Skill Unlocks in the Guild Wars Store!

frankly, i dont care about it that much, but i do think it is a stupid attempt at making extra money and it pretty much caused everyone who was unlocking the skills manually in pvp to waste their time.

but, i guess Anet likes making EVERYTHING too easy, hell I could see Nightfall quests giving you 5-6k exp rewards for simple, pre-searing class tasks.

I wan't the skill unlocking you get if you buy special edition guild wars, the one where it's like, 10 free skill unlocks, 10 free elite unlocks, 20 weapon mod unlocks and so on, not exactly those numbers, but you know what I mean.

Three things some people don't seem to realize:

Item #1:
Time is money. New players now have two options: they can either A), spend time or B), spend money. This is a problem how?

Item #2:
ANet is a business. Businesses exist to make money. Selling stuff makes money. ANet is selling stuff. This is a problem how?

Item #3:
People are idiots.
(I guess that's a little unfair. Say, rather, that 50% of the population is of below average intelligence.)

I think they should bring back Zaishen Medallions and Flames of Balthazar. Unlocking with pure PvP is still too grindful and the Flames do really help. This doesn't really have anything to do with skill unlocks for money (which I have no problem with), but I'm thinking that PvP unlocks in general should be made into more of a feasible goal. Even with Flames, a full UAS would take at least a month or so for an absolute newbie, which I think is a reasonable timeframe.

I do think they should reduce the amount of faction for skills, and/or bring back the flames, because unlocking thru PvP only is slow and long, and a bit silly.

As many of you saw, I (Syria Blackblood) was gathering the GW community's opinion about ArenaNet's decision to sell PuPs. I asked around Heroes' Ascent at 10PM-12AM EST, as that is primetime for Saturday and many people were there due to the event.

People were vocal about the change. While some of them may be...less colloquial than others, most of them say the same thing: ArenaNet screwed up.

(Black is openly disagreeing, Yellow is agreeing/neutral)



Out of the 135 people posted, 101 people thought the decision was poor. That's a whopping 75% of the playerbase, ArenaNet. It's better to have players than profits...

Frankly taking a poll from the PUGers in HA might not be the most accurate representation of the GW player base, but it is interesting to know that the vast majority of players are openly negative about it.

My question now is, why? Why is this (my favorite word for today) "bullspit"? I have yet to see a legitimate reason why ArenaNet has made a bad move here. If anyone has one, I would love to hear it.

So whats next selling unique items and uber armor in GW Store? I think this is a horrible idea.

I think ArenaNet should start selling thread summaries in the store. It's clear no one is willing to grind through the thread to read what's been said before.

Anything in this thread is just PR, and can quite clearly change anytime at their discretion (and given the chapter-merging and storage fiascos, a high possibility exists).

Leaving aside the issue of balance (which doesn't exist IMO), two questions remains unsatisfactorily answered in this thread by people defending the new unlock packs.

Firstly, why charge for them in the first place? Why not offer it as a free perk for owners of older chapters? There's no reason to charge for it, and even if there were, is such a heavy price (the cost of an entire chapter) mandated? Sure, it's a "community-requested" feature, but so are reconnects, more customisation options etc. Are these features going to be pay-only as well?

Secondly, if you've read Gaile's reply about not offering stuff that affects in-game, there's plenty of space for room wiggling. Essentially, selling skill packs is a time-for-money trade, since unlocking generallly requires patience/time and little else. Gaile claims sales "do not unbalance the game or cause concerns amongst players who do not choose to exercise the option". I think we can ignore the latter since concerns are already being caused. As for the former, what's to keep them from progressing down this slippery slope? After all, FoW armor, custom weapon skins, new faces, do not alter gameplay per-se.

At the risk of being called flamebait, I'm going to call it for what I see it as - ANet is moving towards a free-for-basic-play but pay-for-any-extras model. And I can't say I'm too pleased with that, considering that other MMOs adopting the same model do not require chapter sales to start off with.

The day ArenaNet sells fissure armor, new faces, custom skins and so on for a fee is the day we can take up the torches and pitchfork and threaten to nuke Seattle from orbit. That day isn't today.

Skill packs for yesteryear's campaign are kind of a yawner for me. Seriously, I can't be bothered to care because it's such an optional expenditure.

Well they opened the gate , offering a ingame feature for money.
They can add that what you coment + more storage, reconnects, New maps, actually whatever. They have found a "excuse" for this one, but maybe the next ones will come without any.

Sry for the rant, just i love this game and they are giving a good excuse to leave

Personally I don't see what the big deal is as long as this only affects the PVP element of the game and leaves PVE alone. Even then it's only skill unlocks - a huge chunk of which are garbage in competetive PVP...the only place you can even use em. You'll still be missing out on Weapon Mods and Runes.

In the end when it comes down to it, if you sucked at PvP before you will STILL suck at PvP after the UAS purchase...you'll just have a prettier skill bar.

It doesn't bother me
You can play PvP with unlocking one build ...

A-net will not sell PvE stuff, that WILL bother me ...

1. Prices are not made up in 20minutes, there are a whole crew analyzing the player database to get to that number. IF you can’t understand why the price is there try to analyze their current market. People that spend 50US$ or even 80US$ (CE) will not bother paying 30US$ for the PVP only content, you are not buying "time over money", I mean, you CAN do that, but the unlocks are not made for people like yourself, they are built for people that DO NOT own the first chapter and don’t care for PVE, but still want to mess with PVP. Hell, they even made the option to sell different class packs so you don’t have to pay for what you don’t want. Do not like this business model?! Then just buy the Prophecies campaign and unlock them on you own. Just to close the idea, if you don’t like the price you will have to argue with me using some facts based on the online player database just like Anet did before setting up those prices, and btw, going to HOH and asking "is the unlocks to expensive?! 1 for yes 2 for no" doesn’t count, you got to be more specific and get into players acquisition power.

2. This has been stated 1000 times before in this same thread, they DO KNOW what we like about and what we dislike, SO even if it do not unbalance the game but the community don’t want it there they WILL NOT MAKE IT! Also, I think you should knowledge that the game community is well over 2 000 000 people, and saying that 100 guys said no or yes to the unpacks is COMPLETELY irrelevant (that other thread where the guy made his "research"). Once you get to 1 000 000 quotes (near 50% of the population) you might start thinking you got to somewhere. ALSO one last thing, EVEN if it was just 15% of the population (which is over 30 000 people btw) that wanted this upgrade, IT DOES NOT BOTHER THE OTHER PLAYERS so Anet WILL implement this anyway.

Still, I will repeat myself, EVERY SINGLE "argument" I have heard so far from people that “dislike” the unpacks are nothing but rants, IF you REALLY dislike them try to take a DEEP breath and look out WHY! Saying "it’s to expensive" or assuming that you know what the community want or don’t want based solo on your 200 people alliance doesn’t mean nothing!

Latter.

Everyone against it are idiots ( quite frankly )... Guild Wars is experiencing lag because of? Possibly the amount of players is increasing in the GW population and loading down the servers. GW keeping their 'no monthly fee' statement, has opened their store for a place to make money to keep the servers going so people don't have to pay a monthly fee. So people with 'Factions' only accounts get gain Prophecies skills, why not? I wouldn't care less if they sold money and greens and such; would it implode the economy? Probably not. I would rather spend 25k on getting myself the Scareater instead of buying it for $9.99. "But everyone will be getting FoW armor!" So? I have seen so many people with FoW and personally for elementists, it's ugly as sin. I'm thankful that Anet is finding another source for keeping their servers up and working without charging a monthly fee.

Thank you Anet!

People complaining about it are upset because some new guy has the same skills that they worked for. "Omg!" Only 1/10 of those skills will even be useful in PvP, and which I could buy from the Priests for some simple factions. For the amount of time that someone spent in PvE to get a skill, I could spend a couple of times in Random Arena and get the same skill. Be Cool!

If you play PvE mostly this doesen't matter at all. I have unlocked all skills for 2 accouts and it wasn't that hard.
I think this is just for PvP only players. I remember the times when there was no Balthasar points and you had to find every single upgrade or rune yourself!! (that sucked)

BTW whats the point of locking skills for pvp anyway?

selling gold or greens would be the most stupid thing to do! I mean it's al about prestige. If everyone can buy a fow armor for 10$ what would be the sense in earning money trading and so on? 50% of the people are farming money because the need it for their equipment. If you could buy everything for money I wouldn't play the game after beating the missions at all.

wrong at this time according to Gaile

please note that Gaile posted that you do indeed have to own chapter 1 to unlock the skills using the skill packs.

to repeat you HAVE to have the chapter already to use the additional cost skill packs.

Do you guys know "jump the shark"? http://www.jumptheshark.com/

Anyway, for a new pvp player i think it's not a bad idea, but for the overall, standing community at large i think it's pretty pathetic. i'm mostly a pve'r and have ALL my elites unlocked and any skills that aren't i can take a couple hours and unlock them.

Personally, i believe this game is highly a pve community and even AB's are pve driven. As a-net once wanted todo, i also think this goes against the original plan to bring the 2 communities together. Most pver's would be more up-in-arms over this decision then newer pvp folks. it doesn't *bother* me, but it does irk me that they decided to do this becuase it again degrades gameplay.

People buy run's in tyria, level 2's in THK or RoF, that clearly don't know how to play thier build, this will even shine more in the pvp world. A newb with all his skills unlocked is still a newb, yet now with the mentality that since they have all these skills, they are the 1337est.

Being how controversial this thread is "12 pages worth", this may just deal the final blow to the pvp world of guild wars. when Nightfall comes and pvp is even less of the focus of the designers, pvp may be sooo elite that ranking guilds will be even more sporatic.

I'm sorry, it was implied by the PvP community as a whole since you looked at "UAX" as a dirty word and refused to post in any thread that even mentioned it. And there's no way I can scour through thousands of your posts in order to find if you said specifically or not "never". Some forums don't even have half of your old posts anyway.

key word is implied.

also since the pvp community made her their personal whipping girl to kick around i dont blame her from avoiding posting in a thread where she knows she will be misquoted and flamed no matter what she says.

she has always been careful to say

not in the forseeable future
not planned for now
not being considered at the present

get the picture?

SO in thats case loviatar. We can expect to see PVE unlock packs soon then. Because thats EXCALTY whats shes saying about them NOW, just like she said about PVP ones a few months ago.

i doubt that for the simple reason it would be a money loser big time for Anet/NCsoft.

the amount of extra money the pvp unlock will bring in is very small change as not that many pvp people will get it.

on the other hand offering PVE unlock packages would chase a large chunk of the PVE player base off.

simple logic says that they will not upset the largest part of their player base.

just my opinion but the economic facts seem to fit

Um...actually....The unlock packs ALREADY affect PvE.

You can buy skills at LA or Ascalon once you unlock it.

My guildmate needed a skill but didnt have Ember light on that particular char, nor did she feel like spending 1k to unlock it with another char's secondary. So i told her to use her Balthazar faction to unlock it, then go to LA and buy it.

See? PvP affects PvE.

Is this a major change or balance upset? Not really...

Bad players will be bad players, regardless of their skillbar.

I was never aware of this. =/ But great, now I don't have get to ember just to get all my prophecies skills. =D

If these pvp packs where to bring in such small amount of money what bother doing it in the first place. They must think it will bring in more money than the trouble it would cause.

Simple logic and Anet do not all ways seem to go together. EG The Armour nerf upset the largest part of the player base. So did the EOE nerf. Most nerfs are due to a small group of gw players who like nothing more than to moan and complain about eveytything IE PVPERS.

Lets not forget that when GW came out the ONLY way to unlock skills where to do quests in PVE or cap them in PVE. But pvpers did what they do best and starting to moan and complain about that. So Anet put in bath faction but put the npcs in pve towns. Cue even MORE moaning from pvpers who want everything handed to them on a plate. So Anet caved again as usual to the pvpers and put them in places so pvpers could access them with out ever haveing to leave pvp areans. But as usual they where STILL not satisfed and continued to moan about wanting UAS/UAX. Cue the usual cave in to the moaners and here we are with the packs. Of course since pvpers NEVER stop moaning about everything. Its now thier to expensive.

lots of griping for nothing

i like the idea will save me many hours of grinding in a PvE content that i have played to death one before (new account)

prob purchase the whole set, cant say im an unskilled player because ive notched up more then a few mill xp on my old account over many chars..

£25 isnt alot considering the amount of time i spent getting all the skills on my previous chars and i hadnt even unlocked them all (by choice)

my view..had to have it before this gets closed for flaming/trolling/repeated posting of the same argument over and over

note that the packs are for the pvp player who wants it badly enough to pay double the game cost to get it fast for an old chapter.

cost is minimal for Anet to do and the loss of players over the pvp skill packs is nonexistant.

as for the fixing of the global armor exploit and the AOE AI fix there was a lot of moaning on the forums but very few if any players quit playing just for those issues alone.

on the other hand giving out PVE packs would be a whole different ballpark.

HAVE YOU NOTICED............that most of the complainers on different forums/threads against it fall mostly into neat catagories?

1..i worked my ass off getting UAS so everybody else should have to work their asses off as well. (very selfish)

2 i earned my skills and they have taken away my achievement (pathetic)

3 UAS in the store is fine but it should be FREE (entitlement mentality)

4 they should have done it long ago (earlier and i could have done it)

I have not read through the other 26 pages so not sure if anyone brought this up.

Everyone is looking at this as something to stop Ebayers and to give new purchasers an easy full-entry into Pvp. That viewpoint is inccorrect. I think the purpose of this unlock-pack product is to support Factions-Only and Nightfall-only PvP players. Instead of paying $50 online for Chapter 1, they can spend $9 for their favorite characters skills. I think that is fair. And it does not in any way diminish the value for others (as some here have suggested).

Unless you feel that playing the game is "work" and you put "work" into unlocking those skills for PvP where as others have contributed their real-world earned money to getting same skills. But as the poster above has said, that's rather a selfish opinion.

My only problem is that it is a litltle bit expensive. The price should be more like $20 for all skills, $4 for an individual profession. I say this becaue at the current price structure, skill unlocks are valued far more than game content and I don't think that's right.

then why post? 26 pages of mainly bullshit is quite enough.

Why people continue to bitch amongst each other is beyond me, the packs are here to stay so get over it and move on.

Why? Why would you leave a game that you love because there is an option that you do not choose to take? How does someone else buying a PUP affect you? I'm just confused about all this passion. Buy or don't buy.. It's your choice. But why make dramatic statements against having options?No, I have been told that we will not sell PvE Unlocks or other things that affect that gameplay option, no.Another point of confusion: Offering an option that will most likely introduce more players to PvP, how is it that it's a final blow??Dang, this one made me laugh!

If you ever get the chance to talk in a Q&A or a press release, I recommend you emphasize that.

If you read my chat-log I posted on the previous page, you'll realize that most of your playerbase is skeptical of ArenaNet's practices.

I've never been in a chat room where 135 people spoke non-consecutively. So, excuse my skepticism of those logs representing a clear vote by 135 different people.

Having said that, I have been posting on this very topic across forums, and I've answered the concern live in the game, which is then logged and posted. I appreciate that we may wish to speak to this more often, and more firmly.

Gaile, what is the view of selling PvE items in the in-game store on the "other" forums?

I'd look myself but i wouldnt want to taint myself

Loviatar you need to READ my posts better BEFORE replying. I said EOE nerf NOT the AOE AI fix.

Why is it selfish/pathetic to think that since you have had to spend XXX number of hours to do something that everyone else should have to do so, And if it suddenly can be able to do it in seconds. Your achievement is lessend

A PVE example would be that someone could buy Titles. Would'nt you be annoyed if you had spent a LARGE amount of time geting the kinda of a big deal title only for it suddenly to be avaiable to buy in the shop? And before you start going on about how they would'nt do this Its AN EXAMPLE if you don't understand what one is thats your problem.

There is a 5th group of people like ME who see this as the start of the slippery slope which will lead to the selling of PVE items dispite being told this will not happend as we where told these packs would not happend either. This is the reason I belive bele was saying he might leave over.

lol, it was you?!
I remembering seeing that. IIRC, I replied with "you are gay lol" XD

That is what I had assumed.

i think it's a bad move. of course i dont have to buy the unlocks but i spend a lot of time and worked hard to unlock every skill. now you can just go to the store and get everything with a few clicks. getting all the skill points and the cash to unlock the skills was nothing but a waste ot time now. i dont pvp a lot but i can see that a serious pvp player who spend a lot of time pvp-ing for unlocks must feel in a very similar way.

i really dont mind having to pay for extra character slots, or buy additional storage room if it ever gets available, its a gimmick, you either want it or not. you can play very well with only 6 character slots and some crafting material storage. but the skills are the essence of guildwars, and its just being given like that..



that said, im most definitely not going to stop playing guildwars because of buyable skill unlocks. the game will not change dramatically imho. i just feel that it wasnt the best move to make.

you have to own chapter 1 already to be eligible to buy the pack

Zinger might be a lot of things, but in all the time I have posted on this forum, I have never known him to lie.


It simply looks to me, like he/she, asked someone a question, they answered, and all the answers were spliced together. I frequently see zinger about in districts, asking people poll style questions, etc and offering other bits of info. There is really nothing to be skeptical about.