Guild Wars 2

I’m just going to say that I’m neither happy nor unhappy with the game. I’m currently satisfied with what is available here and what I do in the game to keep me here. I only play for now and not the future, and don’t bother with the past. If Anet is able to keep me satisfied then awesome, otherwise sayonara.

Stormcrow.7513:

I would play a Dragonlance MMO anyday lol TAKE MY MONEY!!!

Same! Someone fantasised about a Discworld mmo in chat last night too…

Stormcrow.7513:

WTS stack of Otik’s spicey potatoes 100k+10e

http://www.dlnexus.com/fan/recipes/11897.aspx

Actually a plate of those right now might make me happy!

I just bookmarked this.

laokoko.7403:

Right but do you think this type of post go on the Wow or FF14 forum that often.

Sure people on the other games complain too, but usually not about this topic.

Anet simply pushed too much effort on LS, and ignored many things other people want.

I agree with you 100%.

As for the LS, I have an idea on how it can be fixed so the devs can worldbuild while doing LS updates. See this thread for more info: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/livingworld/lwd/The-Biconics-cannot-carry-the-GW-Franchise/page/4#post4354780

RubiBayer.8134:

pdavis, for what it’s worth, I’ve seen quite a lot of value in this thread over the past day. Reading through, it seems that a number of people are giving the OP’s question consideration and replying with both their own feelings and their thoughts on the general population’s mood and communication.

It’s nice to see so many players having a real discussion about the things that they both like and dislike, and I’m finding it personally helpful.

This actually does make me feel better. Thank you. I can understand the importance and value of such a discussion. I for one love this game. Ive brought my wife into it, and want to bring my son into it. (He’s only 2 so it’ll be awhile.) I love the game play, the art work, the friends ive made in my guild, the challenge of going after a legendary weapon, the story, all of it. Its very well done. But I find it distressing to see so many people just bashing on it. I took this game and made it my own, and seeing it so denigrated so many times on the forums, almost feels like a personal attack. I dont get how you guys deal with it. All the hard work, time, and yourselves you’ve all poured into this amazing game, to see it so raged against and abused. I commend you. I would have done much worse in your shoes.

I can get why people feel a certain way, that they are not happy with the game and where its going. But comparing it to other games? Its like comparing the mona lisa to a salvador dhali. But are amazing and wonder pieces of art in their own right, but neither holds a candle to the other. Demanding changes while prophecying the games destruction if its not done? Seems a lot like threatening to burn down a steak house if they won’t start serving tofu. Calling the devs lazy/liars/incompetent because they wont add a feature you want? Its like calling those who built the pyramids lazy/incompetent because they didnt add in an elevator. Im not saying any of this was in the post, but the forums in general. If there is any portion of this game that I am unhappy about, its the forums.

RubiBayer.8134:

pdavis, for what it’s worth, I’ve seen quite a lot of value in this thread over the past day. Reading through, it seems that a number of people are giving the OP’s question consideration and replying with both their own feelings and their thoughts on the general population’s mood and communication.

It’s nice to see so many players having a real discussion about the things that they both like and dislike, and I’m finding it personally helpful.

Thank you for the response! Glad to be of service!

Here’s to hoping that all the devs (and the CEO) will hear our responses in this thread and keep our views in mind as they create future updates!

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

dkspins.4670:

Megaservers have wrecked server identity. The trait system as caused current players to double think whether or not to buy a new slot. The changes for new players (becoming in line with China’s current system) has truly made me not recommend the game to others. Nerfs in farming, zerg mentality, nothing new to do… MMORPG has a great article today on the changes coming in September http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/473/feature/8879/New-Players-Will-Have-It-Rough.html/page/1 The whole new player changes are discouraging, will be doing experiments with a couple of my nephews (7 & levelling now and after the patch (my grandson is only 2). Seriously Anet says rallying is too confusing for new player, and horizonal progression with traits encourages players to succeed and understand their chosen class. pfft. If I, a senior cititzen and neophyte to MMO’s (only played Spyro & Crash Bandikoot before) could figure it out and level 15 toons to 80, I’m sure that ANYONE could do so.

So, I’m wondering….do you think the Devs are being disingenuous when they explain why they chose this route instead of, say, adding a downed-mechanic tutorial to the intial starter instance? I mean, why would they say they tested several different ways of introducing the players to this mechanic, and found the results so surprising? What would they gain by flat-out lying about such a thing? Irritating the existing playerbase? Would that be their goal?

No, of course I do not believe Arenanet is being disingenuous about this. It does surprise me that others have had difficulties with rallying. Of course, each profession is different.

My suggestion would be either an in-game tutorial on how to rally, but more importantly that Anet would suggest GW2 wiki or You Tube for aspects of the game which may be confusing to new players (Those two resources were the best advice I’d ever received in this game – by other players). I am merely curious how my nephews will react to the game before and after the patch.

pdavis.8031:

RubiBayer.8134:

pdavis, for what it’s worth, I’ve seen quite a lot of value in this thread over the past day. Reading through, it seems that a number of people are giving the OP’s question consideration and replying with both their own feelings and their thoughts on the general population’s mood and communication.

It’s nice to see so many players having a real discussion about the things that they both like and dislike, and I’m finding it personally helpful.

This actually does make me feel better. Thank you. I can understand the importance and value of such a discussion. I for one love this game. Ive brought my wife into it, and want to bring my son into it. (He’s only 2 so it’ll be awhile.) I love the game play, the art work, the friends ive made in my guild, the challenge of going after a legendary weapon, the story, all of it. Its very well done. But I find it distressing to see so many people just bashing on it. I took this game and made it my own, and seeing it so denigrated so many times on the forums, almost feels like a personal attack. I dont get how you guys deal with it. All the hard work, time, and yourselves you’ve all poured into this amazing game, to see it so raged against and abused. I commend you. I would have done much worse in your shoes.

I can get why people feel a certain way, that they are not happy with the game and where its going. But comparing it to other games? Its like comparing the mona lisa to a salvador dhali. But are amazing and wonder pieces of art in their own right, but neither holds a candle to the other. Demanding changes while prophecying the games destruction if its not done? Seems a lot like threatening to burn down a steak house if they won’t start serving tofu. Calling the devs lazy/liars/incompetent because they wont add a feature you want? Its like calling those who built the pyramids lazy/incompetent because they didnt add in an elevator. Im not saying any of this was in the post, but the forums in general. If there is any portion of this game that I am unhappy about, its the forums.

Right but there is blatantly no update beside the LS and QoL improvement which mostly is cash shop related.

Dont’ get me wrong, I think the LS is well done, and I see lots of effort putting into it.

But the other parts of the game is pretty much ignored. Anet developer even said they ignore it. (because adding more to it will fraction player base).

Hey anet staff instead of focusing on this topic why not read other topics as well??

Silverfed, smart loot, class balancing, skill bugs. These topics are rampant here in forums and need attention and yet you choose to ignore them.

Anyway, im contented with this game but not happy. And from what im seeing, the declining population, this will soon rot. Hope anet pull something great and actually do something before implementing patches.

Good thing cdi is back though. Atleast players can help anet do some changes instead of anet doing changes blindly.

Tbh i dont believe anet staffs play the game at all. Some of the changes theyre doing, while looking good at paper, will worsen the game experience if implemented.

gobax.6185:

Hey anet staff instead of focusing on this topic why not read other topics as well??

Silverfed, smart loot, class balancing, skill bugs. These topics are rampant here in forums and need attention and yet you choose to ignore them.

Anyway, im contented with this game but not happy. And from what im seeing, the declining population, this will soon rot. Hope anet pull something great and actually do something before implementing patches.

Good thing cdi is back though. Atleast players can help anet do some changes instead of anet doing changes blindly.

Tbh i dont believe anet staffs play the game at all. Some of the changes theyre doing, while looking good at paper, will worsen the game experience if implemented.

You do realize there was dev confirmation that anet sets aside time for them to play the game, and that many of them also play on their own time right?

dkspins.4670:

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

dkspins.4670:

Megaservers have wrecked server identity. The trait system as caused current players to double think whether or not to buy a new slot. The changes for new players (becoming in line with China’s current system) has truly made me not recommend the game to others. Nerfs in farming, zerg mentality, nothing new to do… MMORPG has a great article today on the changes coming in September http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/473/feature/8879/New-Players-Will-Have-It-Rough.html/page/1 The whole new player changes are discouraging, will be doing experiments with a couple of my nephews (7 & levelling now and after the patch (my grandson is only 2). Seriously Anet says rallying is too confusing for new player, and horizonal progression with traits encourages players to succeed and understand their chosen class. pfft. If I, a senior cititzen and neophyte to MMO’s (only played Spyro & Crash Bandikoot before) could figure it out and level 15 toons to 80, I’m sure that ANYONE could do so.

So, I’m wondering….do you think the Devs are being disingenuous when they explain why they chose this route instead of, say, adding a downed-mechanic tutorial to the intial starter instance? I mean, why would they say they tested several different ways of introducing the players to this mechanic, and found the results so surprising? What would they gain by flat-out lying about such a thing? Irritating the existing playerbase? Would that be their goal?

No, of course I do not believe Arenanet is being disingenuous about this. It does surprise me that others have had difficulties with rallying. Of course, each profession is different.

My suggestion would be either an in-game tutorial on how to rally, but more importantly that Anet would suggest GW2 wiki or You Tube for aspects of the game which may be confusing to new players (Those two resources were the best advice I’d ever received in this game – by other players). I am merely curious how my nephews will react to the game before and after the patch.

They could also list the downed skills in the weapon skills list so you could see what the skills do without being downed while in the game.

I’m going to skip the majority of the thread and just answer the OP’s question:

Kythan Myr.4719:

TL;DR: So are you happy with the state of changes in GW2 for the past two years? Sure there has been some good, but it seems most people are just unhappy overall.

I’m happy with parts of the game, but it’s fewer parts than when I started.

This game has strengths and weaknesses. Things it can excel at, and things it will NEVER excel at. One of the persistent problems is that the devs seem to be trying to boost the things it will never excel at, at the cost of what it can excel at.

This game has the makings of one of the best casual games on the market. Sadly, they’ve pushed away from that. Think of it like this: A truly good casual game should feel like you just got to take part in an epic storyline or battle, akin to what you see in a LotR or Narnia movie. Now, imagine if the added in a “gather 45 minutes before the battle and just stand around waiting” scene that actually lasted 45 minutes. That would suck, right? Well, that’s what we get for Teq and the 3Worm. That’s what you get for ascended weapon/armor crafting, too. Hurry up and wait is never fun.

Legendaries? The RNG and gathering of absurd levels of resources needs to go. Work is good, GRIND is bad.

Personal story? Despite disliking Trahearne (though it’s a bit better after I played a Sylvari), I think the personal story is by and large a good thing. Right up until the end, where it requires a dungeon run. PERSONAL story!

Hearts help to tell the story of an area, and give a sense of progression as you complete them. You get access to more places to sell, and maybe even a few interesting items as you finish them. There are only 5 PvE zones without them, and the only one that seems popular is the one with a different way to measure progression within the zone.

Immersion is a good thing for this game. Casual play is a good thing for this game. Sadly, a lot of the updates seem to go against these ideas and try to appease players that want things they can get better in other games. I still have good/happy moments, but not as many as I used to have.

I’m extremely disappointed by GW2. As a GW1 vet, I was looking forward to see the complexity of GW1 in an open world like we have in most MMOs. Instead we got a dumbed down grindfest in order to “appeal to a broader audience” i.e. casuals.
Every other thread in the PvE forum is how jumping is too hard and fighting is inconvenient and how this and that is offensive.. and I am sick and tired of it.

On the other hand, we have the least inclusive dev team I’ve ever seen. Good suggestions to improve core features have been ignored for years, promises have been broken, the PvP and WvW community get neglected… And the latest feature patch is hands down a slap in the face. Months of no communication and what we get are coloured tags and some quality of life updates. Wow, a huge bag of nothing. Not even squad features, simply.. nothing. Personally I would love to know, what the devs are working on so hard which is so important they cannot talk about because this feature patch certainly can’t be it, can it?

The longer we wait, the higher rise the expectations but I guess in the end the GW2 community is supposed to suffer. To me, GW died with the first game, the second has nothing in common with its predecessor, neither content- nor qualitywise.

tl;dr: I’m not happy.

Am I happy with GW2? Well, I haven’t really played since 2013, so I guess my answer is “meh”. This will continue to be my answer until there are some meaningful Necro changes (or another SAB which I temporarily come back for).

i’ve been on this game for 2 years and i’m usually happiest when i keep to myself.. it’s an ok game.. what really gets me is exploits in every direction and the misguided notion that it’s ‘just the way to go’ and how it has Somehow become some askew gauge of ‘talent’

i’m glad arena net is back to work and put their focus on the playability and lore.. they’ll probably have to deal with the howling of a vocal minority on the forums but in the long run it’s the way to keep the game running with a healthier congregation of players

I’m sure part of the problem is that the China launch took a huge amount of work and everyone is playing catch up. Pushing the devs to work harder and harder isn’t actually going to get us new content faster. It just means more burnout, which affects the speed at which stuff is released.

Even without the extra pressure, game development and specifically MMO development is just brutal at times. Like it’s almost always crunch time.

People want what they want now, without really understanding why they can’t have it on their schedule.

I know it is not that easy to fix things. But why spend resources on making changes that are not needed at all rather than putting those resources into better use which actually benefits the game. If they are playing they can easily see these stuffs.

Warrior change for example. Nobody is crying about gs warriors in pvp yet they nerfed it while not changing hammerbow which is the one needed tweaking.

Smart loot. I know you guys already heard enough of this.

Mesmer reworks sure the buff in scepter is good. But it still doesnt make them any better in pve.

New leveling experience. Gw2 said so themselves that the game starts at 80. Thats why they make it easy to reach 80. We dont need new leveling experience. We need more things to make us stay in game when were 80.

gobax.6185:

Awww how cute <3 you believe everything people tell you? Such a gullible fellow youre really suited for gw2 if youre this easy to fool

So, we’re supposed to believe you telling us not to believe everyone, so does that mean we shouldn’t believe what you say?

First of all there are no proof on their statement.

I’ve had it proven.

2nd if you see the changes they are doing, majority are irrelevant and doesnt not fix the issues majority are talking about in game.

Probably because it looks a lot like the two clients are being brought closer to each other in terms of content after it was used in the China launch and it didn’t explode. OF course, no, I don’t have proof of that either but it’s been noticed more than a few of the features are essentially localized out of the China launch with one notable (and thankful) exception.

If they do play the game, it is pretty easy to see whats wrong and what should be done. Heck! They dont even have to play the game, they just need to read the forums. This topic alone gives many ideas on what the players want.

I suppose it does.

But is what the players want good for the game?

How best to answer the question…..

I’m happy that the game is getting improvements, but I’m Unhappy with many aspects of the feature pack, and I’d be hard pressed to say it actually adds anything new and fresh to the game. Its not that the features takes anything away either, besides the even slower leveling experience. Making the leveling experience even slower in the name of making the already simple systems (in MMO terms) even simpler to understand, just doesn’t really make sense. I have one level 80 (Ranger, and proud of it!), but, none of these changes are really motivating me to go finish leveling any of my other characters.

I’m Happy that the Professions are getting balanced, but I am Unhappy, actually, unimpressed, almost to the point of being insulted, that it takes 5-6 months for a new balance patch to come out.

It also irks me to no end that the Article for Balance Changes are grouped together with ‘Competitive Week’ PvP and WvW changes. Any balance changes that are made affect PvE as well.

Balance changes are also NOT A FEATURE. Balance changes should NEVER BE A FEATURE. I felt it important and very necessary to bold and capitalize those facts because Anet seems to be advertising balance changes, the most necessary update to keep an MMO running smoothly, as a feature.

This is something that should be done on a regular basis to fix glaring bugs in the system, and remove imbalances in the system. Regular basis is like, every 2-3 months, not 6. Even worse is the fact that some of the changes might actually be a bad thing, and, now its going to upset the balance of the game for….another half a year…what?!? No amount of internal testing (even 6 months worth) is going to remove the fact that players can and will discover problems with any balance update, then exploit it as maliciously as possible for the next half a year until it gets removed. Sometimes those things are used/exploited for several years, and take forever to fix(such as the fiery great sword thing). Probably even worse than that is that there are some bugs that still exist, years after release, and they aren’t being fixed.

One thing that makes me definitively Unhappy is that its been two years, and the ways you can play your Class/Profession/Race/Etc. hasn’t been expanded in any significant way. There has been 1 Living World healing skill, 1 Actual Healing Skill, and 5 new Traits.

The act of Expanding the ways you can play your Profession, by releasing new Weapon/Utility skills is what I would call both a Feature and new Content. A Balance patch, that might remove/replace a trait out of necessity? Never is that a feature, or content.

The final thing is this China release that everyone’s talking about…
Its good that time went into developing the Chinese version. Its great that it wasn’t just some copy and paste job, and new features were made so the game was easier to understand for them. Its amazing that as many copies were sold in China as Guild Wars 2 had in its entire existence in North America and Europe. Its very not awesome that the Chinese development/release happened at the expense of Non-Chinese players, and that much asked for features/content, like actual expansions to the Professions (weapons and skills), or Precursor Crafting, either got postponed, or never happened to begin with, and instead, we’re playing catch up to China, even though we’ve been more loyal, and have been around longer.

/rant

i really want mounts in gw2…. it is a little thing but it could change the game.

It does. This thread alone already have so mamy great ideas coming from players and ive seen countless thread that all have good ideas. They choose to ignore it (if its true that thay are really reading these topics).

No im not forcing you to believe me as i myself do not have concrete proofs.

Im just stating my assumptions based on the evidence being shown which is making changes to things that do not need changes. And those that do remains untouched.

Tachenon.5270:

Vayne.8563:

Do you know, I didn’t see Titanic for years, because I knew how it ended. The ship sunk.

What? Kitten! Spoilers! Just for that, Bruce Willis (nobody else read the rest of this sentence) was a dead people the whole time! So there.

Speaking of icebergs, are game forums are the tip of a metaphorical iceberg?

gobax.6185:

I know it is not that easy to fix things. But why spend resources on making changes that are not needed at all rather than putting those resources into better use which actually benefits the game. If they are playing they can easily see these stuffs.

Warrior change for example. Nobody is crying about gs warriors in pvp yet they nerfed it while not changing hammerbow which is the one needed tweaking.

Smart loot. I know you guys already heard enough of this.

Mesmer reworks sure the buff in scepter is good. But it still doesnt make them any better in pve.

New leveling experience. Gw2 said so themselves that the game starts at 80. Thats why they make it easy to reach 80. We dont need new leveling experience. We need more things to make us stay in game when were 80.

Okay this is where I have an issue with what you’re saying. You’re saying they’re making changes no one asked for. And I really have to disagree with this. Mostly because so many of the changes we see have actually been asked for quite frequently.

For example, we know PvPers have asked for PvP specific rewards. We know that players have asked for account bound commander tags and commander tags in color. It was part of the CDI. We know that people have asked for minipet slots. We know people have complained a lot about frame rates in zergs..that’s in the patch. You can’t tell me you’ve never seen anyone ask for performance enhancement. There are often people on the crafting forums asking for crafting improvements, including the UI. The ability to search the wardrobe is a much needed improvement. These are things people have asked for.

As for the new leveling stuff, I’ve seen time and time again questions on reddit and on player helping players that show that these changes were asked for. There were actually several big threads on tutorials. People do find the game challenging and leave when they can’t figure it out. How many people? You tell me. I bet Anet has a pretty good idea, though.

And they did testing to get even a better idea. So what changes are they implementing that haven’t been asked for exactly?

Gibson.4036:

A lot of pointless argument could be avoided if we could stick to discussing whether we think a certain thing would be more enjoyable or not, rather than making up information we don’t really have about how things would impact ArenaNet finances or manpower.

If you were aware of the sheer amount of ‘constructive feedback’ in the pvp&profession forums, you’d understand that (still) trying to discuss such things is nothing but an effort in futility. A ‘been there, done that’ kind of thing.

Chrispy.5641:

The final thing is this China release that everyone’s talking about…
Its good that time went into developing the Chinese version. Its great that it wasn’t just some copy and paste job, and new features were made so the game was easier to understand for them. Its amazing that as many copies were sold in China as Guild Wars 2 had in its entire existence in North America and Europe. Its very not awesome that the Chinese development/release happened at the expense of Non-Chinese players, and that much asked for features/content, like actual expansions to the Professions (weapons and skills), or Precursor Crafting, either got postponed, or never happened to begin with, and instead, we’re playing catch up to China, even though we’ve been more loyal, and have been around longer.

They didn’t sell as much as NA/EU in China. They clarified the 4 million was probably an estimate of characters created.

http://twitter.com/GuildWars2/status/487745928137154560

We’d like to clarify recent news of GW2 China sales: it’s inaccurate, from a Chinese fansite, and they could be estimating characters.

They only sold (activated?) 1+ mil in China (only quoting the relevant part):

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/2erxzu/kongzhong_2q14_earnings_over_1m_cdkeys_activated/

They gave some details about GW2 China during the conference call.
- over 1M activated copies

BlueZone.4236:

Chrispy.5641:

The final thing is this China release that everyone’s talking about…
Its good that time went into developing the Chinese version. Its great that it wasn’t just some copy and paste job, and new features were made so the game was easier to understand for them. Its amazing that as many copies were sold in China as Guild Wars 2 had in its entire existence in North America and Europe. Its very not awesome that the Chinese development/release happened at the expense of Non-Chinese players, and that much asked for features/content, like actual expansions to the Professions (weapons and skills), or Precursor Crafting, either got postponed, or never happened to begin with, and instead, we’re playing catch up to China, even though we’ve been more loyal, and have been around longer.

They didn’t sell as much as NA/EU in China. They clarified the 4 million was probably an estimate of characters created.

http://twitter.com/GuildWars2/status/487745928137154560

We’d like to clarify recent news of GW2 China sales: it’s inaccurate, from a Chinese fansite, and they could be estimating characters.

They only sold (activated?) 1+ mil in China (only quoting the relevant part):

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/2erxzu/kongzhong_2q14_earnings_over_1m_cdkeys_activated/

They gave some details about GW2 China during the conference call.
- over 1M activated copies

Okay then….guess I’m wrong about that part, but doesn’t that just make it a little bit worse that three million of us are playing catch up to the 1 million player minority because these things are saved and unreleased until the scheduled feature pack?

(was using IGN as reference, but IGN never updated their article. Checked Massively, and they did. Guess I know who’s more reliable now! also, I pretty much never read twitter or reddit posts.)

Chrispy.5641:

BlueZone.4236:

Chrispy.5641:

The final thing is this China release that everyone’s talking about…
Its good that time went into developing the Chinese version. Its great that it wasn’t just some copy and paste job, and new features were made so the game was easier to understand for them. Its amazing that as many copies were sold in China as Guild Wars 2 had in its entire existence in North America and Europe. Its very not awesome that the Chinese development/release happened at the expense of Non-Chinese players, and that much asked for features/content, like actual expansions to the Professions (weapons and skills), or Precursor Crafting, either got postponed, or never happened to begin with, and instead, we’re playing catch up to China, even though we’ve been more loyal, and have been around longer.

They didn’t sell as much as NA/EU in China. They clarified the 4 million was probably an estimate of characters created.

http://twitter.com/GuildWars2/status/487745928137154560

We’d like to clarify recent news of GW2 China sales: it’s inaccurate, from a Chinese fansite, and they could be estimating characters.

They only sold (activated?) 1+ mil in China (only quoting the relevant part):

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/2erxzu/kongzhong_2q14_earnings_over_1m_cdkeys_activated/

They gave some details about GW2 China during the conference call.
- over 1M activated copies

Okay then….guess I’m wrong about that part, but doesn’t that just make it worse that three million of us are playing catch up to the 1 million player minority because these things are ‘saved’ and ‘unreleased’ until the feature pack?

(was using IGN as reference, but IGN never updated their article. Checked Massively, and they did. Guess I know who’s more reliable now! also, I pretty much never read twitter or reddit posts.)

I don’t think this makes particular sense. Something that’s programmed into the china server can’t just be snapped into the US version of the game. It requires work and testing to get that stuff to work.

Also, I doubt there are three million people playing. Three people bought the game. It’s likely there’s closer to an equal number of people.

China was getting released. That’s a big influx of people and cash, even if it’s just a million. By logic that’s what the company HAD to work on. That’s their bread and butter. So now, we play catch up, because some of that stuff fixes some of our problems. It still has to be ported over and tested, which still takes time.

I’m guessing they didn’t have this ready for us until a lot more recently.

Vayne.8563:

Chrispy.5641:

BlueZone.4236:

Chrispy.5641:

The final thing is this China release that everyone’s talking about…
Its good that time went into developing the Chinese version. Its great that it wasn’t just some copy and paste job, and new features were made so the game was easier to understand for them. Its amazing that as many copies were sold in China as Guild Wars 2 had in its entire existence in North America and Europe. Its very not awesome that the Chinese development/release happened at the expense of Non-Chinese players, and that much asked for features/content, like actual expansions to the Professions (weapons and skills), or Precursor Crafting, either got postponed, or never happened to begin with, and instead, we’re playing catch up to China, even though we’ve been more loyal, and have been around longer.

They didn’t sell as much as NA/EU in China. They clarified the 4 million was probably an estimate of characters created.

http://twitter.com/GuildWars2/status/487745928137154560

We’d like to clarify recent news of GW2 China sales: it’s inaccurate, from a Chinese fansite, and they could be estimating characters.

They only sold (activated?) 1+ mil in China (only quoting the relevant part):

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/2erxzu/kongzhong_2q14_earnings_over_1m_cdkeys_activated/

They gave some details about GW2 China during the conference call.
- over 1M activated copies

Okay then….guess I’m wrong about that part, but doesn’t that just make it worse that three million of us are playing catch up to the 1 million player minority because these things are ‘saved’ and ‘unreleased’ until the feature pack?

(was using IGN as reference, but IGN never updated their article. Checked Massively, and they did. Guess I know who’s more reliable now! also, I pretty much never read twitter or reddit posts.)

I don’t think this makes particular sense. Something that’s programmed into the china server can’t just be snapped into the US version of the game. It requires work and testing to get that stuff to work.

If it requires that much work and testing, then it means that each version has different code. Even if slightly different, that’s a bad thing. I really doubt that Anet was that foolish when it came to programming the China version, because it would mean that for now on, we either get half the features, or they have to work twice as hard to get the same features in each version. That’s not just foolish, that’s just plain dumb.

Andred.1087:

Yes, there are people who are happy with the game, and they’re all playing the game quietly. Forums account for a small minority of the player base in any game.

You almost make it seem as if it’s not so important because it’s a minority but that’s of course not true. Sure the people on the forums are a minority, it are the people willing to share idea’s, suggestions and dislikes about the game. That does however not mean that all people not on the forums are happy including those playing (as proven by the forums because people who have complains in the forum are likely playing so even that is not a good indicator).Player base is more an indicator for the longer term (2 to 3 years).

Chrispy.5641:

Vayne.8563:

Chrispy.5641:

BlueZone.4236:

Chrispy.5641:

The final thing is this China release that everyone’s talking about…
Its good that time went into developing the Chinese version. Its great that it wasn’t just some copy and paste job, and new features were made so the game was easier to understand for them. Its amazing that as many copies were sold in China as Guild Wars 2 had in its entire existence in North America and Europe. Its very not awesome that the Chinese development/release happened at the expense of Non-Chinese players, and that much asked for features/content, like actual expansions to the Professions (weapons and skills), or Precursor Crafting, either got postponed, or never happened to begin with, and instead, we’re playing catch up to China, even though we’ve been more loyal, and have been around longer.

They didn’t sell as much as NA/EU in China. They clarified the 4 million was probably an estimate of characters created.

http://twitter.com/GuildWars2/status/487745928137154560

We’d like to clarify recent news of GW2 China sales: it’s inaccurate, from a Chinese fansite, and they could be estimating characters.

They only sold (activated?) 1+ mil in China (only quoting the relevant part):

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/2erxzu/kongzhong_2q14_earnings_over_1m_cdkeys_activated/

They gave some details about GW2 China during the conference call.
- over 1M activated copies

Okay then….guess I’m wrong about that part, but doesn’t that just make it worse that three million of us are playing catch up to the 1 million player minority because these things are ‘saved’ and ‘unreleased’ until the feature pack?

(was using IGN as reference, but IGN never updated their article. Checked Massively, and they did. Guess I know who’s more reliable now! also, I pretty much never read twitter or reddit posts.)

I don’t think this makes particular sense. Something that’s programmed into the china server can’t just be snapped into the US version of the game. It requires work and testing to get that stuff to work.

If it requires that much work and testing, then it means that each version has different code. Even if slightly different, that’s a bad thing. I really doubt that Anet was that foolish when it came to programming the China version, because it would mean that for now on, we either get half the features, or they have to work twice as hard to get the same features in each version. That’s not just foolish, that’s just plain dumb.

They have to have some different code, because they’re different games. For example, stuff unlocks in China at different levels that it unlocks in the US. I’m sure that there are many individual differences, even though they have the same engine. Some of those were implemented just for the Chinese market and were never meant to port over.

Vayne.8563:

Chrispy.5641:

Vayne.8563:

Chrispy.5641:

BlueZone.4236:

Chrispy.5641:

The final thing is this China release that everyone’s talking about…
Its good that time went into developing the Chinese version. Its great that it wasn’t just some copy and paste job, and new features were made so the game was easier to understand for them. Its amazing that as many copies were sold in China as Guild Wars 2 had in its entire existence in North America and Europe. Its very not awesome that the Chinese development/release happened at the expense of Non-Chinese players, and that much asked for features/content, like actual expansions to the Professions (weapons and skills), or Precursor Crafting, either got postponed, or never happened to begin with, and instead, we’re playing catch up to China, even though we’ve been more loyal, and have been around longer.

They didn’t sell as much as NA/EU in China. They clarified the 4 million was probably an estimate of characters created.

http://twitter.com/GuildWars2/status/487745928137154560

We’d like to clarify recent news of GW2 China sales: it’s inaccurate, from a Chinese fansite, and they could be estimating characters.

They only sold (activated?) 1+ mil in China (only quoting the relevant part):

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/2erxzu/kongzhong_2q14_earnings_over_1m_cdkeys_activated/

They gave some details about GW2 China during the conference call.
- over 1M activated copies

Okay then….guess I’m wrong about that part, but doesn’t that just make it worse that three million of us are playing catch up to the 1 million player minority because these things are ‘saved’ and ‘unreleased’ until the feature pack?

(was using IGN as reference, but IGN never updated their article. Checked Massively, and they did. Guess I know who’s more reliable now! also, I pretty much never read twitter or reddit posts.)

I don’t think this makes particular sense. Something that’s programmed into the china server can’t just be snapped into the US version of the game. It requires work and testing to get that stuff to work.

If it requires that much work and testing, then it means that each version has different code. Even if slightly different, that’s a bad thing. I really doubt that Anet was that foolish when it came to programming the China version, because it would mean that for now on, we either get half the features, or they have to work twice as hard to get the same features in each version. That’s not just foolish, that’s just plain dumb.

They have to have some different code, because they’re different games. For example, stuff unlocks in China at different levels that it unlocks in the US. I’m sure that there are many individual differences, even though they have the same engine. Some of those were implemented just for the Chinese market and were never meant to port over.

Despite that some of those things (that I remind you were never meant for our version) were found through data mining?

To answer the OP’s question, I’m not happy. I’m a long time GW1 veteran, and necromancer is my favorite class. I notice that my favorite class is very broken, especially in PVE, and I notice a lot of balance issues regarding the various classes. What seals the deal for me, is how my favorite class keeps being dead last whenever balancing is done, and how little time is spent on fixing our skills. When Signet of Vampirism was introduced, it was clearly useless, even on paper, but they implemented it anyway. And it still hasn’t been fixed. I think that’s a good reason why the necro community as a whole is unhappy.

But my unhappiness extends further than just my favorite class. The Gem Store severely undermines the rewards in the game, because every new item pops in the store, instead of the game. And there doesn’t seem to be a coherent content delivery plan. There’s not a whole lot of long term planning whenever new content is released. The Molten Facility dungeon is a good example, which they could have added as a permanent addition, but instead they put the scissors to it, and added it to Fractals. The end result is but a fraction of the original design, and I feel sorry for the original designer. It’s kind of insulting, considering the hard work that went into it.

I wish there was a larger long term scope to the content deliveries. And I wish they’d finally fix the unfinished camera and targeting system.

Chrispy.5641:

Vayne.8563:

Chrispy.5641:

BlueZone.4236:

Chrispy.5641:

The final thing is this China release that everyone’s talking about…
Its good that time went into developing the Chinese version. Its great that it wasn’t just some copy and paste job, and new features were made so the game was easier to understand for them. Its amazing that as many copies were sold in China as Guild Wars 2 had in its entire existence in North America and Europe. Its very not awesome that the Chinese development/release happened at the expense of Non-Chinese players, and that much asked for features/content, like actual expansions to the Professions (weapons and skills), or Precursor Crafting, either got postponed, or never happened to begin with, and instead, we’re playing catch up to China, even though we’ve been more loyal, and have been around longer.

They didn’t sell as much as NA/EU in China. They clarified the 4 million was probably an estimate of characters created.

http://twitter.com/GuildWars2/status/487745928137154560

We’d like to clarify recent news of GW2 China sales: it’s inaccurate, from a Chinese fansite, and they could be estimating characters.

They only sold (activated?) 1+ mil in China (only quoting the relevant part):

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/2erxzu/kongzhong_2q14_earnings_over_1m_cdkeys_activated/

They gave some details about GW2 China during the conference call.
- over 1M activated copies

Okay then….guess I’m wrong about that part, but doesn’t that just make it worse that three million of us are playing catch up to the 1 million player minority because these things are ‘saved’ and ‘unreleased’ until the feature pack?

(was using IGN as reference, but IGN never updated their article. Checked Massively, and they did. Guess I know who’s more reliable now! also, I pretty much never read twitter or reddit posts.)

I don’t think this makes particular sense. Something that’s programmed into the china server can’t just be snapped into the US version of the game. It requires work and testing to get that stuff to work.

If it requires that much work and testing, then it means that each version has different code. Even if slightly different, that’s a bad thing. I really doubt that Anet was that foolish when it came to programming the China version, because it would mean that for now on, we either get half the features, or they have to work twice as hard to get the same features in each version. That’s not just foolish, that’s just plain dumb.

Right, but Anet dont’ have a choice. Foreign game studio can’t just go to China and release mmorpg there. They have to cooperate with other domestic china company by law.

Simply put, Anet really dont’ have full control on what goes on in China. Another company(publisher) is working with Anet to release GW2 in China. ANd since they are cooperating, some features might be included/excluded because the local publisher wanted it that way.

laokoko.7403:

Chrispy.5641:

Vayne.8563:

Chrispy.5641:

BlueZone.4236:

Chrispy.5641:

The final thing is this China release that everyone’s talking about…
Its good that time went into developing the Chinese version. Its great that it wasn’t just some copy and paste job, and new features were made so the game was easier to understand for them. Its amazing that as many copies were sold in China as Guild Wars 2 had in its entire existence in North America and Europe. Its very not awesome that the Chinese development/release happened at the expense of Non-Chinese players, and that much asked for features/content, like actual expansions to the Professions (weapons and skills), or Precursor Crafting, either got postponed, or never happened to begin with, and instead, we’re playing catch up to China, even though we’ve been more loyal, and have been around longer.

They didn’t sell as much as NA/EU in China. They clarified the 4 million was probably an estimate of characters created.

http://twitter.com/GuildWars2/status/487745928137154560

We’d like to clarify recent news of GW2 China sales: it’s inaccurate, from a Chinese fansite, and they could be estimating characters.

They only sold (activated?) 1+ mil in China (only quoting the relevant part):

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/2erxzu/kongzhong_2q14_earnings_over_1m_cdkeys_activated/

They gave some details about GW2 China during the conference call.
- over 1M activated copies

Okay then….guess I’m wrong about that part, but doesn’t that just make it worse that three million of us are playing catch up to the 1 million player minority because these things are ‘saved’ and ‘unreleased’ until the feature pack?

(was using IGN as reference, but IGN never updated their article. Checked Massively, and they did. Guess I know who’s more reliable now! also, I pretty much never read twitter or reddit posts.)

I don’t think this makes particular sense. Something that’s programmed into the china server can’t just be snapped into the US version of the game. It requires work and testing to get that stuff to work.

If it requires that much work and testing, then it means that each version has different code. Even if slightly different, that’s a bad thing. I really doubt that Anet was that foolish when it came to programming the China version, because it would mean that for now on, we either get half the features, or they have to work twice as hard to get the same features in each version. That’s not just foolish, that’s just plain dumb.

Right, but Anet dont’ have a choice. Foreign game studio can’t just go to China and release mmorpg there. They have to cooperate with other domestic china company by law.

Simply put, Anet really dont’ have full control on what goes on in China. Another company(publisher) is working with Anet to release GW2 in China. ANd since they are cooperating, some features might be included/excluded because the local publisher wanted it that way.

It’s true. Some features they have in China they’d hate here. Really hate.

Devata.6589:

Andred.1087:

Yes, there are people who are happy with the game, and they’re all playing the game quietly. Forums account for a small minority of the player base in any game.

You almost make it seem as if it’s not so important because it’s a minority but that’s of course not true. Sure the people on the forums are a minority, it are the people willing to share idea’s, suggestions and dislikes about the game. That does however not mean that all people not on the forums are happy including those playing (as proven by the forums because people who have complains in the forum are likely playing so even that is not a good indicator).Player base is more an indicator for the longer term (2 to 3 years).

I kind of agree with him. Most people dont’ like the game already quit the game. The majority of people are either playing the game already or quit the game already.

I think most of my guildmates are quite happy. Because those that dont’ like the game, never logged on and get kicked out of the guild.

Vayne.8563:

laokoko.7403:

Chrispy.5641:

Vayne.8563:

Chrispy.5641:

BlueZone.4236:

Chrispy.5641:

The final thing is this China release that everyone’s talking about…
Its good that time went into developing the Chinese version. Its great that it wasn’t just some copy and paste job, and new features were made so the game was easier to understand for them. Its amazing that as many copies were sold in China as Guild Wars 2 had in its entire existence in North America and Europe. Its very not awesome that the Chinese development/release happened at the expense of Non-Chinese players, and that much asked for features/content, like actual expansions to the Professions (weapons and skills), or Precursor Crafting, either got postponed, or never happened to begin with, and instead, we’re playing catch up to China, even though we’ve been more loyal, and have been around longer.

They didn’t sell as much as NA/EU in China. They clarified the 4 million was probably an estimate of characters created.

http://twitter.com/GuildWars2/status/487745928137154560

We’d like to clarify recent news of GW2 China sales: it’s inaccurate, from a Chinese fansite, and they could be estimating characters.

They only sold (activated?) 1+ mil in China (only quoting the relevant part):

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/2erxzu/kongzhong_2q14_earnings_over_1m_cdkeys_activated/

They gave some details about GW2 China during the conference call.
- over 1M activated copies

Okay then….guess I’m wrong about that part, but doesn’t that just make it worse that three million of us are playing catch up to the 1 million player minority because these things are ‘saved’ and ‘unreleased’ until the feature pack?

(was using IGN as reference, but IGN never updated their article. Checked Massively, and they did. Guess I know who’s more reliable now! also, I pretty much never read twitter or reddit posts.)

I don’t think this makes particular sense. Something that’s programmed into the china server can’t just be snapped into the US version of the game. It requires work and testing to get that stuff to work.

If it requires that much work and testing, then it means that each version has different code. Even if slightly different, that’s a bad thing. I really doubt that Anet was that foolish when it came to programming the China version, because it would mean that for now on, we either get half the features, or they have to work twice as hard to get the same features in each version. That’s not just foolish, that’s just plain dumb.

Right, but Anet dont’ have a choice. Foreign game studio can’t just go to China and release mmorpg there. They have to cooperate with other domestic china company by law.

Simply put, Anet really dont’ have full control on what goes on in China. Another company(publisher) is working with Anet to release GW2 in China. ANd since they are cooperating, some features might be included/excluded because the local publisher wanted it that way.

It’s true. Some features they have in China they’d hate here. Really hate.

And none of that means that the game code is significantly different here than it is in china, if there’s any difference at all. We should probably hold this discussion for another day though, since its blocking out on topic opinions.

I’m happy with the game overall but I have a touch of concern.

Going over the events of 2014:

-I was really impressed with how Season 1 of the Living Story ended. The Siege of Lion’s Arch is definitely one of my most memorable MMO events.

-I was blown away by the massive additions with Feature Pack 1. Megaservers, Wardrobe, PvP reward Tracks, and so much more. It was a HUGE patch. It may not have had content but it was certainly an expansion pack’s worth of features.

-I love the new Story Journal and really wish it had been here all along. The game felt incomplete without it.

-Season 2 of the Living Story has been a much more cohesive story and much more enjoyable as a result. I’ve been very impressed with it.

-Dry Top is a smaller but very densely packed and fun to explore zone. Filled with lore and interesting mechanics such as the zephyrite crystals and sandstorms. It feels different from any other MMO zone I’ve explored before.

-Feature Pack 2 isn’t as major as Feature Pack 1, it’s more a refinement patch, but it does have a lot of additions, even if they often seem minor in comparison. But I definitely welcome the improved crafting UI which will be a huge help in making crafting more enjoyable (or at least less annoying). And being able to equip mini-pets FINALLY. And as I have a newish level 30 character I’m leveling it will be fun to level with the new changes.

So on many fronts ANet has done awesome this year. The game is much stronger experience now than it was in 2013 beyond a doubt.

But there are some worrying concerns. Most of it comes from their increasing lack of communication about their vision for the game going forward. We as fans have no idea where we’re going and that creates a sense of unease. Especially in communities for play styles that seem ignored. With the lack of the roadmap blogs, the players feel adrift.

A great deal of this comes from how entire play styles have crippling problems that seem to go unaddressed. Stacking in dungeons. Team balancing in hot join PvP. The zerging and base swapping in WvW. Daily Activities having no point to them (they rarely even show up as a daily anymore). The waiting to fight the Raid difficulty raid bosses.

On the outside, GW2 seems to have this broad scope, with so many play styles catered to. Log on and do whatever you want. Much more than most MMO’s have. But on closer examination so many of those play types are crippled. These aren’t minor problems, and it seems strange that not only are they not fixed, but we don’t even know if they will ever be fixed. Or even if ANet agrees that they are problems in the first place.

Personally, I’m very happy with the game. I play it most days and enjoy it a lot. I see the dedication and love that has gone into it, I enjoy the world and it’s characters and the difficulty is just right for me. Megaservers was great for me personally and increased my enjoyment of the game since I reside on a server with a small population.

There are niggles and issues of course, but all games have those. However, I’m unhappy with one mayor flaw in the game: the fact that conditions are close to useless in group PvE content. I’m upset that Anet doesn’t talk about this more, and that they don’t appear to be working towards fixing it (at least not as far as I’m aware).

It’s a problem that affects all classes (although some more than others). I believe fixing conditions in PvE would open up build diversity, make a lot of gear and play styles suddenly become interesting – it would be like a new game for veteran players and theory crafters, even those who never consider condition builds today. It could even ease the transition between PvE and PvP if they made the same builds equally viable in both game types. I realize it’s a difficult thing for Anet to do, but if it’s never going to happen I wish they just came out and told us.

That’s my mayor issue with the game. Others will not agree and have different priorities. That’s the way it is. But all in all, yes I’m very happy with the game and can’t see myself leaving Tyria soon.

I’m not that happy with the game, either.

The PVE game has been broken down to a science. So much so that I can go into any dungeon in this game with my thief, and know exactly how to handle each wave of enemies that comes up with no communication with the team prior: LoS enemies into a corner, spam blind fields while attacking in melee to melt the enemies down in a few seconds, then run past all non-essential enemies and bosses.

Rinse, repeat, and do this every single day. No meaningful contributions from gear and build diversity, no noticeable unique or pivotal clutch plays. The enemies are nondescript and die quickly, most content is skipped from time and boredom, and my individual contribution is bleached out in a sea of flash particle effects and bright lights.

Outside, we have zerged events where the lack of individual contribution and flash effects are taken all the way up to 11, where at no point does anything I do seem like it matters, or if anyone even cares that I am there. The success or failure of any event is
wholly out of my control.

The PVE game has left me uninterested, due to how homogenized and easy it is. Then, we have the PVP side.

WvW is basically the same as the overworld events. SPVP, however, just really isn’t my game. A big problem I have with competitive gaming is that I am not good at gaming. My reaction time is slow, my reading speed is slow, I’m constantly shaking so I don’t have precise movements, I can’t think for the future, and I’m nearly blind. So, sPVP in GW2 for me consists mostly of me getting ambushed, mashing buttons randomly in a panic because I can’t see or understand what is going on, and getting outright beaten by players who can precisely move, turn, and attack on a dime. Random noob fights at hotjoin are the best I’ll ever get at sPVP, and now that the game has been out for more than a month, that isn’t a satisfactory level anymore.

GW2 just isn’t fun to play anymore, and it looks like Anet will never fix these problems. Maybe when I get the urge to stack in a gigantic flashing effect I’ll play the game again, but until then I’ll do little more than lurk on the forums hoping for a change.

I wouldn’t say I’m happy with this game, but I’m not saying I’m unhappy.

I’m happy to play in WvW with my friends, I also like the graphics and environment, as well as battles and various aspects of the game, others do however sadden me a bit.

1. Lack of lore. There are tiny references to what we know from Tyria’s history, but none drive me ecstatic. It’s not as if GW2 was happening in a different world than GW1 (like the FF franchise for example), it’s the same world and we are barely linked to the story our characters helped writing. We have a new threat, but old things should somehow be back.

2. Lack of variety in builds. Most skills are useless IMHO. And some wepon skills are not even interesting to use. GW2 advertised 10 skills instead of 8 in GW1. Actually we can only choose 3 skills, while the rest are forced by the weapon or forced by default (only one or two elites are useful per class). I want a good build that few people have, not the only good one available.

3. Gems. I know, we can buy them via IG money, that’s what I do. However it requires way more time to buy skins, that are still quite expensive. Also, a weapon skin is 600 gems, isn’t that way too much? And everything relies on gems: no new armor IG but you can buy one for 800 gems (and you’ll use only half of it). In GW1 we could buy outfits with real money, but the most interesting skins were available IG.

4. Unecessary changes. Some aspects of the game were changed while nobody required a fix, while some broken mechanics still need to be fixed. Also, many people in the community, while having different ideas, sometimes require some interesting feature/content in unison, but are ignored. For example, I’m not convinced by some changes in the feature pack, like “you have to be level 10 to advance”… C’mon, if the player dies, he’ll level up to advance (just like I did), now it’s cut-and-dried “no you won’t be able to do it, so get to that level and try”…

Of course there are things I would like to see personally, yet I’m trying to focus on aspects that make most people unhappy.

I do like the breathe of fresh air given by LS2, it’s hard work but cleverly written and captivating. I’m sure ANet has something up their sleeves to rekindle the fire we had once the game was released.

I agree with the poster, what is there for a veteran to be happy with? 2 years down the track limited pvp maps, no guilds halls,2 crappy small maps and no precursor crafting that was announced back in 2013, was expecting a surprise for vets but instead a bunch of bloody useless tidbit rubbish, goodonya anet! expect to lose more of your long term players to other games!

Reading this thread I realized something, its time to move on. The direction of game is no longer the direction that interests me anymore. Its been a long time coming for me because I was a fan of the guild wars franchise all the way back to prophecies.

Before I would be upset at the trajectory this game has chosen to take, or my perception of a severe lack of meaningful content [to be clear this is just my opinion, I know others favor the content this past year]….but its been so long now that I just don’t really care anymore. So to those that find satisfaction with GW2, good luck to you, I wish Anet the best. And I mean that, Anet has provided me with countless of hours of entertainment and I met some really good friends playing its games. I might pop in every now and then to say hi to friends, but I think this is it.

You’ve been good to me Anet, but like the OP states, its just not fun anymore.

Vayne.8563:

Chrispy.5641:

Vayne.8563:

Chrispy.5641:

BlueZone.4236:

Chrispy.5641:

The final thing is this China release that everyone’s talking about…
Its good that time went into developing the Chinese version. Its great that it wasn’t just some copy and paste job, and new features were made so the game was easier to understand for them. Its amazing that as many copies were sold in China as Guild Wars 2 had in its entire existence in North America and Europe. Its very not awesome that the Chinese development/release happened at the expense of Non-Chinese players, and that much asked for features/content, like actual expansions to the Professions (weapons and skills), or Precursor Crafting, either got postponed, or never happened to begin with, and instead, we’re playing catch up to China, even though we’ve been more loyal, and have been around longer.

They didn’t sell as much as NA/EU in China. They clarified the 4 million was probably an estimate of characters created.

http://twitter.com/GuildWars2/status/487745928137154560

We’d like to clarify recent news of GW2 China sales: it’s inaccurate, from a Chinese fansite, and they could be estimating characters.

They only sold (activated?) 1+ mil in China (only quoting the relevant part):

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/2erxzu/kongzhong_2q14_earnings_over_1m_cdkeys_activated/

They gave some details about GW2 China during the conference call.
- over 1M activated copies

Okay then….guess I’m wrong about that part, but doesn’t that just make it worse that three million of us are playing catch up to the 1 million player minority because these things are ‘saved’ and ‘unreleased’ until the feature pack?

(was using IGN as reference, but IGN never updated their article. Checked Massively, and they did. Guess I know who’s more reliable now! also, I pretty much never read twitter or reddit posts.)

I don’t think this makes particular sense. Something that’s programmed into the china server can’t just be snapped into the US version of the game. It requires work and testing to get that stuff to work.

If it requires that much work and testing, then it means that each version has different code. Even if slightly different, that’s a bad thing. I really doubt that Anet was that foolish when it came to programming the China version, because it would mean that for now on, we either get half the features, or they have to work twice as hard to get the same features in each version. That’s not just foolish, that’s just plain dumb.

They have to have some different code, because they’re different games. For example, stuff unlocks in China at different levels that it unlocks in the US. I’m sure that there are many individual differences, even though they have the same engine. Some of those were implemented just for the Chinese market and were never meant to port over.

When designed correctly the language are simply separate language files. Separate code blocks are basically modules they can hang in there and take out and the rest is configuration. Sure it’s never a perfect world so hanging in and taking out a module usually does mean small minor changes to the code but overall it should not be a big problem.

As an example the back-pack should addition should not be much more as configuration and adding some files one would think. Possibly they are already in the client (so the Chinese and our client is the same) just the language is different and the configuration turning off and on some of the functionalities.

Devata.6589:

As an example the back-pack should addition should not be much more as configuration and adding some files one would think.

It should be, but it’s probably also one of those things which seems like it’s simple and couldn’t mess up . . . and then it does. Especially if those backpacks are meant to “evolve” through the crafting profession progress.

Honestly I think most of the feature pack work is more along the line of optimizations and work on the back-end we don’t see . . . and we get this stuff so we have something we can see.

Andred.1087:

Yes, there are people who are happy with the game, and they’re all playing the game quietly. Forums account for a small minority of the player base in any game.

People keep saying this, but there’s no base to it. How do you know people in-game don’t have grievances or complaints? Maybe they just can’t be bothered going to the forums to write them out. I would rather say that the forums are a representation of the playerbase, with both negative and positive feelings. Also, I feel like ANet has shown concern and willingness to communicate over forum threads, so it can’t be “just a vocal minority” in their opinion. If it was, they could just brush it aside.

Sure, there are a lot of happy people, I’m not doubting that. But with critique comes progress.

I’ve kept my “peace” for many months now, as my frustration about Anet’s silence considering core matters made me me rather bitter. However, seeing this thread, I’ve decided to add my voice (if it’s heard, that is) here, and express my feelings towards the shadow of what used to be Guild Wars 2.

I am not happy. Not even a little bit. In fact, I’m confused with Anet’s direction and actions since April, as they make no sense.

I’m here since the beta, even got the deluxe version of the game. It wasn’t from day 1, i got it a few months later. Pretty much a pointless “upgrade” considering what the Deluxe version offers. But! Seeing the game, playing it, and actually getting involved in the game’s awesome Role Playing community (Piken Square), I felt that supporting Anet and help them upgrade the game further, was the right thing to do.

So i kept spending… Real money, not exchanging gold. Gems after gems, and more gems, buying costumes, useless and vanity items just for the heck of it, and also cause I’m a Role Player, so i wanted my character to look and feel exactly as he was meant to.

The game was awesome. Probably the best MMO i’ve played. Allowing you to level up your character the way you wanted, get the build you wanted, repeat stuff with your high level chars without hindering the new players, visit zones at will, even play as you felt like it: Casually, or pushing yourself to the limits.

All was well until the kitten April downgrade. I can’t call it a feature pack, as all it brought was nothing but trouble.

We lost the awesome and versatile trait system over a bunch of nonsense, so far for reasons unknown. Please, don’t tell me it was confusing and needed a re-vamp, as the system worked perfectly, and was ridiculously easy to understand!

Then Skynet wannabe was added as well, and we lost our communities over a faceless populated monster, who can’t even communicate with itself as Europe has many languages compared to the US or China. And instead of monitoring it in limited areas, it was rushed throughout the game without even considering the consequences.

Now, the next “feature” pack is 7 days away, and from what I’ve seen, it further breaks the game… So yes, it’s not fun anymore..

Chrispy.5641:

snip

/rant

i really have to agree with this person’s first post.. and it really just falls under resource allocation and bad decision making.. i’m not going to get into a lot of it, but arena net seems to be more on the ball than they were last year.. personally i feel the un-balance in this game is horrendous and could use better up-keep.. sadly, the vocal minority on the pvp side of things is usually the lying majority.. so, i hope arena net simply takes a rational standpoint in keeping the game characters valid as apposed to ridiculous..

Traveller.7496:

Andred.1087:

Yes, there are people who are happy with the game, and they’re all playing the game quietly. Forums account for a small minority of the player base in any game.

People keep saying this, but there’s no base to it. How do you know people in-game don’t have grievances or complaints? Maybe they just can’t be bothered going to the forums to write them out. I would rather say that the forums are a representation of the playerbase, with both negative and positive feelings. Also, I feel like ANet has shown concern and willingness to communicate over forum threads, so it can’t be “just a vocal minority” in their opinion. If it was, they could just brush it aside.

Sure, there are a lot of happy people, I’m not doubting that. But with critique comes progress.

Who says you can’t critique and be happy? Why do people feel that’s mutually exclusive?

I make suggestions sometimes, but I’m still mostly happy.

Vayne.8563:

Who says you can’t critique and be happy? Why do people feel that’s mutually exclusive?

I make suggestions sometimes, but I’m still mostly happy.

Some people just don’t get it. Of course, having watched the SF Debris videos for a few years now, I really do get how someone can critique, mock, deride, disassemble, and discuss without being really strongly incensed by the source material.

I do highly recommend viewing Chuck’s videos if you want to start deconstructing fictional works.

laokoko.7403:

Devata.6589:

Andred.1087:

Yes, there are people who are happy with the game, and they’re all playing the game quietly. Forums account for a small minority of the player base in any game.

You almost make it seem as if it’s not so important because it’s a minority but that’s of course not true. Sure the people on the forums are a minority, it are the people willing to share idea’s, suggestions and dislikes about the game. That does however not mean that all people not on the forums are happy including those playing (as proven by the forums because people who have complains in the forum are likely playing so even that is not a good indicator).Player base is more an indicator for the longer term (2 to 3 years).

I kind of agree with him. Most people dont’ like the game already quit the game. The majority of people are either playing the game already or quit the game already.

I think most of my guildmates are quite happy. Because those that dont’ like the game, never logged on and get kicked out of the guild.

There is a point between you really liking a game and disliking it enough / so much that you stop playing the game. The time people are in-between the two might be pretty long depending on how satisfied / dissatisfied they are and what patches do for them.

That’s what I was talking about. You see there might be many people that are (happily) playing but have also some dissatisfaction’s. The question then is, will future patches make them go away or make it worse or is it something they can be fine with for now but if it takes to long it will become enough for them to leave while right now the same issue does not yet make them leave.

On the forum you have a minority making those feelings public.. people that are most likely still playing (else they would not be on the forum) but that does not mean they are also the only people that have those same issues with the game. They might just reconsider them (while other maybe don’t) and make them public hoping for them to change so they will also have fun playing in the future. While other people playing and having the same issues might just leave when those same issues become to big of a problem for them but never post on the forums.

Personally I try to let them know as soon as I notice a problem. For example I noticed how the cash-shop focus was becoming a problem a little over a half year after the release. So then I posted it here. Back then I did not get a lot of people agreeing with me. By now it’s a much heard complain. Maybe back then many people did not recognize the problem yet or it was not a big enough problem yet back then.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Devata.6589:

As an example the back-pack should addition should not be much more as configuration and adding some files one would think.

It should be, but it’s probably also one of those things which seems like it’s simple and couldn’t mess up . . . and then it does. Especially if those backpacks are meant to “evolve” through the crafting profession progress.

Honestly I think most of the feature pack work is more along the line of optimizations and work on the back-end we don’t see . . . and we get this stuff so we have something we can see.

“Especially if those backpacks are meant to “evolve” through the crafting profession progress “ Yeah maybe but that back-end work has in this case already been done for Chinese client.

Besides it does not have to be so hard. Simply use the lower level item as an ingredient for the higher level item and there you have your evolving item. Then it should not require any additional code. But yeah without seeing the code we can never be 100% sure.

I’m trully happy with what I’ve got from ANet. Thank You for the last two years and I’m sure I’ll stay for next.

Sure, there are things that I dont like but I’m still happy. So much to do there, so little time : (