Guild Wars completely free?

Many NCsoft titles have gone free to play within the past few months. While Anet is an american game developer they are still owned by ncsoft and I doubt Guild Wars brings in much revenue anymore. Once GW2 is released it will take many away from the first game. So I ask the GW community... is it in the realm of possibilities?

GW1 has always been free to play.

I mean completely free. You dont have to buy it at all.

I doubt it. I haven't played any of the other NC Soft titles, but I know that City of Heroes' version of "free" works more like a demo, with a heavy incentive to either upgrade to a pay subscription or drop some significant money in the cash shop. Since Guild Wars wasn't designed to thrive on DLC, I think they would only stand to lose money by giving the software away for free. Unless they put more substantial stuff in the cash shop that these free players felt they needed. But that might piss off a lot of veterans who are used to the game not being gimped and the store having mostly vanity items.

I'm sure Anet still values Guild Wars as much as players who buy the game. Guild Wars has a pretty long tail.

aion being free to play was quite a funny read - it reads gd till you see a few clauses.
Trade i believe is restricted on the free version , it reads along the lines of - free gives you jack where paid/subscription ( w/e ) means you get things to boost you within the game as well as full trade.
Free 2 play games always support those who pay , their online shops are their money way of earning and if you cant afford to pay then your stuck .
Gw doesnt support giving some players the upper hand - online shop is mainly cosmetic stuff and skills which dont really give you the upper hand.But we are free to choose what we buy without affecting the game and if we dont buy anything we are not penalised by restrictions.

It may be a interesting idea to make it completely free to play in order to promote GW 2 something along the lines "come and play GW 1 to get titles in HOM and get nice rewards in GW 2" they could also add minipets in the store to get some money and help new players or veteran players get some minis they don't have.

Well I dont think it will go along the lines of Aion as...

Aion was not made by ARENANET also the game is not under the Ncsoft umberella as its now managed by Gameforge

And if you had an Aion Account under NcSoft you opt out of Ncsoft and your account goes to Gameforge were you will have the 8 slots and your toons you have made.

If you join Aion not with the game purchase you only get 4 slots and are classed as a lower level membership

Hope this clarifies it some.

For some reasons it makes sense to make GW1 free for all at this stage:

-Very few game purchases and revenue is likely to be minute after 7 years
-Broader access to the game's online store
-GW2 promotion opportunities to a larger audience.

But it presents some problems:

-Server costs incurred by larger player base (character slots, storage, bandwidth)
-Free unlimited storage accounts for all?
-Dream come true for botters
-Large middle finger to those who paid a lot for the games
-Implementation would require a lot of time and coding

There are probably dozens of other reasons for both the 'for' and 'against' categories. I don't see free-for-all happening though.

Could always make PvP free to play and have PvE cost money. PvP is where people are needed the most.

This is smart thinking. Providing, say, two character slots and one storage pane would be a good compromise for free PvP accounts.

Think what it would do for zkey prices too.

I wouldn't even give pvp accounts access to zkeys because of botting and zkeys tie in with PvE.

Guild wars 2 and Guild Wars original will be free to play always -
Guild wars original will NOT die but quite the opposite when GW2 is released. it will BOOM when the players who purchase gw2 want some of the cosmetic HoM stuff from GW original and some others want to experience the Lore behind gw2 so then theyll revert to the original to get say: the racoon mini - and then play both. "Life Feeds On Life"

If Guild Wars was about to be free to play, the collector's edition of GW2 would have a usb stick with it.

After the launch of GW2 they could consider it I guess but expect only to get 1 char and an enhanced cash shop. Btw are the HoM items that good to go all these extra miles? Personally I am at 15/50 now (I quit playing end 2006) and just finished Nightfall. I rather play the rest and have some fun again rather then concentrating on the HoM.

Why do you say that?

It's Gameforge in EU
I have two accounts in Aion one purchased in the very beginning and a free one. On the free one I have 8 slots and sell as much as I want. My EU friends moved over to the NA servers that are NCSoft

This remains to be seen. HoM is just for cosmetic stuff, it offers no real advantage so we will have to wait and see where it goes.

GW is pretty self sufficient at this point, Besides when GW2 releases and people see the HoM rewars and learn the only way to get them is earn them in GW it's going to generate some sells, not massive new game sells but MMO gamers like to collect things and many that didn't play the original game will buy it specifically to earn those items. Also keep in mind cash shop items sell very well for this game, those cost the developers very little to make and is almost entirely profit and probably generates more than enough revenue to keep the game running for some time.

Aion is run by Gameforge in Europe. Aion is still run by NCsoft in the U.S. and Korea.