GW2: F2P doesn't cut it?

[Jovanaar]

Sure. Generally speaking, that is how B2P games function. Despite DLC being commonplace.

However, Guild Wars 2 is marketed as a B2P MMO directly in competition with other games of the genre such as World of Warcraft or The Old Republic. Further the developers of Guild Wars 2 have publicly stated they are going after World of Warcraft head on [Mike O'Brien, Forbes Magazine] and that their goal is to have more added content than any other MMO [Colin Johanson, Anet Blog].

Dead Space's designers didn't openly state they were going to beat Blizzard at the MMO game or that Dead Space was going to have more content than any other B2P game. Arena.net did.

It is within reason [and rightly so] for consumers to question the validity Guild Wars 2 in business model & content delivery.

Honestly, MMO or not, people will play a game as long as it's entertaining for them.

If I play Halo, and after playing all the content, what exactly keeps me playing? The fact that I find the game enjoyable.

DLC's are like small expansions.. expansions you need to buy. That's like we would have to buy the Lost Shores DLC to be able to see that particular content.

[Arrowstormen]

When I played WoW, I really only played WoW. It consumed so much time, and there was always something you could shovel even more time into.

GW2 let's me play when I want to because of the subscription-free model, and the monthly event updates (Halloween and Lost Shores) makes sure I come in at least sometime every month. I'm totally okay with that.

[Requiemcliff]

I just don't get this logic. You can do the exact same thing in WoW, no one is FORCING you to gear up for raids or something. Not going to play for a month? Cancel the sub and don't pay. Want to ONLY show up for holiday events? Only sub for those months and just log on for them.



This specifically. "Stuff to do" is a strike against a game? I guess that's why people like GW2, since there's not much "stuff to do", eh?

I'd actually disagree with you with the doing the same thing in WoW concept, because, well, it is fairly different.

First, no subscription fee, while some people disagree, to an extent, when you pay a monthly subscription for a game, many feel obligated to well, invest time into the game. With GW2 it doesn't really make them extra cash unless you buy cash shop items, but if you only login for content updates and mess around 2-3 times a month with the game, it isn't any issue money wise on your end.

Secondly, on the logic of you don't need to gear up for raids, if you want to see the raids, you had better damned be ready to gear up. Some people in dedicated PvP or raid guilds have to be around much more to prepare for the next tier or the like, GW2 generally, while you could argue the fractals (which the ascended gear is mostly self contained into fractals with agony resistance anyway) for the most part it's just going in to make a cool set or explore or the like. But your logic of not being forced into doing it, you could make that argument for -any- non-essential activity. You don't need to go to play either game if you don't want to. The simple logic is that you -don't- have to pay 15 dollars to see the new content, if you want to play, you can just pick it up and mess around for a few hours.

[papajohn4]

Dude, 15$/month is not something that makes people not play an MMO. Unless you live in Somalia, 15$ is nothing. The fact that GW2 is f2p does nothing to bring in players if the game's quality doesn't meet current standards.

If GW2 had a sub, I'm fairly confident it would have had approximately the same amount of players.

it's not about the money but more about the time...If I didn't had a work or if the day had 60 hours then probably I would be subscribed in 2-3 MMOs. Most people chose 1 game to play. Maybe 1-2 days a week they will also play another "free" game for some time but thats because it is free. They wouldn't pay for that because the time they play it doesn't worth the money. Personally I play all of the games and I always subscribe to one game each month, even to the free ones (swtor, Lotro, Aion). If Rift was free, I could play it 1 day a week for example to stay "in touch" and when I feel like I will subscribe for a month and make it my "main" MMO for that month. I know other doing the same as me.

As for GW2, I only played the first month...then I played lotro for its expansion, wow for a month and now I play swtor. GW2 is beautiful game with the best virtual world out there in pair with lotro and the most beautiful characters so far. Although it seems that the lack of trinity (I always play tank classes and love it) and the lack of gear progression didn't worked for me. At first I liked the idea and I adore everyone that got rid of the carrot, but it seems that I can't . Also I am not a pvp player so..only thing left for me is leveling characters, since I don't enjoy the dungeons with the lack of trinity as said before..probably I will return to level again, but for now I am leveling my Imperial Agent Operative and having a blast

EDIT: Also whats so much the discussion about added content and how fast they add content? Vanilla wow didn't had so much added content but people never drop it..TBC also had very few additions!now if they pass 2 months without a patch with content people are screaming..why is that?Is it because the content now is much more easier and people consume it very very fast? Is it the people became more and more demanding?Or both?I really do not remember posts during Vanilla/TBC of people asking more content or discussions about how fast content is released(I am talking about wow because that is the game I was playing back then) and bear in mind that there wasn't gating back then in the sense of daily rep farm. You could get the rep exalted as fast as you want but still people had many things to do..