Guild Wars 2

laokoko.7403:

Vayne.8563:

kta.6502:

Vayne.8563:

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 disagree. I would be very surprised if the devs from NA & EU are working on content for the China server. The government there is suspicious of all foreign media workers. Foreign companies have to link up with a Chinese company to sell their wares on China’s mainland. Ryan Budish, a member of Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society, told the Washington Post in today’s article on business in China, “You can’t exactly just move in there and do business.” (Quote comkes from here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2014/09/03/linkedin-thinking-twice-about-its-adoption-of-chinas-aggressive-censorship/)

There is a long process that foreign game companies have to go because of the the government’s “famous” censorship policies. All companies from the West have a separate team that communicates with their Chinese counterpart. I would be very surprised if Anet’s devs are doing the work that a specialized “China business team” would do.

I don’t think the devs are training their Chinese counterparts either. China is has alot of already trained software developers and game artists. The Chinese have also been making their own games for at least a decade. Perfect World, the infamous pay-to-win MMO, comes from the People’s Republic of China.

Links that give an overview of the Chinese game industry:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_gaming_in_China

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_gaming_in_the_People%27s_Republic_of_China

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_in_China#Video_games

There’s a very high chance that the Sept update was most likely created by game devs from mainland China, not by the NA / EU devs. It’s illegal to show images of death in China, and that’s why the Downed State was censored until level 5. For sure, the company is testing to see if the censored down state would be accepted here. I’ve seen this political / social move before (FYI: It’s helps to be part of a family that has been doing international business for 500 years!). It’s also why we don’t also have a tutorial for the Downed State, most of the changes in the feature pack are cosmetic, and why we’re not seeing any much needed content updates.

So that leaves the question: What have the NA / EU devs really been up to? Just something to think about.

So when they said they’ve all been busy with the China release they were lying?

Right but I’m not sure the NA / EU players care what they are doing in China.

That doesn’t mean they shouldn’t. Logically speaking, they take six months of hard work to get the china game going and it’s a source of income that affects the entire future of the game. It’s an investment in the future.

If all you care about is getting what you want when you want it, that’s okay. But it’s not really fair and it will only lead to your own disappointment.

There are business realities. If you try to remove those realities from your expectations, you’re only going to diminish your enjoyment of the game. It’s not going to change reality. In reality business have to make profit and they will move to make profit. If you can’t except that, that’s okay.

But it won’t improve your gaming experience.

Svarty.8019:

This:
http://massively.joystiq.com/2014/09/02/flameseeker-chronicles-whats-next-for-guild-wars-2/

Funny thing though, I expect barely any significant changes to my favourite game-type (WvW). Even if Anet implement the mother of all expansions.

Very good article, except his conclusion about all the work for new players could easily be wrong (due to China-release and not because of a coming expansion).

Also interesting to read comments of former players who obviously don´t even care about the official forums anymore.

Berk.8561:

Svarty.8019:

Funny thing though, I expect barely any significant changes to my favourite game-type (WvW). Even if Anet implement the mother of all expansions.

My guess is part of the problem is that WvW doesn’t earn ANet a lot of money in the gem store because it’s pretty self-contained. So it might help to suggest ways ANet could make money, or at least break even, improving the WvW experience.

In my reply above, I suggested using a Kickstarter for another WvW map set. They could offer gems or other benefits (an exclusive WvW patron armor skin) as rewards in order to encourage participation in the Kickstarter. A new map set would make the game feel fresh and would likely draw players who left out of boredom back into the game. It could even be used as an incentive for people to transfer down to the lower-tier servers by introducing the new map set to the bottom tier first, then the bottom two the next week, and so on until each tier gets to play the new maps, and then rotate them once everyone has seen them with the old maps.

The Metabolic Primer is an example of an item that’s useful for WvW players, but I can think of others, including versions of superior siege weapons (in particular, arrow carts, ballistas, and trebuchets) that don’t expire for 12 hours (so they don’t have to be continually refreshed), traps that done expire for 12 hours, some sort of instant supply camp drop (like the bonfire) that let’s players get more supplies in the field until it’s deleted, and so on.

“My guess is part of the problem is that WvW doesn’t earn ANet a lot of money in the gem store because it’s pretty self-contained. So it might help to suggest ways ANet could make money, or at least break even, improving the WvW experience. ”

I am making that suggestion for over a year. They should stop making money with the kitten cash-shop that is doing more harm then good to the game and focus on expansions to make money. Releasing an expansion every year. Then also WvW is a source of income as WvW can be a big part of the expansion. The whole cash-shop focus is really the source of most of the problems and switching it to expansion-based focus could be the base solution (of course with that also comes a other way of thinking) for many of those problems.

I recently watched the youtube video with all the trait/skill balancing/fixes. And this is by far the best. Finally some improvements on weak weapons and toned down the faceroll warrior. This one was made pretty good. I am said though the Tornado is a bit weaker, but I still love to use it in WvW zergs. It’s fun and you see raining XP/loot.

I am not exactly happy about the influx of new content, but I am not unhappy either. I wish there would be more maps, instanced guild raid bosses (Marionette as a guild raid mission) and so on. But GW2 is still the best multiplayer game for me.

But I really don’t like their PR regarding this feature pack. It was 3 weeks of hype, each post followed by a “meh” feeling from me. Not bad, not bad, let’s keep at it, to quote a famous instructor, who must inwardly feel like: “oh no, not again one of these hapless posts noobs.”

Bleu.5079:

I’m one of those happy quiet players you see around. I would say I’m a pretty content MMO player most of the time, even ANet lacking content updates doesn’t affect me that much. But not anymore.
I respect the work of ANet, with the impressive art style and high quality content paired with their good business model.
But, these can only go so far for so long, especially since I’m a gem spender. Most of the stuff that appeared after the first version of the game, is mostly lackluster. Content is reused (toymaker tixx for e.g.), short & boring (most of season 1 living story, that was horrible). The only good content update was few and far between(Fractured update, good job on that, we need more content updates like these).
tl;dr I’m starting to turn into an very discontented quaggan

“I respect the work of ANet, with the impressive art style and high quality content paired with their good business model. ” That good business model you are talking about is the reason for thinks you dislike. And you buying gems only pushed them more in that direction.

Devata.6589:

“I respect the work of ANet, with the impressive art style and high quality content paired with their good business model. ” That good business model you are talking about is the reason for thinks you dislike. And you buying gems only pushed them more in that direction.

You know, you should “thank” him (it’s a joke) for being one of those who keep the US/EU servers…..erm, ’scuse me….. the US/EU Megafail, still running.. If Anet fails to get money from the western market, a new City of Heroes/Tabula Rasa/Lineage incident will occur, and the game will only be available in China…

The problem is, that despite our feedback, our cries, even our “ranting” if you can call it, A-net isn’t exactly in charge of this game, NcSoft is. Obviously the game is too “Western” for them, and they want to change it to feel more…. “comfortable”, despite the impact it’ll have on us.

Theres a somewhat misleading idea that people that are happy playing the game doesn’t come to the forums, and that is a job for unhappy gamers.

I always visit the forums of a given game im playing, happy or unhappy, and i guess that puts me inside the small minority that loves GW2 and actually cares what happens to the game.
Im not just passing time while i wait for the next flavor of the month.

What ANet needs to realize, and i can assume they already talked internally about this, taking in account the number of red replies and the attempt to get closer to the community, is that if some effort is made towards giving gw2 world a bit of a push in terms of content and deliver what players are asking, inside of whats possible, this game is in for a long run.

Ian.1349:

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?

I’m one of those skeptics who thinks that they are flat out lying to their player base when saying that they actually did tests and found that moving it to level 5, and royally screwing the traits system, is better. I think that they say now that they did these tests is a form of damage control. They’re trying to get everyone to chill out because of the current storm of irritation, pessimism, and disappointment. That’s what I honestly believe. It’s damage control, they didn’t test. Seriously, how stupid do you have to be to not understand getting downed? It’s so trivial and simple to even the most entry level of players. I swear they’re just flat out lying.

Anet is a REALLY shady company. Just look at the fractured patch as a whole to see a lot of examples of Anet “honesty”. They flat out lied to us about “leaderboards” and fractal weapon boxes.

Here’s the thing: I used to be a HUGE Anet cheerleader. Seriously. I would spend time in the forums tearing down all of the naysayers about a good many things they were saying at the time, mostly because the game was new and as anyone knows, all new games go through growing pains.

Problem here is that these aren’t growing pains. These are real concerns about actual game hurting design and decisions that give the impression of placation and catering to a new lowest common denominator. The people that have been in since beta and playing WvW almost religiously, and the PvE players that want to see more of Tyria and have more challenging open world content are not Anet’s audience anymore. We’re not the ones that they want to hook.

So many people I talk to are convinced the 350+ people over at Anet are just screwing around and lazy. Others tell me it takes that many people to do the Living Story (which seems unbelievable considering how little content is actually produced) However, I’ve only ever heard the idea that they are actually working on an expansion online. The arguments I’ve seen for it all sound too familiar and until Anet specifically says they are working on an expansion I will not believe it, give them hype, or get too passionate about this game.

It’s a good game. It is a solid B to C player in my “what to play” list but I only spend money on games I’m real passionate about. GW2 has just fallen out of that bracket for me.

If the world doesn’t grow neither does my passion for the game.

Prophet.6257:

So many people I talk to are convinced the 350+ people over at Anet are just screwing around and lazy. Others tell me it takes that many people to do the Living Story (which seems a unbelievable considering how little content is actually produced) However, I’ve only ever heard the idea that they are actually working on an expansion online. The arguments I’ve seen for it all sound too familiar and until Anet specifically says they are working on an expansion I will not believe it, give them hype, or get too passionate about this game.

It’s a good game. It is a solid B to C player in my “what to play” list but I only spend money on games I’m real passionate about. GW2 has just fallen out of that bracket for me.

If the world doesn’t grow neither does my passion for the game.

Exactly my hopes. I don’t see how all those 350 would be working through those 2 years and produce just what we got so far. That would be unthinkable, to say the least ( and stay polite ). Expansion is a must in the near future.

Unless those 350 are working on some other game, perhaps even one featuring… the Loch Ness Monster!

Corpus Christi.2057:

Prophet.6257:

So many people I talk to are convinced the 350+ people over at Anet are just screwing around and lazy. Others tell me it takes that many people to do the Living Story (which seems a unbelievable considering how little content is actually produced) However, I’ve only ever heard the idea that they are actually working on an expansion online. The arguments I’ve seen for it all sound too familiar and until Anet specifically says they are working on an expansion I will not believe it, give them hype, or get too passionate about this game.

It’s a good game. It is a solid B to C player in my “what to play” list but I only spend money on games I’m real passionate about. GW2 has just fallen out of that bracket for me.

If the world doesn’t grow neither does my passion for the game.

Exactly my hopes. I don’t see how all those 350 would be working through those 2 years and produce just what we got so far. That would be unthinkable, to say the least ( and stay polite ). Expansion is a must in the near future.

While they might not be able to give details or a timeline, you would think, after all this hubbabaloo and negative feedback, they’d simply come out and say, “don’t fret, we’ve been working on an expansion, more details in the near future”.

With people breaking out of the map, we do see that drytop is much larger than it is currently. I just wish it wasn’t released in small chunks every couple weeks, or in some cases, over a month.

munkiman.3068:

Corpus Christi.2057:

Prophet.6257:

So many people I talk to are convinced the 350+ people over at Anet are just screwing around and lazy. Others tell me it takes that many people to do the Living Story (which seems a unbelievable considering how little content is actually produced) However, I’ve only ever heard the idea that they are actually working on an expansion online. The arguments I’ve seen for it all sound too familiar and until Anet specifically says they are working on an expansion I will not believe it, give them hype, or get too passionate about this game.

It’s a good game. It is a solid B to C player in my “what to play” list but I only spend money on games I’m real passionate about. GW2 has just fallen out of that bracket for me.

If the world doesn’t grow neither does my passion for the game.

Exactly my hopes. I don’t see how all those 350 would be working through those 2 years and produce just what we got so far. That would be unthinkable, to say the least ( and stay polite ). Expansion is a must in the near future.

While they might not be able to give details or a timeline, you would think, after all this hubbabaloo and negative feedback, they’d simply come out and say, “don’t fret, we’ve been working on an expansion, more details in the near future”.

With people breaking out of the map, we do see that drytop is much larger than it is currently. I just wish it wasn’t released in small chunks every couple weeks, or in some cases, over a month.

I don’t think Anet gets to decide when to say that. The thing is, the timing if an expansion is actually, believe it or not, a business decision. The annoucement has to be timed right. I’m pretty sure NCsoft is calling those shots.

Prophet.6257:

So many people I talk to are convinced the 350+ people over at Anet are just screwing around and lazy. Others tell me it takes that many people to do the Living Story (which seems unbelievable considering how little content is actually produced) However, I’ve only ever heard the idea that they are actually working on an expansion online. The arguments I’ve seen for it all sound too familiar and until Anet specifically says they are working on an expansion I will not believe it, give them hype, or get too passionate about this game.

It’s a good game. It is a solid B to C player in my “what to play” list but I only spend money on games I’m real passionate about. GW2 has just fallen out of that bracket for me.

If the world doesn’t grow neither does my passion for the game.

The game really had a lot of potential but this LS that pushed forward the cash-shop income makes it similar to a F2P game and all of it’s negatives and that’s really sad.

Many people also say.. yeah just give them time but back 6months after release they said “it’s half a year, lets give them time to the one year anniversary of the game then we will see an expansion”. That moved up to 1,5 year and that moved up to 2 years. After that I did see some people comparing it to other’s MMO, wrongly stating that those game took 3 years to release expansion but on average it’s 2 years usually less. WoW took 2 years, 1 month and 25 days and was one of the slowest so is that the new deadline for people to wait for expansion news? And then when that is over we are expecting it before 2015…. So what I am really saying. It’s been to long its time for some news.

Maybe the reason for no news is because Anet knows so many people want expansions but Anet is not working on expansions and so chooses to rather say nothing. Maby they surprise us soon.. But people have been hoping for that surprise for over a year now.

Vayne.8563:

munkiman.3068:

Corpus Christi.2057:

Prophet.6257:

So many people I talk to are convinced the 350+ people over at Anet are just screwing around and lazy. Others tell me it takes that many people to do the Living Story (which seems a unbelievable considering how little content is actually produced) However, I’ve only ever heard the idea that they are actually working on an expansion online. The arguments I’ve seen for it all sound too familiar and until Anet specifically says they are working on an expansion I will not believe it, give them hype, or get too passionate about this game.

It’s a good game. It is a solid B to C player in my “what to play” list but I only spend money on games I’m real passionate about. GW2 has just fallen out of that bracket for me.

If the world doesn’t grow neither does my passion for the game.

Exactly my hopes. I don’t see how all those 350 would be working through those 2 years and produce just what we got so far. That would be unthinkable, to say the least ( and stay polite ). Expansion is a must in the near future.

While they might not be able to give details or a timeline, you would think, after all this hubbabaloo and negative feedback, they’d simply come out and say, “don’t fret, we’ve been working on an expansion, more details in the near future”.

With people breaking out of the map, we do see that drytop is much larger than it is currently. I just wish it wasn’t released in small chunks every couple weeks, or in some cases, over a month.

I don’t think Anet gets to decide when to say that. The thing is, the timing if an expansion is actually, believe it or not, a business decision. The annoucement has to be timed right. I’m pretty sure NCsoft is calling those shots.

Didn’t NCsoft already mention an expansion in one of their quarterly earnings releases?

Vayne.8563:

munkiman.3068:

Corpus Christi.2057:

Prophet.6257:

So many people I talk to are convinced the 350+ people over at Anet are just screwing around and lazy. Others tell me it takes that many people to do the Living Story (which seems a unbelievable considering how little content is actually produced) However, I’ve only ever heard the idea that they are actually working on an expansion online. The arguments I’ve seen for it all sound too familiar and until Anet specifically says they are working on an expansion I will not believe it, give them hype, or get too passionate about this game.

It’s a good game. It is a solid B to C player in my “what to play” list but I only spend money on games I’m real passionate about. GW2 has just fallen out of that bracket for me.

If the world doesn’t grow neither does my passion for the game.

Exactly my hopes. I don’t see how all those 350 would be working through those 2 years and produce just what we got so far. That would be unthinkable, to say the least ( and stay polite ). Expansion is a must in the near future.

While they might not be able to give details or a timeline, you would think, after all this hubbabaloo and negative feedback, they’d simply come out and say, “don’t fret, we’ve been working on an expansion, more details in the near future”.

With people breaking out of the map, we do see that drytop is much larger than it is currently. I just wish it wasn’t released in small chunks every couple weeks, or in some cases, over a month.

I don’t think Anet gets to decide when to say that. The thing is, the timing if an expansion is actually, believe it or not, a business decision. The annoucement has to be timed right. I’m pretty sure NCsoft is calling those shots.

Yeah and it would be a real bad business decision to not announced it about 1,5 year ago if they where planning on releasing an expansion at all.

That was in May of 2013. Several websites reported an NCSoft person as saying an expansion was being ‘prepared’.

http://www.polygon.com/2013/5/13/4325904/guild-wars-2-expansion-pack-is-being-prepared-says-ncsoft

Shortly thereafter, it was ‘clarified’.

“In regards to your recent post on a Guild Wars 2 expansion, there is a slight misunderstanding when interpreting the answer from the NCsoft earnings call. We are considering an expansion, but we are taking a wait-and-see stance. We are evaluating the performance of the game and deciding on when would be the best time to launch an expansion. But right now, our living story approach is very successful in keeping players engaged with new and exciting content. Launching boxed expansions are a great way to package content, but if we can do this on a more regular basis, something we’ve been doing since launch, it provides players with new content to explore and experience every time they log into the game.”

http://massively.joystiq.com/2013/05/14/ncsoft-clarifies-stance-on-guild-wars-2-expansion

Tachenon.5270:

That was in May of 2013. Several websites reported an NCSoft person as saying an expansion was being ‘prepared’.

http://www.polygon.com/2013/5/13/4325904/guild-wars-2-expansion-pack-is-being-prepared-says-ncsoft

Shortly thereafter, it was ‘clarified’.

“In regards to your recent post on a Guild Wars 2 expansion, there is a slight misunderstanding when interpreting the answer from the NCsoft earnings call. We are considering an expansion, but we are taking a wait-and-see stance. We are evaluating the performance of the game and deciding on when would be the best time to launch an expansion. But right now, our living story approach is very successful in keeping players engaged with new and exciting content. Launching boxed expansions are a great way to package content, but if we can do this on a more regular basis, something we’ve been doing since launch, it provides players with new content to explore and experience every time they log into the game.”

http://massively.joystiq.com/2013/05/14/ncsoft-clarifies-stance-on-guild-wars-2-expansion

Right, thanks, it’s been awhile since i read that. Makes me wonder how long the wait and see is, now that over a year has passed and the living story is, well, hit-n-miss.

I would like to report that my status now changed from very unhappy to reasonably happy :P , and that I shall be rolling a lvl 1 on the day the changes go live, and I only wish that I could OPT OUT of the collectibles achievements being given to me retroactively so I can discover while levelling from 1 all the items for the first time!!

Which will also be enhanced by the fact they changed levelling experience so it’ll be interesting to experience that.

Berk.8561:

Svarty.8019:

Funny thing though, I expect barely any significant changes to my favourite game-type (WvW). Even if Anet implement the mother of all expansions.

My guess is part of the problem is that WvW doesn’t earn ANet a lot of money in the gem store because it’s pretty self-contained. So it might help to suggest ways ANet could make money, or at least break even, improving the WvW experience.

My guild is mostly about WvW. About half of us pay for gems for novelty/superficial items. If we weren’t playing the game, Arenanet would miss out on all of those gems. We pay Arenanet and play WvW.

This is why I think it would be wrong to say WvWers don’t earn Anet a lot of money. We don’t need to “pay a different way”.