Guild Wars 2

Vayne.8563:

MikaHR.1978:

Vayne.8563:

MikaHR.1978:

Vayne.8563:

xephire.8324:

Anyway don’t show your support for ANET if you don’t like the direction they are going so they won’t make another WOW like game….

Yes this game is very much like WoW. I mean they both have swords and staffs. It must be a WoW clone.

Saying a game is like WoW doesn’t make a game like WoW. Just sayin’.

Ultimate defense….of EVERY WoW clone*….and they all failed.

Just sayin.

Oh, and losing 5 MILLION players is NOT successful.

The ONLY MMO that still gains players is EvE.

*except Rift, they pretty much advertised as WoW clone. Didnt help much either way.

First of all, comparing a themepark MMO to a sandbox MMO isn’t really convincing me of anything.

Oh look, niche Eve sandbox MMO has a growing population. They’re reached half a million players. Okay. Not really all that much for a theme park MMO, but certainly respectable for a sand box.

More to the point, how many of Eve’s players are casual? How easy is it to play Eve casually? You can just sort of log in, come back a couple of weeks later and log in again?

I don’t see how anyone can compare these two games…maybe individual aspects, but that’s not what you’re doing. You’re talking about success.

Secondly, the conclusions you’re extrapolating from information you have is flawed. Why did the games that mimic WoW fail? You’ve drawn a specific conclusion as if they’ve all failed for the same reason.

Many games failed because they were so buggy they were virtually unplayable (Vanguard/Warhammer). Others failed for other reasons. Some in fact, haven’t failed at all, they’ve just had limited success.

There’s a certain way of thinking that puts all your eggs in one basket. This game failed because of X, that game failed because of Y. There are very few games that fail for a single reason. Trying to show that you know the reason any of the games failed makes me question your entire premise.

Ahahahhahhahahaahah

Yes, obviously, its not “fooling” you. MMO is MMO. You can compare MMOs as much as you wish and its a FACT EvE is champion in that field.

Limited success? You call WoW that now? To me WoW was a success, sorry. But its long time now.

Saying you can compare an MMO that’s a sandbox to an MMO that’s at themepark is saying you can compare golf to basketball because they’re both sports. Sure it can be done, but the validity of doing so must be questioned.

No one ever said WoW wasn’t successful. However, WoW came out ages ago, over 8 years, in a completely different market. Even Blizzard was forced to scrap Titan because it wasn’t going to work. So where’s their next “big” MMO?

Every other MMO has met with limited success in comparison. You bring up a game with half a million subs, from a playerbase where most people have multiple accounts. How many people are actually playing Eve? Do you know?

Again. Limited success….rofl. Buzzword for unsuccessful. Im sure your “target audience” dig that.

Of course, basketball is more successful than golf. EASY rofl Not that it matters, but just for fun.

People in Blizzard are not fools, theyve taken Titan back to drawing board to TRY to make something that will work, yet another WoW clone wouldnt really cut it.

And how many active players WoW has? You are probably unaware how Blizzard counts “subs”, otherwise you wouldnt talk nonsense, at least SUBS in EvE are SUBS by definition.

Vayne.8563:

So where’s their next “big” MMO?

I don’t know but someday – someday! – someone will create the MMO to rule all MMOs and it will be Days of Our Lives Online, based on the classic TV soap which features a setting that offers everything any MMO player anywhere could ever want.

I don’t know if it will be Blizzard. I have played a few WoW-clones here and there but never WoW itself, so I don’t know anything about Blizzard. Could they pull it off? Beats me. But just take a moment and ponder what anet might do with a Sami Brady dungeon/event…

Tachenon.5270:

Vayne.8563:

So where’s their next “big” MMO?

I don’t know but someday – someday! – someone will create the MMO to rule all MMOs and it will be Days of Our Lives Online, based on the classic TV soap which features a setting that offers everything any MMO player anywhere could ever want.

I don’t know if it will be Blizzard. I have played a few WoW-clones here and there but never WoW itself, so I don’t know anything about Blizzard. Could they pull it off? Beats me. But just take a moment and ponder what anet might do with a Sami Brady dungeon/event…

I feel really horrible that I know who Sami Brady is. lol

MikaHR.1978:

Vayne.8563:

MikaHR.1978:

Vayne.8563:

MikaHR.1978:

Vayne.8563:

xephire.8324:

Anyway don’t show your support for ANET if you don’t like the direction they are going so they won’t make another WOW like game….

Yes this game is very much like WoW. I mean they both have swords and staffs. It must be a WoW clone.

Saying a game is like WoW doesn’t make a game like WoW. Just sayin’.

Ultimate defense….of EVERY WoW clone*….and they all failed.

Just sayin.

Oh, and losing 5 MILLION players is NOT successful.

The ONLY MMO that still gains players is EvE.

*except Rift, they pretty much advertised as WoW clone. Didnt help much either way.

First of all, comparing a themepark MMO to a sandbox MMO isn’t really convincing me of anything.

Oh look, niche Eve sandbox MMO has a growing population. They’re reached half a million players. Okay. Not really all that much for a theme park MMO, but certainly respectable for a sand box.

More to the point, how many of Eve’s players are casual? How easy is it to play Eve casually? You can just sort of log in, come back a couple of weeks later and log in again?

I don’t see how anyone can compare these two games…maybe individual aspects, but that’s not what you’re doing. You’re talking about success.

Secondly, the conclusions you’re extrapolating from information you have is flawed. Why did the games that mimic WoW fail? You’ve drawn a specific conclusion as if they’ve all failed for the same reason.

Many games failed because they were so buggy they were virtually unplayable (Vanguard/Warhammer). Others failed for other reasons. Some in fact, haven’t failed at all, they’ve just had limited success.

There’s a certain way of thinking that puts all your eggs in one basket. This game failed because of X, that game failed because of Y. There are very few games that fail for a single reason. Trying to show that you know the reason any of the games failed makes me question your entire premise.

Ahahahhahhahahaahah

Yes, obviously, its not “fooling” you. MMO is MMO. You can compare MMOs as much as you wish and its a FACT EvE is champion in that field.

Limited success? You call WoW that now? To me WoW was a success, sorry. But its long time now.

Saying you can compare an MMO that’s a sandbox to an MMO that’s at themepark is saying you can compare golf to basketball because they’re both sports. Sure it can be done, but the validity of doing so must be questioned.

No one ever said WoW wasn’t successful. However, WoW came out ages ago, over 8 years, in a completely different market. Even Blizzard was forced to scrap Titan because it wasn’t going to work. So where’s their next “big” MMO?

Every other MMO has met with limited success in comparison. You bring up a game with half a million subs, from a playerbase where most people have multiple accounts. How many people are actually playing Eve? Do you know?

Again. Limited success….rofl. Buzzword for unsuccessful. Im sure your “target audience” dig that.

Of course, basketball is more successful than golf. EASY rofl Not that it matters, but just for fun.

People in Blizzard are not fools, theyve taken Titan back to drawing board to TRY to make something that will work, yet another WoW clone wouldnt really cut it.

And how many active players WoW has? You are probably unaware how Blizzard counts “subs”, otherwise you wouldnt talk nonsense, at least SUBS in EvE are SUBS by definition.

Why must you insult? I don’t say what you’re saying is nonsense, even though you deliberately misrepresent what I say, ignore my points and don’t furnish any detail to back up what you say? Is it really necessary to laugh and sneer at people you don’t agree with?

You don’t have a valid point in this argument, and you try to cover it up with disrespect. I don’t think you’re fooling anyone.

With all this arguing about MMO X vs MMO Y I think we’re losing sight of the point that ArenaNet kittened off a whole bunch of people with this Ascended gear – both in principle (prefer skill-based vs gear-based) and in practice (don’t like grinding mats/crafting/whatever in order to prepare to have fun).

I can say that many players who get kittened off at one game go find another.

Chuo.4238:

With all this arguing about MMO X vs MMO Y I think we’re losing sight of the point that ArenaNet kittened off a whole bunch of people with this Ascended gear – both in principle (prefer skill-based vs gear-based) and in practice (don’t like grinding mats/crafting/whatever in order to prepare to have fun).

I can say that many players who get kittened off at one game go find another.

Yep. Many players. And many players have stayed. This has been my point all along.

No one knows how many people would have left if Anet stayed the course. It’s not possible to know.

In your mind you believe Anet is losing more players than they’re keeping. I don’t believe that’s true…and I’m pretty sure Anet doesn’t either. A dev has told me concurrency numbers are on the rise and have been for some time.

I agree you were screwed over by the changes…but that doesn’t make them bad changes. They’re just changes that don’t work for people who share your sentiments.

Vayne.8563:

Chuo.4238:

With all this arguing about MMO X vs MMO Y I think we’re losing sight of the point that ArenaNet kittened off a whole bunch of people with this Ascended gear – both in principle (prefer skill-based vs gear-based) and in practice (don’t like grinding mats/crafting/whatever in order to prepare to have fun).

I can say that many players who get kittened off at one game go find another.

Yep. Many players. And many players have stayed. This has been my point all along.

No one knows how many people would have left if Anet stayed the course. It’s not possible to know.

In your mind you believe Anet is losing more players than they’re keeping. I don’t believe that’s true…and I’m pretty sure Anet doesn’t either. A dev has told me concurrency numbers are on the rise and have been for some time.

I agree you were screwed over by the changes…but that doesn’t make them bad changes. They’re just changes that don’t work for people who share your sentiments.

I don’t know if they’re losing more than they’re gaining or not. I do know they lost me. So if anyone’s keeping track of numbers, they can add +1 to the tally.

I was getting away from that losing vs gaining argument, not adding to it. How ’bout we get back on topic?

Edit: And Vayne, stop putting words in my mouth. You do that virtually every time you quote someone. It’s no wonder people get on your case so much.

Chuo.4238:

Vayne.8563:

Chuo.4238:

With all this arguing about MMO X vs MMO Y I think we’re losing sight of the point that ArenaNet kittened off a whole bunch of people with this Ascended gear – both in principle (prefer skill-based vs gear-based) and in practice (don’t like grinding mats/crafting/whatever in order to prepare to have fun).

I can say that many players who get kittened off at one game go find another.

Yep. Many players. And many players have stayed. This has been my point all along.

No one knows how many people would have left if Anet stayed the course. It’s not possible to know.

In your mind you believe Anet is losing more players than they’re keeping. I don’t believe that’s true…and I’m pretty sure Anet doesn’t either. A dev has told me concurrency numbers are on the rise and have been for some time.

I agree you were screwed over by the changes…but that doesn’t make them bad changes. They’re just changes that don’t work for people who share your sentiments.

I don’t know if they’re losing more than they’re gaining or not. I do know they lost me. So if anyone’s keeping track of numbers, they can add +1 to the tally.

I was getting away from that losing vs gaining argument, not adding to it. How ’bout we get back on topic?

Edit: And Vayne, stop putting words in my mouth. You do that virtually every time you quote someone. It’s no wonder people get on your case so much.

You said “many players get kittened off”..and while that’s no doubt true, if those players are a minority, then your point is moot. Your legitimate grievance is that the game has changed direction. But saying many people…how many becomes a very important question.

Keep in mind its not just people who are mad at the grind and people who like the grind. Those two are in the minority. From what i have seen a majority of players in gw2 dont care what anet comes out with or the direction of the game they just want to play.

Vayne.8563:

You said “many players get kittened off”..and while that’s no doubt true, if those players are a minority, then your point is moot.

Not entirely. There is such a thing as a “significant minority”. I’m sure ANet would be reluctant to lose 30%, or even 15% of their player base.

There’s also the damage that a “vocal minority” can cause in spreading information. Discontent can build on forums and cause people who are on the fence to decide not to try the game after all.

Not saying either of these is the case here in this situation. Just that it is too easy to dismiss minorities as meaningless.

Vayne.8563:

You said “many players get kittened off”..and while that’s no doubt true, if those players are a minority, then your point is moot. Your legitimate grievance is that the game has changed direction. But saying many people…how many becomes a very important question.

Actually, that’s a logic-fail Vayne. Just because a group is a minority, doesn’t mean that his point is moot. As you say, “how many becomes a very important question”. That is true even with a minority.

I mean, if changes kitten off 1% of the players, please 15%, and leave the rest unaffected, that’s obviously fine. However, if they kitten off 15%, please 20%, and leave the rest unaffected, then you are looking at losing quite a lot of people – sure you have better retention on 20%, but is retaining them enough to make up for the losses?

Obviously it’s all theoretical without numbers, but minorities DO matter – if you keep kitten ing off 5% “minorities” off the playerbase, pretty soon you have a tiny playerbase. You need new blood or returners. Is anyone back for newTeq? I dunno. Everyone I knew who came back, came back because of previous events or SAB (even if they actually didn’t enjoy World 2), stayed because GW2 is fun.

All that said, I doubt Teq has caused many people to leave – however if he is still like that in a month, or if we see more content like that, I do think we will begin to see people either:

A) Leaving.

Or

B) Disliking the game enough that they are “primed” to leave the moment something new comes along (I mean people who aren’t the type to just join every new MMO – nothing you can do about those guys and they’re probably playing FFXIV right now!).

Gibson.4036:

Vayne.8563:

You said “many players get kittened off”..and while that’s no doubt true, if those players are a minority, then your point is moot.

Not entirely. There is such a thing as a “significant minority”. I’m sure ANet would be reluctant to lose 30%, or even 15% of their player base.

There’s also the damage that a “vocal minority” can cause in spreading information. Discontent can build on forums and cause people who are on the fence to decide not to try the game after all.

Not saying either of these is the case here in this situation. Just that it is too easy to dismiss minorities as meaningless.

I’m not dismissing minorities as meaningless…you’re missing my point.

Let’s pretend that you’re Anet, and you see that 45% of your player base has gotten exotic gear, done what you’ve given then and stopped. 45% in a very short period of time. (and yes, I’m making these numbers up).

Now, you guestimate that you might lose 30% of the playerbase, but keep the rest and get some of that 45% back.

Anet estimated that more people were interested in gear progression than were hurt by it.

Most importantly, the biggest percentage of the playerbase would probably play anyway.

That’s the problem with fundamentalists of all types. They’re almost always the minority, because most people just don’t care. It’s how people are wired. What percentage of people who play MMOs are REALLY vested in those MMOs. I’d guess that’s a much smaller percentage than most people think.

Most people bang around a bit, kill some stuff and get what they get. They don’t think about vertical progression. I’d wager most don’t even have it on their radar.

Anet obviously felt that they were going to lose a lot more than just a big percentage of players if they didn’t make a change…or they wouldn’t have made it.

If ascended gear was (metaphorically speaking) triage, what happens when the (hypothetical) 45% of the player base (that stuck around for ascended gear) has gotten ascended gear, done what they’ve been given, and stopped?

To me, the interesting question is do you need fundamentalist to keep the game alive, or are we properly dismissed as an unimportant minority.

I’m going to guess that ANet has decided that either they don’t need the core or that a VP core is better than a non-VP core. I hope the former is true, because if they are relying on the later they may discover that what they think is a VP-core is really just part of the unvested masses.

The problem with the unvested masses is that they are fickle and will leave for the next MMO when it comes out.

Tachenon.5270:

If ascended gear was (metaphorically speaking) triage, what happens when the (hypothetical) 45% of the player base (that stuck around for ascended gear) has gotten ascended gear, done what they’ve been given, and stopped?

Masterwork infusions

I know you have a lot of faith in ArenaNet, but people and (perhaps even moreso) organizations do make choices against their own best interests. In an ideal world, we all sit down and carefully weigh the evidence and make a choice based on cool, rational logic.

Anyone who’s been part of a business with any sort of hierarchy and significant number of people knows that doesn’t always happen. Personalities get involved. Vanity, fear, politics can all muddy the waters.

Again, not saying that’s the case here. As you and I have both acknowledged in other posts, we don’t really know what went on behind the scenes.

But I am tired of frequent dismissal of minorities as “moot”. It’s not just your post, but a frequent argument made throughout the forums whenever anyone wants to write-off someone’s opinion.

Your follow up post is fine. “Perhaps the people who dislike ascended gear is just not significant compared to the people ANet can keep by implementing it”. Sure, but that’s different than, “You said ‘many players get kittened off’..and while that’s no doubt true, if those players are a minority, then your point is moot.”

Vayne.8563:

Anet obviously felt that they were going to lose a lot more than just a big percentage of players if they didn’t make a change…or they wouldn’t have made it.

Nope – that’s far too simplistic a claim.

They could be doing it for that reason OR they could be testing the waters to see if this was a bad or good thing OR they could simply be making an outright error (like with Blizzard and very late Classic WoW or with the early Honor system in WoW – which was an error that went on for about two years!).

TooBz.3065:

The problem with the unvested masses is that they are fickle and will leave for the next MMO when it comes out.

The solution – the holy grail, even – is to get them invested.

This is why housing is on the way. Casual players love housing, and it keeps people invested – they think about their little house, and they want to come see it again.

Eurhetemec.9052:

TooBz.3065:

The problem with the unvested masses is that they are fickle and will leave for the next MMO when it comes out.

The solution – the holy grail, even – is to get them invested.

This is why housing is on the way. Casual players love housing, and it keeps people invested – they think about their little house, and they want to come see it again.

Is it bad that the first thing that passed through my mind was “oh no”

Eurhetemec.9052:

TooBz.3065:

The problem with the unvested masses is that they are fickle and will leave for the next MMO when it comes out.

The solution – the holy grail, even – is to get them invested.

This is why housing is on the way. Casual players love housing, and it keeps people invested – they think about their little house, and they want to come see it again.

Not all casual players love housing, tyvm. Enough with the generalizations please.

This is like saying [all] hardcore players want the rainbow shooting legendary bow.

We need private server without ascended gear or official server would be ok too.

Vayne.8563:

Chuo.4238:

Vayne.8563:

Chuo.4238:

With all this arguing about MMO X vs MMO Y I think we’re losing sight of the point that ArenaNet kittened off a whole bunch of people with this Ascended gear – both in principle (prefer skill-based vs gear-based) and in practice (don’t like grinding mats/crafting/whatever in order to prepare to have fun).

I can say that many players who get kittened off at one game go find another.

Yep. Many players. And many players have stayed. This has been my point all along.

No one knows how many people would have left if Anet stayed the course. It’s not possible to know.

In your mind you believe Anet is losing more players than they’re keeping. I don’t believe that’s true…and I’m pretty sure Anet doesn’t either. A dev has told me concurrency numbers are on the rise and have been for some time.

I agree you were screwed over by the changes…but that doesn’t make them bad changes. They’re just changes that don’t work for people who share your sentiments.

I don’t know if they’re losing more than they’re gaining or not. I do know they lost me. So if anyone’s keeping track of numbers, they can add +1 to the tally.

I was getting away from that losing vs gaining argument, not adding to it. How ’bout we get back on topic?

Edit: And Vayne, stop putting words in my mouth. You do that virtually every time you quote someone. It’s no wonder people get on your case so much.

You said “many players get kittened off”..and while that’s no doubt true, if those players are a minority, then your point is moot.

What’s his point? I thought the extent of what he was saying was just that he and some other players were upset with the direction of the game.

Tachenon.5270:

If ascended gear was (metaphorically speaking) triage, what happens when the (hypothetical) 45% of the player base (that stuck around for ascended gear) has gotten ascended gear, done what they’ve been given, and stopped?

It bought the company time to come out with something that was more sticky. Because that’s what all this is about …buying time.

Most MMOs have failed by this point in time (or they’re close to failing) because there’s never enough content at launch….ever. Not one MMO had enough content at launch. A year later, players all want more content, new content, constant content.

With Guild Wars 2, a portion of players, possibly a good portion weren’t staying. If you can’t keep your player base for three months after launch, what’s the game going to be like in a year. That’s the problem Anet developers were faced with.

What they needed was time. They launched too early, they had too many bugs, and they needed a stopgap measure. The other solutions would have taken too long to implement. At least that’s my personal theory and I have circumstantial evidence to back it up.

Smith.1826:

Vayne.8563:

Chuo.4238:

Vayne.8563:

Chuo.4238:

With all this arguing about MMO X vs MMO Y I think we’re losing sight of the point that ArenaNet kittened off a whole bunch of people with this Ascended gear – both in principle (prefer skill-based vs gear-based) and in practice (don’t like grinding mats/crafting/whatever in order to prepare to have fun).

I can say that many players who get kittened off at one game go find another.

Yep. Many players. And many players have stayed. This has been my point all along.

No one knows how many people would have left if Anet stayed the course. It’s not possible to know.

In your mind you believe Anet is losing more players than they’re keeping. I don’t believe that’s true…and I’m pretty sure Anet doesn’t either. A dev has told me concurrency numbers are on the rise and have been for some time.

I agree you were screwed over by the changes…but that doesn’t make them bad changes. They’re just changes that don’t work for people who share your sentiments.

I don’t know if they’re losing more than they’re gaining or not. I do know they lost me. So if anyone’s keeping track of numbers, they can add +1 to the tally.

I was getting away from that losing vs gaining argument, not adding to it. How ’bout we get back on topic?

Edit: And Vayne, stop putting words in my mouth. You do that virtually every time you quote someone. It’s no wonder people get on your case so much.

You said “many players get kittened off”..and while that’s no doubt true, if those players are a minority, then your point is moot.

What’s his point? I thought the extent of what he was saying was just that he and some other players were upset with the direction of the game.

It’s not just that some players are kittened off and it’s not about one post. The faction that is kittened off are saying (including Chuo) that this was a huge portion of the player base. It wasn’t just like her and a couple of friends. It was a lot of people.

I don’t just answer one post on one thread I’m I’m talking. Some of the conversations we’ve had about this go back months. The implication is always that Anet lost so many players. But no one knows how much and without knowing how much…it’s the power behind the statement is completely lost.

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

Eurhetemec.9052:

The solution – the holy grail, even – is to get them invested.

This is why housing is on the way. Casual players love housing, and it keeps people invested – they think about their little house, and they want to come see it again.

Not all casual players love housing, tyvm. Enough with the generalizations please.

This is like saying [all] hardcore players want the rainbow shooting legendary bow.

I’m quite impressed with your ability to take the suggestion that you like housing so personally, Lanfear. What next, I suggest you like the colour blue and you challenge me to a duel?

Obviously I mean most, not all – there is no all about anything in games, is there?

Enough casual players like housing that it is a good way to get them to stick around – it is especially good to get them to keep coming back to the game. I can’t think of anything quite as broadly liked.

They will need to do a bit better than generic solo instances, though, I suspect – perhaps shared towns more akin to DAoC’s housing zones (but more urban and with massively better visual design).

Vayne.8563:

Chuo.4238:

Vayne.8563:

Chuo.4238:

With all this arguing about MMO X vs MMO Y I think we’re losing sight of the point that ArenaNet kittened off a whole bunch of people with this Ascended gear – both in principle (prefer skill-based vs gear-based) and in practice (don’t like grinding mats/crafting/whatever in order to prepare to have fun).

I can say that many players who get kittened off at one game go find another.

Yep. Many players. And many players have stayed. This has been my point all along.

No one knows how many people would have left if Anet stayed the course. It’s not possible to know.

In your mind you believe Anet is losing more players than they’re keeping. I don’t believe that’s true…and I’m pretty sure Anet doesn’t either. A dev has told me concurrency numbers are on the rise and have been for some time.

I agree you were screwed over by the changes…but that doesn’t make them bad changes. They’re just changes that don’t work for people who share your sentiments.

I don’t know if they’re losing more than they’re gaining or not. I do know they lost me. So if anyone’s keeping track of numbers, they can add +1 to the tally.

I was getting away from that losing vs gaining argument, not adding to it. How ’bout we get back on topic?

Edit: And Vayne, stop putting words in my mouth. You do that virtually every time you quote someone. It’s no wonder people get on your case so much.

You said “many players get kittened off”..and while that’s no doubt true, if those players are a minority, then your point is moot. Your legitimate grievance is that the game has changed direction. But saying many people…how many becomes a very important question.

You completely missed the point again, because you assumed I said something I didn’t, and put words in my mouth….again. How about you just quit trying?

Chuo.4238:

Vayne.8563:

Chuo.4238:

Vayne.8563:

Chuo.4238:

With all this arguing about MMO X vs MMO Y I think we’re losing sight of the point that ArenaNet kittened off a whole bunch of people with this Ascended gear – both in principle (prefer skill-based vs gear-based) and in practice (don’t like grinding mats/crafting/whatever in order to prepare to have fun).

I can say that many players who get kittened off at one game go find another.

Yep. Many players. And many players have stayed. This has been my point all along.

No one knows how many people would have left if Anet stayed the course. It’s not possible to know.

In your mind you believe Anet is losing more players than they’re keeping. I don’t believe that’s true…and I’m pretty sure Anet doesn’t either. A dev has told me concurrency numbers are on the rise and have been for some time.

I agree you were screwed over by the changes…but that doesn’t make them bad changes. They’re just changes that don’t work for people who share your sentiments.

I don’t know if they’re losing more than they’re gaining or not. I do know they lost me. So if anyone’s keeping track of numbers, they can add +1 to the tally.

I was getting away from that losing vs gaining argument, not adding to it. How ’bout we get back on topic?

Edit: And Vayne, stop putting words in my mouth. You do that virtually every time you quote someone. It’s no wonder people get on your case so much.

You said “many players get kittened off”..and while that’s no doubt true, if those players are a minority, then your point is moot. Your legitimate grievance is that the game has changed direction. But saying many people…how many becomes a very important question.

You completely missed the point again, because you assumed I said something I didn’t, and put words in my mouth….again. How about you just quit trying?

You misunderstand me as often I misunderstand you. It would be better if we didn’t respond to each other’s posts.

Vayne.8563:

Smith.1826:

Vayne.8563:

Chuo.4238:

Vayne.8563:

Chuo.4238:

With all this arguing about MMO X vs MMO Y I think we’re losing sight of the point that ArenaNet kittened off a whole bunch of people with this Ascended gear – both in principle (prefer skill-based vs gear-based) and in practice (don’t like grinding mats/crafting/whatever in order to prepare to have fun).

I can say that many players who get kittened off at one game go find another.

Yep. Many players. And many players have stayed. This has been my point all along.

No one knows how many people would have left if Anet stayed the course. It’s not possible to know.

In your mind you believe Anet is losing more players than they’re keeping. I don’t believe that’s true…and I’m pretty sure Anet doesn’t either. A dev has told me concurrency numbers are on the rise and have been for some time.

I agree you were screwed over by the changes…but that doesn’t make them bad changes. They’re just changes that don’t work for people who share your sentiments.

I don’t know if they’re losing more than they’re gaining or not. I do know they lost me. So if anyone’s keeping track of numbers, they can add +1 to the tally.

I was getting away from that losing vs gaining argument, not adding to it. How ’bout we get back on topic?

Edit: And Vayne, stop putting words in my mouth. You do that virtually every time you quote someone. It’s no wonder people get on your case so much.

You said “many players get kittened off”..and while that’s no doubt true, if those players are a minority, then your point is moot.

What’s his point? I thought the extent of what he was saying was just that he and some other players were upset with the direction of the game.

It’s not just that some players are kittened off and it’s not about one post. The faction that is kittened off are saying (including Chuo) that this was a huge portion of the player base. It wasn’t just like her and a couple of friends. It was a lot of people.

Alright. But is that what he said right there? I could only gather from that post that he and other people are upset with the game.

I find earning money rather easy, however If I need to craft something it’s hell.
Mats are extremely expensive.

Yesterday without any guides tried leveling up to at 500 Weapon crafting, after spending like 10G and 420 LvL, someone im my guild said that it takes approximately 200G to get max level, and I gave up. No thanks.
I rather play FOTM.

Vayne.8563:

With Guild Wars 2, a portion of players, possibly a good portion weren’t staying. If you can’t keep your player base for three months after launch, what’s the game going to be like in a year. That’s the problem Anet developers were faced with.

I wonder about this.

They keep telling us that sales were far greater than their economic models suggested. They got more players than they planned. How much more, we have no idea, but it’s a curious idea in conjunction with the idea that they were losing a lot of players shortly after launch, and therefore completely rethought some of their vision for the game in order to retain them.

The idea that they were losing a lot of people shortly after launch is something the people have put together based on anecdotal evidence and the need to find a reason for some of the “180s” that ANet has pulled. Not sure how true it actually is.

But assuming both are true, I sure wish we had some inkling of the numbers. What was ANet’s expectation? How far did sales really exceed that? How big of a player drop off was there?

Imagine ANet expects to sell 750k units, and instead gets 2m. Then, shortly after launch, 500k disappear, and whatever crystal ball they look into tells them it’s because of a lack of gear progression.

That would still put them at twice their projection. At that point, ANet could say, “Hey, we got way more in sales than projected, but it was partly due to our refreshing vision we sold before launch. We lost some players because they ultimately don’t like the vision, but we’re still sitting pretty at twice projected sales. Lets move forward and secure the players we still have by continuing to build the MMO for people who dislike MMOs.”

Then again, looking at the same numbers, someone could read, “Hey, we had great sales, but a full quarter of our players abandoned the game in the first three months. Clearly we need to do something better, and the crystal ball says those people left because of a lack of item progression. Get to work on Ascended, quick! Oh, and someone memo the players that we were planning on adding it all along.”

I know that’s all hypothetical, but hopefully it demonstrates why things aren’t so easily dismissed by “ANet clearly looked and saw that they would be in better shape with gear progression, so just accept it and move on.”

It’s more complex than that.

Eurhetemec.9052:

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

Eurhetemec.9052:

The solution – the holy grail, even – is to get them invested.

This is why housing is on the way. Casual players love housing, and it keeps people invested – they think about their little house, and they want to come see it again.

Not all casual players love housing, tyvm. Enough with the generalizations please.

This is like saying [all] hardcore players want the rainbow shooting legendary bow.

I’m quite impressed with your ability to take the suggestion that you like housing so personally, Lanfear. What next, I suggest you like the colour blue and you challenge me to a duel?

Obviously I mean most, not all – there is no all about anything in games, is there?

Enough casual players like housing that it is a good way to get them to stick around – it is especially good to get them to keep coming back to the game. I can’t think of anything quite as broadly liked.

They will need to do a bit better than generic solo instances, though, I suspect – perhaps shared towns more akin to DAoC’s housing zones (but more urban and with massively better visual design).

There is an issue with basic, blanket generalizations though. Too many people take a blanket statement, such as yours, and assume that it applies to all casuals, or all of anyone implied by the blanket generalization. Such things lead to stereotyping, which leads to a heck of lot more issue than it solves. Which was were I actually take issue. I could care less one way or the other about housing.

Edit: Yes, “common sense” would imply that there are exceptions to every ‘rule,’ every mold or model; however….common sense…not so common anymore.

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/1mxnku/why_do_so_many_people_think_the_frostgorge_champ/
+113 points on reddit? O_O
And I thought that that was the fanboys realm, I’m quite shocked °-°

Vayne.8563:

I’ve had people in my guild who played Eve completely and left over that debacle and didn’t return. Some of course did. But you insist I know nothing about something, because I don’t agree with you.

That’s like me saying you know nothing about Guild Wars 2 because you don’t agree with me. I didn’t say it, because I don’t think that way.

Some? Pretty much everyone returned, it was a protest quit, started out so. And really, many of those that “quit”, quit their alt accounts hehe. It was a message sent, and a message which in fact was received. Active accounts not only recovered, but surpassed the previous records.

But we are talking players that have been active for years, in a game that has increased it’s subscriber base consistently since launch ten years ago. GW2 is not old enough to be in that category, true loyalty has not been established yet. In fact I still have many players on my friends list that haven’t logged back into this game for over six months, and in a game that requires no subscription fee. I have new friends dropping out all the time, just unimpressed with the direction things have changed to. Oh and don’t get me started in on inactive guild lists.

IMO Anet is taking a huge gamble, and I can’t say they will be the better off for it in the long run. I have both games installed (I usually play 2 mmo’s), but I’m less certain how long GW2 will remain installed the way things have been going. I’ve never uninstalled the other, though I was part of that protest quit, respectively. Such a thing won’t work here, and I doubt I’d try if it could work, there in no built up loyalty either way, not to them and not to us, obviously. Went through the same thing with SWG, they wanted new/different players, reaching out to some other group of players they didn’t even have yet, invented the full-surprise NGE update and hemorrhaged accounts to never return. Many of use then found EVE, the obvious replacement, and CCP has been good to us.

Daywolf.2630:

IMO Anet is taking a huge gamble, and I can’t say they will be the better off for it in the long run.

They won’t be, they’ve completely lost the goodwill of the majority of the GW1 community and others that bought into the initial GW2 vision.

For any future games nothing they say will be trusted any more.

morrolan.9608:

Daywolf.2630:

IMO Anet is taking a huge gamble, and I can’t say they will be the better off for it in the long run.

They won’t be, they’ve completely lost the goodwill of the majority of the GW1 community and others that bought into the initial GW2 vision.

For any future games nothing they say will be trusted any more.

This statement is the most important thing that Anet needs to understand. MMOs are not like other games. They require consistent investment by both the content creators and the users. Without a strong commitment and relationship between the developers and the players this game will not work. We need communication. I wonder if they had created a thread asking if we wanted ascended or not and made a survey or did that in game what would be the outcome. If it had been for or against ascended at least the change would reflect what the community wanted and would be easier to accept.

Smith.1826:

Vayne.8563:

Smith.1826:

Vayne.8563:

Chuo.4238:

Vayne.8563:

Chuo.4238:

With all this arguing about MMO X vs MMO Y I think we’re losing sight of the point that ArenaNet kittened off a whole bunch of people with this Ascended gear – both in principle (prefer skill-based vs gear-based) and in practice (don’t like grinding mats/crafting/whatever in order to prepare to have fun).

I can say that many players who get kittened off at one game go find another.

Yep. Many players. And many players have stayed. This has been my point all along.

No one knows how many people would have left if Anet stayed the course. It’s not possible to know.

In your mind you believe Anet is losing more players than they’re keeping. I don’t believe that’s true…and I’m pretty sure Anet doesn’t either. A dev has told me concurrency numbers are on the rise and have been for some time.

I agree you were screwed over by the changes…but that doesn’t make them bad changes. They’re just changes that don’t work for people who share your sentiments.

I don’t know if they’re losing more than they’re gaining or not. I do know they lost me. So if anyone’s keeping track of numbers, they can add +1 to the tally.

I was getting away from that losing vs gaining argument, not adding to it. How ’bout we get back on topic?

Edit: And Vayne, stop putting words in my mouth. You do that virtually every time you quote someone. It’s no wonder people get on your case so much.

You said “many players get kittened off”..and while that’s no doubt true, if those players are a minority, then your point is moot.

What’s his point? I thought the extent of what he was saying was just that he and some other players were upset with the direction of the game.

It’s not just that some players are kittened off and it’s not about one post. The faction that is kittened off are saying (including Chuo) that this was a huge portion of the player base. It wasn’t just like her and a couple of friends. It was a lot of people.

Alright. But is that what he said right there? I could only gather from that post that he and other people are upset with the game.

What he said right there is no different than what he said in countless other threads. People are mad. We’ve known those people were mad since last November. They’ve been made since then…at a game they’re disappointed in.

The direction of the game changed…no one denies it. Ten months on and they’re still mad. They come to the forums of this game to complain about ascended gear..that was announced last November. You’d think by now they’d have figured out that the game has changed, it’s not for them, and they’d find a game that was.

Because saying OMFG there’s vertical progression in the game for ten months solves what? Is Anet going to stop and take it all out tomorrow?

I don’t like the vertical progression either. I’m not in complete disagreement with what’s being said. The only difference is, I’m not taking the inclusion of vertical progression as a personal attack. Anet saw a problem, Anet moved to fix the problem. I don’t agree it was the best solution by ten months on? I think people would have moved on by now, instead of hanging around to complain on a forum over a change that was announced so long ago.

Even I think the game is too grindy. So?

Gibson.4036:

Vayne.8563:

With Guild Wars 2, a portion of players, possibly a good portion weren’t staying. If you can’t keep your player base for three months after launch, what’s the game going to be like in a year. That’s the problem Anet developers were faced with.

I wonder about this.

They keep telling us that sales were far greater than their economic models suggested. They got more players than they planned. How much more, we have no idea, but it’s a curious idea in conjunction with the idea that they were losing a lot of players shortly after launch, and therefore completely rethought some of their vision for the game in order to retain them.

The idea that they were losing a lot of people shortly after launch is something the people have put together based on anecdotal evidence and the need to find a reason for some of the “180s” that ANet has pulled. Not sure how true it actually is.

But assuming both are true, I sure wish we had some inkling of the numbers. What was ANet’s expectation? How far did sales really exceed that? How big of a player drop off was there?

Imagine ANet expects to sell 750k units, and instead gets 2m. Then, shortly after launch, 500k disappear, and whatever crystal ball they look into tells them it’s because of a lack of gear progression.

That would still put them at twice their projection. At that point, ANet could say, “Hey, we got way more in sales than projected, but it was partly due to our refreshing vision we sold before launch. We lost some players because they ultimately don’t like the vision, but we’re still sitting pretty at twice projected sales. Lets move forward and secure the players we still have by continuing to build the MMO for people who dislike MMOs.”

Then again, looking at the same numbers, someone could read, “Hey, we had great sales, but a full quarter of our players abandoned the game in the first three months. Clearly we need to do something better, and the crystal ball says those people left because of a lack of item progression. Get to work on Ascended, quick! Oh, and someone memo the players that we were planning on adding it all along.”

I know that’s all hypothetical, but hopefully it demonstrates why things aren’t so easily dismissed by “ANet clearly looked and saw that they would be in better shape with gear progression, so just accept it and move on.”

It’s more complex than that.

I don’t think so. They exceeded most of their sales figures pre-launch. People bought the game. They have the metrics. If you were around then, you’d have seen thread after thread after thread about people with nothing to do at max level. It was almost a pandemic. Not just here but on other forums, like the one I moderated.

It wasn’t just people rushing through the game and getting to level cap. It was the idea that people weren’t grinding for the cosmetic legendary weapons. Anet definitely has metrics to know who stops logging in and who doesn’t, and the game population was definitely, back then, on the way down.

Three months after launch there were entire guilds that went back to other games. When the Fractals came out, a boatload of people left as well, but even before that happened, the game was losing players. How many? Only Anet knows.

But they were in full panic mode, that much I can say with some certainty. Because they absolutely knew there’d be backlash (they said as much), and what other reason could they have had for changing direction if they didn’t see it as a way to avert catastrophe.

Now it might not have happened, but I’m saying their projections spooked them and that was their response.

morrolan.9608:

Daywolf.2630:

IMO Anet is taking a huge gamble, and I can’t say they will be the better off for it in the long run.

They won’t be, they’ve completely lost the goodwill of the majority of the GW1 community and others that bought into the initial GW2 vision.

For any future games nothing they say will be trusted any more.

Well if what you say is true, the ship is already sailed and by ignoring those people they’re doing the right thing for their business.

Daywolf.2630:

Vayne.8563:

I’ve had people in my guild who played Eve completely and left over that debacle and didn’t return. Some of course did. But you insist I know nothing about something, because I don’t agree with you.

That’s like me saying you know nothing about Guild Wars 2 because you don’t agree with me. I didn’t say it, because I don’t think that way.

Some? Pretty much everyone returned, it was a protest quit, started out so. And really, many of those that “quit”, quit their alt accounts hehe. It was a message sent, and a message which in fact was received. Active accounts not only recovered, but surpassed the previous records.

But we are talking players that have been active for years, in a game that has increased it’s subscriber base consistently since launch ten years ago. GW2 is not old enough to be in that category, true loyalty has not been established yet. In fact I still have many players on my friends list that haven’t logged back into this game for over six months, and in a game that requires no subscription fee. I have new friends dropping out all the time, just unimpressed with the direction things have changed to. Oh and don’t get me started in on inactive guild lists.

IMO Anet is taking a huge gamble, and I can’t say they will be the better off for it in the long run. I have both games installed (I usually play 2 mmo’s), but I’m less certain how long GW2 will remain installed the way things have been going. I’ve never uninstalled the other, though I was part of that protest quit, respectively. Such a thing won’t work here, and I doubt I’d try if it could work, there in no built up loyalty either way, not to them and not to us, obviously. Went through the same thing with SWG, they wanted new/different players, reaching out to some other group of players they didn’t even have yet, invented the full-surprise NGE update and hemorrhaged accounts to never return. Many of use then found EVE, the obvious replacement, and CCP has been good to us.

Some people stopped and never went back and other people left because they felt the game later on had become a full time job. But more to the point, most players that start playing Eve don’t continue playing Eve. It really and truly is a niche game. It survives on subscriptions, not on numbers. If it didn’t have a monthly fee, it would be quite dead.

How many Eve players have more than one account, do you know? Do most players have two accounts? If not what percentage does.

There aren’t half a million people playing Eve, there are half a million subscribers, which is another matter entirely. And it’s still a game that’s a sandbox. Most of the content is made by the playerbase..rather than CCP.

MikaHR.1978:

Vayne.8563:

MikaHR.1978:

Vayne.8563:

MikaHR.1978:

Vayne.8563:

xephire.8324:

Anyway don’t show your support for ANET if you don’t like the direction they are going so they won’t make another WOW like game….

Yes this game is very much like WoW. I mean they both have swords and staffs. It must be a WoW clone.

Saying a game is like WoW doesn’t make a game like WoW. Just sayin’.

Ultimate defense….of EVERY WoW clone*….and they all failed.

Just sayin.

Oh, and losing 5 MILLION players is NOT successful.

The ONLY MMO that still gains players is EvE.

*except Rift, they pretty much advertised as WoW clone. Didnt help much either way.

First of all, comparing a themepark MMO to a sandbox MMO isn’t really convincing me of anything.

Oh look, niche Eve sandbox MMO has a growing population. They’re reached half a million players. Okay. Not really all that much for a theme park MMO, but certainly respectable for a sand box.

More to the point, how many of Eve’s players are casual? How easy is it to play Eve casually? You can just sort of log in, come back a couple of weeks later and log in again?

I don’t see how anyone can compare these two games…maybe individual aspects, but that’s not what you’re doing. You’re talking about success.

Secondly, the conclusions you’re extrapolating from information you have is flawed. Why did the games that mimic WoW fail? You’ve drawn a specific conclusion as if they’ve all failed for the same reason.

Many games failed because they were so buggy they were virtually unplayable (Vanguard/Warhammer). Others failed for other reasons. Some in fact, haven’t failed at all, they’ve just had limited success.

There’s a certain way of thinking that puts all your eggs in one basket. This game failed because of X, that game failed because of Y. There are very few games that fail for a single reason. Trying to show that you know the reason any of the games failed makes me question your entire premise.

Ahahahhahhahahaahah

Yes, obviously, its not “fooling” you. MMO is MMO. You can compare MMOs as much as you wish and its a FACT EvE is champion in that field.

Limited success? You call WoW that now? To me WoW was a success, sorry. But its long time now.

Saying you can compare an MMO that’s a sandbox to an MMO that’s at themepark is saying you can compare golf to basketball because they’re both sports. Sure it can be done, but the validity of doing so must be questioned.

No one ever said WoW wasn’t successful. However, WoW came out ages ago, over 8 years, in a completely different market. Even Blizzard was forced to scrap Titan because it wasn’t going to work. So where’s their next “big” MMO?

Every other MMO has met with limited success in comparison. You bring up a game with half a million subs, from a playerbase where most people have multiple accounts. How many people are actually playing Eve? Do you know?

Again. Limited success….rofl. Buzzword for unsuccessful. Im sure your “target audience” dig that.

Of course, basketball is more successful than golf. EASY rofl Not that it matters, but just for fun.

People in Blizzard are not fools, theyve taken Titan back to drawing board to TRY to make something that will work, yet another WoW clone wouldnt really cut it.

And how many active players WoW has? You are probably unaware how Blizzard counts “subs”, otherwise you wouldnt talk nonsense, at least SUBS in EvE are SUBS by definition.

Tell me the difference between WoW sub numbers and Eve Sub numbers, how are Eve ‘Subs" by definition, but WoW’s is not?

Vayne.8563:

Daywolf.2630:

Vayne.8563:

I’ve had people in my guild who played Eve completely and left over that debacle and didn’t return. Some of course did. But you insist I know nothing about something, because I don’t agree with you.

That’s like me saying you know nothing about Guild Wars 2 because you don’t agree with me. I didn’t say it, because I don’t think that way.

Some? Pretty much everyone returned, it was a protest quit, started out so. And really, many of those that “quit”, quit their alt accounts hehe. It was a message sent, and a message which in fact was received. Active accounts not only recovered, but surpassed the previous records.

But we are talking players that have been active for years, in a game that has increased it’s subscriber base consistently since launch ten years ago. GW2 is not old enough to be in that category, true loyalty has not been established yet. In fact I still have many players on my friends list that haven’t logged back into this game for over six months, and in a game that requires no subscription fee. I have new friends dropping out all the time, just unimpressed with the direction things have changed to. Oh and don’t get me started in on inactive guild lists.

IMO Anet is taking a huge gamble, and I can’t say they will be the better off for it in the long run. I have both games installed (I usually play 2 mmo’s), but I’m less certain how long GW2 will remain installed the way things have been going. I’ve never uninstalled the other, though I was part of that protest quit, respectively. Such a thing won’t work here, and I doubt I’d try if it could work, there in no built up loyalty either way, not to them and not to us, obviously. Went through the same thing with SWG, they wanted new/different players, reaching out to some other group of players they didn’t even have yet, invented the full-surprise NGE update and hemorrhaged accounts to never return. Many of use then found EVE, the obvious replacement, and CCP has been good to us.

Some people stopped and never went back and other people left because they felt the game later on had become a full time job. But more to the point, most players that start playing Eve don’t continue playing Eve. It really and truly is a niche game. It survives on subscriptions, not on numbers. If it didn’t have a monthly fee, it would be quite dead.

How many Eve players have more than one account, do you know? Do most players have two accounts? If not what percentage does.

There aren’t half a million people playing Eve, there are half a million subscribers, which is another matter entirely. And it’s still a game that’s a sandbox. Most of the content is made by the playerbase..rather than CCP.

Eve has topped out at 65,000 concurrent accounts logged into the game.

morrolan.9608:

Daywolf.2630:

IMO Anet is taking a huge gamble, and I can’t say they will be the better off for it in the long run.

They won’t be, they’ve completely lost the goodwill of the majority of the GW1 community and others that bought into the initial GW2 vision.

For any future games nothing they say will be trusted any more.

This words exactly what I feel.

I was promised a skill based combat system that didn’t require gear grind, like in the good old GW1 where you were given a basic looking sword back when you were wet behind the ears that performed just as well as some hot shot’s Crystalline Sword, meaning the only thing separating him from you was pure skill.

Anet has now shown its true colours, the wheels of the geargrind are in motion.

So go ahead and enjoy your Ascended weapons and soon your Ascended armour, enjoy them good until ‘Super Ascended’ comes along, and after that you will enjoy the grind for the next “Super Ultimate Exquisite” tier.
It makes me sick.

Daywolf.2630:

In fact I still have many players on my friends list that haven’t logged back into this game for over six months, and in a game that requires no subscription fee. I have new friends dropping out all the time, just unimpressed with the direction things have changed to. Oh and don’t get me started in on inactive guild lists.

My friendlist is filled with players who told me straight they weren’t coming back. I have a huge pool of “followers” who haven’t logged on for like 6+ months. For a game that doesn’t have a sub they sure can’t keep a lot of long time players.
And I haven’t logged on since I made my first ascended weapon after the last patch. I just realized I had absolutely no desire whatsoever in doing temple and world bosses events to build more ascended weapons, and if I can’t get BiS gear for future content/dungeons I might as well just quit. It’s not needed now but there will come a time where having full ascended including armor (which I expect to have the same, or even worse amount of crap content grind like temple/world boss all over again) might make a difference and I don’t see myself grinding the dumb content (sorry but there is NOTHING more mindless than temple and world boss zergs.) to be prepared for that future. Not to mention the difference it’ll make in WvWvW roaming. And the fact that you’re really stuck with one build. Let’s not even talk about alts.

Good riddance to gw2, it had potential but it’s just turning into a much worse mmo because the true grind mmo actually have fun dungeons/raid/content to grind, gw2’s grind is the most boring thing you could build in a mmo. If you’re going to make me grind, make me grind fun dungeons and raids, not playskool-my-first-mmo type stuff like temple events.

Nikaido.3457:

Daywolf.2630:

In fact I still have many players on my friends list that haven’t logged back into this game for over six months, and in a game that requires no subscription fee. I have new friends dropping out all the time, just unimpressed with the direction things have changed to. Oh and don’t get me started in on inactive guild lists.

My friendlist is filled with players who told me straight they weren’t coming back. I have a huge pool of “followers” who haven’t logged on for like 6+ months. For a game that doesn’t have a sub they sure can’t keep a lot of long time players.
And I haven’t logged on since I made my first ascended weapon after the last patch. I just realized I had absolutely no desire whatsoever in doing temple and world bosses events to build more ascended weapons, and if I can’t get BiS gear for future content/dungeons I might as well just quit. It’s not needed now but there will come a time where having full ascended including armor (which I expect to have the same, or even worse amount of crap content grind like temple/world boss all over again) might make a difference and I don’t see myself grinding the dumb content (sorry but there is NOTHING more mindless than temple and world boss zergs.) to be prepared for that future. Not to mention the difference it’ll make in WvWvW roaming. And the fact that you’re really stuck with one build. Let’s not even talk about alts.

Good riddance to gw2, it had potential but it’s just turning into a much worse mmo because the true grind mmo actually have fun dungeons/raid/content to grind, gw2’s grind is the most boring thing you could build in a mmo. If you’re going to make me grind, make me grind fun dungeons and raids, not playskool-my-first-mmo type stuff like temple events.

Funny my friends list is full of people who said 100% they’re not coming back. Most of them came back.

Odd thing that.

Vayne.8563:

Funny my friends list is full of people who said 100% they’re not coming back. Most of them came back.

Odd thing that.

Yes it is odd that when Anet focuses on only one kind of player they lose part of the population and keep the other. Very odd indeed.

MikaHR.1978:

eisberg.2379:

MikaHR.1978:

Tom Gore.4035:

EVE has 500k accounts. I would be surprised if it has even half as many players…

What does it matter? The way Blizzard counts “subs” they may have 1/2-1/3 players also. + all gold sellers, do we count them out too?

FACT is EvE is still growing and GW2 and WoW lost crapload of players.

Eve went into other markets they were not in before. Before they entered into other markets, they were not growing. Guild Wars 2 will grow as it enters into other markets as well.

GW2 already lost few times more players than EvE ever had.

GW2 FIRST have to actually get where it WAS at launch.

And EvE was growing still, before “entering new markets”….and afterwards. Its just that they hit 500k mark a bit sooner.

Of course, its slow but STEADY growth over 10 years.

Name another MMO that can claim the same.

It matters because once the players start to quit (which of course doesn’t happen until there is something else to offer the same kind of experience) the numbers will start falling rapidly. It’s not like the guy with 5 accounts will only suspend one of them when he quits.

champ.7021:

Vayne.8563:

Funny my friends list is full of people who said 100% they’re not coming back. Most of them came back.

Odd thing that.

Yes it is odd that when Anet focuses on only one kind of player they lose part of the population and keep the other. Very odd indeed.

The problem is if they try to focus on every kind of player they aren’t actually focusing on any kind of player.

Tom Gore.4035:

champ.7021:

Vayne.8563:

Funny my friends list is full of people who said 100% they’re not coming back. Most of them came back.

Odd thing that.

Yes it is odd that when Anet focuses on only one kind of player they lose part of the population and keep the other. Very odd indeed.

The problem is if they try to focus on every kind of player they aren’t actually focusing on any kind of player.

They focus on 2 very specific crowd.One that loves grind and one that loves bow that shoots rainbow unicorns.

Vayne.8563:

Smith.1826:

Vayne.8563:

Smith.1826:

Vayne.8563:

Chuo.4238:

Vayne.8563:

Chuo.4238:

With all this arguing about MMO X vs MMO Y I think we’re losing sight of the point that ArenaNet kittened off a whole bunch of people with this Ascended gear – both in principle (prefer skill-based vs gear-based) and in practice (don’t like grinding mats/crafting/whatever in order to prepare to have fun).

I can say that many players who get kittened off at one game go find another.

Yep. Many players. And many players have stayed. This has been my point all along.

No one knows how many people would have left if Anet stayed the course. It’s not possible to know.

In your mind you believe Anet is losing more players than they’re keeping. I don’t believe that’s true…and I’m pretty sure Anet doesn’t either. A dev has told me concurrency numbers are on the rise and have been for some time.

I agree you were screwed over by the changes…but that doesn’t make them bad changes. They’re just changes that don’t work for people who share your sentiments.

I don’t know if they’re losing more than they’re gaining or not. I do know they lost me. So if anyone’s keeping track of numbers, they can add +1 to the tally.

I was getting away from that losing vs gaining argument, not adding to it. How ’bout we get back on topic?

Edit: And Vayne, stop putting words in my mouth. You do that virtually every time you quote someone. It’s no wonder people get on your case so much.

You said “many players get kittened off”..and while that’s no doubt true, if those players are a minority, then your point is moot.

What’s his point? I thought the extent of what he was saying was just that he and some other players were upset with the direction of the game.

It’s not just that some players are kittened off and it’s not about one post. The faction that is kittened off are saying (including Chuo) that this was a huge portion of the player base. It wasn’t just like her and a couple of friends. It was a lot of people.

Alright. But is that what he said right there? I could only gather from that post that he and other people are upset with the game.

What he said right there is no different than what he said in countless other threads. People are mad. We’ve known those people were mad since last November. They’ve been made since then…at a game they’re disappointed in.

The direction of the game changed…no one denies it. Ten months on and they’re still mad. They come to the forums of this game to complain about ascended gear..that was announced last November. You’d think by now they’d have figured out that the game has changed, it’s not for them, and they’d find a game that was.

Because saying OMFG there’s vertical progression in the game for ten months solves what? Is Anet going to stop and take it all out tomorrow?

I don’t like the vertical progression either. I’m not in complete disagreement with what’s being said. The only difference is, I’m not taking the inclusion of vertical progression as a personal attack. Anet saw a problem, Anet moved to fix the problem. I don’t agree it was the best solution by ten months on? I think people would have moved on by now, instead of hanging around to complain on a forum over a change that was announced so long ago.

Even I think the game is too grindy. So?

I’m just not sure what “made his point moot”. “For what it’s worth I’m upset with the game and so are other people” was pretty much the extent of it, that was his ‘point’, and I don’t think he’s wrong. “Many players who get ticked off go play something else” is pretty self-evident, and the fact that they’re able to keep releasing content is a heavy indication that they’re making enough cash to sustain themselves.

Funny my friends list is full of people who said 100% they’re not coming back. Most of them came back.
Odd thing that

My friend’s list is full of inactives, I’ve left a third “dead” guild, and my server’s felt a lot emptier as of late. But I don’t think it a sign of “doom and gloom”, rather that people eventually get bored of games, and this game in particular is a year old. I ran into the same thing with GW1.

So, while I’m encountering far less activity than I used to, I’m also not seeing anything wrong with it.

Tom Gore.4035:

champ.7021:

Vayne.8563:

Funny my friends list is full of people who said 100% they’re not coming back. Most of them came back.

Odd thing that.

Yes it is odd that when Anet focuses on only one kind of player they lose part of the population and keep the other. Very odd indeed.

The problem is if they try to focus on every kind of player they aren’t actually focusing on any kind of player.

I agree with you. They’re not trying to focus at all. They’re trying to provide a variety of experiences for a variety of different types of players.

So the more styles of play you enjoy, the more you’re likely to enjoy the game. I do some of everything, thus I enjoy the game.

Those who focus just on dungeons, are probably not going to stay around forever. But they might come try new dungeons when they come out.

I think there are enough people in the middle for this to work.