Guild Wars 2

maybe we need to do a collaborative development about communicating. im sorry wasnt that supposed to solve some of the problem with communicating wait they dropped that altogether. thats why i didnt participate in those discussion i knew it was going to happen.yes a lot of good might have come out of what was done. . the collaborative development could have been a good thing throughout the game and really what i think a lot of players want but unless anet begins to release they need to communicate more and bring in people specific for that. i applaud the few who tried to do that but they were working on there own time and probably overstressed themselves which is probably why it isnt being done anymore. id love to see more communication between us and anet but i doubt we will see that

IndigoSundown.5419:

phys.7689:

If some one pays me for an art commision, and i say, i should have it by next week. It means i should have it by next week. Sometimes i dont have it by next week, i cop pleas, make excuses, appologize, and try to get it to them asap.

But see i recognize, the customer has a right to ask me when, and i should tell them, and should i go beyond the date, thats really my fault, my poor planning, or lack of being able to identify the issues. When you are late, and the customer hounds you every day, he isnt wrong, i am wrong, because i am already very late.

I’m not going to say that GW2 players don’t have the right to bring the issue up. They do. If they think they’re entitled to the fulfillment of a developer “promise,” that’s on them.

That said, however, your analogy is not a great fit. If a customer asks for an art commission, he has entered into a (presumably verbal) contract with the artist in which he offers to pay for the piece, which the artist then agrees to produce within time frame X. There is now an agreement between them, and the artist’s failure to live up to his end of it is a breach of contract. The customer, in that situation is entitled to demand explanation and expedited delivery of the promised artwork.

GW2 customers bought the game. The base game included neither precursor crafting nor a promise there would be precursor crafting. Nor does the customer pay directly for whatever ANet might promise to insert into the game — unless ANet structures it that way. Since they have not done so as yet, GW2 customers do not have the same contractual relationship with ANet over this issue as that of the artist and customer in your analogy.

I’ve done both art commissions and freebies. I feel a lot less urgency about keeping to a timetable for a freebie than I do for a paid commission. I’d tend to be more up front about that when I agreed to the freebie… “Sure, Joe, I’ll draw Dagnar the Dwarf for you, but I can’t commit to a deadline.” If Joe asked, I’d give him a ballpark if I felt I could. If he got strident about it, the relationship might get strained and he might never get his piece.

So, the issue is not that the customer is entitled to an answer the way an art commission customer would be . The issue is that ANet is squandering the good will of some of their customers by failing to come up with a new estimate.

squandering goodwill is actually a big problem in a business model like this. also, it really isnt a freebie, They are selling a service, i paid them for a service. A continuous service needs to have that goodwill, because a lot of it is trust that the service will be provided, and give people what they agreed to.

If i pay a plumbing company 100 bucks and they say they will come over for a year and snake the pipes if there is any issues, and they dont come thats a big problem. I understand its complex, troublesome, hard to pin down, but thats the product they sold. They knew this going in.

Speaking of… when are we ever going to see that precursor scavenger hunt? Or 500 Chef? Or 500 Jewelcraft?

I mean, it’s all very well saying it’ll come “eventually” or “soon”, but talk is cheap.

Zaoda.1653:

Speaking of… when are we ever going to see that precursor scavenger hunt? Or 500 Chef? Or 500 Jewelcraft?

I mean, it’s all very well saying it’ll come “eventually” or “soon”, but talk is cheap.

Actually Precursor scavenger hunt was announced scrapped last year and replaced by Precursor Crafting, which is currently awaiting reward restructuring.

As far as I know they never actually confirmed lvl 500 Chef or Jewelcraft, but I would assume it would tie into the precursor crafting.

ricky markham.8173:

maybe we need to do a collaborative development about communicating. im sorry wasnt that supposed to solve some of the problem with communicating wait they dropped that altogether. thats why i didnt participate in those discussion i knew it was going to happen.yes a lot of good might have come out of what was done. . the collaborative development could have been a good thing throughout the game and really what i think a lot of players want but unless anet begins to release they need to communicate more and bring in people specific for that. i applaud the few who tried to do that but they were working on there own time and probably overstressed themselves which is probably why it isnt being done anymore. id love to see more communication between us and anet but i doubt we will see that

a CDI about CDIs, that would be good. Than we would play other games while Guild Wars 2 done with CDIs and get in action.

Precursor crafting is tricky business to implement and I am happy they’re taking their time to do it right.

Creating a legendary is a mega long term project and the precursor is probably intended to be 1/2 the work. If the intended timeline for acquiring a legendary is 12 months, work on precursor is intended to take 6 months. Easy/Quick way to do that? put some huge material requirements that will take 6 months to collect… Brrr scary stuff. I get chills even thinking about it.

Ideal way to do it? challenges that are hard to reach. Something like beating liadri after hitting her with 8 orbs for example. To do something like that however not only requires work on implementing Precursor crafting it also requires the creation and deployment of content that provides that challenge since really nothing we have in game currently is suited for such a task. Perhaps like someone suggested they’ve been waiting for the start of season 2 because they’re going to tie it with the difficulty based achievements they told us about already. Who knows.

we all want it, we all cannot wait for it to be implemented but its better to wait a bit more then have something thats worst then the current avenues we have to acquire precursors already.

Galen Grey.4709:

Precursor crafting is tricky business to implement and I am happy they’re taking their time to do it right.

Creating a legendary is a mega long term project and the precursor is probably intended to be 1/2 the work. If the intended timeline for acquiring a legendary is 12 months, work on precursor is intended to take 6 months. Easy/Quick way to do that? put some huge material requirements that will take 6 months to collect… Brrr scary stuff. I get chills even thinking about it.

Ideal way to do it? challenges that are hard to reach. Something like beating liadri after hitting her with 8 orbs for example. To do something like that however not only requires work on implementing Precursor crafting it also requires the creation and deployment of content that provides that challenge since really nothing we have in game currently is suited for such a task. Perhaps like someone suggested they’ve been waiting for the start of season 2 because they’re going to tie it with the difficulty based achievements they told us about already. Who knows.

we all want it, we all cannot wait for it to be implemented but its better to wait a bit more then have something thats worst then the current avenues we have to acquire precursors already.

i have thought that perhaps, they would link the precursors to the new challenge based achievements as you had said

buuuut i have thought they were going to do something with precursors many a moon now.
I guess we shall see in a few hours.

It would be a big step, the only problem is, living story seems like it will be way more personal now, which i dont object to, but it would mean players who want to work towards a precursor, will spend most of their time in single player modes.

add to that, it would mean someone coming to the game in say 5 months, would have to buy 5 months worth of past episodes to get their legendary.

Sooo i dunno, seems problematic.

phys.7689:

i have thought that perhaps, they would link the precursors to the new challenge based achievements as you had said

buuuut i have thought they were going to do something with precursors many a moon now.
I guess we shall see in a few hours.

It would be a big step, the only problem is, living story seems like it will be way more personal now, which i dont object to, but it would mean players who want to work towards a precursor, will spend most of their time in single player modes.

add to that, it would mean someone coming to the game in say 5 months, would have to buy 5 months worth of past episodes to get their legendary.

Sooo i dunno, seems problematic.

Yeah thats actually my biggest fear and why I actually would have preferred they stuck with the temporary content. Though to be fair lets see what they come up with first before judging. The way I See it for the living story journal to work the living story release portion related to story will have to be instanced and thus generally personal.

That being said while I dont like a personal approach in terms of LS I think in terms of precursor acquisition it is essentially. Its kinda hard to create truely difficult challenges where you have a full map worth of players that can participate in the event. Such challenges will have to be something like the wurm boss to really be challenging and the downside to that is it cannot ever be soloable which is also a problem. Not to mention the frustration that results when some players refuse to listen to players trying to organize some co-ordination.

phys.7689:

IndigoSundown.5419:

phys.7689:

If some one pays me for an art commision, and i say, i should have it by next week. It means i should have it by next week. Sometimes i dont have it by next week, i cop pleas, make excuses, appologize, and try to get it to them asap.

But see i recognize, the customer has a right to ask me when, and i should tell them, and should i go beyond the date, thats really my fault, my poor planning, or lack of being able to identify the issues. When you are late, and the customer hounds you every day, he isnt wrong, i am wrong, because i am already very late.

I’m not going to say that GW2 players don’t have the right to bring the issue up. They do. If they think they’re entitled to the fulfillment of a developer “promise,” that’s on them.

That said, however, your analogy is not a great fit. If a customer asks for an art commission, he has entered into a (presumably verbal) contract with the artist in which he offers to pay for the piece, which the artist then agrees to produce within time frame X. There is now an agreement between them, and the artist’s failure to live up to his end of it is a breach of contract. The customer, in that situation is entitled to demand explanation and expedited delivery of the promised artwork.

GW2 customers bought the game. The base game included neither precursor crafting nor a promise there would be precursor crafting. Nor does the customer pay directly for whatever ANet might promise to insert into the game — unless ANet structures it that way. Since they have not done so as yet, GW2 customers do not have the same contractual relationship with ANet over this issue as that of the artist and customer in your analogy.

I’ve done both art commissions and freebies. I feel a lot less urgency about keeping to a timetable for a freebie than I do for a paid commission. I’d tend to be more up front about that when I agreed to the freebie… “Sure, Joe, I’ll draw Dagnar the Dwarf for you, but I can’t commit to a deadline.” If Joe asked, I’d give him a ballpark if I felt I could. If he got strident about it, the relationship might get strained and he might never get his piece.

So, the issue is not that the customer is entitled to an answer the way an art commission customer would be . The issue is that ANet is squandering the good will of some of their customers by failing to come up with a new estimate.

squandering goodwill is actually a big problem in a business model like this. also, it really isnt a freebie, They are selling a service, i paid them for a service. A continuous service needs to have that goodwill, because a lot of it is trust that the service will be provided, and give people what they agreed to.

If i pay a plumbing company 100 bucks and they say they will come over for a year and snake the pipes if there is any issues, and they dont come thats a big problem. I understand its complex, troublesome, hard to pin down, but thats the product they sold. They knew this going in.

Actually, ANet offers both a product and a service. You paid for the product when you bought GW2. Purchase of the product also allows access to the service, but does not guarantee anything other than that the service is available without charge until ANet says it isn’t. Neither the GW2 product nor the service paid for includes precursor crafting.

The GW2 service is funded indirectly, by gem purchases. However, there is no contractual arrangement between ANet and GW2 consumers to provide specific features in the service such as would exist in your plumbing example.

You’re right that good will is very important — especially in such a business model. However, what the customer is entitled to is different in such a model. In the plumbing example, the customer is entitled to use legal measures to force the company to honor the contract (or refund the payment). With relation to GW2, the customer is not entitled to insist that the service include certain features. He is, however, entitled to decide not to fund the service.

This type of business environment is necessary when providing the exact same service to a myriad of customers who want different and often conflicting things.

It’s been a year since all those promises and… nothing really looks promising anymore.

No craftable precursors, so getting Legendaries is still more of a kitten than ever. No guild halls. Not even any major class balance changes. Warriors, Guardians, Elementalists, and Mesmers are still PvE top dogs. And while that’s fine under normal circumstances, they haven’t even implemented separate forms of balancing. Yay, Signet of Strength got a… minor nerf.

Now, amongst everything else, even leveling up and traiting your character out has become a cumbersome chore due to the new system, and it seems Anet is adamant in not even tweaking these changes. Now I HAVE to decide if leveling all my alts come first or if decking out my Necro and Warrior in ascended trinkets is. That’s kind of messed up when you really think about it.

Anet needs to take charge in looking at the things clearly wrong with the game and fixing, rather than ignoring them to pump out more LS and gem store stuff as they’ve been clearly doing. This will bite them in the hind one day, mark my words.

phys.7689:

yeah they never did have a what to expect in 2014 blog like they said they were going to do after ls1 ended I think essentially arenanet hates being held to deadlines with a passion. Thats why they dont like to say anything.

And because of threads like these. Just think OP wouldn’t have had anything to complain about if ANet had been this quiet from the start.

Brother Grimm.5176:

There were never ANY promises on WHEN crafted precursors would be released. Granted, they indicated they were aiming for 2013 and they are obviously behind schedule on this, so an inquiry is justified.

However, anything they say on the subject (short of an announcement it’s going to be in the next release), is just fuel for the continual “Anet lied to us!!!!” fire, so I can’t really blame them for saying nothing until it’s ready for release.

My theory as to why we hardly ever hear anything anymore.

Brother Grimm.5176:

Mesket.5728:

Well,… GW2 is a big boy and handles itself now… NCSoft puts all his attention on his newborn WildStar. I won’t expect much improvement in this game from now on.

Actually, if NCSoft loosens its “grip” on GW2 a bit, that could be a very GOOD thing in terms of development direction and pressure to be the cash cow of the company.

This is still just a theory as far as I know. It’s player speculation which in the absence of official comment has become the community’s common truth: NCSoft is squeezing the life out of ANet. I’m not sure if it’s true or not, I just know no one has proof.

Lobo Dela Noche.5127:

Lethalvriend.1723:

I think posts like these are the reason they didn’t put a roadmap up like last time, people take the list as if it’s set in stone the moment they read about it. They have already implemented alot of requested features etc, it’s just a matter of time. They aren’t as big as Blizzard or something so they have to push certain things further down the list.

Not being as big of a company is no reason to not have a roadmap.
It just means you don’t put as much stuff on it. Leaving customers in the dark is bad business.

Oh I’m sure they have a roadmap, just not sharing it. See this thread and so many other’s for a possible reason as to why not.

Palador.2170:

There’s two ways to deal with this: say as much as you can, or say as little as you can. Having seen a company try the first approach, and seeing ANet doing the second, I’ve got to say I like the “as much as you can” way better. I doubt ANet will change, though.

/shrug

They were vocal for a while, but that didn’t work out it seems. Unfortunately I can’t speak for ANet and as such I don’t know if the current approach is very effective or not (from ANet’s perspective). I do know from a player perspective I’d prefer they say a lot more.

phys.7689:

i thing you publicly announce is expected to occur. And not announcing anything is not the proper answer to the equation, the proper answer is to deliver.

And so we go full circle. They don’t announce things because people expect them to occur even if announced simply as a possible implementation or something they might look at in the future. If they don’t announce they can deliver without people complaining.

FirebrandFrog.7603:

It’s been a year since all those promises and… nothing really looks promising anymore.

If anything one of the continuing themes in this thread was that there wasn’t any promises.

CureForLiving.5360:

phys.7689:

yeah they never did have a what to expect in 2014 blog like they said they were going to do after ls1 ended I think essentially arenanet hates being held to deadlines with a passion. Thats why they dont like to say anything.

And because of threads like these. Just think OP wouldn’t have had anything to complain about if ANet had been this quiet from the start.

Brother Grimm.5176:

There were never ANY promises on WHEN crafted precursors would be released. Granted, they indicated they were aiming for 2013 and they are obviously behind schedule on this, so an inquiry is justified.

However, anything they say on the subject (short of an announcement it’s going to be in the next release), is just fuel for the continual “Anet lied to us!!!!” fire, so I can’t really blame them for saying nothing until it’s ready for release.

My theory as to why we hardly ever hear anything anymore.

Brother Grimm.5176:

Mesket.5728:

Well,… GW2 is a big boy and handles itself now… NCSoft puts all his attention on his newborn WildStar. I won’t expect much improvement in this game from now on.

Actually, if NCSoft loosens its “grip” on GW2 a bit, that could be a very GOOD thing in terms of development direction and pressure to be the cash cow of the company.

This is still just a theory as far as I know. It’s player speculation which in the absence of official comment has become the community’s common truth: NCSoft is squeezing the life out of ANet. I’m not sure if it’s true or not, I just know no one has proof.

Lobo Dela Noche.5127:

Lethalvriend.1723:

I think posts like these are the reason they didn’t put a roadmap up like last time, people take the list as if it’s set in stone the moment they read about it. They have already implemented alot of requested features etc, it’s just a matter of time. They aren’t as big as Blizzard or something so they have to push certain things further down the list.

Not being as big of a company is no reason to not have a roadmap.
It just means you don’t put as much stuff on it. Leaving customers in the dark is bad business.

Oh I’m sure they have a roadmap, just not sharing it. See this thread and so many other’s for a possible reason as to why not.

Palador.2170:

There’s two ways to deal with this: say as much as you can, or say as little as you can. Having seen a company try the first approach, and seeing ANet doing the second, I’ve got to say I like the “as much as you can” way better. I doubt ANet will change, though.

/shrug

They were vocal for a while, but that didn’t work out it seems. Unfortunately I can’t speak for ANet and as such I don’t know if the current approach is very effective or not (from ANet’s perspective). I do know from a player perspective I’d prefer they say a lot more.

phys.7689:

i thing you publicly announce is expected to occur. And not announcing anything is not the proper answer to the equation, the proper answer is to deliver.

And so we go full circle. They don’t announce things because people expect them to occur even if announced simply as a possible implementation or something they might look at in the future. If they don’t announce they can deliver without people complaining.

FirebrandFrog.7603:

It’s been a year since all those promises and… nothing really looks promising anymore.

If anything one of the continuing themes in this thread was that there wasn’t any promises.

the answer is to announce them and implement them. The problem with precursors were there 3 months in, and they are still there today. But eh whatevs, im not throughly enaged anyhow, no sweat

Mesket.5728:

Well,… GW2 is a big boy and handles itself now… NCSoft puts all his attention on his newborn WildStar. I won’t expect much improvement in this game from now on.

yes, that. It is a well known fact that publishers draw concept art, write lore and story, use content editors, write code and basically do everything that gets into a computer game.

Imagine Picard facepalm here…