ANet blatant money grabbing?

[Arlee]

The sky is falling. I guess you guys work for free because you like your boss so much. And I am not even a fan of Arena Net.....by the speed they keep chugging out MMOs with shiny promises and then seemingly abandoning them...

That doesn't even make sense... Guild Wars was out for years before Guild Wars 2 came out. They are doing the exact opposite of chugging out MMOs. And Guild Wars 2 is still getting all sorts of regular updates, which again is the opposite of abandonment :/

[Gray_Matter]

what does wow have to do with this?

Not just that. The comment implies that its ok for a company to charge $180 per year and then charge extra over and above that for a virtual item but if a person has to spend $30 because they have to buy a second set of gems to get 2 virtual items from the store then that's a problem.

[lawow74]

Businesses have a right to treat their customers how they like within the confines of the law.
Customers have a right to complain to businesses about their treatment and exercise their vote with their wallets.
Trying to say otherwise is foolish on both sides of the line. It's really that simple.

[Svifnymr]

I don't like the gem conversion system now (as I mentioned in the other thread), but it doesn't really strike me as "money grubbing". I never really figured the system was actually player driven though, figured they always tweaked it themselves.

GW2 doesn't mandate new armor in order to access content, so the gem-store is in no way a mandatory element of the game. On top of that, find me a subscription game that DOESN'T also have a cash shop. I'm sure some of them have a method for converting ingame currency to cash shop currency, but not the ones I"m familiar with (SW:TOR, WoW).

[lawow74]

IOn top of that, find me a subscription game that DOESN'T also have a cash shop. I'm sure some of them have a method for converting ingame currency to cash shop currency, but not the ones I"m familiar with (SW:TOR, WoW).

Well, I know EVE Online has their PLEX program, but I'm unfamiliar with their whole cash shop bit and how it works, since I stopped playing long before that got added.

[Svifnymr]

Well, I know EVE Online has their PLEX program, but I'm unfamiliar with their whole cash shop bit and how it works, since I stopped playing long before that got added.

I think it's like SW:TOR or Wildstar, where you can buy something with cash, then sell it for in game currency. Like say a pet that you buy with cash and then sell for gold. With GW2, you're directly converting gold to gems and buying it yourself.

[carnifex2005]

Looks like the Gem Exchange change will be reverted...

http://kotaku.com/guild-wars-2-playe...ang-1649519173

'ArenaNet has responded with plans to update the Currency Exchange so players can use it as they wish. They offered the following statement:

"It's clear that quite a lot of you would like to have greater flexibility in using the Currency Exchange. Our intention when we designed the new interface was to streamline large volume purchases, which make up the majority of transactions.

In light of your feedback, we will update the Currency Exchange so that you can decide how you want to use it. We will keep the new streamlined system and also offer a new "Custom" button on the panel that you can use to exchange any increment of gems or gold.

We anticipate rolling this out soon. Stay tuned!"'


A very good compromise. That being said, showing this change to a player for 30 seconds in testing would have given them so much less grief.

[Valeron]

sometimes bitching does work

still it would behoove ANet to announce these kind of planned changes beforehand. at the very least they will see what kind of reaction they get and whether it is a good idea for a controversial change like this without having to revert something already done.

[zito]

sometimes bitching does work

still it would behoove ANet to announce these kind of planned changes beforehand. at the very least they will see what kind of reaction they get and whether it is a good idea for a controversial change like this without having to revert something already done.

Ye. If Anet wants to use live servers to test things like this fine, but at least announce the shit a head of time.

[lawow74]

I have to wonder what kind of room-temp IQ it takes to not comprehend that inputting a gold amount gives back how many gems it's worth and how to adjust accordingly. They wanna change it to the opposite, input a gem amount and it tells you the gold cost, that's fine.

But that kind of patronizing disingenuous 'oh we just want to make it easier on new people' twaddle burns me up. No, you wanna make it easier to fleece new people of RL cash by making them go 'I need HOW MUCH to get gems???' and turning to their bank accounts instead.

At least they listened, like they did at the outrage over their plans to charge 300G per color for Commander tags.

[Tabbycat]

GW2's Gem Store combined with Diminishing Returns is probably one of the main reasons that I quit playing the game. It is good,though, that Anet listened to their player base. Can you imagine what would've happened if they had implemented the change without telling anyone?

[Vizardlorde]

I'm quite dissatisfied cause most of the things I buy on the gemstore are QoL improvements such as the permanent tools or bank tabs, these change forces me to take a hit on gold by making 2 transactions cause there is no 600 or 1000 options. It also forces people who had an odd amount of gems( ie 173) to either convert them to gold or buy junk items ( boosters, boxes of fun) in the gem store cause they are basically obsolete for stuff that matters (skins, unlocks, etc). Imo they should at least add a slider with increments of 25 or 50.

[Svifnymr]

I have to wonder what kind of room-temp IQ it takes to not comprehend that inputting a gold amount gives back how many gems it's worth and how to adjust accordingly. They wanna change it to the opposite, input a gem amount and it tells you the gold cost, that's fine.

The old way of putting in how much gold you want to spend to see how many gems it got, was fairly silly (assuming you were aiming for lowest cost for a specific item), but yeah a simple "enter gem amount=gold amount" is all they needed.

But that kind of patronizing disingenuous 'oh we just want to make it easier on new people' twaddle burns me up. No, you wanna make it easier to fleece new people of RL cash by making them go 'I need HOW MUCH to get gems???' and turning to their bank accounts instead.

It's easy to think they're just trying to force folks to buy gems, but it's just as easy to figure some UI designer thought he had a handle on how to improve transactions, it took little effort and they did it. One way makes you mad that the company is evil money grubbing villains, the other way you just can figure some intern messed up, or that at the least they need to communicate some of these ideas first.

At least they listened, like they did at the outrage over their plans to charge 300G per color for Commander tags.

I think it's just them trying to react to gold being devalued in both cases, but similar to the commander tag thing, if they'd just mentioned this ahead of time I'm sure they'd have gotten plenty of feedback and avoided the backlash.

[rhandric]

I think it's just them trying to react to gold being devalued in both cases, but similar to the commander tag thing, if they'd just mentioned this ahead of time I'm sure they'd have gotten plenty of feedback and avoided the backlash.

To be fair, they did mention the commander tag color thing ahead of time, and got a ton of backlash, allowing them to change their implementation before it went live.

[Saxtorph]

In the latest pre-patch a new system for buying gems with gold has been introduced. You can no longer buy less than 400 gems via gold conversion.

From the top Reddit comment: "A player who doesn't have a lot of time, but has a lot of money (they have a job) buys gems. They buy 800 gems and purchase a 500 gem item. They have 300 gems left over. Then, they decide they want to purchase a 400 gem item, but they need 100 more gems. On the new system they cannot only convert gold into 100 gems, they need to convert at least 400 gems worth of gold. But they don't have that much gold, and because they don't have a lot of time to play, they can't farm it (and 400 gems isn't cheap, it's over 75 gold right now). Thus, this person must spend more real money on actual gems, at a minimum of $10 for 800 gems, even though they only wanted 100 gems."

Basically ANet wants more of your money and there is nothing you can do about it. Thoughts?

LOL. Believing that ANet was about anything other than making money was your first mistake.

[Valeron]

LOL. Believing that any game company was about anything other than making money was your first mistake.

fixed your quote

[rhandric]

LOL. Believing that ANet was about anything other than making money was your first mistake.

Oh noes, a business that wants to profit!

[Deleted]

There is a good way and a bad way for companies to make money, Anet did it the bad way. Glad they reverted the change.

[4KhazModan]

Seriously, the prices are so weird. It's like LoL with buy RP. I myself have 200 gems, which I am not going to use yet. If I buy 5 transmute charges, that is 150 gems leaving me with 50 gems left. Those 50 gems I could have transferred to gold in the past, but now they will just be wasting away, it is complete bullshit. There is NO reason for them to change it after 2 years. The system was working perfectly before.

[lawow74]

It's easy to think they're just trying to force folks to buy gems, but it's just as easy to figure some UI designer thought he had a handle on how to improve transactions, it took little effort and they did it. One way makes you mad that the company is evil money grubbing villains, the other way you just can figure some intern messed up, or that at the least they need to communicate some of these ideas first.

Yeah, at this stage in my life I'm inclined to remain a cynical bastard and assume the worst. That way when I'm proven wrong it's a good turn instead of a bad one. I'm not often proven wrong, I find.