The cash shop and ominous math.

[Kitsune]

I'm a bit nervous about the cash shop after seeing it for myself this weekend.

There are eight classes and five character slots: Buy three slots if you want to have each class.

There are seven bag spaces, only four are unlocked: Buy three bag unlocks per character for eight characters.

There are eight bank slots, only one is unlocked: Buy seven bank expansions.

So to get full character access and full storage, you pay for three slots, twenty-four bag unlocks, and seven bank unlocks.

If the current gem prices go live, that's 800x3 + 400x24 + 600x7 or 16200 gems, which is looking ominously like $162, as most cash shops treat one dollar as 100 of their currency.  You can pay for a year's subscription to WoW for that.

[Kageru]

Yep... it's pretty worrying and the price they set will have a big impact. It could end up effectively being the first f2p game with a box price.

Got the same feeling when it gave me "guardian shoulders" as my iconic character item, which of course is quickly replaced. So I looked up appearance customisation and the higher levels require cash. Not even Aion goes that far in monetizing services.

[Numtini]

The only one that seems particularly mandatory to me is the bag slots. GW1 charges for bank slots and character slots and I've never bothered to upgrade either--though I do have I think a couple of  extra bank and character slots for events and expansions.

[Modern Angel]

You can also turn game money into "real" money for the store.

[Simond]

You can pay for a year's subscription to WoW for that.

It's almost like that's the plan, or something.

[Kageru]

By buying gems with in-game gold which will quickly get inflated to silly numbers.

It looks, from the leak I saw (here) that the plan is 400 gems for 5$ but it has the extra slots under "account" which could mean it is across all characters (as it is for LotRO).

That would be 800x3 + 400x3 + 600x7 = 7800 points or about 100$. Which still seems like quite a bit, though I guess you could argue at least some of that is not mandatory. Though I tend to think bags are so I'd hope that amount is per account not per character.

Selling dyes and mini-pets on a common / uncommon random system (quite possibly with rares) is another good way to extort money out of the OCD crowd.

[Threash]

though I guess you could argue at least some of that is not mandatory.

You could argue that absolutely none of it is mandatory.

[Tmon]

They do some fairly cool things to mitigate the need for on character storage.  You can list an item on the AH from anywhere in the world by right clicking it and choosing sell on the trading post, you can also right click on crafting materials and send them to your vault and finally there is the option to email an item to another player.  

[Lantyssa]

With the collections tabs, bank space really isn't as large a problem as it could be.  (And I do love my bank space.)

We'll see how I feel once I have a dozen different outfits.

[Kitsune]

Bear in mind that that bank you see is it for your storage space, for all of your characters.  Good luck fitting the stuff from eight characters into those thirty slots!  In Warcraft my banks were typically overflowing with over 100 slots per character; some of that will be alleviated by the dedicated craft material slots, but I still was using plenty of space for random nicknacks, equipment, junk.  People, especially people with lots of alts, are gonna tear through those bank spaces like paper.

[Threash]

This whole "eight character" thing isn't common is it? i played WoW for like four years and had one character and a couple low level alts.  Every single other MMO has been one character only.  I plan on playing this without spending a single cent on the cash shop and don't expect to have any problems.

[Merusk]

In my experience between 3-5 characters is pretty common unless you're super casual or super hardcore with limited time.  Those suffering severely from alt-itis might have more but it's only regularly around that number.  Even 'hardass' raiders have an alt or two in WoW to blow time on or re-run low-level stuff.

I don't think there's been any real numbers released from game companies on the phenom.

[kildorn]

The price assumption shouldn't be held ($1 = 100 fozzledollars), there was a post on their beta forums about it, saying they'd put a blog up shortly to explain it.

As they were explaining, the prices are.. fluid. Meaning if everyone is buying gems everywhere, the price goes up. If nobody is buying them, the price goes down. It seemed a bit like an idea that will never make it live, but I don't think there is a solid cash shop price model yet. Bag slots are also kind of Meh once you play a bit. You can send crafting mats to your bank from anywhere, and can sell things on the AH from anywhere. Holding on to everything until you hit town isn't actually a thing you need to do. Also, every completed heart quest person is a place you can sell shit.

I had inventory issues until I sat down with the system for a while. Then I basically had 4-5 items pending me selling shit, and 3-4 weapons I wanted to skill up eventually.

[Draegan]

I really don't see a problem.  It's just storage space and I can usually make due without it if it's too cost prohibitive.  I don't need extra character slots.  I don't need extra bag space on every character.  The only thing I'll buy is bag space on my main character and a bank slot or two eventually.

[kildorn]

Extra character slots is a pretty big deal to me. Just because some people do like to have one of everything.

[Numtini]

Just to point out, GW1 had more classes than slots.

[kildorn]

Yes, GW1 had the same thing going on. I can probably chop three classes from my list of things I want to play ever, as well.

[Ard]

GW1 also had the ability to change your subclass on the fly to any of the other classes after a certain point in any of the campaigns, making alts a bit less immediately necessary, depending on what you were trying to do.  You generally didn't need one character for each class in that game unless you were insanely OCD.

[Kitsune]

I posted on the GW2 forums about it last night, dunno if non-players can read their forum or not, but I'm throwing up the link anyhow.

[Tmon]

At some point I'd think it would just get cheaper to buy a second box.  You'd get five more slots and if you filled them with 20 slot bags it would be a nice bit of storage that you could actually email items to from the field.  A little kludgy and inconvenient but if you are pinching pennies it comes out fairly cheap and has the advantage of getting you extra of the stuff that they hand out on anniversaries and the like.

[Furiously]

So for a single character to have all their bags unlocked and one or two bank slots would be like 40-50 bucks?

[Tyrnan]

I can't remember the exact details but I saw 5 different types of Runes of Holding on an NPC merchant (most likely the tailoring supplier or something) that are used in the crafting of bags. The first grade was for 8 slot bags and I think the final one was something like 18-20. So with 4 of those plus your backpack and given the ability to send crafting materials straight to your bank and sell stuff on the trade post remotely, are you really going to need those extra bag slots? I see the extra character slots and especially the bank tabs being much more mandatory purchases.

[Zetor]

Yeah, bag space made me go 'hmmm' as well. I typically ended up with a full bag [+4 8slot bags, I was a tailor] after doing a sweep of a 'heart' questing hub and a world event or two.

Salvage kits work great to break down unwanted loot into base materials (that you can then immediately deposit into the bank or put on the AH remotely), but it's a possibility that you want to keep that semi-crappy blue item for an alt (how much do items increase damage/survivability anyway?).

I think the biggest culprit is going to be all those little craft items that you can't put in the 'collections' bank: totems, vials of blood, bone fragments. There seems to be a *lot* of those, and they're actually useful for crafting stuff, but you need to store them somewhere...

[Segoris]

So for a single character to have all their bags unlocked and one or two bank slots would be like 40-50 bucks?

If you mean the cost to open one of the locked character slots and their bags and additional bank slots besides what's given to you, it kind of breaks down like this (estimates based on the $5 = 400 gems math)

New character slot = $10
3 New bag slot = $15 ($5 x 3 unlocked - assuming first 4 are unlocked with newly opened character slots)
New bank slot = $7.50 (account wide bank, so not really done on each character but opening 1 bank per new character wouldn't be a bad move either if you have inventory issues) or $15 for two slots

Total of $32.50 if you unlocked a new character slot, all their bags, and 1 bank slot for that character or $40 for all the previously mentioned and a second bank slot. For one of the first 5 slots already open, you'd be looking at between $22.50 or $30 to unlock all bag slots and 1-2 bank slots.

I can't remember the exact details but I saw 5 different types of Runes of Holding on an NPC merchant (most likely the tailoring supplier or something) that are used in the crafting of bags. The first grade was for 8 slot bags and I think the final one was something like 18-20.

As for bag size, largest I've heard of has been 20 slot bags

[Furiously]

I think the biggest culprit is going to be all those little craft items that you can't put in the bank: totems, vials of blood, bone fragments. There seems to be a *lot* of those, and they're actually useful for crafting stuff, but you need to store them somewhere...

Or just throw them onto the AH and buy them back at the same price.

[Zetor]

Isn't there an AH handling fee, though? (both to post stuff and a cut from sales)

[Furiously]

I think the biggest cash shop is going to be people that buy another copy of the game to WvWvW on multiple worlds.

[kildorn]

I think the biggest cash shop is going to be people that buy another copy of the game to WvWvW on multiple worlds.

I don't see why you'd do such a thing?

[Furiously]

Some people enjoy playing games with more than one group and don't like being forced to stick to a single server?

Another math question. And one know what class/weapon has the longest ranged ability?

[kildorn]

Warrior/Ranger longbows top out at .. 1500? Casters are 1200. Engineer rifles top out at 1000/1200ish, I think.

[Sjofn]

This whole "eight character" thing isn't common is it? i played WoW for like four years and had one character and a couple low level alts.  Every single other MMO has been one character only.  I plan on playing this without spending a single cent on the cash shop and don't expect to have any problems.

In my experience, people like to have one of each class (however many that might be) created, even if they don't necessarily play them very much, because they'd like to try each class a little bit to see if they like it without having to delete anyone. The question is simply how much people want to do that versus how much they don't want to spend the money.

I'm a big alt-y whore and I don't see the character slot as much of an issue, though, it was like that in GW1 and I expected the same in GW2. I find the storage and appearance customization stuff more concerning.

[Severian]

Another math question. And one know what class/weapon has the longest ranged ability?

According to this character builder (look at the tool tips), if accurate, long range attacks tend to be either 1200 or 900, with one exception being the engineer rifle at 1000.
1200: ranger bows, warrior rifle, any staff
1000: engineer rifle
900: warrior and thief bow*, scepters, pistols

* one exception being the #2 skill cluster bomb at 1200

[Nevermore]

I know Ranger longbow can get up to 1500 with their 'longer range with a longbow' talent thing.  Warrior longbow starts at 900 and they have a 'longer range with longbow' thing too, so maybe 1200 for them?  Go go awesome documentation!  Warrior rifle just starts off at 1200, though.  So it sounds like Ranger longbow is the longest ranged non-siege in the game?  Unless Engineers get a longer rifle range talent or something.

[Severian]

Right you are: Eagle Eye for Ranger; Rifled Barrels for Engineer (also adds to pistol, harpoon, and elixir gun); Stronger Bowstrings for Warrior. I didn't see a similar trait for my caster test case, the elementalist, so they can't keep up. And no numbers, but no doubt they maintain their relative ranking and Ranger is the rangiest. I would guess all those traits are +300.

[Furiously]

Interesting. Makes rangers have a real nice use at keep defense/attacks.