Why does account linking even matter to people?

[Valv Vader]

So my knee jerk reaction was negative when I saw that I couldn't play my account on steam. But then I realized I've been launching the GW2 launcher from steam for years. Besides not being able to purchase GW2 stuff with steam credit and not get achievements, what does it really matter to people? GW2 is the best MMO around in the genre for me, and I'm perfectly fine with GW2 making more money so content keeps coming. Why does this particular issue seem to grind peoples gears so much?

[Electric Cthulhu]

The ability to pay in local currencies and possible (but doubtful) regional pricing. The local currencies thing and multiple payment methods is a pretty big deal for a lot of people.

[Valv Vader]

I didn't know pay formats were a problem for people. Seems like that should be something ncsoft should address rather than using an easy fix like steam.

[Alfonse]

Realistically, there won't be Steam achievements or trading cards added for the game, so it pretty much comes down to payment options (including being able to use Steam wallet funds) and potential currency-based aspects. I'm not sure how many people who already own an account would consider those aspects overly important though. I think other than a fairly small minority of people (although not saying that it's immaterial just because it's a small number of people) a lot of the negative reaction has been knee-jerk. Probably doesn't matter either way though as ANet aren't going to change their minds on this one.

[Emily Howard]

Some people want to buy stuff from the money they make on Steam which is reasonable but it seems there are also people who somehow really want to start a game directly and refuse to add the game manually to their libary which doesn't make any sense at all. There are even people who say something like "I wanted to come back but I cannot play with my old account on Steam so I won't play it at all!"
Also I never understood why Steam achievements are such a thing and I never got an answer for that. I don't know if people need a carrot on a stick to be interested in a game or something.

[Valv Vader]

Yeah I admittedly had a knee-jerk reaction to this because in all honestly I would have redownloaded it from steam and played it from there. But then when I read on why they did this it made sense. The payment options do make sense though, but also if people 'already have an account and have already been playing' it seems a little of an overreaction considering they already have found a way to make purchases and what not. Not to try and set a bad influence but I've never even bought anything directly from them it's always been third parties that sell it cheaper anyways.

[Joker]

I like to have my games on steam. It's the location of my game library. I wouldn't mind adding my favorite game to the collection.
But I still play games outside of steam when I have to.
But I'm just happy the game will get a boost in playernumbers.

[Русский Дракон]

Maybe because they are stupid kids with a complexes? As for the any somehow reasonable person it is not a problem.

[SaeLipa]

引用自 Valv Vader：

I didn't know pay formats were a problem for people. Seems like that should be something ncsoft should address rather than using an easy fix like steam.

FF14 for example, by using steam credit the sub is almost 3x cheaper here, people are hoping this game uses steam conversion rates in the gem store

[Triste sem você]

You have this huge new release on a new platform, but you can't be a part of it so it does give a sour taste that ArenaNet is only trying to get positives here for itself, not giving the choice for existing players to just launch the game through Steam and also get the benefits just because it doesn't want risk losing any revenue from its current player base.

This is especially noticeable if you are eligible for regional currency, if they ever implement additional Steam features like Trading Cards or Achievements, and even then you are simply not going to be able to be a part of the Steam statistics for game activity.

I wish the community didn't just shun away players that are asking to be able to login through Steam since this is all about choice and actually getting the same Steam benefits that ArenaNet is only willing to give to new players, but I guess this is how it is.

[katsuragi]

引用自 Русский Дракон：

Maybe because they are stupid kids with a complexes? As for the any somehow reasonable person it is not a problem.

It is mostly this. It gives the stupid kids something to cry "greed and injustice" about which is all they really want to do anyway

[Q]

引用自 Valv Vader：

So my knee jerk reaction was negative when I saw that I couldn't play my account on steam. But then I realized I've been launching the GW2 launcher from steam for years. Besides not being able to purchase GW2 stuff with steam credit and not get achievements, what does it really matter to people? GW2 is the best MMO around in the genre for me, and I'm perfectly fine with GW2 making more money so content keeps coming. Why does this particular issue seem to grind peoples gears so much?

1- matter of prestige, you know, show-off, share screenshots, concept art, tons of achievements, how many hours did someone spent meaning you are either noob or pro at gw2, trading cards and silly stuff, It's the same dumb thing i did back in 2009 with my xbox 360, i wanted most of achievements in every game just to show my friends "how good i was" (like steam lvl, you are a demi-god at lvl 100 with 1k games or that's what many kiddos believe).

2- Steam wallet, for whatever reason some people can't purchase GW2 stuff with real money, like they don't have credit cards and steam has gift/prepaidcards available in most countries. Right now without credit or debit cards you can't purchase gems in GW2, maybe adding money to paypal account but thant means you have to do some online transfer or visit your bank/convenience store. Why botter? get your steam gift card while you pick some cheetos, snacks and drinks at any store, launch steam add the code, get your gems gg. That's why many want the account linking, worry not, they gonna gift themselves some gems with low lvl steam accounts THAT if GW2 allows gems purchase through steam, if not, expect massive review bombing and salt everywhere.

[Doragor]

I'm just pissed even EA had the decency to allow us to use our old accounts when they ported SWToR to steam.

EA just managed to be more consumer friendly than NCsoft
I know that's not saying much but EA set the lowest bar in the market... seems they have a contender now.

[No mic]

You can only understand it when you actually lives there and get the pain. For example ESO, back then when I tried to subscribe for their ESO Plus, they rejected my debit card, my credit card, tried paypal also failed as well. Then I figured it's probably because the cards from my country not supported.

So I converted my ESO to Steam version, and Steam Wallet is just very painless, I just need to take a short walk with my cash, buy the gift card, and I have the game.

And also, steam regional pricing

[Tyrian Mollusk]

Just for convenience working with Steam, and not to have a split between Steam GW2 and non-Steam GW2 technologies/features. Eg, I use Steam Input to play GW2 on controller, but with on-/off-Steam not being the same thing, things get weird. Can a Steam player use my shared non-Steam config? Can they see it in the shared config list?

If Steam would be less of a ♥♥♥♥ about not properly extending Steam features to games that can be on or off Steam (I mean, the same game should be the same game, especially when the base game is free, so there's no "bought on Steam" gate), it would be less of an issue, but since Steam is, I'd rather the game removed the issue.

Also, it's just silly to have to pay attention to. Computers are supposed to make things easier. Doesn't grind my gears, just a nuisance.

[DocCovington]

引用自 Русский Дракон：

Maybe because they are stupid kids with a complexes?

And this is the type of players we are going to get with Steam: disrespectful and toxic. I miss the good old days already (though the increase in that sort of behavior already became noticable after the game had added the free account option).