Guild Wars 2

Vayne.8563:

Dashingsteel.3410:

It doesn’t matter or not if Anet has the numbers. What matters are the numbers Anet gave us which is 16 new legendaries hidden behind another important number which was 50 dollars minimum U.S. currency for the expansion.

Besides Anet already knew long before HoT the numbers of people with legendaries and decided to do this anyway. Now that HoT hasn’t had the reception they thought now they are rushing another expac at the expense of promised HoT features.

Exactly. Anet is doing what they think is best for the good of the game, not the good of what is likely a very small percentage of the player base. It’s a business decision. They have as much responsibility to the majority than the do to any minority, no matter what was printed on the box.

While I agree that it’s highly likely more players will participate in LS than legendary journeys, it’s important to note that ANet sold their expansion based on the promise of implementing said legendaries in a timely manner.
Seeing as they apparently have to prioritize some aspects of development over others it makes sense to pull ressources towards the LS, however:

Why take developers from a team that’s supposed to implement a key feature of this expansion instead of the exp2 team (which is said to be comprised of ~70 devs – that would mean a reduction of less than 10% in workforce)?

As I’m sure you are aware, the problem has more to do with ANet not delivering what they sold and less having to choose between legendaries and Living Story, even though it could be argued that we shouldn’t be in a situation where we are forced to choose to begin with.

I personally bought the expansion solely because of the new legendary weapons and the fractal backpiece, neither of which are in the game almost half a year after HoT release. If it were raids or LS that got cancelled, I would have been just as disappointed as I am now, even though I have zero interest in those parts of the game.
I’d also like to add that anyone with a bit of common sense can see that ‘putting on hold indefinitely’ is just PR speak for ‘getting axed’.

It’s the principle, and ANet going back on their word sets a bad precedent for things to come; That’s why people are disappointed, not just because legendaries got cut.

edit: As for the video, he completely misses the point and I find it highly concerning that someone with this little understanding of why people are upset and/or disappointed is considered a ‘voice’ of the community.

Beldin.5498:

Maybe they should have made the journey more of a journey and less of a
material / gold grind

If so few players have legendaries (which is really weird to swallow because I see them everywhere I go) that they want to can the new system because no one will play the content, then why not make the content more accessible? And why did they even go down this road if they knew so few people were playing the content in the first place? They would have had numbers on legendaries for a looooong time now.

Vayne.8563:

Exactly. Anet is doing what they think is best for the good of the game, not the good of what is likely a very small percentage of the player base. It’s a business decision. They have as much responsibility to the majority than the do to any minority, no matter what was printed on the box.

You can’t seriously be implying that the LS would somehow suffer dramatically were these 6 people to stay on Legendary Crafting duty…

The only way this could be true is if said people were Anet’s best and brightest, which seems implausible given that the crafting system is a short stint of lore based scavenger hunting, followed by massive gold sink that is simply meant to hoover up a perceived material surplus.

We would have gotten true quests and content, rather than a system where several of the series 1 precursors are actually cheaper to simply buy off the TP than to actually craft.

Well, given how resources are currently being split, there’s a good chance that the Living Story team just doubled in size.

He is absolutely right, even if his numbers are surely not exact. I’m also a little bit disappointed, but if I get more story/events I’ll be happier.

mazut.4296:

He is absolutely right, even if his numbers are surely not exact. I’m also a little bit disappointed, but if I get more story/events I’ll be happier.

Yeah I agree, disappointed, but if this leads to better things I’ll be staying. But his numbers weren’t the point, they were just an example of what kind of numbers could persuade Anet to take the actions they did. The numbers were never meant to be accurate.

swansea.2453:

Very poor video, he total misses the points why people are upset, and he is pulling numbers out of his kitten , he even says that he doesn’t have figures.

He is supported by Anet what did you expect?

Vayne.8563:

Dashingsteel.3410:

It doesn’t matter or not if Anet has the numbers. What matters are the numbers Anet gave us which is 16 new legendaries hidden behind another important number which was 50 dollars minimum U.S. currency for the expansion.

Besides Anet already knew long before HoT the numbers of people with legendaries and decided to do this anyway. Now that HoT hasn’t had the reception they thought now they are rushing another expac at the expense of promised HoT features.

Exactly. Anet is doing what they think is best for the good of the game, not the good of what is likely a very small percentage of the player base. It’s a business decision. They have as much responsibility to the majority than the do to any minority, no matter what was printed on the box.

Actually, “what is printed on the box,” is pretty much exactly what is their responsibility to deliver.

If the problem is having multiple scavengers hunts, one for each legendary…. then don’t do it that way.

Make just one core scavenger hunt, and let people decide what they get in the each stage. Add some little differences here and there, to keep things interesting, but don’t planify whole different adventures, just one with small varying details.

Done. Anet can now made all the promised legendaries quickly, and then work into something more worth the effort.

Roxhemar.6039:

Wooden Potatoes put it in a way better way.

not really, by his own admision later on he was ranting somewhat, bog otter remained calm the entire time.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

I suppose the biggest thing I take issue with, is that his video starts by assuming that the decision was a good one, and then defends this assertion by invoking an argument from ignorance over and over again. “Oh, you can’t say it is a bad decision because you don’t know how many people are working there already”, or “You can’t say it is a bad decision because you don’t have the metrics.” and so on. Basically, his whole video is that we are in the wrong for saying that this was a bad decision, because we cannot possibly comprehend what would be a good decision in this circumstance.

Yeah, no, I don’t buy it.

Woodenpotatoes is the opposite. Instead of using what we don’t know to assert that we cannot know, he builds on the knowledge that we do have and reasons back and forth between the points. Generally, I tend favor this approach, as I have issues to surrendering to ignorance. Deep, personal, existential issues, but issues nonetheless.

The one point he does make is that I think the community is a bit too outraged over this decision. I myself am more or less just mildly annoyed, but some people are just fuming. Social media is a bit like an echo chamber, in that the negativity keeps bouncing back and forth until it builds to the point where people start throwing bricks at peoples house. This decision isn’t that bad. But it is bad.

Except we don’t really know what’s going on behind closed doors.

Let’s say, for argument’s sake, that the real reason Collin left was because he was asked to, due to his reach overextending his grasp. He promised more than he could deliver. MO takes over, seeing the disaster on it’s way, plus knowing how controversial HoT has already been, and said, “Crap, there’s no way we can deliver on all of Collin’s promises. So what’s most important here?”

I mean, honestly, we really don’t know. What we do know is at least MO had the courage to come out and admit to us what they were doing rather than, say, let it languish without comment for some time.

Now, I’ll admit, anyone who had bought HoT with the new legendaries being a major selling point, they have every right to be angry. But MO and ANET has to look at the big picture, and if they feel that this needs to be done for the long term health of the game, well, to be honest, Legendaries really only affect a very small portion of the overall population, especially in regards to playable content.

Morfedel.4165:

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

I suppose the biggest thing I take issue with, is that his video starts by assuming that the decision was a good one, and then defends this assertion by invoking an argument from ignorance over and over again. “Oh, you can’t say it is a bad decision because you don’t know how many people are working there already”, or “You can’t say it is a bad decision because you don’t have the metrics.” and so on. Basically, his whole video is that we are in the wrong for saying that this was a bad decision, because we cannot possibly comprehend what would be a good decision in this circumstance.

Yeah, no, I don’t buy it.

Woodenpotatoes is the opposite. Instead of using what we don’t know to assert that we cannot know, he builds on the knowledge that we do have and reasons back and forth between the points. Generally, I tend favor this approach, as I have issues to surrendering to ignorance. Deep, personal, existential issues, but issues nonetheless.

The one point he does make is that I think the community is a bit too outraged over this decision. I myself am more or less just mildly annoyed, but some people are just fuming. Social media is a bit like an echo chamber, in that the negativity keeps bouncing back and forth until it builds to the point where people start throwing bricks at peoples house. This decision isn’t that bad. But it is bad.

Except we don’t really know what’s going on behind closed doors.

Let’s say, for argument’s sake, that the real reason Collin left was because he was asked to, due to his reach overextending his grasp. He promised more than he could deliver. MO takes over, seeing the disaster on it’s way, plus knowing how controversial HoT has already been, and said, “Crap, there’s no way we can deliver on all of Collin’s promises. So what’s most important here?”

I mean, honestly, we really don’t know. What we do know is at least MO had the courage to come out and admit to us what they were doing rather than, say, let it languish without comment for some time.

Now, I’ll admit, anyone who had bought HoT with the new legendaries being a major selling point, they have every right to be angry. But MO and ANET has to look at the big picture, and if they feel that this needs to be done for the long term health of the game, well, to be honest, Legendaries really only affect a very small portion of the overall population, especially in regards to playable content.

As the CEO he should have known what was going on. He should through meetings seen Colin/dev team were spread thin, otherwise what was he doing? Sitting in his office watching gem money roll in?

But, again pure speculation, he gets his info from the game director who may have always spun things in the best light to his boss. Now that MO’s the game director he’s may now be seeing the actual state of development instead for through a series of rose color glasses (as team leads may have also been spinning things to the previous game director).

Exactly. And the point being, do you think MO would have made this decision, knowing as he did how people would be upset, as he clearly indicated in his first post, just for the heck of it? He clearly thought he had very good reasons for what he did.

CEOs are usually the last to know about the problems because the corporate culture tends to breed defensive managers. Cans are kicked down the road and problems are glossed over or played down until they either go away or become too big to conceal. No-one ever tell it like it is to the big boss until they absolutely have to and we’ll probably never get to know the whole story.

If we make the reasonable assumption that MO is not crazy then we have to consider why he has made that tough call, knowing the damage it will cause. The reason can only be that he perceives that the downside from cutting legendaries is outweighed by the upside of putting that extra resource on to other things. That is no comfort to anyone who lives for legendaries but only time will tell if it is the correct call for the game as a whole.

Bog Otter – always posts a white knight video for GW2.
He did For HOT – even though others were saying it would not be enough.

Problem is players are telling ANET – your expansion is too small.
ANET doesnt listen.

Vayne.8563:

Dashingsteel.3410:

It doesn’t matter or not if Anet has the numbers. What matters are the numbers Anet gave us which is 16 new legendaries hidden behind another important number which was 50 dollars minimum U.S. currency for the expansion.

Besides Anet already knew long before HoT the numbers of people with legendaries and decided to do this anyway. Now that HoT hasn’t had the reception they thought now they are rushing another expac at the expense of promised HoT features.

Exactly. Anet is doing what they think is best for the good of the game, not the good of what is likely a very small percentage of the player base. It’s a business decision. They have as much responsibility to the majority than the do to any minority, no matter what was printed on the box.

But isn’t that what they’ve been doing all along — starting with ascended gear back in November of 2012 and on through to the NPE and the trait system revamp(s) and now this mess with HoT — doing what they think is best for the good of the game?

Isn’t their ‘doing what they think is best for the good of the game’ the very thing that has brought us to this latest mess in a long line of messes?

I can’t help but think that they may be in need of some new thinkers.

Substance E.4852:

Vayne.8563:

Exactly. Anet is doing what they think is best for the good of the game, not the good of what is likely a very small percentage of the player base. It’s a business decision. They have as much responsibility to the majority than the do to any minority, no matter what was printed on the box.

You can’t seriously be implying that the LS would somehow suffer dramatically were these 6 people to stay on Legendary Crafting duty…

The only way this could be true is if said people were Anet’s best and brightest, which seems implausible given that the crafting system is a short stint of lore based scavenger hunting, followed by massive gold sink that is simply meant to hoover up a perceived material surplus.

We would have gotten true quests and content, rather than a system where several of the series 1 precursors are actually cheaper to simply buy off the TP than to actually craft.

If the LS team is currently 8 people adding 6 more will almost double it. Of course that would make a huge difference.

You don’t think there are 70 people working on the LS do you?

I don’t really get the whole legendaries stuff. I don’t yet have any but arent they basically special weapons with beautiful skins tied to a bunch of different achievements and items? I don’t get why they’re actually hard to design.

coso.9173:

I don’t really get the whole legendaries stuff. I don’t yet have any but arent they basically special weapons with beautiful skins tied to a bunch of different achievements and items? I don’t get why they’re actually hard to design.

The weapons themselves are not hard to design. The “journey” around them (aka the ting ANet came up to overcome the problems using a RNG drop approach) is the problem.

TPMN.1483:

Bog Otter – always posts a well thought out and reasonable video for GW2.
He did For HOT – even though others were saying it would not be enough.

Problem is players are telling ANET – your expansion is too small.
ANET doesnt listen.

Corrected that for you. Calling someone a white knight is nothing more than an Ad Hominem attack.

Behellagh.1468:

“Suspended indefinitely” means we have no clue when or if we can get back to them. Because if MO said “we’ve stopped development for now” the next question from the masses is “for how long”.

Bog Otter is one of the Twitch streamers/YouTube video creaters they tap to do the pre and post show stream for various ANet events. He’s been covering the game from early beta and had worked as a Games Vlogger for what is now defunct game sites including hosting a weekly show on GW2 many years ago. This gives you a bit of background on the man.

Now since he’s considered “chummy” with ANet by those who never found anything positive to say about GW2, many simply dismiss him as a ANet “stooge”. He’s not but he is a glass half full kind of guy which annoys many.

The point he was making with the numbers that he admit he pulled out of the ether is ANet didn’t pick the new legendary development to stop out of a hat or a dart against a wall. They, ANet have the metrics to see if there were enough players taking advantage of the precursor collections in the last roughly six months to see if this was a good use of personal that could be better used on parts of the game that more players interact with. Period. Which is logically sound if ANet is trying to return the game to it’s former days of relatively routine content updates. Also show some long needed attention to WvW. Sorry I think PvP has gotten enough love for now, besides quarterly balancing to make try and make core professions relevant again in PvP.

But those enraged aren’t interested in discussing this or hearing someone with a bit more positive spin on it. Vocal members of the GW2 community want to be outraged, even if they never had any intention of getting a new legendary.

I see where he is coming from in his idea on how anet picked and chose that team. The problem is, its not sound data if they went by that idea.

Right now, I don’t own a single legendary, the first one I am actually going for was the fractal backpack, which I have no idea when I’ll get it, but I don’t own a weapon. Not because I don’t want to go through the process, but because none of them appeal to me in looks. So instead, I kept holding out, looking forward to the NEW legendaries coming out, which isn’t going to happen till everything else is sorted.

So again, I never took advantage of the precursor system because, there was really nothing I wanted yet (other than back piece), and I’m disappointed because now I have to wait to unknown time before I may even go for a legendary weapon.

Serophous.9085:

Behellagh.1468:

“Suspended indefinitely” means we have no clue when or if we can get back to them. Because if MO said “we’ve stopped development for now” the next question from the masses is “for how long”.

Bog Otter is one of the Twitch streamers/YouTube video creaters they tap to do the pre and post show stream for various ANet events. He’s been covering the game from early beta and had worked as a Games Vlogger for what is now defunct game sites including hosting a weekly show on GW2 many years ago. This gives you a bit of background on the man.

Now since he’s considered “chummy” with ANet by those who never found anything positive to say about GW2, many simply dismiss him as a ANet “stooge”. He’s not but he is a glass half full kind of guy which annoys many.

The point he was making with the numbers that he admit he pulled out of the ether is ANet didn’t pick the new legendary development to stop out of a hat or a dart against a wall. They, ANet have the metrics to see if there were enough players taking advantage of the precursor collections in the last roughly six months to see if this was a good use of personal that could be better used on parts of the game that more players interact with. Period. Which is logically sound if ANet is trying to return the game to it’s former days of relatively routine content updates. Also show some long needed attention to WvW. Sorry I think PvP has gotten enough love for now, besides quarterly balancing to make try and make core professions relevant again in PvP.

But those enraged aren’t interested in discussing this or hearing someone with a bit more positive spin on it. Vocal members of the GW2 community want to be outraged, even if they never had any intention of getting a new legendary.

I see where he is coming from in his idea on how anet picked and chose that team. The problem is, its not sound data if they went by that idea.

Right now, I don’t own a single legendary, the first one I am actually going for was the fractal backpack, which I have no idea when I’ll get it, but I don’t own a weapon. Not because I don’t want to go through the process, but because none of them appeal to me in looks. So instead, I kept holding out, looking forward to the NEW legendaries coming out, which isn’t going to happen till everything else is sorted.

So again, I never took advantage of the precursor system because, there was really nothing I wanted yet (other than back piece), and I’m disappointed because now I have to wait to unknown time before I may even go for a legendary weapon.

But that’s the point again. What if you see all the new legendaries and again none of them appeal to you. They can’t keep churning out legendaries that people aren’t interested in, and there’s no guarantee that work will be rewarded. That’s the problem in a nutshell.

Do we really have someone posting in these threads trying to be the moderator too?

Vayne.8563:

Substance E.4852:

Vayne.8563:

Exactly. Anet is doing what they think is best for the good of the game, not the good of what is likely a very small percentage of the player base. It’s a business decision. They have as much responsibility to the majority than the do to any minority, no matter what was printed on the box.

You can’t seriously be implying that the LS would somehow suffer dramatically were these 6 people to stay on Legendary Crafting duty…

The only way this could be true is if said people were Anet’s best and brightest, which seems implausible given that the crafting system is a short stint of lore based scavenger hunting, followed by massive gold sink that is simply meant to hoover up a perceived material surplus.

We would have gotten true quests and content, rather than a system where several of the series 1 precursors are actually cheaper to simply buy off the TP than to actually craft.

If the LS team is currently 8 people adding 6 more will almost double it. Of course that would make a huge difference.

You don’t think there are 70 people working on the LS do you?

Well, Vayne, this time I have to defend what was said: anet said they had, I think it was 70 people on the expansion, 120 on living story, and 30 on the core development team as support. I may not have the numbers entirely correct, and perhaps I switched the expac and ls teams, but either way, thats what Anet itself said.

As such, while I’m very much approving of this decision, I think if they themselves say they have 70 or 120 devs on some project, we need to take them at their word on that.

Tachenon.5270:

Vayne.8563:

Dashingsteel.3410:

It doesn’t matter or not if Anet has the numbers. What matters are the numbers Anet gave us which is 16 new legendaries hidden behind another important number which was 50 dollars minimum U.S. currency for the expansion.

Besides Anet already knew long before HoT the numbers of people with legendaries and decided to do this anyway. Now that HoT hasn’t had the reception they thought now they are rushing another expac at the expense of promised HoT features.

Exactly. Anet is doing what they think is best for the good of the game, not the good of what is likely a very small percentage of the player base. It’s a business decision. They have as much responsibility to the majority than the do to any minority, no matter what was printed on the box.

But isn’t that what they’ve been doing all along — starting with ascended gear back in November of 2012 and on through to the NPE and the trait system revamp(s) and now this mess with HoT — doing what they think is best for the good of the game?

Isn’t their ‘doing what they think is best for the good of the game’ the very thing that has brought us to this latest mess in a long line of messes?

I can’t help but think that they may be in need of some new thinkers.

Well, the ascended gear was a PR nightmare. First it was said it was added cause exotic was acquired too quickly so ascended introduced. Then (I can be corrected on this if wrong) they started saying it was planned all along and never made it into the beta(?).

And lets not forget the loot drop nerf and DR that occured in that patch too. That huge thread was basically ignored for months on end, till around December a French Anet Forum moderator said one small blip about looking into it, before going dark again. Then after more lengthy discussion, finally got the patch that gave us chests for boss events. I still wish I should’ve screen shotted the stack of skulls I got farming cursed shore.

On to LS 1 which they wanted to stick by a living world, where events will scar the world and only happen for a short period of time, then be gone forever. Players apparently didn’t like that type of living, breathing, world, and while it had memorable moments and some fun events, not being able to do then again didn’t go over well.

Then players wanted the skill capture system back from GW1 (really, looking back, it seems we just wanted new skills in general and offering the old way to get them). Anet took it in a different direction, and went with traits, giving no base traits to work with until you unlocked them all, and new traits offered at end game. Yeah, it sucked.

The NPE wasn’t that bad. I agree some vendors disappearing and removing some events were a step in the wrong direction though because “new players too confused” was such a horrible reason. If anything, if I was a new player and found this out, I would feel insulted.

Then we go onto the trait revamp v2, and its better than what we had, but some classes trait lines are in horrible shape, and with the removal of some traits (useless ones, yet we still have the fall damage ones because they are so unique) and merging of others, it still feels like they are more limited.

And now we have Hot…

Dashingsteel.3410:

Do we really have someone posting in these threads trying to be the moderator too?

Beware the Cult of Personality, my friend.

Unfortunately, that tends to be what gets ANet to listen. It feels that way, judging by observational cause and effect. Someone who gets more streaming views than their PvP Twitch feeds expresses something, and suddenly, that thing has to change.

Nevermind the legion of forum posts, some that go on for 30-40 pages, and a small fraction of that coming from some people reasonably educated on development and game design. I’ve seen some really good ideas hanging around the official forums and some dedicated work by players who really want things to be better.

No, I was referring to Morfedel altering someone’s post because it didn’t suit Morfedel’s sense of forum propriety.

Morfedel.4165:

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

I suppose the biggest thing I take issue with, is that his video starts by assuming that the decision was a good one, and then defends this assertion by invoking an argument from ignorance over and over again. “Oh, you can’t say it is a bad decision because you don’t know how many people are working there already”, or “You can’t say it is a bad decision because you don’t have the metrics.” and so on. Basically, his whole video is that we are in the wrong for saying that this was a bad decision, because we cannot possibly comprehend what would be a good decision in this circumstance.

Yeah, no, I don’t buy it.

Woodenpotatoes is the opposite. Instead of using what we don’t know to assert that we cannot know, he builds on the knowledge that we do have and reasons back and forth between the points. Generally, I tend favor this approach, as I have issues to surrendering to ignorance. Deep, personal, existential issues, but issues nonetheless.

The one point he does make is that I think the community is a bit too outraged over this decision. I myself am more or less just mildly annoyed, but some people are just fuming. Social media is a bit like an echo chamber, in that the negativity keeps bouncing back and forth until it builds to the point where people start throwing bricks at peoples house. This decision isn’t that bad. But it is bad.

Except we don’t really know what’s going on behind closed doors.

Let’s say, for argument’s sake, that the real reason Collin left was because he was asked to, due to his reach overextending his grasp. He promised more than he could deliver. MO takes over, seeing the disaster on it’s way, plus knowing how controversial HoT has already been, and said, “Crap, there’s no way we can deliver on all of Collin’s promises. So what’s most important here?”

I mean, honestly, we really don’t know. What we do know is at least MO had the courage to come out and admit to us what they were doing rather than, say, let it languish without comment for some time.

Now, I’ll admit, anyone who had bought HoT with the new legendaries being a major selling point, they have every right to be angry. But MO and ANET has to look at the big picture, and if they feel that this needs to be done for the long term health of the game, well, to be honest, Legendaries really only affect a very small portion of the overall population, especially in regards to playable content.

That’s pretty much exactly how I imagine what happened — MO took over and had to make hard decisions about Colin’s promises, and that’s more or less what I read into the tone of his message.

While Anet having the numbers is a big part of his video, I think the more important part bog is trying to say is that Anet is being more open and honest now and we should be encouraging that behavior. Being open to discussion and not have them have to be so concerned that players will weaponize anything they say. That even if we’re angry, we should check ourselves and communicate calmly without immediately assuming the worst from them.

If they’re more willing to talk to us, maybe they’ll be more willing to tell us why some of our ideas are plausible or not. And with a better understanding maybe we in turn could offer more informed feedback.

I like how he also offers Anet advice that maybe offering some compensation alongside bad news might soften the blow next time. He mentions some of the ideas to possibly still allow the new legendary skins to be in the game. And I think Anet answering how plausible those ideas are would go a long way in calming the player base. Either way, hopefully good ideas are reaching them.

ekarat.1085:

Morfedel.4165:

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

I suppose the biggest thing I take issue with, is that his video starts by assuming that the decision was a good one, and then defends this assertion by invoking an argument from ignorance over and over again. “Oh, you can’t say it is a bad decision because you don’t know how many people are working there already”, or “You can’t say it is a bad decision because you don’t have the metrics.” and so on. Basically, his whole video is that we are in the wrong for saying that this was a bad decision, because we cannot possibly comprehend what would be a good decision in this circumstance.

Yeah, no, I don’t buy it.

Woodenpotatoes is the opposite. Instead of using what we don’t know to assert that we cannot know, he builds on the knowledge that we do have and reasons back and forth between the points. Generally, I tend favor this approach, as I have issues to surrendering to ignorance. Deep, personal, existential issues, but issues nonetheless.

The one point he does make is that I think the community is a bit too outraged over this decision. I myself am more or less just mildly annoyed, but some people are just fuming. Social media is a bit like an echo chamber, in that the negativity keeps bouncing back and forth until it builds to the point where people start throwing bricks at peoples house. This decision isn’t that bad. But it is bad.

Except we don’t really know what’s going on behind closed doors.

Let’s say, for argument’s sake, that the real reason Collin left was because he was asked to, due to his reach overextending his grasp. He promised more than he could deliver. MO takes over, seeing the disaster on it’s way, plus knowing how controversial HoT has already been, and said, “Crap, there’s no way we can deliver on all of Collin’s promises. So what’s most important here?”

I mean, honestly, we really don’t know. What we do know is at least MO had the courage to come out and admit to us what they were doing rather than, say, let it languish without comment for some time.

Now, I’ll admit, anyone who had bought HoT with the new legendaries being a major selling point, they have every right to be angry. But MO and ANET has to look at the big picture, and if they feel that this needs to be done for the long term health of the game, well, to be honest, Legendaries really only affect a very small portion of the overall population, especially in regards to playable content.

That’s pretty much exactly how I imagine what happened — MO took over and had to make hard decisions about Colin’s promises, and that’s more or less what I read into the tone of his message.

I would caution from assuming this is Colin’s fault, but yeah, it could be a possibility.

The collections themselves do count as content — it’s not just the skin at the end. Yes, for some people, the collections are just meaningless busy work (not to mention the crafting expense) that you have to do to obtain the skin, so the collections aren’t really content.

By the logic, raids are just busy work you tolerate to get legendary armor, and fractals are just busy work you tolerate to get a legendary backpiece. No, I don’t believe that, but I am pointing out that the collections themselves are content, just like raids or fractals are.

Not everyone likes doing that content, but not everyone likes raids, or fractals, or jumping puzzles. Actually, I think jumping puzzles are a good thing to compare against. Not everyone likes them (I don’t), but some do. They are content.

So, the audience here is not the number of people who have legendaries, but the number of people who have unlocked the collections, and I don’t think that audience is any more niche than the audience who likes jumping puzzles.

DaikonSamurai.6714:

ekarat.1085:

Morfedel.4165:

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

I suppose the biggest thing I take issue with, is that his video starts by assuming that the decision was a good one, and then defends this assertion by invoking an argument from ignorance over and over again. “Oh, you can’t say it is a bad decision because you don’t know how many people are working there already”, or “You can’t say it is a bad decision because you don’t have the metrics.” and so on. Basically, his whole video is that we are in the wrong for saying that this was a bad decision, because we cannot possibly comprehend what would be a good decision in this circumstance.

Yeah, no, I don’t buy it.

Woodenpotatoes is the opposite. Instead of using what we don’t know to assert that we cannot know, he builds on the knowledge that we do have and reasons back and forth between the points. Generally, I tend favor this approach, as I have issues to surrendering to ignorance. Deep, personal, existential issues, but issues nonetheless.

The one point he does make is that I think the community is a bit too outraged over this decision. I myself am more or less just mildly annoyed, but some people are just fuming. Social media is a bit like an echo chamber, in that the negativity keeps bouncing back and forth until it builds to the point where people start throwing bricks at peoples house. This decision isn’t that bad. But it is bad.

Except we don’t really know what’s going on behind closed doors.

Let’s say, for argument’s sake, that the real reason Collin left was because he was asked to, due to his reach overextending his grasp. He promised more than he could deliver. MO takes over, seeing the disaster on it’s way, plus knowing how controversial HoT has already been, and said, “Crap, there’s no way we can deliver on all of Collin’s promises. So what’s most important here?”

I mean, honestly, we really don’t know. What we do know is at least MO had the courage to come out and admit to us what they were doing rather than, say, let it languish without comment for some time.

Now, I’ll admit, anyone who had bought HoT with the new legendaries being a major selling point, they have every right to be angry. But MO and ANET has to look at the big picture, and if they feel that this needs to be done for the long term health of the game, well, to be honest, Legendaries really only affect a very small portion of the overall population, especially in regards to playable content.

That’s pretty much exactly how I imagine what happened — MO took over and had to make hard decisions about Colin’s promises, and that’s more or less what I read into the tone of his message.

I would caution from assuming this is Colin’s fault, but yeah, it could be a possibility.

Fair point. It genuinely might not be Colin’s fault, but it is how I imagine it to be.

As for them talking to us, I think they would be more willing if we didn’t go into full outrage every time they can’t follow through on something they previously said. Under those circumstances, I can’t be too surprised that they would be tight-lipped about what they are releasing until it is pretty much done.

Here, they didn’t follow that pattern, and they promised something that they couldn’t deliver, but that they were trying to deliver instead of fixing the bigger problems. So, I would expect them to be a lot more conservative about telling us what they have in mind for later.

Ardid.7203:

If the problem is having multiple scavengers hunts, one for each legendary…. then don’t do it that way.

Make just one core scavenger hunt, and let people decide what they get in the each stage. Add some little differences here and there, to keep things interesting, but don’t planify whole different adventures, just one with small varying details.

Done. Anet can now made all the promised legendaries quickly, and then work into something more worth the effort.

Or just use the same 4 scavenger hunt’s and spread them among the 16 legendaries (you nuke the other legendary journey). The amount of effort to have optional precursor awards and adding a few recipes for the final legendary seems like minimal effort/QA. While not ideal, it gets it done. And you don’t have this current kitten-fest.

When you account for other team resources (beyond the 6 devs mentioned like art assets and quality), you have a huge time sink across the board on skins that are not able to be monetized (because unlike the other legendaries, ANet can sell gold via gems and people will buy it from the gemshop effectively). You can claim that ANet monetized them when they shipped HoT and promised future release but that isn’t really true.

The real solution is stop with the account bound only stuff that HoT brought and allow everything to be in the BLTC / gemstore supported. This then continues real life $ to gem to gold conversion (for items needed to make legendaries or the legendary themselves). Players get there content. ANet/NCSoft gets its money.

DaikonSamurai.6714:

While Anet having the numbers is a big part of his video, I think the more important part bog is trying to say is that Anet is being more open and honest now and we should be encouraging that behavior. Being open to discussion and not have them have to be so concerned that players will weaponize anything they say. That even if we’re angry, we should check ourselves and communicate calmly without immediately assuming the worst from them.

If they’re more willing to talk to us, maybe they’ll be more willing to tell us why some of our ideas are plausible or not. And with a better understanding maybe we in turn could offer more informed feedback.

I like how he also offers Anet advice that maybe offering some compensation alongside bad news might soften the blow next time. He mentions some of the ideas to possibly still allow the new legendary skins to be in the game. And I think Anet answering how plausible those ideas are would go a long way in calming the player base. Either way, hopefully good ideas are reaching them.

That was a nice constructive post.