About the new direction of GW2 / 2023 Q1 Roadmap [Merged]

[Ultramex.1506]

10 hours ago, Matt The Demon.6891 said:

You realize expansions have never been free right? LWS for free isn't a great model to begin with, and making it part of the expansion for a single price is much better.  On top of that, how does paying for an expansion equate to a monthly sub? Spoiler: It Doesn't. Also, seems like you missed the massive leadership changes over the past decade. They're gonna need TIME to show us their words have meaning, complaining about Y because X screwed it up is pointless and unproductive. 

This how i see it, while we can point at the IBS disaster but look like they are changing their approach to avoid the "definition of insanity" so I'm cautiously optimistic wait and see how the expansion and its quarterly update play out before dooming and glooming ( but i suspect some will at the first week)

That said, the pressure is on Anet now, they'll have to hit it out of the park if they want to continue another 1 0 years

[Obtena.7952]

14 hours ago, Linken.6345 said:

Well that is what we paid for living story in the past we paid 30 bucks for pof and got access to living story season 4 maps aslong as we had login when they released.

You  did say we always payed and that is true but we knew in advance what we paid for the living world was just the sherry on top.

This we we will know at most 66% up front and the last 33% we will get 3-6 months later.

Yeah I think it's not a good idea to base your expectations on what we paid in the past. These mini-expansions are a different business model. I would expect that the margins must be larger than regular expansions for a mini-expansion approach to work. 

Again, look at the cost of what you buy as DLC on the TP ... if a skin is about $10 ... you aren't paying less than that for a mini-expansion. If you look at the number of maps an content offered for $30 from old expansion +LS ... you have to ask if Anet even made any profits from that. 

Edited February 16, 2023 by Obtena.7952

[Gibson.4036]

36 minutes ago, Obtena.7952 said:

Yeah I think it's not a good idea to base your expectations on what we paid in the past.

Although ArenaNet invited us to do just that.

Quote

Rather than launching an expansion every two to four years with a season of Living World in between, we’ll be releasing smaller expansions more frequently at a slightly reduced price and adding additional content for those expansions through quarterly updates, meaning that the next big release is only ever a few months away.

Emphasis added. We're supposed to set our expectations off of previous expansion prices, lowering them... "slightly".

The questions are, "How often will the expansions be released?" and "What does 'slightly reduced' price mean?" From the post and some of Grouch's cryptic responses to Teapot's stream, it looks to me like they're shooting to release one of these 2 zone expansions every 12 to 18 months. That means a possible 5 to 7 zones per expansion if they add one every quarter after.

With EoD and Path of Fire costing $30, what can we reasonably imagine for "slightly reduced"? $27? $25? Going as low as $20 seems wishful thinking to me. And you're right, $10 is completely unfounded.

With Heart of Thorns, we bought access to 10.

Path of Fire eventually came with 14.

It looks like End of Dragons will end up providing 6: four at launch, the new one at the end of this month, and one more the following quarter.

As I write this, I'm realizing the real change isn't in how much we're going to pay for the next expansion, but in how much we're going to get for our EoD $30. Any of us who bought EoD already bought into the new model of mini-expansion that lasts a year and a half and gives us about 6 zones.

 

Edited February 16, 2023 by Gibson.4036

[Obtena.7952]

19 minutes ago, Gibson.4036 said:

Although ArenaNet invited us to do just that.

Emphasis added. We're supposed to set our expectations off of previous expansion prices, lowering them... "slightly".

Yeah, seems to me that means a mini expansion is about $20-25 dollars. I suspect some people believe it will be less because Expansions+LS (6-8 maps + strikes, etc ...) was $30 ... so they conclude a single mini-expansion is about $5-$10. 

 

Edited February 16, 2023 by Obtena.7952

[Firebeard.1746]

The only issue I have with this model is that not all maps are released at once. I want to know what the metas are like before I buy. 

[Gibson.4036]

23 minutes ago, Firebeard.1746 said:

The only issue I have with this model is that not all maps are released at once. I want to know what the metas are like before I buy. 

The good thing is that if you choose to wait until all maps are released, you won't have to wait as long.

At this point, I can't see buying these mini-expansions until they are completed with the following quarterly updates. Otherwise we're essentially buying the beta version.

[Splat.7981]

Hello everyone.

For IRL reasons i have been kept away from GW2 for quite a while now but i am definitely thinking about coming back, or i should say was until i have read the roadmap and studio update.

In a way i understand why they are choosing this way to go forward and develop content, games aren't made of thin air, it takes time, resources and people that in many case have families to provide to so yes, they deserve to get paid for it as we all that work do.

I have been wondering, nonetheless, if GW2 isn't heading in the same monetization direction of Elder Scrolls Online where every  single piece of content or for the most part is monetized? 

 

In terms of the content itself as a player there's many living world seasons that i haven't experienced yet, are those staying in the game or are they removing those Living World stories from the game?

 

I am a returning player but also new, i have a character and still leveling it, there's much i have yet to go through in the game, but i have to say that ArenaNet, at the orders of NCSoft, will now come to a path of monetizing everything that they do, where players if they wish to have everything available in terms of content will have to always open up the wallet, to me that will become an issue and maybe keep players away from the game, especially new players.

[Danikat.8537]

Nothing is being removed. Everything which is in the game now will still be available. In fact they've spent much of the past year restoring most of Season 1, which was originally designed to be temporary and has been unavailable for years. It's now back in the game and free for everyone, so there's even less missing than there used to be.

(Incidentally that's the same for Elder Scrolls Online, new releases don't change or remove the old stuff in that game either.)

Also, for you the new content might actually be cheaper than the old stuff. Existing Living World episodes from Season 2 -5 are only free if you logged in before the next one was released, after that you have to pay 200 gems per episode or 960/1280 gems per season to unlock the ones you missed. So if you didn't log in periodically in the time you weren't playing you probably are going to have to pay for every piece of content you've missed, but that's not new, it's been that way since the start of Season 2. (Before that you just missed it, if you didn't log in at the time there was no way to play it at all, until they bought it back last year.)

In future you'll only have to pay for expansions (and only if you want that specific expansion) and the Living World releases which follow will be free, even if you're away while they're being released.

No one knows yet how much the future expansions will cost, so there's no way to work out the cost per year if you want to get everything, but there's also no need to try to decide if it's worth buying for you until it's available, and at that point we will know the price and what's in it.

But the short answer is that if you've been ok with how the game is monetised so far you'll almost certainly be ok with how it works in future too.

Edited February 17, 2023 by Danikat.8537

[Randulf.7614]

You didn’t read the roadmap then because everything is not being monetised. Just the expansions as before. One could argue less is being monetised be cause there’s no charging for content updates in between if you miss the initial login like with seasons.

Im not necs a big fan of the roadmap, but there’s been a ton of threads on this with a lot of incorrect information being bandied about

[Noah Salazar.5430]

Quote

I have been wondering, nonetheless, if GW2 isn't heading in the same monetization direction of Elder Scrolls Online where every  single piece of content or for the most part is monetized? 

No, inted of puting 1 bigger expansion evry 3y, thay will put it on parts realising evry year, so 3-4dlc will be equal of bigger expansion

Quote

In terms of the content itself as a player there's many living world seasons that i haven't experienced yet, are those staying in the game or are they removing those Living World stories from the game?

No, thay will not remove old content

Quote

 terms of content will have to always open up the wallet

10-15$ is ok price to pay for year, not evryone is up to shiny costumes/minis, and yearly profit looks beetter for investors/NCSoft, racher then once evry 3-4y + thay will can maybe focus on side dlc like Tengu Race

Quote

to me that will become an issue and maybe keep players away from the game, especially new players

you can wait 3y and pay for 3dlc in row if you like it older way 

[Danikat.8537]

I think waiting until all the episodes are released might be a good way to do it, although I suppose it depends on what else is included in the expansion and how soon you want access to those features.

I've been thinking about this and it's very likely I'm going to end up paying more for future content. But that's not necessarily a problem; the standard edition of HoT was £34.99 and PoF and EoD were £25.99 each so what I've paid so far isn't a lot really. (Technically I paid more than that since I picked the ultimate editions each time, but I didn't get any more content for that, mostly I got gems, so I don't think it would be accurate to use those prices...also then I could probably claim the new expansions work out much cheaper.)

I'm going to do what I always do when deciding if I want to buy something: estimate what it's worth to me - what I'd be willing to pay if it was entirely my choice - then only get it if the actual price is the same or less. Sometimes the initial expansion might be enough that it's worth getting, sometimes I might wait and see what the Living World episodes add to it, or wait for a sale (or both). Maybe over time they'll bundle a few together, like how HoT and PoF are now sold together. There might be some I skip entirely.

There might also be times external factors make the decision irrelevant. There have been times over the past decade when I couldn't have bought an expansion if one had come out then, and times when I wasn't playing enough to justify it even if I thought it was a reasonable price for what's included. Purely by chance those times haven't been when an expansion was being released, but if they're coming out more often it could happen.

Edited February 17, 2023 by Danikat.8537

[galuf.5741]

GW2 monetization is a bit whacky but what I extract from that it is that the player base is not renewed enough anymore so they need to monetize on the existant prospect playerbase who has paid their fair share already in the very invasive in-game economy to survive. EoD hasn't been that impressive and since then cold win has blown, we were waiting for sustained content, and here in february 2023 the expectations start getting innexistant. I still vividly remember all the marketing and public communication at EoD. Content creators are in dismay since monthes now.

 

On that regard I fully support hard monetization on new content, however in terms of revenues it won't be as good as if ANet respected their licence as much as the players. Probably nothing new for solid 6 monthes :).

Edited February 17, 2023 by galuf.5741

[Vayne.8563]

16 hours ago, Firebeard.1746 said:

The only issue I have with this model is that not all maps are released at once. I want to know what the metas are like before I buy. 

Okay. So don't buy till it's all released. You'll know what the metas are like and you can buy it all at the same time.

[northcharm.9485]

On 2/14/2023 at 2:53 PM, Gibson.4036 said:

In the purest sense... sure, but a lot of games have gone to weird hybrids. Some games we refer to as sub games let you keep playing, but drop you down to a restricted form of play that doesn't get access to new stuff.

It's hard to make clean distinctions now, with games like FFXIV allowing you to play not only core but the first expansion free while still primarily being a sub game.

How is it hard at all? FFXIV has a FREE TRIAL in which you get to play the older base game and 1st xpac which came out years ago to wet your appitite and see if you want to play the game. FFXIV is still a sub to play game as you cant do anything really if you dont sub.

[northcharm.9485]

On 2/14/2023 at 8:23 PM, lezbefriends.7516 said:

WoW is the only game that applies to. In FFXIV, you can play the base game without a sub. In ESO, the sub is optional, and the older content will still be playable.

So what hes saying for anyone who hasent tried out ffxiv is " Im going to run around on the demo mode (because thats what it is) of FF14 carrying a flag shouting about how this game can be played without paying a sub (altho the game will not let me use shout chat , join a guild , use the player market , not be able to form parties , and more limitations becuase i want to spite everyone saying ff14 cant be played without a sub while im on the demo mode of the game suffering because i wanted to prove a point" your all welcome for the great translation.

[Danikat.8537]

2 hours ago, Splat.7981 said:

I am a returning player but also new, i have a character and still leveling it, there's much i have yet to go through in the game, but i have to say that ArenaNet, at the orders of NCSoft, will now come to a path of monetizing everything that they do, where players if they wish to have everything available in terms of content will have to always open up the wallet, to me that will become an issue and maybe keep players away from the game, especially new players.

BTW is this really that unusual? Isn't that how most games work?

The only game I've played where you can get all the new stuff for free is Pokemon Go, and new content in that game is pretty minimal and heavily time-gated if you don't pay for extra uses. For example you can do 1 raid per day for free, if you want more you have to pay for tokens and many of the special pokemon are only available from raids with a very low catch rate so at 1 per day you're unlikely to get many of them.

With everything else if a new expansion or DLC, or a new game in a series comes out you have to pay for it even if you bought the last release. My other MMO is Elder Scrolls Online and that works the same way, even current subscribers have to pay extra if they want new chapters when they're first released (or they can wait a year for them to be re-branded DLC) and you either subscribe or pay directly for the DLC.

I can't keep up with all the new games out there so maybe there's a whole monetisation system I've missed just because of the kind of games I tend to play, but to me having to pay if I want more of a game seems entirely normal.

[Sobx.1758]

On 2/17/2023 at 2:18 PM, northcharm.9485 said:

How is it hard at all? FFXIV has a FREE TRIAL in which you get to play the older base game and 1st xpac which came out years ago to wet your appitite and see if you want to play the game. FFXIV is still a sub to play game as you cant do anything really if you dont sub.

Correct, still nothing hard about understanding what subscription model is and how the proposed release model has nothing to do with it.

Edited February 18, 2023 by Sobx.1758

[Obtena.7952]

3 minutes ago, John.7310 said:

As a veteran GW2 player, that's exactly the feeling i got from reading this roadmap.

If you're not a gw2 brainwashed fanboy, you immediatly realize that they are gonna make us pay for the same stuff we used to get for free for YEARS now. But even worse than that, they changed the name from Living World Season X to "Expansions" hoping that no one would realize that it's the same sh**, which is EXTREMELY dishonest.

NO, we did not get the same things for free. The cost of the LS was part of the expansion price. All the content we got, we paid for. In some cases, people paid for it twice because they didn't download it when it was released. 

People claiming we got free LS content are mis-informed and spreading misinformation. 

Edited February 17, 2023 by Obtena.7952

[Healix.5819]

2 minutes ago, John.7310 said:

This made me really sad and disappointed. And it's pretty fair to asume that as time goes on, instead of releasing one "expansion" every year, eventually they will release 2, then 3, and then after a few years "oh, since people are paying 20 bucks every 3 months now, why not make this game sub based?". And if more people don't realize what is going on, this is just a lost war already...

They can only manage the equivalent of 3 episodes per year with their current resources. It'd probably be around $10 (up from 200 gems) if they were to sell each episode as an expansion.

[Gibson.4036]

3 hours ago, northcharm.9485 said:

How is it hard at all? FFXIV has a FREE TRIAL in which you get to play the older base game and 1st xpac which came out years ago to wet your appitite and see if you want to play the game. FFXIV is still a sub to play game as you cant do anything really if you dont sub.

There's a point where a free trial is a really big chunk of game. We're not talking level 10, here. You get core and the first expansion free.

There was a time where it was pretty clear that there were sub games, microtransaction games, and buy2p games. Studios have been experimenting and mixing those for a while.

Note I'm not saying the new GW2 model is equivalent to sub like some are. I'm just saying people pretending there are clear lines between revenue models are ignoring what studios have been doing.

The new GW2 model isn't even really all that new. It's been "buy expansion, get more content later" the whole time. The only things that are changing are 1)you don't have to log in to claim the "more content" when it is released, 2) Smaller expansions more frequently, 3)Slightly reduced cost per expansion.

Edited February 17, 2023 by Gibson.4036

[Obtena.7952]

2 hours ago, John.7310 said:

I only had to buy 3 expansions in ALL these years to unlock 100% of the game which is absolutely fine like i said in my previous post (which got deleted by some moderator).

So with due respect, i don't think you've read my entire post so i won't bother to reply again.

Exactly ... which means the content you claim was free to you was NOT FREE. You paid for it when you bought the expansions. The price was rolled into the expansion cost. And yes, please PLEASE do not bother to reply to me ... because you are wrong. The seasons were not free content. If you didn't buy the expansion, you didn't get access to them. 

Edited February 17, 2023 by Obtena.7952

[John.7310]

They are literally just changing the name from living world to expansions so from now on we're gonna have to pay for content we have always got for free.

But naw bro, i didn't get s3, s4, icebrood saga for free, and s1 and s2 with gold in game according to some people. It's all my head, they clearly know more about my account than me xD

[galuf.5741]

1 hour ago, Gibson.4036 said:

There's a point where a free trial is a really big chunk of game. We're not talking level 10, here. You get core and the first expansion free.

 

Nah, ff xiv is made in a way so actually core and first expansion are not a big deal. The way progression is handled in the game and the playerbase is distributed makes early content non factor. The way xp curb is distributed makes most of this content void for paying players, even pretty recent ones(I haven't played it a whole ton over the years but all my characters are abov lvl70, meaning that I rarely go in older areas of the game and when I do it is like for turning on GC things at the start of an expansion to level up crafting). Also, the game does very well in the first monthes of an expansion and the active population(not paying, I mean playing) plummets in a way that servers become underloaded, thus the oportunity cost of enabling F2P in the very early game almost null.

 

GW2 has not at all the same progression nor the same monetization. And I'm sorry to break open doors here, but at equal level of confort, GW2 is a way more expensive game than FF XIV. Sure you can grind the stuffs, but when doing so you are actually working toward making the economy set for those who use their wallet for conveniance, and they are plenty, probably a vast majority. On that regard I absolutely support Arena Net on hard monetization of content, because I'm pretty sure it is their only way of making their game sustainable, on top of that if we are enough to buy for the pieces of content, they may be encline to deliver quality content that would be also less toxicly grindy and at a regular pace. They have proven that they can scaffold high quality content, however they also proven that they are not confident on their ability to bank on content.

[Obtena.7952]

1 hour ago, John.7310 said:

They are literally just changing the name from living world to expansions so from now on we're gonna have to pay for content we have always got for free.

No ... we paid for LS content because it was part of the cost of the expansions you needed to BUY to access them. You did not get them for free. You could not access them otherwise. Therefore, you did pay for them. 

Edited February 17, 2023 by Obtena.7952

[Doctor Hide.6345]

3 hours ago, Obtena.7952 said:

No ... we paid for LS content because it was part of the cost of the expansions you needed to BUY to access them. You did not get them for free. You could not access them otherwise. Therefore, you did pay for them. 

     I would say we got it for free in that we didn't need to pay extra for the maps if we logged in on time as opposed to missing the log in days. So in that sense it could be seen as more pricy now since they are treating everyone as new players(I know you don't see it that way, but I do and you can't change that) in that you are basically paying as if you missed the logged in days upping the expansion cost.

     They did say lower cost which I know, but it really does depend on how often they will be coming out which they need to be more clear on. For now, it seems this way is more pricy as compared to the old way for players even if it is smaller increments they are getting you to pay.