Store revamp and Gold to Gem - Is it time to limit it's use?

Never thought I would say this about a MMO but Gw2 is to extremely consumer-friendly.

The majority of items in the store are really not worth it, offer little incentive to buy and honestly are to easy to purchase for some players with gold.

With this, I believe ArenaNet has the opportunity to change the store and its business model pre-steam release.Let's be honest Guild wars 2 do not require a single penny to be spent, the only time you really buy something out of "must" is an expansion that comes around every 3+- years.

• Mount skins no matter their price is optional as you still got the mount from the expansion.
• A lot of the other items are pretty much useless or fluff.
• They cannot keep on adding more bag and bank slots :open_mouth:

ArenaNet could still be consumer-friendly and create a better model at the same time.

• Introduce a monthly limit of Gold to Gems (750 gems), if you do not want to spent some cash, save up :astonished:
• Sell skill sets in the store to further expand classes, these do not require a new weapon but could just add to the core class!
• Weapon animation packs: New animations for the ele staff for example.
• New races, these do not require a new zone and can be introduced as refugees from the north for example (cutscene).. you start in the Norn area. or you start at 80 In the silverwaste like the level boosts.
• Introduce housing, this is a feature that can be monetized easily (furniture, pets, NPCs, vendors, etc)

These changes would not take away from the experience that you are having right now, in a sense it would give then more revenue which leads to more development and it is still all optional. The only restriction that you have is that you might have to save up on gems if you do not want to spent some money.

I know this is not a popular topic but I do think that it is a discussion to be had and for the devs to see what they can get out of these typs of discussions.

have a wonderful day all :)

Just nope. 100% Nope

Lol. Another person from country with avg. income of 1000€/month + that thinks everyones country is like that. Sorry to disappoint you but I can buy week worth of good healthy food for 20$ and live in country with avg. monthly income of ~700€. I have many friends from countries with less than 500€/month. (Almost 1/3 of EU is like that too).Its enough that prices in gemstore are riddiculous (20$ mount skin basically = similiar as expansions in most of games and many full base games). Don't look only at yourself and your country please :x

@Halbarz.3854 said:

ArenaNet could still be consumer-friendly and create a better model at the same time.

• Introduce a monthly limit of Gold to Gems (750 gems), if you do not want to spent some cash, save up :astonished:Why stop at 750? If you want to force people to spend cash for gems, then don't have any conversion at all.

• Sell skill sets in the store to further expand classes, these do not require a new weapon but could just add to the core class!This becomes pay-to-win. Not part of Anet's concept for GW2.

• Weapon animation packs: New animations for the ele staff for example.In lieu of other development? How much would you charge for this? People are already fuming about mount skin pricing.

• New races, these do not require a new zone and can be introduced as refugees from the north for example (cutscene).. you start in the Norn area. or you start at 80 In the silverwaste like the level boosts.There have been enough conversations about new races. Please use the forums search feature for those discussions.

• Introduce housing, this is a feature that can be monetized easily (furniture, pets, NPCs, vendors, etc)There have been enough conversations about housing. Please use the forums search feature for those discussions.

These changes would not take away from the experience that you are having right now, in a sense it would give then more revenue which leads to more development and it is still all optional. The only restriction that you have is that you might have to save up on gems if you do not want to spent some money.How can you call this optional when you force restrictions on gold to gem conversion?

I know this is not a popular topic but I do think that it is a discussion to be had and for the devs to see what they can get out of these typs of discussions.How do you know that this is not a popular topic? If there have been discussions about this before, then why start yet another one?have a wonderful day all :)Thanks! You, too.

I get the forum is generally filled with poor ideas but...wow..

Pretty much every suggestion made here is detrimental.

I'd prefer not to see things like skills or races sold in the gem store. We already get new players complaining because they bought HoT + PoF and then found out they don't actually have the whole game because they need to buy the Living Story too, adding more separate bits of content to the gem store would just make that worse.

Secondly whilst I can understand the thinking behind limiting the number of gems which can be bought with gold I think it's important to remember the exchange works both ways - those gems are only available because someone bought them with real money and converted them into gold. If you limit how many gems can be bought with gold you push the exchange rate down and make it less desirable to buy gold with real money so less people do that, which ultimately leads to Anet making less money. Potentially you could end up with a situation where they're unable to buy gold because there isn't enough available due to the limit on converting it. 8 years in I'm still not comfortable with the idea of players being able to legally buy gold, but I don't think changing the system now would be well received and I certainly don't think it's as simple as saying if players can't convert as much gold to gems it will make more money for Anet.

Also everyone has different amounts of disposable income available to them. A lot of people who use gold to buy gems might not be able to use real money so removing the gold options just means they won't buy those items at all. I do both at various times, and if I'm converting gold to buy gems it's probably because I've decided that item isn't worth spending real money on, so if I couldn't use gold I'd just skip it even though I can afford to buy it.

Finally while you're absolutely right that cosmetics aren't necessary that doesn't mean they don't sell. I am very aware I do not need any mount skins to play GW2, but that doesn't mean I didn't find it frustrating waiting months for mount skins I liked to become available. I like customising my characters, making them look the way I want or the way I imagine they'd want to look and I'm willing to spend money to do that even if it's not necessary. (It's similar to how I don't need to buy £20 t-shirts at a concert and I'm under no illusions that no one cares which bands I've seen. I could save my money and buy cheaper clothing that's purely functional, but I like wearing the concert shirts and I'm willing to pay for them.)

On that note I'm in favour of adding more types of cosmetics. I'd almost certainly buy some packs to customise my skill animations if those were available. First on the list would be something to make my mesmers skills fit her white/black/pale green theme instead of bright pink, and maybe more minimal animations for my weaver who is more interested in the practical applications of magic than the theatrics (unlike my tempest who is quite happy being a one-woman fire storm).

I'm wary of supporting the idea of housing in GW2 but only because Elder Scrolls Online has an almost entirely cosmetic housing system and I've spent so much time and gold/real money on it I'm not sure I want another game drawing me in like that too. If it was available I know I'd use it.

You must really want the game to die off, huh?

This is an all around terrible idea

The gem exchange needs gold to gem conversions but perhaps not as many. Gold to gem conversions create only the potential for revenue and I am sure the studio would be happy if some gold to gem conversions were cash to gem conversions. I don't think limiting gold to gem conversions is the answer though. Increasing the demand for gold, vendors or tradeable items, would make the gem exchange more profitable. Players who want gem shop items would have less gold available and players willing to convert gem to gold would have more reason to. More importantly, at least imo, the studio needs to make using gold more acceptable which for a fantasy mmo isn't easy. Players put a lot of value on earning rewards without gold.

Well technically the gems aren't really free, from my understanding.Someone had to buy them with cash in order to sell them for gold. That's why the price fluctuates.If fewer people were buying gems and everyone was only trying to use gold, the gold price would skyrocket. But the only time I notice the conversation rate really jump is when something big is added to the gem store, so obviously there will be a demand.The way I see it, don't fix what ain't broken.I really appreciate the gold gem conversation system as is, it let me still have a shot at gem store things when I didn't have a disposable income, and now that I do I can still buy gems.

I also wouldn't call gem store items useless, they just aren't P2W, which is a good thing.

Honestly the closer we get to 200 Gold for 400 gems, the less I'll be exchanging and the more I'll be spending actual money on Gem items. Those kind of rates are not worth the farm time.

I remember the days before the Istan farm when I waited for gems to drop to under 70g -> 400gems before I'd scoop some up.

Awful idea. Some of us are not even moderately wealthy. I limit myself to about $10/mo, the same as I paid for a sub for lotro (until I canceled this week due to their ongoing server issues since July). On disability, so can't afford more. I don't mind supporting the game, but this way I can do so within my budget.

@"Halbarz.3854" said:

• Introduce a monthly limit of Gold to Gems (750 gems), if you do not want to spent some cash, save up :astonished:Why? Just why? Also what about all the people who buy gems and convert them to gold? Are they limited to only selling 750 gems a month now, too, or can they sell however many gems they want? Because either the conversion will make gems dirt cheap even if people can only get 750 a month or people will stop buying gems to convert to gold because it's just not worth it, which could in turn lead to a rise of gold sellers as the gem<->gold system was designed to limit gold selling.

• Sell skill sets in the store to further expand classes, these do not require a new weapon but could just add to the core class!Would still need to be balanced around and the game becomes pay-to-win as the moment a gem-only skill is meta for raids or WvW or PvP, serious groups will require people to buy it.

• Weapon animation packs: New animations for the ele staff for example.This has been requested for a long time but probably won't happen outside of re-colouring effects due to the work involved.

• New races, these do not require a new zone and can be introduced as refugees from the north for example (cutscene).. you start in the Norn area. or you start at 80 In the silverwaste like the level boosts.Even without a personal story, new races require new animations, new models, new textures, new customization options, new voice actors, new lines written, existing armour and outfits need to be modified to work on them, etc. Locking race between a paywall is a terrible idea and anti-consumer. At this point in the game, any new race would have much higher res textures and animations thus making them visually "superior" to the free races unless every playable race also has a graphics and animation overhaul.

• Introduce housing, this is a feature that can be monetized easily (furniture, pets, NPCs, vendors, etc)Been asked for for years, no word on if/when it will happen. But if it does, anything that isn't purely cosmetic should not be locked behind a paywall. Especially if your suggestion of limiting people to getting 750 gems per month with gold is taken into account as, going by the prices of the gemstore, that would mean people who don't buy gems with money would be able to buy one (1) small decoration a month.

These changes would not take away from the experience that you are having right now, in a sense it would give then more revenue which leads to more development and it is still all optional. The only restriction that you have is that you might have to save up on gems if you do not want to spent some money.Who are you to say this wouldn't affect players? I'm on a fixed income meaning I buy all my gems via gold. If I had to start saving up gems because I couldn't buy what I wanted when I wanted it, I would just stop playing. Especially if they added skills or races to the gem store at the same time as I am not going to play a pay-to-win game that forces people to buy the premium currency with real money and guilts people if they can't.

I get it. You have a bunch of money IRL and have your own idea of how Anet should operate. Except Anet has always designed GW2 as being accessible to everyone regardless of their IRL income. That was one of their main design philosophies since the game was in development and it was a promise to players that the game would not become pay-to-win or lock things behind a paywall. Now, there is debate about whether or not some elite specs count as being pay-to-win but those at least are tied to expansions instead of just being in the gem shop and requiring you to pay $30 to unlock them.

Nothing is "too consumer-friendly" and that should never be a bad thing, especially when it comes to the video game industry which is infamously and insidiously exploitative of players. GW2 isn't perfect but it's a heck of a lot better than so many other games and MMOs out there.

It's fine as is, thanks.