The Future of Guild Wars Micropayments - Suggestions? Comments?

Edit 2: For those too lazy to read, an abstract: Guild Wars is dying! A restrictive business model is to blame. Micropayments are the way out - but there have been no developments on this front for quite a while. A little help for anet, maybe?

A few people may know of #gwp, a Guild Wars dedicated IRC channel on the GameSurge network, which is pretty much the scourge of the internet, completely filled with idiots. However, in any given day, you can probably count on a few recurring 'serious' discussions to come up. There's the obligatory "WoW is better than GW, because Vanquisher said so" discussion, or the "such and such skill is unbalanced discussion", and the "Guild Wars is dying" one is an oldie but a goodie. One that used to come up in the past, the "Guild Wars business model" discussion, doesn't occur so often anymore. This may be due, in part, to the fact that the Guild Wars business model is generally accepted as bad. There are some positives, but these positives are countered by a whole host of negatives that result in a big fat poop face. (>_<)

Long story short, Guild Wars as a game is in fairly dire straits. They're not in financial trouble to the best of my knowledge, but in GWP there's been a great movement of players towards WoW - and these are the top PvP players, moving to a game infamous for grind. Too many fun seasons and too few skill balances for a totally out-of-whack metagame is a big reason why this is happening, as is the backlash against 6v6 in HA. However, there are other reasons as to why:

1) Expansions: Guild Wars and its expansions are standalone - but for the PvP community, this doesn't hold true. All skills are balanced against all other skills across expansions, so with Nightfall there was a good deal of power creep in which Prophecies-only players found themselves on the very short end of things. As more expansions come out, and with a staff that doesn't really grow, certain areas of Guild Wars will fall into disrepair. This isn't speculation - there have been rumblings on GWP that certain people working on the project would like for the release schedule to not be every 6 months, a schedule resulting directly from Arena.Net's business model.

How does this affect PvE players? Not so drastically, but while the game itself is standalone, the community is not. Areas in older campaigns become ghost towns, it becomes increasingly less MMO and more 'you, yourself and Alesia'. Obviously Arena Net can't dictate where its community goes, but it stands to reason that the less diluted the community, the better.

And affecting all players is that certain builds are undeniably more effective than others, whether PvP or PvE. Some of these builds may be campaign specific, but more likely than not they're cross-campaign. New players will find it harder and harder to break into the game, and if they choose to, the cost is substantial - in fact, it equates to paying for every month since the initial release of Guild Wars, something much more than in other MMOs.

2) Game updates and staff: Arena Net's staff is fairly stagnant - their teams alternate chapters, and then others work on updates for existing games. However, as the list of 'old' games expands, the resources of the company are stretched thinner and thinner. Hiring is the logical out - but in this regard the business model is a hindrance - you're hiring people for games that no longer make money.

----

The running joke is that Guild Wars will be dead before Nightfall finishes its set of balances. But while this is merely exaggeration by some drama queens (Beo), it's not difficult to see that Guild Wars has a somewhat limited future. It's the proud owner of a PvP community that is stacked against growing, and it's the proud owner of a marketing campaign that seems centered around emphasizing the merits of its skill-based PvP over other grind-based games. And almost all of these problems are the byproduct of a poor business model.

There is an out, however, and it got a lot of forum coverage a few months ago, when Guild Wars first announced it - micropayments. Micropayments is a term used to define everything that players pay real money for in game, not crucial to the game. We got PvP unlock packs, character slots, and then, it seemed that Arena Net ran out of ideas. After all the hubbub about people quitting if arena net offered exclusive items or what not, all is quiet on the micropayment front.

But why?

Micropayments are the way for Guild Wars to break the stranglehold of its business model. Provided that these 'other things' are successful and people buy them, Arena Net can move back its expansion schedule, it can afford to fully staff to update its old games, it can afford to fully staff to create more complete games at release, and it can finally create more Sorrow's Furnace type updates. The devil, of course, is in the details.

As a game that prides itself on skill over time spent (a running joke in itself up until a few weeks ago), what is offered through micropayments obviously becomes very important. Doing it Maple Story style and just offering anything and everything for cold hard cash would be a good way to further alienate an already alienated community. So with my essay coming to close - what are some reasonable micropayment items? Keep in mind - the tenet of the game (skill over time spent) must hold. And related to this, exclusive skins seem to be a no-no - after all, vanity items are a big part of PvE.

I've got a few suggestions to start it off:
1) Name changes: Name changes are something often requested, something never fulfilled. Gaile has written that to offer them for free would lose them money due to the time required. Name change your character for $1, $2?

2) Expanded friends list: Something I've often wanted, as I sadly delete old names off to make room for new names. People often joke that Guild Wars is just a glorified chat client, but even in that regard it fails, with a limit of 50 friends. I'd pay to expand this, if server space and bandwidth is the problem.

3) UI Presets: Being able to customize UIs for each resolution, or have different UIs (and key bindings) set for different professions would be great.

And a few suggestions that may or may not fit within this topic, but should be mentioned nonetheless:
1) Custom guild titles - leader, officer, member. Most other MMOs have more guild tiers, and in EVE, for example, you can create custom 'divisions' that have different privileges. As it is, the 'guild' concept in Guild Wars is rather weak.

2) Old interfaces - Guild Wars has undergone a few UI changes, but all of them have been forced on the players. Being able to pick old decorations would be great.

Edit: Edited out some stuff left over from a draft.

Your ideas are good if incorporated right, as explained in the topics that have suggested the ones you didn't on your own (like name changes). Theres no real reason for the rest to be honest. Its just the question of Anet deciding to.

Thats the interesting thing, in my topic the point is that we have to have new professions in each chapter as it stands now. They can't afford to have a chapter at the 6 month mark and not present a new pair of professions to liven up everything. It just won't do them any good. We expect things, if we get a bad surprise = very Bad for Anet.

It may go against my current outlet of ideas, but I have posted before else where that it may be a good idea to change the business model every other year or something. Like after this coming Chapter 4, we get a full years wait for the next one, which would include 2 professions again, and everything everyone else wants, especially PvP only guys.

I don't know if they have room to play with money, I don't think anyone knows really. Which is why I said screw it to stand on a soap box or something and tell Anet myself that they need to change how they do business. They see the sales this coming Chapter we will see how they like it, I guess. They need the money to continue, and like what people have said about changing some things, "you don't need to fix what works."

We'll just have to see what happens

Edit: also, its a good read, I appreciate it after I wrote a lot myself today, usually don't care how it looks on forums, know what I mean?

no,no and again no. I want to play gw all day long and cant do that if I have to get a job and be on a payment schedule plan. I would much rather buy the new chapters at my leisure. The main reason I play gw is to escape the parts of society I reject and that would be so wonderful if I was to be made to be a consistent source of steady income >.>. I reject the idea of a payment plan mostly because it would make me feel like a mindless chump a part of some gym club or something along that line. I am in a solo guild and am a shut-in and what to do as I feel not as someone wants me to.
EDIT: I have played gw for so long and put so much in to it if they were to flip the script and do something like monthly fee's you better call every fire truck in the world to extinguish the the flaming you'd hear from me. (this was meant as an analogy not literally) figured I better say that or the fbi might be giving me the rubber glove treatment lol ....monthly fee's,horrible idea,booooooo

Let me make myself clear: It's not a payment plan, no more than buying extra character slots is a payment plan. There are certain features that Arena Net has made clear to us they will not offer because of prohibitive cost - but they're features players want anyways, and would probably pay for. It's in Arena Net's best interest to implement these, no?

You didn't read the person's post did you?

Quite frankly, I wouldn't mind if they made it so that you could buy with real money, for something in game. However, it would have to have no effect either than looks, and would have to be made untradeable (meaning you could still give it from character to charater via storage).

But really, people that are complaining about the lack of balance, really must have no idea how the game works.
When there is a ladder running, they cannot make any changes to how skills work. It would cause a lot of annoyance.
When Nightfall was released, there was a ladder that started only a few days later. So, as such, they couldn't do any skill balances. Now that the ladder has come to an end, they will most likely be implementing some large changes, most likely on thursday, when they remove the Wintersday stuff.

Hello my name is GW PvP edition. Do you speak it?

Guild Wars was released mid-Autumn Season. There has since been a Wintersday season, playoffs, a break in between, and more than a week of ladder unlock. This is what we mean by slow.

I don't see how this is relevant. If you mean a 'PvP edition' including all the previous chapters for new players, then that would be a good way to let new players in. It's been suggested that old chapters should be offered for very low prices in an attempt to upsell the newest expansion.

However, if you mean that PvP edition is all we need for micropayments, then you're wrong - and I suggest you reread what I'm suggesting.

oops I made a mistake! I started reading the post and felt like I was grinding for fow armor at the length of it. My reading comprehension was a bit off and I think the the micro payments are both a wonderful idea for the community and the Anet team after I finished reading it. Thank you for pointing me out on this.

I completely agree with Rust. I couldn't have said anything better myself.

Things to add to this micropayment scheme would be the much PvE lusted hairdoos, colour changes, maybe even town clothing*. Also, the ability to purchase more faces and such, possibly offered on release of a new chapter as well if you wish to purchase all the extras with the new box. Say a PvP addition with complete UAX (which we don't have), a PvE edition with access to all these character customisation options and a barebones edition which would be like purchasing standard box set.

On top of this, editions could be purchased on the in game store with selective options, such as say you may want UAS, but couldn't really care less about inscriptions/insignias/runes, you may want hairstyle/facial changes/expanded options but don't care about in town clothing, etc.

*To be noted in town clothing could be done as buying bits of clothing with irl money (think Gaia, and tbh probably their best way of making money) or buy a clothing crafter which you need materials and such to craft them (Think Gaia again, but without the rl money = ig money concept).

Off topic, I can't really say if it belongs in Sardelac or here, possibly reposted in Sardelac to mirror this topic.

Its a Nice read. But to some of the points, I understand stems from a view point of a PvP player's woes. I believe the idea of micropayment has been discussed before and Character slots and Game of the Year items were the products that were perhaps worth paying the extra money for.

However it has been brought up before that the line between what that should be an upgrade that is provided for free in the game and what we should be forking out money to get, becomes thiner as time goes by. This is keeping in mind of Anet's (what Gaile mentioned before) promise that PvE components will not be sold on the online store. Now imagine if you had to pay cash to be able to access the Festive Hat NPC....

Generally speaking microtransactions are not always well recieved in a community but like what the OP mentioned, this may be one of the ways GW may need to explore in the long run.

On another note, since we are also partly covering some gameplay elements, I had a guildie recently vented his frustrations of how the ritualist is gimped and what not. But more interesting he mention something that hit a nail in my mind....

"In 10 years from now, my Ritualist would still be probably be the same using the same old stuff"

In a way, i had to agree with him. Theres almost only so much you can do in GW (PvE,PvP) and having replayed NF on my 7th toon through now i am feeling the strain personally. The sense of achievement and progression still seemed to be lacking. Though i agree, in many ways that extra levels and higer numbers essentially is just a scale up and time sink, but some sense of achievement is still gotten from gaining something extra or going the extra mile. Which somehow i feel is lacking in GW, since titles are essentially like most if not all things in GW are purely for vanity sake.

In short, after 3 chapters and over 2000+ hours into the game, replayability and the sense of satisfaction and achievement to me is lacking. Its too easy to buy the next chapter to support Anet and get bored with the game as a whole again.

Fortunately for me, there are still many other free and new MMOs out there to keep me occupied. Of which i am currently playing one as well.

Rustjive, how would any of your suggestions improve the fundamental play experience sufficiently to counter the player exodus the first half of your post is about?

...In other words, it seems like the first half of your post has nothing to do with the second.

Certainly, a micropayments system would make ANet more money - but those add-ons are just fluff. They don't do anything to remedy long-term balance, ghost towns, or the fact that the core game engine can't be upgraded without breaking cross-chapter compatibility.

The extent of the explanation you offer is this:
...The problem is that it makes no sense for ANet to do anything of the sort. OK, so they make more money - Business 101 is for them to then not "throw good money after bad"! If they make more money, either they'll plough it into Chapter Four (or a hypothetical different product entirely), or they'll spend it on beer and wild parties at the office.

In fact, ANet can afford to do all the things you list now. While there's issues with it's long-term viability, the Guild Wars pseudo-M:tG model has performed just fine in terms of making them money to date*. The reason they haven't is clearly philosophical - they don't want to support old software with expensive add-ons and revisions. Whether that's sensible or foolish of them is another matter entirely...

*that's what they're publically claiming, anyway

The fundamental problem is that even though they have the money, they don't have the manpower. You can throw a billion dollars at 5 men to build you a mansion, but it'll still take as long as it takes 5 men to build a mansion. The point being made is allowing ArenaNet more money so they can hire and keep employed more staff.

You throw a billion dollars at 5 businessmen and they'll get you 100 workers to do your mansion. Get my drift?

...Not exactly. They may be able to offer support for past products, you're right, but doubling their release time for every product is another matter entirely. We'll never know without financials for Arena.Net alone, but releasing a game every 6 months is a huge reason as to why the game is dying. Less is really more, in this case.

The "serious" PvP community is so small they could all leave to WoW and no one would know but them. Even less would give a rats ass. The best way to save serious PvP would be to completely seperate it from PvE. Guild Wars is a kick ass RPG. Sure the story can be weak at time, but the game(s) itself is extremely well done. But along come these skill balances, purely for the couple hundred members of top 20 guilds, that often have the dubious distinction of totally screwing PvE builds and angering masses of players.

I'm not advocating rolling back every skill to prenerf settings, or that bots should be able to easily farm again. Hell, a number of changes did improve the PvE side as well. But Anet needs to decide whom it is catering to. Balancing both sides of the gameplay doesn't seem to be working all that well.

Why are people moving to WoW? Wow has the ability to have a hell of a lot of fun in mere seconds. It's PvP is a total joke, best gear wins is usually how it plays out. But you don't need to spend 45 minutes setting up your team, 15 more minutes waiting for a match, then get rolled because your paper build got smoked by someone elses scissors build.

If your suggesting Anet sell extra quild wars features to us, then their already doing that in the form of the shop. You are aware of how you can purchase extra character slots, and the gold edition and entire campaigns pvp and pve versions?

In that case, I dont have an issue with it since they already have a mechanism in place to offer what your suggesting.

As for what services they should charge for, im not sure. But it shouldnt be anything which is unfair to those who dont have the pockets of cash.

If your suggesting monthly charges, then im dead set against that.

But I certainly wouldnt say that Anet is going to run into financial hardship because GuildWars is free.

Anet has a niche in the market with guild wars. Look at 9/10 of the competitive MMOs out there and their all pay monthly. Anet is providing a damn good service for free, which no other computer company is doing.

They fundimentally have a monopolgy on the free online game. Unless there some im unware of.

Yes WoW and other pay monthly games can provide a better service, because they have a constant flow of money coming in. But Anet is doing a damn good job of competing against them with its free service.

I dont expect they can keep this up for ever, in not daft, but I doubt it will be mainly financial reasons which would kill GWs in the end. I expect GWs will eventually die because the technology will move on and it will look out-dated and the Anet team will have other projects to focus on as they expand.

Anet will keep GWs going aslong as they can, and aslong as the demand is there. And there will always be demand for a free MMO game, and aslong as they remain the only one and they provide a good service, they will be number1.

Until a highly competitive free online game comes along which might threaten GWs, I dont see an issue.

I feel the quesiton of whether GW is dying or not to be a separate topic. However on the issue of payment for additional things, I can certainly think of a few. All Anet really has to do is to pick the top things that is requested by the players.

Just to list a few:

Inventory:
1) enchanted bags of holding (bags that can be in other bags and still contain inventory)
2) additional xunlai vault slots -- just add a few more tabs or a few dotted buttons to bring up additional slots. Say 25 additional slots for $5.
3) armor closet -- a closet at xunlai or whatever that enable you to store armor pieces

Face:
1) enchanted make-over that allows you to change your avatar's picked face
2) enchanted make-over that allows you to change your avatar's hairstyle

There are probably plenty more similar items that would have zero effect on game balance but provide additional revenue...

<totally kidding>
You know, I'll bet if Anet wants to, they can create a Gullible title:
1) Swamp land buyer (you gave Anet $50 for this title)
2) Nigerian bank investor (you gave Anet $150 for this title)
3) Scammers love me (you gave Anet $500 for this title)
4) Sucker (you gave Anet $1000 for this title)
</totally kidding>

The sad truth is, there probably are people who'll go for the above title track... (after all, out of some 3million accounts, there is gotta be some suckers...) :P

I agree with the idea, as a serious RP/Pve Player I have a couple of characters that I would pay to change their hair or faces every so often. So long as the price is right. If ANet Kept it with value, such as 1 GBP To change the hair and colour I'd probably do it often. I'm a vain girl and have deleted and started characters over because i thought they were ugly...lol. The idea is great if its looked at in the right way and ANet dont abuse it, which i highly doubt they would.


Edit: I'd buy the armour closet...my chars have too much armour =]

I'm with freekedoutfish on this one.
From what I understand too, the online store was intended from the beginning, they just didn't have enough to offer to warrant it's existence in the beginning. I don't mind if Guild Wars goes the route of something like Maple Story in that you can pay real money to get a plethora of cosmetic baubles, but I have to say that from coming from WoW and Everquest 2 I see people leaving games after a while and they all feel it's the end of the world when they leave or people they know leave. I honestly can't see the Guild Wars franchise being in any more jeopardy of going belly up than WoW would be.

Another ideas from #gwp yay! We just had those incredible ideas about completely removing 80%+ skills from the game and now this!
<sarcasm off>

Ridiculous nonsense full of bullsht statements OP!

So GW is dying, omg! The succesfull business model is now poor and generally accepted as bad! And your solution is selling are mere selling character name changes and other small things in the store? and in effect making us pay more and more?
NOTHING that can be sold in the ingame store and no micropayments can be a solution to the game's real problems. There's nothing wrong with the business model right now, absolutely NO NEED to make it worse - for the players, no need to make them pay more.

If the rumors about delaying chapter4 to make the game better are true it's only better for all of us and it further shows that the concerns about these micropayments are completely missed. We are getting free updates that are fixing the most important issues, we just got Reconnects and Party Search which are both great, and there are Big Changes coming for HA and GvG very soon! So as we see Anet isn't just making more and more of the same but is significantly improving the game overall.

The suggestions of: Name changes, Expanded friends list, UI Presets are nice but very very minor and not affecting the state of the game.

The only truth i found in the OP:
True, but soon to change. I hope for some real rewards for pvp this time, not a bunch of candy weapons that everyone will get for free anywyay.

I agree with the OP. I also want his babies.