a rich guy instead" - Yeah of course, except for the fact that you wouldn't exist, or at least would lose the current context for the statement entirely entirely, rendering it meaningless.

So now we get on to the only part of the argument that actually merits any debate: Could an MMO with the core principles of Guild Wars have competed with World of Warcraft?

I'll use a quote from an article I read fairly recently to illustrate:

"The problem is that WoW’s financial success is not tied directly to it’s design, but to the fact that it launched in 2004, at a time when what it offered was exactly what people wanted, SOE helped by pushing their established user base from EQ2 to WoW thanks to a disaster at launch, and the snowball rolled downhill after that." - Syncaine

WoW had a big head-start at launch thanks to SOE, and for any MMO that is a huge benefit. These weren't any average player either, many of them had MMO experience, and perhaps had already been through a beta/launch phase already. They knew what they were in for, and would ride it out. Many of them fell in love with WoW and Blizzard from day one, simply for not screwing up the same way SOE did. You get enough people like that pushing through the bugs and lack of polish, enjoying the game and being vocal about it, they will carry newer players with them. They are a gauranteed baseline CCU that greases the axles. They are your core forum fanbase, giving your community a more positive tone. When everyone in global chat is crying about the game, they can be the ones saying "Eh, EQ was much worse at launch, this is fine."

Guild Wars had nothing like that, and couldn't have had it without abonding it's core principles. A large portion of the people there at launch had never played an MMO before. It's not just that people weighed Guild Wars up against WoW and chose the one without a subscription for better value, there were many that were simply unfamiliar and uncomfortable with paying a subscription regardless - because the people who were had already been pulled into WoW by their friends.

For every MMO release in recent years, WoW has been the benchmark, and none have come close to meeting it. People try a new MMO and don't like it? That's fine, there's always WoW. WoW is the dependable, reliable, vanilla, steretypical DIKU MMO. People who played EQ knew exactly what they were getting with WoW, where Guild Wars was revolutionary, breaking away drastically from the DIKU mould. Consider that players face a huge future investment (assuming for a minute here that we are imagining a subscription Guild Wars vs subscription WoW) in the game they choose, and to nobodies surprise they are going to go with the devil they know.

Sword Hammer Axe · Nov 26, 2009, 01:48 PM // 13:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by DreamWind

Option 1 is the possibly the worst option you can have in a competitive game. The entire idea of competitive games is for players on equal ground determining who is best. What you are suggesting is like us playing Starcraft and I can't use tanks because I didn't pay for the upgrade. I'm not going to "manage to overcome", I'm going to either buy the expansion or not play at all. Anet knows this.

Option 2 is exactly what Anet wants us to do. The expansions will naturallly have a progressive power creep so many players will feel they need to purchase to continue (this works in PvE as well better farming tools etc). This isn't even getting into the fact that they sell skill packs.

Option 3 is what the majority of PvP players have done.

Who said anything about manage to overcome? Listen dude, there's been builds since way before one of the other games have come out. You can't tell me that you need to have more than 1 game to effectively put the 8 skills into the bar, because "the other builds are better". I have seen a Wammo (that's right, wammo!) with healing hands and mending (not even kidding) kill a Magebane Shot ranger from where he ran over to kill a Primal Rage warrior in RA. (He was on my team). You can't tell me that was because of luck because the warrior he pretty much 1v1'd with and only the ranger he received my cripshot to help him with. What do I mean to say with this? That it was not his build, that lameass heal hands wammo build, that caused the victory. It was:
A) The opponents sucked at their wiki builds or
B) He was good at using his own skills.
C) All of the above.
If you can't cope with what you have then it's not because A-net is trying to trick you. It's because, dare I say it, you are a lousy and/or lazy player.
And that's just PvP. I have vanquished Lornar's Pass with only 3 deaths total (divided among members) on my H/H team from Beacons and that was without PvE skills nor any of the meta builds. I just put up a valid strategy for it and as a result I vq'd that area np.

Option 2: Ooooh yes, because it is all a great conspiracy from anets side. Seriously they are a company, not santa claus, so of course they aim to make money, and their strategy for that is great. Again: No ones forcing you to buy the new game. People ask for another game, they make another game, they don't give it away for free because making a new game is not cheap and they need to make a living.
And I think the fact about skill packs speak pretty much against your theories since those packs were introduced so that people, who are as bad/lazy players as you claim to be yourself, could get the skills they want for PvP without having to pay a huge amount of money for all the campaigns.

Option 3: There you go. If ya don't want to pay more money, don't do it. If ya don't think you can compete with the others in PvP, don't do it. If you blame it on the fact that you have a handicap compared to the others, don't play PvP. The last one just goes to show that you made the choice to (meaning optional, no force) rather stop playing that part of the game than pay. You are still free to come back any time you like, you can still play PvE, you can still play PvP should you change your mind, and no one asks you for a dime. Get it? The only one who "feels compelled to pay" IS YOU!

Fril Estelin · Nov 26, 2009, 03:34 PM // 15:34

Quote:

Originally Posted by JR

Lots of intelligent comments

Although I'm completely with you on that JR, we have to admit that there are some reasons (I haven't seen them quoted here so far; hence my previous statements that this discussion was more driven by "wants" then by "needs") that may have made this idea work (note the past sentence, it wouldn't it possible now).

With a low subscription fee (which may have been difficult to do in 2003-04 due to the fact that transaction models with low amounts weren't as easy to operate as today), a clearer design focus (e.g., a game for the fun, story-loving and competitive players where PvE and PvP are perfectly balanced etc.) and a contagious/viral spread of the GW's goodness via an enthusiastic and positively built community, GW could have been P2P. But it'd been very difficult to maintain, due to the growing pressure from WoW and other MMOs.

This is clearly not a clear-cut problem. The PvP community could have continued to grow, with the appropriate support (although as Bryant said, we can't be sure), and the PvE community would have grown like it has, happy to get new content all the time. Yet I believe Anet would have still stopped GW1 to work on GW2, but obviously without leaving a small team to work on GW1. In the long term, I'm unconvinced that such a strategy would have paid for 2 main reasons: 1) this is not "Anet's philosophy, as a company (employees have fun as they hope they'll deliver it to their customers) and as a game-developmer (their idea of what a fun game is, providing opportunities to many players from varied background); 2) the MMO market would have driven them out of business, due to the fact that they'd have to justify the worth of their fee to more and more demanding players and the growth of this sector has been quite amazing in the last 5 years.

Anyway, in 2009, or even in 2005, this idea would have been way too risky for Anet, even backed by NCsoft big money, and more importantly it could have forced them to make a game different from the one they wanted to make. The 3 Anet founders clearly wanted to do more than WoW because they left Blizzard, and not just "a better WoW".

A product doesn't become better only because the customers want it to be a certain way, it has to be improved by the designer in accordance to what s/he thinks and can do, an aspect that the customer is not aware of. And the customer is not always right

.

QoH · Nov 26, 2009, 05:09 PM // 17:09

Quote:

Originally Posted by HawkofStorms

Supply and demand curves people. You charge more money, fewer people buy the product. This is an elastic, luxury good, with lots of substitutes.

The money A.net would make from charging a monthly fee would not have recooped what it lost from fewer overall sales.

You can armchair quarterback it all you want. But I'm pretty sure A.net has actual accountants to think of this stuff for them and know what they are doing more then we do.

I am glad that i found this, cannot draft it any better.