Skill Unlocks in the Guild Wars Store!

I logged on to the official GW website today as I do many days and noticed in the update notes that some changes were being made to the online store. Not thinking much of it, I logged on to the store and was greeted by a huge surprise.

You can now purchase skill unlocks! They cost $9.99 per profession or $39.99 for all 6. This is for prophecies classes and skills only. I had no idea that Anet was planning this. Furthermore, I was suprised to not see a thread about it in here. Am I really the first to notice this?

Discuss!

Personally, it is what people have been craving for a long time and A.Net can supply it, so why the hell not make some money off of it?

OMG THIS IS SO DUM PPL WERKED HARD 4 DERE UNLOKZ AND NOW ARENANET GO & DO DIS DIS IZ SO LAME & STUPD & DUM & GAY I QUTI GW 4EVA

gg though, seriously

$39.99? Wow.

Meh, I'd rather just manually unlock skills. Can't help, but love that little window popping up after capturing a skill or being rewarded them in Tyria.

I think it's a terrible idea. Now all the people who unlocked these skills the hard way are just out of luck. Either work to get the skills unlocked properly, or break out the credit card. Not fair, not right. Now PvP matches will be determined by who's got enough cash to buy their skills, rather than who's more skilled.

You've got to be joking.

It takes, what, 10 minutes of RA to get 1000 Balthazar faction? So spend an hour in RA and play any build you want. Not hard.

ArenaNet did this to reduce the value of accounts on eBay.

my nomination for most ignorant post of the year.

What a rip off.
I'd maybe pay a fiver to unlock ALL skills, not just the Prophecies skills, but this reeks of bean-counters gone mad.

For this price, I'd expect full unlocks and availability for all characters across all campaigns, all PvE & PvP, and even for characters created after paying the unlock price in new campaigns.

This is the price of a full game.

The downward spiral is in effect...

Another way to take cash from lazy players.... ;p

Damn, now all those Signets of Capture that I've been investing in are useless!

Do you have to own prophecies to unlock these?

i corrected your argument.

As opposed to PvP matches being determined by who's grinded PvE the most for gold and skill points? This arguement has never been true since day one.

Personally I think this move was done mainly because of the ebayers buying UAX accounts off the bat for hideous amounts of money. I know a select few who have done so on this forum with good reason but wont mention any names due to the people in charge. Now they can buy a UAX account for US$60 and it's completely legit.

No, it only unlocks them for PvP. You still have to cap them for your PvE characters and buy them for your PvE.

Hi there, let me break it down for you.

So by your logic, Anet should never improve the game at all. I mean, if we have had to deal with all the bugs and issues, why shouldn't everyone else?

I hope you also realise that this is unlocking skills for PvP, not PvE. PvE characters will always have to unlock the skills themselves. As such this update only effects PvP players, most of whom are crying out for UAX. The ability to buy skills in the online store is an idea that has come up repeatedly before and has been praised by the competitive community every time.

What does having unlocked the skills "properly" prove? And seriously, stop being so selfish. Just because you have had to do it doesn't mean it shouldn't be made easier for newer players. Imagine after Nightfall, and the sheer overwhelming amount of skills that new players will have to unlock in order to be competitive. I have UAXed one account, and mostly UAXed a second "the hard way", do you see me complaining? No, because I am looking at the big picture, and the future of the competitive PvP community.

Any PvP match that is ever decided by unlocks is at such a ridiculously low level it makes no difference anyway. By your logic you could equally say that currently PvP matches are decided by time spent playing and not actualy player skill. And lets remember folks, skill over time spent.

Good job Anet, you never fail to pull something awesome out of the bag.

We may not be paying a monthly fee, but it sure seems like they are selling out aspects of the game to make an extra buck. They ll be selling FOW armor next, that get the ecto - shard farming down. I think Anet is starting to go too far.

WTF!?

Well, there goes the game.

Thank you, ANet.

Sorry, but for those just getting into this game and want to be competetive in PvP, it was pretty much a must-have feature. I've already beat Proph 2 times over anyway, unlocking more skills over and over would just be grinding and I might as well be working a job. A minimum wage job at 8 hours (a workday) would be sufficient at unlocking all the skills I need for PvP characters. My job isn't minimum wage, so obviously that means I'm working less hours to become well endowed in terms of choices for PvP. I'd hate to literally grind and replay quests for, what, 200+ more hours to catch up with the PvP community that got the game a year before I did?

Thank you, ANet. Thank you thank you thank you.

I just feel like their selling a solution to a problem they promised would never exist, aka grinding to be competitive. Oh well, its the lesser of two evils, having UAS for 40 bucks or nothing, and we all know faster unlocks would never happen :\.