damn really? ive found the exact opposite lol. i hated pve in swtor. the quests to just kill X dudes and/or collect something. the environments didnt look nice so it made the super long traveling even more boring (even with speeders). i pretty much lvled with pvp and dailies while continuing my story before i outleveled it. did probably 10 lvls of pve and got tired of it. gw2 on the other hand is fun as shit to explore and find random events and massive bosses. last night in the human starting area in the swamps there was a mountain sized shadow behemoth and about 60 people fighting him. when he died he dropped a massive chest (bigger than the pack mules) full of greens and other neat stuff. sure you could say that is just this games version of a raid/flashpoint but its not quite the same. took no coordination to group up... no sitting around watching LFG in chat or posting LFM need healer etc. just stumbled upon it while doing normal quests while there were a billion people in the area.

I think it depends a bit on play style.  I've just gone out and explored the world, and XP is randomly added to my bar.  Thats how I got to 25 so far.

stainer wrote on Aug 30^th, 2012 at 12:49pm:

Buy the game for $60, and you play for free for ever (so they say)

There is a cash shop, but all indications are that it is pure cosmetic and stuff like that, not p2w.  My guess is there will be expansions in the future that will be one off payments, but I have seen nothing to support this.

The way I looked at it was, I drop $60 to buy Halo:ODST which sucked balls, but still played it for about 40 hours and considered it money well spent.  GW2 could crash and burn and I would still consider my $60 well spent.  So far my experience is I would be willing to do the WoW model to play GW2 ($60+ a sub), but dont have to

"If we got to a point where sales continued to be off the charts, and it threatened the experience that players are having with the game, then we’d just turn off sales."  Great sentiment, but not sure how realistic that really is.  However, just the fact that he said it means a lot.
Interesting comment by a Dev

It might be true, because their numbers point to fantastic water marks so far
-Concurrent user access has been topping the 400,000 mark, even BEFORE the release to store shelves.
- 1 million units sold.

They are likely at a profit point where reputation and long term viability is more important then a few thousands short term sales.

Quote:


Is there a squelch feature, in case breaken starts telling stories?

So if I theoretically bought the box set, where the hell is everybody?

livefreeordie wrote on Aug 30^th, 2012 at 1:17pm:


This model (pay once, play forever) is not MMO sustainable.  A one time purchase works for a traditional dev shop where they release a few titles a year.  And pay today's bills with the revenue generated from yesterday's release.  Knowing that tomorrow's bills will be paid by the releases they are working on now. 

In an MMO, recurring revenue is the only way to go.  You can't pay for network/server techs, GM's, customer support, developers and admin on this scale off of new box sales at $60 a pop.  They are burning several million a month in salaries alone.  Let alone bandwidth, co-lo, facilities, hardware, etc.  You would need to sell 300-400k new boxes a year to keep the doors open.  That's not viable over a long term. 

They will have to get revenue from the existing customer base.  Not that it should be hard if they have a player base in the 1 million range.  Two new content relases a year that cost $10 per player each would keep the lights on.  $60 up front and $20 a year is dirt cheap for an MMO.

But they are leaving money on the table even with that model.  There are a lot of people who will pay for convenience items, or helpful game items, not just cosmetics.  P2Win always receives a good deal of hatred from the hardcore gaming crowd.  Many of whom are full of free time and low on cash.  But that will always be 1% or less of your player base.  The overwhelming majority will always be the casual/part-time gamer, many of which have more money than free time and don't mind spending a bit to increase their enjoyment of the game. 

I'm sure you will see those options appearing in the future.  Nobody in the gaming software business intentionally leaves money on the table.  Your window for profit is too small and your crowd is too fickle.

I started to play last night, Dragonbrand was full and out of the 3 medium capacity USA servers, I picked Anvil Rock.

Started a Human Guardian...might try some other classes. Everything feels so foreign and sluggish to me. I tried to make the controls DDOish but I may have just made it harder.

Invo space is severely limited...what is the fastest way to increase that? Should I bother with crafting this early?

23% of my d/l is done.

Felgor wrote on Aug 31^st, 2012 at 2:19am:


The depends on which control scheme you ran in DDO.  If you ran Classic then it will probably take a little getting used to.  If you ran what became the default after FtP went live then the only difference is your basic attack [as the rest are remapped to wherever you want them to be].
I assume from your question that you ran  Classic.
I ran the newer default, so the only thing that changed for me was the basic attack changed from left-mouse to mouse-thumb-1 [on a logitech g700].

You'll feel SUPER slow until you get used to it and/or find a way to keep swiftness up for longer periods.  Especially on a Charr or Norn. They're bigger, but move the same speed, which makes them *feel* even slower than they are comparatively.

Oh, and another newbie tip for you Fel.
Most MMOs are created to lead you around by the nose.
Gw2 is not created that way.  It was created to be explored.
People were complaining during testing/betas that there was not enough direction, so Hearts were added.  The never existed before that.  Keep this in mind.  This means that the people who run from Heart to Heart and are merely doing events that they happen to stumble across in progress are not seeing all of the content.  These people are then complaining that they're not leveling appropriately to the areas.
They don't realize that it isn't the game's fault, it's their own.
The Hearts were added as an afterthought, not as a guide for where to go.  They can give you an idea of what level you should be when you're in that area, and they can give you a clue where to go when you feel a bit lost, but that's all they should be seen as.
The game was meant to be explored, so don't play it as if it should be leading you around, because you will be disappointed if you do expect it to do so.

Oh, and events always take precedence over Hearts.  Many times, completing events will also fill a Heart in the area as well, but the reverse is not true.

It's not going to last though peeps will get bored and the numbers will dropped eventually, just like gw did, unless peeps decide they love grinding for "achievements" as endgame.

@Asheras Uh maybe look at gw it seem to have done just fine as b2p lol

Maxwell Edison wrote on Aug 31^st, 2012 at 10:35am:



I don't mean it will die out in like 5 years or shit but most likely the same thing that happened to swtor will happen again is all.

Guess i should have been more clear for the stupid people. Carry on with the silly science shit that every 10 year old knows if it makes you feel smarter though.

Maxwell Edison wrote on Aug 31^st, 2012 at 10:41am:


Stop projecting