I don't see this working. As a company, they have always wanted to do it the F2P way. They would make a huge profit, but lose a LARGE group of player base whom don't want to pay.

Even without the monthly fee, they were still able to add content until they started working on Guild Wars 2. I don't think any other online game, be it F2P or P2P has received more balance updates than GW2. Let's face it, that game had the best balance ever, even though it was far from perfect.

The initial Anet staff were from Blizzard and yes they did work on WoW.

In response to the topic, I'd much rather it stayed true to its roots and stayed f2p, you guys are forgetting the fact we still have to buy expansions, therefore its still p2p in a sense and they'll still make a ton of money. Of course the in-game store may be slightly larger, which isn't great but we'll live.

Oh and there were in-game GM's its just most of them have other accounts which don't have any indicators as to them being GM's.

 The initial anet staff did not work on wow. There would have been a very nasty do-not-compete clause in their contract if they left blizz while WoW was still being developed.

Two groups of developers split from Blizzard, one was Flagship Studios, the other was ANet. Don't remember the exact timing, but it was during a period where blizzards owner was looking to sell the company and there weren't many willing buyers. There was some financial insecurity during that point, so two groups of the Diablo II development team split off.

While the ANet ppl did work on Diablo II, they were long gone before work on WoW started.

I apologize if this has already been brought up (I've read most of the posts though).

The reason Anet was founded, well at least why several blizzard employees left blizzard, was because the devs who left the company wanted WoW to be free to play. Several sites have reported this and there a quotes that support this such as comments made by Rob Pardo. Many many moons ago, blizzard wanted to charge for battle net. Lets be honest guys, does anyone here really believe blizzard would have ever been as big of a success if that had happened?

 WoW cashed out on the blizzard name and reputation, and from a purely monetary point of view, they've done a great job with that game.

Some of you have been drinking the Koolaid. P2P has nothing to do with quality. How many games that are p2p have failed horribly? Yes WoW was incredibly successful, and many people attest that to the fact that the core game was great. On the other hand I've heard many times that (in the short run) patches/updates and expansions have completely sucked. I don't have first hand knowledge of exactly why some of the updates have been considered fairly bad. What this does tell me is that the original devs who helped create WoW are a major reason that WoW is successful. The following is a snide remark so feel free to ignore it: Where are those devs working now?

Guildwars had solid gameplay even during the beta. Yeah there was imbalances, bugs, not a whole lot of content. On the flip side, I was playing a game that was FUN. I didn't have to grind up to level 100 bazillion and get uber l00t of + Pi. Guildwars has been updated, in some way, on average several times a week since it was released. If anyone thinks complaining about devs not being involved is valid, I highly doubt they've had much hands on with the game.

To sum things up I'd like to a few points. First off the biggest excuse for a monthly fee, is server costs. Calling it an excuse might be slightly unfair, but honestly that is what it seems like to me. Secondly is the costs of supporting a dev team. Really? That 50$ I just handed you didn't cover that? To get around this first problem anet has used some very impressive (imho) networking coding to avoid having to use large amounts of bandwith. While there is no single sentence answer to explain why they don't need a monthly fee to support a dev team, I'll simply argue that their track record proves that they know what they are doing.

Guildwars 1: I thought it was great, and it clearly proved pay to play as a necessity is a lie.
Guildwars 2: Hoping its even better.

Originally posted by Gennadios

 The initial anet staff did not work on wow. There would have been a very nasty do-not-compete clause in their contract if they left blizz while WoW was still being developed.

Jeff Strain is a game programmer and one of the three founders of ArenaNet. He served ArenaNet and NCsoft as the leader of the Art and Production teams and President of Product Development respectively. He was previously the lead programmer of Blizzard's MMORPG World of Warcraft.

Um in other words WRONG
 
Edit: Oh and a side note. "f2p" as you guys like to call it makes sense. The p2p market is pretty full atm.

Yes they were from Blizzard. If you took two seconds to look it up online you would see.

back on topic....
 

I actually kind of agree. I would be more than happy to pay for a great game like Guild Wars... especially if it meant more content and stuff like that. Another reason, which may sound weird, is that a P2P model will filter out those that don't take the game that seriously and a bunch of a kids who's parents wouldn't normally pay... I know that's not a good thing from ArenaNets standpoint, but it is from mine.

Of course all that being said, I'm happy with how Guild Wars did with it's F2P model overall.. so Guild Wars 2 should be no different.

Originally posted by Telre

Originally posted by Gennadios

 The initial anet staff did not work on wow. There would have been a very nasty do-not-compete clause in their contract if they left blizz while WoW was still being developed.

Jeff Strain is a game programmer and one of the three founders of ArenaNet. He served ArenaNet and NCsoft as the leader of the Art and Production teams and President of Product Development respectively. He was previously the lead programmer of Blizzard's MMORPG World of Warcraft.

Um in other words WRONG
 
Edit: Oh and a side note. "f2p" as you guys like to call it makes sense. The p2p market is pretty full atm.

Um... please give me a source of what he's credited with from something other than wikipedia, there's a reason they're thinking of instituting a peer review board before submitting biographies. And try using smaller fonts. It hurts the eyes.

 Jeff strain founded ANet in the March of 2000, WoW was first announced by Blizzard in September 2001. He DID work as a programmer in Warcraft III, but since that didn't ship until 2k2 he must have pulled out of the WIII project long before completion.

Now, I don't know how the Blizzard ppl operate, but most game development houses don't have lead programmers working on two projects at once.

---

Originally posted by SaintViktor
If the Guild Wars franchise would go p2p there would be a mutiny. Though it looks like they will be raising money with book sales and I am sure they will keep on adding to the Guild Wars store. I'm 100% positive Arenanet will give us great bang for our buck and another quality game. Nothing to worry about!

---

I agree that people would be quite upset. I do, however, think I would almost prefer a P2P system. That keeps out some people I would not want to play with, for starters, and it would give Arenanet more money than even their online store for in-game items would provide. I know many people like this theme for Arenanet, and it is good to prove that you do not need to be super greedy to make profitable games. That is why these people left Blizzard in the first place. That is why there is the 50 gold purchase of a Xunlai chest at the beginning of a new characters. It is a sticking point with them. It is thematically crucial to them. And they still turn a profit.

I would like to see them get more money, but they would never do this for moral reasons, and I support this morality. They will certainly have an online store, and I will buy unlock packs and extra character slots and anything else they want to provide, because I want to give them my money. I want them to succeed. And I am certain they will, because they are clever and dedicated to gaming.

http://www.industrygamers.com/news/ncsoft-loses-jeff-strain-and-david-reid/

http://www.gamedaily.com/articles/news/ncsoft-loses-jeff-strain-and-david-reid/

http://www.mobygames.com/developer/sheet/view/developerId,9171/


Google ftw noob. Even the mmorpg post of this new article cites him as lead programmer. Enough sources?

edit: Another official news post, this one is from 2000 so its blizzards "unannounced project"
http://www.arena.net/press/triforge_games_will_be_new_venture_for_senior_blizzard_programmers

Originally posted by Telre

http://www.industrygamers.com/news/...

http://www.gamedaily.com/articles/...

http://www.mobygames.com/developer...


Google ftw noob. Even the mmorpg post of this new article cites him as lead programmer. Enough sources

On that note, gamedaly uses industrygamers as it's own source, meaning any poorly checked/wikipediad article from industrysource would very like end up in the gamedaily press release. Hell, the press release was even word for word identical.

Next, look a bit more closely at the mobygames bio - *gasp!* no WoW listing!

Now. I'm done with you, you're a troll and an idiot. Good day.

EDIT:

Finally something to concede.

The "unannouced project" part did seem relevant. The only problem is that it was an unannouced project in pre-production. There would be no actual code or gameplay to make an annoucement on for another year. He was never officialy credited /w WoW because there wasn't much to code at the time of departure.

There did appear to be some ideas that they took with them. But mostly they were things on the basic engine level, such as being able to ping and draw on the minimap.

There you have it. A single individual in the group of ppl that left had something to do /w WoW at the time of the exodus. Sleep easy.

Edit @ your next post

I'm not going to be upping my post count over this idocy. The argument is over HOW MUCH, if anything, the ANet team got from WoW development. I could give a sh*t over who was there at the time WoW was being developed. The point is they left during pre-production. The story bible would not have been complete, the game mechanics would not be fleshed out, all they'd have was a concept of a minimap that you could ping and doodle on, as well as several data transfer and login algorithms.

That kind of stuff could have been developed on it's own in short order, but it wouldn't really make or break the storyline or any of the gameplay aspects that gamers consider to be important.

The argument was first off whether or not any of the founders of anet where at blizzard when WoW was being made. Clearly this has already been proven, and YOU would be the idiot for try to argue that considering the amount of evidence that supports that being true. Secondly the argument has become whether or not any work was done on WoW specifically by Jeff Strain. There are many news posts articles and quotes that support that. Obviously he isn't credited with being the lead programmer because he wasn't at the time of release. This is incredibly common in the gaming industry, and someone with your far superior amount of knowledge I would think would know this. Honestly stfu stop being a dick and trying to pull the whole "oh i'll just derail threads cause I like wasting peoples time".

Originally posted by Telre

The argument was first off whether or not any of the founders of anet where at blizzard when WoW was being made. Clearly this has already been proven, and YOU would be the idiot for try to argue that considering the amount of evidence that supports that being true. Secondly the argument has become whether or not any work was done on WoW specifically by Jeff Strain. There are many news posts articles and quotes that support that. Obviously he isn't credited with being the lead programmer because he wasn't at the time of release. This is incredibly common in the gaming industry, and someone with your far superior amount of knowledge I would think would know this. Honestly stfu stop being a dick and trying to pull the whole "oh i'll just derail threads cause I like wasting peoples time".

Get over yourself and get back on topic.

F2P or P2P ... there are upsides to both... although it doesn't really matter since they have already said it will be F2P. However I rather they switch to P2P instead of adding a cash shop with ingame items and stuff.

*reads half of the topic*

No thank you. That really sums most of it up. Some people don't have enough money to pay for a game monthly, but they still enjoy playing it. If you're getting a quality game without a monthly fee... why pay the fee? You want more in-game storage but it costs money. Okay... buy the damn storage when you feel like it. I'm sure it would be cheaper than paying in X amount of $ monthly.

A $2 - $10 fee would be better than $15, I agree. But still. Quality game with no fee > quality game with a fee.

I have always known that one day Free To Play would take over Pay To Play. This is it guys and gals. I remember reading an article about the $15 subs that mmos charge montly and I think only about $3 of that monthly fee actually goes toward the updates / maintanence of the mmo.

It's true.. when you are dealing with companies like Blizzard and Final Fantasy... they have bigger companies to run and thus are using the subscriptions, I would imagine, to help with their company in other areas and not just the game. When you are dealing with a smaller company like ArenaNet.. they might not really need a reason to charge a monthly subscription... makes sense to me.

Originally posted by gameguy369

I know people will disagree, but am I the only one who actually wants this to have a monthly fee? I mean, even if they make it $5 or $10 rather than the general $15. I know this wont be a popular thought, but I always am willing to pay more if it means the company will be able to afford to GIVE more.

Throwing money at them in the hope that it might result in a better product is just ignorant.

It doesnt work like that with a commercial company. You are a potential customer, not an investor. That company wont show a potential customer the details of what they are working on or planning atm.

So if you then decide you are willing to pay a sub, you have no clue if that extra money will provide a better product. To know if it would be an improvement, you need to be able to compare to current project.

Originally posted by Korvenus

I have always known that one day Free To Play would take over Pay To Play. This is it guys and gals. I remember reading an article about the $15 subs that mmos charge montly and I think only about $3 of that monthly fee actually goes toward the updates / maintanence of the mmo.

the whole F2P taking over P2P arguments consist of F2P games that focus their revenue on cash shops. It's interesting to apply this argument to GW's F2P style, but I really don't think its too strong of an argument in that respect.

Originally posted by Korvenus

I have always known that one day Free To Play would take over Pay To Play. This is it guys and gals. I remember reading an article about the $15 subs that mmos charge montly and I think only about $3 of that monthly fee actually goes toward the updates / maintanence of the mmo.

I dont agree. I think that Guild Wars 2 will be an exception again. I think we will see more MMO's that use microtransitions on top of a montly fee. Ppl pay it, so companies will ask it. Somehow there are loads of players who think higher monthly payments automatically leads to higher content quality/quantity. Just take a look at the threads that discuss those new subscription models.

The way I see it, releasing a game of this quality as without-subs is either a motivation for the team, or a show of confidence that they can come up with new, sellable content (in the form of expansions and campaigns every few months, among others).

OP:
Well I disagree. I think it forces them to engage more to make quality content if they follow the same "expansion" method they had with GW.

I also feel it's a better way of handling the game since with subs theres no telling how much money you are going to earn. While with sales alone you can speculate better on how many sales you will do and therefore how much money you will have to move around with