Guild Wars 2

Azure The Heartless.3261:

There are more people willing to pay 300 dollars for a console than 1k + for a machine capable of comfortably running a MMO.

There are people that end up moving to pc when they realize their consoles make them pay another 300 every two years or so.

My system did not cost anywhere near 1k+(USD) and that was several years ago.

Tyler Allen.9047:

Controllers! I loathe playing games with a KB&M. Full on Hate!
The problem is closed minded debs who don’t want to detour from their “vision”.
They say stupid things like, “if you want a controller buy a console” ….
Newsflash, I have a console! Guess what? I play that when I’m home most of the time!
Though right now, I’m at work as a night audit at a hotel. TONS of downtime. I want to get out my laptop & controller and enjoy an MMO.
Or perhaps I’m at the girls house, and want to enjoy a hour or 2 of game time before I fall asleep. Have you never played on a laptop with a controller while you sit up in bed?
What it falls down to is a bunch of PC elitist who think if your not at a tweaked desktop your doing it wrong!
These guys are so closed minded they won’t even allow you to change the pointer to a crosshair… I guess people playing the game the way THEY would most enjoy would hurt their feelings… lol so sensitive!

I prefer controllers.

Until I started playing WoW, four years ago, I had played the vast majority of the games I had played on consoles; not on PCs.

However, I don’t think you can mix the two very successfully.

For one thing, by doing so, you tend to give an unfair advantage to the controller players. which is obviously a big problem, especially in PVP.

I can’t really say what is making gamers leave MMOs, in general, but what made me eventually leave WoW was their broken promises and U-turns.

As I was saying to another former WoW player, earlier, in WvW – you can’t give something and then just take it away again and expect everyone to be fine about it.

Had they not added LFR, when they did, I would probably have quit after 6 months, or so, as I would have had nothing much left to do.

Then, had they not added Flex raids when they did, I would probably have lost some interest, even if I wouldn’t necessarily have left.

I did do some “real” raiding, but I always preferred just jumping into queued content, with random strangers, most of the time.

That was like the bread and butter of my game and if I wanted some “cake”, occasionally, I could do a “real” raid, or two.

Then WoD came along, with all its Orcs, its smallish relatively uninspired continent, excruciatingly dull garrisons, dullish raids (compared with MoP), too-easy LFR (with nerfed rewards), endless rep grinding and no flying.

All the (from my perspective) unpleasant, juvenile, elitist people (who had mainly left in anticipation of “pandas”, before MoP) came back and acted like MoP and its accessible Flex raiding and relatively challenging LFR had never happened…

These people made the Flex raids (now called “Normals”, just to make life more confusing!) feel hideously serious, like the old Normal raids and above had.

Not like the relatively relaxed raid they were supposed to be and had been in MoP.

I’m not even sure these people realised that “Normal” was the new name for Flexes?

They just acted like they were the old “Normal” “real” raids and that, if people hadn’t already done them in the Beta, they were useless.

In addition to this, they removed personal loot (which had been a brilliant development), so most of the random runs were (or are) now run by loot scammers…

Total nightmare.

Finally, I had to change sides, to make Belves, as I just couldn’t stand the new female human model.

So, I couldn’t even “real” raid anymore, without finding a new guild.

For me, it was just the perfect storm – they had undone all the good work they had done in MoP.

So, I left and doubt I will return, unless all of this is put right again.

People are more critical these days and often even over-critical and leave a new
MMO often after short time because in memory the old ones were sooo much
better, while infact nobody would play those old games with their mechanic
anymore.

I just have to think about all the mob camping in EQ2 .. who would do that
anymore these days ? But at that time we had a lot fun in the game even if
we often wanted to cry out loud when again only the placeholder was spawning.

Also many dont understand that the community / guild is very important.
Without good friends the fun is gone fast and little problems seem to be much
bigger and also seeing people in forums complain all day can also bring you
to dislike small problems suddenly much more.

Beldin.5498:

I just have to think about all the mob camping in EQ2 .. who would do that
anymore these days ? But at that time we had a lot fun in the game even if
we often wanted to cry out loud when again only the placeholder was spawning.

Who would do that anymore these days? Most of the people doing the world bosses in GW2?

Sure there is a schedule but it’s not that much different.

I have to agree with you about Webzen, Immortal. I have played a Webzen game for a couple years and sunk a lot of money into it and all the money Webzen took went into developing C9 and then they canceled the older game I was playing.

And their customer service was horrible. They held events that would give prizes to winning players and guilds and then never awarded the prizes and ignored all the inquiries. They held cash events (example: buy a certain amount of a cash shop item and receive a free flying mount.) They never awarded the flying mounts to the accounts of players that made the purchases and ignored 8 inquiries from me about that. When I went to their forum and complained about it, they admonished me in the forum to send direct inquiry, but I sent 8 inquiries and they ignored all of them and deleted my posts in forum about it.

But the biggest thing they ever did that was so HORRIBLE, they offered an elite set of gear for sale at some astronomical price and if you purchased it, you were given the 2nd tier elite weapon with a specific set of stats that WERE NOT available in game as an incentive to buy.

Then after we purchased the set and got our 2nd tier elite weapon with skills and stats that WERE NOT available in game, they nerf’d that stats, in particular, they nerf’d the -3 second debuff duration stat, which was the only reason players even made the purchase to begin with, to -1 second.

I could go on how terrible Webzen was. I think to the point of almost criminally dishonest. I have played a lot of “free games” so-called, but I have never seen any more corrupt, dishonest, deceitful, lying organization such as Webzen.

Caveat Emptor, buyer beware. If Webzen still exists, BE VERY CAREFUL. They have been dishonest and downright abusive to their players.

Moving to consoles yes mostly.I think about too.
There’s a lot of nice deals when buy a game or you can play pirated too.
Can run games like a PC but portable as laptop.
I found especially painful the requirements of new games,I don’t have NASA PC and my 2GB Nvidia just cannot hold and the newest games are a pain to play even the MMO-s especially where’s pvp and you need all the FPS you can have.
On Xbox or PS you got no such problems,just buy the game and run there’s no specific req and is much cheaper than a PC.

humm i have been playing much more ps4 mmo’s even if they are p2p, for pc im dropping it slowlly, still playing sto once in a while, only reason i use a machine with windows was due sto and gw2.

MMO’s have also lent themselves to becoming mundane chores. Login, do xx daily for xx rewards, farm xx dungeon xx amount of times for xx rewards. The conditions change, but the core remains the same, whether its dungeon grinding, mob grinding, zerg grinding, event grinding.
My life has enough mundane tasks, I want to game for fun.

PC vs Console doesn’t really matter in this case. You can play an MMO on a console (not as big a selection, but you still can). Graphics, fps or whatever don’t matter in the end. Its nice if a game is pretty, but won’t make or break it. If a game or genre is fun, people will play it. Minecraft, mobile games, resurgence in the retro “8-bit” aesthetic in games such as Shovel Knight are all proof of this. Hell, the popularity of SAB in this game proves that.
MMO’s reputation precedes it with new players and keeps some from even trying the genre. Negative playerbases, having games go pay-to-win with their cashshops, the mundane “daily” chores.
I would love to see a developer actually turn the genre on its head and revitalize it.

The forums are not a good measure of a game’s activity. Most often people will only post if they’re annoyed about something, and the vast majority of MMO players will never touch the official forums, many don’t even know the forums exist.

Its just a changing in generation its a move from pc / video game systems to smart phones and tablets. The type of game is going to need to changes with it and i am not sure if “true” mmorpgs can work on the new major formats.

Hype = fail.
Copy cat = fail.
Not being unique = fail.

Just three things off the top of my head since I started playing MMO’s dating back to DaOC. Since then I’ve tried just about everything and see a little bit of this and that which they all have in common with the two ton gorilla called WoW.

Because that was so successful, and by many standards still is today, everyone tries to copy it and make a buck. Eve is probably the only other game to have similar longevity to WoW but nowhere near the numbers. Probably due to learning curve and type of game play. But heck, look at SWG, Shadowbane, Rift, Conan, Wildstar, SWtOR, Aion, and many others. Last a few months to a few years if that then boom, they go bust. Warhammer, we can just keep adding game after game with similar results. And guess what, WoW is getting ready for yet another expansion with raised level cap of 110…go figure.

There is a player base that can support the market for sure but no one really seems to understand just want the player base wants. Even GW2 doesn’t fully understand based on what we’ve seen over the past few years. My gut tells me that if there was something similar on the market we’d see few players here.

2016 will be interesting as there may be two releases that could potentially take away players. We’ll see though. They are already borderline losing the WvW players as is due to population and server ranks combined with no progression or player portal that lists various accomplishments by guild, class, etc.

Crapgame.6519:

2016 will be interesting as there may be two releases that could potentially take away players. We’ll see though. They are already borderline losing the WvW players as is due to population and server ranks combined with no progression or player portal that lists various accomplishments by guild, class, etc.

A really simple solution to a problem that could have been avoided from the start and was finally kned to its knees with EOTM. Everyone who played DAOC knows that these things are really nice to have and let me to play it long after it had long overstayed it´s welcome.

Eve did not have the large heap of players because there are too many wolves runinng for much too less sheep in that game with a fence around the sheep that is much too low. I am actually amazed that it rose to the level it has already achieved with the powergrip of BoB, CF Alliance, PL and the Russians over 0.0 room over the last years, most of them only really losing their grip to power when they began to turn against their friends because they were so bored from the game itself. Now the publisher even had to build in a mechanic to kind of steal systems from the big block. And in China, it is probably even worse.^^

Sthenith.5196:

Well, i urge those that don’t know it by now, or realise what difference a concept makes :

Take a look at Skyrim versus Elder Scrolls Online (ESO). When that came out, all the skyrim (and older installments) players expected something like skyrim, but then online.
Boy, did they get a surprise. Not only was it nothing like one of their most succesful games, it was a total loss, pushing people away from the mmo genre even.

Man, this is so true it should be framed on the wall.

It’s true that MOBA’s and app games on devices are very popular with people of all ages. They’re easy to pick up and learn and don’t involve a huge time investment. I heard that when WoW tried to incorporate those kinds of mechanics it pushed away their playerbase since they were expecting more traditional MMO mechanics and content. I don’t think the answer is to try to emulate those games and would argue that GW2 pvp is great for people who just want to ‘pick up and play’ something, while maintaining that competitive aspect. PvE in addition to this helps the game maintain it’s identity as an MMO.

I also like the idea of an expansive world that you can explore and interact with other people in, and MMO’s fulfill that need more than pretty much any other genre. Hopefully with HoT and additional expansions, GW2 will continue to innovate within the MMO genre without losing sight of the things which made it great to begin with.

coso.9173:

Is the MMO genre becoming stale and people are prefering smaller more casual games?

Will give fact and opinion based responses to your question.

Fact 1 – The MMO market is oversaturated. Google the list of MMOs. It is huge with new ones announced every month.

Opinion – Because of the increase in variety of gaming genres and platforms, MMOs do not draw and retain players like they did in the 90s. People have many videogaming choices and MMOs are not always their top one.

Fact 2 – Majority of people consume content at a fast rate. Sometimes faster than devs expect.

Opinion – Devs cannot keep up with the pace that majority of people consume content. Some devs have lost credibility because they share a content schedule to justify subscription costs. But end up not delivering on that schedule several months after launch. Therefore, players and watchers (ppl who track MMOs) have become disillusioned, resulting in quitting that or MMOs in general.

Fact 3 – Average age range of videogamers is in 30s.

Opinion – Demographics of videogamers has changed and so have their playing habits. They no longer see videogames as an “investment.” Instead, they “invest” in their real life and make that a priority. Therefore, more and more gamers are leaving MMOs because they cannot or do not want to “commit” to long term investments.

dalendria.3762:

Will give fact and opinion based responses to your question.

Fact 1 – The MMO market is oversaturated. Google the list of MMOs. It is huge with new ones announced every month.

Opinion – Because of the increase in variety of gaming genres and platforms, MMOs do not draw and retain players like they did in the 90s. People have many videogaming choices and MMOs are not always their top one.

Fact 2 – Majority of people consume content at a fast rate. Sometimes faster than devs expect.

Opinion – Devs cannot keep up with the pace that majority of people consume content. Some devs have lost credibility because they share a content schedule to justify subscription costs. But end up not delivering on that schedule several months after launch. Therefore, players and watchers (ppl who track MMOs) have become disillusioned, resulting in quitting that or MMOs in general.

Fact 3 – Average age range of videogamers is in 30s.

Opinion – Demographics of videogamers has changed and so have their playing habits. They no longer see videogames as an “investment.” Instead, they “invest” in their real life and make that a priority. Therefore, more and more gamers are leaving MMOs because they cannot or do not want to “commit” to long term investments.

Very true. Back in the day, before FaceBook and Twitter, a lot of our peers kept in touch with their friends through the game. This was especially true for guilds via Vent and similar media.

Also, you had maybe one or two really good MMOs to hold your attention. DAoC benefited greatly from this lack of competition. And then Warcraft came along and all its copycats.

Yeah, lots and lots of choices now, much like everything in entertainment . . . music and publishing included. So companies have less chances to screw up and be forgiven by the public.

These days, they’ll just move onto something else. And it’s death for some games and companies. Warhammer Online, City of Heroes, Hellgate . . . people won’t put up with half-kitten products and poor decisions anymore.

Khisanth.2948:

Azure The Heartless.3261:

There are more people willing to pay 300 dollars for a console than 1k + for a machine capable of comfortably running a MMO.

There are people that end up moving to pc when they realize their consoles make them pay another 300 every two years or so.

My system did not cost anywhere near 1k+(USD) and that was several years ago.

Emphasis on comfortable, and many gamers are not as interested in building their own rig as they should be.

People aren’t leaving MMOs, look at the top lists on Steam. People are spreading out to the various MMOs. TERA’s Steam launch came around the same time GW2 HoT preorders started. TERA is GW2’s main competition right now, and I’m sure more than a few people used the Steam launch of TERA to talk themselves out of buying HoT and switching games. MMO playership is growing, but there is ever more and more MMOs to play so each individual game has more competition.

I think it’s important to remember that ‘gamers’ is a group of millions of people (even if you exclude people who only play on mobile devices). Even ‘gamers who have played, or would consider playing an MMO’ includes several million people in multiple countries and cultures all around the world.

Therefore it’s not really practical to look for one simple reason for any overall trends (even if there is one). Just looking at this thread it’s clear that what drives one person away is exactly what appeals to someone else – some people say MMOs these days are too easy, others say they’re too hard, some say they’re too time consuming, others say they’re too ‘casual’ and don’t encourage you to commit long periods of time…and so on.

Which means I suspect that, if there is actually a drop in overall numbers of MMO players, it’s probably because of a variety of factors, not just one thing.

Vayne.8563:

Dinks.2478:

No, MMOs are moving away from players. Take GW2 for a perfect example.

Anet keeps ignoring feedback, won’t communicate with the player base, and time after time kittens on their loyal veteran player base in favor of grabbing new fleeting players.

I wish people would stop saying this. Anet doesn’t ignore feedback. Which doesn’t mean they take all feedback. For example, some people ask for dueling. Many say they don’t want dueling. No matter what Anet does they’re listening to feedback.

When someone says Anet isn’t listening to feedback what they’re really saying is the decisions Anet is making is moving away from MY feedback.

Which is another story entirely.

No, I wish YOU would stop saying what you’re saying because YOU are wrong.

Anet has time and time again ignored us. They won’t tell us what they are working on. They won’t give us more dungeons. They won’t give us raids. They only produce content for the gem store. This is not MY feedback, this is the feedback of anybody who isn’t an anet fanboy who refuses to acknowledge any wrongdoing from their god.

Asgaeroth.6427:

People aren’t leaving MMOs, look at the top lists on Steam. People are spreading out to the various MMOs. TERA’s Steam launch came around the same time GW2 HoT preorders started. TERA is GW2’s main competition right now, and I’m sure more than a few people used the Steam launch of TERA to talk themselves out of buying HoT and switching games. MMO playership is growing, but there is ever more and more MMOs to play so each individual game has more competition.

There is much more to point to the contrary. Big-name MMO’s shutting down, MMO’s doing server merges, MMO’s dropping fees and prices in a desperate attempt to gain and keep players, big-name MMO’s like WoW having their populations drop substantially.
When people leave one MMO and go to another and yet more others only to find them generically the same, they eventually leave the genre entirely to play or do something else more engaging, since no developer in the MMO genre has the imagination to reinvent it or do anything substantial with it.

Khisanth.2948:

Beldin.5498:

I just have to think about all the mob camping in EQ2 .. who would do that
anymore these days ? But at that time we had a lot fun in the game even if
we often wanted to cry out loud when again only the placeholder was spawning.

Who would do that anymore these days? Most of the people doing the world bosses in GW2?

Sure there is a schedule but it’s not that much different.

That’s not mob camping as it was in EQ. Think riding a rollercoaster. Stand in this queue until it’s your party’s turn to fight the beast with 1000 eyes. Please no cutting.

No. GW2 is just no fun anymore.

PvE is boring, since it’s only Zerk-Stacking meta in a corner or speed runs. You can kitten over trinity as much as you want, but I had way more fun doing PvE in Tera with my Lancer.
sPvP, you can only take so much of that kitten if you solo queue.
WvW, it’s probably the only good thing about GW2…probably.

As much as I usually support Anet, I think they really showed a certain kind of creative bancruptcy with the LS and then HoT, and now were basically swept at the knees and forced to bend forward and change their model to a model they did want to avoid but were swept into by the number of customers, or rather their lack of customers. As strong as the lure is to present good but short impact numbers to shareholders, it is still the customer who will ultimately decide if your company lives or dies.

PR guys must be walking on crutches right now with Anet. They took the full brunt of staying silent on pressing matters for either the same shareholder reason like a release date that does not fit into a season or a mayor shareholder with interest in another game too blocking any attempts to give out better PR, or they were complete caught with the pants down attitude of Anet when the free LS failed. Some companies float despite the owners, not because of them.

And speaking of shrinking numbers, if your idea is novel or your brand is strong, people will obviously come, despite your product standing on 80% good will and 20% Alpha grade modules for a game with unknown release date. People basically can´t wait to throw money at Star Citizen and Chris Roberts, who is probably laughing like a madman on his way to the bank.

Dinks.2478:

Vayne.8563:

Dinks.2478:

No, MMOs are moving away from players. Take GW2 for a perfect example.

Anet keeps ignoring feedback, won’t communicate with the player base, and time after time kittens on their loyal veteran player base in favor of grabbing new fleeting players.

I wish people would stop saying this. Anet doesn’t ignore feedback. Which doesn’t mean they take all feedback. For example, some people ask for dueling. Many say they don’t want dueling. No matter what Anet does they’re listening to feedback.

When someone says Anet isn’t listening to feedback what they’re really saying is the decisions Anet is making is moving away from MY feedback.

Which is another story entirely.

No, I wish YOU would stop saying what you’re saying because YOU are wrong.

Anet has time and time again ignored us. They won’t tell us what they are working on. They won’t give us more dungeons. They won’t give us raids. They only produce content for the gem store. This is not MY feedback, this is the feedback of anybody who isn’t an anet fanboy who refuses to acknowledge any wrongdoing from their god.

Kind of aggressive and presumptuous there. Calm it down.

I’m not an anet fanboy, I’m pretty kittened about what they did to thieves, and I find pve boring. That being said, I do think they listen to feedback pretty kitten often, especially when it matters or when it directly involves how the community sees them.

Developing the content you’re claiming that Anet’s status as a community-interested company hinges on takes a lot of time, and with the Xpack in the works, I’m sure they’re swimming in work. They have a certain quality that you cannot rush.

I’ll play something else while I wait sometimes, but I’m willing to wait for it to launch polished and pristine.

wish more people would.

I stopped playing MMORPGS for about 6-8 months at one point. Maybe a lot of others are like me about it. After a few bad companies ruined my gaming experience. I started to think there was no such thing as a good mmorpg. Not because of the game play but because of how it was run.

P2W models. Neglect of the game and players. Lack of communication. Being ripped off. The WORST customer support. Waiting days or even weeks to hear from someone about a ticket. Watching forums flood with unheard suggestions that never went anywhere. Being fed BS by community managers. Bait and switched. I mean the list goes on and on why I was very annoyed and put away my hobby for a while.

It’s companies like Anet that make me feel a lot better about my gaming experience. And this comes from someone who is far from a “white knight”.

I’m actually at the point where new games that come out? Whatever. Why waste my time when I can stick with a company I trust.

The F2P revolution is finally taking it’s toll, I feel.

There is LITERALLY more free gaming than any single person could enjoy in a lifetime at this point.

Dinks.2478:

Vayne.8563:

Dinks.2478:

No, MMOs are moving away from players. Take GW2 for a perfect example.

Anet keeps ignoring feedback, won’t communicate with the player base, and time after time kittens on their loyal veteran player base in favor of grabbing new fleeting players.

I wish people would stop saying this. Anet doesn’t ignore feedback. Which doesn’t mean they take all feedback. For example, some people ask for dueling. Many say they don’t want dueling. No matter what Anet does they’re listening to feedback.

When someone says Anet isn’t listening to feedback what they’re really saying is the decisions Anet is making is moving away from MY feedback.

Which is another story entirely.

No, I wish YOU would stop saying what you’re saying because YOU are wrong.

Anet has time and time again ignored us. They won’t tell us what they are working on. They won’t give us more dungeons. They won’t give us raids. They only produce content for the gem store. This is not MY feedback, this is the feedback of anybody who isn’t an anet fanboy who refuses to acknowledge any wrongdoing from their god.

Raids were never in their vision for their game.

• They reworked Revenant based on the player feedback from that beta weekend.
• There’s changes coming based on the player feedback from this last beta weekend.
• Traits 3.0 is partially the result of the massive pushback from Traits 2.0.
• The Wardrobe, Account Bound Dyes, changing soulbound gem shop items to account bound are all based on player feedback.
• Remove WvW maps from world complete.

You’re upset because of a lack of confirmation you are being heard, the speed that change happens and the fact that sometimes, often your feedback isn’t what’s acted upon.

So, no mounts, dueling, race change, inspection tools, 3rd party plugins, UI customization, instant waypoint unlocks, buying the expansion with gems, removing timegates, banning flipping, price regulation, or other often repeated requests that conflict with their vision of their game.

Edit: Fixed quote.

Behellagh.1468:

MrRuin.9740:

Asgaeroth.6427:

People aren’t leaving MMOs, look at the top lists on Steam. People are spreading out to the various MMOs. TERA’s Steam launch came around the same time GW2 HoT preorders started. TERA is GW2’s main competition right now, and I’m sure more than a few people used the Steam launch of TERA to talk themselves out of buying HoT and switching games. MMO playership is growing, but there is ever more and more MMOs to play so each individual game has more competition.

There is much more to point to the contrary. Big-name MMO’s shutting down, MMO’s doing server merges, MMO’s dropping fees and prices in a desperate attempt to gain and keep players, big-name MMO’s like WoW having their populations drop substantially.
When people leave one MMO and go to another and yet more others only to find them generically the same, they eventually leave the genre entirely to play or do something else more engaging, since no developer in the MMO genre has the imagination to reinvent it or do anything substantial with it.

Raids were never in their vision for their game.

• They reworked Revenant based on the player feedback from that beta weekend.
• There’s changes coming based on the player feedback from this last beta weekend.
• Traits 3.0 is partially the result of the massive pushback from Traits 2.0.
• The Wardrobe, Account Bound Dyes, changing soulbound gem shop items to account bound are all based on player feedback.
• Remove WvW maps from world complete.

You’re upset because of a lack of confirmation you are being heard, the speed that change happens and the fact that sometimes, often your feedback isn’t what’s acted upon.

So, no mounts, dueling, race change, inspection tools, 3rd party plugins, UI customization, instant waypoint unlocks, buying the expansion with gems, removing timegates, banning flipping, price regulation, or other often repeated requests that conflict with their vision of their game.

And in one post this whole thread went from productive to fanboy. You’ll be the last person on the game screaming how good it is and hoping somebody hears you because anet pushed everybody else away.

Behellagh.1468:

MrRuin.9740:

Asgaeroth.6427:

People aren’t leaving MMOs, look at the top lists on Steam. People are spreading out to the various MMOs. TERA’s Steam launch came around the same time GW2 HoT preorders started. TERA is GW2’s main competition right now, and I’m sure more than a few people used the Steam launch of TERA to talk themselves out of buying HoT and switching games. MMO playership is growing, but there is ever more and more MMOs to play so each individual game has more competition.

There is much more to point to the contrary. Big-name MMO’s shutting down, MMO’s doing server merges, MMO’s dropping fees and prices in a desperate attempt to gain and keep players, big-name MMO’s like WoW having their populations drop substantially.
When people leave one MMO and go to another and yet more others only to find them generically the same, they eventually leave the genre entirely to play or do something else more engaging, since no developer in the MMO genre has the imagination to reinvent it or do anything substantial with it.

Raids were never in their vision for their game.

• They reworked Revenant based on the player feedback from that beta weekend.
• There’s changes coming based on the player feedback from this last beta weekend.
• Traits 3.0 is partially the result of the massive pushback from Traits 2.0.
• The Wardrobe, Account Bound Dyes, changing soulbound gem shop items to account bound are all based on player feedback.
• Remove WvW maps from world complete.

You’re upset because of a lack of confirmation you are being heard, the speed that change happens and the fact that sometimes, often your feedback isn’t what’s acted upon.

So, no mounts, dueling, race change, inspection tools, 3rd party plugins, UI customization, instant waypoint unlocks, buying the expansion with gems, removing timegates, banning flipping, price regulation, or other often repeated requests that conflict with their vision of their game.

Did you mean to quote me? Because your response has nothing to do with anything I was talking about. Nor is there anything in the other persons quote inside mine where it says anything about you’re talking about here, like raids and feedback.
AFAIK the topic was aimed at the MMO genre as a whole, not attacks on Anet that need defending (though while GW2’s direction has, IMO, contributed to the stagnation of the genre, it is but a small part of the larger problems of the genre as a whole).

MrRuin.9740:

Asgaeroth.6427:

People aren’t leaving MMOs, look at the top lists on Steam. People are spreading out to the various MMOs. TERA’s Steam launch came around the same time GW2 HoT preorders started. TERA is GW2’s main competition right now, and I’m sure more than a few people used the Steam launch of TERA to talk themselves out of buying HoT and switching games. MMO playership is growing, but there is ever more and more MMOs to play so each individual game has more competition.

There is much more to point to the contrary. Big-name MMO’s shutting down, MMO’s doing server merges, MMO’s dropping fees and prices in a desperate attempt to gain and keep players, big-name MMO’s like WoW having their populations drop substantially.
When people leave one MMO and go to another and yet more others only to find them generically the same, they eventually leave the genre entirely to play or do something else more engaging, since no developer in the MMO genre has the imagination to reinvent it or do anything substantial with it.

This is a relevant video. The problem isn’t imagination, it is money. Due to the time and financial investment required for MMOs playerside, the MMO market is highly competitive and exclusive. Anything that doesn’t stick to the WoW formula is considered too big a financial risk for investors. This fear is so pervasive that GW2, which is different mostly on a superficial and QoL level, was considered a high risk and likely to fail.

MrRuin.9740:

Did you mean to quote me? Because your response has nothing to do with anything I was talking about. Nor is there anything in the other persons quote inside mine where it says anything about you’re talking about here, like raids and feedback.
AFAIK the topic was aimed at the MMO genre as a whole, not attacks on Anet that need defending (though while GW2’s direction has, IMO, contributed to the stagnation of the genre, it is but a small part of the larger problems of the genre as a whole).

Sorry, grabbed the wrong quote, fixed it.

Dinks.2478:

Behellagh.1468:

MrRuin.9740:

Asgaeroth.6427:

People aren’t leaving MMOs, look at the top lists on Steam. People are spreading out to the various MMOs. TERA’s Steam launch came around the same time GW2 HoT preorders started. TERA is GW2’s main competition right now, and I’m sure more than a few people used the Steam launch of TERA to talk themselves out of buying HoT and switching games. MMO playership is growing, but there is ever more and more MMOs to play so each individual game has more competition.

There is much more to point to the contrary. Big-name MMO’s shutting down, MMO’s doing server merges, MMO’s dropping fees and prices in a desperate attempt to gain and keep players, big-name MMO’s like WoW having their populations drop substantially.
When people leave one MMO and go to another and yet more others only to find them generically the same, they eventually leave the genre entirely to play or do something else more engaging, since no developer in the MMO genre has the imagination to reinvent it or do anything substantial with it.

Raids were never in their vision for their game.

• They reworked Revenant based on the player feedback from that beta weekend.
• There’s changes coming based on the player feedback from this last beta weekend.
• Traits 3.0 is partially the result of the massive pushback from Traits 2.0.
• The Wardrobe, Account Bound Dyes, changing soulbound gem shop items to account bound are all based on player feedback.
• Remove WvW maps from world complete.

You’re upset because of a lack of confirmation you are being heard, the speed that change happens and the fact that sometimes, often your feedback isn’t what’s acted upon.

So, no mounts, dueling, race change, inspection tools, 3rd party plugins, UI customization, instant waypoint unlocks, buying the expansion with gems, removing timegates, banning flipping, price regulation, or other often repeated requests that conflict with their vision of their game.

And in one post this whole thread went from productive to fanboy. You’ll be the last person on the game screaming how good it is and hoping somebody hears you because anet pushed everybody else away.

While yours was nothing but ANet/GW2 bashing. You don’t like the game, don’t play it. You don’t hang around and tell everyone else how much of an idiot they are for still playing.

You don’t seem to understand that it’s their game and as players are only input is if we choose to play or not. This is true with every game from every developer out there. Now devs could choose to placate us to keep us playing but they shouldn’t change the underlying DNA of their game simply to keep the most noisy players happy. WildStar listened to those players wanting a casual free, ultra hard core play experience and now that game has 1/10th the income that GW2 has. GW2 is still cruising along as NCSOFT’s #3 MMO in income for the last 2 quarters after Lineage and Blade & Soul so they must be keeping someone happy.

MMOs are time consuming and as player get older and platforms shift to mobile devices and those games must be something that a session can be played in 5 minutes it’s only natural that MMO populations are decreasing. Older players have life that keep them from devoting as much time as they use to while younger players have been weened on Candy Crush and Fruit Ninja and don’t have the attention span to get caught up in the grind of any MMO.

With GW2, ANet tried to create an MMO experience that “filthy casuals” can play. This means no long raids, short events and “quests”, activities that someone can do if they have a half an hour to spare as well as not having aggravations that could drive them away (DUELME!!DUELME!!DUELME!DUELME!!DUELME!!…).

I been playin mmos since…uo/everquest and let’s just say…this genre needs a kick in the pants; it’s always the same old thing. WoW clones, WoW clones every where; devs are financially scared of taking risks and that is not good for the future.

There has been next to no innovation and it also does not help many devs don’t even bother to try to retain players and instead go for box sales then drop support for game shortly after launch.. Plus that evil old ploy of….give less and calling it more; you’ll have legions of fanboys backing you so this works great! I tire of this and I am sure other vets are too. /shrug

Behellagh.1468:

as players are only input is if we choose to play or not.

Sorry for singling out one line from an entire post, but this is very much not the case.

Sure voting with our wallet, or feet, may be one means of providing input but it is not the only one.

Behellagh.1468:

Dinks.2478:

Behellagh.1468:

MrRuin.9740:

Asgaeroth.6427:

People aren’t leaving MMOs, look at the top lists on Steam. People are spreading out to the various MMOs. TERA’s Steam launch came around the same time GW2 HoT preorders started. TERA is GW2’s main competition right now, and I’m sure more than a few people used the Steam launch of TERA to talk themselves out of buying HoT and switching games. MMO playership is growing, but there is ever more and more MMOs to play so each individual game has more competition.

There is much more to point to the contrary. Big-name MMO’s shutting down, MMO’s doing server merges, MMO’s dropping fees and prices in a desperate attempt to gain and keep players, big-name MMO’s like WoW having their populations drop substantially.
When people leave one MMO and go to another and yet more others only to find them generically the same, they eventually leave the genre entirely to play or do something else more engaging, since no developer in the MMO genre has the imagination to reinvent it or do anything substantial with it.

Raids were never in their vision for their game.

• They reworked Revenant based on the player feedback from that beta weekend.
• There’s changes coming based on the player feedback from this last beta weekend.
• Traits 3.0 is partially the result of the massive pushback from Traits 2.0.
• The Wardrobe, Account Bound Dyes, changing soulbound gem shop items to account bound are all based on player feedback.
• Remove WvW maps from world complete.

You’re upset because of a lack of confirmation you are being heard, the speed that change happens and the fact that sometimes, often your feedback isn’t what’s acted upon.

So, no mounts, dueling, race change, inspection tools, 3rd party plugins, UI customization, instant waypoint unlocks, buying the expansion with gems, removing timegates, banning flipping, price regulation, or other often repeated requests that conflict with their vision of their game.

And in one post this whole thread went from productive to fanboy. You’ll be the last person on the game screaming how good it is and hoping somebody hears you because anet pushed everybody else away.

While yours was nothing but ANet/GW2 bashing. You don’t like the game, don’t play it. You don’t hang around and tell everyone else how much of an idiot they are for still playing.

You don’t seem to understand that it’s their game and as players are only input is if we choose to play or not. This is true with every game from every developer out there. Now devs could choose to placate us to keep us playing but they shouldn’t change the underlying DNA of their game simply to keep the most noisy players happy. WildStar listened to those players wanting a casual free, ultra hard core play experience and now that game has 1/10th the income that GW2 has. GW2 is still cruising along as NCSOFT’s #3 MMO in income for the last 2 quarters after Lineage and Blade & Soul so they must be keeping someone happy.

MMOs are time consuming and as player get older and platforms shift to mobile devices and those games must be something that a session can be played in 5 minutes it’s only natural that MMO populations are decreasing. Older players have life that keep them from devoting as much time as they use to while younger players have been weened on Candy Crush and Fruit Ninja and don’t have the attention span to get caught up in the grind of any MMO.

With GW2, ANet tried to create an MMO experience that “filthy casuals” can play. This means no long raids, short events and “quests”, activities that someone can do if they have a half an hour to spare as well as not having aggravations that could drive them away (DUELME!!DUELME!!DUELME!DUELME!!DUELME!!…).

Just substitute Britney with Anet. Thanks

Ashen.2907:

Behellagh.1468:

as players are only input is if we choose to play or not.

Sorry for singling out one line from an entire post, but this is very much not the case.

Sure voting with our wallet, or feet, may be one means of providing input but it is not the only one.

But in the end it’s the only one that matters. Video games and MMOs especially are peculiar in the field of art because of the interactive nature of it. But like like “free speech” it means you are free to say anything but that doesn’t mean anyone has to listen to it. And when you start playing the “they don’t listen to us” card you need to understand that wasn’t a requirement of theirs.

Sure it suits them to cater to suggestions that would benefit the most players while not destroying the original vision of the game. If they seem like they are ignoring a loud segment it’s likely they had chosen to ignore those and any response will just upset them more. If the devs ever came forward and clearly said that some much asked for thing will never be done there will be rage quits and table flips all over the forums. It’s better in this case to not say anything.

But our devs do listen. There problem is it seems often that they run open loop and what they deliver isn’t what was being asked of them (commander badge change). If you want them to listen to you, construct a compelling argument as to why your idea is good for everyone and not just for you.

Going back to the topic, look at their fractal announcement as an example of altering content for shorter play sessions. That’s their focus and the reason we aren’t going to get three hour raids like some games. Our content is bite size for a reason. To keep MMOs viable in a world where free time is increasingly limited for those who can keep a game afloat through moderate cash shop purchases, a viable play session needs to be relatively short.

Let me reiterate why our population seems down. Extremely limited content release because the focus is on the expansion. Beta weekends were suppose to be the draw to keep players coming back as they iterate the trait/skills for specializations and the Revenant. It’s like having a box of old toys when you were young. You want to play with something but nothing you have is inspiring you.

It’s my belief that they are running behind their planned schedule and that means they can’t spin off a few devs to knock out a special event other than something simple like the Golem event on WvW, which did more to tick off avid WvW players than encourage players who hadn’t done WvW to give it a try. I’m also guessing that there is something fundamentally broken with SAB due to internal game changes as to why they don’t simply reactivate it for a month or two while HoT still cooks.

I’ll be totally honest here, I don’t really see Guild Wars 2 dying at all honestly. I have been in many other games that didn’t fare so well after launch, but every time I play Guild Wars 2 it always seems like it’s very populated due to megaservers and in some maps there can be 5 or 6 full maps at any given time.

Dinks.2478:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHmvkRoEowc

Just substitute Britney with Anet. Thanks

Really?

I’m hardly a white knight but I wasn’t a GW diehard when I picked up this game in 2012. And from my perspective most serial complainers are those who played GW well passed it’s shelf life, therefore extreme diehards, constructed elaborate fantasies as to what GW2 was going to be like and when hit in the face with two fists of reality CAN’T LET THEIR FANTASY GO.

I enjoy this game, mainly because it’s free monthly while not having obstructive paywalls from content like many F2P games have. The LW content drip was an interesting twist and the lack of extensive party only content caters to my style of play.

I am ticked over the content that ANet made partying a requirement. Why can’t “Story Mode” in dungeons be soloed for instance? There underlying client clearly needs to be rebuilt from the ground up if they want players who have rigs that aren’t uber to be able to play HoT without turning all the settings down from what’s used on core Tyria. Give the client some love people.

But I’m not going to release a tirade on the forums about stuff I don’t like because that’s not the way to win over the dev’s minds and hearts. People need to accept what the game is. It’s not ever going back to the way GW was. It’s not going to be like WoW or every other fantasy MMO out there and you aren’t going to be able to change the dev’s minds to make it so by constantly kittening about it. You need another tack than angry fanboy of a previous game that’s only still alive because of the monumental success of it’s sequel.

I wonder why everyone says that all modern MMOs are WoW clones? Excepting a few, I don’t see it. How is GW2 a WoW clone? Because it has armor and levels and dungeons and crafting? I think too generic to categorize it as a wow clone

coso.9173:

I wonder why everyone says that all modern MMOs are WoW clones? Excepting a few, I don’t see it. How is GW2 a WoW clone? Because it has armor and levels and dungeons and crafting? I think too generic to categorize it as a wow clone

It’s not. But WoW did influence a lot of MMOs that were developed after WoW became a juggernaut. True, WoW simply refined systems from EQ but their true innovation to MMOs was a style choice that allowed even the lowliest systems to be able to run it well enough. Okay, so was raiding. But WoW did condition nearly an entire playerbase of a game genre that the “true game” is at the level cap rather than enjoying the journey. We went from a genre where in an RPG we would explore everything and every side story to one where we rushed to the end simply because the genre now has MMO before the RPG.

So if someone like ANet develops an MMO where there is interesting content throughout the leveling experience, that no area becomes flyover country because it’s beneath your level. That expansions are not entirely about gear grind and a level cap boost. There is a push back from players coming from those games as to why this one is different. Nobody likes breaking from the status quo. It’s scary and different and some feel the need to destroy it.

MMO in the sense of Massive Multiplayer Online (game) will always be around, as that is the nature of gaming, from FPS games to fantasy based MMO’s like World of Warcraft Final Fantasy 14, Aion and Rift. The Fantasy MMO/MMORPG? Yeah people leave.

Just to put things into perspective so others don’t make the mistake of thinking that one or two people a month leaving is something to ignore. It took Blizzard 11+ years to hit 10-11 million subscribers. But then in the last 3 years, they lost half of their customer base due to people quitting.

Think about that for a second. Nearly HALF of their customer base quit in 1/3rd of the time it took to build up that high. So when people say “I’m quitting.” once a week or once a month of the forums and people laugh, those are just the ones saying it. What about the ones that don’t? Now take a look at Arena Net’s published profits and compare it to the number of gamers and do the math.

What are the reasons for people quitting MMO’s?

Poor community.
Poor customer service.
Poor game design.
Poor game play.
Changes made by the development/management that players don’t agree with and sometimes make no flipping sense.
Lack of content.

Simply take a step back and watch.

Grind burn outs + loot driven end-game = I give up. Pretty sure that sums it up well.

Make a game that has insanely fun and engaging combat etc. Then you’ll really have your die-hard dedication.

Blackmoon.6837:

Grind burn outs + loot driven end-game = I give up. Pretty sure that sums it up well.

Make a game that has insanely fun and engaging combat etc. Then you’ll really have your die-hard dedication.

And considering that the idea of what’s “fun” is rapidly changing with every new MMO, that will be hard to do. Plus we’re mired in an “instant win/pay to win/buy whatever-I-want” frame of mind from a lot of players and gaming companies offering it.

Shivan.9438:

MMO in the sense of Massive Multiplayer Online (game) will always be around, as that is the nature of gaming, from FPS games to fantasy based MMO’s like World of Warcraft Final Fantasy 14, Aion and Rift. The Fantasy MMO/MMORPG? Yeah people leave.

Just to put things into perspective so others don’t make the mistake of thinking that one or two people a month leaving is something to ignore. It took Blizzard 11+ years to hit 10-11 million subscribers. But then in the last 3 years, they lost half of their customer base due to people quitting.

Think about that for a second. Nearly HALF of their customer base quit in 1/3rd of the time it took to build up that high. So when people say “I’m quitting.” once a week or once a month of the forums and people laugh, those are just the ones saying it. What about the ones that don’t? Now take a look at Arena Net’s published profits and compare it to the number of gamers and do the math.

What are the reasons for people quitting MMO’s?

Poor community.
Poor customer service.
Poor game design.
Poor game play.
Changes made by the development/management that players don’t agree with and sometimes make no flipping sense.
Lack of content.

Simply take a step back and watch.

Or WoW’s last expansion was simply sad and once players hit level cap they quit to save on the subscription until the next expansion comes out. Or they finally came to their senses that gear grind plus another 10 levels doesn’t make a decent expansion. Or player’s tastes have changed in 11 years as well as the market.

“Are people moving away from MMOs?”

I’m sure that many are, myself included. My reason, and I’m sure others feel the same way, is that anymore MMOs are garbage spewed out by whoever churns the crapola to make a fast profit. There’s no quality anymore.

After I get bored watching Anet mutilate what was at the beginning a great game I’m out of MMOs for good.

People leave because every single f2p mmo goes p2w for easy cash.Players try to find the next mmorpg until it goes p2w and leave for another.On f2p mmos only rich players stay behind and keep playing.The rest just leave.I see that in nwo,tera eu(worst publisher ever),archage.I left all these games after a while when i hit a paywall.In wow they ppl always leave before the new xpac.They do that everytime and come back when the new xpac comes out.Play about a year and leave again.

coso.9173:

I wonder why everyone says that all modern MMOs are WoW clones? Excepting a few, I don’t see it. How is GW2 a WoW clone? Because it has armor and levels and dungeons and crafting? I think too generic to categorize it as a wow clone

#1: Gear Tiers that require high wealth/grind to ascend (note)
#2: Leveling and statistical based combat
#3: Over-the-head camera placement
#4: Menial tasks handed out as quests
#5: Generic Fantasy Setting with machines and magic
#6: Cooldown restrained skill based combat
#7: General interface layout
#8: Multiple species as “races” to play
#9: Similar dungeon and raid like content (note)
#10: Randomized loot drops and tables
#11: Crafting and Gathering
#12: Similar build customization schemes.
#13: Compartmentalized and segmented PVP
#14: Themepark style design
#15: Guilds and their associated perks
#16: Class based skill restrictions
#17: Large economy that drives much of the in-game content

There’s probably more. My knowledge of WoW is limited to the occasional video/article on the subject. But, let me put it this way: If I were to take a screenshot of both of these games and show them to someone who is completely unaffiliated with videogames, would they be able to pick apart what is different between the two? Or would they just say “these look the same”?

Notes: GW2 is attempting to be a rebel in a certain fashion, using, for a lack of a better word, socialist design philosophies with how they make their game. They make all but the most extreme gear tier readily available, with the highest tier not being significantly stronger. Everyone gets rewards and can participate in whatever event they walk in to. Everything is heavily level scaled as to not give an advantage to higher level or better geared players. Everything grants experience. Every class can fulfill every role. So on and so forth. While many of these are QoL upgrades from the former systems, these aren’t new systems. They’re the same system, but with a different spin on how things work.

GW2 isn’t an outright WoW clone. As far as the genre goes, it is comparatively far from it. But, the similarities of WoW are so engrained into the genre that even when attempting to make a different game, it end sup looking and feeling like WoW on the surface.

Social Media plays a big part in which games become popular and populated these days. Twitch and famous twitch streamers sadly dictate the mass sheep and herd them to w/e games they are trying to market for w/e company is supporting these popular streamers.

I think a lot of good games don’t get enough attention or publicity because the masses go on twitch and see what game their favorite streamer is playing.

It’s one of the downsides to twitch and famous streams IMO, lots of people don’t give games the time of day if their favorite personality is not streaming or playing it.

Social Media, twitch/youtube are huge marketing avenues for gaming corporations these days.

Esports becoming mainstream in the western market has also had an effect on MMOs imo, lots of people are digging the competitive games like Counter Strike, and the various popular MOBAS that dominate the gaming market right now.

Also there has not been much innovation or creativity in newer MMOS these days, just more of the same thing. I mean Guild war’s 2 is the exception as it’s a pretty unique MMO but it also has it’s downsides like lack of pve raid content ect.

Just my 2 cents.

Notes: GW2 is attempting to be a rebel in a certain fashion, using, for a lack of a better word, socialist design philosophies with how they make their game. They make all but the most extreme gear tier readily available, with the highest tier not being significantly stronger. Everyone gets rewards and can participate in whatever event they walk in to. Everything is heavily level scaled as to not give an advantage to higher level or better geared players. Everything grants experience. Every class can fulfill every role. So on and so forth. While many of these are QoL upgrades from the former systems, these aren’t new systems. They’re the same system, but with a different spin on how things work.

Now this is one of the most intelligent ‘notes’ i’ve read in quite a while.
That particular “socialist” concept could be seen as an attempt to please as many players as possible by trying to please them all.