The Future of Guild Wars Micropayments - Suggestions? Comments?

Some of you are either not reading all the way through, or something. Who knows.

I write in the original post that, yes, Guild Wars already has micropayments. I'd also figure that my intent would be clear considering the thread is called 'The Future of Guild Wars Micropayments'. The point is that it's got only a few things offered. There are whole games based off of the concept of micropayments, and some of them make much more money than Guild Wars - Maple Story comes to mind. The point of the thread is essentially a brainstorm, while the first part of the post is a justification of why I feel this is the inevitable conclusion ArenaNet itself must reach.

Micropayments are NOT monthly payments. I am NOT advocating monthly payments.

I AM asking for suggestions for ArenaNet to jumpstart what seems to be a stalled process - that is, expanding on somewhat minor features that players want and will pay for.

You are free to disagree - but I thought I made myself fairly clear as to what the point of the thread was.

As for a monopoly on free gaming - I really beg to differ. Runescape gets joked about a lot - it has 9 million free players, 850,000 of which pay. Maple Story has 50 million players, and has generated 200 million USD in revenue, through micropayments alone (although GW micropayments should be NOTHING like Maple Story micropayments). Guild Wars is sitting at about 3 million copies, which at $50 brings in about $150 million USD - before boxes and manuals, giving a cut to retailers, etc. What I'm talking about here is a lot more financial freedom for ArenaNet, which hopefully amounts to more polished games and better support. The cost is charged to those who want to pay for vanity options or small trifles.

You use the word 'make' more than once. How are micropayments 'making' people do anything? Do you have to have a name change to function in game? A face change? Gaile has said on multiple occasions that name changing is a drain on resources, so it won't happen. I'd rather it did happen - in fact, I'd rather it happen so much that I'd pay for it. I'm sure there are a lot of other things that ArenaNet can do that they wouldn't want to because of cost - players paying for it makes it much more palatable. The charges here can be extended into paying for other parts of the game. How does this hurt you?

Or are you just a flaming troll?

It absolutely astounds me that you fail to see how this is a solution to some of the problems. Many players have remarked on the fact that Nightfall came out incomplete - elite missions, bugs, etc. This is a DIRECT RESULT of the stringent release schedule, which is in turn a DIRECT RESULT of their business model, which requires them to release games every 6 months. PvP players gripe and moan about this, and PvE players gripe and moan about how unpolished the games are.

Yes, no problems with the business model indeed.

Granted, the post (about skill deletion) was thrown together, and semi-halfassed, but that doesnt change the INTENT of the post, which Im wondering if you even understood?

You forgot to turn your sarcasm off, and your reading comprehension on.

Pay more for what? Stuff that doesnt affect game balance, that could help ANet hire more people so we dont have dead chapters? You dont want it? Dont pay for it, its not a difficult concept. You act like you would be FORCED into buying a name change...

You keep thinking that. Have fun when ANet tries to balance out 2 more brand new classes and 300+ new skills.

That was the POINT. Re-read please.

You really think you are going to get any of those "real rewards"
What are you looking for? Cash? Try being number one in the world. Only two guilds have done that, and last I checked, I didnt see your name on either of their rosters. In game items? Go play tombs with all the crappy fotms. Dont forget to whine about how the fotms are imba in the pvp forums.

Seriously, what rewards are you expecting? What rewards do you feel you DESERVE?

He has a point that you seem to have missed.

BTW. just so you know, the reason for the mass skill deletion was this: With less skills to balance out, izzy could actually spend time and y'know BALANCE THE SKILLS AGAINST EACH OTHER.
The sheer number of completely WORTHLESS skills in the game is mindboggling.

Totaly agree on this one. The moment GW would implement monthly fee I would be the first to quit. The only reason i still play GW is lack of monthly fee. I they would want me to pay for GW than There should be whoooole lot more to PvE besides lame storyline and stupid grinding and trade system altogether. If you are nor a PvPer there is not much of a game besides the story and farming. If i was to play PvP i would rather go to free FPSG like CS, CoD...

/notsigned

To be honest, only two things are really killing the game and those are not really part of the business model.

1) Jack of all trades
Guildwars tries to be too many things at the same time. It tries to appeal to the casual player as well as the hardcore player. They want to please the PVE Crowd but also the PVP Crowd. And to make things worse, all of these parts are dependent upon each other. And yes, even more worse, they hate each other with a passion.
Just look around and see every thread either turn into a PVE versus PVP discussion or a Farming Discussion. So it doesn't even matter which way A-Net swings, they're bound to hit and piss off a huge fraction of their players. And ultimately, if GuildWars refuses to find its own face this will only get worse.

2) Repetition
Each chapter, PVE and PVP alike are basically just more of the same. GuildWars has a very limited range in what it can allow and what they can introduce into the game. This ultimately leads to a repetition of itself. Look at PVP, some of the new skills have found their place, yet still the battles are fought in the same way. They're still based upon the same mechanisms, the same old tactics and strategies and... maps.
And PVE in this regard is even worse. The monsters get another skin, a few new skills and then do the same thing they've done since the release of the original GuildWars. Especially as the prime principle of PVE seems to be "Hordes!". You walk two steps and battle a horde, then walk another two steps and battle another horde.
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Doesn't mean i'd appreciate a few of these ideas but i'm against the idea of having to pay for updates which should be in the game to start with. This method works for those korean grind games like Silkroad or Conquer but I don't like it in GuildWars. I payed a full price for the game and should not have to pay again for features.

Look, they have to see if it compensates to implement such features if a number of people would effectivly buy it. They surely have a limited number of people working on this project and can't afford them to continiously implement features that they don't know if they will be rentable.

Easy tiger.

I was actually agreeing that "micro-payments" as you call them arent bad thing. All I said is that we need to be carefull what we charge for.

For instance; charging for changing hair-styles is bad idea because its the kind of thing you might do frequently.

Micro-payments should be on services which you use once, or rarely. Otherwise it makes it unfair to those who dont have pockets of cash to burn and you will loose custom.

As for saying games like runescape and Maple Story are free online MMOS. I wouldnt know, because ive never heard of either of those. I have just had to search online to find out what they are.

And im not "out of touch", I spend most of my time online.

But if im looking for a game to play, I wouldnt consider searching for a web based one. I personally dont like them. I would go straight for the game magazines and game review websites and stores to see whats available on the market.

Which proves the point im about to make.

Games like runescape are more aimed at people "in the know", who know they exist and want that "traditional" RPG or MMO feal like diablo or FF. Their spread by "word of mouth" instead of marketting techniques and rely on people telling others about it.

Im sure there are countless other web based MMOs online which used micro-management.

But their not advertised on tv, or in magazines or sold in stores. They dont have the potential to reach a wider market because of that.

Guild wars is marketted differently;

Its in the stores, and advertised in magazines and reviewed on websites.
Its got the latest graphics and interfaces which apeals to a western audience.

In that respect it does have a monopoly because its in the public domain and its advertised and reaches a wider market, including the hardcore MMOers. Its basically the game everyone knows about, because its out there and people are talking about it.

What other marketted free MMO games can you think of that are on in the public domain in that respect? games which feature in magazines and on games review websites and in the shops?

I cant think of any. In which case I would say it has a firm foothold in the gaming world until a competative, well marketted alternative comes along to compete with it.

Micropayments may be great for ANet's business, but they're awful for the player. It's already begun with PvP unlocks, I wonder how far it will go?

Hmm online payments .. I have bought 3 chapters x 2 already and I am still waiting for storage and auction. Exactly how much money do they need from me to expand that damn storage box that came with CHAPTER 1? Please do not spew out the plight of Anet and their not having the cash flow to add storage or auctions to the game when they can crank out events like the dragon festival. Try doing something productive for the gamers instead of fluff.

People are leaving the game for many reasons and I doubt name changes is anywhere near the top of the list. I fail to see how charging people more money will make them stay in a game. Charge monthly and see how many install wow.

Original post is not talking about monthly payments at all.
This topic is about alternate revenue from the online store.

They don't force anyone to buy the unlock packs, it's up to you...

I stopped reading here, because youve already decided why its going wrong, and that it needs fixing without going into concrete reasons why you think its the buisness model.

It can all be improved upon, i fail to see why micropayments are needed.

Prophesis worked, and shows that it can work, factions didnt work so well because the game wasnt as strong, nightfall suffered because people got burnt by factions.

So basically you're saying:

GW is dieing because top PvP players of GWP moved toward WoW (yes, to find a perfect PvP in the grindfest, LOL) and because GwP PvP players cannot keep the pace unless they buy the expansions to get new skills (oh rly?)

That said, the solution is: offer something that can be bought by those who, despite the game is dieing, are still so dumb to continue to play it, so that A.net can make new developments to GW (all GW chapters or only GWP?).

OMG

So sadly true.

Amity And Truth and Hockters, you couldnt describe the situation GW is in rightnow any better as you did

I'm sorry but I stopped reading at "Guild Wars is dying" and "the Guild Wars business model is generally accepted as bad." You have no evidence for either one of those, and in fact the successes of Guild Wars have proven that the business model works. Any argument that starts with those two premises is invalid.

I think that people who complain about the skill balance part really don't know what Anet is up against. Anet will never, ever, be able to balance the game in a way that is best for everyone. The main reason for that is the total amount of skills, which at the moment is something around 900 or 1200 i suppose (don't really know for sure). With a total of 8 skills at your disposal while playing, you have an aweful lot of combinations. There are ten thousands of combinations possible, and don't even think about it that Anet is going to investigate every possible situation, and eventually will tweak it to death... It's so complicated that even Einstein wouldn't want to take the job, trust me!

Secondly, i am really not liking the 'Guild Wars is a dying game' talk... It just doesn't make sence to wath we have seen in the past months of in-game action going on. There was the new Nightfall campaign, and at the moment we still got the Wintersday event going on. Last named broke every record, as posted on the Guild Wars website just recently. Sure there are some ghost towns in the vast world of Guild Wars. But it's absolutely not the case that there isn't any in-game action anymore. We all know that there are some very badly designed places in the game, and some places are visited more often by other players than others. But you also have a mega amount of content at your disposal to be more than happy with.

The business model however definetely needs a few tweakes here and there. See, the thing is that i absolutely don't like some things that have been going on since the beginning of the Factions and the Nightfall campaign. Things like having extra storage space when you had Factions, and Profecies players did not, and having the ability to use the inscriptions on weapons while other campaigns don't. That are some things that i really don't like, as Anet always said in the past that you'd have to only pay for content, not for updates to the engine and the game itself. And the two things that i named have absolutely got nothing to do with content!

Lastly i think that micropayments could deliver Anet some extra cash, but if they go asking micropayments for every little fart in the game, the idea would end up like a stabbing knife. Also i like to say that i would not pay a monthly fee for a game like Guild Wars, as it definetely lacking a lot of things that other monthly fee based games do have. However, for a game that has no monthly fee, no one can ask for more then we have at our disposal! It's an amazing thing to see what is possible for a game that has no monthly fee's! And i really think that some people are compleining a little too much here and there...

the Dieing thread of the week!

lets be clear - GW is dieing for the OP - the game is healthy otherwise


2 recent Press releases
http://www.guildwars.com/press/releases/default.php

Players Flock to Guild Wars in Record-Breaking Numbers and Rack Up 20 Million Hours of Gameplay - January 2007

GUILD WARS EXCEEDS THREE MILLION SOLD - December 2006

Micropayments as suggested amount to what is known as "creeping costs" and that is generally a bad thing (from a buyer pov) - for one thing, where does it end? If potentially every tiny little bit could end up with a price tag to get it?

Ah I remember when I was that naive, gw pve is a joke... come on any decent player could beat it in 2-5 days max.

A mmorpg with pve content that can be finished in 1 week or less is just badly made.

GW is PVP based, thats why there hasnt been an storage upgrade ever since prophecies. You can keep making petitions, but what does anet do about it?

PVP was the only thing good about gw and anet goes about ruining that too with Hero ascent, and the lack of unbalanced skill updates. Did the nf team even test the skills before release?

Here is something people might want to consider, 1 chapter every month for 50$, so 2 chapter every year = 100$...That is NO different from paying monthly for a better and more well designed mmorpg. Nf has just barely been released and numerous people have been bored cause of the lack of content. People will only play gw to an extent where they feel the game is lacking and move on to another game, and the way gw is progressing right now I would be surprised it doesnt make it to ch6.


And to answer the statement above on 3million gw copies sold.. 95% of those are probably returning players who buy all 3 campigns. If you look at the new comers into the game, there are very little. And with the growing dissatisfaction of current players, players number will only drop more and more each chapter.

So GW is dieing? You can say that of a perfectly healty newborn baby too if you really want.

Seriously folks, if this game makes you somehow unhappy, leave and stop trying to convince me that my favorite game is ,in fact, terrible.