I think that stealth content updates (via dynamic events) is a much more elegant way of introducing new content. Instead of hitting you over the head with "this is what you'll play for a few months", you can go out and explore and find new things. The cash shop allows for flexibility in how much content they put out in between expansion packs.
If the cash shops do really well we'll probably see more dynamic events per expansion. If they don't do as well, it'll likely be a slow trickle, and as players we have to hope that the original game is more or less enough to satisfy us. The good thing is that with the lack of a subscription model we aren't compelled to play content we aren't especially thrilled with, and we can walk away without fear of 'falling behind in the grind'.
Its pretty much the same income as a Sub model.
Sub- you pay $15month for 6months- get one patch
B2P- you pay $60-$90 for an expac every 6months.
A man chooses, a Slave obeys. OBEY! - Andrew Ryan, Bioshock
Ugh.... source please? I've heard the opposite.
---------- Post added 2012-01-17 at 08:31 AM ----------
“We haven’t decided on what exactly we are or aren’t going to offer for money post-release. We’re open to whatever our players seem most interested in. If, after release, you guys would like more story content, more dungeons, more events, more maps or whatever, it’s something that we have to consider because ultimately making you happy is what makes us successful. Whether we release that in DLC (like the bonus mission packs in GW1) or whether we do it through expansions (Like Eye of the North) is yet to be determined. As to whether or not there are going to be items like XP boosts available in the in game store, I can only reiterate what we’ve said before (and will continue to say,) that we’ll release details on it when they are available, and that our core philosophy of not requiring you to spend additional money to play the game and not making the game difficult or painful to play in order to encourage you to buy things from the store still stands.”
Source
Aye, I guess you're right, but like it says not said in stone, and it's still better than a sub fee. And to me it sounds more like a 'Maybe' and not a 'Probably'.
Last edited by Malthurius; 2012-01-17 at 08:33 AM.
"Questions are for those seeking answers. Those who have answers are those who have asked questions." -Mike R. (Malthurius)
It has been brought up a couple other times too. There was a video interview where one of the devs used the word "probably", but haven't found that one yet.
This one uses the word "might".
http://guildwars2.mondespersistants....article-310,2/
Found the video I was talking about. "we will release some content through our store, probably" is the wording. Question is asked at 4:10 and answered at about 5:20.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0iGq...eature=related
Last edited by Fernling306; 2012-01-17 at 08:54 AM.
you know, I've been reading the arguments in this thread and in the linked content and I can say this:
did you forget that the ultimate goal of close to any company is to generate revenue?
who cares if they technically could support WoW without subscription fees, it's money!
and at the end of the day, those 12.99€ or whatever you pay a month isn't going to make or break your household budget anyway.
Last edited by mmoc63f6c1cc20; 2012-01-17 at 08:54 AM.
League of legends is absolutely free and making more than enough money so you don't have anything to worry about with gw2.
Guild Wars store sells stuff like extra character slots, extra bank slots, name change, appearance change, sex & appearance change, unlock basic skills, PvP skills for PvP characters, costumes and bonus mission packs.
I could see all these stuff being sold in a Guild Wars 2 store, and some new stuff, but related to Guild Wars 2 of course. Bonus mission packs for example might be something that you can add to your personal story.
The bonus mission packs in Guild Wars 1 let you experience different things that happend around the universe of Guild Wars, either it be a very a long time ago, or not so long time ago.
(Spoiler?)
For example you play as Gwen to see what happend to her after the searing when she got kidnapped by Charr.
These missions rewards you weapons with unique skins, keep in mind that these weapons do not have better stats or something to make you more powerful than other players.
I can see something similar with Guild Wars 2, with your personal story, either it be something you character can do, or even play as a hero, maybe like Logan, Rytlock, Zojja, Eir or Caithe, or something else, to unlock unique story, weapon & armor skins.
It works for every other game out there aside from WoW. Why wouldn't it work for GW2?
Blizzard almost cerrtainly make enough from expansions (which would probably be yearly if they didn't have subs) that they could do the same. Maybe they would have struggled in the early days of pricey bandwidth and 40 man raiding, but now... Nah. Not that they'll stop now. Shit, they'd introduce subs for CoD (already have in a small way) if they could hoodwink console gamers in the same way they have the MMO crowd.
Free to play is a different thing altogether. I dislike that model in general, and yes, they will force you to buy things to play in a reasonably competitive manner.
Lol making up numbers to prove yourself right is pretty sad. I am ofc talking about the $90 figure which will give the same income. Sigh.
Also, I believe GW2 will have less income per person and probably less people than WoW, BUT, they will still make a profit. Why? Because WoW makes hundreds of millions of profit.
Basically all you needa do is look at GW1 and see their servers are still running. Their expansions were as big as LK and TBC combined. The game is still alive and active. So no, GW2 will not shut down because they do not have subscriptions.
My point is that bli$$ard is milking wow, they do not need to charge that much per month anymore and gw2 will prove it. Think about this, a patch with 8 bosses (probably 2 rehashed) every 6 months for $90 or a whole new expansion (the size of a wow expansion) every 6-9 months for $40-50 (yeh that is what expansions of games cost, not $60-90.
I'd like to add something to it, please also bear in mind that you can always go back to previous content (since main content is level 20/max in GW1) and still play with a challenge. This is something I greatly miss in WoW, old raids and content will have a package of dust on them, because no one needs to do them, and the people who do won't have the same experience, or atleast a challenging one, like they did when that content was "main content".
Wow is a cash cow and blizzard are cash whores. imo
There is no justification for the price considering what they deliver and how often they deliver it. Rift delivers far more for your money, for example.
It's not like it's even a lot of content with wow. Expansion, ok. Don't mind having to pay for the game...but THEN the privelege of each month/patch is frankly scandeous...and I thoroughly hope GW2 will really hit them hard where all companies hate to be hit: ofc, on their bottom line number.
It's not like wow is the BMW of gaming...it's the mainstream of gaming. Why it should think it can charge these prices is....well I was about to say it's beyond me....but its because ppl let them.
/endrant