How does guild wars plan to make money?

[Jaged]

This game looks awesome and I was planning to buy it, but then it struck me that no monthly fee is too good to be true. How do they plan to keep the servers running and the patch content comming, or do they? How do they plan to turn a proffit with this game?

Edit: Also, how does this skill based combat work that the brag about so much?

[firecrackerNC]

They made a pact with the devil.

[Mag-Mower]

No patches what so ever. None, no content updates at all. You have to buy expansion pack after expansion pack to keep up, thats how they keep making the money. I tjink its a bit unreasonable, paying $30 every few monthes for a bit of new content.

[Jaged]

What about bug fixes? If the game is unplayable oe has annoying bugs do you have to wait a few months for an expansion pack?

[Mag-Mower]

Most Likely not, if there is a bug, they will fix it. But you will not get anything new without purchasing an expansion pack. so, Bug Fix=Free Patch New Content=Expansion Pack

[Derfud]

If you think about it, what will be included in expansion packs is actually cheaper than paying a monthly subscription. Since Even if you want to keep playing with just what you have, you dont have to start paying again to do so.

[Jaged]

Does anyone know how often they will be released and how much they will cost? Then divide it out and have the "monthly fee". My guess is that its gonna come to around 12 bucks a month. Sound familiar?

[Derfud]

Even then, as I stated before. You dont NEED to buy the expansion to keep playing.

[Corrosion]

They have a program where you pay a certain amount a month and get some benefits... Like a glowing char..

[Electrofreak]

Sounds gay. (No offense Gio )

[hex222]

just patches like an FPS, good idea i think, if they have packed the game full of stuff for leveling up, new content shouldn't be a problem, i mean, i pay however much money for PS, it doesn't look like we're gonna get much new content from now on, and it doesn't work for me at the moment anyway...

[Phaden]

so how does the skill based combat work, if its not like a regular MMO (warcraft, FF, whatnot)?

[Hamma]

The graphic look ghetto - 1992 wants their game back

[juggalokilla]

Originally Posted by Phaden

so how does the skill based combat work, if its not like a regular MMO (warcraft, FF, whatnot)?

Ive played it a few days now and you chose your first profession at character select screen then can base your avatars look on presets from that class. While in game you learm spells and moves from trainers and eventually find trainers to learn a second profession. you can do a mission to try out that profession with a few of those spells and if you dont like it or want to try others you turn them down and try all others till you decide. Once you accept the second one though you cant change it.

You build up your moves/powers when you level up, you get 5 points to use to build up your stuff. each level of your powers it cost more to level up. 1 first, 2 second time, 3 third.....ETC. Eventually you'll have to level up 3-4 times before you can upgrade 1 thing. My character is an Elementalist primary and Necromancer secondary. I buff mostly my fire magic and blood magic cause they seem to be the best spells. I never played with an all magic character before and its sweet.

The negative part of your spells/abilities is that you can only use 8 of them. My character has about 16 bad ass ones and I get restricted to 8!. You have to go to a safe town and swap out the ones you want to use and leave the other ones unused. It really sucks to have all these cool things that you cant use. I just keep 6 attack spells and 2 buff/heal spells when I solo and 4 area attack spells and 4 party buffs when in groups.

Its a bit of a chore to keep with your group members cause they show up as green dots on your map(same as NPC's) you you have to target like 10 different people to read their names to find the ones in your party.

I did also hear that there are certain items you can use to "steal" enemies powers temporarily so thats gotta be cool to try ones you never saw before.

That's about all I can say from my few days of trying it. I have hope that they support this game well cause I chose it over WOW so that I can keep planetside and a RPG at same time without paying 2 subscriptions. It is pretty fun and I recommend trying it to fill that good MMORPG need for much less money.

[Jaged]

Originally Posted by juggalokilla

[Long description of Guild Wars.]

That sounds pretty close to any other MMORPG. How is Guild War's combat "based on skill rather then hours played." Like they point out on the box.