GW2 Sales 2Q16: a new All Time Low

GW2 Sales 2Q16: a new All Time Low

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Posted by: Ashen.2907

Ashen.2907

But you also speak as if this is widely accepted by all people

This is patently false. When almost every sentence he posted specifically refers to, “me,” or, “I,” he is clearly not speaking for others.

I think you should probably stop defending people. This is a direct quote from him:

“Dude, help us fix the terrible game, the numbers are starting to roll in, and as expected it is looking bad, real bad.”

He’s saying this is a terrible game, and it needs to be fixed. Not that he doesn’t like it. He’s had many posts and his language leaves little to the imagination. He’s not saying they made changes that other people like that he doesn’t. He’s saying that the game is bad.. Big difference.

That is nowhere in the post you quoted inspiring my response to you.

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Posted by: slashlizardy.9167

slashlizardy.9167

Come on Vayne, you know I never said to DELETE HoT maps…..

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Posted by: Vayne.8563

Vayne.8563

But you also speak as if this is widely accepted by all people

This is patently false. When almost every sentence he posted specifically refers to, “me,” or, “I,” he is clearly not speaking for others.

I think you should probably stop defending people. This is a direct quote from him:

“Dude, help us fix the terrible game, the numbers are starting to roll in, and as expected it is looking bad, real bad.”

He’s saying this is a terrible game, and it needs to be fixed. Not that he doesn’t like it. He’s had many posts and his language leaves little to the imagination. He’s not saying they made changes that other people like that he doesn’t. He’s saying that the game is bad.. Big difference.

That is nowhere in the post you quoted inspiring my response to you.

Regardless, there’s still no reason to defend someone that says the game is terrible full stop, not as an opinion but as a fact. That it needs to be fixed. You’ve now seen it with your own eyes, so I assume this conversation has run its course.

The sales being at an all time low might be indicative of the game being worse, or it might be indicative of a content drought, or even more people playing new games that came out that aren’t MMOs.

It’s likely a combination of many factors. But Lizardly thinks it’s all just because the game isn’t good, and I highly doubt that’s the case.

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Posted by: Vayne.8563

Vayne.8563

Come on Vayne, you know I never said to DELETE HoT maps…..

Look the game had a bad quarter after a 9 month content drought. You can say all you want about the downturn due to people not liking the new stuff, but until we have more new stuff, there’s no real way to know that’s the case. Your assumptions are premature, at the very least. And that’s all they are…assumptions.

I’m guessing that there are some people that really don’t like the new zones. I’m also guessing there are some people who came back because of those new zones.

But you know, 9 months passes and if you don’t raid or PvP, you’re going to take a break again. And if you’re taking a break, you’re probably not spending much money in the gem store.

Before I get all doom and gloomy I’m going to wait to see what transpires. This is the only reasonable course of action I can see.

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Posted by: slashlizardy.9167

slashlizardy.9167

Come on Vayne, you know I never said to DELETE HoT maps…..

Look the game had a bad quarter after a 9 month content drought. You can say all you want about the downturn due to people not liking the new stuff, but until we have more new stuff, there’s no real way to know that’s the case. Your assumptions are premature, at the very least. And that’s all they are…assumptions.

I’m guessing that there are some people that really don’t like the new zones. I’m also guessing there are some people who came back because of those new zones.

But you know, 9 months passes and if you don’t raid or PvP, you’re going to take a break again. And if you’re taking a break, you’re probably not spending much money in the gem store.

Before I get all doom and gloomy I’m going to wait to see what transpires. This is the only reasonable course of action I can see.

So instead of fixing the inherent problems, we should just take a break and wait the game out and expect good things to happen by themselves, why not just work with us some?

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Posted by: Serophous.9085

Serophous.9085

I will concede from the beginning that I am a tad obsessive, so bear with me, I am going to try and address these comments line by line.

Then you haven’t been paying attention. Like, at all. Or worse, you have but you’ve deluded yourself into thinking what’s been very clear, very obvious to everyone for years isn’t actually so. If you had been paying attention, or if you’d been capable of being honest with yourself, these are some of the changes in direction you would have noticed:
– “everyone should have the best statistical gear by the time they hit level 80” -> ascended gear

Colin straight up acknowledged that they were changing from idea of having the best gear by lvl 80. He explained their logic in an interview post. I would be hard pressed to find it now but I certainly remember it. That goal is no longer the case with ascended gear

- “cosmetic skins are the end game” -> more and more weapon and outfit skins added to the cash shop

This game is still very much about cosmetics, and the fact that ANET has in the past and continues to add outfits and various skins in the gemstone does not detract from that. It is part of their business model and if the game is going to continue, they have to be able to make a profit off the gem store. However they continue to release A LOT of various skins available by playing and completing various content.

As for skins being end game, I will address that in the following comment.

- “we don’t make grindy games” -> masteries and gates in HOT
– “have fun now, not later” -> masteries and gates in HOT
– “we’re fine if you take breaks from our game” -> limited availability of LS season 1

The community was very vocal about needing additional endgame content & progression. The frequency that I see these kinds of comments makes me wonder if most people either don’t know about the CDI or have already forgotten about it. I would suggest you go reread them but there are collectively over 20k posts so a comprehensive read through is prohibitive at this point. But you might try skimming them to get a feel for what we as a community asked for. So much of the design in HoT progression (i.e. masteries and elite specs) is exactly what was discussed in those CDI regarding endgame progression. Some (like me) like it, others hate it but either way I think it is unfair to lay this entirely on ANET when they were very intentionally trying to provide what the community asked for, much in the way that it was requested.

- “the only criteria for our content is ‘is it fun?’” -> run around a zone in a giant zerg auto-attacking for stacks of bags of loot

If you don’t find it fun, don’t do it! Fun is an exceptionally difficult target because of such a diverse population of players. They do what they can with mechanics to keep game encounters diverse but collective gamer ingenuity supersedes that of developers simply because of the absolute numbers. I will make a generalization here and apologize if it offends. Overall Gamers are lazy, we prefer the easiest/most effective way to do things which is how metas evolve and game mechanics devolve, some gamer finds the easiest way to do something and it catches on. Hence Zerging.

However some of this is also learned from the community. In part this goes back to the LS1 and the map wide events that were popular. Part of developing HoT was providing more map wide events in hopes that they would be similarly enjoyed.

- “we want our players to work together in DEs” -> those of you who want Legendaries must compete with players who just want to complete DEs as intended

They have aid repeatedly that they DON’T want dynamic events to be the cause of discord and competition among players. The event complete vs. event fail conflict is an unintentional flaw in the design that they work to fix where it is brought up.

There are more examples, of course (many of them), but I suspect this has illustrated the point adequately enough.

Yes the game has changed over the past 4 years. Yes there are plenty of changes from the original implementation that you have not mentioned here. However I do think you have entirely neglected the role of the community on that process. That almost certainly will not appease those who hate the changes, but I think that ANET should not be on the receiving end of inflammatory rhetoric about changes as if they had enacted those changes entirely one sided.

As someone else mentioned previously, the game has to change over time. Whether one considers that a change in direction and vision of the game is subjective.

Anet did, “enact those changes entirely one sided.” Unless you can provide an example of a non-dev enacting the changes. “What the community asked for,” means, “what a relatively few people asked for.” Anet made decisions, acted on them, and the results are a mixed bag.

Yes, like when everyone was crying for the old capture system for skills to come back. Constant forum posts on it, supporting it.

We got it and it was horrible.

Don’t think the community is perfect. If any makes a decision based on feedback, is any 100% at fault? Really?

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Posted by: Vayne.8563

Vayne.8563

Come on Vayne, you know I never said to DELETE HoT maps…..

Look the game had a bad quarter after a 9 month content drought. You can say all you want about the downturn due to people not liking the new stuff, but until we have more new stuff, there’s no real way to know that’s the case. Your assumptions are premature, at the very least. And that’s all they are…assumptions.

I’m guessing that there are some people that really don’t like the new zones. I’m also guessing there are some people who came back because of those new zones.

But you know, 9 months passes and if you don’t raid or PvP, you’re going to take a break again. And if you’re taking a break, you’re probably not spending much money in the gem store.

Before I get all doom and gloomy I’m going to wait to see what transpires. This is the only reasonable course of action I can see.

So instead of fixing the inherent problems, we should just take a break and wait the game out and expect good things to happen by themselves, why not just work with us some?

Depends. Which specifically inherent problems are you talking about. Because I’ve seen some of the stuff you’ve complained about in other threads, and by my standards, they’re be neither inherent, nor problems.

Why do you have an issue with the fact that some people like the game as it is? You think all the problems you see are problems, but I’m not so sure that they are.

And I definitely don’t believe they’re the main reason for the sales downturn. I believe the content drought is the main reason.

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Posted by: slashlizardy.9167

slashlizardy.9167

I will concede from the beginning that I am a tad obsessive, so bear with me, I am going to try and address these comments line by line.

Then you haven’t been paying attention. Like, at all. Or worse, you have but you’ve deluded yourself into thinking what’s been very clear, very obvious to everyone for years isn’t actually so. If you had been paying attention, or if you’d been capable of being honest with yourself, these are some of the changes in direction you would have noticed:
– “everyone should have the best statistical gear by the time they hit level 80” -> ascended gear

Colin straight up acknowledged that they were changing from idea of having the best gear by lvl 80. He explained their logic in an interview post. I would be hard pressed to find it now but I certainly remember it. That goal is no longer the case with ascended gear

- “cosmetic skins are the end game” -> more and more weapon and outfit skins added to the cash shop

This game is still very much about cosmetics, and the fact that ANET has in the past and continues to add outfits and various skins in the gemstone does not detract from that. It is part of their business model and if the game is going to continue, they have to be able to make a profit off the gem store. However they continue to release A LOT of various skins available by playing and completing various content.

As for skins being end game, I will address that in the following comment.

- “we don’t make grindy games” -> masteries and gates in HOT
– “have fun now, not later” -> masteries and gates in HOT
– “we’re fine if you take breaks from our game” -> limited availability of LS season 1

The community was very vocal about needing additional endgame content & progression. The frequency that I see these kinds of comments makes me wonder if most people either don’t know about the CDI or have already forgotten about it. I would suggest you go reread them but there are collectively over 20k posts so a comprehensive read through is prohibitive at this point. But you might try skimming them to get a feel for what we as a community asked for. So much of the design in HoT progression (i.e. masteries and elite specs) is exactly what was discussed in those CDI regarding endgame progression. Some (like me) like it, others hate it but either way I think it is unfair to lay this entirely on ANET when they were very intentionally trying to provide what the community asked for, much in the way that it was requested.

- “the only criteria for our content is ‘is it fun?’” -> run around a zone in a giant zerg auto-attacking for stacks of bags of loot

If you don’t find it fun, don’t do it! Fun is an exceptionally difficult target because of such a diverse population of players. They do what they can with mechanics to keep game encounters diverse but collective gamer ingenuity supersedes that of developers simply because of the absolute numbers. I will make a generalization here and apologize if it offends. Overall Gamers are lazy, we prefer the easiest/most effective way to do things which is how metas evolve and game mechanics devolve, some gamer finds the easiest way to do something and it catches on. Hence Zerging.

However some of this is also learned from the community. In part this goes back to the LS1 and the map wide events that were popular. Part of developing HoT was providing more map wide events in hopes that they would be similarly enjoyed.

- “we want our players to work together in DEs” -> those of you who want Legendaries must compete with players who just want to complete DEs as intended

They have aid repeatedly that they DON’T want dynamic events to be the cause of discord and competition among players. The event complete vs. event fail conflict is an unintentional flaw in the design that they work to fix where it is brought up.

There are more examples, of course (many of them), but I suspect this has illustrated the point adequately enough.

Yes the game has changed over the past 4 years. Yes there are plenty of changes from the original implementation that you have not mentioned here. However I do think you have entirely neglected the role of the community on that process. That almost certainly will not appease those who hate the changes, but I think that ANET should not be on the receiving end of inflammatory rhetoric about changes as if they had enacted those changes entirely one sided.

As someone else mentioned previously, the game has to change over time. Whether one considers that a change in direction and vision of the game is subjective.

Anet did, “enact those changes entirely one sided.” Unless you can provide an example of a non-dev enacting the changes. “What the community asked for,” means, “what a relatively few people asked for.” Anet made decisions, acted on them, and the results are a mixed bag.

Yes, like when everyone was crying for the old capture system for skills to come back. Constant forum posts on it, supporting it.

We got it and it was horrible.

Don’t think the community is perfect. If any makes a decision based on feedback, is any 100% at fault? Really?

Yes we need the next expac to be fully tested

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Posted by: Ashen.2907

Ashen.2907

But you also speak as if this is widely accepted by all people

This is patently false. When almost every sentence he posted specifically refers to, “me,” or, “I,” he is clearly not speaking for others.

I think you should probably stop defending people. This is a direct quote from him:

“Dude, help us fix the terrible game, the numbers are starting to roll in, and as expected it is looking bad, real bad.”

He’s saying this is a terrible game, and it needs to be fixed. Not that he doesn’t like it. He’s had many posts and his language leaves little to the imagination. He’s not saying they made changes that other people like that he doesn’t. He’s saying that the game is bad.. Big difference.

That is nowhere in the post you quoted inspiring my response to you.

Regardless, there’s still no reason to defend someone that says the game is terrible full stop, not as an opinion but as a fact. That it needs to be fixed. You’ve now seen it with your own eyes, so I assume this conversation has run its course.

The sales being at an all time low might be indicative of the game being worse, or it might be indicative of a content drought, or even more people playing new games that came out that aren’t MMOs.

It’s likely a combination of many factors. But Lizardly thinks it’s all just because the game isn’t good, and I highly doubt that’s the case.

I pointed out that your statement was clearly, demonstrably, false. I did not defend him or his points. I disagree with much of what he had to say, but he made it perfectly clear that he was stating a purely personal opinion…something to which he is entitled. My normal response to someone stating an opinion, clearly labeled as such, is not to falsely ascribe a completely different statememt to them.

If you were to state that GW2 was a game that you enjoyed, I would not quote that statement and claim that you had stated that you did not enjoy GW2.

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Posted by: Ashen.2907

Ashen.2907

I will concede from the beginning that I am a tad obsessive, so bear with me, I am going to try and address these comments line by line.

Then you haven’t been paying attention. Like, at all. Or worse, you have but you’ve deluded yourself into thinking what’s been very clear, very obvious to everyone for years isn’t actually so. If you had been paying attention, or if you’d been capable of being honest with yourself, these are some of the changes in direction you would have noticed:
– “everyone should have the best statistical gear by the time they hit level 80” -> ascended gear

Colin straight up acknowledged that they were changing from idea of having the best gear by lvl 80. He explained their logic in an interview post. I would be hard pressed to find it now but I certainly remember it. That goal is no longer the case with ascended gear

- “cosmetic skins are the end game” -> more and more weapon and outfit skins added to the cash shop

This game is still very much about cosmetics, and the fact that ANET has in the past and continues to add outfits and various skins in the gemstone does not detract from that. It is part of their business model and if the game is going to continue, they have to be able to make a profit off the gem store. However they continue to release A LOT of various skins available by playing and completing various content.

As for skins being end game, I will address that in the following comment.

- “we don’t make grindy games” -> masteries and gates in HOT
– “have fun now, not later” -> masteries and gates in HOT
– “we’re fine if you take breaks from our game” -> limited availability of LS season 1

The community was very vocal about needing additional endgame content & progression. The frequency that I see these kinds of comments makes me wonder if most people either don’t know about the CDI or have already forgotten about it. I would suggest you go reread them but there are collectively over 20k posts so a comprehensive read through is prohibitive at this point. But you might try skimming them to get a feel for what we as a community asked for. So much of the design in HoT progression (i.e. masteries and elite specs) is exactly what was discussed in those CDI regarding endgame progression. Some (like me) like it, others hate it but either way I think it is unfair to lay this entirely on ANET when they were very intentionally trying to provide what the community asked for, much in the way that it was requested.

- “the only criteria for our content is ‘is it fun?’” -> run around a zone in a giant zerg auto-attacking for stacks of bags of loot

If you don’t find it fun, don’t do it! Fun is an exceptionally difficult target because of such a diverse population of players. They do what they can with mechanics to keep game encounters diverse but collective gamer ingenuity supersedes that of developers simply because of the absolute numbers. I will make a generalization here and apologize if it offends. Overall Gamers are lazy, we prefer the easiest/most effective way to do things which is how metas evolve and game mechanics devolve, some gamer finds the easiest way to do something and it catches on. Hence Zerging.

However some of this is also learned from the community. In part this goes back to the LS1 and the map wide events that were popular. Part of developing HoT was providing more map wide events in hopes that they would be similarly enjoyed.

- “we want our players to work together in DEs” -> those of you who want Legendaries must compete with players who just want to complete DEs as intended

They have aid repeatedly that they DON’T want dynamic events to be the cause of discord and competition among players. The event complete vs. event fail conflict is an unintentional flaw in the design that they work to fix where it is brought up.

There are more examples, of course (many of them), but I suspect this has illustrated the point adequately enough.

Yes the game has changed over the past 4 years. Yes there are plenty of changes from the original implementation that you have not mentioned here. However I do think you have entirely neglected the role of the community on that process. That almost certainly will not appease those who hate the changes, but I think that ANET should not be on the receiving end of inflammatory rhetoric about changes as if they had enacted those changes entirely one sided.

As someone else mentioned previously, the game has to change over time. Whether one considers that a change in direction and vision of the game is subjective.

Anet did, “enact those changes entirely one sided.” Unless you can provide an example of a non-dev enacting the changes. “What the community asked for,” means, “what a relatively few people asked for.” Anet made decisions, acted on them, and the results are a mixed bag.

Yes, like when everyone was crying for the old capture system for skills to come back. Constant forum posts on it, supporting it.

We got it and it was horrible.

Don’t think the community is perfect. If any makes a decision based on feedback, is any 100% at fault? Really?

Everyone was not crying for the old capture system for skills to come back. Even if they had been that is not what we got.

I never claimed that the community is perfect, but, as I pointed out, the community did not enact those changes to the game.

(edited by Ashen.2907)

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Posted by: Gehenna.3625

Gehenna.3625

I don’t like this game as much as I did early on too.

I think the game is better now than it was then.

What am I misunderstanding here?

It’s a game forum. The truth is not to be found here.

(edited by Gehenna.3625)

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Posted by: EriskRedLemur.7153

EriskRedLemur.7153

As someone who first tried, then bought HoT during Q2, or close to then, February, I have no regrets. Coming from SWTOR, what a breath of fresh air. Oh no doubt not playing pre-HoT I don’t have that insight. I was a big SWG player, I went through NGE and I hear some compare HoT to that. Idk. Also, coming from SWTOR and WS a bit ago; I can only imagine SWTOR’s numbers it’s not good as the guild I lead there. Regardless, being literally both 4 years old, this is a bit being overblown imo. Look up WoW numbers at certain times… any old game esp with a more controversial expansion OR very slow updates like GW2 does and SWTOR; pop drops. Fewer peeps like me new to it trying it.

SWTOR literally is make or break imo their expansion coming, likewise maybe GW2 as well, though there’s other MMOs much more dire straits than GW2, just look at WS numbers. And WoW with Legion buzz, new content/expansions is vital to older MMOs. ESO has been doing this really well imo. Anyways, I’m sure as I would with SWTOR or SWG years post NGE long time GW2ers will have other input/views. I totally get that.

I see the positive in this means more content sooner. That being said, could mean content not tested enough and could further hurt game. If Anet puts money where mouth is that they listen to community/etc. GW2 could easily rebound with next expansion/updates that fix/balance game.

King Slacker, GM LXS (NA) League of Xtraordinary Slackers
THREAD INFO

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Posted by: Substance E.4852

Substance E.4852

I see the positive in this means more content sooner. That being said, could mean content not tested enough and could further hurt game. If Anet puts money where mouth is that they listen to community/etc. GW2 could easily rebound with next expansion/updates that fix/balance game.

Potentially but lower income means they can’t have as many people working as hard as they used to. Look at what happened to HoT when they were running on revenue that was even higher.

It’s also pretty clear that the 1Q boost was likely due to their huge gem store sale. Nothing else was going on at the time outside of SAB (which was free and had minimal GS tie-ins) and I doubt the changes to HoT caused a massive amount of people to finally cave and buy it.

Pumping in more things to do might get more people playing again but it doesn’t necessarily mean they will be paying again. That’s the primary advantage of a subscription system vs a microtransaction one.

Connection error(s) detected. Retrying…

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Posted by: Ashen.2907

Ashen.2907

Regardless, there’s still no reason to defend someone that says the game is terrible full

Luckily I did not.

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Posted by: phys.7689

phys.7689

Come on Vayne, you know I never said to DELETE HoT maps…..

Look the game had a bad quarter after a 9 month content drought. You can say all you want about the downturn due to people not liking the new stuff, but until we have more new stuff, there’s no real way to know that’s the case. Your assumptions are premature, at the very least. And that’s all they are…assumptions.

I’m guessing that there are some people that really don’t like the new zones. I’m also guessing there are some people who came back because of those new zones.

But you know, 9 months passes and if you don’t raid or PvP, you’re going to take a break again. And if you’re taking a break, you’re probably not spending much money in the gem store.

Before I get all doom and gloomy I’m going to wait to see what transpires. This is the only reasonable course of action I can see.

the trend isnt a one quarter trend though, this is the lowest earnings ever.
also part of the trend is based on the quarters previous to that, as compared with the intial two quarters of sales. they have lost a tremendous amount of people interested in paying for guild wars.

the point is, whatever they have been doing is leading to contracting sales, also you keep blaming the content drought like its a freak occurence. The content drought has been their problem for years. They simply cannot create content at a sustainable pace. The vast majority of content in this game was here 4 months after release.

the game started with a lot of content, and added small amounts at a slow rate. Right before this content drought they had another one leading up to hot, before that they had a much reduced living story, that amounted to two small maps and 5 hours of story in a year.

point is, if content drought is the problem, what in their past leads you to believe they are capable of increasing their output?

the game can only last so long based primarily on the initial release content.

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Posted by: Cerby.1069

Cerby.1069

Well Bloodstone Fen and recent patches are promising, if it goes on like that, this will probably just be remembered as a little stumbling stone in GW history, who knows.

ya. bloodstone fen was a great success overall. i think they totally dropped the bomb on its replay value…its just another ktrain map now. But a few minor changes cvoukd easily change all that for future maps.

Plus why not add dynamic events to a map? weather systems and day/night cycles and events that make the map weorth roaming around randomly….rng events hehe. just combine sandstorm/day/night into 1 map…….the expansion could literallly be just 1-2 maps if they do this…..addd some story and sell it for 1/2 the price of HoT

I kill you in one gunflame, or I kill you in two.
The Tiny Yuno Sniper of Ebay [EBAY]

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Posted by: Ardenwolfe.8590

Ardenwolfe.8590

Again, it’s moot. The numbers aren’t lying and no amount of spin from any doctor is going to change that. Discuss it ’til the cows come home, but a drop in nearly half from the first quarter to the second quarter this year is never a good sign.

Gone to Reddit.

(edited by Ardenwolfe.8590)

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Posted by: Moira Shalaar.5620

Moira Shalaar.5620

Anet did, “enact those changes entirely one sided.” Unless you can provide an example of a non-dev enacting the changes. “What the community asked for,” means, “what a relatively few people asked for.” Anet made decisions, acted on them, and the results are a mixed bag.

Well, if you want to be literal ad absurdum, then certainly, you are correct, however if you take it in the context in which I wrote, you would recognize the fallacy of your statement. CDI is short for Collaborative Development Initiative, meaning that the developers were interacting with the community to understand what the community wanted from the game, so they could implement those changes. You might note that the CDI discussions happened mid development of HoT.

Take a look at Chris Whiteside’s initial post for Collaborative Development and their purpose as expressed there:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/cdi/Collaborative-Development

Perhaps we share different definitions of what constitutes community and “relatively few”. Is there a way to quantify “relatively few”? 5%? 15%? I don’t know. 20k+ posts is in my opinion a relatively significant number of posts. Is that a small number when compared to the total number of GW2 accounts? Yes. But speaking in absolute numbers, most folks, including many of my own friends, never even look at the forums which are used by a much smaller subsection. I would guess, but certainly have no way of measuring for accuracy, that the number of contributors & viewers on the CDI is probably a relatively median percentage of total ACTIVE forum users AT THAT TIME.

If you chose not to participate that was certainly your option, but that also means that you implicitly chose to accept whatever came out of the CDI. If you did participate then you yourself are part of that “relatively few”.

Yes ANET made decisions and acted upon them, but those decisions were highly informed and influenced by requests from the community, whether a large percentage or small. That means that the community actively participated in some extent to the development of HoT. Which again returns to my point that it is unfair to wholly blame ANET for any perceived failures of HoT content.

mid-2011 iMac; OSX 10.9.5; 3.4 GHz Core i7;
16GB RAM; AMD Radeon 6970M 2GB VRAM

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Posted by: Ashen.2907

Ashen.2907

Anet did, “enact those changes entirely one sided.” Unless you can provide an example of a non-dev enacting the changes. “What the community asked for,” means, “what a relatively few people asked for.” Anet made decisions, acted on them, and the results are a mixed bag.

Well, if you want to be literal ad absurdum, then certainly, you are correct, however if you take it in the context in which I wrote, you would recognize the fallacy of your statement. CDI is short for Collaborative Development Initiative, meaning that the developers were interacting with the community to understand what the community wanted from the game, so they could implement those changes. You might note that the CDI discussions happened mid development of HoT.

Take a look at Chris Whiteside’s initial post for Collaborative Development and their purpose as expressed there:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/cdi/Collaborative-Development

Perhaps we share different definitions of what constitutes community and “relatively few”. Is there a way to quantify “relatively few”? 5%? 15%? I don’t know. 20k+ posts is in my opinion a relatively significant number of posts. Is that a small number when compared to the total number of GW2 accounts? Yes. But speaking in absolute numbers, most folks, including many of my own friends, never even look at the forums which are used by a much smaller subsection. I would guess, but certainly have no way of measuring for accuracy, that the number of contributors & viewers on the CDI is probably a relatively median percentage of total ACTIVE forum users AT THAT TIME.

If you chose not to participate that was certainly your option, but that also means that you implicitly chose to accept whatever came out of the CDI. If you did participate then you yourself are part of that “relatively few”.

Yes ANET made decisions and acted upon them, but those decisions were highly informed and influenced by requests from the community, whether a large percentage or small. That means that the community actively participated in some extent to the development of HoT. Which again returns to my point that it is unfair to wholly blame ANET for any perceived failures of HoT content.

20k posts. How many posters? How small a fraction is that of the 20k? How many of those supported suggestions that might have inspired the devs decisions in this direction. How many spoke against?

So a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of the player base, the majority of which was not actively engaged with on the subject at all.

Anet chose who to listen to, how to interpret what that group said, chose to ignore those who spoke counter to the first group, and had the sole power to decide how to act upon their interpretation of their handpicked feedback from a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of the player base.

The responsibility lies with the producers of the product, not the consumers.

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Posted by: FrizzFreston.5290

FrizzFreston.5290

20k posts. How many posters? How small a fraction is that of the 20k? How many of those supported suggestions that might have inspired the devs decisions in this direction. How many spoke against?

So a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of the player base, the majority of which was not actively engaged with on the subject at all.

Anet chose who to listen to, how to interpret what that group said, chose to ignore those who spoke counter to the first group, and had the sole power to decide how to act upon their interpretation of their handpicked feedback from a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of the player base.

The responsibility lies with the producers of the product, not the consumers.

Considering this argument about how many devs may or may not have been inspired by players, I just have to note that this contains both good and bad ideas.

Only the developers of the game can make the game, any enjoyment you got out of the game is because of them. Any frustrations regarding things you didn’t like is because of them.

“It isn’t working!” CL4P-TP
Ingame Name: Guardian Erik

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Posted by: Aidenwolf.5964

Aidenwolf.5964

But you also speak as if this is widely accepted by all people

This is patently false. When almost every sentence he posted specifically refers to, “me,” or, “I,” he is clearly not speaking for others.

I think you should probably stop defending people. This is a direct quote from him:

“Dude, help us fix the terrible game, the numbers are starting to roll in, and as expected it is looking bad, real bad.”

He’s saying this is a terrible game, and it needs to be fixed. Not that he doesn’t like it. He’s had many posts and his language leaves little to the imagination. He’s not saying they made changes that other people like that he doesn’t. He’s saying that the game is bad.. Big difference.

That is nowhere in the post you quoted inspiring my response to you.

Regardless, there’s still no reason to defend someone that says the game is terrible full stop, not as an opinion but as a fact. That it needs to be fixed. You’ve now seen it with your own eyes, so I assume this conversation has run its course.

The sales being at an all time low might be indicative of the game being worse, or it might be indicative of a content drought, or even more people playing new games that came out that aren’t MMOs.

It’s likely a combination of many factors. But Lizardly thinks it’s all just because the game isn’t good, and I highly doubt that’s the case.

That’s a paying customer Vayne. You chime in when you like and defend Anet like it’s your job, which you’re entitled to do because you paid for the game.

You like the game the way it is? Good for you, bad for NCSoft.

Buy To Play Guild Wars 2 2012-2015 – RIP
Unlucky since launch, RNG isn’t random
PugLife SoloQ

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Posted by: Behellagh.1468

Behellagh.1468

Participating in the CDI or the recent polls is like voting. If you choose not to let your voice be heard, then you really can’t complain about the changes they made because of it.

We are heroes. This is what we do!

RIP City of Heroes

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Posted by: morrolan.9608

morrolan.9608

Fractals – used to, but after they nerfed my rank 72 down to 50, then reset it wholly again down to 30, I no longer do them and don’t care about anything associated with them.
Guilds – I spent a mad amount of time, effort AND GEMS developing my personal guild, ALL OF WHICH went bye-bye when HoT launched without anything in return, no refunds of any kind, nothing.
My favorite game mode, WVW, was neglected completely for about 3 1/2 years until it almost entirely collapsed. Reward tracks, server links, etc. have barely saved it from having a cardiac arrest, but its still on the brink of coming and going in and out of ICU.

These 2 are tied together with the way they completely took away what guilds had earned prior to HOT and stuck it behind a huge PvE grind to earn back what we had before. I also tie it into the fractal changes in that they took away player progress that they had earned. Its the same principle.

They clearly don’t understand taking away what we had earned is a recipe for making players angry and are hardly player friendly changes and anet had a reputation as a player friendly developer.

Jade Quarry [SoX]
Miranda Zero – Ele / Twitch Zero – Mes / Chargrin Soulboom – Engi
Aliera Zero – Guardian / Reaver Zero – Necro

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Posted by: Vayne.8563

Vayne.8563

I don’t like this game as much as I did early on too.

I think the game is better now than it was then.

What am I misunderstanding here?

I don’t like this game as much as I did early on is a statement of my enjoyment of the game. That’s because I’ve played this game for four years straight and I’ve done all the stuff I really want to do multiple times. Obviously in the past, when a lot of this stuff was new, I enjoyed it more.

But the game, to me, IS better than it’s ever been.

At launch I had 25 zones that I didn’t like as much as 3 of the 4 HoT zones. But you know, it’s still only 3 of the 4 HoT zones.

I have said, in many places, I don’t like ascended gear, and never have. I’ve also said, I don’t really ever intend to participate in raids. I don’t like some of the harder stuff as far as story achievements. And I’ve always said I preferred the Living World Season 1 to later living stories, but that doesn’t mean the game was better when half the people couldn’t join in the action and could never have that experience. My enjoyment of the game is quite apart from whether the game is better or not. It’s like listening to the same song on the radio. You’re not going to love it as much when it’s played for the hundredth time, but that doesn’t mean the song is worse.

My biggest issues with Guild Wars 2 right now are:

1. I can’t WvW with my guild because many people in the guild are on different servers.
2. I’m not interested in raiding or SPvP but that’s what’s basically been given to me for the last 9 months.

Those are the biggest two issues I have. Of course after a 9 month content drought I’m not having as much fun.

But the game itself is better. I just need more new stuff to do.

However, I like a lot of the new zones better than I like the original zones. There just aren’t enough of them.

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Posted by: Vayne.8563

Vayne.8563

But you also speak as if this is widely accepted by all people

This is patently false. When almost every sentence he posted specifically refers to, “me,” or, “I,” he is clearly not speaking for others.

I think you should probably stop defending people. This is a direct quote from him:

“Dude, help us fix the terrible game, the numbers are starting to roll in, and as expected it is looking bad, real bad.”

He’s saying this is a terrible game, and it needs to be fixed. Not that he doesn’t like it. He’s had many posts and his language leaves little to the imagination. He’s not saying they made changes that other people like that he doesn’t. He’s saying that the game is bad.. Big difference.

That is nowhere in the post you quoted inspiring my response to you.

Regardless, there’s still no reason to defend someone that says the game is terrible full stop, not as an opinion but as a fact. That it needs to be fixed. You’ve now seen it with your own eyes, so I assume this conversation has run its course.

The sales being at an all time low might be indicative of the game being worse, or it might be indicative of a content drought, or even more people playing new games that came out that aren’t MMOs.

It’s likely a combination of many factors. But Lizardly thinks it’s all just because the game isn’t good, and I highly doubt that’s the case.

That’s a paying customer Vayne. You chime in when you like and defend Anet like it’s your job, which you’re entitled to do because you paid for the game.

You like the game the way it is? Good for you, bad for NCSoft.

He was saying, specifically that the person he was quoting was expressing everything as an opinion. In that he was wrong. Whether or not he’s defending him, he’s defending him for something untrue. He was only expressing his opinion in one quoted piece.

Everyone is entitled to express their opinion. However, saying the game is terrible and broken is not only an opinion that has nothing to back it up (no specifics, so it’s not helpful), it’s also an opinion stated as a fact, which is all I was saying.

If people want to offer constructive feedback by all means, offer constructive feedback. If people want to badmouth the game without constructive feedback I’m always going to question that.

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Posted by: Vayne.8563

Vayne.8563

Again, it’s moot. The number aren’t lying and no amount of spin from any doctor is going to change that. Discuss it ’til the cows come home, but a drop in nearly half from the first quarter to the second quarter this year is never a good sign.

The numbers aren’t lying but anyone who plays with numbers will tell you that they do that all the time because if you don’t ask the right questions, numbers can indeed mislead.

In my business, we had months and quarters with serious fall off. After 9/11 for example, we lost of a lot of income because many businesses we serviced were in the area where the World Trade Centers were.

The numbers didn’t lie. Our numbers were down. But anyone saying they were down because people didn’t like our business was wrong.

If the numbers are down because people don’t like HoT that’s one thing. But the numbers could be done for other reasons, like, oh I don’t know, maybe 9 months without any new content besides raids and PvE tournaments.

Saying the numbers are down doesn’t lie is true. The numbers aren’t down. Drawing any specific conclusion from the numbers being down is where the misleading stuff can begin.

I’d say wait until there’s regular content again before you draw those conclusions, because I don’t think the numbers will be as down as they are now. And then other conclusions can be drawn.

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Posted by: Vayne.8563

Vayne.8563

I don’t really care if someone says game is bad…at all.
Not everyone learned to use arguments, nor they should…I mean why? It’s not like anyone here is right at all anyway. Everything is opinion no matter how many arguments you bring to the table and nothing is true.

Vayne, you can bring 1000s arguments here and they are all pointless, cuz they are all just opinions. With some I agree, with others I can choose not to agree.

When someone says HoT is bad that doesn’t means everything is bad, they just express their feelings. You don’t have to take everything as generalisation even if people do it.

I know you like arguments, but you should learn already that your average person will not use them when they express their feelings, so I don’t really see why you should put your fingers in every thread there is…it’s like you are not playing game at all xD
Just let others express themself, thread will probably die anyway if it has no real meat for discussion, but you do like put oil on a fire and keep threads alive.

When someone says the numbers are down, because HOT is bad, which is the conversation of this thread, I’m perfectly within my right to say that’s one possibility but it’s by no means proven.

This thread isn’t about whether hot is goodor HoT is bad. It’s about a downturn in sales. And people using that information, after a very long content drought, to try to prove something conclusively are very definitely wrong…not in what they’re saying but in making that their only assumption. It’s one of many possibilities.

I’d agree with you if this thread was about whether HoT was good or bad. From an objective point of view, we don’t know whether or not it’s HoT’s quality or the decisions made with HOT that drove this drop in revenue.

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Posted by: Behellagh.1468

Behellagh.1468

True, numbers could be down because Overwatch came out.

But the issues players experienced with HoT may have made it easier for them to take time off which then in turn affected cash sale of gems.

  • HoT punched the dungeon runner community in the face by gutting rewards.
  • HoT punched the WvW community in the face by creating borderland maps that was all choke points.
  • HoT punched the solo community in the face with zones that were nearly impossible to transverse solo.
  • HoT punched the players who could only play for a very limited time per day in the face with zone events so long and infrequent it was impossible to earn any meaningful reward.

Now most of these are fixed to one degree or another but those players who grew frustrated and walked away may not know that. Maybe the return of the living story will bring back some of these players.

We are heroes. This is what we do!

RIP City of Heroes

(edited by Behellagh.1468)

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Posted by: IndigoSundown.5419

IndigoSundown.5419

This quarter represents a significant drop in earnings, especially compared w/ Q4 15 and Q1 16. This may or may not represent a bump in the road. It’s too soon to tell.

To reverse the change, ANet will, imo, need to generate consistent releases of content, without 3/4 year gaps, going forward. They’ll also have to modify their approach to the next XPac. Ideally, they’d address some of the concerns expressed by all those who didn’t buy HoT, while keeping enough of what is in HoT to satisfy those who liked it.

Those may be big asks. However, the jury is decidedly still out on whether they’ll pull it off. That’s despite what those who have an ax to grind believe.

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Posted by: Healix.5819

Healix.5819

20k posts. How many posters?

22414 posts and 3873 unique posters, excluding ArenaNet. For comparison, there are 180360 posters on these forums, 10450 of which have posted in the last 90 days.

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Posted by: Beldin.5498

Beldin.5498

Let me guess, you are one of the people who expected GW2 to be just like GW but bigger. Same degree of complexity around traits and professions. Same new expansion every year that was as big as the original game. No cash shop except of things like character slots. And because it’s not you have been rallying against GW2 since launch.

Am I close?

I thought that vanilla GW2 was great and did not play GW1.
What I want is some sort of response from the community in regards to what Anet did.

While I no longer play this game, it would be soul crushing to know that completely changing your direction mid an MMO, not delivering on the promises and abandoning parts of the game would be met with a revenue increase.

For the sake of all of you guys playing, I do not want the game to die, even though it no longer will have me as a customer, however I want Anet to realize that going back on their promises is wrong and that they should choose a stable direction for a game that is now all over the place (no matter it is casual or hardcore).

I think that that is what a lot of ex players are seeking here with venting their frustrations out. They want the company to learn and be better at maintaining the game and delivering more content. They do not like the fact that Anet’s response to a fall in revenue is to release the next expansion faster, because that might mean that they will put even less work into it.
This isn’t Wildstar. I don’t think that we’re here to go “oh yes, the game is dying, die faster Guild Wars 2!”, but rather to show that we’re angry and upset with the current mismanagement.

+1 to that … and i’m more or less at the point where i think that i will never play
this game again .. its just to messed up from what it was when i loved it and they
can hardly revert all the damage that was done by HoT

EVERY MMO is awesome until it is released then its unfinished. A month after release it just sucks.
Best MMOs are the ones that never make it. Therefore Stargate Online wins.

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Posted by: Beldin.5498

Beldin.5498

Participating in the CDI or the recent polls is like voting. If you choose not to let your voice be heard, then you really can’t complain about the changes they made because of it.

Believe me .. i have complained enough against raids and “challenging content”,
i even had a stalker long time from Brazils old hardcore guild.

And even ANet knew that forum posters were a small minority, the german CM
once posted that only 8% read the forums and only 2% (i think) post.

And i also think that the same rules that a CM from Turbine posted, are viable
for more or less all MMOs, that the hardcore players are very well overrepresented
in that small minority that post in forums.

EVERY MMO is awesome until it is released then its unfinished. A month after release it just sucks.
Best MMOs are the ones that never make it. Therefore Stargate Online wins.

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Posted by: Torolan.5816

Torolan.5816

It is true that other factors probably played into the failing income too.
Maybe we should take a look at some of these things:
Someone mentioned Overwatch. It´s a really different game compared to GW2 and probably does not fish so much in the same waters. I can´t remember a blockbuster coming out in Q2 from the top of my head which has seriously challenged Gw2, but I could be wrong here. Pokemon go wasn´t available then. Legion could mean another fall for Anet in the near future.
Q2 is spring Season, a good time to go out. Bu be honest, how many people do change thier behavior in spring season who are playing GW2?^^

Things that probably drop out as reasons:
It is the number of sales, so internal costs like money for employees falls out. The same with external costs like revenue given out to investors.

Things that happened in the game:
-HoT, not receiving that warm welcome from the get go, wore off its novelty.
-Content drought. This could indeed be a major factor, maybe many people were just sick and tired of waiting for something for them instead of raids and the next glider outfit.
-The return of alpine borderland with Anet bending over and saying through the flowers that the desert BL basically sucks and they know it.
-Raids invited dedicated people to GW2. I think it is safe to assume that a dedicated gamer spends less money than a casual one because a dedicated gamer can buy more stuff with in game gold. Exceptions may apply of course.^^

Looking at last years number, the game dropped from 22 to 15, and recently it dropped from 31 to 15. That is a a very harsh drop in both cases and suggests to me that a larger number of people are so disenchanted with the current game that they stopped playing or recomending the game, with the two big patches being unable to bring people back in.

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Posted by: Behellagh.1468

Behellagh.1468

Well just before they pulled desert borderlands, they modified the maps to eliminate the choke points on the map that limited movement through much of the map. Of course it was only there for a week or so before alpine came back.

Now if you followed the WvW polls at all, there were still support for desert, either as part of a rotation or mixing of alpine and desert simultaneously (either 2 alpine/1 desert or 2 desert/1 alpine).

We are heroes. This is what we do!

RIP City of Heroes

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Posted by: carabidus.6214

carabidus.6214

We each have our theories about why ANET had a bad quarterly report recently. For me, this game started down the wrong path with the introduction of Fractals and the Ascended gear grind. The philosophy of tiered progression and all of its trappings went against the flavor of the original game that was marketed to everyone before launch.

Blame HoT all you want. This game has been circling the drain long before that, believe me.

(edited by carabidus.6214)

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Posted by: Vayne.8563

Vayne.8563

It is true that other factors probably played into the failing income too.
Maybe we should take a look at some of these things:
Someone mentioned Overwatch. It´s a really different game compared to GW2 and probably does not fish so much in the same waters. I can´t remember a blockbuster coming out in Q2 from the top of my head which has seriously challenged Gw2, but I could be wrong here. Pokemon go wasn´t available then. Legion could mean another fall for Anet in the near future.
Q2 is spring Season, a good time to go out. Bu be honest, how many people do change thier behavior in spring season who are playing GW2?^^

Things that probably drop out as reasons:
It is the number of sales, so internal costs like money for employees falls out. The same with external costs like revenue given out to investors.

Things that happened in the game:
-HoT, not receiving that warm welcome from the get go, wore off its novelty.
-Content drought. This could indeed be a major factor, maybe many people were just sick and tired of waiting for something for them instead of raids and the next glider outfit.
-The return of alpine borderland with Anet bending over and saying through the flowers that the desert BL basically sucks and they know it.
-Raids invited dedicated people to GW2. I think it is safe to assume that a dedicated gamer spends less money than a casual one because a dedicated gamer can buy more stuff with in game gold. Exceptions may apply of course.^^

Looking at last years number, the game dropped from 22 to 15, and recently it dropped from 31 to 15. That is a a very harsh drop in both cases and suggests to me that a larger number of people are so disenchanted with the current game that they stopped playing or recomending the game, with the two big patches being unable to bring people back in.

The biggest thing is normal traffic patterns. You can see it in WoW for years. The ycome out with an expansion, get a huge boost in population for 6 months or so, and then subscriptions plummet. It happens all the time.

In WoW it’s people not subscribing. Here, it’s people not playing and not buying stuff in the cash shop.

Heart of Thorns came out 9 months ago. During those 9 months we mostly have PvP and Raids as updates. Who would have not expected sales to drop?

There’s just no evidence HoT is the reason for the drop.

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Posted by: Torolan.5816

Torolan.5816

I don´t know the numbers of WOW to be honest, but WOW is a phenomemum in itself and I am not sure if you can count it as reference.
Lineage for example is going on superstrong for years now without a major dip.
It surely also is the case that WOW drops big time from time to time lately(it did not when it was new).

Can we agree on the starting point that Anet has lost people compared to last year at this time, and HoT at least did not do much to stabilize income?
I got used to the maps over time, but in general I think that it is a horrible concept for a new player when he is thrown into HoT and is walled up everywhere. Putting hurdles to just play is plain and simple a bad idea.

This brings me once again to the idea that raids were not that good of an idea for a game like GW2.

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Posted by: Aidenwolf.5964

Aidenwolf.5964

The biggest thing is normal traffic patterns. You can see it in WoW for years. The ycome out with an expansion, get a huge boost in population for 6 months or so, and then subscriptions plummet. It happens all the time.

In WoW it’s people not subscribing. Here, it’s people not playing and not buying stuff in the cash shop.

Heart of Thorns came out 9 months ago. During those 9 months we mostly have PvP and Raids as updates. Who would have not expected sales to drop?

There’s just no evidence HoT is the reason for the drop.

There is empirical data showing that the game is in the worst financial shape in it’s existence less than a year after HoT. This is fact, we like facts.

HoT and FREE TO PLAY! Did not in any way increase revenue for Anet or their parent company NCSoft. The game made less Q2 2016 than at any point since launch.

Had the game continued to run LS S1 style instead of a box would it have done better financially? There is no way to know for sure, but what is known, what can be proven is that the expansion has left the game less profitable than it was before.

Opinions are great and some of you have made it a life’s mission to attempt to counter me and people similar to my thoughts on the state of the game over the years. These numbers show quite clearly that the game is in trouble.

Buy To Play Guild Wars 2 2012-2015 – RIP
Unlucky since launch, RNG isn’t random
PugLife SoloQ

(edited by Aidenwolf.5964)

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Posted by: Vayne.8563

Vayne.8563

The biggest thing is normal traffic patterns. You can see it in WoW for years. The ycome out with an expansion, get a huge boost in population for 6 months or so, and then subscriptions plummet. It happens all the time.

In WoW it’s people not subscribing. Here, it’s people not playing and not buying stuff in the cash shop.

Heart of Thorns came out 9 months ago. During those 9 months we mostly have PvP and Raids as updates. Who would have not expected sales to drop?

There’s just no evidence HoT is the reason for the drop.

There is empirical data showing that the game is in the worst financial shape in it’s existence less than a year after HoT. This is fact, we like facts.

HoT and FREE TO PLAY! Did not in any way increase revenue for Anet or their parent company NCSoft. The game made less Q2 2016 than at any point since launch.

Had the game continued to run LS S1 style instead of a box would it have done better financially? There is no way to know for sure, but what is known, what can be proven is that the expansion has left the game less profitable than it was before.

Opinions are great and some of you have made it a life’s mission to attempt to counter me and people similar to my thoughts on the state of the game over the years. These numbers show quite clearly that the game is in trouble.

Or the content drought left the game less profitable than before. It’s a 4 year old game and before it wasn’t so old. That affects things too.

The expansion is at fault is the easy answer. That doesn’t make it the right answer.

And if the expansion is at fault, it might have nothing to do with the expansion itself, but the way Anet botched the delivery of it.

How many people left the game due to the dungeon nerf. Not really expansion content. An unrelated decision Anet had to partially reverse.

The price was bad. If this expansion had launched at $30 bucks would it have made more money?

The publicity was bad due to the character slot decision.

These are all things that don’t talk to the quality or direction of the expansion.

The expansion is the easy answer. I’ve learned a long time ago that Occam’s Razor doesn’t always apply.

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Posted by: Gehenna.3625

Gehenna.3625

But the game itself is better. I just need more new stuff to do.

However, I like a lot of the new zones better than I like the original zones. There just aren’t enough of them.

That makes sense.

I think the HoT maps are better than the original ones though gliding also made them more fun as well. But then I always thought GW2 started with way too many zones to begin with. It would’ve been better to have fewer zones with more to do in them like HoT maps do.

Population is definitely an issue though. The Auric Basin meta for example regularly fails in the prime time slot after dinner because there are virtually no people there most of the evenings.

I suppose there are a lot of people who don’t care for the zones though as they are and I guess I could see a benefit in a compromise where you still have HoT style maps but a little less chaotic and confusing to get around in. It’s kinda pointless if people don’t enjoy the maps because they hate platforming. I don’t really get that complaint though because to me the jump puzzles are the platforming and not the HoT maps themselves. But oh well, if a lot of players avoid these maps, then it’s problematic for the game.

The point is not that there is not a lot to do in GW2 because there is, but a lot of it isn’t enjoyable to a lot of people.

We don’t care for raids and ascended gear, others don’t care for the exploration bits. I do like exploration but then I don’t like getting bogged doing constantly by boring/annoying mobs. I just don’t like this approach that pretty much every encounter with the normal map mobs is a tricky fight that could kill me quite easily if I don’t watch it. That doesn’t make me feel very heroic and it just takes up so much time that it interferes with the exploration I like to do. I am sure others would get upset though if the mobs were easier to kill and there were fewer of them.

So yeh, I understand it’s tough to cater to various groups of players, but you have to be careful because there’s a fine line in balancing the needs of the players and giving nobody what they want. The latter will get people burnt out on content much more quickly.

It’s a game forum. The truth is not to be found here.

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Posted by: Vayne.8563

Vayne.8563

I don´t know the numbers of WOW to be honest, but WOW is a phenomemum in itself and I am not sure if you can count it as reference.
Lineage for example is going on superstrong for years now without a major dip.
It surely also is the case that WOW drops big time from time to time lately(it did not when it was new).

Can we agree on the starting point that Anet has lost people compared to last year at this time, and HoT at least did not do much to stabilize income?
I got used to the maps over time, but in general I think that it is a horrible concept for a new player when he is thrown into HoT and is walled up everywhere. Putting hurdles to just play is plain and simple a bad idea.

This brings me once again to the idea that raids were not that good of an idea for a game like GW2.

Lineage is known as the WoW of Korea, the same logic holds. But it’s logical anyway. So many people get tired of games after expansions are played out and leave. That’s what happens. Years of being in the industry show that, no matter what game you play.

Every game has a hard core playerbase that stays no matter what, and a drifting playerbase that comes back for new content.

And Lineage is a sandbox game. The content is not really made by the developers by the player. WoW is a better comparison.

Edit: Lineage closed up completely in the west.

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Posted by: Vayne.8563

Vayne.8563

But the game itself is better. I just need more new stuff to do.

However, I like a lot of the new zones better than I like the original zones. There just aren’t enough of them.

That makes sense.

I think the HoT maps are better than the original ones though gliding also made them more fun as well. But then I always thought GW2 started with way too many zones to begin with. It would’ve been better to have fewer zones with more to do in them like HoT maps do.

Population is definitely an issue though. The Auric Basin meta for example regularly fails in the prime time slot after dinner because there are virtually no people there most of the evenings.

I suppose there are a lot of people who don’t care for the zones though as they are and I guess I could see a benefit in a compromise where you still have HoT style maps but a little less chaotic and confusing to get around in. It’s kinda pointless if people don’t enjoy the maps because they hate platforming. I don’t really get that complaint though because to me the jump puzzles are the platforming and not the HoT maps themselves. But oh well, if a lot of players avoid these maps, then it’s problematic for the game.

The point is not that there is not a lot to do in GW2 because there is, but a lot of it isn’t enjoyable to a lot of people.

We don’t care for raids and ascended gear, others don’t care for the exploration bits. I do like exploration but then I don’t like getting bogged doing constantly by boring/annoying mobs. I just don’t like this approach that pretty much every encounter with the normal map mobs is a tricky fight that could kill me quite easily if I don’t watch it. That doesn’t make me feel very heroic and it just takes up so much time that it interferes with the exploration I like to do. I am sure others would get upset though if the mobs were easier to kill and there were fewer of them.

So yeh, I understand it’s tough to cater to various groups of players, but you have to be careful because there’s a fine line in balancing the needs of the players and giving nobody what they want. The latter will get people burnt out on content much more quickly.

I haven’t seen the AB meta fail for time out of mind, unless people screw up and kill something too fast. That’s the one meta that’s done consistently every hour of the day and night due to the loot gain.

The TD meta would be a better example. The TD meta doesn’t require a full map, but it does require coordination. People don’t take hte time to coordinate and it fails.

I’ve failed the TD meta a couple of times this week. I haven’t failed the AB meta in a long time, and keep in mind I’m in Australia. I play all sorts of crazy hours.

You do need to find a map though that’s doing it with LFG in all cases.

I agree with the too many zones comment.

P.S. I should add, one of the big reasons I’m not enjoying the game as much has to do with arthritis in my shoulder which makes it harder to play as well and do the more difficult content.

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Posted by: Aidenwolf.5964

Aidenwolf.5964

The biggest thing is normal traffic patterns. You can see it in WoW for years. The ycome out with an expansion, get a huge boost in population for 6 months or so, and then subscriptions plummet. It happens all the time.

In WoW it’s people not subscribing. Here, it’s people not playing and not buying stuff in the cash shop.

Heart of Thorns came out 9 months ago. During those 9 months we mostly have PvP and Raids as updates. Who would have not expected sales to drop?

There’s just no evidence HoT is the reason for the drop.

There is empirical data showing that the game is in the worst financial shape in it’s existence less than a year after HoT. This is fact, we like facts.

HoT and FREE TO PLAY! Did not in any way increase revenue for Anet or their parent company NCSoft. The game made less Q2 2016 than at any point since launch.

Had the game continued to run LS S1 style instead of a box would it have done better financially? There is no way to know for sure, but what is known, what can be proven is that the expansion has left the game less profitable than it was before.

Opinions are great and some of you have made it a life’s mission to attempt to counter me and people similar to my thoughts on the state of the game over the years. These numbers show quite clearly that the game is in trouble.

Or the content drought left the game less profitable than before. It’s a 4 year old game and before it wasn’t so old. That affects things too.

The expansion is at fault is the easy answer. That doesn’t make it the right answer.

And if the expansion is at fault, it might have nothing to do with the expansion itself, but the way Anet botched the delivery of it.

How many people left the game due to the dungeon nerf. Not really expansion content. An unrelated decision Anet had to partially reverse.

The price was bad. If this expansion had launched at $30 bucks would it have made more money?

The publicity was bad due to the character slot decision.

These are all things that don’t talk to the quality or direction of the expansion.

The expansion is the easy answer. I’ve learned a long time ago that Occam’s Razor doesn’t always apply.

The point of an expansion in an MMO is to increase revenue of an IP. Simple but true. You don’t invest money in a product with the hopes of breaking even. The expansion and it’s FREE TO PLAY promotion have actually done the opposite. The game made more money before both.

Yes it’s a 4 year old game but the expansion is one year old and changed everything about GW2.

If you love the xpac I’d suggest playing It like mad because I’d bet my account (which I’d gladly have refunded) that you’ll never see a “Challenging Group Content” xpac for GW2 again.

It failed to increase revenue and in fact it’s decreased it.

Buy To Play Guild Wars 2 2012-2015 – RIP
Unlucky since launch, RNG isn’t random
PugLife SoloQ

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Posted by: Vayne.8563

Vayne.8563

The biggest thing is normal traffic patterns. You can see it in WoW for years. The ycome out with an expansion, get a huge boost in population for 6 months or so, and then subscriptions plummet. It happens all the time.

In WoW it’s people not subscribing. Here, it’s people not playing and not buying stuff in the cash shop.

Heart of Thorns came out 9 months ago. During those 9 months we mostly have PvP and Raids as updates. Who would have not expected sales to drop?

There’s just no evidence HoT is the reason for the drop.

There is empirical data showing that the game is in the worst financial shape in it’s existence less than a year after HoT. This is fact, we like facts.

HoT and FREE TO PLAY! Did not in any way increase revenue for Anet or their parent company NCSoft. The game made less Q2 2016 than at any point since launch.

Had the game continued to run LS S1 style instead of a box would it have done better financially? There is no way to know for sure, but what is known, what can be proven is that the expansion has left the game less profitable than it was before.

Opinions are great and some of you have made it a life’s mission to attempt to counter me and people similar to my thoughts on the state of the game over the years. These numbers show quite clearly that the game is in trouble.

Or the content drought left the game less profitable than before. It’s a 4 year old game and before it wasn’t so old. That affects things too.

The expansion is at fault is the easy answer. That doesn’t make it the right answer.

And if the expansion is at fault, it might have nothing to do with the expansion itself, but the way Anet botched the delivery of it.

How many people left the game due to the dungeon nerf. Not really expansion content. An unrelated decision Anet had to partially reverse.

The price was bad. If this expansion had launched at $30 bucks would it have made more money?

The publicity was bad due to the character slot decision.

These are all things that don’t talk to the quality or direction of the expansion.

The expansion is the easy answer. I’ve learned a long time ago that Occam’s Razor doesn’t always apply.

The point of an expansion in an MMO is to increase revenue of an IP. Simple but true. You don’t invest money in a product with the hopes of breaking even. The expansion and it’s FREE TO PLAY promotion have actually done the opposite. The game made more money before both.

Yes it’s a 4 year old game but the expansion is one year old and changed everything about GW2.

If you love the xpac I’d suggest playing It like mad because I’d bet my account (which I’d gladly have refunded) that you’ll never see a “Challenging Group Content” xpac for GW2 again.

It failed to increase revenue and in fact it’s decreased it.

The income this quarter is down that’s true. But that doesn’t mean the expansion and free to play are the cause of it. I daresay the way Anet handled the launch of the expansion has far more to do with it. That’s my opinion.

I can’t prove it any more than you can prove your theory.

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Posted by: Aidenwolf.5964

Aidenwolf.5964

The income this quarter is down that’s true. But that doesn’t mean the expansion and free to play are the cause of it. I daresay the way Anet handled the launch of the expansion has far more to do with it. That’s my opinion.

I can’t prove it any more than you can prove your theory.

But you see… I have.

The game makes less post xpac than pre xpac FACT.

You aren’t required to agree and I’d be disappointed if you did, you’ve worked hard backing any direction Anet wanted to take this game.

Math is Proof.

Buy To Play Guild Wars 2 2012-2015 – RIP
Unlucky since launch, RNG isn’t random
PugLife SoloQ

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Posted by: Gehenna.3625

Gehenna.3625

I haven’t seen the AB meta fail for time out of mind, unless people screw up and kill something too fast. That’s the one meta that’s done consistently every hour of the day and night due to the loot gain.

The TD meta would be a better example. The TD meta doesn’t require a full map, but it does require coordination. People don’t take hte time to coordinate and it fails.

Well AB is a good example for me because I’ve been there most nights around that time and more often than not it fails due to lack of numbers or it doesn’t even get done at all. Last night one guy was asking if he was the only one there for the meta…apparently he was, because there was zero reply and no activity on it at all. From my experience this happens more often than not.

You’re not wrong about TD but I don’t spend a lot of time in TD because it really is a very very tedious map from my point of view so I don’t really enjoy it as much as the two before.

It’s a game forum. The truth is not to be found here.

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Posted by: Vayne.8563

Vayne.8563

The income this quarter is down that’s true. But that doesn’t mean the expansion and free to play are the cause of it. I daresay the way Anet handled the launch of the expansion has far more to do with it. That’s my opinion.

I can’t prove it any more than you can prove your theory.

But you see… I have.

The game makes less post xpac than pre xpac FACT.

You aren’t required to agree and I’d be disappointed if you did, you’ve worked hard backing any direction Anet wanted to take this game.

Math is Proof.

Math doesn’t prove the expansion caused it. Math only proves it’s lower. Assuming the direction of the game instead of say the price of the expansion, or the bad publicity surrounding the decision not to include a character slot…that’s a guess.

Not a fact.

Edit: How come you ignore the fact that I’ve never been happy with ascended stuff or raids btw. You say I support every decision Anet makes. Can you show me where I support the introduction of raids?

(edited by Vayne.8563)

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Posted by: Vayne.8563

Vayne.8563

I haven’t seen the AB meta fail for time out of mind, unless people screw up and kill something too fast. That’s the one meta that’s done consistently every hour of the day and night due to the loot gain.

The TD meta would be a better example. The TD meta doesn’t require a full map, but it does require coordination. People don’t take hte time to coordinate and it fails.

Well AB is a good example for me because I’ve been there most nights around that time and more often than not it fails due to lack of numbers or it doesn’t even get done at all. Last night one guy was asking if he was the only one there for the meta…apparently he was, because there was zero reply and no activity on it at all. From my experience this happens more often than not.

You’re not wrong about TD but I don’t spend a lot of time in TD because it really is a very very tedious map from my point of view so I don’t really enjoy it as much as the two before.

AB fails due to lack of organization. You only need 10 people per side to beat AB. If it’s well organized and people explain stuff it never fails. I’ve done it a lot.

Edit: Out of curiosity do you look for it in LFG for the organized maps?

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Posted by: Aidenwolf.5964

Aidenwolf.5964

The income this quarter is down that’s true. But that doesn’t mean the expansion and free to play are the cause of it. I daresay the way Anet handled the launch of the expansion has far more to do with it. That’s my opinion.

I can’t prove it any more than you can prove your theory.

But you see… I have.

The game makes less post xpac than pre xpac FACT.

You aren’t required to agree and I’d be disappointed if you did, you’ve worked hard backing any direction Anet wanted to take this game.

Math is Proof.

Math doesn’t prove the expansion caused it. Math only proves it’s lower. Assuming the direction of the game instead of say the price of the expansion, or the bad publicity surrounding the decision not to include a character slot…that’s a guess.

Not a fact.

Again with semantics when presented with fact.

The point of an xpac is to increase revenue, fact.
(that’s indisputable)

The game makes less money post HoT, fact.
(that’s indisputable)

Argue the game’s in better shape than ever before all you like but Anet is a business and business isn’t booming, fact.

The game’s been chasing money from people who hated it for years and taken for granted the players who’ve paid the bills.

NPE (for people who bought and quit)
Ascended (for the gear grind lovers)
Fractals then Raids (for the WoW crowd)

But what made me play GW was the freedom to do what I wanted solo, in a group, whatever. That all died with HoT.

Buy To Play Guild Wars 2 2012-2015 – RIP
Unlucky since launch, RNG isn’t random
PugLife SoloQ

(edited by Aidenwolf.5964)

GW2 Sales 2Q16: a new All Time Low

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Posted by: Vayne.8563

Vayne.8563

The income this quarter is down that’s true. But that doesn’t mean the expansion and free to play are the cause of it. I daresay the way Anet handled the launch of the expansion has far more to do with it. That’s my opinion.

I can’t prove it any more than you can prove your theory.

But you see… I have.

The game makes less post xpac than pre xpac FACT.

You aren’t required to agree and I’d be disappointed if you did, you’ve worked hard backing any direction Anet wanted to take this game.

Math is Proof.

Math doesn’t prove the expansion caused it. Math only proves it’s lower. Assuming the direction of the game instead of say the price of the expansion, or the bad publicity surrounding the decision not to include a character slot…that’s a guess.

Not a fact.

Again with semantics when presented with fact.

The point of an xpac is to increase revenue, fact.
(that’s indisputable)

The game makes less money post HoT, fact.
(that’s indisputable)

Argue the game’s in better shape than ever before all you like but Anet is a business and business isn’t booming, fact.

Fact: You don’t know how much this game would be doing if there had never been an expansion. It could have increased sales beyond what sales would have existed.

That’s your logical fallacy. Can you prove that this game would have remained stable and not fallen if they continued in the same direction that had originally or continued the living story. That’s an assumption.

The fact is you have no real knowledge about whether or not we’re better off now at this point in time than we would be if the expansion had never launched. It’s a guess.