Has GW officially moved away from the casual player market?

With the majority of the content in this update requiring real-world money transactions and the amount of grinding required to gain any benefit from the Zaishen Quests, has GW finally shrugged off the last remaining remnants of the casual gaming community?

I know many of you will say that this has been happening since Nightfall came out, but it feels like this is the final nail in the coffin for me. I was talking to my guild earlier, most of whom are casual players, and the majority of them said they were so tired of the new developments being based around hard-core gamers that they want out (around 20-30 people said this).

So, here's my question. Do you think this is the end of casual gaming in Guild Wars? And if not, do you think the new business model is pushing us closer to completely excluding casual gamers? Why or why not, etc.....

Thanks!

Casual gaming in GW died with the release of Factions.

But saying that they are based toward "hard-core" gamers is wrong. They're just copying World of Warcraft. Plus Character Recustomization is purely optional.

It's obvious they need some form of funding to help produce GW2 and it's not like selling Factions for $10 is going to help much.

Fans have been asking for what they added tonight for quite some time now so they get what they want and Arenanet/NCSoft gets paid for adding additional and optional content to the game. I don't see what the issue is here (besides any sort of added grind).

I think the issue for me is that there is all this new content that all of us want to be able to use, but many of us wont or can't. I'm not going to purchase anything extra, not out of protest or because I don't have the money, but because the cost out-weighs my desire to use the content.

I was just hoping that this update would be more open and something that all of us could enjoy, but tbh I pretty much got what I'd been expecting

Well, like most other things in life it really depends on your perspective. I thought this was a decent update for the fact that it brought people back to play together as well as new and pretty cool things judging from the "Nicholas the Traveler location" thread. Sure, things like the dailies could just be grind if you focus on the coin rewards but if it gets you to play and have fun with people who you haven't seen in weeks/months/etc or meet new people in general then the coin rewards would really be secondary to the fact that you're probably having fun again. Like I said, it really depends on your perspective in the end.

This is a very basic tenent of economics - opportunity cost.

The purchasable options here are in no way game breaking - no one has an advantage over another player with them. The only thing it enables is your vanity.

The game is still eminently accessable for the casual player - good armour, weapons, skills etc can all be obtained by playing the game normally.

Everything else is window dressing.

What you were expecting was something for free. It's not going to happen. They need revenue. Giving you any more content than the original product you paid for is nothing more than a waste of money & time for them. It's an impossibility.

QFT. There are still some casual options left, but the people who use them will eventually grow tide of the game and leave it.

Trade-offs.

Valve hasn't charged a single additional fee for TF2 (have they for any of their games?), but I'd hardly consider them handing the stuff out free is a "waste of time".

Granted ANet aren't in as big a boat as Valve has, but Valve offering so much content for so little (mostly $0) is part of the reason they're so high up there.

So no, you don't get "nothing" if you add free updates. It's just one of many things that can contribute to having more loyal and trusting customers. Likewise, providing more and more "pay to acquire" items can have the opposite effect. It's impossible to know at this point which side would be beneficial for ANet.

..

Hmmm! Seems alot of folks think everything should be free ( the game already is once the initial purchase is made )

Does anyone here work for free? I'm betting that the staff at GW needs to pay bills to and don't work for free either.

No money=no work,servers or game.

What worries me is will we be able to use this same argument to defend GW2s Item mall? Or will it actually provide benefits only for the extra paying players, like XP boosters, or Temporary Mounts not available by in game means....

no you dont NEED any of the updates acquired trought the store, stop complaining.

Regardless, it's the mere existence of so many micro-purchases that's upsetting numerous players.

And this is the problem.
Not the fact that people leave, but the fact that people DON'T leave.

You want a casual game?
Well then, don't expect to get 6k hours out of it.


GW still is a superb casual game. You just need to stop playing it after 30 hours.

Majority? Just how are you determining that the couple of items in the store represent the majority of the content?

* New summoning stones. (Gogo gadget merchant!)

* New mini pets. (Gogo mini Yakkington!)

* New gold inscribable and green weapons.

* New charmable pet, which may involve a new quest once you get the egg.

* New tonics, sweets, fireworks, and alcohols.

* New Zaishen quests.

* New equipment packs.

* New Zaishen Menagerie and information about pet damage and evolution (priceless! ).

* Ability to buy elite tomes from the Zaishen instead of hunting bosses and hoping for a lucky drop. (QQ, GW economy "destroyed" for the 1000th time. Film at 11.)

* Account-wide HoM view and ability to customize the displays to your taste instead of hoping for a good random re-arrangement.

All FREE. Plus the FREE storage pane. And yet you claim name changes, storage panes, and character makeovers in the NCSoft store are the "majority" of the content?

That's the part that irks me. If it was a matter of playing the game to get something vs paying to get it faster (a la Unlock packs), that would be groovy with me.

Out of curiosity. What exactly is being copied from WoW, that didn't exist before WoW? I suppose I didn't realise that WoW was the original MMO that invented everything.

Pretty sure the "Daily Heroics" daily quests were a WoW invention. Of course, they stole Achievements from us.

Yes, and no.
The updates are definitely optional as far as that is concerned. All the rest of those high end achievements aren't really necessary either. Your main goal in every game is to pass the storyline. That is it. It's not so hard, but it isn't too easy that you can skim through without a pitch. As for PvP, that depends on everyone around you. See, some players who are hardcore can change the game by mass. I mean if most players in this game are hardcore, the PvP matches will be hardcore. That is something we all must face.

Besides, the game is evolving, despite that other people may protest to this. The updates can change the game play a little, but not the primary goals. See the high end achievement quests as a way to kill time one you've done all of the important already.

These changes were made to appeal hardcore gamers, but in no way did they affect the original primaries of the game.

Specifically, I was referring to Paid Character Recustomization. My MMORPG is history is rusty, but I'm pretty sure that's unique.

Also dailies.