Guild Wars 2

Hey i have an idea.

Since its taking so long to get new class skills from Anet alone,

how about we the community fund the projects to add new class skills to use.

That way Anet can use the kickstarter project money to hire people to make and test the new skills

without taking away resources from the main team at Anet that is focusing on Living Story content.

If successful

I would also like to see a similar kickstarter for WvW content

that Anet can use to get content made for WvW

without taking away from the main developers at Anet who are making Living Story content.

Poll: Do you like this idea of public funding for more Skills and WvW content that doesnt take away from the main developer’s Living Story content development?

A) YES GREAT IDEA
B)NO BAD IDEA
C) UNDECIDED

B – I wouldn’t say bad, but I don’t think it should be necessary. Anet is not like PBS, which uses donations and public funding to survive. Anet is a for-profit company

I would love to support Anet. And I would if they put decent town clothes in the gem store. I’m talking the outfits from GW1 (especially Dwayna/Grenth), kimonos, gowns, robes, tuxedoes for men AND women, pajamas, the basic townclothes that got turned into tonics, school uniforms, etc.

I thought that it was against Kickstarter’s rules to use their system to fund existing commercial projects. Can’t say for sure so don’t quote me, just think I saw it somewhere.

Knighthonor.4061:

how about we the community fund the projects to add new class skills to use.

Really bad idea. If consumers are unhappy with the service provided by a company, the last thing they should be doing is throwing money at said company. If you want Anet to put more skills in the game, and/or put them in faster, then tell them it will make you more inclined to buy gems. That way the burden is on the company to put up if they want your money.

It’s not a matter of money they don’t have more skills, or whatever. It’s a matter of time and work – and what you’re demanding (very nicely but demanding nonetheless) would mean they would pretty much need to drop everything and rush it out.

Now, this is important so I need to bold this.

. . . we do not want ArenaNet rushing out content.

You are suggesting a Kickstarter to bribe a company to do something that the players/donors want. I don’t think Kickstarter has been used that way before and there is no way that ANet would go along with that.

So B, dumb idea.

kickstarter is used for funding projects. Sometimes projects that arent getting enough support elsewhere.
So it makes some kind of sense.

However, They are a company already, they are profitable, and their salaries are already paid to work on the game.

Also, any such project would require a high level of coordination withing the existing teams, which boils down to time and effort of existing developers, which they have already decided are better off doing whatever else they want to do.

Essentially, its probably not money perse blocking anet from doing those things, its lack of desire on anets part to do that versus other things they want to develop.

And lastly, this would have to be something anet themselves set in motion, i cant see them doing that just because it would look pretty bad on the parent company that a profitable company has to go to kickstarter to fund something players want.

B

/fifteencharacters

Not paying a dime until Anet fixes the existing game, and I mean everything -

1. open-world aka braindead zergfest,
2. dungeons aka boring stackfest,
3. balance aka get cheesed,
4. PvP aka wasteland,
5. WvW aka what?

Not a single dime.

While I don’t like giving pure negative feedback towards posters that only want something better, as you do OP, I am vehemently against this idea. ArenaNet/NCsoft are not bankrupt. The thought of throwing cash at something or someone that doesn’t deserve getting extra $$$ for free, like you suggest, is a horrible idea.

If they can’t or won’t get their kitten together, with what they have, then they don’t deserve anything more than what they’re creating for themselves.

C – I wouldn’t mind more classes, but I’m not sure kickstarter is the way to go.

we already pay arenanet to do this things

Very Bad idea for the reasons listed above. Your hearts in the right place though.

Romek.4201:

some players we already pay arenanet to do this things

Fixed this. Original purchase does not pay for new content in any way. Buy gems or quit complaining (not directed at above poster).

I’m more interested in how any 3rd party development effort could ever actually effect the game in any technical way…? This is like asking for a Kickstarter campaign to develop a new Navy fighter for aircraft carriers…..no matter how good the vehicle is, you have a few hurtles to clear before you make yourself “Top Gun” (I now hear Kenny Logins in my head….STOP!!).

Worst idea ever!

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

It’s not a matter of money they don’t have more skills, or whatever. It’s a matter of time and work – and what you’re demanding (very nicely but demanding nonetheless) would mean they would pretty much need to drop everything and rush it out.

Now, this is important so I need to bold this.

. . . we do not want ArenaNet rushing out content.

They aren’t constantly working on these projects in the background? If not, then they should. If they are, have they mentioned anything about a time-line and the type of stuff we’re likely to be getting? Like alternate skills or just different weapons? Ulitities? Etc…

Brother Grimm.5176:

Romek.4201:

some players we already pay arenanet to do this things

Fixed this. Original purchase does not pay for new content in any way. Buy gems or quit complaining (not directed at above poster).

That’s kind of a rude sentiment, through. What if you don’t want anything offered in the gem store? Just buy gems for the hell of it?

I’d love seeing new skills, especially weapon skills.
That being said, I have no faith in Arena Net.
The skills they’ve released so far, most of them are next to unusable.

sigh

why would you have a kickstarter for a game studio owned by a publicly traded company?

It’s like running a kickstarter to give General Motors funds to develop a supercar under the Chevrolet brand.

This isn’t very well thought out

Leo G.4501:

That’s kind of a rude sentiment, through. What if you don’t want anything offered in the gem store? Just buy gems for the hell of it?

Yes?
Or buy gems and trade them for gold if you don’t want to hoard gems.

lordkrall.7241:

Leo G.4501:

That’s kind of a rude sentiment, through. What if you don’t want anything offered in the gem store? Just buy gems for the hell of it?

Yes?
Or buy gems and trade them for gold if you don’t want to hoard gems.

Again, what if you don’t want anymore gold? It’s like telling people to go chase after forging legendaries because they’re (not) rare when those people have no desire to obtain the skin or eat up their time doing so.

But then I guess I’m on the outside looking in. I spent my share of cash on gems, then I took a long hiatus and am back and see nothing I want to buy gems for. Don’t get me wrong, I have no problem getting no new skills and just not spending anything else on the game. But I did purchase the game, play it and supported it so I have the privilege (as does anyone posting here) of stating my desires for the game.

Leo G.4501:

They aren’t constantly working on these projects in the background? If not, then they should. If they are, have they mentioned anything about a time-line and the type of stuff we’re likely to be getting? Like alternate skills or just different weapons? Ulitities? Etc…

First, they don’t owe us a breakdown of what they’re working on and their progress towards everything. If we were shareholders or such, then we would be owed such (not that there’s a guarantee we’d get it even then).

Secondly, I . . . personally . . . would rather they work on what they want to work on rather than what we tell them to do. SAB is a prime example of something nobody asked for which most players enjoyed, and was worked on in spare time mostly.

Lastly, I would present the opinion we don’t need new shiny skills/weapons/et cetera . . . what we really need is for the existing game to be tightened down and tweaked a bit more.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

First, they don’t owe us a breakdown of what they’re working on and their progress towards everything.

Who said owe? I simply asked if as in “I’ve been out of the loop for a year and want to know if there’s news.”

Secondly, I . . . personally . . . would rather they work on what they want to work on rather than what we tell them to do. SAB is a prime example of something nobody asked for which most players enjoyed, and was worked on in spare time mostly.

They can still do fun projects on the side. IMO, people whining about how the devs prioritize their free time should listen to what they’re crying about and calm down.

That still doesn’t mean they can’t make content that we want during their normal working time…or even that they have to give us this list of specific skills for this specific class with these specific stats, etc. They are going to add whatever skills they deem fun/interesting/innovative/balanced/ect. Just something else so we can play around with new toys for a while.

You make it sound like trying to please their playerbase is some chore. They should WANT to appease us in some way (I’m actually quite positive they DO).

Lastly, I would present the opinion we don’t need new shiny skills/weapons/et cetera . . . what we really need is for the existing game to be tightened down and tweaked a bit more.

Cool beans. That’s your opinion. My opinion is add new shiny skills/weapons/etc while also working to tighten down the existing game as well as meshing the existing game well with the new implemented game and future additions they plan to make.

As short-sighted as I may be, I have faith that they can do more than one thing at once while having fun doing it…but then I’m also not a jaded ex-player/current-player. I’m playing your game, A-net…for now

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Leo G.4501:

They aren’t constantly working on these projects in the background? If not, then they should. If they are, have they mentioned anything about a time-line and the type of stuff we’re likely to be getting? Like alternate skills or just different weapons? Ulitities? Etc…

First, they don’t owe us a breakdown of what they’re working on and their progress towards everything. If we were shareholders or such, then we would be owed such (not that there’s a guarantee we’d get it even then).

Secondly, I . . . personally . . . would rather they work on what they want to work on rather than what we tell them to do. SAB is a prime example of something nobody asked for which most players enjoyed, and was worked on in spare time mostly.

Lastly, I would present the opinion we don’t need new shiny skills/weapons/et cetera . . . what we really need is for the existing game to be tightened down and tweaked a bit more.

The game has been being tightened down for 2 years. Time for new stuff.

Arena Net is owned by NC-Soft. Why not start a change.org petition giving A-Net more lee-way when it comes to adding stuff in their game?

Kickstarter is meant for indie developers, which A-Net, is clearly not.

B^10

I’ll go with B Bad Idea.

Even without actually using kickstarter itself (which I believe would be against its rules), using crowdfunding for specific game features would open a whole lot of practical and legal issues. From the players point of view, they’re paying for a specific service (new class skills). What happens if one of the payers isn’t satisfied with the skills developed?… does he get his money back and the skills are removed from his account?… after all, legally they could ask for their money back, they paid for a service and they can claim that the service wasn’t provided to their full satisfaction… what happens if they end up being overpowered?… or worse, overpowered for other classes and not the one you play, do you also get your money back?… or if they take too long to properly balance against existing skills?. Do the payers get a say on which skills will be created?.

And now from Anet point of view… they’d be getting a specific amount of money to provide a specific service, new class skills. Assuming (which I believe is a perfectly resonable assumption) that there are no idle developers in Anet, and that the whole idea behind all that is to fund the new skilsl without taking resources and development time from the rest of the game, the only way they could add those extra resources to the tast of creating new skills would be to hire more developers, train them into their corporate enviroment, engine and so on, get them to develop the new skills, and then let them go (I doubt they’d be able to keep them unpaid until something else is crowdfunded), so the money should also cover training the new developers (which usually takes some time and means that at least someone in the regular team is less productive during that time)

And then comes the money itself. They’d be receiving a set amount to develop the new skills… if they finish creating and testing them all and there’s still money left, what do they do with that? Create more skills? If it’s not enough for that?. How do they guarantee that the money is used solely on creating the new skills and not in anything else in the company?… On the other hand, what if (as it often happens in development) they plan it perfectly and use exactly the amount of money crowdfunded into the new skills, but at the last minute some problem arises that makes the new skills too powerful, broken, buggy or open to exploits, but they now ran out of crowdfunded money… do they shelve the whole thing and the money was paid for nothing? (note that giving it back would be a loss for them as they’ve already paid developers, testers and so on)… do they release them as they are even if it might damage the game?… do they ask for more money?… or just put the money themselves to finish development for skills that they might not have planned to add (or add at a different pace) in the first place?.

Personally, I think that kickstarter is a great idea for some projects… but just isn’t compatible with the way it was presented here.

Leo G.4501:

Who said owe? I simply asked if as in “I’ve been out of the loop for a year and want to know if there’s news.”

Right, and at the same time, we’re not owed that. Hopefully, and please if anyone’s reading this from ANet consider it, they can do a stream-cast or something for two hours weekly with some people who come off good on the medium rather than grabbing random people and putting them in front of the camera.

Of course, I’m spoiled. I watch “The Patch”.

You make it sound like trying to please their playerbase is some chore. They should WANT to appease us in some way (I’m actually quite positive they DO).

It is a chore, doesn’t mean it can’t be fun, or that it can’t be made fun. I do that most of the times when I have long tasks at work I have to do. (“Say, why don’t you rearrange the items on the shelves again for the whole 21 foot section there? While you’re at it, can you find anything past the expiration date and check to make sure we actually have the amount our system is reporting we have?”)

I’m very sure they don’t just want to appease us, they want to make us happy. The issue is, and this is a big one . . . not all the players agree on what should be “top priority”, and if their choice isn’t shown to be top priority, it’s more than likely to be used as a bludgeon on the devs who speak up and say “hey we have this cool idea about X”.

Cool beans. That’s your opinion. My opinion is add new shiny skills/weapons/etc while also working to tighten down the existing game as well as meshing the existing game well with the new implemented game and future additions they plan to make.

I don’t think it’s a wise decision, is all. I used the word “opinion” (hey, thanks for pulling semantics on that too ) because I don’t know enough about development, balancing, or whatever else needs to be looked at to know if new weapons or skill would help the game or hurt it.

I mean, adding a new weapon . . . say the two-handed axe example? . . . sure, fine, it gives options. But if it’s not as good at a task as an existing weapon, or if it’s only situationally useful . . . why use the resources to develop the weapon, the skills, the animations for the skills and attacks, about thirty skins for it . . .

Similarly, with less load, is a utility skill, because you’d have to look at it and not just figure out if it fits with the overall feel of a class . . . but whether it would unbalance other things to a point where that skill is more useful than anything else the class could use.

As short-sighted as I may be, I have faith that they can do more than one thing at once while having fun doing it…but then I’m also not a jaded ex-player/current-player. I’m playing your game, A-net…for now

I’m jaded, but that’s from having been around MMOs for a while (before there were graphics, in one case) and having seen a lot of things which should have been a win/win turn rapidly into a lose/lose once instituted.

phys.7689:

The game has been being tightened down for 2 years. Time for new stuff.

Well, yes, the game has been. But there’s still plenty of issues which should be addressed with particular classes. Like how my class, the ranger, is pretty much screwed up and over

ArenaNet isn’t sitting on a pile of new skill ideas, wishing they had the money to put them in the game. They have not added new skills because they either don’t think the game is ready for them yet, or aren’t confident enough to balance them properly.

Do I wish new skills would be added? Of course! But for whatever reason, the game developers don’t think it’s the thing to do. You can’t form a grass-roots Kickstarter to force a private company to do what you want. And, as has been mentioned, the idea of donating our own money to make the game better is pretty ridiculous. There is already ample opportunity to support the game through the gem store.

Fyrebrand.4859:

There is already ample opportunity to support the game through the gem store.

Which I do pretty much semi-regularly out of my small budget for “fun items”.

. . . the bulk of it still goes to Wizards of the Coast.

Leo G.4501:

Brother Grimm.5176:

Romek.4201:

some players we already pay arenanet to do this things

Fixed this. Original purchase does not pay for new content in any way. Buy gems or quit complaining (not directed at above poster).

That’s kind of a rude sentiment, through. What if you don’t want anything offered in the gem store? Just buy gems for the hell of it?

My “attitude” is based on the fact that many players seem to assume they are OWED some content just for logging in and the fact of the matter is that Anet’s continued success (and the game’s Servers being powered up) depends on Gem sales.

I could have expressed that in nicer terms, so sorry if I offended.

Asking people for kickstarter money so Anet will get off of their butts and put meaningful content into the game shows how badly we need an expansion.
So, you answer from me is B. Never, ever, ever will I give them more money unless it is an expansion.

Brother Grimm.5176:

Leo G.4501:

Brother Grimm.5176:

Romek.4201:

some players we already pay arenanet to do this things

Fixed this. Original purchase does not pay for new content in any way. Buy gems or quit complaining (not directed at above poster).

That’s kind of a rude sentiment, through. What if you don’t want anything offered in the gem store? Just buy gems for the hell of it?

My “attitude” is based on the fact that many players seem to assume they are OWED some content just for logging in and the fact of the matter is that Anet’s continued success (and the game’s Servers being powered up) depends on Gem sales.

I could have expressed that in nicer terms, so sorry if I offended.

The flip side of this is Arena Net assuming they are owed money/gems because they are delivering regular updates and keeping the game running. I’m not saying they think this, but some of the current gem store offerings would certainly imply it.

Guild Wars 2 has one of the absolute best value per dollars ratio ever. You could have bought the game and never once spent money on gems and easily gotten hundreds of hours of play out of it. No subscription means you’re not “forced” to play and the ‘log in and unlock the current story’ system is a great way for people to play the living story at their own pace.

Even with all that, I don’t think they have enough people throwing money at them for no other reason than to support the game. I’m sure not.

It is absolutely CRUCIAL that Anet start offering goods and services on the Gem Shop that people actually want. Goods and services that are reasonably priced.

The Home Portal Stone and the Tyrian Explorer’s Knapsack are two examples of what not to do, being priced just above the denominations of a gem card (or 2) to get people to buy the next tier.

Is there a separate team handling the gem shop? Maybe the game devs are facepalming just as hard as the player base.

Either way. Gem Shop needs to make money so Anet can work on the game. Give us things worth buying.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Right, and at the same time, we’re not owed that. Hopefully, and please if anyone’s reading this from ANet consider it, they can do a stream-cast or something for two hours weekly with some people who come off good on the medium rather than grabbing random people and putting them in front of the camera.

Of course, I’m spoiled. I watch “The Patch”.

That still doesn’t answer what I was asking :p

Did anyone ask the devs, likely in the condition of some sort of press conference, meet-and-greet, live-stream or podcast or whatever, if they ever considered adding more skills? I know someone has had to ask since this was a question people were asking about 10 months after the game released and I witnessed it

Have they given a new answer? And when was it?

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

It is a chore, doesn’t mean it can’t be fun, or that it can’t be made fun. I do that most of the times when I have long tasks at work I have to do.

A chore (or at least my definition of chore) is an unpleasant but necessary task. Pleasing your customers shouldn’t be a chore. In this context, helping to put out a product that pleases your customers shouldn’t be a chore…a chef shouldn’t consider cooking up a meal to impress and satisfy his customers a chore…if it is, he’s probably overworked and doesn’t like his job.

The devs went to college, honed their craft, put together a portfolio and went to an interview to make this game for us. If they just wanted money and easy work, there’s plenty of administrative jobs they could have taken that likely pays the same or more. Not to say their whole job is lollipops and ponies, but when it comes to making us content, that should be where they have fun (not a chore, IMO). Fixing bugs though, that’s a chore…and a never-ending one, at that.

I’m very sure they don’t just want to appease us, they want to make us happy. The issue is, and this is a big one . . . not all the players agree on what should be “top priority”, and if their choice isn’t shown to be top priority, it’s more than likely to be used as a bludgeon on the devs who speak up and say “hey we have this cool idea about X”.

I’m not quite sure I understand what you mean here.

The vibe I’m getting is, not everyone is pleased by the same sort of content and if what you are aimed for isn’t a top priority, then you’re just beating a dead horse and wasting everyone’s time?

Probably not so bluntly, but that’s the basic direction I’m getting.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

I don’t think it’s a wise decision, is all. I used the word “opinion” (hey, thanks for pulling semantics on that too ) because I don’t know enough about development, balancing, or whatever else needs to be looked at to know if new weapons or skill would help the game or hurt it.

And nobody does…until you actually start alpha and beta testing that stuff.

But there is a department that will ultimately see only positive results: diversity. Sometimes people just want to be different, but there are only so many combinations of skills and traits you can mash together to get something that is unique, plays differently and is refreshing on an aesthetic sense. Perhaps that two-handed axe isn’t better than a hammer or greatsword, but dang-it, it has a unique animation attack that just looks so gosh-darned awesome that about a quarter of the Norn warriors swear by using that weapon only!

Not saying balancing can wait, just that telling people to stop asking for new weapons, skills, watever until everyone thinks everything is balance just seems selfish…which seems like what you’re doing. Because I (and I’m sure a lot of others posting here) already understand how important balance is, so reiterating the cry for balance seems tantamount to telling me I’m insensitive to the importance of it when I’m surely not.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

I’m jaded, but that’s from having been around MMOs for a while (before there were graphics, in one case) and having seen a lot of things which should have been a win/win turn rapidly into a lose/lose once instituted.

Speak honestly now.

Do you think development of anything should take a pessimistic approach like you’re thinking when approaching expansion-like content?

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Well, yes, the game has been. But there’s still plenty of issues which should be addressed with particular classes. Like how my class, the ranger, is pretty much screwed up and over

IMO, I think the devs could keep balancing until they’re blue in the face but it’s unlikely Rangers will be satisfied until they can scrap their pet completely. As a Ranger player myself, I don’t look forward to rebalancing…it just makes my pets weaker, ultimately leading me to question why I’m not playing my Warrior then.

Leo G.4501:

That still doesn’t answer what I was asking :p

Did anyone ask the devs, likely in the condition of some sort of press conference, meet-and-greet, live-stream or podcast or whatever, if they ever considered adding more skills? I know someone has had to ask since this was a question people were asking about 10 months after the game released and I witnessed it

Funny you should ask… from a blog post a little over a year ago from Colin Johnson.

We’ll begin regularly adding new skills and traits to the game for each profession to expand your characters and builds! You will be able to earn these new traits and skills by unlocking them. To go along with this, we’ll expand the content and options to earn skill points to help encourage players to experience different challenges and content throughout the world. These skills and traits will be designed to be balanced with the existing skills/traits we currently have in the game, and will simply compliment and expand the range of abilities and tactics available to each profession. Both WvW and PvE players can acquire skills and traits, and additional means of earning skill points will be addressed for both core content areas.

The regular addition of skills and traits that you can earn as you play provides us an extremely stable, easily expandable reward system that fits neatly into the pillars of progression and advancement that Guild Wars 2 are all about. Your character will be able to grow and change for years to come without invalidating everything you’ve earned so far.

AlphaNeonic.1925:

Leo G.4501:

That still doesn’t answer what I was asking :p

Did anyone ask the devs, likely in the condition of some sort of press conference, meet-and-greet, live-stream or podcast or whatever, if they ever considered adding more skills? I know someone has had to ask since this was a question people were asking about 10 months after the game released and I witnessed it

Funny you should ask… from a blog post a little over a year ago from Colin Johnson.

We’ll begin regularly adding new skills and traits to the game for each profession to expand your characters and builds! You will be able to earn these new traits and skills by unlocking them. To go along with this, we’ll expand the content and options to earn skill points to help encourage players to experience different challenges and content throughout the world. These skills and traits will be designed to be balanced with the existing skills/traits we currently have in the game, and will simply compliment and expand the range of abilities and tactics available to each profession. Both WvW and PvE players can acquire skills and traits, and additional means of earning skill points will be addressed for both core content areas.

The regular addition of skills and traits that you can earn as you play provides us an extremely stable, easily expandable reward system that fits neatly into the pillars of progression and advancement that Guild Wars 2 are all about. Your character will be able to grow and change for years to come without invalidating everything you’ve earned so far.

I think by “regular” he meant one healing skill once a year. So that still counts, right?

By the way, Anet should be embarrassed that people feel the need for such a kickstarter.

AlphaNeonic.1925:

Leo G.4501:

That still doesn’t answer what I was asking :p

Did anyone ask the devs, likely in the condition of some sort of press conference, meet-and-greet, live-stream or podcast or whatever, if they ever considered adding more skills? I know someone has had to ask since this was a question people were asking about 10 months after the game released and I witnessed it

Funny you should ask… from a blog post a little over a year ago from Colin Johnson.

We’ll begin regularly adding new skills and traits to the game for each profession to expand your characters and builds! You will be able to earn these new traits and skills by unlocking them. To go along with this, we’ll expand the content and options to earn skill points to help encourage players to experience different challenges and content throughout the world. These skills and traits will be designed to be balanced with the existing skills/traits we currently have in the game, and will simply compliment and expand the range of abilities and tactics available to each profession. Both WvW and PvE players can acquire skills and traits, and additional means of earning skill points will be addressed for both core content areas.

The regular addition of skills and traits that you can earn as you play provides us an extremely stable, easily expandable reward system that fits neatly into the pillars of progression and advancement that Guild Wars 2 are all about. Your character will be able to grow and change for years to come without invalidating everything you’ve earned so far.

I think I’ve read that before. That’s not good…

Leo G.4501:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

It is a chore, doesn’t mean it can’t be fun, or that it can’t be made fun. I do that most of the times when I have long tasks at work I have to do.

A chore (or at least my definition of chore) is an unpleasant but necessary task. Pleasing your customers shouldn’t be a chore. In this context, helping to put out a product that pleases your customers shouldn’t be a chore…a chef shouldn’t consider cooking up a meal to impress and satisfy his customers a chore…if it is, he’s probably overworked and doesn’t like his job.

Here’s where we’re not going to quite mesh – my definition of a chore is more simple: “a necessary, repeated task”. No position if it being unpleasant, or fun, or entertaining. It’s a lot like when I pointed out a while back it is possible to have grind and have it be pleasant and interesting as opposed to “kill 100 rabid pygmy marmots”.

The analogy, also, is kind of flawed because he may not consider it a chore . . . but it is his job, which is itself a chore by the nature of “job”. As in “you are paid to do this thing”. Doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy your job (the best chefs usually do).

Fixing bugs though, that’s a chore…and a never-ending one, at that.

And it’s sometimes like the mythical hydras, or the campy Captain America version: “kill one, watch two more come up”.

I’m not quite sure I understand what you mean here.

The vibe I’m getting is, not everyone is pleased by the same sort of content and if what you are aimed for isn’t a top priority, then you’re just beating a dead horse and wasting everyone’s time?

Probably not so bluntly, but that’s the basic direction I’m getting.

No, not really, but . . . not everyone is going to be pleased by whatever content is being picked to be focused on. And, being honest, I suspect they’d get more done if they focused on one thing rather than trying to background a half-dozen things. My suspicions feel well-founded since it’s kind of what they’ve been doing for two years and for all that we got it’s more likely we could have gotten more if they’d been focused on something in particular.

Speak honestly now.

Do you think development of anything should take a pessimistic approach like you’re thinking when approaching expansion-like content?

“Speak honestly now” implies you think I’m not actually speaking honestly the rest of the time. I mean, that’s a good pessimistic assumption of your own, because I’m not 100% serious 100% of the time. More like 50% serious 90% of the time, unless I’m doing catapult testing. (Then it’s 100% serious – can’t afford to be wrong when testing asura for catapult ammunition.)

Also, that’s not pessimistic what I said there. That’s just how things go sometimes., especially when you consider a “simple fix” might have the consequences of making things worse overall. A decision you make when you design something may look to be good when you do it, however . . . in practice? Turns out to not be the right choice.

Do I think that should stop you from trying? No. I think you should be acutely aware it’s likely this cool thing you made is going to stink. Not destined to, but likely to. It’s a gamble, and when you gamble with something like the future of an MMO . . . don’t do it on a whim.

IMO, I think the devs could keep balancing until they’re blue in the face but it’s unlikely Rangers will be satisfied until they can scrap their pet completely. As a Ranger player myself, I don’t look forward to rebalancing…it just makes my pets weaker, ultimately leading me to question why I’m not playing my Warrior then.

I would be happier if the pet was more useful, and less likely to fall over in a stiff breeze. I don’t want to lose my pet because even in GW1 where pets could be turned off (and many rangers didn’t use them at all) . . . I stuck with them about 99% of the time.

B, for reasons listed above.

Instead, let’s keep an eye out on other games currently in development or being updated. And when we find one that looks like it will be more long term fun than GW2, we give THEM money instead! Because, you know… that’s how it’s supposed to KITTENING WORK!

It’s not our job to pay extra to save them from themselves.