ArenaNet: We’ve Learned Nothing

I have rarely felt so validated and disappointed at the same time. When ArenaNet announced its first expansion to their sole active franchise, I was already skeptical about how their plan would measure out in practice. Since the launch of the unfinished Guild Wars 2 several years ago, the game’s overall direction and priorities for its developers have been wildly inconsistent. Original efforts toward fixing an unbalanced game were quickly ignored to try and stem the loss of players by rapidly adding new content at an impossible cycle, which of course quickly failed. After a year of hits and misses from the development team, the Heart of Thorns expansion was announced which will add an entirely new avenue of distraction from things that are still incomplete since the game’s launch.

New content is good, generally, and it’s no surprise that ArenaNet is taking the approach that they are to their latest feature. As much as I’d be thrilled to see the development team take a broad sweep over their existing game before sprinting ever forward, I don’t expect them to as they’ve never been very good at fixing things that are already deemed “good enough.” Supposing that we can accept their contentment with mediocrity, what really stands as a thorn in this expansion business is one particular core feature that has been missing since launch and here is being included as an expansion exclusive: guild halls. This isn’t just fun bonus content, this is a pillar of the game’s main community system whose implementation is designed to require players to upgrade whether they’re interested in the actual new content or not. Guild leaders will need to purchase the expansion to unlock the content for their guild, and individual members will also need to upgrade to use it. Instead, guild halls should have been added to the core game with additional halls and cosmetic effects as part of the expansion.

What really gets me about the guild hall thing, aside from the nickel-and-diming that’s sure to come with it, is the fact that the capability to add this feature has existed since launch. The Hall of Monuments Portal Stone housed the ability to instantly travel to, and return from, an arbitrary location like a guild hall, and each race’s home area demonstrated the ability to create a community instance with the ability to manage resources. Even before launch the home instances had player-customized merchants (dye traders), and now personal resource nodes can be added there as well. Assuredly the release of guild halls in the upcoming expansion won’t stop there, but what I’m saying is that the game mechanics to support even a rudimentary version of this basic feature have been in place for long enough that segregating a proper guild instance into an expansion is particularly poor form.

But the real demonstration of ArenaNet’s utterly complete incompetence comes with their announcement that the expansion is now available for pre-purchase: inseparable from the core game. In fact, ArenaNet isn’t even selling just the base game anymore. The lowest package you can buy anymore is the $50 bundle of game + expansion. Already have the game and just want to upgrade? Still $50. What if you’re a new player and just want to try the game without the expansion? $50 unless you find a boxed copy. Nowhere is there an option to just buy the expansion by itself; not on the Guild Wars 2 website, not in-game, not anywhere. Instead, ArenaNet is insisting that if you want to show your support and pre-purchase their expansion content ahead of even a release date, you must do so by buying something you already have again. Does this give you a free copy of Guild Wars 2 to give to a friend? No. You’re literally just paying $30 for nothing and $20 for an expansion. And that’s the cheapest option. Want the extra character slot that came free with every previous expansion for Guild Wars 1 so you can try the new profession? $75.

On that note, let’s break down the prices on the legacy games. Each of the three original campaigns for Guild Wars 1 retailed at $39.99. Bear in mind that these were stand-alone games and could be played independently or together with the others, so in no case were you buying something you already had. You were paying for an entirely new continent with dozens of new zones, countless new mechanics and enemies, two new professions, hundreds of new skills, and a brand new primary story complete with voice acting and gorgeous cutscenes. When Eye of the North was released, the single expansion to the original franchise, it retailed for $29.99 as it relied on at least one of the base campaigns to play, but it came with dozens of new dungeons and areas, over 150 new skills, and some of the best story content the game had ever offered. Each campaign also included two free character slots (a $20 value) standard so players could try the new professions introduced with each campaign. All the while, improvements made with each release benefited the core game whether you bought the new content or not. Now with Guild Wars 2, you’re likely paying $50 for content you already have (the core game), zero new character slots, access to a single new zone, and features that were deliberately omitted from the core game to provide an incentive to upgrade later. Talk about night and day.

Unfortunately there is nothing here that I didn’t see coming since the announcement of this expansion. At most the expansion should be valued at $25, plus a free character slot. Instead, the shamelessness with which ArenaNet routinely abuses their customers is just appalling. What started out as a promising game that has been neglected in direction since release is now nothing more than an embarrassing joke. Make Mike O’Brien’s day by buying the pet rock miniature so he can laugh at what a sucker you are. Or just buy the Heart of Thorns expansion and zerg on with all the other roleplaying adolescents in your single new zone. You’ll be a sucker all the same.

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