Is it time for Living Worlds to be put in bundles with the expansions?

[DarcShriek.5829]

I think it's time to bundle living world episodes in expansion packages.  I see no problem with charging extra for these bundles.

[MithranArkanere.8957]

 I've always been saying that they should go like this:

• Season 1 free for all forever.
• Season 2 free with any expansion purchase.
• Increase the discount of packs so they seasons 3, 4 and 5 can be bought for 800 gems as a pack each, a single gem purchase.
• And bundle seasons 3, 4 and 5 for 2000 gems, so they can all be bought with a single gem card.

When they release the game on steam, they should make the seasons 3, 4 and 5 packs available as steam DLCs so players see them beforehand and don't feel like they are getting 'surprises' when playing the game. 

Same for expansions, they should appear in the GW2 store page as DLCs rather than showing them as separate store entries like GW1's campaigns.

Season 1 is going to be free. So at least we are getting close to that.

Edited May 5, 2022 by MithranArkanere.8957
Formatting

[Erich.1783]

Cut the prices in half, more than that for LS2, including the packs (which should always be in the store if they are not), and start a one week rotation of log in and get LS2E1, LS2E2...LS5(IBS)E6, then repeats. Basically if you buy the game now within a few months you will have all the LS unlocked, and if you can not wait you have the option to buy it, at a more reasonable price.

[Vayne.8563]

8 hours ago, Average.7901 said:

then what am i playing right now? i went to living world season 1 in the quest log and hit begin story. im running around the black citadel. 

Season 1 was only just introduced. Even under the old system, Season 1 would have been included for free, since it just came out and you logged in within the free window.

However, Living World Season 1 is free for all people forever. Anet specifically said so. Living World Season 2-4 and the Icebrood Saga are only free to people who log in during the period they go live, it's usually a 2-3 month window. I believe one or two episodes of the icebrood saga are always free as well.

[DarcShriek.5829]

4 hours ago, Erich.1783 said:

Cut the prices in half, more than that for LS2, including the packs (which should always be in the store if they are not), and start a one week rotation of log in and get LS2E1, LS2E2...LS5(IBS)E6, then repeats. Basically if you buy the game now within a few months you will have all the LS unlocked, and if you can not wait you have the option to buy it, at a more reasonable price.

I don't believe that the prices are the problem.  200 gems is pretty cheap.  The problem is the confusion that is caused for new players with  the monetization of the LWS.

[Erich.1783]

15 hours ago, DarcShriek.5829 said:

I don't believe that the prices are the problem.  200 gems is pretty cheap.  The problem is the confusion that is caused for new players with  the monetization of the LWS.

I am less sure of that, I have come across several post complaints about "Buy Once for $XX.XX.: only to find out there is more content that will cost you just over $50.00, at least I think that is what it would work out.

 

Either way, keeping the LS parts so that a different chapter is available for free unlock every week, on a regular rotation was the more important part.

[Kelly.7019]

maybe at the end of the LW season they should be packaged into bundles, but I can also see an appeal to sell them separetly if there was some kind of content each year to revisit old maps. but anet doesn't liek doing that or at least have said as much in the past. Still i think it would be a good marketing tool to offer new content in old lw maps but you need the maps to do the content. hence buy them in the gem store. If you never go back to old maps, it lessens the point of buying them later.

is it an option now to buy PoF and all the lw episode in one big bundle? I mean it should be since PoF is over. I could see special sales during the year where this is discounted and during the rest of the  years its not and its separate. So i guess i cna see both sides. depends on the marketing strategy.

Edited May 6, 2022 by Kelly.7019

[KeoLegend.5132]

Either 2 options:

 

1. Make LW come with Expansions:

- Core game + LWS1

- HoT + LWS2 and LWS3

- PoF + LWS4 and IBS

- EoD with the next LW

 

or

 

2. Make a permanente 1 or 2 week rotation with every single LW chapter starting from 2 up to the last of IBS and keep it rotating in order every week

[Khisanth.2948]

Forgot where I read this and it was years ago but supposedly revenue from "box" sales and gems sales are handled differently in terms of how it is split between ANet and NCSoft. That seems like a plausible reason for why the content is split up this way.

[Shikigami.4013]

People who start now already are getting the base game AND heart of thorns for free with the purchse of path of fire - which incidentally has been on sale frequently for a big discount. As such, they are not at a disadvantage compared to longterm players who got the episodes for free because they actually played the game.

Release players had to pay for the game, then for heart of thorns, then for path of fire - and got the episodes free if they were loyal players.

New players get the game and heart of thorns totally free - but have to pay for the episodes they missed because they ignored the game for 10 years 🙂 Seems fair to me. Also evens out in regards of what either party actually has to pay to get all content.

 

I am aware that this is not the original topic of the post, which basically only asked for the episodes to be added to bundles, not to make them all free. Just giving my thoughts on what all the offtopic people have steered the thread to. To go back to the initial topic: They should absolutely make a bundle that includes all the episodes, so that people as least are informed that this system exists and have the option of simply paying for everything upfront without having to go through the hassle of buying it individually later.

[Timba.9421]

I could go for that.

Telling my friends that they need to buy specific maps cuz they didn't log in at specific times puts them off. They take couple month breaks and it gets harder and harder to get them to play each map they miss the unlock for.

[Shikigami.4013]

6 minutes ago, Timba.9421 said:

I could go for that.

Telling my friends that they need to buy specific maps cuz they didn't log in at specific times puts them off. They take couple month breaks and it gets harder and harder to get them to play each map they miss the unlock for.

Calling it "specific times" makes it sound like it was actually an effort to do/remember. It wasn't. Is it really too much to ask for to log into the game once a MONTH if you take a longer break? It is not like those episodes come weekly, or at unknown times and then only last a few days. I have always told people "if you take a break, at least log in once a month". And those who actually did NOT do that are smart enough to realize that it is their own fault and that they could have easily prevented having to pay anything if they could just have been bothered to log in from time to time. I am just these days playing together with such a person who now has to buy unlocks for missed episodes and she is completely aware that this is all on her laziness.

In my eyes ArenaNet is extremely generous here. Even those who missed lots of episodes or even started from scratch were able to get ALL of them totally free if they had played around this time last year by participating in the HUGE (and announced in advance) "return to" event.

[EnferReine.8043]

On 5/6/2022 at 12:08 AM, Average.7901 said:

then what am i playing right now? i went to living world season 1 in the quest log and hit begin story. im running around the black citadel. 

Living World Season 1 is free and will remain free for everyone.
Season 2 and onward as far as most people are aware, are not free unless you have logged in during a period in which they were being given out for free.

On 5/6/2022 at 1:06 AM, Inculpatus cedo.9234 said:

False.  Everyone can access Living World Season One now and forever at no cost whatsoever.

Also, there is no qualms with including past Living World Seasons in a bundle.  The issue is including future Living World Seasons in the added cost of an expansion.  I would not want to pay for future Living World Seasons that would have been free. 

What is the issue with it? You support the game and potentially they won't even raise the price on the larger bundles by much because there might be an increase of people simply buying the larger expansion bundles.

They could have it be that in Deluxe or larger editions, you unlock the next LW seasons regardless of logging in or not, so that people can buy the basic edition and still log in for it, etc.

For someone like me who has always bought the largest edition of expansion packs they have to offer because this game has given me tons of hours of play time at very little cost, including them as part of your Deluxe or Ultimate rewards bundle wouldn't really hurt. As I said, it would be no different than what Take Two does with the Borderlands franchise. In their bundles for the game, at least the first years DLC that will come out later is included in larger editions and is cheaper than buying them later individually or even buying the season pass for the DLC. They try and get a bigger sum out of you at the beginning to fund their work but it is still cost effective for the consumer.

[EnferReine.8043]

10 hours ago, Shikigami.4013 said:

Calling it "specific times" makes it sound like it was actually an effort to do/remember. It wasn't. Is it really too much to ask for to log into the game once a MONTH if you take a longer break? It is not like those episodes come weekly, or at unknown times and then only last a few days. I have always told people "if you take a break, at least log in once a month". And those who actually did NOT do that are smart enough to realize that it is their own fault and that they could have easily prevented having to pay anything if they could just have been bothered to log in from time to time. I am just these days playing together with such a person who now has to buy unlocks for missed episodes and she is completely aware that this is all on her laziness.

In my eyes ArenaNet is extremely generous here. Even those who missed lots of episodes or even started from scratch were able to get ALL of them totally free if they had played around this time last year by participating in the HUGE (and announced in advance) "return to" event.

This doesn't apply to new people who buy the game though, if they were never playing during those times then they join the game and they buy the expansions only to find out they are actually missing a lot of content in between that hasn't been properly told to them until they can't access it and besides the gem store, they are given a really weak way to purchase it via the in game store only.

Having at the very least a bundle that includes all of them at a more reasonable price would go a long way to improving new player experience, because they will have better ways to gain access to that content. Even better would be making a bundle on the store with the 2 expacs and the living worlds, so that there is one convenient purchase of everything up until the most recent expansion at the very least.

Why bundle 2 expansions that provide immense value but not include the important stories in between that provide access to some amazing QOL ways to gear up for higher tier content?

It just doesn't make much sense.

[Shikigami.4013]

4 hours ago, hellsqueen.3045 said:

[...]

You seem to have missed my post just one before that, where I not only referred in detail to new people who are just starting now, but also mentioned that I do not mind making the episodes also available by putting them into a bundle for those who really wish to buy everything at once. 

As to "not making much sense", you are wrong there. The expansions are (and have always been) REAL MONEY only, while the episodes have always been INGAME CURRENCY only. You think it would be so awesome to include them in a bundle for real money, but have you once thought about that new players are not aware of the possibility to buy the episodes with ingame currency?

They may see the bundle, think they have to buy it if they want access to all content, and later get angry when finding out that instead of paying real money they could have unlocked these episodes one by one by just playing the game and converting their gold.

And just as an afterthought - the top tier bundle already includes 4000 gems. 4000 gems are enough to buy 20 episodes. Living World 2 has 8, Living World 3 has 6, Living World 4 has 6. And 8+6+6 = 20. So the top tier bundle basically already does come with all the Living World seasons (only missing the lastest Icebrood Saga ones), it is only a matter of pressing a few buttons to unlock them with your 4000 gems. Maybe they should increase the gem amount to 5200 now that there are 26 instead of 20 episodes and adjust the price accordingly, so it once again becomes a bundle with which you get all content.

[DexterousGecko.6328]

I don't think having to buy a bundle with the seasons is bad, or having their separate as an option either, but it needs to be very clear how people can get the full experience with the game. I didn't even know I could play the older seasons for quite a while. When you pay for a game, pay for the expansions and then get told, "oh, btw, you're missing out on 4 years of story that you'll need to buy as well" it feels bad, it feels like you were tricked (imo of course).