Guild Wars 2

So let me begin by saying I’ve been a huge Guild Wars fan since the start of GW1 and I’ve had such high expectations for GW2. Additionally, I think Anet has created a fantastic game but it certainly needs some work.

After the Winter’s Day activities, which involved Anet pressing the play button and then going on holidays, I was excited to see the news of what was coming up in the fresh new year. However, instead I was met with a New Year’s Sale. Now, I understand that Colin Johanson has stated that they plan to release information about the coming months in the next few weeks (Source: http://guildwars.incgamers.com/blog/comments/colin-johanson-talks-2013-content-updates) but this leaves me puzzled.

Why on Earth, after so much radio silence, such a poor effort in bug fixing, the Lost Cause and really just a lack of proactive community interaction would I be inclined to give Anet more money?

It’s simply not how it works.

Anet, you need to tell player’s what you are actually doing with your cash in order for them to keep giving you their’s. I understand that an update is coming from you, but it’s just plain disrespectful to your player base to ask for more money through a sale, displaying a player’s commitment to the game, without you showing any commitment to them first.

You are in the business of selling a product, your customers are running out of ‘good faith’ to go on.

Inb4 somebody calls you vocal minority and a “complainer”.

GW2 was never a WoW killer… it’s a GW2 killer.

No wonder they don’t make the game population public.

Although I try to give every party the benefit of the doubt (‘complainers,’ ‘white knights,’ ‘Anet’, etc), this post is much more insightful than I believe a lot of readers realize.

This is just good business. I don’t think I’d go so far as to say, ‘Tell me how you’re spending my money!’ You know how they’re spending it. They’re giving most of it to investors, the rest is divided between bonuses, and payroll. Probably a few other things are in there, but we shouldn’t act like naive customers. We know where this money is going.

I do agree that they need to offer more communication. I don’t believe a single post, a little more than a month ago about how they need to increase their information is at all acceptable. The fact I’m waiting two weeks -just- for a roadmap of development on this game that’s been out since August feels so silly to me.

ANet doesn’t have to jump when we say, but I feel the way they’ve demonstrated their priorities have been a huge window to the inner workings at their office. As a player, I really don’t feel that I’m priority at all. That, definitely needs to change this year.

Thanks for your reply TheUndefined. To clarify, regarding how they use their money, I was more making the point that money is what develops the game, so it needs to be made clear to the community how the game is being developed, i.e. What is being fixed? What features are we likely to see implemented? As you say, we’ve been waiting since August and it’s just a prime example of bad business practice.

I certainly agree that it feels like the players are not the priority when really; Anet’s got nothing without them.

Omen.1879:

So let me begin by saying I’ve been a huge Guild Wars fan since the start of GW1 and I’ve had such high expectations for GW2. Additionally, I think Anet has created a fantastic game but it certainly needs some work.

After the Winter’s Day activities, which involved Anet pressing the play button and then going on holidays, I was excited to see the news of what was coming up in the fresh new year. However, instead I was met with a New Year’s Sale. Now, I understand that Colin Johanson has stated that they plan to release information about the coming months in the next few weeks (Source: http://guildwars.incgamers.com/blog/comments/colin-johanson-talks-2013-content-updates) but this leaves me puzzled.

Why on Earth, after so much radio silence, such a poor effort in bug fixing, the Lost Cause and really just a lack of proactive community interaction would I be inclined to give Anet more money?

It’s simply not how it works.

Anet, you need to tell player’s what you are actually doing with your cash in order for them to keep giving you their’s. I understand that an update is coming from you, but it’s just plain disrespectful to your player base to ask for more money through a sale, displaying a player’s commitment to the game, without you showing any commitment to them first.

You are in the business of selling a product, your customers are running out of ‘good faith’ to go on.

I don’t think all of their customers are running out of good faith to go on. Your faux outrage is really bizarre to me. It is extremely common for stores to put items on sale immediately post-holidays, and there is nothing “disrespectful” about ANet doing the same. I expect many people appreciate the chance to get some items on the cheap.

The ANet team has been pretty candid about the fact that they haven’t been running on full staff over the holidays, so I can’t imagine why you are shocked that they don’t have a big post about future plans laid out for you immediately post-holidays (when not even all of their staff has returned). They did, however, post information telling us that an update on future content is coming shortly, and they provided, in very broad terms, an overview of that content. That, by definition, is communicating with the playerbase.

I realize that ANet hasn’t met most of our expectations with respect to bug fixes and communicating to us that certain things are known issues. However, a few weeks of “radio silence” over the holidays does not mean they have never had “proactive community interaction” with us. We know what ANet is doing with at least some of the cash we give them: developing new content and systems. Even if they haven’t been forthcoming with specifics, they haven’t kept it a secret that they have several teams in place working on content.

This post strikes me as “much ado about nothing.” Now, if we come to the end of January without the promised updates, let’s revisit this subject. ;- )

Omen.1879:

Thanks for your reply TheUndefined. To clarify, regarding how they use their money, I was more making the point that money is what develops the game, so it needs to be made clear to the community how the game is being developed, i.e. What is being fixed? What features are we likely to see implemented? As you say, we’ve been waiting since August and it’s just a prime example of bad business practice.

I certainly agree that it feels like the players are not the priority when really; Anet’s got nothing without them.

Oh hehe! There goes me not putting 1 and 1 together! I usually get pretty excited when I see anyone discussing a topic of interest to me. So I totally blazed through your OP lol.

In that case I totally agree with your comment. Thanks so much for the clarification.

@Mythilas,

I definitely see your stance on expectations of communication, and the state of their team. However, I really can’t agree with your last sentence. I feel as a player I’ve constantly said this to myself.

Well, let’s see what next month brings. Ok, that wasn’t at all helpful to our gameplay, maybe next update. Well, that didn’t help at all either, and there were tons of nerfs… ok next update.

I guess after the past very disappointing updates regarding very obvious broken mechanics (Necro AI, broken Dynamic Events (you know.. one of the selling points of this game lol), completely unbalanced dungeons, etc etc etc) some of us are drawing the line.

You seem to have much more tolerance, and patience than some of us. That’s very commendable. Yet, please see that many of us have produced the same attitude you have now, we’ve just been burned on multiple occasions.

Also, as a business owner, at what point do you stop saying ‘they have to wait’, and instead adopt the attitude, ‘we need to produce’? Just a thought ^^;

You “give” your money to them? Hey, why dont you “give” it to me and ill tell you what i will do with it i promise!
Thing is son, you didnt give money to them you payed their services. That money is not yours anymore same moment you payed for service. Or are you telling me that you spend money at cash shop even if you dont need anything from it, just to support company? That’s logic of sucker, sry.
And why do you think they are obligated to tell you where that money goes? When you buy bread, do you demand that baker tell you where “your” money will go?
You spend your money on things you want to buy, and you get your money’s worth…you are not buying promises of content or communication.

Bad analogy. Bread is a consumable and your gratification comes from eating it.

Spending money on a game that is meant to have long term playability shouldn’t be compared to spending money on FOOD.

MrDmajor.7084:

Inb4 somebody calls you vocal minority and a “complainer”.

GW2 was never a WoW killer… it’s a GW2 killer.

No wonder they don’t make the game population public.

He went there white knights.

Sic him!

It boggles how much people expect from this game, and how much venom is directed at the Gem Shop. I have no issue with the Gem Shop, and feel I probably should be buying stuff from it more often. I actually like sales, and will buy something while one is on. The only problem I have with the Gem Shop is that there isn’t more to buy.

But in response to the title question: I think no sub fee is a great reason to give Anet more money. How many other games give you all content, with updates, for the box price?

Thanks for your reply, kRiza krimos.

Using your own example: If I wanted to support a baker, but I knew their bread was not the best, then in order to keep my business the baker should either make better bread, or give the existing customers some insight into how they will be making better bread in the future. That’s business.

To answer what I believe your main question is: Considering what I’ve stated above, along with the expectations stated by Anet that GW2 is an ongoing and developing MMO, Yes, I do expect them to tell me what they are doing in order to retain the community’s support.

MrDmajor.7084:

Bad analogy. Bread is a consumable and your gratification comes from eating it.

Spending money on a game that is meant to have long term playability shouldn’t be compared to spending money on FOOD.

You are buying product that you need, for eating or entertainment, it makes little difference.
Both baker and game company are offering their products, you can buy it or not its up to you.

Omen.1879:

Thanks for your reply, kRiza krimos.

Using your own example: If I wanted to support a baker, but I knew their bread was not the best, then in order to keep my business the baker should either make better bread, or give the existing customers some insight into how they will be making better bread in the future. That’s business.

To answer what I believe your main question is: Considering what I’ve stated above, along with the expectations stated by Anet that GW2 is an ongoing and developing MMO, Yes, I do expect them to tell me what they are doing in order to retain the community’s support.

If im not happy with bread i buy, i go and buy it at other place, simple as that. I dont go to baker and say: “hey man i will keep buying your bread even if im not happy with it, but i want you to tell me how will you improve it if i keep buying it”
Also, why are you worried about Anet’s business? There are suits that worry about that i guarantee. Your business interest is to spend your money on things that are worth to you, right?

Hi Ragnarawk and thanks for your reply. I would like to comment on the statement you made about having no subscription fee and getting the game for the price of the box. There is more to it than that. Micro-transactions support GW2 instead of a sub. So, where you do not generally spend the extra cash in the gem store I can see things from your perspective. However, for every X players that do not spend money in the gem store there are Y players that do, and I’d say that some of them would definitely spend a few subs worth of money each month.

So, the perception that player’s will be getting content updates ‘for the price of the box’ may be accurate for an individual that spends no money in the gem store, but generally across the community it is definitely not.

Make no mistake that Guild Wars 2 is a free to play game. Like a subscription, GW2 still has a financial support, it is just structured differently.

kRiza krimos.1637:

MrDmajor.7084:

Bad analogy. Bread is a consumable and your gratification comes from eating it.

Spending money on a game that is meant to have long term playability shouldn’t be compared to spending money on FOOD.

You are buying product that you need, for eating or entertainment, it makes little difference.
Both baker and game company are offering their products, you can buy it or not its up to you.

A better analogy would be if a bread seller sold you stale bread, why should you keep buying bread from them?

Or another one,

If said bread seller kept changing what they sold everyday in a small way, and were gravitating towards something else, unless you knew what they were gravitating towards why would you keep supporting the store? You go to the bread store under the premise that you will be buying bread from them.

The breadstore doesn’t owe you anything, but if they want you to keep going back they would probably inform you what direction they were going to go in terms of sales, or at the very least come up with a halfway decent excuse, like I don’t know, there was a gap in our supply of pies so we decided to sell you bricks instead.

edit: If you returned your stale bread and said “what the hell is this” and their response was “ kitten off we don’t owe you anything” said bread shop wouldn’t be in business for very long.

@kRiza. I am passionate about the GW world and I want to see it succeed. If I wanted to see a certain baker succeed I would tell them that they need to improve their bread because it is not up to scratch. As a business owner, if someone was to tell me that the product I am offering is sub-par I would take that seriously and do my best to reassure my customers. That to me is as simple as it gets for business, if you do not feel the same way, we will just have to agree to disagree ^^

nofo.8469:

kRiza krimos.1637:

MrDmajor.7084:

Bad analogy. Bread is a consumable and your gratification comes from eating it.

Spending money on a game that is meant to have long term playability shouldn’t be compared to spending money on FOOD.

You are buying product that you need, for eating or entertainment, it makes little difference.
Both baker and game company are offering their products, you can buy it or not its up to you.

A better analogy would be if a bread seller sold you stale bread, why should you keep buying bread from them?

Or another one,

If said bread seller kept changing what they sold everyday in a small way, and were gravitating towards something else, unless you knew what they were gravitating towards why would you keep supporting the store? You go to the bread store under the premise that you will be buying bread from them.

The breadstore doesn’t owe you anything, but if they want you to keep going back they would probably inform you what direction they were going to go in terms of sales, or at the very least come up with a halfway decent excuse, like I don’t know, there was a gap in our supply of pies so we decided to sell you bricks instead.

If you are hungry will you buy brick if they are out of pies?

Omen.1879:

@kRiza. I am passionate about the GW world and I want to see it succeed. If I wanted to see a certain baker succeed I would tell them that they need to improve their bread because it is not up to scratch. As a business owner, if someone was to tell me that the product I am offering is sub-par I would take that seriously and do my best to reassure my customers. That to me is as simple as it gets for business, if you do not feel the same way, we will just have to agree to disagree ^^

As business owner, you should know that there are always dissatisfied customers for one reason or other. You will listen to few complainers even tho you profit is where it should be?
Ive seen it all on this forums, complaints about loot, raids (lack off), stealth, combat, orr, dungeons,crafting, mystic forge,endgame, legendarys ofc,fractals,even monthlys… list goes on and on…judging by all those complaints they should just shut down servers and cut losses right?

Omen.1879:

Hi Ragnarawk and thanks for your reply. I would like to comment on the statement you made about having no subscription fee and getting the game for the price of the box. There is more to it than that. Micro-transactions support GW2 instead of a sub. So, where you do not generally spend the extra cash in the gem store I can see things from your perspective. However, for every X players that do not spend money in the gem store there are Y players that do, and I’d say that some of them would definitely spend a few subs worth of money each month.

So, the perception that player’s will be getting content updates ‘for the price of the box’ may be accurate for an individual that spends no money in the gem store, but generally across the community it is definitely not.

Make no mistake that Guild Wars 2 is a free to play game. Like a subscription, GW2 still has a financial support, it is just structured differently.

I understand your point, but there is one oversight. When you spend money in the Gem Shop, you actually get something. Paying a sub only gives you access to the game, no other benefit. The Gem Shop offers digital goods and services. I, like many others, are very willing to pay more than a sub fee to get in-game bonuses and features. I think the concept of getting more for your money than an active account is a good reason to give Anet support.

And as a side note, people need to cut the devs a break. Anyone remember WoW for the 1st 6 months? How long did “Frost Shock FTW” go unchecked by diminishing returns? I think patience is due.

Edit: +1 to Omen for having a reasonable conversation.

@kRiza. I’m not sure how it is you are misinterpreting the intentions of the post, but perhaps I should clarify. I believe that Anet has an obligation to their paying customers to regularly and clearly define what their intentions are in developing GW2 further. I believe they need to show a greater commitment to the players before asking them for more money. I believe this is a fair request.

I had this nice post written up and forums made me re-log in so to try again.

The op has a point, I have been pouring my hard earned cash into the game both with halloween and wintersday (I didn’t have to) so I could try to obtain some of the novelty items, often without success so spent even more money. And with all that money flowing into ArenaNet, I was expecting an expansion within the first part of this year (assumption on my part) to include another race and new areas. But instead of some sugar for those who have supported this game financially, we’ve been given a little vinegar instead.

From what ArenaNet have said we can assume they want to bring people back to the less populated areas by adding new content to those areas. The concern is that while initially the novelty of the new content will bring players to those areas, once the novelty wears off players will go back to what they are doing now, unless those areas are just as profitable with the same effort as the higher populated areas. And with issues with the current loot mechanics compounding the situation as it stands now, the new content in existing areas to bring people back to them is feeling a little gimmicky.

Why did I pay for GW2? To be entertained and captivated.

Why I have paid additional money into GW2? Because I believe that ArenaNet will deliver on content that will keep me captivated.

Will I keep throwing money at ArenaNet? Only if new content is not gimmicky and current issues do get resolved.

To continue with the bread/baker analogy, the problem is that we’ve bought a bread expecting to get a whole bread. Instead, we got half a bread with the baker’s promises that the other half would be finished soon (guild halls, home instances, minigames in major cities, etc.). It’s not unreasonable to ask for more information, especially since the last few slices we got seem to belong to an entirely different type of bread.

Mind you, the price of the bread is irrelevant. If the baker said you would get the entire bread for $0.01 then he’s still obligated to supply you with the entire bread. Especially if you’ve already paid for it.

I’m all for trusting, but I’ll admit that the guild hall update had better appear within the next two months. Because so far, I haven’t even been able to play half of what was promised on Gamescom.

Wow, god forbid people need a vacation and from your whining, it is well deserved.

GW2 must have major changes in the way the game is going at the momment for be an long-term game. If things still going this way GW2 will be forgotten in time.

Omen.1879:

@kRiza. I’m not sure how it is you are misinterpreting the intentions of the post, but perhaps I should clarify. I believe that Anet has an obligation to their paying customers to regularly and clearly define what their intentions are in developing GW2 further. I believe they need to show a greater commitment to the players before asking them for more money. I believe this is a fair request.

Every gw2 player is a paying customer since we all payed for gw2 to play it, i could be wrong tho
Thing which you fail to get from my posts is that they are not asking you for more money, they are offering things some ppl might be willing to pay for, there is big difference.
Besides that, how can you say they are not communicating with player base? Unless you want a house calls from Anet just to let you know what they will be doing today, tomorrow and next week. Ive seen more than once that they have given us general directions in which game will be going. You want detailed reports? Not gonna happend, things change while testing and developing ideas.

@wildcode. Thanks for posting. I think you’ve raised an incredibly valid point here. I can imagine that if the coming updates do not provide an ongoing and fun gameplay experience then the result will be devastating financially for Anet and the player base will decrease again. Additionally, there will be many more people less likely to gamble their money on false promises from Anet. Come to think of it, does anyone see some similarities between Anet and the mystic forge??? Interesting….

@ThiBash. Thanks for posting. Couldn’t agree more.

Firstly, I think it’s nice what they put on sale. The last sale people complained about no mini’s or BL kits on sale, both have been this time. So thank you Anet for making a sale more relevant to customers requests.

Secondly, the cash shop doesn’t exactly have a lot of items or variety. The items that would have received the most ‘interest’ were RNG based and this brought about quite a bit of negative feedback. I hope this is fixed and better distribution models are implemented in the future.

Thirdly, I do agree with the original post. Every day I check the forums and still see no response from Anet regarding the drop issue which has been doing on for a long time now, the only recognition being a condescending post from a community lesion. Until this sort of thing – blatant issues affecting a large number of people being ignored, is fixed, I cannot justify making an effort to further support the company. I purchased the game and have purchased gems before, more as a ‘thank you’ than anything else and may do so again in the future – but not until these sort of issues are resolved and Anet starts making an attempt to better communication – and I don’t mean more posts from developers, I mean straight up honest responses regarding bugs, issues and working with the community on these things. Keeping new content a surprise is understandable. Offering no information or perceived reaction to known issues on the other hand, is not.

“Anet, you need to tell player’s what you are actually doing with your cash in order for them to keep giving you theirs. I understand that an update is coming from you, but it’s just plain disrespectful to your player base to ask for more money through a sale, displaying a player’s commitment to the game, without you showing any commitment to them first.”

The way I look at it I already gave them cash and possibly all I will be giving them prior to an expansion. I don’t see them ASKING for us to spend more, the blog you pointed to wasn’t a cry from dev to player base to “please go buy more stuff”" at all. They have a gem store if we want to spend more, it has been there from the start, they run specials like every other game. I still can’t really find a darn thing on the store worth having to me, which is great, because I don’t really even want a store.

So when your subject line asks a questions to yourself, I cannot answer that for you. The general answer is, each of us gets to make a choice on what they want to spend our money on, for you you think a blueprint and communications is necessary as a good faith measure to buy additional things, there is your answer, you asked and answered yourself, gratz. I look at the need and value of the products being offered and not extra road-map plans for a shop purchase, the purchase to me is a here and now thing.

As for “hitting play and going bye bye”. Perhaps you should get a job in game making to learn this stuff isn’t easy and grow some respect. There were some patches etc during the whole season and I believe one on a major holiday, that tells me there are plenty of people around still.

This game has highlights and warts, not surprising, we’ll see what happens. As another wise-man has stated, you can go do something else and come back later to see if you like what they have added and changed. Relax a little.

If you aren’t happy why would you buy things in the store? I’m happy overall and I still don’t.

Ok all that said, it does seem they can do better addressing the most repetitive comments via word then actions. I cannot deny that. The bigger you get, the more chiefs you have to answer to, the more chiefs that dissect your every public word. It becomes a stalemate in many cases. That is why indies can be more open to their player base, there is no one above them looking down, so they can act open and straight up to their gamers.

The post from Collien stated that a good chunk of infor on the next few months of updates will be released within the first few weeks of january. To me, that’s until the 21st. So lets wait out that first, and then complain again.

Note that I still stand by my previous post, but I do believe Anet has been clear on when they will hand out more info.

@Horrorscope. Thanks, I appreciate your opinion on the matter. To clarify, the distaste in my statement about Anet going on holidays more had the intention that I do not believe they have enacted their priorities correctly leading up to and including that event. This is my opinion that has been developing since the August release and I was merely identifying that this was the time period and circumstance where it really hit hard for me personally.

As for the statements from several people about working in the industry, let’s just say I know a little something about this and I feel that my original argument is well warranted.

This is a massive game and content has rolled out like crazy since release, way faster than any other game I’ve ever seen. Have you ever tried modding a game or so? I have and lemme tell you: it takes HOURS to develop even the smallest things like a new set of armour. Building a dungeon, just a simple dungeon, can take a month or so. Because of all the clutter you put in the dungeon for detail, the lighting you use to highlight where players must go, the lighting for dramatic effect, choosing and replacing which lights must cast shadows and which must not. Also highlighting what’s important and don’t even get me started on the scripting! That’s without even testing for bugs, or cuts in the scenery and crap.

I think expectations are just way too high right now. You could have a team of 300 people and you still wont be able to fix bugs fast enough in a game this size to satisfy the player base.

kRiza krimos.1637:

Or are you telling me that you spend money at cash shop even if you don’t need anything from it, just to support company?

I actually do this, just because I think they deserve it. I don’t even buy anything with my gems.

It’s pretty obvious that didn’t anticipate to attract a lot(the majority) of players that have needs GW2 wasn’t built to satisfy. They are slowly trying to rectify this without delegating away too much of their man power from their original plans. That’s why content has been buggy, patches have been lackluster. They had to split the live team into two, with one part following their original path, while the other one is trying to add all the features the majority of the current player base is missing(gear progression, raids, mounts, dueling, gearscore/inspect, etc.). They can’t afford to dedicate all of the live team towards their original plans, because by the time they are free to start on the things players badly want, they will have lost too many potential MT and expansion sales.

Ruan Jacobz.1398:

kRiza krimos.1637:

Or are you telling me that you spend money at cash shop even if you don’t need anything from it, just to support company?

I actually do this, just because I think they deserve it. I don’t even buy anything with my gems.

Yes, sadly in a world where game developers deserve money giveaways more than hungry children in Africa opinions like this are not rare. I mean they made great entertainment, unlike that kid which only dug out blood diamond that western women love so much…
If you dont want your money better give it to UNICEF not a game company that got paid for their work anyway, thats what i think.

Omen.1879:

@Horrorscope. Thanks, I appreciate your opinion on the matter. To clarify, the distaste in my statement about Anet going on holidays more had the intention that I do not believe they have enacted their priorities correctly leading up to and including that event. This is my opinion that has been developing since the August release and I was merely identifying that this was the time period and circumstance where it really hit hard for me personally.

As for the statements from several people about working in the industry, let’s just say I know a little something about this and I feel that my original argument is well warranted.

Fair enough, I stand also by they are a much bigger company now vs then. Meaning they maybe answering to more people themselves and They™ are watching. Not always good for communications and production.

ASB.4295:

It’s pretty obvious that didn’t anticipate to attract a lot(the majority) of players that have needs GW2 wasn’t built to satisfy. They are slowly trying to rectify this without delegating away too much of their man power from their original plans. That’s why content has been buggy, patches have been lackluster. They had to split the live team into two, with one part following their original path, while the other one is trying to add all the features the majority of the current player base is missing(gear progression, raids, mounts, dueling, gearscore/inspect, etc.). They can’t afford to dedicate all of the live team towards their original plans, because by the time they are free to start on the things players badly want, they will have lost too many potential MT and expansion sales.

Maybe that is obvious to you, for some reason. I cant see gw2 turning into wow with bad moves like mounts, inspect, raids etc.
Perhaps you should back up your claim with something stronger than term “obvious”?

Well to be fair, having a sale doesn’t mean you have to buy things… it’s like.. if the electronic I was eying out happening to be on sale during new years, it doesn’t mean I have to buy it. I mean I would want to buy it but it by no means is a call from the company them give them my money.

I see it more as, its new years, they kindly give us a sale, but there’s nothing I want from it so moving on and not GRRRRR they put their gem items on sale! now I have to buy it!! GRRRRR evil anet!!! GRRRRRR why put items on sale!!!

I’d just like to say that I have yet to spend a cent on the gem store and for very good reasons. See, I have been on a hiatus from the game since before November. I got a little burned out on the game and the lack of bug fixes/balancing was getting a little irritating. I noticed the ad for Lost Shores and my interest seemed to come back, but only very temporarily. Having read on the forums how lousy the update was, I decided that I wasn’t going to even bother. There are other things that I have been waiting diligently for, including class balancing/dungeon balancing, yet those seem to fall on the wayside for “new and exciting” content. Wintersday doesn’t even interest me one bit so I still haven’t touched the game. I do come onto the forums though occasionally to see what’s going on.

Anyway, the point I’m trying to get at is that I really have no intention of supporting Anet through the gem store right now as I’m disappointed with the direction the game is going (that and, well, nothing in the gem store really interests me anyway, except for maybe char slots). I was a hugely devoted fan to GW 1 and played it for years, yet GW 2 had caught my attention for only a few months, and with the direction it seems to be going I’m not even sure if I’ll bother much longer. This isn’t even a threat, just that I’d rather play other games that are more appealing right now.

And honestly, it didn’t really bug me that there was a sale. Sales are good, right? But you’d be more likely to have players spend money, especially on sales, if they are satisified, which I am not at the moment.

I agree with the lack of faith thing. As an engineer I have little faith if none whatsoever that they will fix the problems in this class especially the majority of the REALLY old bugs we’ve been reporting for 4 months now that never get touched and are replaced by endless nerfs on weapons that don’t work right in the first place.

Then there’s the issues with loot, in which the 1200 post thread we had posted giving them knowledge they can use to determine what’s wrong such as “vets and champs aren’t dropping anything but blues if anything at all” was considered not good enough or our imaginations, entirely perceived. Not sure what’s going to happen with this one either.

Then there’s the problems with the game suddenly becoming dungeon focused in a title that was promised to never do that all to get gear with higher stats then exotics (doesn’t matter how much higher it’s still higher) that’s only accessible to a limited section of the population due to the demands of players that all players in a group (no matter the level of difficulty for the dungeon) be level 80, not an engineer, and geared in all exotics to have the fastest possible run.

I’m concerned about where this is going too OP I would have hoped they would have placed a liaison in the mix somewhere that would answer the communities call for answers. Everytime there’s a reasonable request for such a person the thread is infracted and shut down as not being constructive.

Get over yourselves ~ GW2 isn’t priced any differently than any other PC game (Shooter, RPG, sim) let alone a console game ~ we play a game, get our use out of it and move on ~ this continuing entitlement hang-up you folks have is humorous at best ~ you’ve gotten more game time out of GW2 (hell ANY MMO) than any other game you own ~ yet you kittene and moan here ~ grow up

Mustaine.9357:

Get over yourselves ~ GW2 isn’t priced any differently than any other PC game

Again, I’m not the one who promised stuff like minigames in cities, personal home instances and guild halls for the same amount of money. Anet did. The price of the game is irrelevant. Where I come from, if you say you’re selling 2 cows, you’re not getting away easily with delivering only 1 cow.

To be honest, you’ll likely be asked to take both cows with you as we cannot house them in our apartment, but that’s another story altogether.

You don’t have to give them any more money. They aren’t asking you for more money, they are offering services that have the option to obtain by using real money, but by no means is that the only way to obtain said service.

So, don’t use real money if you don’t want to because they are certainly not forcing you to.

@OP….really simple, you want to spend your money or not? 100% up to you, game is F2P and nothing that you buy with gems will give you advantage over people who do not spend money….

They won’t get a single cent from me until they stop focusing on nerfing and focus instead on fixing bugs. They nerf profession after profession while months-old nerfs continue to frustrate players. It seems like most skills that make players feel their characters are good and powerful get hammered down until they are lackluster like other skills that might have been unused, instead of buffing up the already weak skills. That makes progress feel worthless over time because you get a character up to a good place only to see a backslide that makes you weaker like you were levels or days/weeks before that. Coupled with extremely poor loot, that makes the game feel like a hamster wheel that we need to grind hour over hour unless we break down and bend to the almost-blackmail forces and buy gems. That direction is one I will not reward with my money.

The original intent seemed to that purchases in the store would be for your character’s look or gimmicky novelties, instead of substitutions for dozens of hours of playing time. Some time-saving items wouldn’t be too bad, but coupled with a continual lowering of loot it makes it seem like we’re being squeezed.

tnarrant.9714:

They won’t get a single cent from me until they stop focusing on nerfing and focus instead on fixing bugs.

If I had a dollar for every time I heard this about a mmo, I’d have 1 x all mmo’s ever released. I hear yah, but it’s even tiring writing or reading that one any more. I just assume it’s the nature of the beast. Perhaps someday a game will be released totally nerf’d and they loosen the slots.

@ the posts that are saying we are not being forced to give our money to Anet. I know this. Many of the other posts are simply saying that what was promised for their has not been delivered and we’d simply like some more concise communication about what is being done about it.

@ the posts that say Anet is not asking for our money. Well, actually, yes they are. This is exactly why the gem store exists, they are trying to sell a product and they NEED to sell this product as a financial crutch to the game. It is simply how an MMO is maintained and updated. Having said that, I think better communication channels are much deserved by the community regarding this.

@Vaske: “….really simple, you want to spend your money or not? 100% up to you, game is F2P and nothing that you buy with gems will give you advantage over people who do not spend money….”

The lack of insight into your post is overwhelming. Though it is not the issue raised in the original post, for your knowledge the gem store can in fact give a very accelerated advantage to player’s who do spend their money. Need a condition set instead of that crit set? You could literally buy an exotic set within minutes if you were so inclined, where some players would choose to grind this out. Although the players result in a items with the same stats, the gem store can definitely provide a time advantage to players. Boosters also contribute to a time advantage. You can straight up buy gold if you want to. You can buy the hundreds of gold worth of mats needed to make your Legendary quicker. The list goes on. This truly is not what the original post was about but you can clearly see that the gem store does in fact offer some players an advantage, so your post is vastly uneducated.

I don’t agree will the fact that player’s can gain an advantage just by paying gold, but it’s the business model Anet has set up and that aside, the true intention of the post is that these customer’s ARE paying real money, so Anet could at least show some common courtesy to their fans and be more proactive in what they communicate and deliver.

Omen.1879:

Why on Earth, after so much radio silence, such a poor effort in bug fixing, the Lost Cause and really just a lack of proactive community interaction would I be inclined to give Anet more money?.

Well, I’ve seen a lot worse in other games. Tbh not many which were better. People complain about bugs in every game which is valid but imo nothing very major. ANet also communicates quite a lot. You probably expect more answers and future plans and that’s understandable. I think they just don’t have those answers – gaming development is a though thing and things might change in the last minute. They could have a rough idea but they are not solid enough to be public.

People are already mocking about the ‘promised’ guest feature, guild halls, mini activitys and so on. That’s just one more reason to give less answers to things they are not certain about. They just don’t want to ‘promise’ more things which might not make it into the game in the near future.

Some people, for reasons unfathomable to me. Don’t understand the ideal that you spend money not just for the actual products, but for the ideals. Generally this is to me a huge lack of awareness and these folks unfortunately make up for a large chunk of the casual player market, so when those who give a toss about a game or gaming in general look at a cash shop, they look at several things.

Choice
Quality
Price
Investment

There is little to no point in me buying anything from the horribly built, stocked and LIMITED cash shop in GW2, because there’s little incentive for me to be playing the game even RIGHT now, I’d actually rather once again add my 2 cents to the forum instead of even 2 cents to their Cash Shop… I find that ironic in a way.
I’m quite baffled at how this game won time magazines number 1 spot as game of the year, but then again I suppose a race is only as good as it’s participants and while not to say it’s not easily the BEST MMO this year release wise, the best game? not by a friggin long shot, and clearly the fact that we’re not actually out rushing to check time magazine game reviews the minute a games released and the very unreliable reviews and ratings from IGN, well I’m sure you get what I’m driving at

Ultimately what holds this game back is simply that it’s an arena-net idea, built to the specifications of NCsoft. Nothing more.

January sales are a thing.

emikochan.8504:

January sales are a thing.

On what are primarily temporary pointless boosts and random chance boxes? yeah cos reducing their cost by 25% will make that skinner box esque load of rubbish worth buying…

Or ya know….. not

:/

So? If you don’t want them, don’t buy them. If someone wants them, they’ll buy them. Presto, everyone is happy.

I’ve never seen someone complain this much about stuff going on sale before.