Guild Wars 2

Alright I will start this discussion by pointing out they are already providing fairly high quality, consistent Living Story updates. However I would not be the first to ask ArenaNet to bring in Cantha or Elona from the GW1 universe.

So since we have seen people get a few hundred K to make a freaking baked potato salad how about we get a kickstarter for GW2 going?

It’s completely voluntary and is a great way to support the devs if you don’t want to pay for gems because some stuff is trash etc. And you still aren’t paying for a monthly subscription.

So what would this mean? Well if enough was raised an actual expansion pack could be released along with the current Living Story. Not only that but perhaps (Throwing a bone to the PvP portion here) we could have some more frequent balancing changes to professions?

To finish I think that if ArenaNet were to start a Kickstarter fundraising event it would be very effective. And would please both the company and the playerbase so they can know they are contributing to a game that, despite and amount of QQ, they still love.

(Disclaimer if any previous attempts at a kickstarter for GW2 have been initiated I have no prior knowledge so please go easy on the derogatory terms)

Unless they were prepared to make utterly transparent statements about what exactly this would be funding, I wouldn’t be interested.

They have the money they need. They’re simply not listening to the community about how to spend it. I have to agree with Guhracie on this one, if they came out and said “we need money” I would only be willing to donate if they figured out the things that need to be changed (communication being number 1).

Kickstarters are for developers without publishers. It is not in the best interest of consumers to encourage game publishers to maximize profits even further by setting such a precedent. If a publisher believes it can milk a game even further, because consumers will then chip in to fund content development, they will.

Kickstarting content development in a game with a publisher is putting the cart before the horse. The better result for consumers would be achieved if they did the reverse of a kickstarter with big developers — by withholding money if the company does not produce what they want.

The OP wants to see particular content made with his Kickstarter funds. ANet and NCSoft will not cede that kind of developmental control to consumers.

Save your Kickstarter money for a developer that has a vision you like but does not have the backing to produce it. ANet has a deep pockets backer already.

There’s been many threads already on doing a Kickstarter to persuade ANet to add X to the game.

The game isn’t suffering financially except in comparison to WoW, in which case all MMOs are suffering. Trailing twelve months has the game’s income at $95 million US. That would have been equivalent to a subscription game with 1/2 a million players. No too many MMOs in the days of subscription based MMOs had that many. Even now EVE “recently” passed that figure.

You dont get it, money is no problem here. Anet don’t want to create expansion, they focus on cheap developing: minimum content, maximum profit. If you dont like it you should quit, new players is all anet cares right now coz new players dont have big demands :P

Money isn’t a problem, and I would honestly think less of Anet (or any major company) if they made a Kickstarter to raise funds.

Just to add to what has already been said, Kickstarter cannot be used for business funding

Dasenthal.6520:

They have the money they need. They’re simply not listening to the community about how to spend it. I have to agree with Guhracie on this one, if they came out and said “we need money” I would only be willing to donate if they figured out the things that need to be changed (communication being number 1).

January 2015: Kickstarter funding successfully ends.

July 2015: ANet rolls out a paid expansion box with open world PvP, dueling, no waypoints, permadeath, level 100 cap, Transcendent gear, player to player trading, and playable dervish quaggans in clown outfits with capes riding flying mounts (Tengu) and swinging huge pink shining poles.

August 2015: new players are running away in terror, older players facepalm and uninstall the game, the players who gave advices in forums say “this game is dead!” and move back to WoW.

GJ!

As others have noted, they have the money.

From what Regina said after the “no new dungeons” announcement, it sounds like they’re short on people. And from what we can see on glassdoor, ArenaNet likes to do waves of hiring/firing of temps, creates very stressful working conditions for their development teams, and has little to no consistent direction across teams — hence the HR problems.

A kickstarter wouldn’t solve any of those problems, unfortunately.

People have been asking for more substantial content for the last two years — something, anything in line with what other MMOs offer. They won’t come out and admit it, but their actions make it clear: GW2 is what it is. They’re gonna milk the casual playerbase for all it’s worth, and our concerns / pleas for new content are falling on not deaf, but disinterested ears.

Zergs, achievement farms, and small, unsatisfying releases are the future (and history) of the game.

Lishtenbird.2814:

playable dervish quaggans in clown outfits with capes riding flying mounts (Tengu) and swinging huge pink shining poles.

+1

ANet please add playable dervish quaggans in clown outfits with capes riding flying mounts (Tengu) and swinging huge pink shining poles.

I’ll be happy to buy an expansion from them.

Why would people pay money for a kickstarter instead of just buying gems? A game developer such as ArenaNet already has a huge ‘kickstarter’ on their back. NCsoft provides it and they have investors that are already putting money into the company so they can earn more money from it. Obviously investors are in it for profit and fans are in it for the game, but as I said, just buy gems instead.

On another note, if you want to help the developers you could send ArenaNet a postcard with your thanks or a cake.. I am sure that they would appreciate such a gesture. It’s also morale that can help a company perform better. Throwing more money at something isn’t always the solution.

I thought the Gem Store was this game’s built in Kickstarter?

So, you want rich players to decide what everyone wants to play? No thanks. I prefer to let Anet make their choices even in those cases when I don’t care for them.

You are kidding, right? You think that Arenanet is some kind of garage company with a handful of employees? Do you REALLY think that a kickstarter project that would bring a few thousand dollars will do anything when they already have millions of USD in profits?

Read this before it’s deleted.

http://global.ncsoft.com/global/ir/earnings.aspx

http://www.glassdoor.com/Salary/ArenaNet-Salaries-E255820.htm

Anyandrell.6238:

You are kidding, right? You think that Arenanet is some kind of garage company with a handful of employees? Do you REALLY think that a kickstarter project that would bring a few thousand dollars will do anything when they already have millions of USD in profits?

Read this before it’s deleted.

http://global.ncsoft.com/global/ir/earnings.aspx

http://www.glassdoor.com/Salary/ArenaNet-Salaries-E255820.htm

Just want to mention I don’t find those salaries all that shocking. I worked in programming and engineering 15 years ago, scaling that up to our present time and considering the location of the company, I would say that sounds reasonable.

Lethalvriend.1723:

Why would people pay money for a kickstarter instead of just buying gems? A game developer such as ArenaNet already has a huge ‘kickstarter’ on their back. NCsoft provides it and they have investors that are already putting money into the company so they can earn more money from it. Obviously investors are in it for profit and fans are in it for the game, but as I said, just buy gems instead.

On another note, if you want to help the developers you could send ArenaNet a postcard with your thanks or a cake.. I am sure that they would appreciate such a gesture. It’s also morale that can help a company perform better. Throwing more money at something isn’t always the solution.

I would support this because I’m not too confident that our gem store money is going to ANet and not some other random NCSoft pipe dream like Wild Star; I would donate money to a kick starter if there was clear language in it that stated that it could only be used on a boxed expansion and could not be touched by NCSoft under any circumstances.

Oldirtbeard.9834:

Lethalvriend.1723:

Why would people pay money for a kickstarter instead of just buying gems? A game developer such as ArenaNet already has a huge ‘kickstarter’ on their back. NCsoft provides it and they have investors that are already putting money into the company so they can earn more money from it. Obviously investors are in it for profit and fans are in it for the game, but as I said, just buy gems instead.

On another note, if you want to help the developers you could send ArenaNet a postcard with your thanks or a cake.. I am sure that they would appreciate such a gesture. It’s also morale that can help a company perform better. Throwing more money at something isn’t always the solution.

I would support this because I’m not too confident that our gem store money is going to ANet and not some other random NCSoft pipe dream like Wild Star; I would donate money to a kick starter if there was clear language in it that stated that it could only be used on a boxed expansion and could not be touched by NCSoft under any circumstances.

Well NCsoft owns Anet sooooo, ya, wouldn’t hold your breath…

This is so pathetic…

Well I generally speak with my wallet so with that being said each time a new zone was added to the game this living story I bought the lowest among of gems possible to show some support for the amount of content provided; prior to that I paid for the box and that was more or less it.

If some one put this kick starter together specifically for funding for a traditional GW2 expansion I would sooner put my money there than blindly spend $50 in the gem store like a roulette table; remember if the goal is not met then you should get the money back so if ANet told us to stuff it we would get the money back and have sent a strong message as to what we want for content.

That being said I am fine with Living Story if over the course of 2 years we get as much content as a WoW/Rift/EQ2 expansion.

How about… They create a regular expansion like every other MMO out there including their own GW1, and I hand over my $40 to buy that expansion when it’s ready?

They had money to waste on redesigning the entry levels of the game, and open it up in Asia, I’m sure they would have the monetary backing to create an expansion if they needed it.

Besides the issue of an established business not needing a “kickstart,” games should not be designed by committees of players, no matter how passionate. An MMO is a huge juggling act and it won’t help one darn thing to make one of the balls suddenly much heavier. Lishtenbird summed up the damage this would do quite nicely.

I would be pleasantly suprised if more then 5% of money spent in gemstore went to Anets future development

You all don’t understand how this is setup do you. ANet is it’s own company. It has it’s own accounting department and pays it’s own bills. NCSOFT is the sole owner in stock of ANet. That lets NCSOFT fold ANet’s sales and profit/loss into NCSOFT’s quarterly and annual report. What ANet gets out of the deal is NCSOFT acts as their banker for while the game was under development and exclusive distributor when it’s done (via the NCWest and NCEurope companies). The payback/royalty setup between the two companies is fixed. NCSOFT can’t simply raid ANet’s like a sibling’s piggy bank.

Now since ANet has rebuffed previous suggestions of a paid expansion in the past from the mothership; hired their own PR firm to launch GW2; inked their own deal in China independent of NCSOFT’s; the notion that NCSOFT is holding ANet down by controlling how much income ANet keeps clearly shows that some simply don’t understand how a parent/subsidiary structure works in business.

Guhracie.3419:

Unless they were prepared to make utterly transparent statements about what exactly this would be funding, I wouldn’t be interested.

I agree completely 100% for something like this that requires much trust on the part of the consumer (player) there would need to be no “maybes” “Sometime in the future” or “possibly”. Everything that would be developed with the funds would need to be evident, concrete, and a report on what exactly the funds would be used in what ways.

Behellagh.1468:

There’s been many threads already on doing a Kickstarter to persuade ANet to add X to the game.

The game isn’t suffering financially except in comparison to WoW, in which case all MMOs are suffering. Trailing twelve months has the game’s income at $95 million US. That would have been equivalent to a subscription game with 1/2 a million players. No too many MMOs in the days of subscription based MMOs had that many. Even now EVE “recently” passed that figure.

I apologize then if this seems like a rehash of previous topics on kickstarters. I don’t patrol the regular GW2 discussion forums often. Perhaps the kickstarter funds could be used to hire a team dedicated to that specific content? It just seems to me that if not suffering from financial problems then understaff problems seem to be the issue here. The main problem I have with how things are being run here is lack of frequent updates and well presented but short/shallow content updates.

met.9653:

You dont get it, money is no problem here. Anet don’t want to create expansion, they focus on cheap developing: minimum content, maximum profit. If you dont like it you should quit, new players is all anet cares right now coz new players dont have big demands :P

You don’t get it. The “it” in this case referring to my original post. The funds would be used to “persuade” ArenaNet to work on the much wanted content. I hate that comment that just because I don’t like something I should quit. The very fact that I am wanting to improve the company that has created the game I love so much shows that I would never quit. The very idea is absurd and shows that you did not put much thought into what you said. ArenaNet cares for new players because they don’t have a monthly subscription, therefore most of their income comes from the initial purchase.

Lishtenbird.2814:

Dasenthal.6520:

They have the money they need. They’re simply not listening to the community about how to spend it. I have to agree with Guhracie on this one, if they came out and said “we need money” I would only be willing to donate if they figured out the things that need to be changed (communication being number 1).

January 2015: Kickstarter funding successfully ends.

July 2015: ANet rolls out a paid expansion box with open world PvP, dueling, no waypoints, permadeath, level 100 cap, Transcendent gear, player to player trading, and playable dervish quaggans in clown outfits with capes riding flying mounts (Tengu) and swinging huge pink shining poles.

August 2015: new players are running away in terror, older players facepalm and uninstall the game, the players who gave advices in forums say “this game is dead!” and move back to WoW.

GJ!

I suppose you tried to be comical but that’s not really helping :/. Though some of that sounds pretty fun (Playable Dervish Quaggans riding Tengus? kitten yes!). But obviously you didn’t take into account that I specifically stated a return to Cantha and Elona as requested by pretty much every single previous player of GW1 (not all).

Garambola.2461:

So, you want rich players to decide what everyone wants to play? No thanks. I prefer to let Anet make their choices even in those cases when I don’t care for them.

Rich players would not make decisions for the games direction. Please read my original post.

Problem isn’t really the content but the implementation.

Look at EotM, would be a great WvW map, but it turned into a karma train for upscale players where most people avoid fights due to poor implementation. It’s not even part of the PPT rotation and the supplies it gives to the borderland is negligible because it has no impact on the gameplay whatsoever.

Same with the ruins in the Borderlands map. Super fine graphic work but where is the gameplay? Stand in the circles for 10 minutes for a buff nobody needs or want.

Living story is the same, it should be story modes for new dungeons, not single player experiences meant to play once through and get it done with.

Then there is content like SAB. It should never have been removed.

bobomb.5209:

met.9653:

You dont get it, money is no problem here. Anet don’t want to create expansion, they focus on cheap developing: minimum content, maximum profit. If you dont like it you should quit, new players is all anet cares right now coz new players dont have big demands :P

You don’t get it. The “it” in this case referring to my original post. The funds would be used to “persuade” ArenaNet to work on the much wanted content. I hate that comment that just because I don’t like something I should quit. The very fact that I am wanting to improve the company that has created the game I love so much shows that I would never quit. The very idea is absurd and shows that you did not put much thought into what you said. ArenaNet cares for new players because they don’t have a monthly subscription, therefore most of their income comes from the initial purchase.

are you kidding me, you are going to give money to a company to “persuade” them into making the kind of content that you want….hahaha.

That is something big company around the world does to governments. They give governments money to “persuade” them of this or that.

If Anet is taking “donation” money from player to be “persuaded” into making anytype of content. Well, what is the word…Corruption!

If you got so much money to give. Why not give them to organization that will feed world’s hungry kids, or save some land for animals or green energy or something.

If you really want to put it into entertainment. There is a lot of kickstarter games that needs your money. If you really want to give to Anet. There is the gem store.

Kickstarter is for games like these (the game looks like it has the potential to be pretty good by the way):
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/therepopulation/the-repopulation-a-sandbox-mmorpg

Not a company that makes millions of dollars a month. If you want to give money to Anet/NCSoft, buy gems. If they don’t have gem store items you want you can convert the gems to gold.

GOSU.9574:

I thought the Gem Store was this game’s built in Kickstarter?

This.

If you really want to help Anet financially, buy gems.

so what you’re asking for is a new release to purchase

Anet doesn’t have a problem with money and I don’t think they have a problem with content either. I do believe though that they still have an issue as to who to introduce this content.

Eventhough Living World 2 episodes have had much better quality than Living World 1, it is still hard to be statisfied. People get annoyed when waiting for a new episode in a TV-series and it is even worse when you wait for a new episode in an MMORPG, a game that people usually play daily. If Anet starts with long pauses where they create the content and then release it all at once then people would complain that too much is coming too soon and they get confused with all the new story-lines that they stop caring about the Living World.

The Living World has simply not been the most impressing method. And as Anet never EVER says anything useful in advance, the players will never know what Anet is doing. If the team for the Living World is consisted of 20 people, what are the other 200 doing? Are they just sitting down to take maintain the servers and release ads? It is just hard to understand and the logical explanation would be: ‘’they are working on something else’’.

Now, it has been over a year since Anet said that they are working on something else aside from the Living Story but what is it? wether it is an expansion or something completly disappointing, Anet has to say something, because GW2 players simply seem to have no idea whatsoever as to what Anet is actually doing and what they can await from the game.

nGumball.1283:

Now, it has been over a year since Anet said that they are working on something else aside from the Living Story but what is it?

Since that time, they’ve had two feature packs which netted mixed forum reviews and spent time working with KhnogZong to launch the game in China. Those utilized at least some of the additional staff’s time.

A company of any size can use Kickstarter to raise funds, there’s no rule that says that there is a maximum size of the company. If that was the case then Reaper wouldn’t have made almost $7,000,000 over the course of two kickstarters to convert an existing range of metal figures to plastics.

However, the only two entities that could create a Kickstarter for Guildwars 2 are ArenaNet and NCSoft. Anyone else thinking that they could create one to ‘persuade’ development down a certain track are slightly deluded. The project might last a day or so and get a few pledges, but it would be soon closed down by Kickstarter as a project that might not lead anywhere, that’s assuming it was even allowed in the first place.

Someone tried it to ‘force’ a new season of Stargate Universe to be created with the original cast and crew, and it didn’t last long.

Black Frog.9274:

so what you’re asking for is a new release to purchase

Passive-aggressively.

I would go so far as to argue ArenaNet is doing particularly well right now, and the issue here is with the players setting their expectations too high and getting exasperated when they don’t get exactly what they want. The development team is still actively working on improving the game and introducing new content, and there are still healthy numbers of players logging in and doing a variety of content. It may seem on the forums like a lot of players are dissatisfied with the game, but the percentage of a game’s players that ever visit the forums is generally quite small, and GW2 is no exception.

they already have this: http://www.bestbuy.com/site/ncsoft-guild-wars-2-gem-card-25/6575597.p?id=1218759752997&skuId=6575597

Further, A kickstarter would not make a dent in their income. Let’s say they do manage to get ONE MILLION DOLLARS (in Dr. Evil’s voice). That is as much money as 10,000 people buying 8,000 gems for $100 each. I would not be surprised if they sell that many every week.
http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/1xro6q/ncsoft_q4_report/ says their total 2013 revenue was $115.9 million, which would mean they sell 8,000 gems to 10,000 players every 3 days.

Suuuure, basically raise money for a multi-million dollar company and probably one of Koreas biggest businesses in the entertainment sector. If you think that is a reasonable course of action, I may have a bridge I want to sell to you.