Purchase More Character Slots!

I agree fully - as I to have a similar situation. However, I payed $80 for each of my two collectors editions, after playing 5 months of beta testing, in the first two weeks of the game release, and WAS going to purchase two factions collectors editions. Now I believe I am going to sell one of my accounts on ebay and just purchase some new character slots for my remaining account, unless A-Net gives me a DAMN good deal on merging the accounts (more than just 8 slots on one account because they are both collectors).

Allowing players to purchase extra character slots is a good idea in theory, and would have worked great if it was implemented 8+ months ago, but as it is setup now, it is by far one of the worst things they could do.

By the way, nice avatar Eugaet


EDIT - I have come to the conclusion that I WILL NOT purchase Factions AT ALL untill something is done for merging accounts, in such a way as to be viable for all circumstances (in other words, people with multiple special versions of the game, such as myself, should have added benefits, as we payed more for the product than those with normal or only one special version). My reason for this conclusion is, with the decision to allow extra character slots to be purchased for accounts, A-Net rewarded all the morons b****ing about not having enough slots, while punishing those of us that found a SIMPLE solution that SUPPORTED THE COMPANY.

If this is how A-Net customer service thinks, in addition to horable past experiance trying to solve problems, I will not support this company at all from now on, yet I will continue to play the game, as doing so acualy harms the company in a small way (I am using there server for free, and will not give anything back in return)

If any A-Net representitives/employee's read this, I would highly suggest taking this into consideration, and if you are not in a decision making position, bringing it to the attention of your superiors, as although there may be a limited number of people that will simply stop supporting you, I am absolutly shure a great many people feal much the same as I do - from my experiance, and several misc. sources, at least 1/3 of the Guild Wars community owns two or more accounts for the sole purpose of additional character slots.
By the way, you did a good job at combining Prophecies and Factions keys, but did an absolutly HORABLE job at balancing Factions vs. Prophecies - Factions only accounts will have a huge advantage over Prophecies only accounts in PvP.

I have to say this. People have skirted saying this to be nice to folks who may have monetary problems, but:

TEN US DOLLARS PER TOON IS A GREAT DEAL! $10 per extra slot may just be the best entertainment value around today! Ten US Dollars is NOT too much money, whether you're 6 or 60!

Young or old, rich or poor, you have the following options:

$12 - Go see an 87 minute movie, have a small popcorn (no butter) & water.

$15 - Buy 5 gallons of gas and hope it gets you to Disneyland.

$45 - Disneyland. Enjoy your six or so hours. Hope you're not hungry.

$38 - Average cable bill. No HBO, so no Tony Soprano for you!

$12 - 1 game of miniature golf.

$15 - Paid to WoW to play the same shitty toon monthly.

$10 and a can of Skoal - a 10 song serenade by the hobo on the corner with the harmonica.

$11 - What the Republican Party wants me to pay to process the silly survey that they sent to me to fill out.

$200 - What happens when you really cut loose and pretend you're a NASCAR driver in real life...

$400 - ... in a Construction Zone.

Or...

$10 - A permanent character slot that you can spend as many hours as you want playing on a great game with no monthly fee, run by a group of people who constantly seek to improve your experience based on feedback they recieve from you.

Either way you cut it, A-Net has done a good thing at a good price. Nothing has been done here that would take away from the philosophy that skill level is more important than time spent playing. Nothing has been done here that will harm you in any way. The only people who may have a legit complaint are the ones who want to combine accounts, but even then... there are so many good reasons to keep your accounts separate too.

Thank you A-Net.

For those with multiple accounts: It sucks, I'm not going to lie.

BUT, Anet is telling you now, before you buy multiple copies of Factions. So cancel those orders, and spend the money on extra slots.

As for the extra accounts you own now: think of it as having extra storage.

Sorry...

as someone with 5 accounts its a pain in the ass to mule things back and forth, and more importantly, to switch accounts to get a specific char type. since ive already developed the chars on my other accounts though, i think i'll probably just use this feature for extra storage space.
that having been said, when you are a wealthy player, it is simply pure idiocy to keep the entirety of that wealth on a single account. spreading it out is by far a safer act.
i wont complain, im just happy that if, in the future, i need an extra slot or 2, i wont have to buy a 6th account, and i can make 1 of every character type on my primary account, and possibly let guildies with limited character abilities use my others for pvp purposes.
its a nice feature, and noone should be complaining. NOONE.

I would also say this. If i can't merge my accounts than at least let me buy the slots and fill them in with the characters I have already made in some way. I bought the two accounts so I could see how each character was played and really do not want to start over or loose my Armor I payed a lot of cash for. Come on Guild Wars don't be like all the other games and stab the veterans (who have been forking out the money all along) in the back. We have been here and spent alot of time getting to where we are, is there really a need to try to make an extra 10 bucks by killing our characters. Please I ask nicely and was not hostile in anyway can you do something to help us out here?


Oh and for those of you who want to fork out $300 for 6 copies of factions....you are nuts....I mean I could see 2 for each char type and i can see having alot of storage...but not having to buy all those copies and I have had 6 accounts so far given to me but I am not gonna buy factions for all of them.

This is for the Company. If you are planing on making more expansions and selling them than why would you offer this now. I mean there are alot of people that are gonna cancel there second Factions pre orders now. Not only hurting you but hurting the game stores as well. Well like I said, restarting my characters would probably push me to quitting, things of the same sort have caused me to quit other online games and I am sure there are alot of others out there like me.

/signed good move just wondering if we can buy them in stores or do we have to buy the keys onlines with credit card?

I just wish that Anet had come out with this idea sooner. I am also one of the people who bought a second account for more storage and more character slots. I seriously hope Anet allows us the chance to merge our multiple accounts. Hell, I'll pay for it. The money is not an issue. I enjoy playing the game very much, and will support Guild Wars for as long as it is in service.

Oh hell yeah! I disappear from the game for a little while and come back to this? This is awesome.. I will give my 2nd account to a poor friend of mine (college is expensive when you gotta foot the bill by yourself).

Thank you ArenaNet.

actually 10USD is quite alot when change into the currency in my country

This is absolutely a wonderful add-on, but I (like most multiple account holders it seems) am hoping that they add-in merging accounts in some way.

I've put quite a lot of work into my second account already and would hate to be forced to choose between those characters I've built up and the convenience of something that really seems like it should've been around since launch. 6 primary professions (not to mention the PvP only character option) with only 4 slots necessitates deleting the work you've put into some characters to actually experience the game in any sort of 'complete' sense.

instead of complaining about how late this arived. be glad it DID arive.
why can't people just be glad when they get something. instead of having to find the negative side about everything...

i know i'm getting 3 extra, one for each primary profession and a PvP slot.

*draws line through notes to buy 15k armor for other 2 toons on secondary account*

'le sigh. Guess I won't be customizing anything on the 'ol 2nd account for the time being, thank god they're all casters. Wish I hadn't bought CE for 2nd account, or 8k tats/black dye for my monk

On the bright side, I hate his name ... and If I delete/recreate I can make nifty canthan faces, etc.

A merge would be super, SUPER nice even if I had to pay for it ... I imagine more info will be available the closer we get to said slot-adding time.

I agree that a merging of accounts would be a good thing for those of you who find yourself in that situation.

Personally, I don't think ANet anticipated people buying more than one account for themselves (not as many people that have, anyway, and certainly not 5 accounts) or that extra character slots would be a request. I haven't seen anyone show any evidence to prove that ANet was not taken by surprise. So now char slots can be purchased so no one has to buy a second or third account. Yes, this sucks for those of you who have already purchased more than one account, but I don't think it could have been helped.

So everyone who is stating that this is a money-making, screw-the-fans scheme, where the hell is your proof? It's fine and all to complain about the situation, but to blame someone for something you have no proof of makes you look like an ass. All this is is a crackpot conspiracy theory.

I dont see any display of greed by ANet; I do, however, see the greed displayed by (some) fans. Hate to be harsh, but hell, that's just my $0.02.

Just thought of something else ... my secondary's Monk and Mesmer have christmas/haloween items ... there ain't no getting those back

EDIT: not the disposable ones, either. I mean Yule caps/ horns of grenth/pumpkin crowns ... I think i'm going to cry. :-\

Ouch.

You know, depending on how they set up the database, moving character records between accounts really shouldn't be that hard. But it seems like it could open the way for a lot of exploits. I wonder if that's the reason they're not willing to do it.

It would be cool if you could transfer characters to another account. My ele and Necro on my one account have nearly all skills on them. Gonna have to recap all those elites and buy all those skills again. At least it should be faster to do it in Cantha. Then I can go back to Tyria and get the quests for some of the other skills.

I am not complaining about the money cost or saying that A.net is trying to make money as i stated they are actually probably loosing money for announcing this early. Either way i plan on buying my 2 copies of factions and hopefully A.net will lwt me pay to transfer my characters if not than looks like i have a long road ahead in finding a game setup like this one. Once again i state if i where A.net no way would i let people merge accounts for free or give people more for buying collector's editions. I would simply charge a fee to transfer a character to a specified account. thru some sort of online setup where you have to put in both account names and passwords and a credit card number than transfer them. In the long run i think it would be easier for me ot pay the extra for expansions and continue to play, rather than buying slots and getting frustrated and quiting.

Thanks One More Time,

Poke

Gaile needs to beat this hate down quickly... C'mon Gaile! We need the PR Goddess to make us feel happy again!

Also, the blurb at gamespot about guild vaults ROCKS if it works the way I think it does. Right on ANET!!!!!!

add in storming dragon sword, and everyone will be distract by it and stop complaining.

I kinda see this too, especially since Alex had posted somewhere else in this forum about the "cokeplay" weapons or skins being made available later on in the summer as well.. I wouldn't be a bit surprised if these ended up with a superflous fee as well. Fact is, americans are huge consumers and we buy shit up as fast as we can..The Asian market knows this better than anyone.

Granted this is only speculation, but the character slots for pay also started as suggestion and speculation. At this point. Nothing will surprise me. In the end, games are not created for the "consumers" but for the developers, and by the developers, I mean their bank accounts.

Regardless, whether it was intent from the beginning to charge for extra slots, we got them/will get them. Great on that. Solves the problem I was having with already 4 crammed up pve slots and the desire to have a new ranger, ele, ritualist and pvp slot. Just a shame I'll have to spend another 20 dollars to get it. Wow... that puts factions at a cost of over 100 usd for me. I feel sorry for the people who also need more space, or, wanted to make an assassin as well.

I completely agree. I have two accounts but will only be upgrading one of them with Factions however I definitely would pay a fee to merge my other account with my current one. I'd gladly pay the $10 per character plus whatever administration fee.

Maybe we should start a different suggestion thread for this in case it is possible.

Joe

That's exactly the point; since the extra slots option is not available prior to this summer, those people who wish to merge their current 2nd account slots over to their primary account should have some option to do so. After X date, then that option should no longer be available. That just makes sense.

Joe

I own two accounts and my wife owns two accounts. We made the decision long ago that we would only be buying the chapter updates for our primary accounts (which means I will buy two copies of each chapter and not four).

Since we have since made some great characters on our secondary accounts, It really would be great for ANet to simply charge me to move my 4 characters over to my primary account with their skills and levels attached just so I won't have to recreate them and do all the original missions again. I don't care about factions and unlocking, etc., as I can get that back with normal gameplay. I think the $10 per character slot plus whatever administration fee would be just fine.

If that ends up not being an option, I can live with it however I still won't be buying that third and fourth copy of each new chapter. At least this way, ANet will be able to make that little bit extra and also keep those of us in this situation happier than without.

As far as "customer service" goes, I would definitely be grateful for the option to merge my secondary account for a reasonable cost.

Joe

[QUOTE=SoloMio]

As far as "customer service" goes, I would definitely be grateful for the option to merge my secondary account for a reasonable cost.

Joe[/QUOTE]

sorry but this is one thing Anet/NCSoft has never hedged their stand on.

for security and other reasons accounts will flatly not be ABLE to merge.

when a character name was deemed offensive the person was forced to delete the character no matter he/she had just put 500k of goodies on it.

now as a favor they will set up a namechange that does not delete the character or loot.

merging would be an order more difficult and scammed accounts merged would be a nightmare to sort out from logs when they need the time for new chapters.

not going to happen.

Who are you to state that this isn't going to happen? From what you have just stated in your post, although certain procedures were not in place in the past, things do change and that makes this type of account merging a very real possibility.

I'm not talking about any accounts acquired after the slots become available, I'm talking about accounts that were purchased prior to that. ArenaNet has the contact information that you registered your account with. Even if someone goes in and changes that account information, I'm quite certain that they can see the date that the information was changed as well as what the original account details were.

Maybe you would also have said a month ago that character slots were "not going to happen" or that the changing of offensive character names instead of the deletion of the character was "not going to happen".

Things change, and to support their wide consumer base, the account merge possibility is definitely worth considering.

sorry to pop your bubble but everything that has been changed in the past was an item that they said
not now but maybe later.......
we will look into it.......
interesting idea..........
i will mention it to the devs.........

MERGE ACCOUNTS? ABSOLUTELY NO WAY

notice the difference?

I agree , I have posted this on another forum, but most do not want to hear it or look at it logically. It is about money, and yes there was a Gaile post referring to buying more storage , bags etc. So no monthly fee versus paying eatra for things that should be in a Stand Alone as well as Stand Along (nice word play there) ends up about the same. And this was forseen and psoted by myself and others, but we wee doomsayers. Well it came to pass.
And most are just estatic to be able to pay extra for what they should recieve to begin with, something definately wrong with that logic. LoL so they may not sell their 3 million goal, they will make it off of virtual goods or RL money, and is that not against the EULA , but it is alright since it is ANet selling them?
Perhaps myself and many are missing the point by not being GRATEFUL, then again perhaps not, this is a GAME you are wiling to comprimise your RL money and values over.
Would be the same as purchaseing a writeing tablet, and then have to buy the paper that goes in seperately, most would have a real issue with that but not with being SOLD what you should get in the game you buy!

Just to point out 20 pages now and not one post from anyone at Anet explaining anything. The rest is just speculation and guessing and/or attempted justifications (for or against).

So, when will someone from Anet put this debate to rest once and for all and explain their decisions?

I'll add some speculation.

My guess is, the multiple account owners will be out of luck. Account merging will probably be pretty complex to implement, not worth the trouble considering the people who'd want it are an insignificant minority.

since when does a company reveal data that could give a competitor information?

they dont owe any of us an explanation and to think that they do is arrogant to say the least

Less personal comments please I was merely pointing out this thread (and previous similar ones about slots come to think of it) never really had any kind of input from Anet.

That really has nothing to do with giving competitors information, since it looks to be set in stone the whole extra slots thing (for example) - but it does help people understand the reasoning better. It has nothing to do with arrogance or being "owed" any explanation, but plenty to do with getting some reasons to help these things get a conclusion. Otherwise it's just endless speculation from people pro/against things.

Another example is the farming issue - people were guessing all day about that, until eventually some Anet reps (mainly Gaile) posted their stance about that. So this is a similar request.


(and also I'd personally like to know if this is a sign of things to come i.e. continuing to have to pay more for more chars/slots in future, or if it will be one off)

Okay, I'm tired of hearing this, this weekend. Probably when they left work on Friday, the A.net folks were on a high thinking that the purchasable slot announcement was going to make a lot of people very happy, and now when they go back to work Monday morning, they'll probably have a big board meeting to determine whether the announcement was a BIG mistake, and figure out what they're going to do about it.



"They're trying to make a whole bunch of money off of us." Well, no kidding. They're a business. They also have a whole lot of bills to pay. Office rent, a warehouse facility, power, gas, phones, servers, bandwidth, and especially wages -- for the folks in R&D, Customer Service, Maintenance and Tech Support... all in all, some thousands (or tens of...) per month in expenses that your $50 game goes toward (and probably only 40% of that goes to A.net). A little over a year ago, everyone was saying that the Guild Wars business model wasn't going to fly. There's some out there still expecting them to fail.

And you know what happens to little companies with big hearts or interesting vision that fail or do little better than break even? They get swallowed up by bigger companies who buy them strictly from a motive to turn a profit. That doesn't mean that we should be "glad to get ripped off," if that's the way you want to look at it, but keep it in perspective that there's a whole lot worse things a company could be doing if they really wanted to screw you over, and don't be so eager to make that happen.

Is A.net only in it for the money? Of course not. They most likely did what any one of us tries to do in life -- try to make a living doing something they enjoy. Most of us never get that far, but that doesn't mean that we should begrudge those who do. Their no-monthly-fee idea obviously comes more from a gamer's perspective than a businessman's, otherwise why would they abandon a proven business model for something considered "risky?"

Fact: it may be tactically (from a security standpoint) and architecturally (from a software one) impossible to merge GW:P accounts. The situation was probably previously unforseen (especially that it would be so widespread), or the developers would have given themselves some options for this in the beginning. It's unfortunate, but it looks like all they can do now is offer the slots as a way of keeping the problem from becoming more widespread.

Fact: when trying to break into a new market or bolster lukewarm results in a recent market, sometimes you have to send a few more inducements to those potential customers and treat them to something special. OTOH, it's a sure sign of Americans getting spoiled by the game when the complaints start rising over Japan having an FPE that we don't have, and such.

Fact: no matter how diligently you try to make things go smoothly, you are dependent on outside forces (printers, duplicators, distributors, online retailers) to fulfill their promises. Sometimes, one of them will bugger it up. It doesn't mean that your customer service sucks. You just do whatever you can behind the scenes to make it go as smooth as possible and fix what you can.

Meanwhile, how altruistic are you living your own life? Are you hoping to buy a nice house and retire comfortably? Does that make you a greedy bastard?

Geesh.

Too be honest I really haven't encountered anyone considering Anet to be greedy. I've just encountered a bunch of cheapos, either way I agree 100% with you.

Personally, I think its wonderful that they give us the option of buying more slots.

I love you SisterMercy. You said what I want to say a million times, without getting your post deleted (like mine always do, just because I refuse to tolerate idiocy.)

I agree 1,000,000,000% on everything you said and wish people could try to get some perspective and think about the situation outside of "how does this affect ME?"

I tip my hat to you for bringing it to the attention of GWGuru and it's users (not that it'll mean much )

You're right up there with Kakumei now.

I agree also... we're lucky there is no monthly fee. This game is awesome considering that. I've seen people complaining about this and that and something about "The Resistance." When A.net adds a new feature to be nice or helpfull all people can do is complain.

When I look at my cost per hour of play time, it seems downright absurd. $50 divided by my current time of 1,560 hours is roughly $.03 per hour. Or even if someone's only played for 500 hours, that's still only $.10 per hour.

Now add a second account. That would be $100/1560 hr. = ~$.07/hr. and $100/500 hr. = $.20/hr.

Now add the cost of two more character slots: $120/1560 hr. = ~$.08/hr and $120/500 hr. = $.24/hr.

Heck, now even add the cost of Factions: $170/1560 hr. = ~$.10/hr. and $170/500 hr. = $.34/hr.

That's still some of the cheapest entertainment around, so I don't know how anyone can think ArenaNet is trying to rip us off.

It's not anyone else's business wheather you want to purchase more character slots. The opportunity is there, and a lot of people will be taking advantage of it. The people who are bitching about it, are probably angry because their mommies and daddies won't buy them more slots.

Sounds like a personal problem for those kinds of players. Thank goodness I haven't came across any of those people, because after I gave them a peice of my mind, they would surely hate me.

On a side note.. don't let it bother you. Guild Wars' community is getting more and more corrupt everyday. Children everywhere, not much we can do about it. Try to tune those idiots out, and don't let it bother you. What I usually do is, go everywhere with the "all" chat off, unless I'm in LA ID 1. ^^;

Bring "what" to attention? There has already been discussions about this.
I'm suprised that the thread hasn't been locked yet.

I hope they sell a zillion slots so they get lots of money and can continue to make more chapters! Go A-Net!

You could always be paying to play WoW.

Woot I agree, but Omega is right. I've seen several places where ANet's "greed" has been discussed.