Boycott the Storage Update!

Lol, I'm surprised they did this in the first place. I still consider GW to be going out of style/already out of style.

It doesn't matter. But it is a little concerning that they put this much of an update into GW1 when they should be far into GW2 :S

Ah, we must be from a different reality then. In mine, people don't talk about boycotts or go overboard on a terribly misplaced sense of entitlement when a tiny luxury addition (storage) to something that's a luxury product (a game) in the first place costs a fistfull of dollars too much for their liking.

You should visit my reality, it's a nice place.

Could please explain the basis of your reality.

Could you guys please stay on topic and stop insulting oneanother?

Thats the very same I was wondering , but maybe they are testing stuff in Guildwars 1 that they will later use in Guildwars 2.

Think they first wanna see how it will work out.

...

This was done by the GW1 live team, while the GW2 team continues to work on, you guessed it, GW2. The teams are working together, just on different goals. Is this really still not known at this point? O_O

Obviously not...

which is mightily worrying about the state of the community

im going to buy it..its only $10

Yes SHerlock you are correct. The storage was just one aspect of it... My point is that you all need to do the math instead of blindly assuming the price is right. Do I need to do it for you Risky?

How about some more math. 3 Million + accounts. Half of those buy a $10 upgrade. That is $15million in revenue. I hope Lindsey and the live team are working on commision, they can retire.

My point is the cost of storage, the cost of programming, etc... does not warrant a $10 fee.

Should it be free? Nope. Are there cost involved that ANet should be allowed to recover? Yep. Should we blindly pay $10 for a storage tab? Nope.

It isn't for us to pay their light bill because they have no revenue coming in. They are to blame for that by not following the business plan of releasing chapters every 6 months. That was how they were going to fund themselves.

I guess I don't see the fundamental difference between selling character slots and storage tabs. I'm not saying I don't see the difference in storage capacity per dollar spent, but I'm wondering why you'd see selling one as OK, but not the other.

Storage is kind of a nebulous thing, and it's different for everyone. Many have complained of the "need" for more storage, but this is a clear case of wanting something and calling it a need. People managed before we had material storage, but it was very handy once we got it. People manage now with the number of storage slots we currently have, and yet, if given more, we would have no problem filling them. If Anet gave every account four tabs for free, they would get filled, and players would "need" more. If Anet had launched GW four years ago with eight storage tabs, a materials tab, and equipment packs, players would be clamoring now they they "need" more storage.

Now look at character slots. A player buying Prophecies today will find a game with four slots to play a total of six professions. These are firm numbers. If a player wants one of each profession, he has to lay out another $20 beyond what he paid for the game. If anything, this seems like a black and white issue of what you have referred to as a "game inadequacy".

Storage is a gray area. How much is adequate? How much is inadequate? Why should storage be free, and how much should they give us, for free, until we have enough?

And if all this storage should be free, why should they be allowed to charge for extra character slots?

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For the record, I have no problem with Anet charging for things that place extra burdens on their servers, or that require significant development time. I bought the game expecting skill balances and mechanics tweaks, but I've never felt like I've been owed increased server space or free content. I think charging for content like the BMP is fine. I think charging for character slots is fine. And I think charging for expanded storage is fine, although it's not worth $10 to me, so I won't be buying it.

Are you bloody serious? What does made-up fanforum math have to do with anything? And why would they need to justify their prices in the first place? They'll charge what they think is a good idea, and the market will prove them right or wrong.

Oh, and how absolutely gracious of you to allow ANet to recover their cost.

I don't quite follow your last paragraph though, you'll need to elaborate on the point you're trying to get across. Surely they never asked any of us to pay their light bill? Anyway, I'm sure they'll have some revenue coming in after next week, when they put a new product in the market that some of us might want to buy. I bet you don't have to worry about paying their bills for them.

Last I checked math wasnt "made up" it kinda works or not.

They don't need to justify anything... I didn't send this to them, I posted in a fan forum as you pointed out. All I am doing is suggesting to the folks that seem to think they need to spend millions of dollars on hard drive space for all of the new storage that they should wake up and do some math. Their "cost" of providing this upgrade could be recovered at a much cheaper price than $10. But as you point out, they can charge whatever they want.

Whats your point other than trying to insult? Is that the best you can do?

I'll spell slowly for you since this is hard for you to comprehend. The signicant cost of this upgrade makes it look like they are trying to recoup a lot more than the cost of providing the upgrade. I would use some math here but we have already determined that you struggle with that. They would not need to try so hard to recover revenue from a minor upgrade if they had operating revenue coming in based on their original business model (you do remember what that was don't you?)

No sense wasting anymore time on you Gil, I can already see your response.

The funny thing is I fall in the middle on this. I am more than willing to pay something for it. I would love for ANet to fund more things like this with micro transactions. But you are so blind in your support that you blast me for actually trying to support thought with actual facts.

Just look at the poll. The responses last time I checked were approaching 1000 (800+ if I remember correctly) over 70% said they either would not buy, or that it was priced to high to buy.

The numbers speak for themselves. But then we have determined that you don't understand numbers very well.

Regards

Since I'm not paying a monthly fee to play ~ like World of Warcraft charges ~ I don't mind buying an extra tab if needed.

I always considered the gw live team to be there for the minor maintence and skill updates of gw1. It's only what, 5 people? It's also an addition previously stated would cost too much server space when they will be needing new servers for gw2. They also said it could potentially be a programming nightmare.

The fact that they did it is great. The fact that they're putting new stuff on an old game that hasn't received an expansion in... (3 years?) when they should have a new game within the next year and a half? I'd really like to know their priorities and whether or not gw2 is a no-go.

Although, as stated they could just be testing stuff. Still, the additional storage wouldn't be testing. And those who have been playing for as long as most of us don't even play anymore, and others have already found ways of dealing with the storage problem (mule accounts anyone!?).

It was also stated that anet apparently doesnt know their own market well enough to know that even with this storage buying addition, its still more cost-effective to just buy a mule account at some store where this game is on sale. Guess why its on sale...? lol

I wasn't trying to insult you, I was being sarcastic.

Please, humor me and use some more made-up fanforum math. I promise, I'll do my best to try and understand it. Maybe you can also throw in some more made-up fanforum financial projections about cost and revenue.

Facts? What facts? All I see are numbers pulled from thin air.

You mean that silly little biased thing up there?

Maybe you should consider that people who are actually prepared to pay ANet's $9.99 price AND believe that such a poll might influence ANet's pricing decision, are led to vote dishonestly in protest against the pricetag. Heck, if a single click would definitely save me 5 bucks, tell me where to click. It wouldn't reflect at all on my actual intentions though.

That poll?

So the poll is only truthful if it sways in your direction? Otherwise the other side is merely people who WILL pay that much and just don't want to? Give me a break. If you're going to argue, use facts, not assumptions.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure that was exactly his point. Polls like this are unreliable, and should not be used as evidence.

I never said the poll would be truthful at all, whichever way it swings.

A poll like that can't be truthful, ever. It's a thinly disguised petition to lower the price of storage tabs, hardly a poll at all.

And if you want facts, I can tell you with absolute certainty that what I said about this poll is a fact, because I cheated on it myself. Despite being willing to pay $40 for 4 tabs, I voted the second option. If there's a chance I can pay less than $40, I won't let my true intentions get in the way of that.

It may be fact, but you made it sound like a large chunk of them had the same idea. There's no way of knowing if that is fact or not, so it is an assumption.

Where did you pull that number from? Out of your hat? 5 or 6 million copies sold does not equate to still 3 million ACTIVE accounts. It's just copies sold of all 4 games combined. People do this all they time when trying to force their agenda. There are not 3 million players left in GW. I'd be surprised if there were 750,000 left. But, as you can see I can pull numbers out of my hat as well. Doesn't make it so, thus your equation isn't so or any part of reality.

Yippee! I get to weigh in a second time. I mentioned above that I will probably buy the slots for my primary account. That still stands, despite feeling the price is too high.

What I did just there is justify the price: a merchant picks a price it thinks people will be willing to pay. Many customers prefer a lower price, but far fewer will actually do something about the amount being charged. It's an analysis of demand, which I alluded to and someone else explicitly stated back on page 29(ish).

As for the chosen price being a way to recoup costs, the argument that costs should include all the costs of development is silly. There is already a Live Team in place. Their job is to provide continuing maintenance to GW1. This includes skill balancing, content updates, festivals, weekend events, and anything else required to maintain the game in working order. If they hadn't been developing this update, they would have been doing other things. While I know (for a fact) that Linsey and Co. put in very long hours on all of the new content, I also know (by deduction) that Linsey and her team are salaried employees. Salaried. That means more man-hours worked actually equals less cost to recoup. Salary is constant; the output "purchased" by that salary is increased.

(If my "salary assumptions" are wrong, this whole thing gets thrown out. I don't think they are, though, as any full time employee of a developer like ANet or NCSoft would be salaried and not hourly -- imagine the overtime!)

In short: costs of development would include: increased server space (which, apparently, is up for debate and not my area of expertise), any outside work that was done by other teams or team members, and additional utility bills for when Linsey work(s/ed) into the wee hours of the morning and had to keep the AC set at 55 degrees to stay awake.

Recovering that cost would take - rough estimate, guessing at a round number - $100000. If each transaction does indeed cost $5, they make $5 from every $10 transaction. Assuming every slot is purchased individually, to maximize the number of transactions and thereby the cost of those transactions, it would take 20,000 transactions to recoup their cost. 20,000! That means they turn profit for every transaction after the first 20000. Even if only 60,000 of the active accounts purchased three slots, they would have $800,000 in profit. PROFIT, not net or gross income. (Even with 750,000 active accounts, 60,000 purchasing is less than 15% of the game population)

And that's my 2 cents on that theory, including some hypothetical math just for Gli and fog_of_redoubt. But, like I said, I'll probably still buy three. Maybe four - what if the promotional one is extra, and we're really getting five tabs?

Sure some change is needed...but at a price? More content should be a price...changes should not be a price.

I suppose you could say that they are still going by the "no monthly fees" model. I just hate the trend overall...give us less so they can charge us more.

One can directly affect the in game experience. The other is a convience. Sadly the convience is often used for solely the other reason.

Possibly, but I don't look at it that way. I just look at the fact that GW really did have an extremely low amount of storage for a long time, even for casual players.

I don't consider having one of each profession a need. If you want my real opinion I don't think anything should be sold except content. I just "don't personally mind" some things being sold. IE it doesn't bother me. Selling UAX and storage bothers me because where do we draw the line?

This poll is irrelevant. Your actions is what matters. The actual number of units sold will matter, they will surely make detailed analysis of players buying behavior and based on that add more micro content for macro prices. Buying this may bring ultimate doom on our good old beloved business model.

Only a true, massive collective movement of players AGAINST this ripoff deal, a heavy promotion of using a brain and buying better alternatives can save our future from becoming dependant on horrible deals like this. Yes, dependant. Because they won't step back - if this is a sales success we will only see more, and even worse offers, they will only push forward and take more money for even less in return....

...you may wake up and regret your mistake when it will be too late... after a month of playing GW2 and realising the standard storage space is so little that game becomes completely unplayable at that point, and the only option is adding 5-slot bags sold at $10 each... as many as you want.

So Red, lets use your numbers if you like them better than mine. It still makes my point.

So 750,000 active users. What do you want to use as the take rate on the people that would actually purchase? 30%, 50%? lets see, 50% 750,000 = 375,000 at $10 = 3.75Mil. Hmm, how about $5 that would be about 1.8ish Mil.

What does the upgrade cost? Lets see maybe each memeber of the live team makes $100,000 per year. They spend 3 months working on the upgrade. How many people do we want on the live team? How about 4? so 4 at 3 months work on a $100,000 salary? that is $100,000 total labor. And lets not forget about the hard drives at $1000.00... and maybe we need to assume 10 servers instead of one. So that is 10,000 in hard drives. So our total is now $110,000

So 750,000 accounts at a 50% take rate = 3.75 mil at a $10 charge, or 1.8 mil at a $5 charge. Even worst case they get 15:1 ROI, lol

You guys are missing the point... Dont accuse me of picking numbers out of the air. PICK YOUR OWN FREAKING NUMBERS... do the math. They are raping you at $10.

Buy what you want. I may buy it also... But at least I wont be doing it like a blind fool

Hey!!! I just purchased an new fractions account at the "egg" site on monday. I happed to look back today and they have stopped selling fractions for $9.99. My new account will be used as mules and maybe farming a few z-keys. Better deal than one storage tab in my opinion. AND i noticed they are now selling a preorder for GW2!

King Swift,

They are not selling air, they are selling server space. Contrary to popular opinion, the word wide web is not some ethereal mesh of programmed hyperspace. The game, its functions, its routines and sub-routines, etc. all exist on machines and are played through some very brilliant code created by a very brilliant Englishman. However, the electricity which powers the equipment, the equipment that is powered, the man-hours to maintain the equipment and code, the buildings in which the servers are stored, the maintenance of those buildings, and so forth - are not free and they are not air. All of these things have a cost which ANet pays for with their budget from our purchases.

They have other games, other services, other sources of income, but they are effectively providing the use of their servers, storage, facilites, etc. for only what we are willing to pay for them. I have, to date, purchased everything which ANet has put out in game, upgrade, or expansion that I can purchase. I have spent more money than I should. I will probably purchase more when it becomes available.

I know what ANet has done to improve the storage condition. I know how pathetic it was 4 years ago. In 6 months I will have been playing for 4 years. It was clear from ANet's reaction then, they had no reason to suspect we would play more than our favorite class of character, with maybe a secondary. They did not see a reason for anyone to keep anything other than the PvP gear and to PvP after finishing the PvE game. However, we did not play the way they foresaw. (This too was evident in continual changes and adjustment by GW to the community.) The lack of storage was an incredibly obnoxious oversite - but one that helped save money. Why spend money to create server using space for something you don't feel there will be a use for? Well, now that we have gotten all the nifty this-and-thats we have been asking for and enjoying - there is no space.

If they need $10.00 to extend the server space avaialbe, support it, maintain it, maintain the building it is housed in, etc. then it is justifiable. If this becomes a step to pay-to-play on a monthly basis then we will have a different (very different) discussion.

hey guys i just found this thread and i feel strongly about the issue so i will post in it.
ok here goes:

what everyone in here seems to be forgetting is that it's optional so which means that you don't have to buy it. you can keep playing guild wars without paying anything extra and still get the other free things that are coming with the update.
since this point seems to be lost on everyone as it has never been brought up i'd like to reiterate it: it is optional, optional means you dont have to do something so since you dont have to buy this and you lose nothing by not buying it if you think it's bad you're wrong its not a matter of opinion its a purely superior addition of options to the game with no losses.
again i'd like to reiterate a point that i think is very important and worth reiterating: it's optional so that means you don't have to buy it its not like anet is reaching in your pocket and taking 10 dorrars because that would be stealing and stealing is bad mkay.

Wow, you are right. In 666 posts, no one ever pointed out that it was optional. And none of us figured that out on our own

You SIR are a GENIUS.

Why is this fail of a thread still open?

Those who want to rather buy account and use it as mule, you are still free to do so; its not like they are going to stop selling them... And those of us who can't be bothered to switch accounts, or even characters, will buy storage tabs.

Problem with that theory? The current storage we have has always been sufficient to play the game. Always. ALWAYS. The fact that some people are incessant hoarders, need to own every suit of armor, redundant sets of weapons, hold onto every weapon or upgrade they think they may need in the future, grab every book regardless of whether or not they plan on completing the missions sometime in the near future, or in general hold onto a bunch of useless optional junk does NOT change the fact that we have always had sufficient storage to play the game.

Extrapolating "they're giving us a bunch of storage now for free because we've asked for it, and letting us buy even more if we want" to "GW2 will put a stranglehold on storage, squeezing the players for every dime they're willing to put out" is f***ing ridiculous, especially in light of the fact that they've already stated that they plan to completely scrap and redo the item system in a manner that is compatible with, for example, auction houses.

Fitz Rinley, what an interesting post. Forget about the cost of the "upgrade/features" we are getting... You are implying that the cost of running the game needs to somehow be accounted for by ongoing purchases??? Or am I mis interpreting your post?

What about the business model that said that our purchase of the product (a single chapter) and no pay to play was a profitable business model

If that is the situation Anet is in then it is VERY important to us and them for that statement to be acknowledged. Why??? Well because GW2 is to be based on this same model. And if it is a failed model and needs supplementing by micro transactions (or macro in this case) then why would we by GW2 ?


You are correct it needs to be a very different conversation. Does this prove that the free to play model does not work over the long run?

And if so, then why would they lead us to believe that GW2 will be sucsefull as a non pay 2 play model?

So in your opinion then, if my storage is full I am playing the game wrong and I should just quit? You however because you have some slots free are playing th game correctly?

How nice.

Maybe you could write a tutorial.

Sorry, but your point has been brought up 10 million times and shown to be a worthless point just as many times.

I'd also like to address the people claiming "this is good for Anet they are a business they need to make money to survive etc etc". Wasn't that what the ORIGINAL IDEA of selling content was for? Anet has asstons of money so stop with this they need to survive garbage. The claims have no point and don't address the line of what can or can't be sold and also the likelihood of it in GW2 if everybody supports it in GW1.

Still waiting for ecto stack ... (kidding)

Anet's model of a campaign every 6 months would've indeed generated enough revenue. Anet abandoned this model because a new campaign every 6 months made the GW Behemoth far too complex, and stated that some idea's they would've liked to implement weren't compatible with GW's engine, therefore GW2.

They didn't ditch GW because it wasn't making enough money.

I think most people can figure this out for themselves, but anyway:

CASE: Xunlai Storage crammed, mules crammed.

SOLUTION A: Free up space by selling useless crap.
SOLUTION B: Cry about not enough storage space on a Forum of your choice.

You get a lot more than double. You get approx 46 slots for the character not counting all your characters HEROES slots. So, let's see each hero can hold a rune and a insignia per armor slot so that's 5 rune and 5 insignias slots plus they can hold one weapon and one offhand and there's how many heroes now? 25? I'm guessing but I think that's close. So at 25 x 5 x 2 equals 125 slots for runes and 125 slots for insignias and 25 x 2 equals 25 more slots for weapons and 25 more slots for offhands and that's just ONE character, you get four I believe when you buy any of the chapters, but, of course you need the NIGHTFALL chapter first as that is where the heroes come in. So lets see 4 characters heroes x 250 equals 1000 slots (500 for runes and 500 for insignias) and 4 x 25 equals 100 slots for weapons and 100 slots for offhands for a whopping $10 just about anywhere now. Now WAIT I left out the 25 heroes you get for PVP (you can put runes an insignias in them but you can't take them back out). I tried to pluck them back out and they wouldn't come lol. But, they can hold the extra weapons and offhands. So, there's 25 more weapon slots and 25 more offhand slots.
Let's not forget to add the other 3 characters 46 slots as well. 46 x 3 = 138 storage slots if you wanted to use them as mules as well.

So what's that all add up to? A total of 1388 extra slots just for buying Nightfall and EOTN. Now, I'm not sure if they tied everything in as far as the actual storage box from Factions. Anyways you get 80 storage slots from that plus the resources tab which I forget how much that holds. If not, even an investment into Nightfall, Factions and EOTN for $20 bucks yields you a hellofalot more storage space than 20 for $10. lol

So, why in the world other than convience would you pay $10 for 20 slots? That's the most waste of money I ever saw.

Absolutely. But if you're looking for just a tiny little extra storage, the inconvenience of using a second account for that would easily be more prohibitive than a few lousy extra dollars.

Speaking for myself, it would be. With 2 or 3 extra storage tabs, I wouldn't even need to store anything on my characters other than the equipment they use. (And that will be taken care of for free!).

Maybe not blind..... but possibly in need of some glasses by the looks of the figures :-/
I wonder if the same thoughts go through your head for every purchase in life?......

It does make laugh all the people who "need" the storage but who will not pay for it...... obviously you dont "need" it that much
Ok you may say its standing up against the principle.... but do you honestly think that Anet will read this thread and change the pricing?... Nope
Who is the only person that will be affected by your decision not to buy it?........that will be yourself....

Have fun :-)

Re-reading some posts in this thread, I wonder if people are consistent with their reasoning. For example, would you avoid purchasing a sandwich or go to a restaurant, because it's actually a lot cheaper to make the sandwich or the meal yourself? In essence a lot of people are saying that it's cheaper to have char slots and accounts instead of storage panes, but aren't most of the "services" we pay for in RL about "convenience"?

Precisely what I was trying to elude to :-)

I will gladly pay for convience :-)

The only thing that is truly shocking is that there are people who really want to pay 10$ for a storage tab.

I guess not many people would pay me 10$ if I would offer them the convenience to serve them a burger.


ANet should remember, playing GW2 will be optional, too. And I will make use of this option if they continue this trend to sell more and more as "optional".
The idea to buy another account or char slots to serve as storage is already pervert enough.