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Guild Wars 2 - The Gemstore Endgame - MMORPG.com
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
Guild Wars 2 - The Gemstore Endgame - MMORPG.com
Any online game with a buy to play or free to play business model needs a way to generate profit long in to the game’s life spam. For Guild Wars 2, the Gem Store is the way in which Arenanet gets most of its profit outside of initial sales and expansions. Players can also choose to purchase their items with in game gold, converting them to gems to buy the flashy cosmetics and convenience items that come exclusively from the cash shop.
Comments
I find convenience items for $$ unacceptable
Kind of curious, which pay 2 win MMOs are you referring to? I think that definition has lost its meaning a little bit with all the SW BF 2 garbage ;P
My least favorite thing is content obtainable both in-game and through a store. The ability to buy in-game currency for real money is equivalent to this. I know why they are doing it - the black market for in-game currency is a huge business, so I'd rather have the money go to the devs. Personally, it just sucks to play for a month, working towards getting an awesome item (like ascended armor) and then knowing your month's work is comparable to 10$.
There is a gemstore endgame, but only as part of an open ended endgame. That's the beauty of it. Do what you want because you want to.
I'm very much a fashion wars player. I make alts upon alts just to define each with a new look and a different build. I treat each as a specific, limited character and I put a lot of effort into the look of each. That means that I don't buy outfits and spend more time seeking out specific skins than anything. I enjoy that.
Hell, right now, my endgame goal is to obtain The Shining Blade for my Weaver. The gen store doesn't even rate as an endgame goal in comparison to that.
Wait, what? Where did they state that they would not charge for expansions? Source?
The original plan in 2012 was to not have paid expansions at all, but rather to update the game every 2 weeks with free content. That flat out failed to stick, as the breakneck pace resulted in inconsistent, typically poor update quality and a lack of polish. The game bled players and community opinion was becoming increasingly pessimistic.
This then evolved into bigger, less frequent free updates and paid expansions. The game is better for this, as the quality bar has gone up and the game has a clear direction going forward. Seriously, I am glad for expansions.
Letting people buy good looking skins is no problem whatsoever as long as the hardest to get in the game is in another class because they should be. Getting legendary stuff in GW2 is an immense work after all. Paying 800 gems or whatever isn't.
To be fair though was Strains original plan when he revealed the game to have paid expansions or campaigns just like GW1 and that was even earlier. They are actually closer to his original concept now then they were at launch.
And yes, season 1 of living story was generally not very good at all, there were a couple of exceptions but not enough of them.
...unless you want to play the main story content in order of course.