Guild Wars 2 core game going F2P?

http://dulfy.net/2015/08/27/gw2-gett...me-being-free/

I'm sure people looking at the thread title will immediately say "This isn't a GW2 forum" and want it removed, but I posted this link because I'm wondering if this will have any ramifications for GW.

F2P changes a lot of things for games... in my personal experience it allows in an undedicated player base that flood the servers with people who have no risk to themselves, so the idea of cheating or hacking is well worth it to them. I know for a fact that GW2 was hit hard with cheating in the beginning and this is the kind of thing that can potentially bring it back with a vengeance.

Plus the idea of F2P to me, usually means that things aren't running as smoothly as they could be. The original seemed to have done well enough that the B2P model worked but this new game is just over 2 years old now and already switching models. Can't that be a good thing?

Now the point I'm getting to is that with tons of new people potentially jumping into the game for free, Anet will need to spend more to keep the game going. The only problem is that F2P games require no investment so there's no guarantee for profit, and companies who don't make quotas usually go under.

Seeing as we're tied very closely to GW2, I just hope that doesn't mean a risk to the original.

not exactly sure what that means, but is the game itself going to be free or are the gems and such going to be free? and what does that do to the 'expansion' that was supposed to come out (did it?)?

Apparently the expansion will be coming with the core game for free. I imagine if it really is going F2P that you'd just get the core game and they'll hope you buy gem stuff. I'm just hoping that this isn't being done in some desperate attempt to increase revenue.

Like I said, the original is so closely tied to GW2 so I fear that we'd go down with the ship so to speak.

I wonder more at what the folks who have already shelled out hundreds on the game will think---the CE versions (whatever they are calling them in 2) were very expensive! Though this will cut down on the rmt folks if there is nothing to 'sell' anymore.

I agree, this cant be a good thing for our game ---BUT it could make them look closer at gw and think about putting out more expansions since it is still a very successful game! (or they are thinking about gw3 and just ignoring 2 as a failed experiment, and go back to what worked for the original ....we can hope--and yes my glasses are rose colored).

I wouldnt mind new ppl coming to gw if it became F2P too thesedays

Are you sure the expansion comes with it? It would seem more logical that the expansion has to be bought. When gw2 is f2p without the expansion, these people won't be able to play the whole game and eventually decide to buy the expansion.

As for gems, these won't be free since that is another income for people who spent real money on games, which I think is a bad thing. Just play the game as it is supposed to and if you don't like it, come back to gw1

ANet (todays ANet, anyway) considers GW2 as a success and financially they are correct.

This is not so much F2P, it's more of a trial. I mean with those restrictions who the hell would even play for more than just trying the game out for a bit...

GW2 is cheap anyway, but it has no substance. I am very wary about raids, but sure, I will log in assuming I don't have to buy the xpac to access them and try it out.

The game does have a great combat system, but they completely ruined any potential success by removing essentially everything except for DPS role.

I'm not too hopeful, probably just gonna end up playing WoW:Legion and logging into GW every once in a while.

Also I highly doubt it costs much of anything to keep the GW1 servers up, we are not in any danger even if GW2 did fail they'd just make it F2P completely and afaik according to the last financial report @ Ncsoft GW2 is still making good money, it's actually increased in revenue.

Gods know why it has.... but I guess it's the ultimate casual game so fb app players and such probably love it, no need to think just click a few times and collect reward!

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/play-for-free-today/

For those who may be interested.

Very nice, I don't get to play as much as I would like but more people playing the better Shame it's not Guild Wars though :P

Doesn't GW already have a trial play? And going F2P wouldn't work because there's not enough in the cash shop to support it.

OH sorry I simply meant, It's a shame it's not something for Guild Wars Anything new for the old game would be good

Indeed it would. I hope that one day they'll partially reconsider the business model or campaign prices for Guild Wars 1, so that many new people could jump aboard and support the project by buying various items from the store.

Sorry but just no. I hate games where they buy their way through it. Yeah "helps" like extra storage panes or hero packs are fine. They aren't necessary but convenient. That's a big difference. Making things slightly easier even. But just basically buying your way through a game like GW2 just sounds like cheating to me? What's the point? No.

There's different content, and also, various interests among the players. How exactly can purchased in-game currency help to pass a certain mission, and, what's more important, why would one want to pay with it for those if he/she can simply join an active PvE-dedicated alliance?

It might not make sense to you or me but lots of kids with too much money to burn do indeed buy their way through games these days. And almost most of the "free" games they advertise online and even on TV like Greopolis is it and their family of games are impossible to "win" or even survive unless you pay money to keep yourself ahead of your enemies etc. It's a horrible trend in gaming.

How do you "pass certain missions" you ask? If you could purchase in game currency in GW1 then you just sit back and hire someone to run you through your missions. People do that anyway in this game all the time with missions and dungeons but at least now they still have to farm some to get in game "money" to hire the people.

Gadd is entirely correct. The short of it is that players like these while actually being in game, aren't really playing or helping others.

People who buy runs through content, pay for any top/rare items that come from end chests are more about getting to the end of the game then enjoying the time it takes to get there. They make for poor teammates who usually rush mobs and don't understand co operation because they can't be bothered to learn. They just want to win and be done with it and move on to the next best thing. They minds well have never been there to begin with.

You must be aware that such black market existed since the release of Prophecies, and that up to the present day, it's still in strong state, right? Just look around GtoB or Kamadan, all this advertising, the transactions of which bring exactly 0.00$ to ArenaNet, the maintainers of the project, while if it was otherwise, we could have gotten more often updates and a self-supporting (with potential of being partially F2P) game world.

Right now Anet recognizes -- though doesn't act to stop it like they used to -- black market activities as cheating. If Anet does it themselves they actually legalize cheating. They would even end up patting cheaters on the back and saying "good boy, good boy" for doing this crap.

Legalizing cheating in anything crosses over my own personal ethical boundaries of life as much if not more so then old-fashioned unlawful cheating. In short it has to do with my own view of life and may not apply to others but means the world (real or virtual) to me.

Also legalized cheating in games from an early age -- aka buying your way to win is THE way to go -- contributes to encouraging in especially the younger players the concept of "as long as you win then cheating is good". No wonder you have students routinely seeing no problem with cheating on tests etc. That makes society as a whole weak and self-indulgent and personally makes me sick.

Yeah not all of this comes about by online games but every single little element you run into contributes something. And gaming online is a big deal these days and it's contribution to building a crappy society can't be ignored.

Well to add in my own 2¢ When I saw GW2 was going free for the base game I though why not give it a try and decided to dust off GW one went through account recovery email with a very helpful support staff there and logged in game start checking out the HOM and next thing I know it's 5 hours later and I am greatly enjoying the game again.

My guess is there might be some peeps coming back to get mostly HOM points if they use to play years ago like myself and some like myself might just decide to put off GW2 and play this again for awhile.

Can't say much about the black market thing some of you are talking about but for myself I game quite a bit I have kind of gotten use to f2p games but have to say I feel they kind of lack something compared to game like this one and other older less p2rush to endgame etc types.

Dunno but I just received lots of help in game and in the forums to help me get back into GW and frankly the newer games I have played had me not expecting this at all which I think ties into Gadd Fan is saying.

I have played DDO for a good long while before giving it a break recently ish and sadly that game and many other like AA etc etc seem to want to teach us older and new generation of gamers to sploit early, sploit often which again seems to be tied into the new mentality rushing to endgame so you can move on to something else.

I think he's making things way too complicated, with vague real life comparisons, and such. I'll try to explain my line of thinking with much easier arguments, such as: a) Guild Wars 1 itself being a non-subscription-based game; b) having its main source of income consisting in releases of new campaigns, which aren't likely to be shipped anymore; c) if one believes that under these conditions, a professional developer will be willing to make a significant input into freshening up the project, then this individual haven't learned some of the real (unlike the above rather-muddled) social aspects yet, such as the fact that no one is going to release new or adjust the existing content for the sole word of approval of what a "good boy", like Gadd said, that person is.

I'm not stating there are no other options to consider in attempt to establish the project's on-going survivability, I'm simply building up my own thoughts on facts of what ArenaNet as a company does, or does not in relation to this game.