Subscription based access?

Based on the recent news of layoffs, and thus a potential indicator of game health, how would you feel if Anet introduces a subscription to play the game?

If it gave ingame benefits as a sort of premium status player i wouldn't care. I would gladly have the same system as china.

New players wont even consider joining 2012 game that was 6-7 years without subscription and after that adding it. Think about all the quitting playera as well. Your idea will doom this game.

NO, this is not about GW2 itself and its profit. This is about Anet as a whole. This is about Anet working on many different projects and thus investing the money they got from GW2 into them, while not doing any RoI on those other projects. Those same projects that got canceled and new have started. That is a lot of money wasted and NCSoft decided it is time for Anet to stop with it.

This layoff is about the people that worked on other projects that have never seen the light, it is not about GW2. GW2 itself is not affected negatively. This is not about GW2 not earning enough money, it is about GW2 earning money and spending that money for other projects, thus all the profit they got actually been reduced with no return at all.

And as a side effect of mismanagement from Anet, they also reduced the quality of updates and content, and also the number of people working on GW2, all for the favor of developing other projects. And that has been seen on the graph.
You can't stop nurturing your main project and even lessen the development, in the favor of projects that just get scrapped and scrapped over again.NCSoft is here to tell Anet to stop with that bs, and to concentrate on what is the reality, GW2+GW and maybe 1 more project, not more.

no.

the layoffs were unrelated to gw2s health as a game

I have played this franchise for 14 years because it doesn't require a subscription, nor does it constantly invalidate your progress, so for me personally, these suggestions floating around on how to "save the game" would most certainly kill it, at least for me.I don't see that being very attractive to new players either.

Plus from all that we know so far, GW2 is doing fine. It's been other games in development that stalled and had to be canned.The fact that GW2 supported 3 games (including itself) in development with 400 people working on them for years, while being the only thing making money for the company, is quite impressive.

I do hope they put their focus back on GW2 now though. This game can easily carry 2 more expansions with good profit.

I'd be highly unlikely to keep playing GW2 with a subscription. I got into GW1 originally because it didn't have one and my situation hasn't changed that much in the time since - it's still impossible for me to predict how much time I'll have and therefore whether it's worth paying for permission to log into a game over the next 30 days.

As an optional sub with benefits for those who want to pay it.. I don't mind so long as it doesn't strip anything away from the core players.

As a Mandatory sub that takes my account away from me if I choose not to pay it or diminishes my account any any way..If Anet did that I'd quit this game the second it was announced, I'd sell my account and never come back to the Guildwars franchsie no matter much I love it.

The fact GW1/GW2 have had no subscription is the reason I played them. If GW ever went to a subscription, I'd stop playing it instantly.

ESO, WoW and Final Fantasy all have some form subscription model. And by all accounts all are doing better than GW2. But sure lets keep pretending this status quo works and keep telling ourselves that any form of subscription is whats gonna kill the game.

Also, not all subscription models are the same. They could introduce a premium style model where people who don't subscribe don't loose anything but simply have to pay for future content while subscribers get future content with no additional charge plus they get some additional QoL perks and benefits.

There are some of us who are willing to pay more for this game if it means more quality and quantity of content. And it is ok if you are not among those players. Nobody is advocating that things be taken away from players who dislike subscriptions. Why be against this if its possible to reach a compromise?

@kasoki.5180 said:ESO, WoW and Final Fantasy all have some form subscription model. And by all accounts all are doing better than GW2. But sure lets keep pretending this status quo works and keep telling ourselves that any form of subscription is whats gonna kill the game.

Also, not all subscription models are the same. They could introduce a premium style model where people who don't subscribe don't loose anything but simply have to pay for future content while subscribers get future content with no additional charge plus they get some additional QoL perks and benefits.

There are some of us who are willing to pay more for this game if it means more quality and quantity of content. And it is ok if you are not among those players. Nobody is advocating that things be taken away from players who dislike subscriptions. Why be against this if its possible to reach a compromise?

They also started with sub models. Introducing a sub model 6 years into a game seems like a terrible business decision. Plus all those franchises are vastly bigger names than GW which is a very small IP in comparison.

I don't like subscription based games, If you pay a sub for 6 months, but you only play for 2 months, then take a break for 3 months and play 1 month again until the sub is over, it feels like you wasted money. A sub can give you the feeling to "having to play" if you are that type of person (not wanting to waste money).

@kasoki.5180 said:ESO, WoW and Final Fantasy all have some form subscription model. And by all accounts all are doing better than GW2. But sure lets keep pretending this status quo works and keep telling ourselves that any form of subscription is whats gonna kill the game.

Also, not all subscription models are the same. They could introduce a premium style model where people who don't subscribe don't loose anything but simply have to pay for future content while subscribers get future content with no additional charge plus they get some additional QoL perks and benefits.

There are some of us who are willing to pay more for this game if it means more quality and quantity of content. And it is ok if you are not among those players. Nobody is advocating that things be taken away from players who dislike subscriptions. Why be against this if its possible to reach a compromise?

It does depend on the way they would add a subscription, if they'd do it just for some free gems and a certain in-game currency or whatever, I'd be fine with it.But if they'd lock stuff like the living world (already existing types of content) behind it, I'd probably quit. I support them with store purchases these days (didn't before, was to poor to buy anything)

@kasoki.5180 said:ESO, WoW and Final Fantasy all have some form subscription model. And by all accounts all are doing better than GW2. But sure lets keep pretending this status quo works and keep telling ourselves that any form of subscription is whats gonna kill the game.

Also, not all subscription models are the same. They could introduce a premium style model where people who don't subscribe don't loose anything but simply have to pay for future content while subscribers get future content with no additional charge plus they get some additional QoL perks and benefits.

There are some of us who are willing to pay more for this game if it means more quality and quantity of content. And it is ok if you are not among those players. Nobody is advocating that things be taken away from players who dislike subscriptions. Why be against this if its possible to reach a compromise?

True but GW2 is a special case. First of all this game has basically no new content over the year, unless you count the 2hrs every 3-4 months. In ESO for example you get all the Dark Brotherhood etc story lines if you get a subscription. And the devs in ESO push out content like crazy on top.WoW, even at its currently worst state ever, pushes out more content with a single patch every few months than GW2 in the entire year.

What would you pay a subscription for in GW2? There's no extra content like in ESO that they can give you for the subscription. There's no way to gate the entire game behind a sub like in WoW. The only way to make a subscription model is to give things like extra storage or inventory slots, extra skins or extra gems. But at the end of the day, who wants this?

There's nothing exclusive you can hide behind a sub fee in GW2, because there's simply nothing you can take away from an already barebones experience. And who in his right mind would pay money for the entire year, when all he gets is 2 hrs of content at a single day in 4 months?

At the end of the day there's no way around pushing out tons of content and new features, scaling mechanics and to release expacs. If you have tons of content you might decide to put something behind a paywall, because the rest of the game still stands on its own.

Hello!

Yeah! All accounts... That is why just a few weeks ago Blizzard fire 800 employee.

Oh, well...

Have fun and good luck.

I'll add my voice to those that would quit the game if it ever went subscription based, and I've been playing the franchise since 2005.

@Lonewolf Kai.3682 said:Based on the recent news of layoffs, and thus a potential indicator of game health, how would you feel if Anet introduces a subscription to play the game?

It's a mistake to equate the news of layoffs with an indicator of game health. Anyone who has worked for a successful company that is owned by a larger (not always successful) company goes through this sort of thing. The holding corp management feels forced to show big changes, including sometimes fixing what ain't broke, such as tinkering with the internal management of their successful properties.

This doesn't mean that ANet is doing everything well, that their own management is stellar. It just means that we can't read much meaning into the fact of layoffs.

Once ANet does what NCSOFT requires of them, then we'll have a better idea. We'll see if ANet can adjust and have the staff needed for the post-LS5 living world, if NCSOFT survives as currently structured, and so on.

PS anyone who wants to have an optional US$10 subscription can already do that, by buying 800 gems/month. That's enough for several outfits, a few select MountFits, and some QoL items. Or gifting folks some RNG boxes.

@derd.6413 said:the layoffs were unrelated to gw2s health as a gameI don't know if that's true. From my point of view, some of NcSoft's decisions on how to use the ArenaNet resources may have caused delays for GW2 content like for example the decision to do another LS season rather than the next expansion. That could have negatively affected GW2's health as a game (last quarter revenue for GW2 was down about 25%) since LS has a much smaller chance of attracting new players and bringing back older players. And that could mean that now they have to cut back staff because the current revenue of the game no longer warrants the current size of ArenaNet's team as a result of that. So you may be right, but you may not be.

While I, myself, probably would take a subscription if needed for the future of the game, most players entered Guild Wars and Guild Wars 2 because of the promise of no timely fees. I think a decision to go subscription would be devastating, if only for this broken promise of no timely fees and the bad press that this would give.

The freemium model with the expansions and gem store is still a business model that makes the most sense I think. Especially for our community.

I don't think they would go sub. Going F2P was bad enough.However watch the store.. prices going up...helpful things suddenly appearing.I feel sad they make chairs so players can buy them.It's almost like they are desperate.:(

People are so worried about gw2 and want to ensure that the game continues cause of reasons.

Tbh, this is anets fault in the end and they should try to fix their problems instead of getting people to pay. 400 people in the company and we get a release once in 3-4 months or so with max 2 weeks of achievements probably timegated also. Srsly?

Anet has received constant feedback about their slow releases/stuff that players didn't want/bad balance etc. but the company is still as transparent as it is now which is no info about near anything at all before close to release. If people don't like it will still be in the game cause they have wasted their time and effort.

If anything, this should be a wakeup call for anet to improve their content and make the game better and more fun to play with challenging content and frequent balance patches etc. instead of just doing gem store.

When people enjoy the game they are more likely to spend more money on it.

@Dami.5046 said:I don't think they would go sub. Going F2P was bad enough.However watch the store.. prices going up...helpful things suddenly appearing.I feel sad they make chairs so players can buy them.It's almost like they are desperate.:(I also don't see them going sub cause it would alienate too many players. The gem store has been very active for a while now it seems so that's where they are hoping to make more money. The thing is that we now know that the next expansion will not come this year if at all. But the fact that it's not coming this year really is losing the game momentum. Of course they want to supplement the revenue loss from not having an expansion coming but I think that when it comes to gem store sales a lot of people might get sort of jaded towards it because after you buy a bunch of stuff the law of diminishing returns also sets in there. And there really needs to be new content to invigorate the game. LS chapters do that a little bit certainly not like an expansion.

I wouldn't mind seeing this added to the current system as an optional subscription. It would need to bring enough exclusive rewards to those who pay for it to warrant the price they would charge. I am not talking p2w content either just some nice benefits that would entice people to want to have it but not need to have it.

This way people can still carry on as they always have like it never existed or decide to go the subscription route with some perks.

I am all for helping fund the developer even if they don't need it. That is why I buy at least 10 dollars worth of gems per month. I want more content and bug fixes for this game. So I throw some money in the pot so they will be able to. However I am disappointed that our gw2 money is funding other game developments. I know I shouldn't be and I understand why. I just wish all those people were working on content for this game.

If Guilds Wars 2 ever implement a required subscription I want a full refund. I've already spend 800 Euros on the game. I'm not paying more.

Make it optional but with perks, if the game becomes more closed due to subscription Requirement, it'll lose a lot of it's acquired playerbase. Many people are fine with the Buy to play system, not quite as many would accept a Pay to play system, it's an antiquated system for a reason.

In some games, subscription would give players free gem store items daily/monthly, such as for example 5 black lion keys per month, an unknown dye daily or such. This would actually be tolerated relatively well. As long as more necessary services are not locked behind it : Adding new ways to access things more easily is fine, locking existing access behind a paywall is not.

@kasoki.5180 said:ESO, WoW and Final Fantasy all have some form subscription model. And by all accounts all are doing better than GW2. But sure lets keep pretending this status quo works and keep telling ourselves that any form of subscription is whats gonna kill the game.ESO might be doing better only because its shown a road map with progressing content that looks promising to playersWow... no... just no.... Do not even mention this game or its models and ideals here unless you are talking about wow everone knew about 6 years ago.Final Fantasy probably doing fairly better yes i dont know though but I have not heard people complaining about the game much

What anet can not doIf its forced that means the game dies because a lot of people who play now are not going to suddenly feel that its fair that they need to be forced to pay to play the game thats out right unfair and devious to do to players. Personally if anet suddenly said I needed to pay to play I would probably only play 1 month after new content came out and for the rest of the time I would cut my losses and un sub.

What anet could doA subscription model could help generate money for gw2 but it needs to be fairly close to ESO's model offering benefits that don't particularly make you better than another player in terms of status aka pay to win. All of the benefits offered need to feel like a nice to have not a must have. More importantly it would need to be 100% optional and not required.

A subscription for GW2 huh.... lets just look at a few things anet could do.

Free waypoint transit

• Travel the world for free no cost on way points for subbed users.

Instant access to all living story content

• If you don't happen to have it unlocked congrats now you do.
• Once played through its completely unlocked on your account forever even if you un sub.
• xpacks would need to be considered here however. Possibly subbed users can buy them greatly discounted or something idk

Gold fed transmutation Converter

• Need transmutation charges simply insert a gold coin and get a Transmutation charge, feel free to edit your fashion wars 2 style more freely and as frequently as you want.

Stat Converter

• Allows players to change stats on all gear from rare to ascended with a small gold fee based on the armor quality (25 silver up to 1 gold per item)
• While this does devalue legendary weapon/ amor perks of being able to stat change for free a bit if you want those perks without the sub simply get the legendary weapons and armor they would still have value here in addition to their shiny features.

Bank access from inventory

• Yes this devalues the black lion chest bank access item but hey i don't see much wrong with that if you still want it without doing an optional subscription its there for you. thus it still has value.

Black Lion Premium Express

• No longer will you have to find a black lion merchant to pick up your items bought on the TP they will simply be delivered to you via black lion mail express free of charge. Gnashblade is here to support you and your every day needs. Vote Evon Gnashblade Today!!!

Mini Mistic forge access

• Allows players to use the forge from anywhere in the game right from their inventory.

Gems

• Get a set amount of gems = to the subscription cost each time you pay.

These are just a few examples in my head that most players would probably enjoy but things that wont make players who don't sub feel like they lesser or specifically need to sub. All the above things could be considered nice to haves but not must haves. Some of these ideas might come off to people as Must haves but if you are going to pay for a few perks that wont increase your damage / skill or give you a direct advantage gameplay wise they should be some what nice perks imo.