Reason #112 I play Guild Wars

I want to know how anybody can use the argument: Game A is so terrible at billing, therefore Game B is automatically better.

Especially since Game B, just a few months earlier, had a massive security leak where you could have lost your account forever, and fans have been reporting problems with billing from the in-game store for years.

In any case, let's get back to reality. Warhammer Online is another one of the bad RPGs just like Age of Conan: It had massive media and fan push, and it even won industry awards just from looking at the beta testing. When the game launched, it only took a few months for people to realize that the game did not deliver all the content that was hyped by everyone. Three months after launch, the game lost over half of the subscribers instantly, and there is no evidence that shows that the game has any chance of ever recovering all the fans it lost. To give you an idea, the game is down to just four servers worldwide. The game is now free to play and this still hasn't recovered fans, unlike D&D Online which actually had a bounce in subscribers once it went to a micropayment model.

To be fair, I've never seen NCSoft take $300-$2000 in unauthorized transactions from the bank accounts or credit cards of hundreds of customers, the majority of whom were not scheduled for billing on that date, and a number of whom had actually cancelled their accounts months earlier and should have been safe from any charge. Not to downplay any mistakes NCSoft has made, but that's a pretty huge deal!

I don't think it indicates that Guild Wars is in every way a superior game. But I also don't think it's unreasonable to see benefit in the format they use, since NCSoft does not have any access to my bank account or credit card.

Yes, something bad could still happen to my account, and I'd be bummed, but I would not suffer for it in the real world. That's a pretty clear dividing line for me personally, even though NCSoft and ArenaNet are not perfect either.

I'm not entirely sure they could. Every time I buy something in the in-game store, my credit card provider calls me within a matter of minutes to check that it was me that made the purchase, as they have the NCsoft site flagged as one of their fraud target websites. I suspect that if NCsoft did try unauthorised transactions, the credit card companies would be quick to investigate and the charges would be cancelled.

Yol, that sounds like WH's billing agency is about to get the same treatment, albeit too late for many.

Personally I hope that the banks that are going to refund overdraft charges are going to throw some huge fees back to WH's billing agency -- I've heard this is a possibility. The best way to make a company listen is through the wallet, and that would speak pretty loud.

There isnt much new content in GW1 because they are concentrating on GW2. I wouldnt be surprised if ANet were simultaneously creating expansion packs. Thats how a free to play business model will maintain a profit. Instead of a monthly fee, there will be an expansion pack once or twice a year. Im sure there will also be things like skill packs, limited editions, and various things players will be able to buy in the ingame store to keep a solid profit without a monthly fee.

IMHO, The fact that WoW makes you pay for expansions and a monthly fee is just greedy. I have a feeling GW2 will see a number of people jump from WoW and Aion.

The money isnt in the razors, its in the blades.

Gotta say I'm feeling for the people who were hit by this. MMOs are one of the most cost effective means of entertainment available and (by NCSoft's admission on one of their investor meetings) tend to do well in poor economic times. I doubt that WAR will ever recover from this.

However... I'm surprised banks didn't throw this up as suspicious almost immediately and stop all transactions. My bank stopped my card last month because of a single, suspicious £0.40 transaction on it. If my bank can spot a 40p transaction as wrong, how come others can't spot 6 repeat transactions, let alone 52 that I saw one person report on that thread. I can understand maybe 3 transactions going through, but 52?!

Most banks aren't going to stop transactions like this when they know they themselves are going to get something out of it. There is no such thing as customer loyalty these days...

I use US Bank and they've froze my account once when I had purchased gas in another state. I was on my way to college and driving there, something that I hadn't done before. But I just called the number on my card, explained it and problem fixed. I'd much rather them be a little overly vigilant than allow something like this Warhammer fiasco to happen. So I too, am a bit surprised that more banks didn't catch this. I know in that forum link a couple people said their banks caught it but its definitely less than 3-5% of them.

There's already a thread in off topic. And this isn't really Guild Wars related. So...