Originally posted by Amjoco

Originally posted by Charlizzard

Originally posted by Amjoco
I like how this thread has turned from anti-cash shop into GW2 fans discussing fun ways to craft extra bags!  My personal quest is to make gold selling bags, to buy gems, to purchase slots. 

I'm going to get meowhead to make me a bunch of bags then quickly flip those on the Ah and hope she doesn't notice. I will use my riches to buy a pirate outfit and walk around saying "Aaaaargh" all the time.

That outfit is awesome. It showd off my warrior but very nicely. I think I spanked myself.

OMG I loved it. I was shocked when it saw it came with abilities in your weapon slots like summoning a parot. I was so excited that I started throwing money at my screen.

I realize that other posters have warned me about the evils of cash shops and that I needed to "fight the power" and "rise up against the man" and that me paying for a pirate outfit would allow me "to win" (though I'm still not sure what I win exactly) but I don't think these people have seen the power of the pirate outfit in action.

Originally posted by Atlan99

Originally posted by Meowhead

Originally posted by Atlan99

You're right. I didn't say that.

If someone wasn't aware of the costs, they would be hidden.  Thus hidden costs.

Buying the extra super deluxe package isn't a neccessary cost, and it's disingenuous of that person... or you... to suggest they are.

Bag storage is already above and beyond the industry standard, even taking into account drop rates and junk items.

Extra storage is just that.  Extra.  It's not 'getting up to par'.

So the whole post is an abyssmal failure, because the huge dollar cost mentioned is predicated upon every one of 8 charactres buying 3 compltely optional, luxury bag slots that go far beyond standard storage rates, or what is needed.

Don't keep backing up an abyssmal failure, just hang your head and walk away from it while you still can. :(

In your opinion.

Someone else may have a different point of view and expect it.

What is extra storage for you might be required for someone else.

This isn't failure. I got you to post in it multiple times. How can that be a failure?

It is simply mentioning costs that others might not be aware of.

Why so defensive?

In his opinion, in my opinion, in every (almost) all GW2 players opinion! You still don't get it do you? Of course not!

Yes yes, I will be paying more if I will be in need of storage slots , chars slots and such! Why do you care?

PS: I so don't like your avatar! Is that .. face looking like yours?

Originally posted by Charlizzard

OMG I loved it. I was shocked when it saw it came with abilities in your weapon slots like summoning a parot. I was so excited that I started throwing money at my screen.

I realize that other posters have warned me about the evils of cash shops and that I needed to "fight the power" and "rise up against the man" and that me paying for a pirate outfit would allow me "to win" (though I'm still not sure what I win exactly) but I don't think these people have seen the power of the pirate outfit in action.

I'm going to be on the RP server.

I am going to win at pirate RP.

People will be all 'arr, I'm a pirate', and I'll be like 'SCREW THAT.  CASH SHOP POWER, ACTIVATE!'

... and bam, busting out my pirate emotes and laughing at them.  D:<

See that parrot?  SEE THAT?  Totally worth every penny!  Your parrot is emoted!  Mine actually flies around!  I'll win lead in the Lion's Arch production of Pirates of Penzance, without even trying.

Originally posted by Meowhead

Originally posted by Charlizzard

OMG I loved it. I was shocked when it saw it came with abilities in your weapon slots like summoning a parot. I was so excited that I started throwing money at my screen.

I realize that other posters have warned me about the evils of cash shops and that I needed to "fight the power" and "rise up against the man" and that me paying for a pirate outfit would allow me "to win" (though I'm still not sure what I win exactly) but I don't think these people have seen the power of the pirate outfit in action.

I'm going to be on the RP server.

I am going to win at pirate RP.

People will be all 'arr, I'm a pirate', and I'll be like 'SCREW THAT.  CASH SHOP POWER, ACTIVATE!'

... and bam, busting out my pirate emotes and laughing at them.  D:<

See that parrot?  SEE THAT?  Totally worth every penny!  Your parrot is emoted!  Mine actually flies around!  I'll win lead in the Lion's Arch production of Pirates of Penzance, without even trying.

lmao. Very good let me know when your first show will be! 

Originally posted by Nethriil
Yepp expensive 4 sure. But dont they need to Get paid???
There Are no free rides

Initially the folks at Arenanet stated that all they needed ro run their game was box sales.  Now what we're getting is a free to play trap with an initial price tag.... thank you NCSoft.

Originally posted by troublmaker

Originally posted by Nethriil
Yepp expensive 4 sure. But dont they need to Get paid???
There Are no free rides

Initially the folks at Arenanet stated that all they needed ro run their game was box sales.  Now what we're getting is a free to play trap with an initial price tag.... thank you NCSoft.

... there's never been a point in time where I DIDN'T know there was going to be a cash shop?

It's always been in the FAQ.

Dunno what to tell you.  Sorry you're surprised about something they've mentioned since the beginning?

... what we're talking about is a B2P game that'll make some money on the side (= bigger profits = happier shareholders) through a cash shop that is optional.

U can trade gold for gems... so  u dont need to pay for it if u dont want to, well thats what i hear. 

so are you guys saying 130 slots isn't enough for one char?

20 [backpack]+20 [bag]+20 [bag]+20 [bag]+20 [bag]+30 [bank]+additional crafting slots in bank

Originally posted by troublmaker

Initially the folks at Arenanet stated that all they needed ro run their game was box sales.  Now what we're getting is a free to play trap with an initial price tag.... thank you NCSoft.

It's not a trap if you don't need what's in the cash shop.  So far, I haven't seen anything that is needed.  I f you think you do, then it's because you are mistaking "want" for "need."

Originally posted by Atlan99

Interesting post by Valatar on the Guild Wars 2 Beta Forums. He breaks down some of the hidden costs of GW2.

 

https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gem/The-Gem-Store-s-Grim-Math-or-Why-GW2-may-cost-220/page/1#post115334

 

 

Valatar

Welcome to Guild Wars 2, new player! We’re the fun new game where you don’t pay a monthly fee to play! But you do realize of course that we need money to keep up our servers and update the game, so there are a few modest cash store items to help cover our costs. But it’s probably nothing that you actually need, so don’t pay any attention to it!

How do you like the classes? They’re all great fun, aren’t they? We bet you’d like to play them all! But not so fast, you only have five character slots. If you want the other three, you’ll just need to make a one-time payment in the cash shop to unlock them. It’s only 800 gems per slot, so for only 2400 gems you’ll be on your way!

What’s that, adventurer? Your bags are full? Why shucks, have we got a deal for you! You have seven bag slots, but we locked three of them so you’d have room to grow! For an insignificant 400 gems, you can unlock one bag slot on one character. Of course, if you have eight characters, that’s twenty-four slots, but hey, what’s a little 9600 gems between friends for the luxury of being able to carry things?

Oh, you wanted to actually be able to store things? Like, in a bank? Well other MMOGs make you spend nasty gold to have more than 30 bank slots, but not us! You can just buy them with gems! We’ve helped you out by making the sky the limit and locked a whopping seven bank expansions at 600 gems each, so you can feel extra accomplished when you pull out your credit card to pay for the 4200 gems for that.

tl;dr:
At the current listed rates, you have to pay 16,200 gems to have eight characters with unlocked inventory and bank slots in GW2. With the assumption that the conversion rate is $1=100 gems, that’s $162 dollars above and beyond the box cost of the game. Edit: The actual gem price is believed to be $5=400 gems, which makes the cost $202.50 for those 16200 gems. A year’s subscription to WoW is $156 if purchased in six-month blocks, making it ironically cheaper to play a year of WoW than a year of GW2.

Bear in mind that I’m ignoring vanity items, convenience items, and keys in this tally. Those are all entirely optional, and a player can take or leave those without any particular penalty. I’m focusing entirely on the one universal constant of any MMOG: storage. It’s the thing that is indisputably vital for every player, that nobody can afford to be without, and everybody absolutely requires. Anyone who doesn’t purchase bag and bank space is going to be regretting it, deeply and often. I don’t consider it optional, and doubt that anyone with any length of experience in online games would disagree with me on that.

There needs to be an alternative option to gems for purchasing in-game storage. There’s no telling what the gold value of gems will be after the game’s release, but if the beta weekend’s average around 20 silver per gem holds true, it will cost 120 gold per bank expansion and 80 gold per bag slot, which are fairly ridiculous amounts. Edit: My numbers for the silver price for gems was incorrect, see below.

Alternatively, making the bag slots an account-wide purchase rather than a per-character purchase would save the eight-character player 8400 gems, making the grand total a much more reasonable sum.

Disclaimer:
All of this hinges on beta test gem prices for cash shop items, and involves an assumption on the cash price for gems. Either of those two things may change before release. My goal in bringing this to peoples’ attention is not to incite panicked nerd rage, but to make people aware of the potential cash cost in GW2’s gem store model of business, and the fact that it may be no less expensive than other games with monthly fees.

I call complete and total ignornace and BS

For me I'm pretty sure I can get by with only spending for the box for quite some time.

I also happen to be one of those crazy packrat types as well. I have no problem with cash shops so long as actual exclusive items that affect a character's ability to kill things are NOT sold in them. If people want to pay for frills I could care less. As a matter of fact, more power to them if it means I don't have to pay a subscription fee.

Yes, it does cost some degree of cash to maintain servers and bandwidth and support. But honestly, the rationale for subscriptions were supposed to be that they covered those things AND a fair degree of new content. The reality has been that in most games that I have seen or heard of, the amount of extra content generated in between paid expansions never came even remotely close to being equivalent in value to the amount of cash paid in subscriptions during that time frame. If you want an idea of just exactly how much profit can be generated from subs, go to the Blizzard website and look at their quarterly financial statements. It is pretty clear that most of the subscription fees are pure profit. After that, I find it really hard to personally justify spending that extra $15 per month.

As far as using in game gold to buy cash shop items... the questions really become how easy it will be to get gold and what exactly you can get with just gold in the game that is worth spending gold on. If gold isn't really all that useful then there probably won't be a lot of players buying gems with real money and then trying to resell them for gold. Keep in mind if ANet's goal is to marginalize the 3rd party gold sellers, pretty much all the perks will have to be cash shop items and the item per hour ratio of using in game gold to buy gems will have to be so bad that just paying the cash up from to ANet to buy the gems will be practically a no-brainer.

Only time in game at release will tell how it all works out though.

Originally posted by Azureal

DOOOOOOM!! DOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!

 

Beware the hidden costs! DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMM!!

 

Etc.

 

I like that on page 1 someone explained that this post is entirely trivial because you can buy gems from others players with the gold you make ingame, therefore you can get all the bag space and extra character slots you want and it still wont cost you anything more than the price of the box.

 

28 pages later....ROFLBBQWTFHELICOPTERLOLWUT

Thats because its a WAHHHHHHHHHH WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAhhhh QQ

Troll post. 

Sorry SWTOR stinks, not our problem.

Originally posted by Eir_S

Originally posted by DJJazzy
Pretty sure I paid 59.99 for the game and that's all I'll pay. So *shrug*

Wrong, you are obviously an irresponsible adult with no self control and ANet is manipulating you and everyone else and will earn at least $40 extra from each person who bought the box because of our crazy habits of wasting money, no arguments, go to your room!

This post brought to you by Sarcasm Productions.

lol.. oh now I get it, cheers :)

Yeah I think this is BS.  Honestly, I don't even see me getting the other three character slots.  5 seems like more than enough, there are only a few classes that I plan on leveling up to max level.  When I was in the beta, I reached level 26, and I didn't even fill up 1/4 of my bank space, I sold everything and put all my crafting mats into my collectibles tab (Which is a GODSEND by the way).  The amount of bag slots you have is also more than enough, especially because your bags are going to be getting bigger and bigger as you adventure. 

So yeah...OP's argument is void.

Ok!

I already tried to explain in my previous posting but it was obviously ignored by the "anti-gw2" people so I think I'll just answer to a few things I came across through the postings (yes I read all 29 pages partially yesterday and partially today cause I don't want to do anyone wrong):

- GW1 HAD free updates next to the STAND ALONE full games (Prophecies, Factions, Nightfall) and only ONE OPTIONALL Expansion (EotN).

- GW2 has NO REAL LIMITATIONS since you can get everything you need in the game with in game gold or through crafting.

The Standard edition with beta access and one in game item goes here in germany for 49€ which is a more than fair price compared to offline console games that are going for 69€ and offer you like 10-15 hours of gameplay or other mmos that are more frustrating than fun to say the least.

- GW2 DOESN'T offer Mounts with stats that makes you more powerful, Armors/Weapons that makes you more powerful and are not obtainable in the game or other stuff that would give the balance of the game a hit.

- The XP, Karma Boosts are optional and you DON'T need them cause leveling faster than someone else DOESN'T give you any real advantage!

To those that are whining about "limitations" because of the 5 character slots:

- Most MMOs give you 3 character slots by default with no option to purchase more, some gives you the opportunity to buy more and one MMO (FF11) even gave you only ONE character slot and you had to purchase if you wanted a second one.

- The Bag Slots are NOT a limitation since you can craft 8 slots bags yourself very early and very easily in the game as also craft bigger bags later for more space.

- The Bank Slots are plenty even they are used by all your characters and unless you gathering a armada of weapons and armors that you actually not even use, you WON'T need much space there.

I used only 1-2 slot of my bank across 3 characters in the betas only for mystic chests.

All weapons and armors I either sold them or dismantled them for materials, I crafted 8 slot bags for all my bag slots on my character in not time and had plenty of space.

Other drops are only stuff you sell to the npc for a few extra coins or stuff you can salvage materials from.

As a side note: PLEASE STOP comparing the GW2 item shop with these of free to play games or the ones from P2P that charge you extra cause it's nothing like that!

Inform yourself first by people that witnessed what's offered and do some research (even when it comes to GW1 since many off things were posted about it) before you post such arguments.

Thanks in advance!

Originally posted by Raekon

Ok!

- GW1 HAD free updates next to the STAND ALONE full games (Prophecies, Factions, Nightfall) and only ONE OPTIONALL Expansion (EotN).

All games are optional, what are you capsing for? And the free updates don't amount to any real content for the game. They were mostly all half assed stuff made to meet the promise of free content updates, not even 1 per full game.

- GW2 has NO REAL LIMITATIONS since you can get everything you need in the game with in game gold or through crafting.

Not 2 extra bag slots or bank slots, that'll be cash shop onry. Same with transmutation stones, Anet took those out of the karma vendors and they were cash shop only again.

- The XP, Karma Boosts are optional and you DON'T need them cause leveling faster than someone else DOESN'T give you any real advantage!

What is WvW? And why does it use what you have from PvE?

To those that are whining about "limitations" because of the 5 character slots:

- Most MMOs give you 3 character slots by default with no option to purchase more, some gives you the opportunity to buy more and one MMO (FF11) even gave you only ONE character slot and you had to purchase if you wanted a second one.

Extreme example from a Guild Wars Extremist. FF 11 does that because you can be all classes on one char. GW2 was planning to do it but, no money for ANet's pockets! (See original GW2 plans) and which mmo are you playing that allow you only 3 slots?

- The Bag Slots are NOT a limitation since you can craft 8 slots bags yourself very early and very easily in the game as also craft bigger bags later for more space.

You obviously did not try crafting,  with the going out and gathering the matterials and ETC. Which by the way take up more inventory space.

- The Bank Slots are plenty even they are used by all your characters and unless you gathering a armada of weapons and armors that you actually not even use, you WON'T need much space there.

Armor sets, crafting materials, armor upgrades....

 

- As a side note: PLEASE STOP comparing the GW2 item shop with these of free to play games or the ones from P2P that charge you extra cause it's nothing like that!

The game is going to cost $60. The cash shop is like that. Sorry, but the truth hurts.

i really dont understand what the problem is

if you really want it to change to a sub model nothing is stopping you from spending £15  a month in  the cash shop  so you can benifit from all the extra super items

in fact its probably the best game in the world for anyone who wants a  sub model  to play

as  according to some people here  its a pay 2 win game  the  £15 a month players will be so advantaged they  can beat half the population with the items they can buy in the cash shop(untill they look in the cash shop and see flaff)

so at least  the money your spending is acctualy giving you  somthing

myself im not buying anything

and if bag space and character slots become a problem the cheapest option is to buy a new account  and you get 5 character slots  and all the bag space with them

Originally posted by Raekon

Ok!

I already tried to explain in my previous posting but it was obviously ignored by the "anti-gw2" people so I think I'll just answer to a few things I came across through the postings (yes I read all 29 pages partially yesterday and partially today cause I don't want to do anyone wrong):

- GW1 HAD free updates next to the STAND ALONE full games (Prophecies, Factions, Nightfall) and only ONE OPTIONALL Expansion (EotN).

- GW2 has NO REAL LIMITATIONS since you can get everything you need in the game with in game gold or through crafting.

The Standard edition with beta access and one in game item goes here in germany for 49€ which is a more than fair price compared to offline console games that are going for 69€ and offer you like 10-15 hours of gameplay or other mmos that are more frustrating than fun to say the least.

- GW2 DOESN'T offer Mounts with stats that makes you more powerful, Armors/Weapons that makes you more powerful and are not obtainable in the game or other stuff that would give the balance of the game a hit.

- The XP, Karma Boosts are optional and you DON'T need them cause leveling faster than someone else DOESN'T give you any real advantage!

To those that are whining about "limitations" because of the 5 character slots:

- Most MMOs give you 3 character slots by default with no option to purchase more, some gives you the opportunity to buy more and one MMO (FF11) even gave you only ONE character slot and you had to purchase if you wanted a second one.

- The Bag Slots are NOT a limitation since you can craft 8 slots bags yourself very early and very easily in the game as also craft bigger bags later for more space.

- The Bank Slots are plenty even they are used by all your characters and unless you gathering a armada of weapons and armors that you actually not even use, you WON'T need much space there.

I used only 1-2 slot of my bank across 3 characters in the betas only for mystic chests.

All weapons and armors I either sold them or dismantled them for materials, I crafted 8 slot bags for all my bag slots on my character in not time and had plenty of space.

Other drops are only stuff you sell to the npc for a few extra coins or stuff you can salvage materials from.

As a side note: PLEASE STOP comparing the GW2 item shop with these of free to play games or the ones from P2P that charge you extra cause it's nothing like that!

Inform yourself first by people that witnessed what's offered and do some research (even when it comes to GW1 since many off things were posted about it) before you post such arguments.

Thanks in advance!

Aren't we all forgetting that those bag/bank space purchases are for your account as a whole and not for single characters? You buy additional bank space once and thats it.

Math doesn't help if the root assumptions are wrong.

Originally posted by fiontar

These are all still completely optional purchases.

1. Character slots.

Some people play alts, some don't. Some people play tons of alts, some people will be fine with five slots. The slots are optional and the purchase is permanent. Completely optional, don't know how to make it more clear.

A note needs to be made, however, as to what one character slot gets you in this game. Leveling to the cap is expected to take about 110 hours of actual adventuring. However, the game does not stop at the level cap. I have seen dev estimates of 300+ hours of PVE content for a single character. This is partially possible because of the system of scaling you down in level for lower level content, while still giving you rewards based on your true level. As you level in this game, the amount of viable, fun, rewarding content increases exponentially. You never outlevel content.

This is in sharp contrast to games where it takes maybe 40 hours to reach the level cap and then all you have to do is PvP and raids.

You can get a lot more original game play from one character slot in GW2 than in any other MMO I'm aware of.

2. Bag slots.

How many bag slots do you get for free in GW2? A back pack and four bag slots.

How many bag slots do you get for free in almost every other AAA MMORPG out there? A back pack and four bag slots.

You get, for free, the industry standard amount of bag slots. Optional slots are just that, optional. It's nice that you ate least have the option if you want it!

Many people in the WBE didn't get some of the important ways the game allows you to make the most of your bag space.

• Easy, cheap teleportation to way points always puts a vendor with in easy reach and return to your previous location easy as well. Plus, most Heart locations and other settlements have vendors right in proximity to where you will be hunting.
• Everyone should carry the best salvage kits that are economical for them to purchase. Unwanted gear you don't want to offer on the marketplace, plus other salvageable drops, should be salvaged in the field, which will break them down into stackable basic crafting components to save space.
• Those stacks of crafting mats you salvaged? Guess what? If you right click these, one option is to mail them to your bank, which has dedicated slots for each crafting item type. You don't even have to go back to your bank to store them!
• Another often missed feature. You can sell and buy items from the Marketplace from an icon in your user interface! Got some gear drops actually worth selling to other players? You can list them right in the field! The only thing you have to go to an actual Marketplace trading post for is to pick up your profits, or any items you've purchased!

You see? Extra bag slots are even more an optional convenience in GW2 than in a typical MMORPG!

 

3. Bank Slots.

 

The 30 included is about standard for an MMO.

 

Yes, it's space shared by your entire account, so it may get a little crowded. Bank slots may be something many people want to purchase, but it still remains optional.

 

Some factors that eleviate cramped account storage space?

• Being shared account storage, muling to other characters with excess bag space is cheap, easy and secure.
• As mentioned above, you have seperate bank space for all the various types of crafting materials, basic and rare, plus you even have slots for your collectible miniatures! None of these have to take up your normal vault space!
• It's easy to make a guild and you can belong to more than one guild. If you really want some more free vault space, when ever you aren't representing some other guild, represent your own vanity guild. It may take a while, but you can unlock a guild vault and have some addes storage space!
• All the info above on easy waypoints and access to the marketplace have a bearing on vault space. It's very easy to sell saleable items from any where in the world or to get to a vendor.
• The maketplace is global, not server wide, so any saleable item you get but don't want to store "for later" can just be sold, with a good chance that you will be able to just buy the same item, if you do end up needing it, in the future for about the same price. There just won't be as many things that you "absolutely have to hold onto in case you want/need them in the future", so those vault spaces can go a long way.

With so many tools that make the need for normal vault slot storage minimal, those 30 basic slots should go a lot further than they do in other games.

 

Remember, as well, that you can always save up gold to trade for gems on the market exchange and buy any of these things with out the need to spend cash! If you are lucky, another MMORPG gives you the option to buy extra slots for gold or cash. GW2 gives the option of buying them either way!

 

These are all truly optional, while also providing great value for those who do feel the need/desire to upgrade. It's really a win/win and an issue that just doesn't hold up under the weight of fact and reason.

 

 

For those who didn't make it to page three before skipping to the most recent posts in the thread, I just wanted to bring this one back around, since many questions I answered are being asked again (and again) and what I already wrote addresses a lot of concerns some are expressing.

Reminder, all these account upgrades are optional! The game is pretty generous with storage that is available with out buying more bag or vault slots from the cash shop, plus there are other features that even further alleviate inventory overcrowding issues, once you know about them.

A problem with the thread is that the title suggests that there are hidden costs to playing and enjoying the full game, but there are not. These account upgrades are nice for people who want them, but the game decidedly does not create a situation where you need them.

Might I actually spend a lot more than $60 over the course of a year playing the game? Of course I could. Just like a one year "movie a month" pass at a local movie theater might find me spending more than the $60 pass price if I also buy popcorn and a drink every time I use it! Of course, that isn't even a good analogy, because when I buy GW2, I don't just get to play the game for a year, but for the lifetime of the game!

Consider my original post to be a mini-FAQ for the thread. The FAQs are answered and the "issues" that are portrayed as mountains of hidden costs are really just a rather small mole hill of optional account upgrades.