GW2: F2P doesn't cut it?

[Lane]

People are way too picky. I can't even tell you how many times I've seen someone describe exactly what Rift offers, for example, but if you suggest it they'll say, "I don't like the art style. I don't like the combat. The story didn't grip me." etc. The same is true about any MMO, really. Sorry, but no game has come out yet where you can have everything exactly the way you want it.

Personally, I think GW2 has done a great job so far catering to people like myself who don't care for standard MMO end game. It's actually really annoying to see people whine and complain that GW2 needs to be like other MMOs. I mean, if you really want to raid, gear/rep grind, do dailies, etc. for your "content" then I can point you in the direction of a dozen other MMOs, GW2 doesn't need that BS too.

[Fencers]

People are way too picky. I can't even tell you how many times I've seen someone describe exactly what Rift offers, for example, but if you suggest it they'll say, "I don't like the art style. I don't like the combat. The story didn't grip me." etc. The same is true about any MMO, really. Sorry, but no game has come out yet where you can have everything exactly the way you want it.

Thumbs up so hard, brah.

Personally, I think GW2 has done a great job so far catering to people like myself who don't care for standard MMO end game.

For the time being, this is still a major aspect of Guild Wars as a series. Each game has been up to this point casual focused. Not a single one of the Guild Wars games are meant to be played with the same intensity and structure as MMOs in the EQ heritage.

Now that may change at some point because Anet seem to be flip flopping a lot lately. But as of right now? That is the type of game the series is mostly built around- casual experience w/ PVE collections and PVP endgame.

Some people will enjoy. Some will not.

Nothing to it. To reiterate your point, no game is going to be 100% perfect for each person's whims.

[Selonthyx]

I guess I should give it a try. This is my point of view: Personally I dont like the game that much, well it is quite fun in pvp. The first couple of weeks it was quite fun. But I dont really bother playing it anymore. Leveling is so boring! Thats is what made me quit

[Requiemcliff]

I guess I should give it a try. This is my point of view: Personally I dont like the game that much, well it is quite fun in pvp. The first couple of weeks it was quite fun. But I dont really bother playing it anymore. Leveling is so boring! Thats is what made me quit

I think the thing is to me though, the leveling, you don't need to really do it.

If you are into PvP, play PvP, I mean, my friend loves the SPvP to death and plays that mostly, and barely actually levels.

I do get what you mean, but at the same time, the leveling I don't mind too much, I mean, typical MMO leveling to me.

[Merendel]

with 6 month / 1 year subs it makes it harder to quit.

Then there is also the effect on the dev side, it seems to me GW2 is understaffed, I have never played a sub based MMO with so many fundamental bugs (things wrong with class skills / traits for instance) that have then taken so long too fix. (and still haven't fixed)

P2P does make it harder to quit, it also makes it harder to come back. That same sense of not wanting to waste the money you've put into a sub also reduces the chance of ever comeing back once someone finaly does quit.

As to bugs... did you play WoW at launch? Hell did you play TOR at launch? Both sub based MMO's and both still had lingering bugs that were often gamebreaking for months after launch. This isnt a P2P vs B2P vs F2P issue, its an MMO in general issue. Any game the size and complexity of an MMO is going to have bugs and imbalances. The only way to prevent that is to take a year off development prior to launch just to hammer out bugs. No new systems no new content just keep fixing bugs and even then chances are a few will get through and no publisher will put up with pushing the launch date back a year.

[melodramocracy]

I don't think monthly costs matter. If a game is compelling to play, I'll play it, and justify the cost if such a thing exists. If a game isn't entertaining me, a sub fee won't factor into whether I stay or not.

Personally I played the game to 80, and felt like I'd seen all I cared to. It's nice to know that at any point I can just download and continue without too much of a problem. If there were more pvp maps and gametypes, I'd likely still be playing. The PvE side of the fence just didn't keep my attention, nor did I find any joy in starting an alt... actually I found it pretty dreadful to do any zone twice (to be fair, I find that to be true in most if not all MMO's).

[nightshark]

Pvp crowd is incredibly fickle. They will probably tell you that elder scrolls is gonna be awesome, convince you to buy it, and quit 2 months later.

There's a guy I know irl who does this exactly. Constantly messaging me about how every upcoming game (inc GW2) is going to be amazing, plays the game for a few days and then starts telling me how the next game (ESO) is going to be amazing and GW2 sucks.

Personally I love GW2 and if I had all day every day to play it, I would.

[pacox]

OP does kind of have a point. People do tend to play P2P just they had to pay for it. When they have to pay a monthly fee they feel obligated to spend as much time of possible playing the game so that they can "get their monies worth". A lot of people don't feel like they have to play GW2. This is a strange concept to a lot people who have spent the last couple of years just playing WoW. You mean I don't have to play this game all of the time? Only when I want to?

[freeforumuser]

Nothing to it. To reiterate your point, no game is going to be 100% perfect for each person's whims.

Might as well not bother saying that because what thing on this planet is.

Back to the topic...Nope F2P isn't a magic silver bullet, GW2 is not the only game in town and there are plenty of games like Dota 2 / TF2 that are not only F2P, the games themselves are also free and doesn't betray their core principles (never will be pay2win). Heck for a game operating in a F2P modei it sure sucked at it by not having paid class/race/story/name changes yet when those should be like a number one priority in the list of things to implement.

[Digglett]

Here's my take on GW2, I played it a ton when it first came out, got tired of it, now I'm taking a break, and I'll jump back in whenever I want to play again. The lack of monthly fee makes this incredibly easy.

[StationaryHawk]

1) If people like it, they will play it F2P/B2P/P2P it really doesn't matter
2) If people hate it, they won't play it F2P/B2P/P2P it really doesn't matter

Not true. There are P2P games that I wouldn't play unless they were F2P/B2P.

[wombinator04]

I prefer P2P MMO's because most "F2P" MMOs tend to go overboard with microtransactions and end up nickeling and diming you every step of the way, or just have a flat disadvantage compared to people who buy crap from the cash shops.

GW2 has a nice system. Like really nice. I don't know their going to make money off of their cash shop. Most people who play havnt bought a thing yet and probably never will because there's really nothing that's a MUST HAVE. The people who have bought stuff probably just got stuff like bank space and the extra bag slot.

Also F2P MMO's seem to be rampant with children most of the time. They don't have to buy anything, so why not I guess. That's just my experience, people mightve had different ones.

[Sojou]

For my experience, on a very heavy PvE focused server:

Our guild was one of the larger on the server (over 350 active members). Almost any time you logged on there were 100+ online with people logging on/off all day long.

I logged on last night, there were 10 of us, one of which is Snowcrash (one of the developers). Just scanning down the list I would guess around 90% of the guild has been inactive for so long that they're flagged as "unknown" now instead of just the last known location.

At this point I'm probably done with the game as well. Yeah it's free, but there's just nothing fun to do anymore. All MMOs are "same shit different day" styles of gameplay, but there's just something about the GW2 gameplay that screams "NOT FUN" when I'm participating in the PvE.

I started playing WoW again a couple weeks ago, got my toon up to 90 and have been enjoying their casual-oriented content much more than the dynamic event chain running.

[ZeroWashu]

F2P would be great if the game was good.

GW2 is not good.

People won't play a bad game for free.

Agreed. GW2 simply isn't as good as it should have been. Its a world of little rectangles of content where shadow boxing reigns supreme. I loved exploring the world, I simply never liked a single class I played. They were all boring, the fact they would use abilities even when not in range smacked of the laziest programming I have ever seen.

[Lane]

I prefer P2P MMO's because most "F2P" MMOs tend to go overboard with microtransactions and end up nickeling and diming you every step of the way, or just have a flat disadvantage compared to people who buy crap from the cash shops.

GW2 has a nice system. Like really nice. I don't know their going to make money off of their cash shop. Most people who play havnt bought a thing yet and probably never will because there's really nothing that's a MUST HAVE. The people who have bought stuff probably just got stuff like bank space and the extra bag slot.

Also F2P MMO's seem to be rampant with children most of the time. They don't have to buy anything, so why not I guess. That's just my experience, people mightve had different ones.

Surprisingly, I've only had one or two momentary experiences with immaturity in GW2. So far, and based solely on my own personal experiences, it's been way better than WoW and especially Tera, both of which are P2P.

I'm also curious how much money they're actually making off the gem store because other than character slots or inventory there's nothing in there that's enticing to me, which is shocking because I'm usually a sucker for vanity and GW1 had some lovely costumes from what I've seen.

Also, I hate the way P2P games are pushing cash shops now. I suppose I should be thankful because it's 'cured' me of being a collector. There's just no point when you know you'll never have everything because you'll have to continuously pay extra for the content you enjoy, which is a whole other rant. Not to mention the lovely "service fees" for name/appearance changes, transfers, etc. Point being, I really don't think P2P MMOs are any better when it comes to nickel and diming.

[Immitis]

So it seems to me that F2P doesn't really help it... I had so many active friends, they're not even coming back for 1 hour anymore... I guess it would be even worse if GW2 had subscription. What do you think?

This is based purely on my own observations, I'm not trying to push em down your throat.

the mmo genre as a whole has been declining the past few years and pretty much all mmos have seen a decline in players. it seems like mmos are starting to revert back to the niche genre it used to be the only mmo i see maintaining a large population is wow simply because of how long its been around and how deeply ingrained it is with video game pop culture at this point.

[wombinator04]

Surprisingly, I've only had one or two momentary experiences with immaturity in GW2. So far, and based solely on my own personal experiences, it's been way better than WoW and especially Tera, both of which are P2P.

I'm also curious how much money they're actually making off the gem store because other than character slots or inventory there's nothing in there that's enticing to me, which is shocking because I'm usually a sucker for vanity and GW1 had some lovely costumes from what I've seen.

Also, I hate the way P2P games are pushing cash shops now. I suppose I should be thankful because it's 'cured' me of being a collector. There's just no point when you know you'll never have everything because you'll have to continuously pay extra for the content you enjoy, which is a whole other rant. Not to mention the lovely "service fees" for name/appearance changes, transfers, etc. Point being, I really don't think P2P MMOs are any better when it comes to nickel and diming.

Fair point. P2P games that have cash shops is just stupid and greedy. Like WoW and The Secret World. Character transfers should be free no matter what if your paying $15 a month.

Also, why The Secret World went P2P with a cash shop is beyond me. The hell were they thinking about that. AND THEY LIMIT CHARACTER SLOTS! That has EA written all over it.

At least WoW doesn't limit your character slots. Well they do, but no one needs 50 characters.

[rogerwilko]

I for one am still content with playing 1-2 hours every 2-3 days in GW2.

on a side not, my friend went back to panda. He plays alliance, on a pvp server, and the horde outnumbers them 50 to 1. The AH in EMPTY. Only 1 raiding guild, still stuck at the first boss on normal difficulty on some raid I no longer know the name of. So he wanted to transfer to a more populated server, to be able to raid/quest and pvp (yes you will be unable to do any daily quests if the enemy faction is zerging around.). The cost for a transfer was 30+ euros (I do not remember the exact ammount).

Now that`s not very nice...

[Salech]

Guess I had to mention that I'm a PVP player and all my friends are PVP oriented people.

I guess they don't like challenge then.

I'm talking about tournaments here, nit hot joins.

[Sojou]

I for one am still content with playing 1-2 hours every 2-3 days in GW2.

on a side not, my friend went back to panda. He plays alliance, on a pvp server, and the horde outnumbers them 50 to 1. The AH in EMPTY. Only 1 raiding guild, still stuck at the first boss on normal difficulty on some raid I no longer know the name of. So he wanted to transfer to a more populated server, to be able to raid/quest and pvp (yes you will be unable to do any daily quests if the enemy faction is zerging around.). The cost for a transfer was 30+ euros (I do not remember the exact ammount).

Now that`s not very nice...

Sounds like a problem with your friend and his guild - not the game itself.

Cross realm zones adjust the "50:1 ratio" problems because for every 50:1 horde pvp server, there's a 50:1 alliance server.