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

[Obtena.7952]

9 minutes ago, Doctor Hide.6345 said:

     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.

You could say that if you want but it simply wasn't free, no matter how anyone wants to talk themself into thinking it was. If you didn't buy the expansion, you didn't get the LS episodes that went with it. It simply was not free. 

But yes, if we want to equate maps and content between the old way ant he new way, it does seem we are paying more for an equivalent amount of content. That's not to say it will be pricy though IMO ... I think we vastly underpaid for previous content. 

Edited February 17, 2023 by Obtena.7952

[Mistwraithe.3106]

On 2/16/2023 at 4:00 PM, Linken.6345 said:

what people are worried about tho is it will be half the content spread over 3 years and 3 mini expansions costing 25 bucks each at total of 75 dollars.

If it was say $15-20 for a yearly expansion (quite likely I think, $10 per year seems optimistic given inflation and the need to have a dev team large enough to support both the new content and the other game modes/balancing/QoL/etc) then would that be that bad? Particularly if it meant the content was good quality because this pricing level provided Arena Net with decent stable cashflow to hire and retain developers/artists.

Yes, it would be nice if it was free but the development has to be paid for somehow and I see significant benefits in a more stable and regular revenue stream for Arena Net. $20 per year for expansions is a pretty minuscule amount of money for me so long as I'm enjoying GW2, in cost per hour of entertainment I get from GW2 it's down at the < 10 cents per hour level which is cheaper than virtually any other form of paid entertainment.

Edited February 17, 2023 by Mistwraithe.3106

[Ashen.2907]

5 hours 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.

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

All post expansion LW seasons required one to buy the expansion (with money not gems) to access. 

So, you are correct. You did NOT get s3 or s4 nor the IBS for free.

[James Saulot.4851]

Have they said anything on elite specializations?

[Linken.6345]

11 minutes ago, James Saulot.4851 said:

Have they said anything on elite specializations?

No they have not said anything.

[Justforvisit.3709]

Okay, let me reword it:

Maybe not "Subscription", but prolonged "Season Pass" for sure.

[Astralporing.1957]

On 2/16/2023 at 7:02 PM, Obtena.7952 said:

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. 

I don't expect they made profit from expansion + LS. The profit came from gemshop, and expansions +LS were there in order to have players that could buy stuff from that gemshop. If they are thinking of making expansions profitable on their own, that for me would be a model change, and i'd expect them to drop gemshop as primary funding (or at least severely reduce it) and drop all the additional monetization venues like templates.

So, if you suggest that expacs should pay for themselves, then you support them getting paid twice (with expacs to cover the costs and make profit, and then gemshop to get paid for the same once more). I'd rather people would not give them such ideas.

[Obtena.7952]

25 minutes ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

I don't expect they made profit from expansion + LS. The profit came from gemshop, and expansions +LS were there in order to have players that could buy stuff from that gemshop. If they are thinking of making expansions profitable on their own, that for me would be a model change, and i'd expect them to drop gemshop as primary funding (or at least severely reduce it) and drop all the additional monetization venues like templates.

So, if you suggest that expacs should pay for themselves, then you support them getting paid twice (with expacs to cover the costs and make profit, and then gemshop to get paid for the same once more). I'd rather people would not give them such ideas.

The only thing I'm suggesting is that people prepare themselves for paying for content in a price point that IS at least a low margin profit for Anet because there isn't anything unreasonable about that kind of business model in the first place. I'm always astounded by the reluctance of people to pay for things. Do we not want the game to continue giving us this content? Anyone that wants that should expect the price to AT LEAST cover costs to develop and release. 

I don't get the 'getting paid twice' comment because the cost of GS items would never be (or have been) covered by expansion content cost, regardless of the expansion content cost.

Edited February 28, 2023 by Obtena.7952

[Astralporing.1957]

6 hours ago, Obtena.7952 said:

The only thing I'm suggesting is that people prepare themselves for paying for content in a price point that IS at least a low margin profit for Anet because there isn't anything unreasonable about that kind of business model in the first place.

Oh, yeah, if they say "slightly reduced price", they definitely won't be slashing it by half as some people here seem to expect. 20-25 EUR would be far, far more likely, and expecting it to drop to 10-15 range is naive. Overall, i'd fully expect us to pay more in total per the same time frame than we're paying with the current model.

6 hours ago, Obtena.7952 said:

I'm always astounded by the reluctance of people to pay for things. Do we not want the game to continue giving us this content? Anyone that wants that should expect the price to AT LEAST cover costs to develop and release. 

Again, at least part of that cost should be covered by gemstore. That's what it is for.

6 hours ago, Obtena.7952 said:

I don't get the 'getting paid twice' comment because the cost of GS items would never be (or have been) covered by expansion content cost, regardless of the expansion content cost.

The 2k gem mount skins are an equivalent of 25 euro, which is quite close to a expansion pact cost (and probably as much as an expansion pack would cost in the future). While it's true that not every player is going to buy such a skin, the price disparity per effort required is still incomparable - that's because the income from gemshop is (supposedly) funding the game as a whole, and not just the gemshop itself. Many players accept the high prices (or even make gemshop purchases) exactly for that reason. If it were to be funding the gemshop and nothing more, the prices should be much, much lower. So, if the game were to be profitable on its own, but gemshop remained as it is now, that would mean we're funding the whole cost of it ("it" being the base game) twice - once by base purchases, and once by buying stuff from gemstore.

Edited February 28, 2023 by Astralporing.1957

[Carnifex.3275]

On 2/14/2023 at 8:32 PM, SnackParty.3178 said:

They are releasing smaller portions of content, more frequently, at lower cost than a full expansion. You're not obligated to buy them, to keep playing GW2.

Living world seasons were for free. But they're going a different route now. Mini-expansions for a price that will eventually add up to full expansion. How can you not see that it will cost more money now to play gw2? It will be like having seasons just for a price. You'll get lets say 1 new map, some new masteries, a strike mission and story that can be completed in 1hour. And you'll have to pay for it. Eventually it will add up to a full expansion and maybe they'll give us new elite specs at the end.

Sounds to me more like a season pass tbh. You won't get an option to get content for free as before.

Edited February 28, 2023 by Carnifex.3275

[Jukhy.2431]

2 hours ago, Carnifex.3275 said:

Living world seasons were for free. But they're going a different route now. Mini-expansions for a price that will eventually add up to full expansion. How can you not see that it will cost more money now to play gw2? It will be like having seasons just for a price. You'll get lets say 1 new map, some new masteries, a strike mission and story that can be completed in 1hour. And you'll have to pay for it. Eventually it will add up to a full expansion and maybe they'll give us new elite specs at the end.

Sounds to me more like a season pass tbh. You won't get an option to get content for free as before.

LWS 3 requires HoT, LWS 4 & 5 require PoF so they were never free content.

And they already told us what we'll get with buying each "season pass": "The first release in an expansion cycle is the launch point for a new story arc, bringing with it two new open-world maps, two Strike Missions, new gameplay and combat features, new Masteries, and new rewards. In the following quarterly updates, we’ll add another open-world map, additional story chapters, challenge modes for the Strike Missions, a new fractal dungeon and challenge mode, new rewards, and additions to the new systems introduced in that expansion."

Edit: The new model might be slightly more expensive with how much content you get for your money but not by much. It depends on how many quaterly updates they do but if assuming 3–4 I'd say that's plenty of content for buying each mini-expansion.

Edited February 28, 2023 by Jukhy.2431
added thought

[Carnifex.3275]

1 hour ago, Jukhy.2431 said:

LWS 3 requires HoT, LWS 4 & 5 require PoF so they were never free content.

Well that's exactly what i meant. You used to buy expansions and you would have basically a free season after that as long as you login those days. And that season lasted for 1-2years before next xpac. That system i considered as free bonus content, for those who bought expansions. Now we won't be able to do that. We will ultimately be buying ALL the upcoming content that's released in smaller bits for smaller price. There won't be a free content that is between expansions (like HoT - > LW3free -> PoF).

Risky decision by anet, but we'll just have to wait and see.

Plus don't forget about the discounts. People were totally fine paying for the game every 2-3 years. You can even wait for a discount and get full expansion for like 20-30$. And that will be like 4~ years of gaming for 20-30$, cuz u even get the upcoming season for free and you're good to go. But now? If they are actually going to do like 2-3 payments/releases per year, even if its for like ~10$ each? That is obviously more expensive than 20-30$ every 3-4 years.

Edited February 28, 2023 by Carnifex.3275

[Jukhy.2431]

2 hours ago, Carnifex.3275 said:

Well that's exactly what i meant. You used to buy expansions and you would have basically a free season after that as long as you login those days. And that season lasted for 1-2years before next xpac. That system i considered as free bonus content, for those who bought expansions. Now we won't be able to do that. We will ultimately be buying ALL the upcoming content that's released in smaller bits for smaller price. There won't be a free content that is between expansions (like HoT - > LW3free -> PoF).

Risky decision by anet, but we'll just have to wait and see.

Plus don't forget about the discounts. People were totally fine paying for the game every 2-3 years. You can even wait for a discount and get full expansion for like 20-30$. And that will be like 4~ years of gaming for 20-30$, cuz u even get the upcoming season for free and you're good to go. But now? If they are actually going to do like 2-3 payments/releases per year, even if its for like ~10$ each? That is obviously more expensive than 20-30$ every 3-4 years.

From the news post I got the picture that you buy the mini-expansion and get the quaterly updates for free. They did not directly say this but it would make sense. So basically similar model as now but with faster paced content updates. In the end we are both assuming how it'll work, but we have no way of knowing until they give us more details.

[Gibson.4036]

This idea that what consumers pay is equivalent to cost to produce and deliver is wonderfully naive in a capitalist economy.

[Dayra.7405]

On 2/14/2023 at 7:14 PM, Justforvisit.3709 said:

"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"

So, you're telling me that after 10 years you guys found a clever and sleazy way to transform this game into subscription based through the backdoor, just not calling it by this name?

No there is no subscription in it. Subscription means: If I stop paying, I cannot play at all. Here it says: If I don't buy the new stuff, I can still play all the old stuff I bought.

 

Edited February 28, 2023 by Dayra.7405

[Gibson.4036]

30 minutes ago, Dayra.7405 said:

Subscription means: If I stop paying, I cannot play at all.

 

To note, in some games nowadays subscription means "If I stop paying, I lose some of the perks of being a subscriber, but don't go back to full f2p restrictions, and don't get access to new content unless I resubscribe."

[Sobx.1758]

9 minutes ago, Gibson.4036 said:

To note, in some games nowadays subscription means "If I stop paying, I lose some of the perks of being a subscriber, but don't go back to full f2p restrictions, and don't get access to new content unless I resubscribe."

And even when you're trying to frame it this way (again), the future release model is clearly still not that.

Edited February 28, 2023 by Sobx.1758

[Danikat.8537]

12 minutes ago, Gibson.4036 said:

To note, in some games nowadays subscription means "If I stop paying, I lose some of the perks of being a subscriber, but don't go back to full f2p restrictions, and don't get access to new content unless I resubscribe."

This new model is still different to a subscription.

Elder Scrolls Online uses that subscription model. You can play the game without it but subscribing gives a number of perks like the ability to dye costumes, extra bank space, and access to all previous DLC, but only as long as you keep paying.

If I spent £29.99 on a 3 month subscription for ESO I only get access to the DLC for those 3 months. At the end of that time I either pay again or it's gone. Whereas if I spent £25.99 on an expansion for GW2 (or ESO) I've got it as long as the servers are online. I won't lose it if I choose not to buy the next expansion, I just won't get anything new.

Likewise if I buy a bank tab from the gem store I've got it forever. At no point will the game say I need to pay again to keep access, whereas if it's a subscription perk I have to keep paying if I want to keep using it. That's the difference.

(It's basically the same as we have now, but on a shorter timescale. I doubt anyone would say GW2 has been operating a 3-5 year subscription model up to now, just because they've brought out new expansions every few years and no one worried they'd lose access to things they already had if they didn't buy the new expansions. All that's changing is how frequently they come out and what they cost.)

[Gibson.4036]

22 minutes ago, Danikat.8537 said:

This new model is still different to a subscription.
 

Definitely agree, just wanted to clarify that subscription models of the past have given way to new variations.

I think the reaction to the new GW2 release schedule is actually fruit of ArenaNet's success in convincing us that LW was free if we logged in at the time. They weren't, because you had to pay for the expansion to play them. But even if someone insists they were free, that person would then have to call the new mini-expac's quarterly updates free.

Really, all we're doing is changing cadence. Until we know the actual mini-expac cost, it's hard to tell what that will mean in terms of value for price.

$50 for HoT: 10 Maps over about 2 years

$30 for PoF: 14 Maps over about 3 years

$30 for EoD: 5 Maps over 2 years

"Slightly reduced price" for Mini-Expac: (Probably) 3 Maps over 1 year

It's really not a change in model, but it might be a change in content/dollar/year.

 

Edited February 28, 2023 by Gibson.4036

[Jukhy.2431]

40 minutes ago, Gibson.4036 said:

"Slightly reduced price" for Mini-Expac: (Probably) 3 Maps over 1 year

Five maps you mean? Two at release plus one more each quarter with the updates. Ofc assuming they'll release one mini-expac per year but they might do more than three content update releases for an expansion.

[Sobx.1758]

49 minutes ago, Gibson.4036 said:

Definitely agree, just wanted to clarify that subscription models of the past have given way to new variations.

But why? That doesn't change anything about the planned release of future gw2 expansions, so what's the point of you repeating this all the time? 🤔

Edited February 28, 2023 by Sobx.1758

[Linken.6345]

18 minutes ago, Jukhy.2431 said:

Five maps you mean? Two at release plus one more each quarter with the updates. Ofc assuming they'll release one mini-expac per year but they might do more than three content update releases for an expansion.

No they said 2 at release then 1 more over the quarter releases how many that happen to be.

I mean you will get story bits the fractal cm and the strike cms on those quarterly releases aswell but go reread that announcement again bud.

Edited February 28, 2023 by Linken.6345

[Gibson.4036]

22 minutes ago, Jukhy.2431 said:

Five maps you mean? Two at release plus one more each quarter with the updates. Ofc assuming they'll release one mini-expac per year but they might do more than three content update releases for an expansion.

No, I mean 3. I was originally thinking as many as six over a year and a half. Two to start, plus quarterly updates with a new map each time.

But then, going back and reading what they are and are not saying, plus what they're doing with EoD (1 additional map in two parts), I revised. I'm expecting mini-expac with 2 maps, half a map with first quarterly update, second half of same map next quarterly update, and a quarter that is more "Hey, festivals, balance patch, some new 'features' (wvw update and such) and let's talk about the next mini-expac!"

This is the minimum I can read in what they are saying. Setting expectations there is healthy.

Edited February 28, 2023 by Gibson.4036

[Healix.5819]

37 minutes ago, Gibson.4036 said:

But even if someone insists they were free, that person would then have to call the new mini-expac's quarterly updates free.

The quarterly updates won't have an additional cost, but they're not free. Unlike seasons, which were sold separately and gifted to active players for free, the new model is selling the post-expansion content as a feature of the expansion.

[Gibson.4036]

Just now, Healix.5819 said:

The quarterly updates won't have an additional cost, but they're not free.

Yes, right before the sentence you quoted, I said the future quarterly updates aren't free.

5 minutes ago, Healix.5819 said:

Unlike seasons, which were sold separately and gifted to active players for free, the new model is selling the post-expansion content as a feature of the expansion.

No, LW seasons were not gifted free to active players. They were included in the cost of the latest expansion if you were still an active player. If you were an active player and didn't buy the expansion, you didn't get them until you bought the expansion.

This was the marketing trick of LW.

Buy expansion, get some of the content release later is the model before, and it's the model now. The difference is cadence, and that players will no longer be charged extra for not being there when the later content was released.