Originally posted by Xthos

I can't sleep....I keep having nightmares....I bought 2 copies for me and the wife, and I go to the bank and I withdraw $120, but for some reason I get it all in quarters...So I put the money in both my front pockets, and I start to walk home....The quarters keep falling out of my pockets as I walk, but I cannot stop it, and when I get home, it is all GONE!

 

I think I will need medication, I just do not know what I will do, I sure don't want to fall back to sleep and have to relive that nightmare!

 

I do not know if I will ever recover from hitting that purchase button.

 

I can help you with this !

Very nicely written, well done!  Totally agree its all about enjoying the experiance and having fun

Originally posted by Enforcer71

Very nicely written, well done!  Totally agree its all about enjoying the experiance and having fun

Excellent Signature have you.

" Charile Mike "

Originally posted by Elsabolts

Originally posted by Enforcer71

Very nicely written, well done!  Totally agree its all about enjoying the experiance and having fun

Excellent Signature have you.

" Charile Mike "

Thanks! :-)

Edit

Originally posted by ammonite

Originally posted by Rohn

Originally posted by slicknslim88

Anybody who has bought a Capcom game, EA game, or a Blizzard game in the last several years has bought an unfinished game.  It's nothing new in today's gaming world anymore unfortunately.

So, the question is: Why is it evil when other game companies do it, but awesome when ANet does it?

I've been asking myself that a lot recently, over a range of things (i.e. "P2W" cash shop, instanced e-sport PvP, EZ mode instant gratification 80s for PvP, easy fast travel, extremely fast leveling, meaningless game world, etc).

 

There is no Pay to Win Cash shop; what game are you talking about?, and please educate us as to what you mean by 'meaningless game world'.

Yeah I pretty much ripped this guy a new one in a previous post.  Nothing that he said makes sense.

On the plus side there is a Beta experience awaiting pre-purchasers so it's not so bad.

I too, have been purchasing unfinished games in the past and gave developers a lot of leeway to improve on them post-launch in some cases, but I rather prefer to know how unfinished it is before they ask me for my money with an NDA still in place.

Thing is, ... there's different kinds of "unfinished":

There's "still needs some polish here and there" unfinished, there's "really hope they will fix this soon" unfinished, there's "X has been added as an afterthought" unfinished, and there's "gamebreakingly bad design decisions that will never be turned around" unfinished. (Like the artificially faction seperated zone design of WAR and SWTOR: very development intensive stuff that can't be undone by mere patching).

Despite Anet being a developer with a solid track record and me finding GW1 at launch a very polished game (even though it "wasnt for me"), we can only take their word for it and go by what we've got, information wise, ... but that doesn't rule out unfinishedness of any category quite yet. There's always crucial stuff making or breaking a game that you can't foresee with this kind of roll-out model (as opposed to what ArcheAge is doing with long open betas long before launch, and truly making the game sell itself, to give an example).

Models like these fuel the fires of the skeptics, and rightly so, I think.

Originally posted by OldManFunk

Originally posted by Scripture1

If I wasn't going to do Tera, then please someone tell me how many consol games have you played $60-$80 for and then once your finished it in about a month you return it for a trade in and they give you like $20 back for the game? either way if you're a gamer your going to support your addic.... Your hobby !COUGH!

Let them keep talking about how foolish we are about buying into GW2 and we'll continue to post about the shiny stuff we get from the CS, that way both side are happy, no?

I'm looking at a stack of PS3 games that I never play right now. I've got 24 games. Each one cost between $40 and $60. The PS3 cost me $300. I've spent over $1300 on games and the console without ever knowing if I'd like the games or how long I'd play them. It never even crossed my mind that I should demand a free trial before buying any of it.

 

I'm feeling better and better about this $60 purchase.

You didn't read any articles or reviews of them prior to buying? Single-player reviews are far more accurate than MMORPGs due to the insane time investment needed to acquire a good review of a MMORPG.

Originally posted by slicknslim88

Originally posted by ammonite

Originally posted by Rohn

Originally posted by slicknslim88

Anybody who has bought a Capcom game, EA game, or a Blizzard game in the last several years has bought an unfinished game.  It's nothing new in today's gaming world anymore unfortunately.

So, the question is: Why is it evil when other game companies do it, but awesome when ANet does it?

I've been asking myself that a lot recently, over a range of things (i.e. "P2W" cash shop, instanced e-sport PvP, EZ mode instant gratification 80s for PvP, easy fast travel, extremely fast leveling, meaningless game world, etc).

 

There is no Pay to Win Cash shop; what game are you talking about?, and please educate us as to what you mean by 'meaningless game world'.

Yeah I pretty much ripped this guy a new one in a previous post.  Nothing that he said makes sense.

About Pay To Win, I'll requote myself:

To know whether or not it is "P2W", the competitions of interest need to be defined. 

For many people, PvP is the only competition of interest.  Structured PvP is definitely not P2W since it  puts every participant on an equal ground skill, gear and traitwise. As for World vs World: we know that there are certain buffs that can be gained through buying influence through gold, which can be gained through item mall currency; however, we do not know how hard or easy it will be for guilds to grind to gain the same buffs. If it is a matter of weeks or even months of grind required to catch-up to the spenders, and the difference if buff-power is significant, then it can be considered to be pay-to-win.

Nevertheless, for many people, PvP is not the only competition of interest.  The are other types of competitions which may interest people: PvE-related competitions, vanity, wealth, crafting, etc.

For vanity and wealth: depending on the form of those competitions, they are definitely pay-to-win.

Originally posted by TwoThreeFour

You didn't read any articles or reviews of them prior to buying? Single-player reviews are far more accurate than MMORPGs due to the insane time investment needed to acquire a good review of a MMORPG.

Nope, I used the tried and true, "That one has great cover art!" method. That's also how I found treasures like Zelda and Metroid for the NES.

I think I spent $60 on Little Big Planet after hearing it was "cute". Little Big Planet was a blast for a few weeks, then it got old and I stopped playing.

Similar for Black Ops... I liked CoD and wanted Black Ops. I never read or heard anything about it before I bought it. It was a lot of fun until the hacks started ruining matches. I haven't played it in a long time.

The amount of content that I'll be getting from GW2 for that same $60 is staggering... and if I get bored and stop playing it in 2 or 3 weeks (highly unlikely since I'm into MMOs and know a great deal about GW2) then I'll still not be any worse off than I am with the majority of my PS3 games.

I should really sell my old PS3 games... but I keep thinking to myself that maybe I'll feel like playing them again some day.

Originally posted by TwoThreeFour

Originally posted by slicknslim88

Originally posted by ammonite

Originally posted by Rohn

Originally posted by slicknslim88

Anybody who has bought a Capcom game, EA game, or a Blizzard game in the last several years has bought an unfinished game.  It's nothing new in today's gaming world anymore unfortunately.

So, the question is: Why is it evil when other game companies do it, but awesome when ANet does it?

I've been asking myself that a lot recently, over a range of things (i.e. "P2W" cash shop, instanced e-sport PvP, EZ mode instant gratification 80s for PvP, easy fast travel, extremely fast leveling, meaningless game world, etc).

 

There is no Pay to Win Cash shop; what game are you talking about?, and please educate us as to what you mean by 'meaningless game world'.

Yeah I pretty much ripped this guy a new one in a previous post.  Nothing that he said makes sense.

 

About Pay To Win, I'll requote myself:

 

 

To know whether or not it is "P2W", the competitions of interest need to be defined. 

 

For many people, PvP is the only competition of interest.  Structured PvP is definitely not P2W since it  puts every participant on an equal ground skill, gear and traitwise. As for World vs World: we know that there are certain buffs that can be gained through buying influence through gold, which can be gained through item mall currency; however, we do not know how hard or easy it will be for guilds to grind to gain the same buffs. If it is a matter of weeks or even months of grind required to catch-up to the spenders, and the difference if buff-power is significant, then it can be considered to be pay-to-win.

 

Nevertheless, for many people, PvP is not the only competition of interest.  The are other types of competitions which may interest people: PvE-related competitions, vanity, wealth, crafting, etc.

 

For vanity and wealth: depending on the form of those competitions, they are definitely pay-to-win.

 

I can see this making sense.  Like the part where if somebody is competing with somebody for vanity items, and they dont want to spend money to get them.  They can always save up gold to buy gems to buy them off the cash shop, but they won't get them as fast as ones that are willing to fork up the dough.  But i'm pretty sure there is a very miniscule amount of people who are getting this game that are going to be jaded by the fact that some people get to have a different looking cloak that they paid for, while they have to save up gold.

It's also WAY too early to tell if the gem shop is goin to affect the Mists in any way shape or form.  It may affect it in small doses, but hardly anything that is P2W.  It's all about teamwork in the MIsts, I don't think a small special buff that somebody has that they managed to get from selling gems through the trading post is going to have a drastic effect on it.

Again though, too early to tell.

Honestly though, this is pretty off topic, and this topic has been beaten to death.  So I have to say something ON topic...

I stand by my purchase of GW2 for the beta weekends.  Woot!

Originally posted by OldManFunk

Originally posted by TwoThreeFour

You didn't read any articles or reviews of them prior to buying? Single-player reviews are far more accurate than MMORPGs due to the insane time investment needed to acquire a good review of a MMORPG.

Nope, I used the tried and true, "That one has great cover art!" method. That's also how I found treasures like Zelda and Metroid for the NES.

 

I think I spent $60 on Little Big Planet after hearing it was "cute". Little Big Planet was a blast for a few weeks, then it got old and I stopped playing.

 

Similar for Black Ops... I liked CoD and wanted Black Ops. I never read or heard anything about it before I bought it. It was a lot of fun until the hacks started ruining matches. I haven't played it in a long time.

 

The amount of content that I'll be getting from GW2 for that same $60 is staggering... and if I get bored and stop playing it in 2 or 3 weeks (highly unlikely since I'm into MMOs and know a great deal about GW2) then I'll still not be any worse off than I am with the majority of my PS3 games.

I should really sell my old PS3 games... but I keep thinking to myself that maybe I'll feel like playing them again some day.

 

 

Then I do understand why you feel there is such a tremendous leap from your previous PS3 purchases and the one of GW2. However, I hope you also can understand why other people feel there is too much lack of information to warrant a prepurchase. 

My largest objection against prepurchases is that  I believe they give companies significantely more incentive to be sneaky and deceptive as opposed to cases where there are no prepurchases.

Originally posted by slicknslim88

Originally posted by TwoThreeFour

(quotes)

 

About Pay To Win, I'll requote myself:

 

 

To know whether or not it is "P2W", the competitions of interest need to be defined. 

 

For many people, PvP is the only competition of interest.  Structured PvP is definitely not P2W since it  puts every participant on an equal ground skill, gear and traitwise. As for World vs World: we know that there are certain buffs that can be gained through buying influence through gold, which can be gained through item mall currency; however, we do not know how hard or easy it will be for guilds to grind to gain the same buffs. If it is a matter of weeks or even months of grind required to catch-up to the spenders, and the difference if buff-power is significant, then it can be considered to be pay-to-win.

 

Nevertheless, for many people, PvP is not the only competition of interest.  The are other types of competitions which may interest people: PvE-related competitions, vanity, wealth, crafting, etc.

 

For vanity and wealth: depending on the form of those competitions, they are definitely pay-to-win.

 

I can see this making sense.  Like the part where if somebody is competing with somebody for vanity items, and they dont want to spend money to get them.  They can always save up gold to buy gems to buy them off the cash shop, but they won't get them as fast as ones that are willing to fork up the dough.  But i'm pretty sure there is a very miniscule amount of people who are getting this game that are going to be jaded by the fact that some people get to have a different looking cloak that they paid for, while they have to save up gold.

It's also WAY too early to tell if the gem shop is goin to affect the Mists in any way shape or form.  It may affect it in small doses, but hardly anything that is P2W.  It's all about teamwork in the MIsts, I don't think a small special buff that somebody has that they managed to get from selling gems through the trading post is going to have a drastic effect on it.

Again though, too early to tell.

Honestly though, this is pretty off topic, and this topic has been beaten to death.  So I have to say something ON topic...

I stand by my purchase of GW2 for the beta weekends.  Woot!

I don't know if the group of people who care about other forms of competition, other than the PvP ones, will be that small. However, I can very well imagine that many of them will be able to appriciate the strengths of GW2 in such way that the shortcomings seem small in comparison. GW2 is doing what has been the norm among other genres and should be the norm among MMORPGs: to refuse to blatently clone a competitor. 

No matter how often it is repeated, the payment method remains to be an important aspect in the choice between prepurchasing and not prepurchasing. At least, rationally, it should be.

Originally posted by Luc32

- Wife : Honey, let’s go down to the Caribbean for the holidays

- Me : Sure, do you have any place in mind ?

- Wife : Well, I don’t know, we can check on the net for resorts ?

- Me : Ok, let’s go have a look

- Wife : Oh !!! look at this one, it looks amazing and it only 2000$ per person

- Me : Hmmmm let’s check some reviews first

- Wife : See !! the reviews are amazing and the pictures on the site are beautiful … I want to go, let’s book the trip …

- Me : But honey, we don’t really know a lot about that resort, we can’t rely only on stranger’s comments to make our decision … its 4000$ in total …

- Wife : I don’t care, it looks amazing … I want to go, let’s book it RIGHT NOWWWW !!!!

- Me : Ok, if you say so …

 

4000$ gone in just a few minutes on a product we know almost nothing about besides pictures from a web site, videos from YouTube and some reviews from complete strangers, does that ring a bell ?? If millions of people (I gather that people all around the world do go on vacation once in a while) are willing to just give their hard earn money IN ADVANCE for a 7 day trip that LOOKS LIKE paradise but might end up going either way (good/bad), I think dishing out 60$ for a game that LOOKS LIKE fun but might end up going either way (god/bad) is not that unreasonable … My wife and I do this twice a year actually and believe me, there were times where we regretted it BUT other times where whe had the time of our lives ...

 

So, yes, I pre-purchased GW2 and if I come to regret it … to bad so sad, ill just move on to better things.

The problem is lack of discipline and letting your emotions dictate your decisions rather than logic and rationality. It is a dangerous path to go and while it may seem harmless in leisure activities, it encourages companies to abuse them.

Originally posted by TwoThreeFour

Originally posted by Luc32

- Wife : Honey, let’s go down to the Caribbean for the holidays

- Me : Sure, do you have any place in mind ?

- Wife : Well, I don’t know, we can check on the net for resorts ?

- Me : Ok, let’s go have a look

- Wife : Oh !!! look at this one, it looks amazing and it only 2000$ per person

- Me : Hmmmm let’s check some reviews first

- Wife : See !! the reviews are amazing and the pictures on the site are beautiful … I want to go, let’s book the trip …

- Me : But honey, we don’t really know a lot about that resort, we can’t rely only on stranger’s comments to make our decision … its 4000$ in total …

- Wife : I don’t care, it looks amazing … I want to go, let’s book it RIGHT NOWWWW !!!!

- Me : Ok, if you say so …

 

4000$ gone in just a few minutes on a product we know almost nothing about besides pictures from a web site, videos from YouTube and some reviews from complete strangers, does that ring a bell ?? If millions of people (I gather that people all around the world do go on vacation once in a while) are willing to just give their hard earn money IN ADVANCE for a 7 day trip that LOOKS LIKE paradise but might end up going either way (good/bad), I think dishing out 60$ for a game that LOOKS LIKE fun but might end up going either way (god/bad) is not that unreasonable … My wife and I do this twice a year actually and believe me, there were times where we regretted it BUT other times where whe had the time of our lives ...

 

So, yes, I pre-purchased GW2 and if I come to regret it … to bad so sad, ill just move on to better things.

The problem is lack of discipline and letting your emotions dictate your decisions rather than logic and rationality. It is a dangerous path to go and while it may seem harmless in leisure activities, it encourages companies to abuse them.

If people followed your logic, absolutly nothing would ever get done.

Every move a person makes would require a dozen extra steps, and lots more time, I doubt all those extra steps are nessecary, sometimes sure, but most of the time... total waste.

Originally posted by TwoThreeFour

Then I do understand why you feel there is such a tremendous leap from your previous PS3 purchases and the one of GW2. However, I hope you also can understand why other people feel there is too much lack of information to warrant a prepurchase. 

 

My largest objection against prepurchases is that  I believe they give companies significantely more incentive to be sneaky and deceptive as opposed to cases where there are no prepurchases.

Oh, I totally get that... I think it's a really bad idea to prepurchase games. That's why I made the thread... I did something that I wouldn't normally ever consider doing. I'm fairly confident that I made the right decision based on research and my personal experience with NCSoft and ArenaNet but absolutely don't begrudge anyone who would want to hold off until the game has actually been released before making a decision to purchase. It's absolutely true that NCSoft and ArenaNet could take my money and run, but it'd be the last time they got anything out of me and I'd be sure to tell the world. I think that they have a whole lot more to lose than I do.

Take any other game tho (except Diablo 3, again because I've got similar feelings about it and Blizzard... and would be more into it if I didn't think GW2 would take up all of my time)... there's no way I'd preorder EQ6 or WoW2 or SW:XYZ without being equally assured that I would eventually spend the money on the game any way and thought I could be reasonably assured of the outcome.

Whenever I think of prepurchasing I think of Vanguard... "Buy a lifetime subscription for a lot of money and we'll improve your dream game over the years!" People were whispering about things like unstable servers and a largely incomplete game while they rushed to sign people up to lifetime accounts. The game simply wasn't playable when they sold it to the public.

I realize that the NDA is still up for GW2, but people have already leaked info about the game if you know where to look. The worst I've seen is the cash shop may have items that impact PvE and possibly WvWvW gameplay. I figure it doesn't matter all that much because they could've just as easily started the game with nothing but pure fluff in the cash shop and added buy-to-win cash shop items after selling boxes if all they cared about was collecting box sales. It will be impossible to judge the full impact of the cash shop items on the game until weeks after the game is released and I know that I'm going to buy the game once it is released... so it wasn't a difficult decision for me to make.

If GW2 had a monthly fee then I would not have prepurchased it. $60 + cash shop + monthly fee would've been too much of an investment without knowing exactly what I'm getting... but I'll swing the $60 and take a chance so that I can get into the beta weekends... and I promise to report anything and everything NEGATIVE that I come across to help everyone else make an informed decision.

Originally posted by Luc32

- Wife : Honey, let’s go down to the Caribbean for the holidays

- Me : Sure, do you have any place in mind ?

- Wife : Well, I don’t know, we can check on the net for resorts ?

- Me : Ok, let’s go have a look

- Wife : Oh !!! look at this one, it looks amazing and it only 2000$ per person

- Me : Hmmmm let’s check some reviews first

- Wife : See !! the reviews are amazing and the pictures on the site are beautiful … I want to go, let’s book the trip …

- Me : But honey, we don’t really know a lot about that resort, we can’t rely only on stranger’s comments to make our decision … its 4000$ in total …

- Wife : I don’t care, it looks amazing … I want to go, let’s book it RIGHT NOWWWW !!!!

- Me : Ok, if you say so …

 

4000$ gone in just a few minutes on a product we know almost nothing about besides pictures from a web site, videos from YouTube and some reviews from complete strangers, does that ring a bell ?? If millions of people (I gather that people all around the world do go on vacation once in a while) are willing to just give their hard earn money IN ADVANCE for a 7 day trip that LOOKS LIKE paradise but might end up going either way (good/bad), I think dishing out 60$ for a game that LOOKS LIKE fun but might end up going either way (god/bad) is not that unreasonable … My wife and I do this twice a year actually and believe me, there were times where we regretted it BUT other times where whe had the time of our lives ...

 

So, yes, I pre-purchased GW2 and if I come to regret it … to bad so sad, ill just move on to better things.

I don't think people really just purchase vacation packages online like there.  Generally with resorts you have a travel agency set everything up for you.  Since the travel agent is setting it all up it assures quality.  You are not buying a Caribbean vacation you are buying a Caribbean vacation package from X agency.

The opinion's of complete strangers are the ones you should be most interested in.  Strangers have no reason to lie to you and unless they are compulsive liars there is no reason not to believe them.

A better analogy would be this.

Me: Hey Baby let's go to the Bahamas!

Wife: Sounds great!  There is a package here for $1000 or we can spend $1000 for a hotel that isn't built yet!

Me: Honey, a hotel that isn't built yet, are you serious?

Wife: We can't choose what time we go down and they'll get us there when it is finished.

Me: But they're the same price...

Wife: But what if the new hotel is better?

Me: Maybe we should wait for it to be done.....

Wife: NO I WANT TO HAVE A GREAT VACATION WHY DON'T YOU LOVE ME I'M GOING TO GO CHEAT ON YOU NOW

Me: ...

A pre-purchase is not a regular pratice in other markets, despite other people trying to claim otherwise.

Originally posted by Adalwulff

Originally posted by TwoThreeFour

Originally posted by Luc32

- Wife : Honey, let’s go down to the Caribbean for the holidays

- Me : Sure, do you have any place in mind ?

- Wife : Well, I don’t know, we can check on the net for resorts ?

- Me : Ok, let’s go have a look

- Wife : Oh !!! look at this one, it looks amazing and it only 2000$ per person

- Me : Hmmmm let’s check some reviews first

- Wife : See !! the reviews are amazing and the pictures on the site are beautiful … I want to go, let’s book the trip …

- Me : But honey, we don’t really know a lot about that resort, we can’t rely only on stranger’s comments to make our decision … its 4000$ in total …

- Wife : I don’t care, it looks amazing … I want to go, let’s book it RIGHT NOWWWW !!!!

- Me : Ok, if you say so …

 

4000$ gone in just a few minutes on a product we know almost nothing about besides pictures from a web site, videos from YouTube and some reviews from complete strangers, does that ring a bell ?? If millions of people (I gather that people all around the world do go on vacation once in a while) are willing to just give their hard earn money IN ADVANCE for a 7 day trip that LOOKS LIKE paradise but might end up going either way (good/bad), I think dishing out 60$ for a game that LOOKS LIKE fun but might end up going either way (god/bad) is not that unreasonable … My wife and I do this twice a year actually and believe me, there were times where we regretted it BUT other times where whe had the time of our lives ...

 

So, yes, I pre-purchased GW2 and if I come to regret it … to bad so sad, ill just move on to better things.

The problem is lack of discipline and letting your emotions dictate your decisions rather than logic and rationality. It is a dangerous path to go and while it may seem harmless in leisure activities, it encourages companies to abuse them.

 

If people followed your logic, absolutly nothing would ever get done.

Every move a person makes would require a dozen extra steps, and lots more time, I doubt all those extra steps are nessecary, sometimes sure, but most of the time... total waste.

Really? Can you show how nothing would ever get done that way? I can give you an example of how something gets done: you are feeling like staying in bed in the morning, but checking the clock you know that you've slept enough and you know that you would be able to manage the whole day just fine if you chose to get up from your bed. Logically, the correct choice is to get up, while the emotional one is to wait until you no longer feel like staying in bed.