A Note on Microtransactions

And that is all I've been trying to show you. You are entitled to your opinion and I respect it. As I am entitled to mine and you more than likely also respect it. But having arguments based off of each others opinions is foolish and gets us no where. Your points are good and yes, guild wars has crossed a line for you and if they push forward with this and take micro transactions too far, will have crossed that line with a lot more people. Everyone's line is different though.

Basically I think this whole argument is silly. The general consensus is, everyone has different opinions on what is and what is not acceptable. Right now Anet has crossed that line on what appears to be a minority. Should anet ignore this because it is a minority? absolutely not. Because if you continue to push that line, that minority will eventually become a majority and then your business is just screwed. In my opinion and in a lot of others, this update was ok. We would have obviously preferred it to be free, but we will accept this as is. That however is not a welcome invitation to put more and more things in the store. The more you do this, the less tolerant people become.

My line is basically the same as JR's. Do not put anything in the store that would give one player a competitive advantage over another. However, that definition is very shaky. For me, that means do not put anything in the store that would give someone an unfair advantage in PvP where you would have to buy that item to stay competitive. However, the majority of players do not touch PvP and play PvE. And here lies the problem, because their definition of competitive advantage is almost endless. People play the game for different reasons. Some people will be upset if anet introduces something that allows people who purchase it an easier time farming UW. Some people would be upset if anet adds cool looking weapon or armor designs because they compete off of who looks the best. The definition is going to be nearly endless and no matter what they do, someone is going to be upset. So if this is the path they want to chose, I am fine with it up to the point I had stated. Others wont be.

DreamWind you are now just being bullheaded (Tenaciously unwilling to yield). As has been said ad nauseam, love them or hate them, microtransactions that have no affect on game play are not basically bad. Your definition of the effects seem to differ greatly from a majority of posters in this forum and yet you persist in trying to legitimize them.

CE dances and Divine auras are not items, they are features than enhance dances for show off, that are paid once along the price of their respective CE edition.
Traders are not items, they are features that ease trading, that were included in the price of any part of the content that includes an area with any of them.
Instant map travel is not an item, is a feature that eases traveling (Did you know you can get almost everywhere without map travel, just with dialog-based travel and zoning?) that is included in the 'pay-once' price. We take it for granted, but, really, there are few games out there in which you can move around as fast as in GW.
Extra character slots are not items. They are account enhacements. All you need to fully enjoy all professions is 10 slots, you could try all professions with a single slot, and you can get up to 36 per account.
Extra Xunlai storage is not an item. They are account enhancements. You can also choose to get them or not.
Instant unlocks are not items. They are account enchancements.
Until now, all of both general stuff and extras were paid once. And available since then.
The game has may pieces of content and features, and all of them were included in the 'pay once' prices.

Extras can be added and get benefits for Anet and still follow the 'pay once' policy. They said all the time they would stick to it always. They always said they won't turn to fees or things like those.
So hard is the crisis to drop all said and change one of the pilars in which GW was founded.
Pay? Yes! Of course! Give us stuff! Add more on top of the rest, I'll pay it all, all of it...!

Just ONCE each one.

I think I'd rather have the NCoins... then I could buy a batch and split them up on the things I want (One Makeover here, one xunlai tab there...) instead of having to buy 5 makeovers and waste 4 times as much money as I need to spend.

That's another. You use up a single makeover credit for a single change out of 4..5, when separate changes should cost separately.

For example, makeover credits would be purchased in packs of 50 credits, and then make them have separate costs:
- Gender change: 35 credits.
- Hair style change: 1 credit.
- Hair color change: 2 credits.
- Skin tone change: 2 credits.
- Face change: 5 credits.
- Height change: 5 credits.
Then, if you change everything, you use up a whole purchase (9.99$/8.99€). If you only do hairdos, you last more.
I won't use it unless it is 'pay once', and still would require a 'pay once' alternative, but I'm sore more people would find something like that more fair.

Well... I think, now that the initial outrage has calmed, I'm falling more in line with Mithran than the hardliners like Dreamwind. I would still rather do the micro thing than pay monthlies, and it looks like TOR's going to micros too, meaning that if I play either that or GW2 in the future, I'm going to have to deal. So I see 2 this problem:

Put the "micro" in "microtransaction - reduce cost to maybe 1 or 2 per batch of 5
What Mithran's been saying - pay once for permanent access, as with the BMP, imp, etc.

I think I prefer the latter. If they granted access forever for $10, ANet'd have my cash in a jiffy... and while I was in the store, I might pick up the BMP as I've been considering that... and I'm now decided on buying another slot. That's $30 right there. Bam. But, sadly, I don't think that's going to happen, and I'm not happy enough with them to get the BMP... so they'll have to settle for only a third of that. Pity. There's still no way in hell I'm blowing $10 on only 5 credits. Makeovers are nice, but they just aren't worth $2 apiece.

Fine. I just personally feel that the line of everybody supporting this has been manually pushed by Anet. If this was released 2-3 years ago, I guarantee there would have been more outrage over it. It is almost as if people don't care what Anet tells its players and use the excuse "change happens". It is almost as if people like it because its a "welcome long awaited surprise" instead of for what it actually is. The floodgates have been opened on this...I will quote this when the reality hits.

They are bad to me. And game play changing microtransactions are not bad to some others. Interesting isn't it?

you forgot one
- Virtual Male Enhancement: 75 credits.

I guess it's all subjective really. If people don't want to purchase 2$ a pop on makeover per char when they are blowing 5$+ at Starbucks daily or other garbage. If everyone in the United states could chip in 1$ a month so that 100+million over 50 could retire with 1 million in the bank, pay off their mortgage, invest the rest and live off it monthly combing the way for the younger generation to get and start jobs earlier; thereby ad-hearing to be compulsive consumers in their earlier years adding taxes for the government, hell you'd make 3 parties happy. Elderly, Government, and x generations. Enough squabble over some peanut 2$ a pop.

Fixed it for you .

Ah hell, I'll bite.

My thoughts are as follows: meh. "Meh" as in I don't see them being particularly harmful to the game, if at all.

This is based upon the fact that all these updates - upping your storage, changing your hair, changing your sex - are all based around your appearance. More storage slots means more room to store your vanity based goods.

People have been asking for these updates for awhile, that is true, but they're practically pointless updates. In general, these updates would be a waste of time, especially considering how meaningless gold is in this game. But with ANet adding a pricetag it becomes less of a pointless addition.

UAX still needs to be free, though. That was the bad move.

I really do find it offensive when so many people think that the RP side of the game is a pointless thing to update, and skill balances are the only things that matter.


Don't people ever stop and smell the roses anymore?

And since when did it start costing 10$ per sniff?

It's not so much that they're "pointless" but more that they're much lower on priority: skill changes affect everyone, not so much for something that's subjective.

I do wish ANet gave a courtosy token for the stylist, though, especially when so many just wanted one single hair-change.

There is very little point in redoing ANYTHING in PvE.
Skill changes give the players a new effective way of solving a problem. Which means that the players are actually given a reason to do something that they already did.

I don't know if this has yet been addressed as I haven't read the entire thread, but how the heck are you justifying the statement that "you don't get to keep that features"? You buy the change, you make that change, and you get to keep the results of that change forever. If you want to make another change, you buy another change. It's not like they're renting you your character's face and you have to pay a certain amount every month to keep it.

The storage tabs are the same - you buy one, and you get to use it in perpetuity. If you want another, you buy another. In every case, and for everything that they've offered, you only "PAY ONCE". What feature have they offered that is not, in fact, like that? Did you have to pay more than once for that Coke you drank? You bought it, you used it, and if you want another you buy another. Pretty simple, right?

People on the boards may be young, but it's never too early to realize that wild, poorly thought out comments don't exactly make you or your posts more likely to be considered. The Boy Who Cried Wolf should be required reading, in fact.

since they are selling things now.. I would love the idea of being able to buy gold from them.. so it's all legal... not from Gold Farmers...

Sorta related to the issues being talked about here.


http://www.walloftext.info/2009/03/f...-spawn-of.html

http://www.walloftext.info/2009/03/f...awn-of_22.html

http://www.walloftext.info/2009/03/f...n-of_9428.html