GW should have been pay to play.

athariel

Frost Gate Guardian

Join Date: May 2009

E/A

Quote:
Originally Posted by Darcy View Post
3. Due to ArenaNet's server/game system, there is no way to "create" anything on the live servers. This was a purposeful decision on their part. Therefore, no amount of monthly fee would enable you to recover lost items or characters. It is not "lack of funds" that controls this, but the fact that they would need to rollback the server to restore one person's belongings.
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Feedback_talk:Gaile_Gray
Quote:
Fred, I'm super, super sorry that you lost that. I have a version of that bow -- through my own gameplay and through the help of a few friends. (I keep all bows I'm given, so I sometimes have two that are close or even identical.) However, I don't think I have any, on any of my (many) Rangers, that are quite that awesome. As I've said before, one of the things I do is incident analysis and, occasionally, item retrieval and restoration, in the rare (and I do mean rare) occasions when we can do one. If I come across that bow, I will see if I can track it back to your account and if that's the case, I'll be in touch. (And folks, we do try to do that for all hacked accounts, it's just confoundedly difficult.)
your theory fails?

Scary

Scary

Krytan Explorer

Join Date: Sep 2007

Uhmmmm??

Limburgse Jagers [LJ]

N/

Quote:
Originally Posted by Shanaeri Rynale View Post
Yes. But they never hit that ideal, and it was clear even when factions hit, that increasing the number of professions and skills every six months was going to be real problem.

They could have just sold lots of content with no new skills and no new professions but then they are on hiding to nothing as they had already released major new content for free in the form of Sorrows Furnace.

I can see GW2 hitting the same wall too.
The idea of GW with a monthly fee give me the Spinal Shivers, GW as it is with no Monthly fee, gave us all the players we have and had. And I play GW
for over 4 years now becouse it was and still is free.

But one thing I agree, is that I wouldn't mind to pay for a content update every 6 months. If they keep it within reason of vallue. So not like
the storage upgrade for overrated prices.

But Monthly fee would quit me playing GW immediately.

Rehnahvah Gahro

Rehnahvah Gahro

Frost Gate Guardian

Join Date: Dec 2005

Underground

Rt/R

You may be right about more content, paid GMs etc. but remember that GW would not have even come this far with fees. That was the single main reason to even pick up this game in a store and give it a try. Most people I know did so, because it had no subscription fees.
So even if your right about the (doubtful) benefit of paid GMs and more content (only real benefit I could see) you must ask yourself if it would be worth the loss in players. Because that would inevitably happen.

And only because WoW pulls it off doesn't mean others can do it too. In fact, it is the reason why others can't do it. Flies flock to the biggest pile of crap, they don't care if someone else takes a dump right in front of them, sure some of the flies may come over for a while and check it out, but the majority will stay right where they are, they know it worked for them since they where here, so why change? Especially if it costs them! Ok so now my explanation is a little off, but you get the picture.

So long story short: No, no, nooooooo to subscription fees, it would suck the life (what's left of it) out of Guild Wars.

QueenofDeath

Krytan Explorer

Join Date: Jul 2009

Please YES! YES! YES! subscription fees Anet/NCsoft just think of how much more money you will make and get rid of all the frustrating little kiddies of 12 and under and probably 13 to 15 as well since mommy and daddy aren't going to support their $20-$25 a month habit. )

Darcy

Darcy

Never Too Old

Join Date: Jul 2006

Rhode Island where there are no GW contests

Order of First

W/R

@athariel - You do notice that she said "rare occasions." This only happens if the hacker has not passed the item on to someone else. Otherwise, your item is gone. There is no way to recreate the item for you.

moriz

moriz

??ber t??k-n??sh'??n

Join Date: Jan 2006

Canada

R/

Quote:
Originally Posted by QueenofDeath View Post
Please YES! YES! YES! subscription fees Anet/NCsoft just think of how much more money you will make and get rid of all the frustrating little kiddies of 12 and under and probably 13 to 15 as well since mommy and daddy aren't going to support their $20-$25 a month habit. )
you mean, it will get rid of yourself? awesome!

*cue queenofdeath's random football player reply here*

JR

JR

Re:tired

Join Date: Nov 2005

W/

Quote:
Originally Posted by Martin Alvito View Post
Go look at NCSoft's financials. They could live on cash and legacy revenues for YEARS. They carry virtually no debt and have a low expenditure profile. It's debt that breaks you in this business. The resources to support GW are there. They simply aren't being utilized.
In a conference call back in May a senior NCSoft exec. said that ArenaNet's revenue was depleted, and they were almost entirely supported (financially) by NCSoft at that point. There was the update in April (menagerie, stylist...) that probably bumped ArenaNet's numbers for a while, but that wouldn't have lasted long.

It's hardly surprising that ArenaNet have been so reliant on NCSoft, given that they have had virtually their entire team working on the project - with no return on that investment - yet.

So, do you still think NCSoft could be doing more for ArenaNet?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Martin Alvito View Post
PvE is a degenerate farmfest because ANet is unwilling to dedicate the resources to clean it up, and figures that they've already driven off everyone but the hardcore farmers anyway.
Did you miss the memo about UW? I heard they dedicated resources to cleaning it up and adding new content, and have pissed off the hardcore farmers.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Shanaeri Rynale View Post
Was'nt people let go from Europe(e.g Brighton and Germany)? Fact is NCsoft laid off people, moved some others elsewhere for money reasons.
Pretty much all of the NCSoft Europe guys in Brighton were let go. A few (including Martin Kerstein) were relocated to NCWest. That had remarkably little impact on ArenaNet, if anything it was a benefit to have Martin over there. I believe he was the only one directly related to Guild Wars/ArenaNet at that time.

So, no. ArenaNet has never laid anyone off for 'restructuring' reasons. And, as has been pointed out, have only taken on more staff, where others have shed them.

Takeko Nakano

Takeko Nakano

Wilds Pathfinder

Join Date: Aug 2005

Great Britain

W/P

Quote:
Originally Posted by Dzjudz View Post
I'd rather not spend 480 euros to play a game 4 years.
I'm sure no one would want to spend hundreds of pounds/dollars/euros on anything if they can help it, but you get what you pay for. Plus if you bought all the games on release you already spent a bit.

Put it like this, I've given up on GW. I'd played the content so much I really, really had got bored with it. There are other games out there, but I'm not sure if I can be bothered to come back in 2011.

This was a risky financial structure, and whilst it allowed for the game to continue it meant eventually money would start to dry up. I think this is why development/release of GW2 has taken so long compared to when GWEN came out. If there had been pots of cash we'd already be in beta stage for GW2.

moriz

moriz

??ber t??k-n??sh'??n

Join Date: Jan 2006

Canada

R/

EotN is an expansion, GW2 is a new game. typically games of GW's caliber takes around five years to develop. GW2 has been in development for around three to four, give or take a bit. from all indications it is progressing on schedule. the availability of subscription income (or lack thereof) doesn't seem to affect anything, especially if Anet has financial backing from NCsoft.

making a game is a creative process. you can't speed such processes by throwing money at it.

Darcy

Darcy

Never Too Old

Join Date: Jul 2006

Rhode Island where there are no GW contests

Order of First

W/R

People tend to forget (or were't around at the time) that ArenaNet announced GW2 so early in its development stage to explain why there would be no more new Campaigns for GW. No other game company would have ever announced a project that was barely off the ground.

This has caused constant posts about "vaporware" and "going out of business." Meanwhile, NCSoft has continued to support ArenaNet through the development stage and the game will be released when it is ready. ArenaNet has watched many MMOs fail within months of release due to being released before completely finished. They got away with it with GW because the whole concept was new. But, with the higher expectations of the community now, they know that GW2 will need to be polished before release.

Takeko Nakano

Takeko Nakano

Wilds Pathfinder

Join Date: Aug 2005

Great Britain

W/P

Quote:
Originally Posted by moriz View Post
making a game is a creative process. you can't speed such processes by throwing money at it.
You're missing the point. With more revenue/money they could have hired a large enough staff to keep content updates (proper ones, not gimmicks) going for GW whilst also working on GW2. As it is they've been forced to choose and therefore cut off the new content for GW.

moriz

moriz

??ber t??k-n??sh'??n

Join Date: Jan 2006

Canada

R/

Quote:
Originally Posted by Takeko Nakano View Post
You're missing the point. With more revenue/money they could have hired a large enough staff to keep content updates (proper ones, not gimmicks) going for GW whilst also working on GW2. As it is they've been forced to choose and therefore cut off the new content for GW.
and judging by the response from this thread, if GW had a subscription fee, there wouldn't be a need for GW2, since Anet would have gone out of business a long time ago.

GW1 was designed to not have a subscription fee. if one gets tacked on, the game is not worth buying. you can say that it could have been redesigned, but there's no guarantee that the final product is any more compelling. you are assuming that with a subscription fee the game will automatically generate more revenue. that's not true. if anything it probably would generate less.

Fril Estelin

Fril Estelin

So Serious...

Join Date: Jan 2007

London

Nerfs Are [WHAK]

E/

The premise of the reasoning behind this thread is flawed: increase the volume of money via subscription and this makes GW1 so much better. This is nice in an ideal world, but impossible in practice: GW's success (=amount of money earned by Anet) is based significantly on the no-subscription rule. Break that rule and every player will compare GW's subscription to WoW's, or LOTRO's, or WAR's, or Aion's, or etc. (or the coming SW:TOR, STO, TSW, etc.) so it's very likely to significantly decrease the volume of money Anet would have (as moriz said: look at the number of people who said they wouldn't play GW if it had a subscription).

The fact that this situation is highly desirable (even Linsey clearly said she'd nothing less than love to do more areas) doesn't make it realistic, and in fact if you look more closely as many people did here, it's exactly the opposite.

Tl;dr: everyone wish this was possible, but it's not.

Shuuda

Shuuda

Forge Runner

Join Date: Jul 2006

Guildless

Me/

I'll take the OP seriously when they can identify some of the fundamental changes GW would need in order to be viable as a pay to play game.

Shanaeri Rynale

Shanaeri Rynale

Desert Nomad

Join Date: Aug 2005

DVDF(Forums)

Me/N

Now or when it was released?

You just cant compare how things are now in 2009, with how they were in 2005. It's easy to say oh such and such MMO failed or WAR was like that, and AoC did this etc. But they all came when the MMO market had hit saturation. Back in 2005 that had not happened yet.

People do that with new MMO's now. They assume it should have the same amount of content and slickness as WoW did, forgetting it took WoW 5 years to get where it is today.

Clobimon

Frost Gate Guardian

Join Date: Jul 2006

Quote:
Originally Posted by Shanaeri Rynale View Post
.....
We would have been able to.
- Have proper GM's who could retrieve deleted items/trashed accounts.
- Have a bigger development team releasing regular content updates
- Able to have a team of people re-skilling mobs and so adapting to fotm builds, and thus keeping us on our toes and busy
- More of a sense of 'hands on the wheel' by Anet, and so a more confident community
- More CM's who have the time to interact with the players.
.....

[b]That is what pay to play brings you.[/u]
These are some things you may expect from a p2p model, but it's bad to automatically expect these and other things because you're sending them $ every month. Proof that you don't always get what you pay for has been given in great glory by a Norwegian developer for 1 1/2 years, to include all of your points and more. Your point in particular about retrieving deleted items... this company's gm's handled similar things (with a long wait) for a while, until they got sick of doing it even with a dwindling playerbase and publicly announced they will not do it anymore. Not everyone agrees, but ANet proved to me and a lot of people that their format works and they run it well.

DreamWind

DreamWind

Forge Runner

Join Date: Oct 2006

E/Mo

Quote:
Originally Posted by trialist
I'm not sure what kind of accountability you expect from using financial pressure, except to cause the death of the game.
In the eyes of many the game is already dead. I'm not saying monthly fee would solve things. I'm simply saying the current model has produced what we currently have.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Martin Alvito
Dreamwind's argument is that GW's revenue model has delinked people's purchase decisions from ANet's investment in maintaining the game. I'm not totally convinced by his data; it's logical to expect that most people that are still posting on a GW fansite intend to buy GW2. I'm willing to bet that they've lost some business over the current state of the game, and that we never observe those people. The mods suppress that sort of negative publicity.
I think it is more the case that people who don't play anymore or are unhappy simply aren't posting about it. I personally expect GW2 to be a success not because of how good Anet is at managing things (I think they are terrible at that), but because of how good Anet is at designing content (they are great at that). And for that reason, many people who know that Anet has terrible management will still buy GW2.

Quote:
Originally Posted by moriz View Post
and judging by the response from this thread, if GW had a subscription fee, there wouldn't be a need for GW2, since Anet would have gone out of business a long time ago.
This is a fallacy that I keep seeing in this thread. The reality is we don't know what would have happened if Guild Wars had monthly fees. The reason being is because it probably would have been a completely different game with a completely different playerbase. All we DO know is how the game has been run now under the current model.

The Drunkard

Wilds Pathfinder

Join Date: Nov 2007

Still looking

Rt/

Quote:
Originally Posted by Martin Alvito View Post
So? This doesn't disprove the argument that monthly payments confer leverage. You've shown that sometimes companies make mistakes despite that leverage. This doesn't imply that outcomes in GW would turn out this way under a pay-for-play model. We're in the land of "maybe" and "might have been"; anything that would increase the probability of leading to a more desirable outcome can be defined as "good" in that context.
I'm not quoting Dreamwind, please don't lump me together

The way I see it, p2p= players have more leverage but the company doesn't have to listen to its playerbase. If you make the mistake of one bad update your game can fall apart. f2p= you're going to have a lot more subs but you are going to have to keep comming out with more content regularly or else your playerbase is going to deteriorate, and eventually WILL. Based on the way that Anet has handled their playerbase, I do not want Anet to follow the same mistake WAR did since they only released last year and have turned into a mess.


Quote:
Originally Posted by Martin Alvito View Post
Worse, GW proved that there's a finite amount of non-optional new content that you can release before you kill the game. Eventually balance becomes an issue; given a sufficient number of areas and skills to keep track of, the game gets away from the devs' ability to keep ahead of those issues.

This makes me skeptical of getting involved in another long-term F2P game. Those structural issues won't go away.
I'm not sure about that, as long as Anet keeps away from adding to many skills into their game, they have a better chance of keeping the skills under control and areas interesting. I think that Anet had a great idea with dungeons as well as missions, so i'm sure they could keep releasing new areas.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Shanaeri Rynale View Post
Now or when it was released?

You just cant compare how things are now in 2009, with how they were in 2005. It's easy to say oh such and such MMO failed or WAR was like that, and AoC did this etc. But they all came when the MMO market had hit saturation. Back in 2005 that had not happened yet.

People do that with new MMO's now. They assume it should have the same amount of content and slickness as WoW did, forgetting it took WoW 5 years to get where it is today.
Since you don't seem to know about WAR, I'll give you the quick version about what I think happened with the game.

- WAR is based on 2 factions, order vs. chaos.
- Each faction has 3 races with 4 professions each
- The order side had two classes that were completly broken, Warrior priests and Bright wizards. The bright wizards could either stack tons of DoTs on everyone, spike for high single-target dmg, or use their pbAoE to literally blow up warbands (6+ people in a group). The warrior priests could sit in the backline and heal their group for large amounts, or tank in the frontline.
- When people started to complain on the fourms about the two classes being overpowered, the CR said they were balanced out fine and that other classes were the source of the problem.
- A couple of big updates hit healing and general damage for all classes except for the bright wizards.
- The other faction kept being overwhelmed in high-end pvp because of the poor skill balancing, many decided to leave because they kept getting killed.
- A large population inbalance has led to many order to leave because they couldn't fight destruction
- Mythic had crafting skills but botched them up because removed the novelty items that each craft so everything was similar
- Mythic could never fix the countless amount of bugs in their game
- Mythic had little high-end content to the game.

I didn't expect a clone of WoW, I wanted a game where the devs LISTENED to the playerbase. Anet seemed to do a fine job before nightfall was introduced, so I don't thing that making a f2p game is going to deteriorate.

Bryant Again

Bryant Again

Hall Hero

Join Date: Feb 2006

I'm not sure if a monthly fee would've prevented such bad game design decisions.

beaverlegions

beaverlegions

Frost Gate Guardian

Join Date: Sep 2006

The Siege Turtles

R/

Good job, if you really beleive that GW could have made it like it was at release if it was pay to play you are truly retarded.
Nothing wrong with being retarded, jsut dont make a thread every time you think you have a great idea

Sword Hammer Axe

Sword Hammer Axe

Wilds Pathfinder

Join Date: Jun 2008

Look up.

Kurzick Conflagration Unit [KCU].

W/

Quote:
Originally Posted by DreamWind View Post
Those options are good to you in a PvP game? I don't personally know any competitive player of any game who would follow what you propose. Unless of course you mean leave the game or don't play PvP, which is what the majority of PvP players have already chosen to do.
Let's sum up what I said:

The options you have are:
1) Learn to play well with what you have.
2) Buy more material to add on to your current materials.
3) Stop playing.

... and these don't seem like good options to you? It covers pretty much every option there is except these:

4) Play on and don't give a shit about whether you are on others level or not.
5) Play badly.

If you can mention a single option that I can't say originates from these or these originates from then be my guest. So far "leave the game or don't play PvP" originates from option 3. Now if you can give me any valid reason as to why not follow option 1 then, again, be my guest.

Short

Short

Lion's Arch Merchant

Join Date: Jun 2009

Protectors of Fate [GoF]

N/Me

Quote:
Originally Posted by beaverlegions View Post
Good job, if you really beleive that GW could have made it like it was at release if it was pay to play you are truly retarded.
Nothing wrong with being retarded, jsut dont make a thread every time you think you have a great idea
Oh brilliant argument. Consistently insulting someone and not even with different insults. Such creativity. If you're gonna answer at least give proper reasoning.

OT: I am kinda on the fence with this. On one hand, I wouldn't have started playing this game if it was P2P. Simple as. Which is probably good. But oh well. On the other hand, if it was P2P, despite what beaverlegions said, this game would be where it is now and possibly further. Yes the appeal of this game was the free st00f to begin with, but I believe that this game's only shortcomings are the very things that it being P2P could solve, as the OP said. So I want it to have the benefits of P2P, but not BE P2P. :3

DreamWind

DreamWind

Forge Runner

Join Date: Oct 2006

E/Mo

Quote:
Originally Posted by Sword Hammer Axe View Post
Let's sum up what I said:

The options you have are:
1) Learn to play well with what you have.
2) Buy more material to add on to your current materials.
3) Stop playing.

... and these don't seem like good options to you?

So far "leave the game or don't play PvP" originates from option 3. Now if you can give me any valid reason as to why not follow option 1 then, again, be my guest.
Option 1 is the possibly the worst option you can have in a competitive game. The entire idea of competitive games is for players on equal ground determining who is best. What you are suggesting is like us playing Starcraft and I can't use tanks because I didn't pay for the upgrade. I'm not going to "manage to overcome", I'm going to either buy the expansion or not play at all. Anet knows this.

Option 2 is exactly what Anet wants us to do. The expansions will naturallly have a progressive power creep so many players will feel they need to purchase to continue (this works in PvE as well better farming tools etc). This isn't even getting into the fact that they sell skill packs.

Option 3 is what the majority of PvP players have done.

HawkofStorms

HawkofStorms

Hall Hero

Join Date: Aug 2005

E/

Quote:
Originally Posted by Short View Post
Oh brilliant argument. Consistently insulting someone and not even with different insults. Such creativity. If you're gonna answer at least give proper reasoning.

It doesn't have the engine to support common MMO features/true 3d movement.

No auction house.

No end game content/raids (the only PvE thing to do once you beat Prophecies was NM FoW/UW).

Crap economy.

Lack of veristle armor/skins.

Instanced structure.


This game simply could not have survived if it had been pay to play.

X Black Chaos X

Academy Page

Join Date: Jan 2008

In your basement

Team Fruitcake

Mo/W

Actually despite what most have posted here i agree to some extent of what the OP said. First off nothing is free. Even if the MMO people say it is. It isnt. P2P games have mroe funding and support to release content quicker and improve many aspects of the game. However just because you have mroe money doesnt mean you have a better game. Alot of people like the PvP design of GW as do I. I havent seen any other MMO w/ a similar design. Although i'm sure the skill updates, maintenece and development of new content has to be difficult to do given the current capicity of GW. I and others expect GW2 to have alot of features where u can buy certain items or advantages in game but still require no subscription to play. That makes sense to me. Even Anet has realized this, that's why they came up with the storage panes and the makeovers and all the other little small things to generate more income. While i dont want GW to be a P2P I can certainly understand if it goes that way. (WoW is like 13USD every 6 months, so thats 26 dollars every year 26*4 is about 104 dollars. If you cant afford 26 dollars a year you need to go get a job and trade in your comp.)

EDIT: if GW was P2P alot more content and development would have been realeased. I can garuantee it.

Bluefeather

Bluefeather

Lion's Arch Merchant

Join Date: Dec 2005

Philippines

[PNOY]

W/R

Quote:
Originally Posted by X Black Chaos X View Post
Actually despite what most have posted here i agree to some extent of what the OP said. First off nothing is free. Even if the MMO people say it is. It isnt. P2P games have mroe funding and support to release content quicker and improve many aspects of the game. However just because you have mroe money doesnt mean you have a better game. Alot of people like the PvP design of GW as do I. I havent seen any other MMO w/ a similar design. Although i'm sure the skill updates, maintenece and development of new content has to be difficult to do given the current capicity of GW. I and others expect GW2 to have alot of features where u can buy certain items or advantages in game but still require no subscription to play. That makes sense to me. Even Anet has realized this, that's why they came up with the storage panes and the makeovers and all the other little small things to generate more income. While i dont want GW to be a P2P I can certainly understand if it goes that way. (WoW is like 13USD every 6 months, so thats 26 dollars every year 26*4 is about 104 dollars. If you cant afford 26 dollars a year you need to go get a job and trade in your comp.)

EDIT: if GW was P2P alot more content and development would have been realeased. I can garuantee it.
Its US$12.99 per month for 6 months. 12.99 x 6 = 77.97. You save US$12 for 6 months if you pay using 6-months plan.

If its $13 for 6 months (2.17 per month), ill transfer to WoW now.

HawkofStorms

HawkofStorms

Hall Hero

Join Date: Aug 2005

E/

Supply and demand curves people. You charge more money, fewer people buy the product. This is an elastic, luxury good, with lots of substitutes.

The money A.net would make from charging a monthly fee would not have recooped what it lost from fewer overall sales.

You can armchair quarterback it all you want. But I'm pretty sure A.net has actual accountants to think of this stuff for them and know what they are doing more then we do.

Chasing Squirrels

Chasing Squirrels

Krytan Explorer

Join Date: Jan 2008

Quote:
Originally Posted by QueenofDeath View Post
Please YES! YES! YES! subscription fees Anet/NCsoft just think of how much more money you will make and get rid of all the frustrating little kiddies of 12 and under and probably 13 to 15 as well since mommy and daddy aren't going to support their $20-$25 a month habit. )
It would be a ghost town lol. Also kids are not always immature some are mature and there are adults that are immature.

Quote:
Originally Posted by HawkofStorms View Post
It doesn't have the engine to support common MMO features/true 3d movement.

No auction house.

No end game content/raids (the only PvE thing to do once you beat Prophecies was NM FoW/UW).

Crap economy.

Lack of veristle armor/skins.

Instanced structure.


This game simply could not have survived if it had been pay to play.
Ya i hate how guild wars doesn't have an auction house/not much freedom/everything is instanced so its like impossible to meet people outside of towns other than having a guild.

Also when i got guild wars when it first came out i beat it in like 2 weeks playing casually. there wasn't even a lot to do back then for me after i beat all the pve missions So i just pvp at tombs and eventually moved onto wow cause i got so bored.

WoW was good for me because it had so many things to do and it was impossible to reach some of the goals for me. WoW also had it so if you spent more time on the game you would get better gear unless you were in town picking your nose and afking lol. most people who played WoW and other mmorpg if you ask me love spending countless hours grinding so that they can have bigger e-peen than others.

trialist

Core Guru

Join Date: Feb 2005

Quote:
Originally Posted by DreamWind View Post
In the eyes of many the game is already dead. I'm not saying monthly fee would solve things. I'm simply saying the current model has produced what we currently have.
Years to die vs months to die. I think that speaks for itself.

Quote:
Originally Posted by DreamWind View Post
This is a fallacy that I keep seeing in this thread. The reality is we don't know what would have happened if Guild Wars had monthly fees. The reason being is because it probably would have been a completely different game with a completely different playerbase. All we DO know is how the game has been run now under the current model.
Its not a fallacy. Yes, it would have been a completely different game with a completely different playerbase; the playerbase of a p2p game. Which means going directly head to head with WOW from the get go in 2005. Can anyone say suicide?

Don't you remember the amount of pve content prophecies had at release? No Sorrows Furnace and what pve content was there can be beat in a week, a month at most even if you tried to slow things down by smelling every rose on the ground.

With that pathetic amount of pve content, you want them to go p2p? So no it isn't unreasonable to conclude Anet would have gained a permanent membership to the MMO graveyards had it been p2p from the start.

Clone

Clone

Krytan Explorer

Join Date: Jan 2006

I never would have bought it if it way pay to play, and I wouldn't pay a fee for it in its current state.

Quote:
Originally Posted by maxxfury View Post
Im free! im not grind! come this way if you want to play with skill over equipment! [/B]Man that WAS the hook!

But yes Gw lost its way, from what originally was, could have been, should still be! /sadtimes

Been what it was wouldnt have lasted if it was p2p

my 2p :P

i REALLY loved what GW used to be!...
I think that sums it up for me too. I loved what it was. It started going downhill when they tried to emulate more grindey pay to play MMOs.

DreamWind

DreamWind

Forge Runner

Join Date: Oct 2006

E/Mo

Quote:
Originally Posted by trialist View Post
Years to die vs months to die. I think that speaks for itself.
It speaks for itself if you can prove that it would have died in months (which you can't).

Quote:
Originally Posted by trialist
With that pathetic amount of pve content, you want them to go p2p? So no it isn't unreasonable to conclude Anet would have gained a permanent membership to the MMO graveyards had it been p2p from the start.
You are falling into the trap of assuming that all of this would have been the same as well.

For reference though, I am not advocating monthly fees.

shoyon456

shoyon456

Desert Nomad

Join Date: Jul 2006

D/

GW should have been pay to play in the sense that maybe we'd have little more than skill balances every THREE MONTHS (they couldn't do it this month) and regular content updates after they moved onto GW2. Most dissatisfaction stems from this and from the extra cash they could afford a much bigger team supporting GW now than 3-4 people. Thats pathetic for a "AAA MMO Producer" like Anet.

trialist

Core Guru

Join Date: Feb 2005

Quote:
Originally Posted by DreamWind View Post
It speaks for itself if you can prove that it would have died in months (which you can't).



You are falling into the trap of assuming that all of this would have been the same as well.

For reference though, I am not advocating monthly fees.
Neither can you prove it would have thrived. We are arguing in the land of make believe, assumptions and suppositions here, which is pretty pointless. The game is what it is, they are using the same model for GW2. Unless you are a majority shareholder of ncsoft with the clout to change Anet's decided model for GW2 and/or the way GW is currently being handled, we are just gonna have to suck it and accept things being what they are, flaws and all. Arguing this on a forum isn't going to change anything.

GWfan#1

GWfan#1

Krytan Explorer

Join Date: Jul 2009

My Character Liked Gwen [First]

R/

[2 months after Prophecies hit the shelves] My friends and I started playing when we were 14-15 years old and I know for a fact if GW was p2p then none of us would have even bothered with the game. There were 5 of us in total, and all of us went on to buy all of the following campaigns. I speak for a small percentage of players; however, that is 5 copies of GW that would have never been bought and an amazing MMORPG that I would have missed out on.

Exile

Academy Page

Join Date: Nov 2005

The Reapers

W/Mo

Quote:
Originally Posted by tasha_darke View Post
It is blatantly open to abuse. Its easy to envisage a scenario where someone through some (not so)complex scheme is able to make ANet staff duplicate items for personal gain. A group gets a load of valuable stuff on an account, passes everything to another account (aka fakes a hack), appeals to staff, gets the stuff back. The rest of the items have been passed around and broken up between different people and players... I know there's holes in this example, but its something that is a possibility. Anet would have to set up a raft of rules as to what could be restored and then you're not necessarily much better off than you are now.
Sure it may be easy to envision your scenario but I highly doubt it would be easy enough to pull off. Especially when they say they can track stuff being moved from your account, and yet it only gets hard for them when 100s of people are involved.

I'd still rather have the ability in place to have your items restored, especially when I get an email from Anet saying that my account had been hacked last month. No, GW isn't my main game anymore.

As for pay to play, I doubt I'd have picked this game up at the time had it been that way. Soon after I did, most of my guild moved off to WoW.

Were it released today as pay to play, I don't know if I'd pick it up either, as it just doesn't seem to hold my interest like it did at first.

Exile

Academy Page

Join Date: Nov 2005

The Reapers

W/Mo

Quote:
Originally Posted by The Drunkard View Post
Apple in no way represents what other companies do. Look at Sony and the crap that they've pulled with their products. For one, sony limited the use a DVD could be acessed to in order to prevent duping. They gave a [email protected] about customers in order to make an extra dime off of their products. If you want another example, EA is another "bad" company. If you do a little bit of searching, you'll find out they took the design of Battlefield from a team of devs and fired them after the realease of the game. Look at how poorly handled the game is. In many cases management wants money, not fans. As long as they give people broken builds and skills, people will want to play the game to get everything and the company gets money. Not all companies do this, (like Apple which you mentioned) but the world doesn't revolve around smiles and hugs and not everyone is a humanitarian.

Now before you try and twist my comment to agree with the p2p method, just becauce a company is getting a lot of money doesn't mean that they're going to listen to their playerbase. WAR didn't until people started quitting en masse because of their updates and by the time they started to listen it was too late in trying to regain the playerbase. Monthly payments give a lot of influence to the players, but that DOESN'T mean the company is going to listen.
Exactly, for proof of that just look at the way SOE handled SWG.

JR

JR

Re:tired

Join Date: Nov 2005

W/

Quote:
Originally Posted by DreamWind View Post
This is a fallacy that I keep seeing in this thread. The reality is we don't know what would have happened if Guild Wars had monthly fees. The reason being is because it probably would have been a completely different game with a completely different playerbase. All we DO know is how the game has been run now under the current model.
Sure, it's speculation. This whole thread is speculation. However, I can offer you solid reasoning behind the speculation.

For a start, as you say, if we are talking about a subscription Guild Wars then we are talking about a game that is no longer Guild Wars. This community is not here, we may well be playing something else.

Issue numero uno, ArenaNet would have had to rely hugely on NCSoft for funding. They would have been competing head-to-head with Blizzard in marketing costs and amount of content produced. To be able to release in a similar time frame to WoW they would have had to take on many more staff very quickly, which can lead to problems of it's own.

With NCSoft having much more of an investment in Guild Wars, they would certainly have wanted to have much more of a say in the design of the game. Imagine NCSoft Korea getting their hands on the 'skill over time' kernel of Guild Wars. It would have been butchered. You would have ended up with some abomination that was a cross between Lineage, EQ and whatever future ideas they might have had for Aion at that point.

Again, a subscription Guild Wars would not be the game we know and love. You can say "it could have been more succesful" until you are blue in the face, but it is not going to change the fact that you probably wouldn't be here playing it. The very fact that you are here implies that it couldn't have possibly been anything else. It's akin to saying "Damn, my life would be so much better if my Mom had married a rich guy instead" - Yeah of course, except for the fact that you wouldn't exist, or at least would lose the current context for the statement entirely entirely, rendering it meaningless.

So now we get on to the only part of the argument that actually merits any debate: Could an MMO with the core principles of Guild Wars have competed with World of Warcraft?

I'll use a quote from an article I read fairly recently to illustrate:

"The problem is that WoW’s financial success is not tied directly to it’s design, but to the fact that it launched in 2004, at a time when what it offered was exactly what people wanted, SOE helped by pushing their established user base from EQ2 to WoW thanks to a disaster at launch, and the snowball rolled downhill after that." - Syncaine

WoW had a big head-start at launch thanks to SOE, and for any MMO that is a huge benefit. These weren't any average player either, many of them had MMO experience, and perhaps had already been through a beta/launch phase already. They knew what they were in for, and would ride it out. Many of them fell in love with WoW and Blizzard from day one, simply for not screwing up the same way SOE did. You get enough people like that pushing through the bugs and lack of polish, enjoying the game and being vocal about it, they will carry newer players with them. They are a gauranteed baseline CCU that greases the axles. They are your core forum fanbase, giving your community a more positive tone. When everyone in global chat is crying about the game, they can be the ones saying "Eh, EQ was much worse at launch, this is fine."

Guild Wars had nothing like that, and couldn't have had it without abonding it's core principles. A large portion of the people there at launch had never played an MMO before. It's not just that people weighed Guild Wars up against WoW and chose the one without a subscription for better value, there were many that were simply unfamiliar and uncomfortable with paying a subscription regardless - because the people who were had already been pulled into WoW by their friends.

For every MMO release in recent years, WoW has been the benchmark, and none have come close to meeting it. People try a new MMO and don't like it? That's fine, there's always WoW. WoW is the dependable, reliable, vanilla, steretypical DIKU MMO. People who played EQ knew exactly what they were getting with WoW, where Guild Wars was revolutionary, breaking away drastically from the DIKU mould. Consider that players face a huge future investment (assuming for a minute here that we are imagining a subscription Guild Wars vs subscription WoW) in the game they choose, and to nobodies surprise they are going to go with the devil they know.

Sword Hammer Axe

Sword Hammer Axe

Wilds Pathfinder

Join Date: Jun 2008

Look up.

Kurzick Conflagration Unit [KCU].

W/

Quote:
Originally Posted by DreamWind View Post
Option 1 is the possibly the worst option you can have in a competitive game. The entire idea of competitive games is for players on equal ground determining who is best. What you are suggesting is like us playing Starcraft and I can't use tanks because I didn't pay for the upgrade. I'm not going to "manage to overcome", I'm going to either buy the expansion or not play at all. Anet knows this.

Option 2 is exactly what Anet wants us to do. The expansions will naturallly have a progressive power creep so many players will feel they need to purchase to continue (this works in PvE as well better farming tools etc). This isn't even getting into the fact that they sell skill packs.

Option 3 is what the majority of PvP players have done.
Who said anything about manage to overcome? Listen dude, there's been builds since way before one of the other games have come out. You can't tell me that you need to have more than 1 game to effectively put the 8 skills into the bar, because "the other builds are better". I have seen a Wammo (that's right, wammo!) with healing hands and mending (not even kidding) kill a Magebane Shot ranger from where he ran over to kill a Primal Rage warrior in RA. (He was on my team). You can't tell me that was because of luck because the warrior he pretty much 1v1'd with and only the ranger he received my cripshot to help him with. What do I mean to say with this? That it was not his build, that lameass heal hands wammo build, that caused the victory. It was:
A) The opponents sucked at their wiki builds or
B) He was good at using his own skills.
C) All of the above.
If you can't cope with what you have then it's not because A-net is trying to trick you. It's because, dare I say it, you are a lousy and/or lazy player.
And that's just PvP. I have vanquished Lornar's Pass with only 3 deaths total (divided among members) on my H/H team from Beacons and that was without PvE skills nor any of the meta builds. I just put up a valid strategy for it and as a result I vq'd that area np.

Option 2: Ooooh yes, because it is all a great conspiracy from anets side. Seriously they are a company, not santa claus, so of course they aim to make money, and their strategy for that is great. Again: No ones forcing you to buy the new game. People ask for another game, they make another game, they don't give it away for free because making a new game is not cheap and they need to make a living.
And I think the fact about skill packs speak pretty much against your theories since those packs were introduced so that people, who are as bad/lazy players as you claim to be yourself, could get the skills they want for PvP without having to pay a huge amount of money for all the campaigns.

Option 3: There you go. If ya don't want to pay more money, don't do it. If ya don't think you can compete with the others in PvP, don't do it. If you blame it on the fact that you have a handicap compared to the others, don't play PvP. The last one just goes to show that you made the choice to (meaning optional, no force) rather stop playing that part of the game than pay. You are still free to come back any time you like, you can still play PvE, you can still play PvP should you change your mind, and no one asks you for a dime. Get it? The only one who "feels compelled to pay" IS YOU!

Fril Estelin

Fril Estelin

So Serious...

Join Date: Jan 2007

London

Nerfs Are [WHAK]

E/

Quote:
Originally Posted by JR View Post
Lots of intelligent comments
Although I'm completely with you on that JR, we have to admit that there are some reasons (I haven't seen them quoted here so far; hence my previous statements that this discussion was more driven by "wants" then by "needs") that may have made this idea work (note the past sentence, it wouldn't it possible now).

With a low subscription fee (which may have been difficult to do in 2003-04 due to the fact that transaction models with low amounts weren't as easy to operate as today), a clearer design focus (e.g., a game for the fun, story-loving and competitive players where PvE and PvP are perfectly balanced etc.) and a contagious/viral spread of the GW's goodness via an enthusiastic and positively built community, GW could have been P2P. But it'd been very difficult to maintain, due to the growing pressure from WoW and other MMOs.

This is clearly not a clear-cut problem. The PvP community could have continued to grow, with the appropriate support (although as Bryant said, we can't be sure), and the PvE community would have grown like it has, happy to get new content all the time. Yet I believe Anet would have still stopped GW1 to work on GW2, but obviously without leaving a small team to work on GW1. In the long term, I'm unconvinced that such a strategy would have paid for 2 main reasons: 1) this is not "Anet's philosophy, as a company (employees have fun as they hope they'll deliver it to their customers) and as a game-developmer (their idea of what a fun game is, providing opportunities to many players from varied background); 2) the MMO market would have driven them out of business, due to the fact that they'd have to justify the worth of their fee to more and more demanding players and the growth of this sector has been quite amazing in the last 5 years.

Anyway, in 2009, or even in 2005, this idea would have been way too risky for Anet, even backed by NCsoft big money, and more importantly it could have forced them to make a game different from the one they wanted to make. The 3 Anet founders clearly wanted to do more than WoW because they left Blizzard, and not just "a better WoW".

A product doesn't become better only because the customers want it to be a certain way, it has to be improved by the designer in accordance to what s/he thinks and can do, an aspect that the customer is not aware of. And the customer is not always right .

QoH

Lion's Arch Merchant

Join Date: Nov 2005

Divine Beings

R/

Quote:
Originally Posted by HawkofStorms View Post
Supply and demand curves people. You charge more money, fewer people buy the product. This is an elastic, luxury good, with lots of substitutes.

The money A.net would make from charging a monthly fee would not have recooped what it lost from fewer overall sales.

You can armchair quarterback it all you want. But I'm pretty sure A.net has actual accountants to think of this stuff for them and know what they are doing more then we do.
I am glad that i found this, cannot draft it any better.