The Elder Scrolls Online

I wouldnt call GW2 P2W in the way that stats are shop-only, not at all even.

But they wanted their endgame to be cosmetics-driven and have turned to adding the majority of cosmetics through the cash shop with only a token amount available through play. It doesnt line up with their pre-release declarations at all. Either NCsoft is to blame or the Anet team just got a whiff of money and compromises their earlier plans to make bank. Their april 1st update had the sanest implementation of new cosmetics throughout the game's now close to 1 year run, and that was the pet project of at least one of the devs. Most other updates had most skins behind the gem shop in some way, usually coupled with RNG that had very bad odds. Given their stated goals for the game, they apparently put most of their endgame goals into the gem shop.

Utnayan_sl said:

Maybe our definitions differ, but doesn't this sound like Pay to Win? Or do you look at it as a casual alternative to not having to play? (Serious question)

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GW2 is the grindiest game I have ever played, I will give you that. I don't see the difference between buying gold in this game and any other game. Yes you can in a way buy gold through Anet by converting gems, but I dont know anyone that does that anymore. I have made 5k selling my own gold and legendary since the game came out.

Has something changed that has made the boa items boe from fractals that allows you to skip the grind?

GW2 needs to offer a free trial.. I may of checked it out if they did. I'm too cheap to buy the box without playing a bit

Convo_sl said:

GW2 needs to offer a free trial.. I may of checked it out if they did. I'm too cheap to buy the box without playing a bit

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You would think they would for GW2 have a free trial, for 3-5 days then get players hooked and then they buy it.
Only god knows why they don't do that.

Cheers.

@Utnayan I think this is rumor and conjecture. Mike O'Brien is incredibly protective of the GW brand and IP, I know for a fact that a cash shop was always in the plans for GW2 however they would not have P2W items beyond things like experience boosts and the like. I suspect if that was the case we would have seen Devs from Anet leave in droves including the last of the founders and probably first out the door Mike. As I said their plan was always to do a cash shop as this was how they expect to be profitable without doing sub fees. They tested this in various ways with GW1.

They already had a free trial. I would suspect they might have one again.

Utnayan_sl said:

For me, that is exactly what pay to win is. Other than it has been really blasted out there in the mobile game arena.

Any time you can purchase or short cut to get items or levels faster by not playing the game using real world currency, it devalues the game and undermines the value of said items for those that obtain them "in the game" through normal designed means of completing content.

Obviously, our opinions differ. And that's ok too.

Edit: The only time I would ever be ok with it is if the items able to be purchased in an online store are of lesser value than those that can be obtained in the game. When they become of equal or greater value (No matter by how much) that's when it gets a little ridiculous and devalues the point of playing in the first place.

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Well, none of the items in the store have stats. All the GW2 store does is eliminate some of the grind by having xp boosts and allowing you to convert gems to gold. Which is a pretty basic offering in almost all cash shops. Using gold can eliminate some of the grind for the some of the best items, like legendary weaps, but not all of it. In the end, the best gear requires significant effort in game even if you use gold shortcuts.

I don't have an issue with people buying gold (or xp pots), which is really all that GW2's shop does. I would rather they do it from the mmo company than some Chinese farmer. Never done it myself, being pretty good at obtaining gold and xp in any mmo I play. But that doesn't mean I never will.

If you think GW2's store is P2W then basically you are of the mind set that all cash shops are P2W. Since GW2 has one of the least objectionable types of stores. A lot of people think that any cash shop is P2W, it is an extreme opinion but it does have some valid points. Realistically though, buying gold from the mmo cash shop is not going away. Especially since it is the only effective way to combat Chinese gold farmers.

Cash shops are here to stay. I just wish more were like GW2's, it is one of the best of any game out there.

qwerty_sl said:

It would be a waste of your money. It does a few things that are quite interesting from a design point of view, but it's just a dumb game for kids and I think you would get bored of it very quickly.

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I disagree with qwerty here, GW2 is definitely worth the box price even though it has some flaws. It does alot of things right and even has some features and bits I would love to see in EQN (however unlikely that is).

Grim1_sl said:

Cash shops are here to stay. I just wish more were like GW2's, it is one of the best of any game out there.

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Like I said above I agree that it is not P2W - but its not all fine with it either if you look at the big picture because they are putting too many of their cosmetics in there compared to how many you can actually gain through play (ignoring the play for gold to buy to buy gems to buy cash shop items angle). At least that's been the case for the first half of 2013, hopefully their claims for the second half come through.

Mr Creed_sl said:

Like I said above I agree that it is not P2W - but its not all fine with it either if you look at the big picture because they are putting too many of their cosmetics in there compared to how many you can actually gain through play (ignoring the play for gold to buy to buy gems to buy cash shop items angle). At least that's been the case for the first half of 2013, hopefully their claims for the second half come through.

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I can see that. GW1's cosmetic gear was the point of the endgame and almost all of it was acquired in game. I liked that model better than GW2's gear progression model, even if the stat increases are minimal.

GW2's cosmetic gear isn't as appealing as GW1's imo, so I tend to not care as much about those offerings in the cash shop. Even though the graphics are technically better in GW2, for some reason the impact of cosmetic gear on the character toons isn't as impressive. Some of it's cool, especially those with special effects. But for the most part I rarely notice cosmetic gear in GW2. In GW1, everyone's gear has much more impact visually.

I've yet to see Qwerty not call something a "dumb thing for kids." He's like a fucking broken record. OK, my take is gw2 is a great "time-waster" if you're of the explorer type that will dabble in some pvp. The big draw for me was the world. Its pretty and one of the best around as far as exploring and finding neat little things. The dungeons I tried are just "ok." I never did all of them because people disappeared rather quickly from it after it became obvious the best way to win was to zerg boss fights for the most part.

I disagree with qwerty here, GW2 is definitely worth the box price even though it has some flaws. It does alot of things right and even has some features and bits I would love to see in EQN (however unlikely that is).

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That's just such a low standard to hold games to, though. If a game is fine as long as it's worth the box price, can a game even really be bad by that metric? Compared to other forms of conventional entertainment, a $60 game would only have to be fun for like four hours before it has fulfilled the criterion of being "worth the box price." Even some of the most disastrous failures in recent gaming history were pretty fun for a few days at least. It's not so much about the box price, it's about whether or not it's even worth investing some time into a gaming experience that isn't really satisfying.

GW2 was moderately fun for the first week, which should be an amazing bargain for $60 compared to going to the cinema or something, but I still think it was a retarded waste of time because it was such a staggeringly disappointing game in the end. It's the same thing with people who think free games cannot be criticized because you didn't pay anything to play it, and that this somehow translates into the notion that a free game cannot be bad. Same sort of principle, anyway. People went in thinking they'd get a PvP game with an optional side dish of PvE, but they soon found out that the PvP part of the game was completely stillborn and that ANet were just capitalizing on PvE collectors and completionist casuals. I think it's fair to say the game didn't live up to even the most reasonable expectations, even if it managed to have a price to entertainment hours ratio that blows movies, gambling, hookers and drugs completely out of the water by many orders of magnitude.

It's an enormous, cataclysmic disaster from the traditional gamer's point of view, but it satisfies the niche of being just enough MMORPG to register for those who want to play an MMORPG while being so utterly bereft of depth and time-consuming goals that it caters uniquely to people who want to feel like they're among the best in the game without actually putting in any kind of effort or learning to do anything really challenging. It's a game for the gamer who wants to have an MMORPG character with the best gear that you can get in that game but doesn't have the time, ability or social decency to get that in a real MMORPG.

And isn't it a fucking shame that every game is like that these days?

Cost has a pretty big relevance when MMOs are being compared (Sub + Box + Xpac VS. F2P VS. Retail packaging VS Retail +Xpacs).

Can you consider yourself a non-crazy player if you're hitting max level within a week of an MMO release?

Guild Wars 2 had a lot of enjoyable content leveling up if you paid attention to it, as well as different story paths going on to explore and such. I can't help but think people who just ravaged their way in some berserk anti-social fashion to hit max level within a week had to have missed a lot of the game and could arguably be considered to not actually have even played it.

I think any game starts to fall apart at the seams when you're putting heavy hours in just to reach the "end game" and ignore everything before it.

I agree that I find my level 80 pretty boring, but getting there was a lot of fun and I took my time and enjoyed it and got more than 60 hours out of the game between him and my other few 20's and 30's exploring the world and such.

Yeah 1-80 in this game was great.

Abefroman_sl said:

GW2 is the grindiest game I have ever played, I will give you that.

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You haven't played many games then.

Draegan_sl said:

You haven't played many games then.

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Your casual play is hardly basis for an informed opinion. Thanks for playing.

Abefroman_sl said:

Your casual play is hardly basis for an informed opinion. Thanks for playing.

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So you found GW2 grindier than Lineage2, EQ, Aion, TERA, AOC ? I don't understand your point of view? Also, my casual play?

qwerty_sl said:

The defense rests.

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LMAO. I'm the one defending the game therefore I'd be the defense you fucken idiot. ahahahha