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?
Skill Unlocks in the Guild Wars Store!
Alfrond
Sentao Nugra
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PvP Unlock Packs Now Available 31 August 2006 Guild Wars players now have the opportunity to purchase PVP Unlock Packs for all Prophecies skills! For $9.99 USD (€8.99, £5.99), you can unlock all of the 70+ Prophecies skills for a single profession. For $39.99 USD (€35.99, £23.99) you can unlock all 450+ Prophecies skills for the 6 professions. Once unlocked, skills can be used by any of your PvP characters. Head to the Guild Wars Official Store to take advantage of this much-requested opportunity . |
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?
Sekkira
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
gg though, seriously
Zinger314
$39.99? Wow.
Mtank325
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.
sykoone
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.
Zinger314
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Originally Posted by sykoone
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.
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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.
hyper
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Originally Posted by sykoone
Now PvP matches will be determined by who's got enough cash to buy their skills, rather than who's more skilled.
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Nexus Icon
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...
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...
ryanryanryan0310
Another way to take cash from lazy players.... ;p
Carinae
Damn, now all those Signets of Capture that I've been investing in are useless!
samifly
Do you have to own prophecies to unlock these?
gladiator888
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Originally Posted by sykoone
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 spent the most time to get their skills.
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Sekkira
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Originally Posted by sykoone
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.
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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.
SaucE
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Originally Posted by Carinae Dragonblood
Damn, now all those Signets of Capture that I've been investing in are useless!
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JR
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Originally Posted by sykoone
I think it's a terrible idea.
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Originally Posted by sykoone
Now all the people who unlocked these skills the hard way are just out of luck.
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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.
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Originally Posted by sykoone
Either work to get the skills unlocked properly, or break out the credit card. Not fair, not right.
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Originally Posted by sykoone
Now PvP matches will be determined by who's got enough cash to buy their skills, rather than who's more skilled.
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Good job Anet, you never fail to pull something awesome out of the bag.
Energizer Deth Buni
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.
Omega X
WTF!?
Well, there goes the game.
Well, there goes the game.
LumpOfCole
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.
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.
Crispie
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 :\.
Jetdoc
Ahhh...I was wondering if Gaile's thread on what we would purchase from the store would result in any changes.
Apparently, it has. Purchasable UAS is now live....what about UAX?
Apparently, it has. Purchasable UAS is now live....what about UAX?
Alfrond
Curse you Sentao! You must have posted this thread just a few seconds before I posted one of pretty much the same subject 
Back on topic, I'm kinda split on this issue. On one hand, it does seem to give players willing to pay real world money a time advantage in pvp. This means that a person playing normally will have to work a lot harder to unlock all prophecies skills than a person willing to pay. I realize that Guild Wars isn't supposed to be about time spent, but before now that concept has always been just in-game. This move by A-net seems to me to give the message that it is okay to skip over tedious or time consuming processes using real money. I don't mean that A-net is saying that buying gold off ebay is okay, I mean that now that A-net has done this, wouldn't many other things (according to the philosophy they have shown here) now be okay to sell in the store?
If its okay to sell skill-unlocks in the store than what else would now be okay to sell? I don't really want to conjecture about what things A-net might choose to put in the store, but now they have shown that they are not against the idea of selling ingame things for real money.
On the other hand, this policy is probably welcomed by many. I can see this really helping new players who want to quickly jump into pvp. As for new pvpers who choose not to buy, they do have several very good premades to choose from and of course you can still unlock from pve. Maybe this new policy will only help and not hurt anyone. In the end though, I've got to say that this decision by A-net worries me a little bit though.
Back on topic, I'm kinda split on this issue. On one hand, it does seem to give players willing to pay real world money a time advantage in pvp. This means that a person playing normally will have to work a lot harder to unlock all prophecies skills than a person willing to pay. I realize that Guild Wars isn't supposed to be about time spent, but before now that concept has always been just in-game. This move by A-net seems to me to give the message that it is okay to skip over tedious or time consuming processes using real money. I don't mean that A-net is saying that buying gold off ebay is okay, I mean that now that A-net has done this, wouldn't many other things (according to the philosophy they have shown here) now be okay to sell in the store?
If its okay to sell skill-unlocks in the store than what else would now be okay to sell? I don't really want to conjecture about what things A-net might choose to put in the store, but now they have shown that they are not against the idea of selling ingame things for real money.
On the other hand, this policy is probably welcomed by many. I can see this really helping new players who want to quickly jump into pvp. As for new pvpers who choose not to buy, they do have several very good premades to choose from and of course you can still unlock from pve. Maybe this new policy will only help and not hurt anyone. In the end though, I've got to say that this decision by A-net worries me a little bit though.
Loviatar
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Originally Posted by samifly
Do you have to own prophecies to unlock these?
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since it is only pvp who cares
as for the completely moronic idea that buying skills equals the skill to use them properly ....well that is completely moronic
i can put in my CC number so that makes me reel skiled duh un hunaaa cuz i gots all the skilz.........now how many of those professions can i use at once again?
tomcruisejr
Again, this is not compulsory. If you don't want to, you don't need to. You can always unlock via PvE (gold) and PvP (factions). Playing PvE/getting gold/buying items and skills and PvPing/getting factions/using them to unlock are primary things to do in game, anyway.
This is only for those peeps who thinks that everything else in game sucks but pvp and want to have insta unlocked set of skills to pwn everyone and for those new players who can at least play in equal footing vs the veterans.
And, there's another way to look at it. Maybe it was set too high so you'll find it ridiculous to buy skills in store and do the natural way (pvp/pve) instead.
This is only for those peeps who thinks that everything else in game sucks but pvp and want to have insta unlocked set of skills to pwn everyone and for those new players who can at least play in equal footing vs the veterans.
And, there's another way to look at it. Maybe it was set too high so you'll find it ridiculous to buy skills in store and do the natural way (pvp/pve) instead.
UBS
This is absolutly pathetic. YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO EARN SKILLS. Not buy them.
What the hell are Anet thinking. They are wanting to sell skills for money, yet the game is unplayable because of err7s and lag.
GG Anet.
What the hell are Anet thinking. They are wanting to sell skills for money, yet the game is unplayable because of err7s and lag.
GG Anet.
Narutoscryed
i just orderd the full skill set.. it errord the first time and i clicked it again and it errored again.. NOW I HAVE 2 42 DOLLAR CHARGES ON MY ACCOUNT!!!!!!!!!!! and not one extra pvp skill... this is jacked and i called my bank and they cant remove the charges.. how do i talk to a-net on the phone?
Nexus Icon
Hold on, are you PvPers so dim that you can't see a rip-off when it's being waved in front of you?
Don't be sodding GRACIOUS, this pricing structure is an absolute outrage. Let me state it in simpler terms for you:
In effect, PvP types unwilling to do PvE have to pay TWICE AS MUCH FOR THE GAME.
Do you understand?!?
Don't be sodding GRACIOUS, this pricing structure is an absolute outrage. Let me state it in simpler terms for you:
In effect, PvP types unwilling to do PvE have to pay TWICE AS MUCH FOR THE GAME.
Do you understand?!?
samifly
I think its a good idea, but if it requires you to buy the game as well, i think they are a little overpriced.
Silent Kitty
Maybe, just maybe Anet figured that leechers are PvPrs who need certain skillcaps and don't want to play the game. Selling unlocks might solve that part of the game.
TempestBrewer
I think it's amusing that people are complaining how expensive it is, and how much this will somehow devalue all the work they have done. I've spent a lot of time unlocking things, and have enjoyed working toward the goal of unlocking everything. But I was a student and am now unemployed..I have the luxury of having that kind of time. Not everyone does. Why should they not also be able to enjoy the game they paid 40 bucks for..with this they can pay 10-40 bucks more and get all those unlocks and enjoy the game that much more? Remember that elusive thing called enjoying the GAME you are playing?
My gut reaction was to hate this new feature, because I have worked hard for my unlocks. But after some thought, it's about being realistic, and not about being bitter because this feature came out after you put all your work in. Please, be proud of your accomplishments and don't LET this devalue what you've done.
P.S. To all those people who think this will change anything about PvP...just because you have the skills doesn't mean you know how to work with them. Keep that in mind. In JR's words-- "Skill over time spent". Well said!
-Lyanna
My gut reaction was to hate this new feature, because I have worked hard for my unlocks. But after some thought, it's about being realistic, and not about being bitter because this feature came out after you put all your work in. Please, be proud of your accomplishments and don't LET this devalue what you've done.
P.S. To all those people who think this will change anything about PvP...just because you have the skills doesn't mean you know how to work with them. Keep that in mind. In JR's words-- "Skill over time spent". Well said!
-Lyanna
luauelveneno
for u know it Anet sells us lvl 20 characters with all skills all greens and loads of perfect gold items and FOW armor. GG for the newer pvp players tho
Jetdoc
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Originally Posted by samifly
Do you have to own prophecies to unlock these?
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If you own Factions, and solely want to PvP, you may be better off simply purchasing the full UAS packet so that you can compete on equal footing with Dual-Set owners. It should cost about the same/a little more, but the time you save plodding through Prophecies to UAS is well worth that little cost.
I'm still an old fashioned PvEer, so this doesn't terribly impact me.
blood4blood
Irrelevant to me, I'll finish unlocking the slow way (quests/trainers/captures), even though I could afford the "unlock" packs. One reason -- I've already got most of the skills for most of the classes for both Prophecies and Factions on both my accounts. Another - what many people call "grind" is what I call "playing the game" - it's the whole reason I bought the game in the first place, to play it. 
Vermilion
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Originally Posted by Nexus Icon
Hold on, are you PvPers so dim that you can't see a rip-off when it's being waved in front of you?
Don't be sodding GRACIOUS, this pricing structure is an absolute outrage. Let me state it in simpler terms for you: In effect, PvP types unwilling to do PvE have to pay TWICE AS MUCH FOR THE GAME. Do you understand?!? |
Personally, Im just gonna wait and see how this does..if it goes well, we'll probably see UAX options, etc etc.
JR
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Originally Posted by Alfrond
On one hand, it does seem to give players willing to pay real world money a time advantage in pvp.
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Originally Posted by Loviatar
since it is only pvp who cares
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Originally Posted by Loviatar
as for the completely moronic idea that buying skills equals the skill to use them properly ....well that is completely moronic
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Originally Posted by Nexus Icon
Hold on, are you PvPers so dim that you can't see a rip-off when it's being waved in front of you?
Don't be sodding GRACIOUS, this pricing structure is an absolute outrage. Let me state it in simpler terms for you: In effect, PvP types unwilling to do PvE have to pay TWICE AS MUCH FOR THE GAME. Do you understand?!? |
IT IS NOT A MANDATORY PURCHASE.
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Originally Posted by Vermilion
I have to say I don't understand. If PvPers are so unwilling to do PvE, then they will do....surprisingly...pvp. Which =faction, =skill unlocks.
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lg5000
Does anyone know if you have to own prophecies to buy the unlocks for prophecies?
Also, are there alternative payment methods available yet?
Too early in the morning to have a positive or negative opinion on the whole topic.
Also, are there alternative payment methods available yet?
Too early in the morning to have a positive or negative opinion on the whole topic.
The Great Al
erm, you are in no way required to buy this, so why complain
Autumn_Leaf
to me it seems like anet is violating their own EULA. might as well just sell items on their sites as well.
i still say they should have UAS for pvp since the beginning (yea i got flamed for the comment). but this is just stupid.
and if they're gonna charge money to unlock skills might as well be across the board for pve as well, since money does solve everything XD.
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i guess anet must not been making enough money, that's the only way i can justify it. i think that this is gonna cause fan loyalty to drop and cause even less people to buy the next installment.
i still say they should have UAS for pvp since the beginning (yea i got flamed for the comment). but this is just stupid.
and if they're gonna charge money to unlock skills might as well be across the board for pve as well, since money does solve everything XD.
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i guess anet must not been making enough money, that's the only way i can justify it. i think that this is gonna cause fan loyalty to drop and cause even less people to buy the next installment.
Tekish
Can't wait for the PvP-ready PvE characters - only $59.99
Crotalus
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Originally Posted by TempestBrewer
it's about being realistic, and not about being bitter because this feature came out after you put all your work in.
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