The common (well founded?) rumor is that part of the cash shop items is extra character slots. This might be a deal breaker for me, buying the game gives me the right to make 100 characters if I want. I had 4 or 5 characters I used in WoW among maybe 10 characters i experimented with... Any details on this?

You get 4 or 5 (cant remember cause I only used 2 in the beta) slots to start with, and the you can buy more with gems. Those gems you can either buy with real world cash or in-game gold, so if you don't want to use real money you do not have to, but it is an option. Note that this is not too different from GW1, where you got 8 character slots if you owned all of the expansions (the game started with 4 I think), but could buy more, and needed 2 more if you wanted to have 1 character for each Profession.

You get five character slots with your purchase of the game and need to buy the other slots with gems, yes. But remember there is no subscription fee and Arenanet has to make money somehow. Personally I am fine with it.

The aspects of paying to level faster or get rep doesn't bother me, rather things that might effect user experience. I'm not anti-cash shop.

@Kenobi said:

The common (well founded?) rumor is that part of the cash shop items is extra character slots. This might be a deal breaker for me, buying the game gives me the right to make 100 characters if I want. I had 4 or 5 characters I used in WoW among maybe 10 characters i experimented with... Any details on this?

What a weird thing to say. Buying the game gives you everything the developers want to give you; if they say you can have 100 characters you get them and if they say you can have one you get one. Also, the key difference with your WoW experience is that you don't pay a monthly fee for Guild Wars 2.

There's actually very good design reasons to restrict the number of characters.

You start with 5 slots, and you can buy up to 3 extra slots. It might cost you like $5 dollars per extra character. That would be a one-time payment of $15 for 3 extra characters, as a opposed to a mandatory, monthly charge of $15.

@RVonE said:

@Kenobi said:

The common (well founded?) rumor is that part of the cash shop items is extra character slots. This might be a deal breaker for me, buying the game gives me the right to make 100 characters if I want. I had 4 or 5 characters I used in WoW among maybe 10 characters i experimented with... Any details on this?

What a weird thing to say. Buying the game gives you everything the developers want to give you; if they say you can have 100 characters you get them and if they say you can have one you get one. Also, the key difference with your WoW experience is that you don't pay a monthly fee for Guild Wars 2.

Pretty much this. You can't just do what you want because you bought the game and therefore deserve it.

@Maystack said:

@RVonE said:

@Kenobi said:

The common (well founded?) rumor is that part of the cash shop items is extra character slots. This might be a deal breaker for me, buying the game gives me the right to make 100 characters if I want. I had 4 or 5 characters I used in WoW among maybe 10 characters i experimented with... Any details on this?

What a weird thing to say. Buying the game gives you everything the developers want to give you; if they say you can have 100 characters you get them and if they say you can have one you get one. Also, the key difference with your WoW experience is that you don't pay a monthly fee for Guild Wars 2.

Pretty much this. You can't just do what you want because you bought the game and therefore deserve it.

I wish more people thought like this.

Perhaps what should be said is extra characters is an expected feature in most mmo. So it seemed to shorthand the customer in a way that may be destructive to the experience. Which, from this post, I find is not the case. Plus my opinion.

@Kenobi said:

Perhaps what should be said is extra characters is an expected feature in most mmo. So it seemed to shorthand the customer in a way that may be destructive to the experience. Which, from this post, I find is not the case. Plus my opinion.

Guild Wars has always been pretty different from other MMOs, it's been it's biggest asset and possibly it's biggest fault.

@Kenobi: 5 characters is plenty good to make extra characters. The original guild wars only gave you 4 at the start.

@Kenobi said:

@RVonE: Don't be an ass.

His point is perfectly valid.

@Kenobi said:

Perhaps what should be said is extra characters is an expected feature in most mmo. So it seemed to shorthand the customer in a way that may be destructive to the experience. Which, from this post, I find is not the case. Plus my opinion.

Most MMOs also charge a monthly subscription fee. My 4+ years of WoW, not even including expansions, was at least $720. Divide that over one of every character class and that ends up being $72 per character. Extra character slots are nowhere near that for GW2.

GW2 has a cash shop, yes. Extra character slots are an item, yes. However, you start out with (if the beta is any indication) 5 slots and can either spend money on gems to get more if you are flush with real cash, or you can convert in-game currency to gems to buy cash shop items that way. It is a pretty intelligent system in my opinion and I have yet to find fault with it, and trust me, I was super skeptical of it.

I'm fine with 5 character slots. That's enough. I disagree with one character slot and paying for more.

Gamers don't deserve to just pay a fee and play a game, they should also bend over and let the game companies do whatever they want. To hell with these self-entitled gamers! 100 hour reputation grinds for all!!!!!!!!!

@Kenobi said:

I'm fine with 5 character slots. That's enough. I disagree with one character slot and paying for more.

What was the point of this thread then? If 5 slots is enough to you, why complain about having to buy more?

@TEHMAXXORZ: Every headline I read only mentioned "pay for extra characters" In my mind that makes me think of 1 slot, pay for more. The post was for more details to clear things up. Then the cynicism started.

@Levio said:

Gamers don't deserve to just pay a fee and play a game, they should also bend over and let the game companies do whatever they want. To hell with these self-entitled gamers! 100 hour reputation grinds for all!!!!!!!!!

No, of course not. The power for consumers is in their decision to buy or not buy the game. Business practices that fail to reach an appropriately sized market will be corrected or fazed out. Yet that isn't the same as saying that consumers have the right to have a product be something particular just because they were willing to spend the money.

Okay guys, thread's over.

Misinformation was afoot, @Kenobi is now aware that you get 5 character slots out of the box, and can pay for more.

I think the best part of it all is that you can pay for character slots with in game gold. I like that for those who are apprehensive about paying for character slots, by the time they would need one they could just buy it with the gold they have already collected across the other 5 characters.

Anyway, no point in getting heated - I've said stupid stuff on here enough times to know when things are going downhill.

@ck1nd said:

@Maystack said:

@RVonE said:

@Kenobi said:

The common (well founded?) rumor is that part of the cash shop items is extra character slots. This might be a deal breaker for me, buying the game gives me the right to make 100 characters if I want. I had 4 or 5 characters I used in WoW among maybe 10 characters i experimented with... Any details on this?

What a weird thing to say. Buying the game gives you everything the developers want to give you; if they say you can have 100 characters you get them and if they say you can have one you get one. Also, the key difference with your WoW experience is that you don't pay a monthly fee for Guild Wars 2.

Pretty much this. You can't just do what you want because you bought the game and therefore deserve it.

I wish more people thought like this.

/thread. Silly OP.

it's just like Guild Wars 1.

it started with 4 free slots for 6 classes and by the end (after all the expansions) we had 8 free slots for 10 different classes.

@Kenobi: since you found your answer i would say to get a mod to lock the thread since i can see things are going downhill fast.

Since Gems are perfectly interwoven with the ingame economy, and will become less expensive for purchase with in-game gold, the more customers pony-up with IRL-cash - I see absolutely no problem with 5 'free' character slots to begin with. The entire cash shop system is amazingly well thought-out.

I'm no expert, but am I correct in thinking that each individual character requires additional server space on the part of ArenaNet? If that's the case, then there's no way having an unlimited number of slots could be feasible for them.

I think everyone here has been somewhat rude in explaining a very simple question.

You only get 5 character slots, which is quite low compared to most MMO's, but it's enough to at least make one of each race, so out of the box you have enough to experience each different racial story. Characters are stored on the games server, so each one you make takes up more space that the developers have to pay for. Considering you aren't paying a monthly fee, this seems pretty reasonable to me, especially when compared to games like Final Fantasy XIV, which charge a monthly subscription and still expect you to pay for each new character you make.

The gold -> gem system the cash shop uses also technically means any cash shop item can be bought with ingame gold, including things like character slots.

I'm okay if they charge for additional character slots because I'm not already being charged monthly or yearly for playing the game.

@Ouren said:

There's actually very good design reasons to restrict the number of characters.

This. Arenanet know what they're doing. In so many ways.

Perhaps what should be said is extra characters is an expected feature in most mmo. So it seemed to shorthand the customer in a way that may be destructive to the experience. Which, from this post, I find is not the case. Plus my opinion.

@Kenobi said:

The common (well founded?) rumor is that part of the cash shop items is extra character slots. This might be a deal breaker for me, buying the game gives me the right to make 100 characters if I want. I had 4 or 5 characters I used in WoW among maybe 10 characters i experimented with... Any details on this?

There are plenty of free-to-play games that do this already. It's not surprising to me, nor is it a dealbreaker. Nonetheless, you can use in-game gold to buy slots, so what are you bitching about?

There are plenty of free-to-play games that do this already. It's not surprising to me, nor is it a dealbreaker. Nonetheless, you can use in-game gold to buy slots, so what are you bitching about?

This thread needs to be locked lol. People keep replying without reading the update.

I've been thinking about this issue lately a lot. ANet hasn't given a final number for character slots, but I really hope it's enough to make 1 of each CLASS. OP talks about 1 of each race, but I want to be able to play all the classes I paid $60 for as well as all the races I paid for.

Haha he said the right.. hahahaha.  

@Lukeweizer said:

I've been thinking about this issue lately a lot. ANet hasn't given a final number for character slots, but I really hope it's enough to make 1 of each CLASS. OP talks about 1 of each race, but I want to be able to play all the classes I paid $60 for as well as all the races I paid for.

You'll get 5 + however many you buy from the gem store. Just to put it into perspective though, Guild Wars: Prophecies had 6 professions and 4 character slots, with additional campaigns granting +2 professions and +2 character slots (or in the case of buying Factions or Nightfall 'first', 8 professions and 4 character slots). You always had a deficit to encourage buying character slots IF you wanted one of every available profession.

I remember how FF11 used to charge $1 extra to your monthly subscription fee for every extra character slot. So I guess this is less 'evil' compared to that.

Just because you bought the game doesn't mean you bought the game or have a right to features that should be in it to begin with. Paying 60 dollars doesn't mean you won't have to pay more money later for the good features or the things you shouldve got with 50 dollars 5 or 6 years ago. Stop acting like buying something means you own it, because it doesn't. Fucking consumers. Businesses need to just run everything so people can stop asking for things they should've got anyway.

@Tarkhein said:

@Lukeweizer said:

I've been thinking about this issue lately a lot. ANet hasn't given a final number for character slots, but I really hope it's enough to make 1 of each CLASS. OP talks about 1 of each race, but I want to be able to play all the classes I paid $60 for as well as all the races I paid for.

You'll get 5 + however many you buy from the gem store. Just to put it into perspective though, Guild Wars: Prophecies had 6 professions and 4 character slots, with additional campaigns granting +2 professions and +2 character slots (or in the case of buying Factions or Nightfall 'first', 8 professions and 4 character slots). You always had a deficit to encourage buying character slots IF you wanted one of every available profession.

Yeah, I just find it a little hard to swallow that I'm paying $60 for a game with 10 classes and have to pay extra to be able to play them all.

And I know there's the "They have to make money" arguement, but then just lock all the classes behind DLC and make me pay for the ones I want to play.

But I guess you can say they're providing that option right off the bat with 5 available slots. I don't know how to feel anymore. What is a man?

@Lukeweizer: Well the whole "pay extra to play them all" thing is kinda moot when you realize you can get extra slots by paying with in-game gold, in which case it's a matter of earning the ability to get more slots, so you can play them all without deleting characters.

@TheHT said:

@Lukeweizer: Well the whole "pay extra to play them all" thing is kinda moot when you realize you can get extra slots by paying with in-game gold, in which case it's a matter of earning the ability to get more slots, so you can play them all without deleting characters.

That does ease the pain a little.

I think for the sake of character naming it's good that people are initially limited to just 5 slots. With unique names it'd be a nightmare if people could create an unlimited amount of characters and thereby reserve as many names as they wanted.

@Kenobi said:

@TEHMAXXORZ: Every headline I read only mentioned "pay for extra characters" In my mind that makes me think of 1 slot, pay for more. The post was for more details to clear things up. Then the cynicism started.

but you OP was pure cynicism... people just ran with it, they just felt entitled to do so.

2 months later people are still posting in a thread where the issue was resolved as the op himself saying he misread a quote.

@Freshbandito said:

2 months later people are still posting in a thread where the issue was resolved as the op himself saying he misread a quote.

And if you read the thread, someone else had the same issues.

@Lukeweizer said:

@Tarkhein said:

@Lukeweizer said:

I've been thinking about this issue lately a lot. ANet hasn't given a final number for character slots, but I really hope it's enough to make 1 of each CLASS. OP talks about 1 of each race, but I want to be able to play all the classes I paid $60 for as well as all the races I paid for.

You'll get 5 + however many you buy from the gem store. Just to put it into perspective though, Guild Wars: Prophecies had 6 professions and 4 character slots, with additional campaigns granting +2 professions and +2 character slots (or in the case of buying Factions or Nightfall 'first', 8 professions and 4 character slots). You always had a deficit to encourage buying character slots IF you wanted one of every available profession.

Yeah, I just find it a little hard to swallow that I'm paying $60 for a game with 10 classes and have to pay extra to be able to play them all.

And I know there's the "They have to make money" arguement, but then just lock all the classes behind DLC and make me pay for the ones I want to play.

But I guess you can say they're providing that option right off the bat with 5 available slots. I don't know how to feel anymore. What is a man?

While you've acknowledged that you can buy gems with in game gold, do remember that you can delete characters and remake them, so your point of 'not being to play them all' is not entirely correct. You can play them all, just five at any one time straight off the bat.

@Freshbandito said:

2 months later people are still posting in a thread where the issue was resolved as the op himself saying he misread a quote.

And if you read the thread, someone else had the same issues.

@Lukeweizer said:

@Tarkhein said:

@Lukeweizer said:

I've been thinking about this issue lately a lot. ANet hasn't given a final number for character slots, but I really hope it's enough to make 1 of each CLASS. OP talks about 1 of each race, but I want to be able to play all the classes I paid $60 for as well as all the races I paid for.

You'll get 5 + however many you buy from the gem store. Just to put it into perspective though, Guild Wars: Prophecies had 6 professions and 4 character slots, with additional campaigns granting +2 professions and +2 character slots (or in the case of buying Factions or Nightfall 'first', 8 professions and 4 character slots). You always had a deficit to encourage buying character slots IF you wanted one of every available profession.

Yeah, I just find it a little hard to swallow that I'm paying $60 for a game with 10 classes and have to pay extra to be able to play them all.

And I know there's the "They have to make money" arguement, but then just lock all the classes behind DLC and make me pay for the ones I want to play.

But I guess you can say they're providing that option right off the bat with 5 available slots. I don't know how to feel anymore. What is a man?

While you've acknowledged that you can buy gems with in game gold, do remember that you can delete characters and remake them, so your point of 'not being to play them all' is not entirely correct. You can play them all, just five at any one time straight off the bat.

@Lukeweizer: Luckily, sPvP solves the problem of not knowing whether you'll be comfortable with a character. Just complete the tutorial, pop into the Mists, and you're able to try out every single skill for that profession instantaneously. No guesswork!