500,000 players spend three million hours previewing Guild Wars Factions

Iria · Apr 3, 2006, 09:30 PM

More than half a million gamers spent the past weekend trying out NCsoft's Guild Wars Factions. The invitation-only event was a prelude to the game's April 28th launch. NCsoft estimates that the players spent more than three million hours online, which averages out to be around six hours of play for each player.

Guild Wars Factions is a sequel to NCsoft's popular Guild Wars online role-playing game. There are a couple very notable differences between Guild Wars and other online role-playing games like World of Warcraft (WoW). Guild Wars and its sequel centers around group combat and have little solo questing. WoW combines both player combat and solo questing, but players can choose to do the entire game without any player versus player combat. Another notable difference is that Guild Wars has no monthly fee.
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Read More / Source: TG Daily

EcPercy · Apr 3, 2006, 09:42 PM

GuildWars is cool, but since their business model has them releasing an expansion every 6 months @ $50. If you buy the all of the expansions (they are not required) you will be paying $100 a year, which is essentially a monthly fee.

Smart marketing tatics if you ask me. Every expansion is marketed as a standalone game. A lot of people will buy factions, but will want to know what was in the first one and drop the $ for it as well. I know a lot of people will argue that you won't buy all of the expansions, but if you want to keep up with everyone else you will.

TB_ · Apr 4, 2006, 01:01 AM

Ill be buying factions along with everyone else I know simply because its the missing link from the original, time will tell if chapter 3 however does the same thing. But I can say one thing, GW chapter 1 has more people buying than ever, the n00b zones are packed with people as are many places which were normaly isolated by 2-3months ago.

Shike · Apr 4, 2006, 01:47 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by EcPercy

GuildWars is cool, but since their business model has them releasing an expansion every 6 months @ $50. If you buy the all of the expansions (they are not required) you will be paying $100 a year, which is essentially a monthly fee.

Smart marketing tatics if you ask me. Every expansion is marketed as a standalone game. A lot of people will buy factions, but will want to know what was in the first one and drop the $ for it as well. I know a lot of people will argue that you won't buy all of the expansions, but if you want to keep up with everyone else you will.

Still though, Guild Wars is by far the cheaper solution. Most MMO's charge $15 or $10 + $1 for every character created. Consider six months and you have a minimum of $66 racked up most of the time. Now it's already cheaper, but look that new expansion pack for FFXI was just released! There's another $30 on top of your monthly fees.

See where it's headed? Not only can you not just pick up the expansion, but you need to still buy the main game. So $80 + monthly fee for a year compared to $100 for one year of GW.

Judas · Apr 4, 2006, 02:07 AM

lineage2 (lineage3 to be released possibly 2007-2008), you pay 19 bucks for the game, which includes a full month...

you got several servers to choose from, your allowed 7 characters per server, and you get fully updated, patched, and expanded. Just keep paying your monthly 14.99 per month (or cheaper if you buy 3months or even more cheaper to get a full year or whatever)....

no charge for expansions (6 month interval or better)
no charge for extra characters
no charge for different servers
no charge for patches or updates

blown503 · Apr 4, 2006, 03:45 AM

monthly fees suck, thats why I play guild wars in the first place. I dont have to pay any fees and keep playing my 55 monk for free until it wont play anymore!

SFOSOK · Apr 4, 2006, 03:49 AM

Hopefully they do well and eventually monthly fees will be banished

Customgamer1 · Apr 4, 2006, 04:34 AM

Now if only BF2 could have 500,000 beta testers... Could the game be bug free????

SFOSOK · Apr 4, 2006, 04:40 AM

I have a feeling EA would have ignored them lol

The_Neon_Cowboy · Apr 4, 2006, 04:03 PM

pay to play = a total RIP

Customgamer1 · Apr 5, 2006, 12:02 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Green Death Flavor

I have a feeling EA would have ignored them lol

LOL. You know I think thats a valid point! EA would not care

Apr 3, 2006, 09:30 PM	#1
Iria DriverHeaven Extreme Member Join Date: Apr 2004 Posts: 7,275 Rep Power: 89	500,000 players spend three million hours previewing Guild Wars Factions More than half a million gamers spent the past weekend trying out NCsoft's Guild Wars Factions. The invitation-only event was a prelude to the game's April 28th launch. NCsoft estimates that the players spent more than three million hours online, which averages out to be around six hours of play for each player. Guild Wars Factions is a sequel to NCsoft's popular Guild Wars online role-playing game. There are a couple very notable differences between Guild Wars and other online role-playing games like World of Warcraft (WoW). Guild Wars and its sequel centers around group combat and have little solo questing. WoW combines both player combat and solo questing, but players can choose to do the entire game without any player versus player combat. Another notable difference is that Guild Wars has no monthly fee. _____________ Read More / Source: TG Daily

Apr 4, 2006, 03:45 AM	#6
blown503 HardwareHeaven Senior Member Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: S. Indiana Posts: 573 Rep Power: 0	monthly fees suck, thats why I play guild wars in the first place. I dont have to pay any fees and keep playing my 55 monk for free until it wont play anymore! __________________

Apr 4, 2006, 03:49 AM	#7
SFOSOK 939 Goin Strong Join Date: Jul 2005 Location: Ontario Posts: 7,033 Rep Power: 90 System Specs	Hopefully they do well and eventually monthly fees will be banished __________________ Warning - Explicit Content Preceeding METAL!!

Apr 4, 2006, 04:34 AM	#8
Customgamer1 Fell off the tech wagon Join Date: Jan 2004 Location: Wisconsin Posts: 2,273 Rep Power: 74 System Specs	Now if only BF2 could have 500,000 beta testers... Could the game be bug free???? __________________ Asus Laptop: 2.5 Intel Core 2 Duo, 4gigs DDR 2, Windows 7 64bit! Windows 7 > OSX!

Apr 4, 2006, 04:40 AM	#9
SFOSOK 939 Goin Strong Join Date: Jul 2005 Location: Ontario Posts: 7,033 Rep Power: 90 System Specs	I have a feeling EA would have ignored them lol __________________ Warning - Explicit Content Preceeding METAL!!

Apr 3, 2006, 09:42 PM	#2
EcPercy HardwareHeaven Senior Member Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: Iraq Posts: 1,535 Rep Power: 0	GuildWars is cool, but since their business model has them releasing an expansion every 6 months @ $50. If you buy the all of the expansions (they are not required) you will be paying $100 a year, which is essentially a monthly fee. Smart marketing tatics if you ask me. Every expansion is marketed as a standalone game. A lot of people will buy factions, but will want to know what was in the first one and drop the $ for it as well. I know a lot of people will argue that you won't buy all of the expansions, but if you want to keep up with everyone else you will.

Apr 4, 2006, 01:01 AM	#3
TB_ DriverHeaven Junior Member Join Date: Sep 2003 Posts: 31 Rep Power: 0	Ill be buying factions along with everyone else I know simply because its the missing link from the original, time will tell if chapter 3 however does the same thing. But I can say one thing, GW chapter 1 has more people buying than ever, the n00b zones are packed with people as are many places which were normaly isolated by 2-3months ago.

Apr 4, 2006, 04:03 PM	#10
The_Neon_Cowboy HardwareHeaven Extreme Member Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: U.S.A. Posts: 16,009 Rep Power: 92 System Specs	pay to play = a total RIP __________________