Guild Warsplayers now have the opportunity to purchase PVP Unlock Packs for all Prophecies skills! For $9.99 USD (€8.99, ?5.99), you can unlock all of the 70+ Prophecies skills for a single profession. For $39.99 USD (€35.99, ?23.99) you can unlock all 450+ Prophecies skills for the 6 professions. Once unlocked, skills can be used by any of your PvP characters. Head to the Guild Wars Official Store to take advantage of this much-requested opportunity.

http://www.guildwars.com

Oh man... am I torn on this one. Part of me is shocked. I can't believe that ArenaNet would do this. They fight so hard to maintain parity on the PvP playing field. Why would ArenaNet give an advantage to players with money to burn?

On the other hand... I hate collecting skills. The lazy side of me appreciates the ability to skip a very tedious part of the game. The micropayments are in full force it seems. Guild Wars doesn't need a monthly fee, not if they give you something good to buy every other week. HA!

I think $40 is kinda steep for 450 skills.
I already have a lot of them unlocked. Heh, can I get a discount?

Anyhoo... I don't know. Does this cheapen the game for you? I can't think of any major MMORPGs where money directly translates into in-game power. Are there any? There are second-market sights, but that's a different story. When has a game company directly sold you more in-game power?

If Blizzard offered level 60 World of Warcraft characters for $100, would you buy it?

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Michael Garofalo
Webmaster - http://photics.com

I think they're going about it in the wrong way .. they should have skills purchaseable individualy, similar to free online games like Albatross18 and Gunbound. That way they would make more on a per skill basis and it would be cheaper for someone just looking to fill out their skill list.

There's always a market for these types of things.. $100 for a level 60 character would be cheap compared to buying an account with one on ebay (though I think powerleveling is cheaper?)

I don't think they're going to make much money with the Prophecies skills, since most people already have most of those skills.. they'd be making good money if they released a factions pack as well. Maybe 3 months after the release of an expansion would be best

if this is required for Anet and NCsoft to get nuff money to pay for games of this high quality then go ahead! we want more GW

but if it is just for the extra bucks its a bad idea, people shouldnt be able to buy power, this isnt the real world

One reason I could see for doing this is to head off third parties who sell accounts (i.e. via e-Bay or some other auction site). They're going to have to cut their prices to compete. The other reason I see is that NCSoft/ArenaNet need the cash flow. As you pointed out earlier, the pricing model established by ArenaNet doesn't bring in nearly as much revenue as a traditional MMORPG pricing model. They have to make up the difference somehow. That being said, I'm not particularly enthusiastic about the fact that all the skills I earned over the course of the past year and a half can be purchased for a mere $40.

I personally think this is an outrage. I strongly believe that Anet should not be charging a penny for this. Free unlocked PvP accounts for those who play PvP should be the option. You can't even enjoy true PvP until your whole account is unlocked(and that's only to use the PvP characters in awful looking armor and colors....pfff), not to mention the incredible amount of time that is lost unlocking your account, it's ridiculous. Also, notice how it says just skills, what about the runes? They expect us to pay another $39.99? What the hell Anet?