Well, Steam complaints are starting to flood in...

[Miragen.6127]

2 minutes ago, Infusion.7149 said:

There isn't a store page because Living World cannot be purchased separately on Steam accounts via the Steam page (maybe there's an option to do so via gems). It's clearly stated there on the Steam page. It's clear Arenanet needs to implement a way to purchase Living Story or include it with the respective expansions if that hasn't been done already. Not sure what else that can be done regarding that. I believe the whole point of selling the entire collections is to avoid any confusion. As it is not necessary to own the collection to try the core game, I don't see that as a valid complaint. Nor would I advise any prospective player to pick up the entire collection if they do not have the slightest idea if they will like it.

 

You could still make an effort to inform players of what they're expected to spend $40 on, especially as they won't be able to refund it, and the way it's presented seems that you need to purchase the whole $100 thing at once or you won't be able to get it at all.

 

Core game is pretty basic and plain and 10 years old at this point, Anet using that as that tool to tempt people into paying a $100 is an insanely poor business decision.

 

If you are completely objective and neutral and looking at available options for a new MMO to play, I doubt anyone would say GW2 is on top of that list.

[itspomf.9523]

22 hours ago, Gorem.8104 said:

I mean Elden Ring Launched out to mixed reviews and a massive flame war in their forums and that game was both new and fine after the pc port was fixed. 

Wait, you mean it no longer attempts to consume all available memory due to heinous resource management within the game engine and I can actually play it for longer than 30 to 45 minutes on average without crashing to desktop and having to reboot because it caused a kernel panic in my graphics drivers?

[ArchonWing.9480]

Ah yes if you think people wanting free handouts was bad, there's the steam crowd here.

I dunno if paying $100 makes you win, though I do know not having $100 and obsessing about over some imaginary "winning" definitely means you are losing and shouldn't be playing games.

It is , of course,correct to assume people won't be wanting to spend $100 on a game they don't know they'll enjoy, but you don't have to either. Though maybe it should be more clear you can buy the story with gems.

Oh, and you can play it for free too.

Edited August 24, 2022 by ArchonWing.9480

[Miragen.6127]

What you play for free is decade old content that has been free for like 8 of those years,  this game is from the time Skyrim was released and it's supposed to convince players to spend a $100.

This whole steam release just boils down to being able to play that same decade old content but launch it through Steam instead, and as a bonus and to celebrate the 10 year anniversary you get a 0% discounted bundle,

[Doggie.3184]

It has a very positive so it's not going to matter much. You're upset over nothing.

[ShroomOneUp.6913]

3 hours ago, UmbraNoctis.1907 said:

But it's NOT free, whether they charge for the content directly or monthly regardless of the content. Nothing is free in a game with (mandatory) subscription cost.

Again, why not just buy gems monthly and use those to get whatever living story you want? It would be the same as getting "free" content with a monthly fee, except it would actually be optional, not mandatory. Which is a huge upside.

fine apparently MMOs player paid money for patches now. according to you.

[ShroomOneUp.6913]

2 hours ago, Infusion.7149 said:

1. Some people still don't understand the concept of pay to win yet. GW2 isn't pay to win, more of pay for convenience and cosmetics. The business model is also such that anything you can purchase for gems you can also buy with gold via the ingame conversion.
   a) Given the most wanted convenience items (copper fed salvage, unbreakable tools) are present in the "Steam Elite Jump Start pack" for 2400 gems there isn't much reason for confusion beyond living story separation which is nonexistent on Steam due to the Complete Collection containing Living World. (see https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/27271/Guild_Wars_2__Complete_Collection/?snr=1_5_9__403)
   b) There's actually a GDC conference presentation from Arenanet regarding microtransactions. (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4Hdyl0avz8 , the 95 slides at GDC Vault - Good Design Makes Happy Customers: A Microtransaction Design Primer , and Q&A: Making microtransactions work for players in Guild Wars 2 (gamedeveloper.com))
2.  It would be more beneficial for the veteran players crowding new player zones to go edit the wiki and update the sections for the core game.
3. There are players with thousands of hours that are "invested" in the game and feel overtly negative about it. They tend to be the ones that chase AP or leaderboards. The problem is sometimes not the game, the problem is the player's expectations.
4. PvP/WvW have been woefully neglected far more than instanced PvE content. Despite people claiming strikes are not raids, the strike CMs are more or less a stand-in for raids. PvP has received far more updates balance-wise compared to WvW and even in recent patches WvW updates were secondary. 
5. First impressions are important for steam players and casual players.
6. People asking for existing accounts to use the Steam payment system must be unaware Steam takes a 30% cut.

and you dont understand that the blatant stat increase is not the only p2w anymore

[Gibson.4036]

4 hours ago, ShroomOneUp.6913 said:

it is P2w if you stop using only a 17 year old mindset. what you know is p2w is only the most blatant form of it. 
But when games shift focus from mastery and success over others to ...let's say... cosmetics...HAVING a cosmetic is an "advantage" over those who do NOT HAVE it.

It's a psychological game of "have's" and "not-have's"
here is how 6-7 years ago this was already known and merely presented to a broad field of publishers, CEOs and managers. 

basically the games industry has already changed what p2w means and since most gamers are not interested in the business side of the industry, they completely slept on how they are being  fed a mindset that is not up-to-date anymore

So the new P2W is if a game charges for anything that someone else might wish they had?

So only subscriptions aren't P2W?

When everything is P2W, nothing is?

[Dawdler.8521]

38 minutes ago, Miragen.6127 said:

What you play for free is decade old content that has been free for like 8 of those years,  this game is from the time Skyrim was released and it's supposed to convince players to spend a $100.

Everyone that bought Skyrim in 2011 has probably spent more than $100 on buying Skyrim again over the past 10 years, I fail to see the comparison.

Edited August 24, 2022 by Dawdler.8521

[ShroomOneUp.6913]

1 minute ago, Gibson.4036 said:

So the new P2W is if a game charges for anything that someone else might wish they had?

So only subscriptions aren't P2W?

When everything is P2W, nothing is?

how to say you didnt read and watched the video without saying you didnt read it or watched the video

[Miragen.6127]

5 minutes ago, Dawdler.8521 said:

Everyone that bought Skyrim in 2011 has probably spent more than $100 on buying Skyrim again over the past 10 years, I fail to see the comparison.

 

I don't see the logic behind that, the base game can be modded and you would have gotten a free special edition in 2016 or something anyways.

 

Either way it's hardly something to get excited about in 2022,  just like the base game for GW2 isn't, and it surprises me that people believe it's good advertising to the game in the first place, considering how many people I see that are telling new players to play the base game to see if they like it, or that it's somehow on par with the deals offered by it's competition.

 

You want to know if the latest expansion for WoW is worth it? Go play Mists of Pandaria.

 

The main thing that would indicate is that the game has no evolved or progressed in any way, shape or form since 2012 that the experience is still representative, and whilst that is accurate for GW2 free content, you'd hope that is not the case for the rest of the game.

 

That's why when you play the free trial for WoW you get access to the later expansions, same thing with FF14.

[Labjax.2465]

10 hours ago, Bakeneko.5826 said:

God forbid players leave good review for game they like, right?

Not even close. Given what I said, it's more like "god forbid veteran players not misuse the review system on steam by flooding it with overly gushing reviews that don't even attempt to give an accurate picture of the game and do it on new accounts because they can't link to their existing ones, so it looks blatantly dishonest too. creating, in the process, a review environment that is so cluttered and full of BS, it's virtually impossible to get any kind of accurate picture at a glance how new steam players are experiencing the game and what that has been like for them, whether it's being received well or if they are joining up and then leaving."

I mean, is it so much to ask, to expect customers to NOT do (for free) what dishonest businesses pay people to do sometimes (stack reviews with BS). I would hope people would at least ask anet to pay them first.

[Gorem.8104]

7 hours ago, robertthebard.8150 said:

Sorry for the snip, but this is as far as I could get w/out falling out of my chair laughing.  Fair point, you're going to need to get some inventory and bank space.  However, harvesting and salvaging tools are available in game, for in game currency, and they're not all that expensive to keep.  How do I know?  Because I don't own any of the unlimited versions, and I'm not on in game welfare.  I also don't have any other build template slots than what we were all given.  So, nice piece of fiction here, but paying for conveniences like bank space and inventory, or even build templates and tools isn't P2W.  Now, if the only place to get the harvesting and salvage tools was the Gem Store, you might have a point, but it's not, and "stretching the truth" to support a narrative doesn't do a lot to support the narrative...

Don't free account start with less space, less character slots, and less bank slots? 
Basically, the "Free" version of gw2 is rather limited, which would def make it seem like its p2w to a lot of onlookers, remember you have to have the perspective of someone who has never even heard of GW2 but also knows about mmo's. Outside looking in, it does look suspicious with the stunts pulled by other games 

[robertthebard.8150]

2 minutes ago, Gorem.8104 said:

Don't free account start with less space, less character slots, and less bank slots? 
Basically, the "Free" version of gw2 is rather limited, which would def make it seem like its p2w to a lot of onlookers, remember you have to have the perspective of someone who has never even heard of GW2 but also knows about mmo's. Outside looking in, it does look suspicious with the stunts pulled by other games 

As someone that started with a free account, no, that doesn't make it look P2W, it makes it look like "Here's a sample of our game, do ya' wanna buy in to our B2P with no sub game?".  

[Gibson.4036]

1 hour ago, ShroomOneUp.6913 said:

how to say you didnt read and watched the video without saying you didnt read it or watched the video

I did read, but didn’t watch the video. I don’t come to the forums for secondhand opinions, so all I have to go on is what you wrote.

After reading it again, my response stands.

Edited August 24, 2022 by Gibson.4036

[ShroomOneUp.6913]

39 minutes ago, Gibson.4036 said:

I did read, but didn’t watch the video. I don’t come to the forums for secondhand opinions, so all I have to go on is what you wrote.

After reading it again, my response stands.

well if you actually did watch the video which is a recording of a 2016 publisher conference about monetizing the ever loving crabs out of people you would not have that stands. also its literally FIRST HAND information from the people who MADE MTX a thing.

 

[Infusion.7149]

 

3 hours ago, ShroomOneUp.6913 said:

and you dont understand that the blatant stat increase is not the only p2w anymore

Go watch the GW2 developer video in what you quoted since you love videos so much.

Also just because it has microtransactions doesn't make it "P2W". Similar to how my cousin bought a $100 outfit for her son on Fortnite or something to that end.

Even GW1 had cosmetics in the store, so if your line is cosmetics = P2W it was well before GW2 even existed.

Edited August 24, 2022 by Infusion.7149

[kettering.6823]

'Flooding in' is one hell of a hyperbole. There are few very negative reviews compared to positive ones. There are always going to be negative reviews for every game, it is what it is. 

[Thomanson.4765]

If people say 100 is too much, ask them how much they spent on their WoW/FF subscription last year. Done.

[Dante.1508]

On 8/24/2022 at 5:52 AM, Crono.4197 said:

The game just launched on Steam and the Steam forums are full with people that are:

 

- trying to sabotage the game by telling others to stay away from it because it's "pay to win" or other kind of lies

- people that don't understand that the Free to Play factor is only a trial and they expected full access to the game

- people that complain that 100 dollars for a full collection is too much and that "muh favorite MMO is not priced so high", completely ignoring the "no subscription" factor

- people that call the game pay to win after only logging in for a few minutes in it

- people complaining why Living Stories aren't sold separately

- people that complain about wanting regional pricing

 

Yep, what a great start. People complaining about things they don't understand and don't even wanna try the game first before coming to a conclusion.

I guess that's Steam and mainstream "gamers" for you.

 

Seems fair on all those complaints.

[Gibson.4036]

2 hours ago, ShroomOneUp.6913 said:

well if you actually did watch the video which is a recording of a 2016 publisher conference about monetizing the ever loving crabs out of people you would not have that stands. also its literally FIRST HAND information from the people who MADE MTX a thing.

 

Monetizing jealousy has been around since the invention of marketing.

Still doesn’t mean your redefinition of P2W doesn’t make it meaningless.

Yes, there are some sketchy things in the GW2 design and store. But P2W isn’t, because it has a specific meaning.

[Miragen.6127]

12 minutes ago, Thomanson.4765 said:

If people say 100 is too much, ask them how much they spent on their WoW/FF subscription last year. Done.

 

Assuming everyone just plays MMOs and can only ever come from other MMOs.

FF14 and WoW both offer a better entry package than GW2 does, as does ESO currently with a big sale.

[Labjax.2465]

1 hour ago, Gibson.4036 said:

Monetizing jealousy has been around since the invention of marketing.

Still doesn’t mean your redefinition of P2W doesn’t make it meaningless.

Yes, there are some sketchy things in the GW2 design and store. But P2W isn’t, because it has a specific meaning.

The problem I see is that P2W technically means "pay to get an advantage over another player in competitive play," but the terminology itself (Pay to Win) is pretty vague. It makes sense some would see it as other forms of "winning" than just competitive play, but it is kind of stretching the use of the term.

It's kind of like how microtransactions now gets used to describe things that aren't even that small transactions. Is it still a microtransaction if you have to spend $20 on a single item? Or are we talking about macrotransactions now? (or macro-microtransactions T_T)

The terms haven't really kept up with the evolution of monetization in games, I suspect primarily because the people who have protested it have been losing badly and many have probably given up on games as a result. Which is no surprise, since the corporations are the ones with all the money and the networks of public opinion columns.

So people have to fall back on older terms that still have a negative connotation to get any reaction at all and then face pedantry about whether what they're saying is technically accurate.

When video game fans conceded on the point that cosmetic items are optional and don't matter, that as long as something wasn't giving you an edge in competitive gameplay it was fine, they foolishly gave up ground on a very important matter. They threw under the bus all the video game fans for whom cosmetics and being creative with them is a significant part of their enjoyment.

Now you have those people who love cosmetics occasionally trying to point out that they are one of those people who was thrown under the bus and they never wanted that ground to be ceded, but they can't just say it's Pay to Dress Up or something, nobody will take it seriously. The only way they can get attention is relating it to things that the mainstream discourse decided was the line you don't cross.

Meanwhile, corporations make mind-boggling amounts of money off of cosmetics and the people who just want competitive play act like it's all fine, while the people who enjoy cosmetics most get to pay for everybody else's enjoyment.

Edited August 25, 2022 by Labjax.2465

[Dante.1508]

Legendaries are pretty much P2W.. I'm fine with P2W myself.

[RadiantWolf.2058]

5 minutes ago, Dante.1508 said:

Legendaries are pretty much P2W.. I'm fine with P2W myself.

IDK how they are unless you mean because of the gem to gold conversion (which seems super not worth it to me). But Legendaries in GW2 are a lateral move from ascended in terms of power so eh