What’re we losing with no sub?

[Rogue.8235]

8 hours ago, lezbefriends.7516 said:

Obviously you get what you pay for so sacrifices have to be made to keep this game “free” for a majority of players.

 

I’ve played the 2 juggernaut sub games and an optional-sub mmo. I’ve played GW2 since Beta.

 

What I’ve learned is that sub affords true endgame raiding and dungeon content with hard trinity—the true AAA MMORPG experience.

 

Less obvious advantages to the sub are free armor appearance changes and new races/mounts with each expansion.

 

Just what are we gaining/losing to keep this game sub-free? Is it worth it?

 

 

That sort of end-game content is necessary for subscription models.  You have to keep players subbing and logging in as much as possible so you keep them on the gear grind.  To ensure that they stay on the gear grind, all new content makes prior content obsolete by increasing the numbers (mob damage, mob hp, etc.).  This forces the players to keep subscriptions or lose out on it all and fall behind.

 

I say, we're not missing anything without a subscription.

 

[Freya.9075]

2 hours ago, Taclism.2406 said:

 

Thats a stupid argument to make, of course it is. But if you want data, it exists, its called quarterly income reports.
Wow made 2642 millions $ in 2021 , whereas gw2 made 76 billions won ... which is barely over 58millions $.
That doesnt take into account how many players are in each game, but I highly doubt WoW literally has 50 times more players than gw2 (that'd be 30k gw2 players, and we know for a fact eod sold at the very least 93k copies)

Its not arguable Anet economic model is loosing them money, however you can argue if they had a sub since 2013, the game would have died or be way worse than what we have now - see every "wow killer" that turned freemium + p2w
Its not like a sub means no microtransactions either

Maybe anet doesn’t want to be subscription model because they want to be different. Maybe they earn enough money to stay afloat and don’t get greedy like other businesses. They ofc want to make money, all businesses do. But there is a difference between a game that milks you for all the money you can spend vs a game that lets you have an option to do so or not spend any at all except buying their game. Maybe anet is this successful since many players that doesn’t want a wow game comes here. 

[akipappi.3917]

i rather have sub than having anet shove all skins into the cash shop alongside all the useful things like trasmutation charges while abandoning all content i like and balancing the game however devs like. sub would create a bigger expectancy for quality and tbh right now i do not see quality. i doubt that would work though since adding a sub would be so controversial, i think something like value packs in black desert would be a better option. for those who dont know: you pay about 10e a month for extra bank and inventory space, free appearance changes for the duration and theres other things that dont translate into gw2 but they could add free transmutation for that time, maybe give a small amount of gems for buying it like eso i believe.

[Skorpis.4372]

For me is definitely worth keeping sub free. I often stop playing and comeback to check it out once again and got hooked up for a month or two. I would not do it if there was a monthly sub.

Also imagine having gem shop and a monthly sub. You are allready paying for game but you have pay extra to get all the skinns and convenience stuff? I know other games has it but I personaly despise this and avoid those games.

For me MMO's is about character growth by time invested in. Not by amount of money spend.

[Neverheal.7850]

I’m pretty happy with the system GW2 has as is. And let’s be perfectly honest, both of those sub required MMOs and the optional-sub MMO all have cash shops on top of their monthly sub cost, so…

[Ashen.2907]

All of the subscription based games that I have played also have cash shops with cosmetics, etc. 

Luckily, to me, the vast majority of the best looking skins are earned in game here.

I find a new elite spec for each profession in each expansion to be superior to a new race. New ways to play all of my existing characters is more valuable than a new appearance while playing the same classes in largely the same way. Of course some elite specs are less exciting than others.

GW2 has had new mounts added at a greater rate than every expansion. Even moreso if you consider gliding to fulfill some of the same niche as some mounts.

I already get free armor reskinning in GW2.

So, all we are left with is a lack of hard trinity....which is part of why I play this game rather than some others.

Edited August 4, 2022 by Ashen.2907

[god fragment.5716]

It's not like having a subscription means that those MMOs don't have a "gem store" as well and having payed services and QoL. 

 

The worst example is the retainer system in FFXIV, where a bigger bank and more AH listings increases your subscription by 2€ a month for each upgrade you have.

 

The endgame gear threadmill never made much sense to me. Why waste hours of subscription time raiding to get better gear, when you can do something else while waiting a few months for a patch or expention, buy the gear for peanuts and easily clear the content. As for the trinity, GW2 improved on the model and has a QUADRINITY: healer, alacrity, quickness and dps 🤢

 

The subscription model reminds me of a hostage situation in a way, where the game says: "We have the character you have invested a lot of time and money into and you have to pay us if you want to see it." GW2 has been running on expantions and micro transactions alone for ten years, so this model works.

 

P.S.

GW2 has different 7 mounts, while what you reffered to as mount is just one mount with a hundred different skins.

Edited August 4, 2022 by civokenes.3284

[Lion.6590]

From my experience with FFXIV, 90% of the playerbase(subs) doesn't cares about hardcore endgame content, they care about the game story and easy dungeons/raids that get added from time to time. There is a reason why they take 6 months to release savage raids and 12 months for Ultimates. There is even a good chunk of players that pay their sub to roleplay only.

Besides, that game has a online store with optional items that you can buy, because their biggest profit comes from whales spending 100$ in the store and not from people paying 13$ monthly.

[Scavarius.6059]

12 hours ago, lezbefriends.7516 said:

Just what are we gaining/losing to keep this game sub-free? Is it worth it?

10 year old game.

no form of monthly commitment since the first beta.

still churning out content and xpacs.

no, its not worth it, can i have your stuff?

[Sahne.6950]

dont forget that anyone that bought all the xpacs and played since the beginnin has probalby paid over 130 bucks up to this point, just to access all the content.

 

Edited August 4, 2022 by Sahne.6950

[Luthan.5236]

12 hours ago, lezbefriends.7516 said:

What I’ve learned is that sub affords true endgame raiding and dungeon content with hard trinity—the true AAA MMORPG experience.

 

Less obvious advantages to the sub are free armor appearance changes and new races/mounts with each expansion.

So ... actually stuff where we are better off without a subscription model. 🙂 The main target audience prefers other stuff than raiding (and stuff like gear treadmills) - if they tried to add such stuff they would compete with other games (that probably are better) ... which could lead to a huge player loss: People that like such stuff ... might stay with other/better games (that have these things as main focus and had them always since release) while here the main target audience might start to leave or play less.

Skins: There are already a lot of free ones that are pretty nice. The stuff from the gem store often just seems "too much" for me. You do not need new races/mounts. They do not really offer any added gameplay value (races) - or might need some balancing/thought ... if it is about real mounts (not only skins) with different movment options. The existing ones already cover a lot of things and some feel useless cause of the better ones that got added later.

Edited August 4, 2022 by Luthan.5236

[DanAlcedo.3281]

4 hours ago, Freya.9075 said:

Maybe anet doesn’t want to be subscription model because they want to be different. Maybe they earn enough money to stay afloat and don’t get greedy like other businesses. They ofc want to make money, all businesses do. But there is a difference between a game that milks you for all the money you can spend vs a game that lets you have an option to do so or not spend any at all except buying their game. Maybe anet is this successful since many players that doesn’t want a wow game comes here. 

The reason why I got into Gw1 and later gw2 is because my mom didn't let me play WoW. She would never agree to a sub. 

And I know many people who got into gw because of that exact reason. 

 

[Haishao.6851]

1 minute ago, DanAlcedo.3281 said:

The reason why I got into Gw1 and later gw2 is because my mom didn't let me play WoW. She would never agree to a sub. 

 

 

At least you know your mom is intelligent. 

 

[DanAlcedo.3281]

4 minutes ago, Haishao.6851 said:

At least you know your mom is intelligent. 

 

Ehhhhh.. More like "I wanna buy myself nice stuff and don't waste money on the kids" but close enough I guess😅

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

53 minutes ago, Sahne.6950 said:

dont forget that anyone that bought all the xpacs and played since the beginnin has probalby paid over 130 bucks up to this point, just to access all the content.

 

So, $13 a year?

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

It was $60 for the Standard Edition of the core game, at the time; $50 for the Standard Edition of Heart of Thorns at the time, and $30 for the Standard Edition of Path of Fire and for End of Dragons at their release.  Just an FYI. 

[Danikat.8537]

7 minutes ago, DanAlcedo.3281 said:

The reason why I got into Gw1 and later gw2 is because my mom didn't let me play WoW. She would never agree to a sub. 

And I know many people who got into gw because of that exact reason. 

 

I was too old for my mum to have a say in what I spend my money on (which doesn't stop her telling me I'm wasting money on games, or even that I'll grow out of it one day, but it wasn't her decision) but I came to a similar conclusion myself.

I haven't had an regular schedule since I was in school and I think it's safe to say at this point that's not going to change, at least until I retire (and probably not even then) so I can't commit to being online on a regular basis to play through things with a static group and if I pay for a months worth of time up front I often find I can't use a lot of it. I can afford it, but I'd rather not waste any amount of money on something I'm not using.

That's one reason I quit Ultima Online and one reason I never got into WoW (although at the time I was more annoyed that they destroyed made me destroy Quel'thalas in WC3 and I couldn't play a high elf). At the time I thought it meant MMOs weren't for me. Then I found out about GW1 (around the time Factions came out). It was the charr that originally caught my attention but when I found out it's an MMO without a subscription and where you can do a lot of it solo I decided it was worth a try.

According to the /age counter I spend an average of 2 hours a day in GW2 (and that's been pretty consistent over the years) but what I actually play varies a lot. Some days I don't log in at all, or I'm on for a few minutes to collect the login reward, say hello to my guild and gather home instance nodes. Other days I might play for 3-4 hours (I think my record is just over 5 hours, for community events like Pink Day in LA or Pride.)

Obviously the way the game is designed is an important part of that, with no pressure to keep up a regular schedule of activities (yes there's lots of things you can do daily or weekly, but you don't fall behind if you don't) but the payment model definitely factors into it as well. If I buy a new gem store item and then I'm away for a week I don't lose anything, it's still there waiting for me when I get back. Whereas if I buy subscription time and then find out I'm away for a week this month I've lost 1/4 of it.

Also for what it's worth I always keep the confirmation emails when I buy gems and I've periodically added up what I spend on gems and expansions and it's always come to less than I'd spend on a subscription game. I'm sure that's not the case for everyone but for me at least this way actually works out cheaper.

[Crono.4197]

Another "make Guild Wars 2 like every other generic MMO" thread! We didn't have enough of these already, 100% we needed another one! Like, really!

Guild Wars 1 was a "buy to play and no sub" game too and it's what attracted many players to it. Guild Wars 2 is no different, following the same pattern as its predecessor and again a big reason why many players are playing it.

And a sub wouldn't suddenly turn the game into another generic MMO where you get new level and gear every 3 months. It would just turn away a lot of players from the game.

If you want new level and gear every 3 months, there are tons of games that do that, be my guest to play any of them if you don't like this one. But Guild Wars 2 is one of the last unique MMOs (even though it's not as unique as it was before thanks to raids and other stuff they added to fuel elitist power fantasy) and it should stay that way. I don't get some people want Guild Wars 2 be the same as any other MMO.

[kharmin.7683]

3 hours ago, akipappi.3917 said:

i rather have sub than having anet shove all skins into the cash shop alongside all the useful things like trasmutation charges while abandoning all content i like and balancing the game however devs like. sub would create a bigger expectancy for quality and tbh right now i do not see quality. i doubt that would work though since adding a sub would be so controversial, i think something like value packs in black desert would be a better option. for those who dont know: you pay about 10e a month for extra bank and inventory space, free appearance changes for the duration and theres other things that dont translate into gw2 but they could add free transmutation for that time, maybe give a small amount of gems for buying it like eso i believe.

What is stopping you from paying $20 or $30 each month and using gems to purchase these items from the gem store?  You can literally do your own subscription model without forcing it on every other player.  And, as a bonus, you get to choose what amount you want to spend for your subscription every month!

[IsabelDawn.8950]

Nothing.

 

We lose nothing by not having a subscription. Absolutely nothing. The game is one of the finest MMO's on the market, has been for over ten years, with just as much effort, time, and skill put into it as the other top contenders (more, let's be honest about some of GW2's competitors here..)

 

Arenanet is the one who is missing out, along with their shareholders. From what I understand, Guild Wars 2 is a top contender in both quality and player numbers, but it lags behind severely in revenue.

 

"But Isabel, more revenue means more money to spend on the game's development, so clearly a game with more revenue would be a lot better!"

 

Oh, you sweet summer child...If only it were so.

Revenue usually goes either directly to shareholders or to the parent company for the development of other games, the budget for the current game doesnt neccecarily grow, and in my opinion it rarely compensates for, frankly, the serious dip in quality that results from a profit-oriented attitude to game design rather then a quality-oriented one.

 

None of this even touches on the real point, by the way: subscriptions dont earn that much money

The cash shop and those well known "whales" are what generates the lions share of revenue for most MMO's, including the ones with a subscription.

 

The reason Guild Wars is not pulling in as much with its cash shop is the same reason most of us love the game: The game respects your time, and doesnt try to push or force you to buy things to have a good time. It is free to play, charges a one time fee for its expansions and LW content, and the rest is purely fun and cosmetics. Exactly as it should be.

 

Unfortunately, that means Arenanet is going to make a lot less money. Tragically, respecting your players doesnt pay in cold hard cash over the short term.

 

That being said, Guild Wars is still relevant and amongst the top MMO's a decade after it launched and seventeen years after Prophecies hit the market, so maybe it does pay over the long term..Clearly Anet is doing something right.

[Syvaris Laskaris.5247]

11 hours ago, Linken.6345 said:

All of them since you can convert gold to gems.

Checking in at 12pm everyday for *insert meta here* to get your 10~ gold is literally job or mobile game design. 

[voidek.5738]

nothing

[Syvaris Laskaris.5247]

Our only update content for about a year will be story relevant content that should have been playable years ago and Strikes that are 90% reused story Boss assets. Also overpriced jade bot crap

Make of that what you will. 

[Danikat.8537]

27 minutes ago, TheSeraphim.7413 said:

Checking in at 12pm everyday for *insert meta here* to get your 10~ gold is literally job or mobile game design. 

And if that was necessary to earn gold it would be a problem, but fortunately that's not the case.

Playing meta events is a good way to get gold, but you don't have to do the same one/s each time and certainly don't need to do them on a set schedule or even do them every day. They're also a big part of the available content and often considered the 'casual friendly end game' so I doubt most people who do play them regularly feel pressured into it to make gold. But if you don't enjoy them there's plenty of other options, like strikes, PvP, Fractals etc. which also give gold (and/or items you can sell for gold).

I'm very much a casual player and while I can and have spent a few hours doing things which don't get me much gold (or XP, which is harder to avoid) I've also never felt like I had to grind the same event over and over to get it. I can just pick a map or event I feel like doing and play through it and when I'm bored with that one I can pick a different one. Most of the time I don't think about it, I'm just playing whatever I want to play or whatever I come across and end up with gold as a result. If I want more my first step is to go through all the materials which have been building up and other currencies like laurels to see what I can sell off. It's relatively rare that I need to go out of my way to farm gold specifically.

Edit: Also this is one time I think a 'DIY subscription' would work. If someone is unhappy with GW2 because they're spending their time grinding for gold to convert to gems and they think paying a subscription would be better they can simply buy those gems and stop grinding gold, then use the time to do whatever else they'd prefer to be doing.

(I tend to forget this is the other reason I don't need to farm gold as much as some people seem to, I use a mix of gold and real money to buy gems, depending on what works best for me at the time. I know not everyone can do that, but I assume people advocating for paying a subscription could buy gems, otherwise their suggestion would shut them out of the game.)
 

12 minutes ago, TheSeraphim.7413 said:

Our only update content for about a year will be story relevant content that should have been playable years ago and Strikes that are 90% reused story Boss assets. Also overpriced jade bot crap

Make of that what you will. 

It sounds like it might be a good opportunity for you to take a break and play something else, since you won't miss anything you're interested in. And the nice thing is if you do that and then decide you want to come back to GW2 later (whether that's months or years later) you won't have a lot of grinding XP and gear to catch up before you can play the new content that will be released.

Edited August 4, 2022 by Danikat.8537

[Gibson.4036]

8 hours ago, Taclism.2406 said:

I literally showed you the average money spent per player is higher in subs game, 

Correlation =\= causation