Guild Wars 2

darkace.8925:

The difference between telling the player base they’re going to do a better job communicating with them and letting half a year come and go without so much as a word on missed deadlines is also miles apart.

You mean the “missed deadlines” that they said MONTHS BEFORE that they most likely would miss and as such they already more or less told us that those deadlines were trashed?

Well you can tell the latest update was a bit of a letdown for alot of people, because the Ane(u)thuggers are out in full force and that only happens when a good portion of the forumgoers have just had a huge letdown.

My analysis:

Anet overcommitted. They released in China, and they fixed themselves to a 2 week development cycle for LS. They have to make sure that the LS bugs are fixed before anything else. It is obliterating work and fixes of the base game.

They do not have time for:

1. Real bug fixes (not the skill fact changes they do to fluff patch notes)
2. Adding more weapons
3. Adding more skills
4. Making traits attainable at level
5. Graphics control of particle effects
6. WvW work. Lots of work.

So instead of saying “hey, we were off on what we wanted to do”, instead they string the playerbase along in silence, hoping they can milk 9 to 12 months without adding weapon skills, precursor crafting, and everything else they they SAID THEY WOULD DO.

You guys can say, “but they said subject to change”.

They did, but I take someone at their word. If they are off by nearly 9 months?!!!! How can you even defend that????

lordkrall.7241:

darkace.8925:

The difference between telling the player base they’re going to do a better job communicating with them and letting half a year come and go without so much as a word on missed deadlines is also miles apart.

You mean the “missed deadlines” that they said MONTHS BEFORE that they most likely would miss and as such they already more or less told us that those deadlines were trashed?

No, I mean the lack of communication in the nine months since then. Or are you going to argue that nine months of silence qualifies as “better communication”?

petespri.6548:

My analysis:

Anet overcommitted. They released in China, and they fixed themselves to a 2 week development cycle for LS. They have to make sure that the LS bugs are fixed before anything else. It is obliterating work and fixes of the base game.

They do not have time for:

1. Real bug fixes (not the skill fact changes they do to fluff patch notes)
2. Adding more weapons
3. Adding more skills
4. Making traits attainable at level
5. Graphics control of particle effects
6. WvW work. Lots of work.

So instead of saying “hey, we were off on what we wanted to do”, instead they string the playerbase along in silence, hoping they can milk 9 to 12 months without adding weapon skills, precursor crafting, and everything else they they SAID THEY WOULD DO.

You guys can say, “but they said subject to change”.

They did, but I take someone at their word. If they are off by nearly 9 months?!!!! How can you even defend that????

I believe its called Stockholm syndrome

petespri.6548:

My analysis:

Anet overcommitted. They released in China, and they fixed themselves to a 2 week development cycle for LS. They have to make sure that the LS bugs are fixed before anything else. It is obliterating work and fixes of the base game.

They do not have time for:

1. Real bug fixes (not the skill fact changes they do to fluff patch notes)
2. Adding more weapons
3. Adding more skills
4. Making traits attainable at level
5. Graphics control of particle effects
6. WvW work. Lots of work.

1. Bug fixes are undertaken by programmers, not people who create content.
4. They’ve done work on this already in May.

petespri.6548:

So instead of saying “hey, we were off on what we wanted to do”, instead they string the playerbase along in silence, hoping they can milk 9 to 12 months without adding weapon skills, precursor crafting, and everything else they they SAID THEY WOULD DO.

You guys can say, “but they said subject to change”.

They did, but I take someone at their word. If they are off by nearly 9 months?!!!! How can you even defend that????

1. I’ve never seen them make mention of adding new weapon skills – unless you meant adding new weapons to professions?

2. Not only were we told before 2013 was up that precursor crafting was unlikely to make it by the deadline, we also heard about precursor crafting 3 months ago.

3. They could communicate every month with us telling us what they’re doing. However, just look at this thread. If they had to scrap something because it didn’t work out, or it was taking longer for some reason, do you think the people complaining about communication would suddenly become more understanding?

Very unlikely. Anet could go into detail about what they’re doing and be more open in their communication, and people would still mutter about ‘broken promises’ and such.

Game companies really ought to stop communicating with their communities, because when internal plans change or something takes longer to work on or fit into the existing framework that initially thought possible, people whine that not everything happened the way it was supposed to happen.

They are working on these things. Some might be on hold, some might be slowly building in the background, and others might be about to be released. Chill. I intended to get a lot done yesterday but instead got less than I wanted. It happens, even with the best of efforts.

Plus the GW2 community has such a wide variety of opinions it’s hard for ANet to keep up with what the community thinks it wants.

It was a poor choice of words. Anet should have said, “intend to, plan to, would like to,” etc rather than, “will be.”

A disclaimer at the end that what was stated as factual or definite at the beginning is false or untrue is a bad idea. I don’t think that ANet was intentionally being dishonest in this case but rather that they made a mistake.

TheDaiBish.9735:

3. They could communicate every month with us telling us what they’re doing. However, just look at this thread. If they had to scrap something because it didn’t work out, or it was taking longer for some reason, do you think the people complaining about communication would suddenly become more understanding?

Some of them, yes. The unreasonable ones are going to complain no matter what. But reasonable people can accept that deadlines in this industry can, will, and often should be missed. But reasonable people don’t like being treated like mushrooms, fed crap and kept in the dark.

Add to that the promises for certain classes. CDIs for some didn’t occur, hobosacks (something most coders would agree slapping an option to make invis wouldn’t be too difficult) didn’t happen, revamped rewards system so players can be properly rewarded by doing common events/activities didn’t happen. Some people think this is perfectly fine behavior from a company and will continue to throw money at their computer screens. smh

darkace.8925:

Some of them, yes. The unreasonable ones are going to complain no matter what. But reasonable people can accept that deadlines in this industry can, will, and often should be missed. But reasonable people don’t like being treated like mushrooms, fed crap and kept in the dark.

This. There is a big difference between finding out something that was planned for a certain date will miss the deadline and saying: “Sorry, because of some technical difficulties this will be pushed back to yadda yadda.”. Instead from Anet we have been getting complete radio silence for months and months at a time(other than the money sucking living story) and finally when we do get a response on something it is usually along the lines of: “Were working on this, who knows when it will be done.” The longer this game is out the less professional everything seems to get.

darkace.8925:

TheDaiBish.9735:

3. They could communicate every month with us telling us what they’re doing. However, just look at this thread. If they had to scrap something because it didn’t work out, or it was taking longer for some reason, do you think the people complaining about communication would suddenly become more understanding?

Some of them, yes. The unreasonable ones are going to complain no matter what. But reasonable people can accept that deadlines in this industry can, will, and often should be missed. But reasonable people don’t like being treated like mushrooms, fed crap and kept in the dark.

Hmmm let’s talk deadlines shall we? Trion games. Nuff said.

Trion is a company that’s disproved these misconceptions about game development multiple times. That subscriptions don’t always get spent on the game that brought the money in, that F2P doesn’t mean you limit the game or require arbitrary purchases just to function, that deadlines don’t have to be crazy insane amount of time, that delivering on your promises is one of the most important things any gaming company can do, that talking with your playerbase and keeping them in the loop about what you are doing at all times is actually very important, and finally that limiting choices is never the best policy in this industry.

Now go through the list and pick out the things that they’ve done in this title since Nov 2012.

TheDaiBish.9735:

petespri.6548:

My analysis:

Anet overcommitted. They released in China, and they fixed themselves to a 2 week development cycle for LS. They have to make sure that the LS bugs are fixed before anything else. It is obliterating work and fixes of the base game.

They do not have time for:

1. Real bug fixes (not the skill fact changes they do to fluff patch notes)
2. Adding more weapons
3. Adding more skills
4. Making traits attainable at level
5. Graphics control of particle effects
6. WvW work. Lots of work.

1. Bug fixes are undertaken by programmers, not people who create content.
4. They’ve done work on this already in May.

petespri.6548:

So instead of saying “hey, we were off on what we wanted to do”, instead they string the playerbase along in silence, hoping they can milk 9 to 12 months without adding weapon skills, precursor crafting, and everything else they they SAID THEY WOULD DO.

You guys can say, “but they said subject to change”.

They did, but I take someone at their word. If they are off by nearly 9 months?!!!! How can you even defend that????

1. I’ve never seen them make mention of adding new weapon skills – unless you meant adding new weapons to professions?

2. Not only were we told before 2013 was up that precursor crafting was unlikely to make it by the deadline, we also heard about precursor crafting 3 months ago.

3. They could communicate every month with us telling us what they’re doing. However, just look at this thread. If they had to scrap something because it didn’t work out, or it was taking longer for some reason, do you think the people complaining about communication would suddenly become more understanding?

Very unlikely. Anet could go into detail about what they’re doing and be more open in their communication, and people would still mutter about ‘broken promises’ and such.

The reality is that they not only told the community that these were their plans, but they did a full on interview with MMORPG.com detailing these things. This was back in October. You can say that they shouldn’t share, but the reality is that these were not unreasonable goals. Further more the game has desperately needed those changes and still needs them.

No, they didn’t do them because other things took priority. Had to so megaservers so servers weren’t empty and forums didn’t blow up. And had to so LS infrastructure so they can begin billing for it. These things took priority, for obvious reasons. At least tell us that you have back shelved everything for a year to put those other things forward. I prefer the brutal truth.

Sithaco.4673:

• “We’ll begin regularly adding new skills and traits to the game for each profession to expand your characters and builds!” (We’ve only had 1 healing skill added for each profession, and only 5 new traits for each profession.)

Actually I’m glad they didn’t do this. I understand how people can think this would be wonderful, but practically speaking it becomes a balance nightmare and it’s doubtful you’d actually gain much play-style variety in anycase. Most builds will still only come down to a handful of optimal skills and traits.
I like to think this is one of those cases where ANet said something, then sat down and realised that it wasn’t a very good idea. I’d rather they change their mind that go ahead with dumb ideas.

Sithaco.4673:

• “We’ll expand all crafting professions to allow them to reach a new milestone: 500 points!” (Well, they must have meant all but jeweler and cooking).

I’m going to go with the: ANet decided that Cooking 500 would just be silly (what you’ll get ascended stew?) and that they already had a system in game to get ascended jeweler items. Again, ANet probably decided that this wasn’t such a good idea practically speaking, and again I’d rather they change their minds then spend time arbitrarily adding Ascended Cabbage Recipes.

Sithaco.4673:

• “We aren’t quite ready to go into all the details here, but what I can say is you will see a specific way to build precursor items on your way to a legendary.” (Yeah, this never happened).

• “On top of this, you’ll also see new legendary weapons and new types of legendary gear in 2013.” (This definitely didn’t happen).

Well this is the only one where I can’t see the ‘it was a dumb idea’ argument really working. However I do think these are still coming, ANet just had other priorities.

CureForLiving.5360:

Sithaco.4673:

• “We’ll begin regularly adding new skills and traits to the game for each profession to expand your characters and builds!” (We’ve only had 1 healing skill added for each profession, and only 5 new traits for each profession.)

Actually I’m glad they didn’t do this. I understand how people can think this would be wonderful, but practically speaking it becomes a balance nightmare and it’s doubtful you’d actually gain much play-style variety in anycase. Most builds will still only come down to a handful of optimal skills and traits.

Striving for greater things often necessitates the overcoming of obstacles.

Has anyone ever noticed they only did actual bug fixes during the feature patch and minor fixes rarely?

All these ’’bug’’ fixes we get every patch are just rewrites to the skill descriptions.

CureForLiving.5360:

Sithaco.4673:

• “We’ll begin regularly adding new skills and traits to the game for each profession to expand your characters and builds!” (We’ve only had 1 healing skill added for each profession, and only 5 new traits for each profession.)

Actually I’m glad they didn’t do this. I understand how people can think this would be wonderful, but practically speaking it becomes a balance nightmare and it’s doubtful you’d actually gain much play-style variety in anycase. Most builds will still only come down to a handful of optimal skills and traits.
I like to think this is one of those cases where ANet said something, then sat down and realised that it wasn’t a very good idea. I’d rather they change their mind that go ahead with dumb ideas.

They can barley balance what they already have out. They are taking the wrong steps to do balance by listening to the ‘’nerf this/buff this’’ threads that give no reasons as to why. Which ever issue gets the most ‘’nerf/buff’’ threads happens. They need to look at their test groups results and actual discussion topics on actual ‘’nerf/buff’’ threads rather than the crying babies that come to the forums to whine on things they lose to.

Danikat.8537:

And this is why developers normally avoid telling anyone anything about their products until they’re almost ready for release.

Even Peter Molyneux learnt that lesson.

The developers have to tell people what’s going on or they will lose interest. Best thing they can do, tell the people, then follow through.

Worst case scenario – Say nothing, do nothing (World vs World)
Second worst case scenario – Say something then don’t follow through

CureForLiving.5360:

Sithaco.4673:

• “We’ll begin regularly adding new skills and traits to the game for each profession to expand your characters and builds!” (We’ve only had 1 healing skill added for each profession, and only 5 new traits for each profession.)

Actually I’m glad they didn’t do this. I understand how people can think this would be wonderful, but practically speaking it becomes a balance nightmare and it’s doubtful you’d actually gain much play-style variety in anycase. Most builds will still only come down to a handful of optimal skills and traits.
I like to think this is one of those cases where ANet said something, then sat down and realised that it wasn’t a very good idea. I’d rather they change their mind that go ahead with dumb ideas.

Meh, having 3 viable builds for 2+ years isnt fun. Of course balance is harder, that’s why you add a bunch of stuff all at once and adjust it all at once, not one skill added and one bug fix at a time.

Yes, I expect them to do the hard work of balancing lots more skills and weapons. It will still be FAR easier to balance than GW1 with subclassing mixed in. I expect lots of build diversity with lots of skills to keep me stimulated and the game fresh.

Right now, it is stale. Before the LS, it was 3 months since my last log in, give or take. I like the LS, I think the world is artfully done. But build and gameplay are freaking old. Really need lots of work on the base game right now.

Sithaco.4673:

So I’m getting the impression that even though it’s been 6 months since the end of 2013, it’s okay for us not to have any of those things and have no word about their ETA due to the fact that it was a blog post about their intentions, not a promise?

Sometimes developers say things, and because they Include a blurb on the Bottom that says " subject to change" that means that nothing they promise is really a real promise, just a statement of intentions, that are subject to change at any time.

Although they did Blog and say " these are some of the things we will bring you in 2013." the magic blurb on the bottom " intentions subject to change…" is enough to give them an out.

A lot of players are understanding enough to accept that since they included that caveat, they might never actually produce what they said they intended to produce. Remember… things change, intentions change, they never said " we promise on a stack of Bibles and swear."

And even if they did, they gave the magic blurb.

“This offer subject to change without notice.”

The problem is that ANet makes their intentions clear on a blog post that every MMO media or fansite links to. And then they later make corrections in out-of-the-way forum posts, reddit posts, ect.

The majority of the people don’t hear the corrections. Then ANet begins to communicate less so we don’t blame them for not delivering what they intended.

But the answer was never to communicate less. It’s to communicate more, and in a place easy to find. If you delay precursor crafting then SAY so when you know that is the case, in the same venue you announced it originally.

I say this as a person who couldn’t care less about precursor crafting. But I do care about the increasing lack of communication as time goes on.

Aye, I could care less about precursor crafting.

give me more skills and I will be sinking ungodly amounts of time into gw2 again.

DragonWhimsy.6489:

The problem is that ANet makes their intentions clear on a blog post that every MMO media or fansite links to. And then they later make corrections in out-of-the-way forum posts, reddit posts, ect.

The majority of the people don’t hear the corrections. Then ANet begins to communicate less so we don’t blame them for not delivering what they intended.

But the answer was never to communicate less. It’s to communicate more, and in a place easy to find. If you delay precursor crafting then SAY so when you know that is the case, in the same venue you announced it originally.

I say this as a person who couldn’t care less about precursor crafting. But I do care about the increasing lack of communication as time goes on.

News appears On the first page in Big Print above the fold… retractions are buried in page 46… between the obituaries, and the used car ads.

Same thing here.

Ashen.2907:

It was a poor choice of words. Anet should have said, “intend to, plan to, would like to,” etc rather than, “will be.”

A disclaimer at the end that what was stated as factual or definite at the beginning is false or untrue is a bad idea. I don’t think that ANet was intentionally being dishonest in this case but rather that they made a mistake.

I agree with Ashen. Several times that ANet has opened its PR mouth, it has put its collective foot inside. I also don’t believe they were intentionally dishonest, but they surely could use some advice from someone who knows how to communicate.

People are still fixated on them saying “you will” this “you will” that. Sometimes the developed version is dependent on code they changed. It’s simple really, the simplest scenario is that previously, precursor crafting was going to rely on the Achievement system that was in place with LS1. Now, since they made changes for LS2, specifically the Story Journal and achievements being locked behind completion of LS episodes, the way precursor crafting, or scavenger hunt, was to work is now no longer viable. End result? The entire thing is pushed back while it’s redone from zero or built back up from the salvageable areas of the first version.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Ashen.2907:

It was a poor choice of words. Anet should have said, “intend to, plan to, would like to,” etc rather than, “will be.”

A disclaimer at the end that what was stated as factual or definite at the beginning is false or untrue is a bad idea. I don’t think that ANet was intentionally being dishonest in this case but rather that they made a mistake.

I agree with Ashen. Several times that ANet has opened its PR mouth, it has put its collective foot inside. I also don’t believe they were intentionally dishonest, but they surely could use some advice from someone who knows how to communicate.

The thing that surprises me the most about this is they actually have one of the best community managers in the business in Gaile Grey. She would come in-game at least once a week during the height of GW and talk to the players. We actually got some things fixed because of her.

Let’s forget calling them “promises” for a moment. They weren’t promises.

Let’s forget about being upset for a moment. Let’s be reasonable here.

The big “What’s coming in 2013” stuff was a sales pitch. Call it whatever else you want, that’s what it really was. And, like most sales pitches, it hyped up the product. However, it also showed what they knew we wanted, and was what they claimed they were working on as their big projects within the game.

Yes, things happen. Plans change. But this was THE big plan, and how much of it was left standing? This was the big plan, the things they knew would keep us loving and playing the game., but look what happened to it.

If they’ve fallen this far off of plan, shouldn’t we be a little bit … you know … worried?

Serelisk.6573:

On the topic of iteration and without a source, I’m going to claim that ArenaNet initially implied that these iterations were done to meet common ideals about how the game should play. It would meet the pillars of game play that the philosophy was built on, which makes sense logically because of gameplay continuity and to help your audience better understand the direction of your game. For example, one of the main things they didn’t want you to be able to do was grief other players, so a lot of dynamic events involving stealth were removed from the game or drawing board before launch because they didn’t fit that ideal.

Except that’s not how they use iteration. Now it sounds like an excuse to leave us completely blind development and/or direction wise, but still generate hype regardless. Why else would you even make a statement if it’s more than likely going to be BS and you note that with a disclaimer? People have a good reason to be frustrated by that behavior.

They created a relatively alt friendly sequel of an extremely alt friendly game then go back on features that were already planned for launch (account bound dyes) to make the game that much less alt friendly, add Fractals, Ascended Gear and World XP in an alt unfriendly manner then later change these things over a year after the game or the content came out to be alt friendly again? That doesn’t sound like a company that’s focused on ideals in development, they sound confused.

Right now the development claims that were posted to let us know what’s going to happen to this game are complete vaporware, but 6 months into the next year there’s still people clinging onto some inevitability that it will still happen. It’s an abuse of the hope people have that things will get better. Not everyone who doesn’t like the way GW2 plays right now is a hater. Many of them actually care and it really really sucks when they’re completely blindsided by features they vehemently oppose. (See: November 2012)

Some people may accept that this game should and will always be developed as if it’s still in beta, but I’ll never think that’s okay 2 years after it’s already officially released.

They didn’t imply what you’re saying they implied. They try stuff, and if it doesn’t work they abandon it. That’s pretty much what they said. Lots of ideas work on paper, but don’t work in game, until you program them and try them. Some things sound more fun than they are.

Palador.2170:

Let’s forget calling them “promises” for a moment. They weren’t promises.

Let’s forget about being upset for a moment. Let’s be reasonable here.

The big “What’s coming in 2013” stuff was a sales pitch. Call it whatever else you want, that’s what it really was. And, like most sales pitches, it hyped up the product. However, it also showed what they knew we wanted, and was what they claimed they were working on as their big projects within the game.

Yes, things happen. Plans change. But this was THE big plan, and how much of it was left standing? This was the big plan, the things they knew would keep us loving and playing the game., but look what happened to it.

If they’ve fallen this far off of plan, shouldn’t we be a little bit … you know … worried?

Okay, fallen off the plan for you. Not for everyone. There are people I guess who think owning a legendary weapon is everything. The whole game. But I don’t think that’s most people. Would I like to see precusor crafting? Sure I would. Is it game breaking not to see it? Not for me.

So they added the wardrobe, account bound dyes and megaserver, but they didn’t add precusor crafting. They made it so I can wear costumes anywhere (admittedly at a cost).

All of these things make the game much much better for me. The mega server, with all its flaws, has revitalized the open world. It’s a huge improvement to the game.

Saying they didn’t do X and ignoring the Y and Z we got doesn’t work for me.

Oh, and making it so the living story season two has permanent repeatable content? I’m pretty sure Anet is making changes people are asking for.

Just go look at one of the review sites online for what it’s like to work for Arena Net. Read what former and current employees are saying. Should give everyone some insight into why things are so screwed up in this game.

Kanebrake.6192:

Just go look at one of the review sites online for what it’s like to work for Arena Net. Read what former and current employees are saying. Should give everyone some insight into why things are so screwed up in this game.

How many people posted to that site, out of hundreds of employees. You know I’ve had people complain about working for me too. And then, I have people who have told me and still tell me it was the best job they ever had.

Going to a site like that is like going to a forum. The people who have complaints are always the loudest. It proves nothing.

Vayne.8563:

Kanebrake.6192:

Just go look at one of the review sites online for what it’s like to work for Arena Net. Read what former and current employees are saying. Should give everyone some insight into why things are so screwed up in this game.

How many people posted to that site, out of hundreds of employees. You know I’ve had people complain about working for me too. And then, I have people who have told me and still tell me it was the best job they ever had.

Going to a site like that is like going to a forum. The people who have complaints are always the loudest. It proves nothing.

I knew someone would come along and make this very argument. It was inevitable. Fact is that sure there will probably be some people who are just bitter and will complain.

However if you take the time to read what they say even the ones who say it’s the best place in all of God’s creation to work have some of the same “cons” listed. If those were only showing up on the negative reviews you could dismiss them out of hand but they show up on the positive ones as well.

Vayne, Are you an employee or contracted or have any kind of relationship with anyone who works or is contracted by Anet? I ask because after looking through your posting history for the past few weeks you seem to defend pretty much everything Anet does or does not do.

Vayne.8563:

Kanebrake.6192:

Just go look at one of the review sites online for what it’s like to work for Arena Net. Read what former and current employees are saying. Should give everyone some insight into why things are so screwed up in this game.

How many people posted to that site, out of hundreds of employees. You know I’ve had people complain about working for me too. And then, I have people who have told me and still tell me it was the best job they ever had.

Going to a site like that is like going to a forum. The people who have complaints are always the loudest. It proves nothing.

ehhh like the above poster said, there are common threads/complaints against both current and former employees, as well between differing reviews. If everyone had dif cons, it might be bias, but there is probably some truth to the issues. Its also pretty consistent with the interviews, videos, releases etc that we have seen.

That said nothing is perfect, but the game itself seems to be floundering with its new development

Kanebrake.6192:

Vayne.8563:

Kanebrake.6192:

Just go look at one of the review sites online for what it’s like to work for Arena Net. Read what former and current employees are saying. Should give everyone some insight into why things are so screwed up in this game.

How many people posted to that site, out of hundreds of employees. You know I’ve had people complain about working for me too. And then, I have people who have told me and still tell me it was the best job they ever had.

Going to a site like that is like going to a forum. The people who have complaints are always the loudest. It proves nothing.

I knew someone would come along and make this very argument. It was inevitable. Fact is that sure there will probably be some people who are just bitter and will complain.

However if you take the time to read what they say even the ones who say it’s the best place in all of God’s creation to work have some of the same “cons” listed. If those were only showing up on the negative reviews you could dismiss them out of hand but they show up on the positive ones as well.

Vayne, Are you an employee or contracted or have any kind of relationship with anyone who works or is contracted by Anet? I ask because after looking through your posting history for the past few weeks you seem to defend pretty much everything Anet does or does not do.

You haven’t looked through enough of my posting history then. There are things I’m definitely against and have spoken out about. In addition, there are dozens and dozens of threads that complain that I don’t post in at all. Mostly because I feel the complaints are fair minded, and worded appropriately.

I simply dislike unfairness and bias. I’ve lived too long and been in too many situations where people have 5% of the story and manufacture the other 95% to suit some person theory. It’s all self fulling prophecy.

People come and say this game is dead or that game is dead. It’s on every forum in the world. People still say it about WoW, which is clearly not dead. Just because someone says something on a forums, doesn’t mean that it’s true.

I’m not defending Anet. I’m trying to point out that some of the attacks we’ve seen (as in someone using the term lying) is at very least hyperbole, but people say it anyway. And I’ll call people on it, not because I disagree with everything said, but because the wording is particularly combative or wrong the way it’s phrased.

Some guy had a long list of complaints recently and I posted in that thread and only replied to one of them. That should tell you something. It means I agreed with the other ones.

just looked at the latest ffxiv content update, its comparitively pretty massive, they seem to come every 3 months, and seem (from looking at the notes) to eclipse this game in terms of refinement and content.

Of course they are getting subscription money, but kitten homey.

I understand that development changes, plans change, due dates change, but it’s because of such a lack of communication that this is a problem. They make a big blog post that lots of MMO websites link to detailing what will be coming in 2013, everyone hears about it and it gets really hyped up, and then some of it doesn’t happen. Sure, this is okay, plans and development change, but the way they communicated this with us was terrible, not everyone is going to see a reply from Arenanet in a single forum post saying that it probably won’t be coming in 2013, thus causing the problem of communication. If they are going to hype something up really big and make everyone hear about it, when plans change they need to make that information just as visible.

OP I feel exactly the same way as you do. I feel these things should have been in the game last year and are way overdue.

1. More skills and traits would be a great way to improve build diversity – the thing a lot of people complain about. If you have more traits/skills that are very good people will have to choose between them based on preference and situational need.

2. Crafting to 500 for all professions was again something that should have been in the game. They sort of kitten themselves with ascended accessories being obtainable through other means but still.
On a personal note I hate crafting so this hasn’t affected me that much.

3. Precursor crafting was and still is necessary. RNG and very high sums of money aren’t really a good way to obtain precursors.

4. New legendary weapons / items – are an absolute must have – in a game that’s cosmetics driven you have to come out with more/new shinies every now and then to keep players interested.
I’ve been saving up for a new legendary ever since they promised they would bring them in 2013. Imagine how fun it’s been to just wait for it for as long as I have.

Sithaco.4673:

I understand that development changes, plans change, due dates change, but it’s because of such a lack of communication that this is a problem. They make a big blog post that lots of MMO websites link to detailing what will be coming in 2013, everyone hears about it and it gets really hyped up, and then some of it doesn’t happen. Sure, this is okay, plans and development change, but the way they communicated this with us was terrible, not everyone is going to see a reply from Arenanet in a single forum post saying that it probably won’t be coming in 2013, thus causing the problem of communication. If they are going to hype something up really big and make everyone hear about it, when plans change they need to make that information just as visible.

Except that a roadmap isn’t hype. They laid out plans and said plans might change. That’s not hype. That’s not even close to hype. If you took what was said at face value, they said they had plans that may change. If you can get hyped about that, more power to you.

They gave us, as I’ve said, other stuff which was just as important. Sure it’s not the same stuff. They specifically said in a post (I don’t have a quote handy) that the stuff they had been planning with the precusors wouldn’t have worked with other changes they made to the game. It’s back to the drawing board.

DragonWhimsy.6489:

But the answer was never to communicate less. It’s to communicate more, and in a place easy to find. If you delay precursor crafting then SAY so when you know that is the case, in the same venue you announced it originally.

Well I’d love it if they did this. However few companies want to be that open about their inner workings, which is a shame because more clarity would help some players understand why some things happen and others don’t. At the very least I will foster a stronger opinion that ANet cares about the game (which I’m sure they do). However the middle group approach didn’t work (because of threads like these) and the silent approach isn’t working (because of threads like these). A CDI or two would go a long way in helping to change this since it’s a means for devs and players to talk in a way that it’s clear nothing is a promise. But it seems CDIs are complicated, difficult to manage and keep track of and for ANet a few specific tool used for a very specific reason.

Palador.2170:

If they’ve fallen this far off of plan, shouldn’t we be a little bit … you know … worried?

Should only be worried in the sense that we don’t know how the plan is changed. You seem to assume (although maybe correctly) that there was a plan and now they’re gone off plan meaning there is no plan. It’s likely that they’ve simply adopted a new plan and they’re following that plan but because of the lack of communication we only have idle speculation to try and figure out what is what.

Kanebrake.6192:

Just go look at one of the review sites online for what it’s like to work for Arena Net. Read what former and current employees are saying. Should give everyone some insight into why things are so screwed up in this game.

Oh thank you I never even through of doing that.

Kanebrake.6192:

Vayne, Are you an employee or contracted or have any kind of relationship with anyone who works or is contracted by Anet? I ask because after looking through your posting history for the past few weeks you seem to defend pretty much everything Anet does or does not do.

People can have an opinion without being a sock puppet. The idea that we need to have wildly varying opinions throughout a period of time or somehow be biased or unable to see the big picture is a rather odd notion.

phys.7689:

just looked at the latest ffxiv content update, its comparitively pretty massive, they seem to come every 3 months, and seem (from looking at the notes) to eclipse this game in terms of refinement and content.

Of course they are getting subscription money, but kitten homey.

Yeah, I’ve been think this too. I’m hoping that it’s simply a matter of FF14 having been doing this a bit longer and thus having a better well rounded content pipeline, while Anet is still refining there’s. Look at WoWs expansion output, BC took 3 years, WotLK took 1 year, Cata 2 years, Mists 2 years. Hopefully the last 2 years was ANet getting the hang of LW content production. We’ll see if this is the case over the next few patches.

Vayne.8563:

Sithaco.4673:

I understand that development changes, plans change, due dates change, but it’s because of such a lack of communication that this is a problem. They make a big blog post that lots of MMO websites link to detailing what will be coming in 2013, everyone hears about it and it gets really hyped up, and then some of it doesn’t happen. Sure, this is okay, plans and development change, but the way they communicated this with us was terrible, not everyone is going to see a reply from Arenanet in a single forum post saying that it probably won’t be coming in 2013, thus causing the problem of communication. If they are going to hype something up really big and make everyone hear about it, when plans change they need to make that information just as visible.

Except that a roadmap isn’t hype. They laid out plans and said plans might change. That’s not hype. That’s not even close to hype. If you took what was said at face value, they said they had plans that may change. If you can get hyped about that, more power to you.

They gave us, as I’ve said, other stuff which was just as important. Sure it’s not the same stuff. They specifically said in a post (I don’t have a quote handy) that the stuff they had been planning with the precusors wouldn’t have worked with other changes they made to the game. It’s back to the drawing board.

Are you kidding? How can you say this blog post wasn’t intended to generate hype? It was at a time in the game where we didn’t have a lot of permanent content, and people were getting frustrated, they wanted to put the player base to ease and get them all excited for a bunch of new cool stuff coming out in the next few months.

And yeah, they did give us other stuff, cool stuff, megaserver, the wardrobe system, and that’s okay, I’m not sitting here saying that just because they said we will be getting stuff within the next X amount of time then we HAVE to get it, because I know that development and plans change, which is what they’ve told us happened.

My problem is there hasn’t been much communication about it, it’s something a lot of people are eager for, and we’ve got no idea if it’s coming out this year, next year, the year after, for something that was supposed to come out last year, I think we deserve a bit more information on what’s going on.

At the risk of invoking yet another argument over semantics, how can it not be “fallen off the plan” when the developers say they’re going to do X by Y, then – for whatever reason – don’t? Yes, plans change. But the plan was for us to have A, B, and C and we still don’t. Is that not the very definition of being “fallen off the plan”?

Vayne.8563:

Okay, fallen off the plan for you. Not for everyone. There are people I guess who think owning a legendary weapon is everything. The whole game. But I don’t think that’s most people. Would I like to see precusor crafting? Sure I would. Is it game breaking not to see it? Not for me.

Vayne.8563:

Except that a roadmap isn’t hype. They laid out plans and said plans might change. That’s not hype. That’s not even close to hype. If you took what was said at face value, they said they had plans that may change. If you can get hyped about that, more power to you.

They gave us, as I’ve said, other stuff which was just as important. Sure it’s not the same stuff. They specifically said in a post (I don’t have a quote handy) that the stuff they had been planning with the precusors wouldn’t have worked with other changes they made to the game. It’s back to the drawing board.

Sithaco.4673:

I remember leading up to the final patches of last year, getting excited because I knew that new legendaries would be coming out soon, and then patch after patch slipped by, and nothing.

My experience, summarized perfectly.

Elestian.6134:

Sithaco.4673:

I remember leading up to the final patches of last year, getting excited because I knew that new legendaries would be coming out soon, and then patch after patch slipped by, and nothing.

My experience, summarized perfectly.

Well to be fair they told is in OCTOBER that new legendaries most likely wouldn’t be released last year. So it was MONTHS before then that they informed us about that.

Sithaco.4673:

Vayne.8563:

Sithaco.4673:

I understand that development changes, plans change, due dates change, but it’s because of such a lack of communication that this is a problem. They make a big blog post that lots of MMO websites link to detailing what will be coming in 2013, everyone hears about it and it gets really hyped up, and then some of it doesn’t happen. Sure, this is okay, plans and development change, but the way they communicated this with us was terrible, not everyone is going to see a reply from Arenanet in a single forum post saying that it probably won’t be coming in 2013, thus causing the problem of communication. If they are going to hype something up really big and make everyone hear about it, when plans change they need to make that information just as visible.

Except that a roadmap isn’t hype. They laid out plans and said plans might change. That’s not hype. That’s not even close to hype. If you took what was said at face value, they said they had plans that may change. If you can get hyped about that, more power to you.

They gave us, as I’ve said, other stuff which was just as important. Sure it’s not the same stuff. They specifically said in a post (I don’t have a quote handy) that the stuff they had been planning with the precusors wouldn’t have worked with other changes they made to the game. It’s back to the drawing board.

Are you kidding? How can you say this blog post wasn’t intended to generate hype? It was at a time in the game where we didn’t have a lot of permanent content, and people were getting frustrated, they wanted to put the player base to ease and get them all excited for a bunch of new cool stuff coming out in the next few months.

And yeah, they did give us other stuff, cool stuff, megaserver, the wardrobe system, and that’s okay, I’m not sitting here saying that just because they said we will be getting stuff within the next X amount of time then we HAVE to get it, because I know that development and plans change, which is what they’ve told us happened.

My problem is there hasn’t been much communication about it, it’s something a lot of people are eager for, and we’ve got no idea if it’s coming out this year, next year, the year after, for something that was supposed to come out last year, I think we deserve a bit more information on what’s going on.

Right so let’s look at the whole iterative thing. A company knows they change plans like all the time. It’s how they work. They’ve said it. We should all know it by now.

Then the fans say, but you’re not communicating. You don’t tell us your plans. So they tell us their plans even though they say plans may change, which is what happened.

Do you not recall people pushing them to give us more info, cause I do. They’re kitten ed if they do and kitten ed if they don’t. They give us info too early and it changes and they’re liars, right? They give us no info and they don’t communicate. They give us info and say it’s subject to change and guess what? They’re liars again.

Do you think that’s reasonable…because I sure don’t.

Tell me, in your estimation, which should a creative, iterative company do, if they make plans but don’t always stick to that plan?

uknortherner.2670:

What I’ve learned from this thread so far:

1) Vocal serial complainers either can’t read simple English or deliberately take things out of context just for the sake of being argumentative.
2) Anyone who points this out to them is a shill, a fanboy, a white knight or an Anet employee.
3) I wish this forum had an ‘ignore’ function, so I can block out all the rubbish you conspiracy nuts keep coming out with.
4) I will probably get an infraction point or two for posting this.

the context of a blog post for anet is pretty much a commitment, they have said in the past, if you see a blog post about it, serious.
From the information that leaks out, i think anet is (or was up until recently) still struggling with managing and organizing the game development. It would honestly under that system be hard to even use our feedback, because they cant even use their own that well.

The reason these things arent happening is because anet is unable to use their current resources as well as they could, that includes these forums, and the feedback we give them.

Vayne.8563:

Right so let’s look at the whole iterative thing. A company knows they change plans like all the time. It’s how they work. They’ve said it. We should all know it by now.

Then the fans say, but you’re not communicating. You don’t tell us your plans. So they tell us their plans even though they say plans may change, which is what happened.

Do you not recall people pushing them to give us more info, cause I do. They’re kitten ed if they do and kitten ed if they don’t. They give us info too early and it changes and they’re liars, right? They give us no info and they don’t communicate. They give us info and say it’s subject to change and guess what? They’re liars again.

Do you think that’s reasonable…because I sure don’t.

Tell me, in your estimation, which should a creative, iterative company do, if they make plans but don’t always stick to that plan?

Reasonable people accept that deadlines in this industry can, will, and often should be missed. It’s been my experience that unreasonable people are generally not worth fretting over, as they they’re apt be be unreasonable. So what’s to be gained by ArenaNet going dark? They’re punishing the reasonable for nature of the unreasonable, who are – as you already know – going to complain about something one way or the other.

darkace.8925:

Vayne.8563:

Right so let’s look at the whole iterative thing. A company knows they change plans like all the time. It’s how they work. They’ve said it. We should all know it by now.

Then the fans say, but you’re not communicating. You don’t tell us your plans. So they tell us their plans even though they say plans may change, which is what happened.

Do you not recall people pushing them to give us more info, cause I do. They’re kitten ed if they do and kitten ed if they don’t. They give us info too early and it changes and they’re liars, right? They give us no info and they don’t communicate. They give us info and say it’s subject to change and guess what? They’re liars again.

Do you think that’s reasonable…because I sure don’t.

Tell me, in your estimation, which should a creative, iterative company do, if they make plans but don’t always stick to that plan?

Reasonable people accept that deadlines in this industry can, will, and often should be missed. It’s been my experience that unreasonable people are generally not worth fretting over, as they they’re apt be be unreasonable. So what’s to be gained by ArenaNet going dark? They’re punishing the reasonable for nature of the unreasonable, who are – as you already know – going to complain about something one way or the other.

Depends on what you mean by going dark. I don’t really see how knowing that they might or might not do six months from now helps anyone. It wouldn’t help me. Look they made that post…who did that help?

I expect them to communicate more about closer things that are coming. I’d also like to see the communicate better. I’d much rather see a better dialogue that I’ve seen so far.

I think they need to encourage more proactive community managers. I’d like to see more give and take and exchanging of ideas.

Anet is not great a communication. That’s been proven again and again. But the further out they project, the less likely what they’re talking about will eventuate. I’d say it’s a smart move not to do that.

Vayne.8563:

Sithaco.4673:

Vayne.8563:

Sithaco.4673:

I understand that development changes, plans change, due dates change, but it’s because of such a lack of communication that this is a problem. They make a big blog post that lots of MMO websites link to detailing what will be coming in 2013, everyone hears about it and it gets really hyped up, and then some of it doesn’t happen. Sure, this is okay, plans and development change, but the way they communicated this with us was terrible, not everyone is going to see a reply from Arenanet in a single forum post saying that it probably won’t be coming in 2013, thus causing the problem of communication. If they are going to hype something up really big and make everyone hear about it, when plans change they need to make that information just as visible.

Except that a roadmap isn’t hype. They laid out plans and said plans might change. That’s not hype. That’s not even close to hype. If you took what was said at face value, they said they had plans that may change. If you can get hyped about that, more power to you.

They gave us, as I’ve said, other stuff which was just as important. Sure it’s not the same stuff. They specifically said in a post (I don’t have a quote handy) that the stuff they had been planning with the precusors wouldn’t have worked with other changes they made to the game. It’s back to the drawing board.

Are you kidding? How can you say this blog post wasn’t intended to generate hype? It was at a time in the game where we didn’t have a lot of permanent content, and people were getting frustrated, they wanted to put the player base to ease and get them all excited for a bunch of new cool stuff coming out in the next few months.

And yeah, they did give us other stuff, cool stuff, megaserver, the wardrobe system, and that’s okay, I’m not sitting here saying that just because they said we will be getting stuff within the next X amount of time then we HAVE to get it, because I know that development and plans change, which is what they’ve told us happened.

My problem is there hasn’t been much communication about it, it’s something a lot of people are eager for, and we’ve got no idea if it’s coming out this year, next year, the year after, for something that was supposed to come out last year, I think we deserve a bit more information on what’s going on.

Right so let’s look at the whole iterative thing. A company knows they change plans like all the time. It’s how they work. They’ve said it. We should all know it by now.

Then the fans say, but you’re not communicating. You don’t tell us your plans. So they tell us their plans even though they say plans may change, which is what happened.

Do you not recall people pushing them to give us more info, cause I do. They’re kitten ed if they do and kitten ed if they don’t. They give us info too early and it changes and they’re liars, right? They give us no info and they don’t communicate. They give us info and say it’s subject to change and guess what? They’re liars again.

Do you think that’s reasonable…because I sure don’t.

Tell me, in your estimation, which should a creative, iterative company do, if they make plans but don’t always stick to that plan?

if the current state of post launch development in GW2 is due to iterative development, maybe they need to move away from that. fact is game has been out for 2 years, and it hasnt really shown a strong progression in terms of development. The best parts of the game were shipped with the box. Some of the additions were cool, but mostly unrefined/off target/ not evolved well.

but lets say you have an iterative company
you need to be more agile with your development, you need to involve more players, you probably would have more need of a PTS than anyone else. Iterative design is based on being able to use feedback quickly and readjust fast. That is not a charachteristic of anet current development.
bugs dont get fixed quickly, things arent thouroughly tested, and fixes/changes are pretty glacial. Use of feedback is minimal. With an iterative development process, they should have run 5 to 6 different aquisition methods by the playerbase in this time, tested 4 of them, and refined them even more.

Slow unresponsive iterative development will lead to relative stagnation and a feeling of a rudderless game.

buggin out bugless

phys.7689:

uknortherner.2670:

What I’ve learned from this thread so far:

1) Vocal serial complainers either can’t read simple English or deliberately take things out of context just for the sake of being argumentative.
2) Anyone who points this out to them is a shill, a fanboy, a white knight or an Anet employee.
3) I wish this forum had an ‘ignore’ function, so I can block out all the rubbish you conspiracy nuts keep coming out with.
4) I will probably get an infraction point or two for posting this.

the context of a blog post for anet is pretty much a commitment, they have said in the past, if you see a blog post about it, serious.
From the information that leaks out, i think anet is (or was up until recently) still struggling with managing and organizing the game development. It would honestly under that system be hard to even use our feedback, because they cant even use their own that well.

The reason these things arent happening is because anet is unable to use their current resources as well as they could, that includes these forums, and the feedback we give them.

Are you saying they don’t know what they are doing? Or maybe they don’t know how to realize their own vision?

It just seems that people are ok with " Well.. they are doing their best… " I paid for a quality product from a professional company. Not some college intern’s best attempt.

I really think a lot of players are so in love with Arenanet and GW2, that they let them get away with things we would only accept from an amature." hey, it’s Not good…but what do you expect? It’s not Like they are professionals or anything…. for people with a hobby it’s not bad."

I constantly hear " they are getting better." Or " the new patches show they are taking our input to heart."

That sounds Like Public Beta phase. This game has been released for 2 years…when are we leaving Public Beta?

I know one of the avid defenders will now say " All MMO’s are always in Public beta. " umm…No, they aren’t.

But the way this game doesn’t remain consistent with it’s primary vision, the way it squanders resources… and the good will it had generated with that other game I cannot mention. Unless it’s in the gem store of course.

It makes me wonder.