Guild Wars 2

Because this received much positive feedback in the german forums, i will repeat this in the english forums as well:

Everyone noticed, that the first phase of the event was a big catastrophe.
But many didnt notice, it seems, that the other parts worked significantly better and obviously Anet has done some things to prevent the massive issues from happening the next days.

There is a problem with doing events of this size and thats basically at the limit of what can be realized technically. All people seem to complain about shoddy, lazy work but i think thats totally unfair. The first part basically extremely underestimated the amount of people taking part in this and the amount of traffic and load this will pose to the servers. That was the main reason why everything bugged and lagged. And the next days were better because you guys possibly didnt notice that Anet DID include some things to prevent this from happening, such as the waiting for catapults and bridges were nothing else than psychologically very well hidden waiting lines to reduce traffic. So it worked as it was supposed to and that should be honoured.

I think its completely unfair to blame them of lazy work, because you can see from the fractals and the design of the new world that a huge amount of effort has been put into it.

I want to point out that many forget, we have a normal one-time payed game here. Blizzard does a total of 1 billion $ of revenue a year and in comparison they dont do kitten for that money. I really dont know what they are doing with it, because all they do it seems is pushing release dates, telling it`s done when its done and doing nothing in the meantime. You can found whole new corporations with that much money…

Guys, we live in a time of DLC. Developers think when people will pay happily for the biggest load of crap, why should they give it for free? So the norm is that you will have to pay for the smallest of content update in every other game available.

This one is different though, we get A LOT of free content and that is supposed to be great. But people forget that, they forget that they get an abnormal amount of bonus content for free in this game they paid the same as for every other game they own.

I read complains about the new area “not being a real big area” – how stupid. I mean, in every other game this kind of complaint would never arise, people just would be thankful for the free content. Most just got completely deluded by the MMORPG market structure it seems. Here people even suggest to stop playing because there were bugs in the monster content update they could have paid for in an expansion as well…

Why?

I think I finally understand. Because people actually complain LESS when they paid for something. The psychologist calls this: “cognitive dissonance”. You should look that up in wikipedia, its really interesting. Basically people will have to justify in front of themselves that they paid for a load of crap so they tend to think its better than it really is when they have in comparison to when they havent.

So, lets just get rational finally and be thankful for what we`ve got here.

The thing Anet pulls off with GW2 is kind of a little miracle in the MMORPG-genre and it revolutionizes the whole structure of this market. It is astonishing how close they get with a one-time payed title to the big players here (and to prevent flaming i will not discuss about whether they managed to do it even better).

So just remember for once before you start complaining here, that all you git you got it for a fraction of money you normally pay. And that you normally will be stripped of your money before you can expect this amount of new content in any other game.

I think all that Anet does deserve is productive feedback. You can critizise things in the game but do it in a friendly way. We wont motivate them much to continue this great work if all they get is hate from the players. The work they do is awesome. Mistakes can happen. Some should not happen. But there is NO reason ever you can critisize the people behind that in what they do or the effort they put into this.

Before that, get into relation what you offered them with what you should expect to get back and see that it is way more, that you get back than you can expect nowaday as it currently is.

Thanks Anet, I love your game, appreciate the stuff you did to rescue the event and generally appreciate all the love and effort you put into this. Its exceptional and I hope more people will realize that and keep it running.

Everything but the first phase worked perfectly?

Are we even playing the same game? Did you participate in the event at all?

Your asking people to think, you have more confidence in others than I do.

Players, think a bit...
... before creating a new thread...

I think it’s silly to say free content. People bought the game and a lot also buy gems which probably pay for what you call free content. Nothing in this world is free.

And if people aren’t happy it is their right to complain as long as it’s constructive and helps to adress what needs to change or be improved.

4 words :

Why wasn’t this tested?

You may want to learn how to summarize your thoughts into a few sentences before actually deciding to post something.

Its way to long, and most people are not going to read it.

Your in titled to your opinion and everyone else is entitled to their own. Stop forcing your beliefs onto others.

any chance of a tl;dr version?

This content did not come with the game. Its free content unless you have to pay to experience it. You are not required to buy gems. Nothing is free it costs AN money to release this content, it cost you nothing in return. If you chose to buy gems it was for the gems not the content.

Edit: Just because you bought gems does not make you entitled to anything as that was voluntary.

I should not have to gift wrap my words so as not to hurt a company’s feelings. ArenaNet bit off more than they could chew and it failed.

As for “free content”, nothing is truly free. Don’t think your time is without value.

Uproller.1849:

any chance of a tl;dr version?

The tl;dr version is not reading it, because it’s too long.

Owningtheair.8493:

4 words :

Why wasn’t this tested?

You dont really believe that, do you?

because you cant test it with millions of players worldwide at a time, that maybe why?

This is one of very few reasonable posts in this forum section. OP, I agree with everything you said and the way you’ve said it. You could have basically said “entitlement” 50 times to get the same point across, but you didn’t. Kudos.

Wynyard.3012:

I should not have to gift wrap my words so as not to hurt a company’s feelings. ArenaNet bit off more than they could chew and it failed.

As for “free content”, nothing is truly free. Don’t think your time is without value.

Ya guess who it is costing a-net. a-net doesn’t require you to spend time on the game you do that of your own free will.

dissection.9482:

…
…
…
Thanks Anet, I love your game, appreciate the stuff you did to rescue the event and generally appreciate all the love and effort you put into this. Its exceptional and I hope more people will realize that and keep it running.

Nicely said. I can sign under it with my both hands.
Best regards to development team. Nice work! (despite some glitches … but, as we all know, nobody is perfect ;-) )

OP, I completely agree. There is definitely room for improvement. But I too think Anet did a wonderful job. Well said.

Siphaed.9235:

This is one of very few reasonable posts in this forum section. OP, I agree with everything you said and the way you’ve said it. You could have basically said “entitlement” 50 times to get the same point across, but you didn’t. Kudos.

I even think the topic title was chosen wrong. The feedback on this in the german forums was much more positive initially and I really wonder whether its just a simple thing as the way people get introduced by the title (because that was not so negative in german).

I`ll change it

i would be (so as many others) prepared to pay a monthly fee for this game if that meant that the bugs would be dealt with faster, and that would give a-net the power(money) to hire more ppl, buy stronger servers etc. but thats just my opinion which doesent rly matter in the end

Aurorablue

I think it’s silly to say free content. People bought the game and a lot also buy gems which probably pay for what you call free content.

Please reinsert your brain into its leaky spongebag before making yourself look silly on a public forum. Gems are an optional! purchase, and not buying gems did not in any way prevent you from participating in this event.

Please stop being a fool.

Spastik.2435:

i would be (so as many others) prepared to pay a monthly fee for this game if that meant that the bugs would be dealt with faster, and that would give a-net the power(money) to hire more ppl, buy stronger servers etc. but thats just my opinion which doesent rly matter in the end

Buy in the gem store. I think that is a fair business model. you can support the company and get something for it in return immediately. But the decision is up to you.

Actually I think there is no way you can justify the monthly fee for a game with Guild Wars 2 in mind. As I said, just think about what Blizzard earns and see that they plainly cant put this into a single game or anything work related except their own pockets. They just continue charging for every bigger content update. And really, this game is not so bad. It is new, bugs are inevitable, no matter if you hire one guy for each line of code or dont.

Amazing post dissection.9482!

The complaints (at least for me) is NOT, for not getting exotic loot as many people got during the last event , but to the fact that i couldnt play thru the event. Of course i appreciate the content that Arenanet is providing, the effort to solve problems like they did thru this weekend. I just couldn’t log in for almost the entire event and when i managed to log in it was unplayable. Its not that im in the mood “hey i didnt get the super weapon i was searching for and blah blah”. I just couldnt play.

dissection.9482:

Owningtheair.8493:

4 words :

Why wasn’t this tested?

You dont really believe that, do you?

because you cant test it with millions of players worldwide at a time, that maybe why?

I won’t diss ArenaNet for a job poorly done (because there are parts of it that were very well done) but I’d say it was a bit disappointing.

Sure, they couldn’t have done actual stress testing, but it’s not like there wasn’t precedents. Halloween event just ended last month and plus the fact that they’re inviting new players to play test… well, it should’ve been expected.

But of course, it could’ve been beyond their expectations, again. Here’s to hoping that third time’s the charm and their next world event smooths out much more.

(And I’m still hoping they’d stop this absolutely one-time event thing for a game that’s played across the globe. It’s not fun on the other side of the globe.)

dissection.9482:

Owningtheair.8493:

4 words :

Why wasn’t this tested?

You dont really believe that, do you?

because you cant test it with millions of players worldwide at a time, that maybe why?

But you can get 20 employees to do the entire event and tell you that 30 mobs aoeing the whole zone has no solution no matter which classes they are playing and which utility skills are selected, that the event is not fun and the only way through it is to consistantly die and ressurect people until you fall on top of a chest

Testing with lots of people on different servers is tougher but not impossible, nowhere near in fact. But the very design of the encounters was a clear giveaway that we were the first people to try it. Nobody would have given it the go-ahead in that state.

+1 to the OP for putting into words what so many of us are thinking. Anet is doing an amazing job, and no one can predict exactly what will happen during such large scale events, and sometimes things do go wrong, but I believe they’re doing very very well overall.

I for one am delighted to see them keep delivering content as amazing as what I’ve seen over the past few months. Looking forward to December and whatever they have in store.

dissection.9482:

I think its completely unfair to blame them of lazy work, because you can see from the fractals and the design of the new world that a huge amount of effort has been put into it.

I want to point out that many forget, we have a normal one-time payed game here. Blizzard does a total of 1 billion $ of revenue a year and in comparison they dont do kitten for that money. I really dont know what they are doing with it, because all they do it seems is pushing release dates, telling it`s done when its done and doing nothing in the meantime. You can found whole new corporations with that much money…

Guys, we live in a time of DLC. Developers think when people will pay happily for the biggest load of crap, why should they give it for free? So the norm is that you will have to pay for the smallest of content update in every other game available.

This one is different though, we get A LOT of free content and that is supposed to be great. But people forget that, they forget that they get an abnormal amount of bonus content for free in this game they paid the same as for every other game they own.

I read complains about the new area “not being a real big area” – how stupid. I mean, in every other game this kind of complaint would never arise, people just would be thankful for the free content. Most just got completely deluded by the MMORPG market structure it seems. Here people even suggest to stop playing because there were bugs in the monster content update they could have paid for in an expansion as well…

Why?

I think I finally understand. Because people actually complain LESS when they paid for something. The psychologist calls this: “cognitive dissonance”. You should look that up in wikipedia, its really interesting. Basically people will have to justify in front of themselves that they paid for a load of crap so they tend to think its better than it really is when they have in comparison to when they havent.

So, lets just get rational finally and be thankful for what we`ve got here.

The thing Anet pulls off with GW2 is kind of a little miracle in the MMORPG-genre and it revolutionizes the whole structure of this market. It is astonishing how close they get with a one-time payed title to the big players here (and to prevent flaming i will not discuss about whether they managed to do it even better).

So just remember for once before you start complaining here, that all you git you got it for a fraction of money you normally pay. And that you normally will be stripped of your money before you can expect this amount of new content in any other game.

I think all that Anet does deserve is productive feedback. You can critizise things in the game but do it in a friendly way. We wont motivate them much to continue this great work if all they get is hate from the players. The work they do is awesome. Mistakes can happen. Some should not happen. But there is NO reason ever you can critisize the people behind that in what they do or the effort they put into this.

Before that, get into relation what you offered them with what you should expect to get back and see that it is way more, that you get back than you can expect nowaday as it currently is.

Thanks Anet, I love your game, appreciate the stuff you did to rescue the event and generally appreciate all the love and effort you put into this. Its exceptional and I hope more people will realize that and keep it running.

Completely agree. Thank you for putting up a well thought out post that is enjoyable to read. Really breaks the monotony of the brutish insult slingers who can’t seem to construct an intelligent thought in writing. Yet I digress.

ANet is a great company with high plans that I have every hope of them delivering on. Did they dissapoint me with their delivery of content? A little. They are ambitious and they are learning from their mistakes making small changes that benefit things on the whole. I think this is a much better idea than the kneejerk reaction some other popular games take.

Given the speed at which they have released content as well as the depth of that content and the involvement of their internal community in game and interest on these forums I have high faith that they will deliver on those ambitions. It just may take some time for things to even out and new systems to settle. I think it’s worth the wait.

Phase 1 had bugged out NPC’s. Phase 2 didn’t even trigger in LA on the overflow I was in. Phase 3 took far too long and ended up feeling tedious. I admit that their events have a lot of potential but sooner rather than later they’re going to have to release one that isn’t broken from the start.

Adam.4103:

Phase 1 had bugged out NPC’s. Phase 2 didn’t even trigger in LA on the overflow I was in. Phase 3 took far too long and ended up feeling tedious. I admit that their events have a lot of potential but sooner rather than later they’re going to have to release one that isn’t broken from the start.

I don`t think that these were really bugs in terms of programming. I am no programmer though. But the solutions to these problems all hinted at pure traffic problems. There is no other explanation for the whole TP being jammed at the event at phase I.

It was selectively those NPCs that had to be fought which didnt work. I believe it was that too many players at a time tried to start the event so that the pings for the BPC to become hostile just exceeded what could be handled by the servers. So they now introduced a waiting time between respawns, that may be a solution because it would not overflow the servers with requests.

In general I have the feeling the main problem was huge amounts of identical requests at the same time.

It might be quite similar in effect to this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SYN_flood

So the solution was to desynchronize the requests. What they did was shift the starting times of different overflows relative to each other so that not so many identical requests would be sent at the same time.

It obviously did not solve lags perfectly but at least made the whole thing playable again.

Thats why I believe its not a fault of the programming, but one of the basic organization. You have to make these experiences first, know how many people will hit the servers to do something against it. Thats the problem with one time events: You have exactly one try to make it work under realistic circumstances.