possible new fee structure?

so, a few days ago i had to re-accept the license agreement on my 2nd account and i figured i would read up on the recent changes that were made...
what i found is this:
and although i don't speak "legal-mumbojumbo" it got me and a few guildmates worried... basically it is a legal loophole to introduce whatever fee-system they like.
gaile stated we wouldn't have to pay a monthly for now: but it would be very possible with this. all they need to do is post about it 30 days before they want to start billing. bind them with 1 year of free play, then drag them into the subscription? please tell me i am just overly scared...

parts of it may refer to the purchase of character slots - but where does it end? buying more storage space or a lag-free connection?
i am usually not the person to point at anet and ask for clearance: but it would be nice to have a statement on the possibility of monthly fees in the upcoming chapters. will the new fee structure just apply to features like additional character slots or will anet start a fee system for the "service" of playing on your servers???

honestly, i am flat out clueless; i sent in a report but i don't think they will reveil any vicious plans (if they exist): so i post it here again to point this loophole out to everyone who is enjoying a great game without monthly subscription fee (like i do). the future might be holding some grim surprises for us...

~Uzul~

Dude, this is just to pay fees for the chapters. IE, Purchasing them.

This game hasn't proven itself to be worth a monthly fee.

No, Sekkira, they can chage the fee structure to whatever they like, ie pay per month.

it won't happen though. If people's lives were destroyed by by the AoE nerf that anet decided on, then monthly fees could possibly kill them.

but obviously not without changing the EULA

this is something really...that...we need someone official to answer it...

Erm, Sekkira:

You don't need to speek legal gibberish to know that this means "we can do whatever we want with our pricing".

As with most legalese, it doesn't mean anything, of course. They provide the service so they can set whatever pricing they want. They probably just don't want to create any kind of impression of a contract where certain fees are agreed upon between them and the end user. Better to make it explicitly set in stone that they set the price than have some yahoo sueing them over some ridiculous legal technicality down the road because chapter 83 is $55 instead of $50.

Does it mean they can do whatever they want with the pricing? Yes.

Should this surprise you since it's their product? No.

Does it foreshadow any nasty surprises in the near future? Exceptionally unlikely.

I bet that was in the first one too. It legeal protections for them to make changes necessary in the business. It does not mean they will, it just means they gave themselves the option. Covering all the bases.

I can only imagine the number of threads and rants this would lead to...

This has been brought up before, and I think you'll find that that part of the license agreement was much the same before.

Notice it says

If you do not agree to any such alteration, you should not purchase the new Chapter and/or you should terminate your Account prior to the date on which the alteration takes effect otherwise the revised amount will automatically be debited to your Account.

This seems to be an NC interactive license agreement, and it's referring to an NCsoft master account, which I believe is how all NCsoft's pay-to-play games are paid for. I suspect that this license is based on the license used across all NCsoft's games.

I'd agree that it covers them, but I don't believe it's anything for GW players to worry about.

i am in contact with the PR-section and should have offical words on this soon.
remember: we are just discussing the possibility NOT the intent of anet to introduce further fees to their product.
personally i hope they needed this to introduce the ability to purchase of character slots or other things like that...

@sekkira: it definately means more than just the price for new chapters. it means they can charge for any service they provide: including the connection to the servers itself.
@trin storm: it was not in the first one - i would remember a passage like that. ( i am one of the few people that actually read the RoC and EULA.)

i agree it would kill A-Net. one reason i play this game i because there is no monthly fee. i refuse to pay to play a game that i already paid $50 and now with Factions over $100 for and i know im not alone in this. but if i was going to pay to play a game it wouldnt be GW i would have to choose WoW, the gameplay is more in depth and imo it is a more challenging game and they have the framework for a pay to play already hammered out.

in other words A-Net, if this is what you are thinking.. think twice because as tempting as it may seem it will mean the death of you.

If they started charging a monthly fee, they'd lose 3/4s of their players.

Well It's very unlikely Arena net is going to put monthly fee's to guild wars why? beacuse that's their main goal for there to be no monthly fee listen to the interviews of the Guild wars team they allways point out there are no monthly fee's.

just out of curiosity, did anyone bother checking the EULA of other MMO games? this seems like a standard thing tp åut in there..

besides, they haven't got your credit card number or anything, so they can't charge you just ilke that

the lines i quoted are part of the gw-eula (gw.com, not ncsoft.com): but yes they speak about ncsoft(!) reserving the right to [etc]

i am not really worried: just curious why there is a legal term in the EULA that wasn't there before (i am really sure it wasn't there a few months ago when i last checked) - and additionally: why is there a term regarding fees that will be applied to your account when you don't terminate it?
i have a master account at ncsoft so i can buy gw-keys without hassle... but that is a one-time-payment. yes they sell other keys as well - for example CoH/CoV where a monthly fee is applied.
probably this this little part about terminating the account to prevent billing is a standard-phrase that ncsoft uses for all their game's eulas?

i like to believe that - but i am having a hard time doing so until i heard it from an official source.

And the rest would say, 'Suck it up. It's not even a day's work.' , or, 'Good riddance.', 'Good, the kiddies will be gone', or, 'Get a job.', as per the standard way these things turn out on MMORPGs.

But I digress.

It can happen; It's a distinct possibility.
Whatever Gaile may say, it's been shown that her word is not set in stone. She has been shown to be somewhat unreliable due to the simple fact that she has no control over what goes on with the game.
There's no way to say definitively that we won't be told by her that "There will never be a monthly fee", when suddenly we get one, and she says, "Oops. I misunderstood/was not told that it would happen."

Not to bash Gaile. To reiterate, she doesn't make the decisions.

But as for now, I highly doubt there're plans to introduce a fee structure.
We've gone for over a year without a new chapter, and now we're going to expect new chapters every half year. Revenues shouldn't sink low enough to really warrant it for some time.

But this is all just speculation.

We all know, or should know, that Anet has the right to delete our accounts and cut off our access to their servers at any time, and yet we trust them not to treat us so. And I, personally, trust them to be faithful in these matters as well.

Arenanet has made statements on more than one occasion that they will never ever be monthly fees. Unless there is some sort of financial collapse, or the rights to the game get sold, I expect that this will continue to be the way the game runs. After all, the lack of monthly fees is what drew a lot of us to this game. I'm sure I'm not alone in saying that I would stop playing GW if a monthly fee was introduced.

Anyway, I really should read those EULAs before clicking the Accept button.

One of the entire reasons why GWs was so successful in the first place was because it didn't have a monthly fee. It's why the game got so much attention at first. I highly doubt they will ever turn around and suddenly charge a monthly fee to play it. Alternative charges, yes (character slots), but a monthly fee? Highly unlikely. Not only would there be a huge backlash, they would lose a lot of attention on their game and customers.

To follow up from Mercury's comments:

Gaile is a mouthpiece. She's a "Community Manager". Her job is to smoothe ruffled feathers, to give the impression of a listening company, and to reiterate PR flak repeatedly in a way that the community will eventually accept. She's not there to make promises, to guarantee accuracy in what she says, or to serve as a go-between/feedback device from the customers to the developers.

She is there to soothe the worried minds of the guild wars children, and lull them back to sleep so that the money machine keeps pumping, because she is part of that machine.

eudas