GW should have been pay to play.

SOE station cash, lol. Just another one of the reasons I quit EQ2.

How is buying armor skins any more stupid than buying makeovers?

People who want it will pay for it, people who dont get a free server to play on.

You should try playing Maple Story and DDO - You can buy equipment for cash points in both these games.

All online games require money for upkeep, if you want to play for free, you will need other people to pay for in game content so that you can enjoy using the servers at no cost.

Yeah but in DDO you can earn the points to buy all that stuff simply by playing the game. It may takes a long time to save up enough, but its possible without spending any money.

There are tons of free online games. Anet simply pulled a sleight of hand on us by saying their game is "free to play" when in reality it is not. Looking at the big picture, there are a ton of free games and very few games with monthly fees.

Actually I don't remember reading "free" in relation to GW since I first heard of it. It's always been "no subscription".

I am sure you are not talking about ArenaNet, because they have said many times their server cost very little to maintain, hence the no monthly subscription fees business model.

I understand a business wants to make their customers think that server costs a lot to maintain, but you are a customer, and you try to make yourself think the server costs a lot?

If you are talking about Guild Wars being free to play, its not. and it has been said many times over, it no monthly subscription. we all bought the game.

Of course, but Anet's trick has convinced people that the game is not "pay to play" as evidenced throughout this thread. What they did was lump GW into the subscription game category (even though all claims were that GW was not a typical MMO) and then make everybody happy by saying "no monthly fees" when in reality their model costs nearly as much as a monthly fee would. Not to mention are plenty of games with no monthly fee or purchase cost whatsoever.

They simply convinced people that GW was worth the money you're putting into it and it's an incredible value-for-money deal compared to MMOs, unless you bought many accounts for XTH. As I said many posts ago, give me one F2P MMO that is better than GW in terms of lore, gameplay, story and update.

Stil this thread isn't closed ???

But indeed the above is true, It has no monthly fee, But we bought the game
and we had to buy there expansions. You have to buy extra storage and such things as make over or bonus missions.
So GuildWars is most surtenly not free. It just has no monthly fee, and it should stay that way.

"Better" is an opinion. I just googled free mmos and here are some http://www.gameogre.com/freemmorpgs.htm . Perhaps one of those is better?

Not to mention we aren't talking strictly mmos. For example, there are many games online without fees that are certainly more balanced that GW.

I never meant to say that GW was free, I meant that the other games I named were.

I am fine with paying for the initial cost of the game, in both DDO and Battleforge, I spent £45 which allowed me to buy all the extra mission packs in DDO, and lots of decks in Battleforge, then I dont pay anymore and keep on playing at no extra cost.

GW doesnt really cost as much as subscription games, 3 campaigns were £25 each, now you can buy the trilogy for £30.

But if the GW servers were as cheap as someone stated, then why did they need to add makeovers into the cash shop?

The only reason I dont want fees is because I dont play everyday. I prefer DDO and Battleforge models where I buy what I need then get the rest for free (Grind points in DDO, make points on the market in Battleforge).

Then I can just log in whenever I want and enjoy playing the game without worrying about having to buy game time.

Anet's business model was releasing a new campaign every 6 months. €50 (£45) for every new campaign (granted, I always bought the Collector's Edition) equals €8 (£7.60) each month.

WoW's six-month plan costs £7.69 per month in the UK. Although you still need to buy the game.

Buy 2 play for the win \.../

Personally, I agree with the OP's point that P2P games receive alot more attention from their Devs. However, I'm not saying I think Guild Wars would be successful with that model.

To those that are abhorrently against paying a subscription; that's fine its a personal preference. But I would rather spend $150 per year for my entertainment for a game than the thousands I would spend at the bar, gambling, movies, football games, and numerous other forms of entertainment that are far more expensive and have less bang for the buck.

A subscription game keeps me involved and away from some of the more expensive and destructive ways to "escape". Granted I think in this regard GW is a huge success I played it quite consistently for 3 years, but once they stopped releasing new content I grew bored and moved on. I could care less about grinding titles and trying to build a bank account in-game (i.e. endless farming). I enjoy completing content and once they stopped releasing new content there was really nothing left for me to do.

That is where the subscription games have the edge they can focus on a single game and release new content every 6 months or so. Just my thoughts.