5 is perfect. I'll of course be buying more down the line, but 5 is enough to start with as you can experience each race's story.
Oh yeah, another thing that bugs me is how everyone is like "One for each race!" Since I have no plans of touching Asura or Sylvari with a 10 foot pole, this saying just grates my nerves, but that's just me! lol
You know you havent been laid in awhile when that screenshot gives you an erection. -_-
Seriously though, I have left WoW for a couple of MMOs over the years but nothing has really stuck. Honestly I like Rift more than I like WoW but my IRL friends play WoW and that is what usually keeps me on WoW, but GW2 looks really awesome.
The 5 slots is so you can see the majority of the story line from all 5 different views of the 5 races. After that it is up to you if you will pay for more and more importantly when you want to pay.
5 slots I'm perfectly fine with, I'm going to buy at least 3 more, though
Monk, I need a monk!!!
5 is enough for starters of course.
Human Guardian to begin with, yay.
Asura Thief will probably be my second one, going to name her Miss Mif... 8D
Charr Engineer will be the third obviously.
Fourth one will probably be a Warrior or something.
Fifth I have no idea, maybe Elementalist.
If each character slot is USD$10, and you play the character over a period of time for 100 hours (which I feel is way too little - but that's just IMO), then you're paying $0.01 per hour of additional entertainment.
I know I made a similar post in the "How much will you pay for the CE" thread, but honestly, I am sure that Arena will keep these additional cash shop items at a fair price (think/refer to GW1 cash shop), and if you do enjoy the game, and figure out the actual cost per hour of entertainment and fun you'll get out of this game, I am sure you will spend a ludicrously small amount.
Let me make some broad-based assumptions here... $150 for Collectors Edition, $30 for 3 character slots, $40 for extra storage panes, $30 for 3 costumes you may want. Assume you buy all that in the first year, and please recognise I'm working off assumed wants, and a price for the CE that I think it well at the upper end of the margin. Or, put another way, I'm guesstimating a semi worst-case scenario, buying you all your storage, 8 character slots, some costumes and the Collectors Edition.
Now assume if you will that you play - on average - 3 hours a night for 4 nights a week (or some other combination of the above to come to 12 hours a week). That may be a little much for some folks, so let's knock it down to 10 hours a week, and assume you hibernate over a couple weeks in winter, for a total of 50 weeks playing per year, so you're playing a total of 500 hours a year (yes, I know some of you will achieve that on the 4th week of the game going live) ;-)
At the costs I mentioned (total of $250), assuming you gave up playing at the end of the first year, you've paid $0.50 per hour of fun and entertainment - that's pretty unbeatable.
Work it out over 2 years, but add in 2 more character slots and 3 more costumes, and your total spend goes to $300. Assume you play a little less, 20% less in fact, and you've played a total of 900 hours, to arrive at an hourly cost of $0.33, which is even more ludicrously cheaper.
Either way, the numbers have plenty of "squish" room - I think they're truly "worst case", especially if you've been looking forward to the game, and even so, represents incredible value for money