Guild Wars 2

KongZhong had an earnings conference call where they also presented some details about GW2 China and the near future of the game.

• 500,000 CDKeys sold until May 1st
• Guild Wars 2 CD-Keys purchased and activated during the pre-order sales period will be amortized over a period of six months beginning from May 1st
• 7 days retention is over 70%; paying retention is over 25% (values for F2P games: below 50% and 10% respectively)
• high rankings in several hitlists
• long life cycle expected; comparable with WoT
• more metrics in 2Q14 earnings report (end of August)
• CDKeys sales remain robust
• Publication of sales number will be coordinated with Arenanet
• strong E-sports potential
• PvP tournaments on regular base: Start June 5th
• three times more spectators than WoT
• Marketing budget 2Q14 80% for GW2
• no Split for CDKeys and shop sales
• on the long run the shop will be the predominant source for income
• strict actions against botters and cheaters
• Sales for 198 Yuan edition exceeded predictions during pre-sales: 20% of the total sales (5% expected)

http://ir.kongzhong.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=180513&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1935293&highlight=

http://ir.kongzhong.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=180513&p=irol-presentations

If KongZhong can maintain the paying retention this high the game will be very profitable driven by the shop.

Why does 1-week retention even warrant a statistic? That gives me the immediate impression that even they believe the game is shallow.

I find this humorous.

OldSomalia.6180:

Why does 1-week retention even warrant a statistic? That gives me the immediate impression that even they believe the game is shallow.

I find this humorous.

It seems to be an important characteristic number to quantify the success of an MMORPG.

Belenwyn.8674:

• strict actions against botters and cheaters

How about some of those on the NA / EU servers?

thehipone.6812:

How about shipping some of those over to the NA / EU servers?

Botters and cheaters?

dace.8019:

Belenwyn.8674:

• strong E-sports potential

Haha, yes, those were the days when we thought that too.

I still do.

I’m just waiting for them to realize it’s in 15v15 GvG and not in 5v5 sPvP. There are already good 5v5 games out there, not going to get that audience. But the large group combat market is still available for the taking.

Peetee.9406:

I still do.

I’m just waiting for them to realize it’s in 15v15 GvG and not in 5v5 sPvP. There are already good 5v5 games out there, not going to get that audience. But the large group combat market is still available for the taking.

You’ve been waiting almost 2 years. We few who remain all have. More have left. It might be too late.

Peetee.9406:

dace.8019:

Belenwyn.8674:

• strong E-sports potential

Haha, yes, those were the days when we thought that too.

I still do.

I’m just waiting for them to realize it’s in 15v15 GvG and not in 5v5 sPvP. There are already good 5v5 games out there, not going to get that audience. But the large group combat market is still available for the taking.

The playerbase might want for something like 15v15s, but that’s not really feasible for a LAN tournament. And it would make spectating it for non-players just about impossible. Heck, realistically going from 5v5s to 15v15 means that you’ll have to cut the number of participating teams to 1/3 of what it is now.

A decent tournament should have at least 4 rounds (finals, semi, quarter, +1). This would mean you’d be looking at 16 teams of 15 people each. Considering that the Tournament of Legends was supposed to be 16 teams of 5 per region, I really don’t see how the heck they could manage that while needing triple the players.

It’s not like limiting the team size to 5 was an arbitrary number.

OldSomalia.6180:

Why does 1-week retention even warrant a statistic? That gives me the immediate impression that even they believe the game is shallow.

I find this humorous.

Very early data gathering is very important for identifying and analyzing trends. I’m inclined to believe this is especially true for GW2, because of the Living Story model.

dace.8019:

Haha, yes, those were the days when we thought that too.

Well, if they actually, genuinely think GW2 could make it as an esport, we could actually get some more effort into it over here. If China makes it, then ANet’s gonna start pushing really hard to make it happen over here.

Belenwyn.8674:

• strong E-sports potential

The Eeeee-est of Sports

In regards to e-sports GW2 is much more attractive than World of Tanks. KongZhong three times more spectator on GW2. The publisher also knows how to promote the game as the beta festival showed us.

The infrastructure is now much more developed with spectaor mode and custom arenas. There are several modes in the pipeline. They showed us the maps already in a sneak peek. China will not have to wait as long as we had.

Belenwyn.8674:

In regards to e-sports GW2 is much more attractive than World of Tanks. KongZhong three times more spectator on GW2. The publisher also knows how to promote the game as the beta festival showed us.

The infrastructure is now much more developed with spectaor mode and custom arenas. There are several modes in the pipeline. They showed us the maps already in a sneak peek. China will not have to wait as long as we had.

None of this changes the fact that pvp in the game is mediocre at best and lacks many of the features needed to become an e-sport.

Not to mention those quarterly (if were lucky) balance patches.

I hope the new modes will be ready soon. This will give a new stimulus for sPvP

If one week retention is a metric commonly used for F2P MMOs in China, makes sense to include it in the conference call. Remember B2P is something being tried there for the first time.

The 198 yuan edition is like the Hero’s Edition.

looks good.

if gw2 is big success in china i hope we gw2 na / eu will benefit thoroughly as well.

I am still waiting for the transcript of the call. This time they need longer.

“on the long run the shop will be the predominant source for income”
Poor people will get the same breakdown of the game as we, but at least there they are honest about it. Hope they also said that before release, not only a week after.

But that’s how MMOs in China normally make their money. I can see the question about continuing income being important to KongZhong’s investors. That’s why the 25% number Vs 10% is important.

Devata.6589:

“on the long run the shop will be the predominant source for income”
Poor people will get the same breakdown of the game as we, but at least there they are honest about it. Hope they also said that before release, not only a week after.

This is a normal process. An expansion with costs would produce a straw fire . A sharp peak in income for on quarter and a sharp declension after that quarter. After a more or less short time the shop will become the main source of income again.

Brutal Arts.6307:

Belenwyn.8674:

In regards to e-sports GW2 is much more attractive than World of Tanks. KongZhong three times more spectator on GW2. The publisher also knows how to promote the game as the beta festival showed us.

The infrastructure is now much more developed with spectaor mode and custom arenas. There are several modes in the pipeline. They showed us the maps already in a sneak peek. China will not have to wait as long as we had.

None of this changes the fact that pvp in the game is mediocre at best and lacks many of the features needed to become an e-sport.

Not to mention those quarterly (if were lucky) balance patches.

The thing is, what features do you need to make an eSport? In fact, I’d think ESports actually normally have shallower features than non-ES, which is why I really don’t want GW2 to aim at being ES.

Look at the big ESports. LoL for example: pretty much non-costumizable characters with extremely limited play options designed to enable balance. You’ll never see games like GW1 or TSW being big in ESports.

Well, I am glad the early signs are positive and good news for GW2, Anet and KhongZhong. The more players worldwide the better!

This however will not last in the longterm (like 3-6 months+), without a lot more resources being pumped in, spvp gets boring after a short’ish time:-

Belenwyn.8674:

• strong E-sports potential
• PvP tournaments on regular base: Start June 5th

Honestly GW2 esports biggest red herring EVER, weakest part of GW2.

Belenwyn.8674:

Devata.6589:

“on the long run the shop will be the predominant source for income”
Poor people will get the same breakdown of the game as we, but at least there they are honest about it. Hope they also said that before release, not only a week after.

This is a normal process. An expansion with costs would produce a straw fire . A sharp peak in income for on quarter and a sharp declension after that quarter. After a more or less short time the shop will become the main source of income again.

Define ‘normal’.

GW1 mainly used the expansions-sales so do most non-mmo games.

You are correct that if you use expansions as income you get a drop after the q where you sell the expansion and then your next peak will be when you sell the next expansion. That however does not have to be a problem. You simply get a steady income on a yearly base. That is fine.

In fact when we look at the sales of GW1 and compare it’s expansion-peaks to it’s initial sale it’s about 100%. GW2’s cash-shop sales start to drop and are now at a steady +- 21% every q. That means that after the second expansion GW2 would have started to earn more money with a pure expansion-based model then with the pure cash-shop model they use now.

And then I am not even talk about the fact that the compromises you need to make to the game for the cash-shop to work scares away people so that number might drop even lower and if they now would sell an expansion it would likely also sell less and less people playing a game also results in less opportunity to make money with merchandise. Lastly is does not benefit the game and so in also not a benefit for the long-term perspective of the game.

The cash-shop model however is a fairly easy, risk-low, proven, cash-grab approach. That is likely why it’s the way but it does not benefit the game or the customers and when done correctly it does even not benefit the company.

I’m surprised by all the cynicism here. I’m not trying to be a fan boy, but it seems to me that a very successful GW2 in China means more resources will be allocated to ANet than otherwise. More resources means more design time means more content. It doesn’t mean that ANet will change direction, though, it probably means more Living Story and more gem store updates, so if that’s not your cup of tea then I guess it’s not good news for you, but if that’s the case you probably should’ve dropped the game a year ago.

One of the hottest games in China atm, blew Hearthstone and Dota2 clean off the Top 10.

http://www.gamesinasia.com/the-top-10-hottest-pc-games-in-china-may-2014/

Facepunch.5710:

I’m surprised by all the cynicism here. I’m not trying to be a fan boy, but it seems to me that a very successful GW2 in China means more resources will be allocated to ANet than otherwise. More resources means more design time means more content. It doesn’t mean that ANet will change direction, though, it probably means more Living Story and more gem store updates, so if that’s not your cup of tea then I guess it’s not good news for you, but if that’s the case you probably should’ve dropped the game a year ago.

Well I did buy a B2P game so that gives me the right to ask for a B2P game not a cash-shop game. But yeah it’s been pretty bad for over a year so I could have simply dropped it and never looked back. Also leaving behind an awesome guild we build up and so on.

Not that these numbers have much to do with that. Why would good (or bad) numbers here means no change? GW2 in China is now where we where almost 2 years ago.. not where we where a year ago when things took a turn for the worse. Not to mention that China is a complete different market.

Just a note on the ‘hottest’ game comment.

Probably it is a pretty hot game in China, or it could just be because it’s new.

Warhammer Online had something like 3,000,000 million subs in it’s first month, but we all know how that game turned out.

I would rather find the average number of players between months 2-4 in China and then base that off on whether or not it’s hotter than Dota or whatever

Devata.6589:

Well I did buy a B2P game so that gives me the right to ask for a B2P game not a cash-shop game. But yeah it’s been pretty bad for over a year so I could have simply dropped it and never looked back. Also leaving behind an awesome guild we build up and so on.

Not that these numbers have much to do with that. Why would good (or bad) numbers here means no change? GW2 in China is now where we where almost 2 years ago.. not where we where a year ago when things took a turn for the worse. Not to mention that China is a complete different market.

You did buy a B2P game, and that’s what you got. No charge to play, and play as much as you like. On top of that, there is absolutely no argument to be made that you need the cash shop to play or to compete with other players. So you bought a B2P game, you can play as much as you want without spending another dime and the game is being updated quite often with new story content and features. If the updates are not to your liking, that’s another matter, but I don’t see the argument that this is not a B2P game.

If you disagree, please explain which gem store item(s) you were required to buy in order to play the game, and for which gameplay mode you needed this item.

“No charge to play, and play as much as you like.” What you describe now if F2P. I did have a charge to play.. you know there is no access to the game without buying the game. One of my main reasons to go for GW2 was because of the B2P model because I dislike the F2P / cash-shop model.

“On top of that, there is absolutely no argument to be made that you need the cash shop to play or to compete with other players.” You do not NEED anything in any game. Because it’s a game. Also not everybody plays a game just to compete with other players. For that I prefer FPS games. I prefer to hunt down nice items in the world. That however has been turned into one big gold-grind with most of those items not even being in the game but in the cash-shop.

“the game is being updated quite often with new story content and features.” Of what most was temporary content that only created a feeling of pressure to do it now because else you would lose out forever. And then there of course where all the temporary available cash-shop items. I preferred to do pay for new content (That’s the B from B2P) by buying a new expansion every year. Rather then have a cash-shop focus in this not F2P (F for not having to pay) game.

“If the updates are not to your liking, that’s another matter, but I don’t see the argument that this is not a B2P game.“ Well you could read B2P literally. Buy it to play and since you need to buy GW2 you could then say “you see it’s B2P.”. However what are we describing with B2P? We are describing it’s payment model and that does not end after the initial sales. What is now the main source of income? Them selling the game (yeah expansions belong to that) or them selling cash-shop items. Indeed cash-shop items. Just as it states in the list in OP’s post. So that’s why I say it’s not a true B2P game. At this moment it’s a cash-shop game you had to buy first.

Like I said I do not NEED anything it being a game. The game itself is optional so with that everything in it is. But you are right to point towards the game-play mode because depending on the game-play mode it may or may not hurt you. Do I NEED a mini? No. Would I have a lot of fun hunting down mini’s in the world? Yes. Do I have fun needing to grind gold or buy them with cash? No. Does it then effect the game-play? Yes it does.

Devata.6589:

Like I said I do not NEED anything it being a game. The game itself is optional so with that everything in it is. But you are right to point towards the game-play mode because depending on the game-play mode it may or may not hurt you. Do I NEED a mini? No. Would I have a lot of fun hunting down mini’s in the world? Yes. Do I have fun needing to grind gold or buy them with cash? No. Does it then effect the game-play? Yes it does.

They never said or implied that anything they added to the game wouldn’t be cash shop only. It’s just like DLC in standalone games. You only get it if you buy it.

And stop using the “do not NEED because it’s a game” line. You bought a game. Nothing in the cash shop has any long term benefits to your character’s ability to do anything in the game. You’re the one who can’t resist the pretty baubles in the cash shop and sticking to the “buy and play for free” mantra to mean not paying one red cent more unless it’s an expansion like dear old Guild Wars did and choose to grind for gold. And even though it’s been explained numerous times that overuse of gold to gems will make it cost more the next time you use the exchange you have decided that will be the only way you will get an item from the cash shop even as the amount of work required to earn the same amount of gems skyrockets (3x in a year).

You do have to admit that this game doesn’t nickle and dime you over content, slots, storage, outfits like many F2P games do.

I understand that you’re upset that all the “new” looks are in the store. ANet has to keep customers coming to the store so they need to keep introducing new items or bring back ones that they removed until demand builds up again. I know you find that practice anathema but it’s the business model ANet chose to fund the running of a true MMO with a stream of free content. But you hate that too because the new content requires attendance due to it’s temporary nature Vs an on demand availability.

Well maybe the game isn’t really for you if you object to ANet’s choices. That’s okay, no game is something that agrees with everybody. Sure you loved Guild Wars but this isn’t nor it every was going to be a rehash of Guild Wars. I loved Master of Orion and MOO2 but MOO3 blew. Que sera, sera.

Behellagh.1468:

~

No they did not say it. They sold it as B2P and had a good name with a B2P model in GW2. So I trusted them to do the same with GW2. That does not make it any better however.

It’s also not completely the same as DLC but I am also not a big fan of DLC. Prefer a good expansion.

“And stop using the “do not NEED because it’s a game” line.” It was you who asked why I would need anything? I just answer that. So if you don’t want to hear that don’t ask me.

“Nothing in the cash shop has any long term benefits to your character’s ability to do anything in the game.” Yeah I figured that’s your definition of need (and with benefit you talk about stats right?). But that completely depends on your personal play-style. I don’t care so much for stats I prefer it to have a nice mini or nice skin or something like that. So it benefits in looks for exmaple.

“You’re the one who can’t resist the pretty baubles in the cash shop and sticking to the “buy and play for free” Considering I did not buy any gems nor do I grind gold I guess I can resist. It’s just that I prefer to play for those things in game. That’s obvious a game-play you don’t like but that’s how it works. Also not sure how you get the idea that I grind for gold?

“gold to gems will make it cost more the next time you use the exchange you have decided that will be the only way you will get an item from the cash shop even as the amount of work required to earn the same amount of gems skyrockets (3x in a year). ” If I really want something from the cash-shop I would indeed buy it with gold if I would have the gold but as I don’t grind gold I never have a lot of gold. Not sure what you want to say here.. I should just buy it with cash because it’s to expensive.. and then where would be the part where I play?? You see I have this game to play it, not to buy skins for my character in it. That’s a silly idea of playing a game imho.

“You do have to admit that this game doesn’t nickle and dime you over content, slots, storage, outfits like many F2P games do.” What are you saying here? But as far as I understand your sentence. Yes there are some F2P games that are even worse. That does not make it good you know.

Your last assumption about what I dislike about it is true. The problem is it started pretty good and then they made a turn for the worse. And I am not the only one disliking that as you might have noticed.

Oow and I just like GW1’s payment model. Not the game. You make many assumptions that are complete nonsense like that I love GW1 and that I grind gold and that I can’t resist the cash-shop items and so on.

But yeah I dislike for the road Anet went into, I think it’s bad for the game and Anet. I dislike them focusing on the cash-shop and so influencing the game with it all completely true. Isn’t the game not for me.. In it’s current state not anymore but at release it was and would they turn back to a true B2P model it might very well become the game for me anymore and it would become a better game overall for it. Because nobody is going to convince my that many of things that happen to the game because of the cash-shop focus are good for the game. Sure they might not harm you personal game-play but they are not good for the game. Having haircuts behind a pay-wall or gold-grind is in no way better then having a barber in the game where you can cut your hair for a few silver.

Having mini’s in a cash-shop is is not way better then having them drop from specific content. So all in all, all I am asking for is a better game.

A better game for you. I’m not sure an expansion model would be better for Guild Wars 2. I enjoy the bi-weekly release cadence. I know you do not, but you can’t really speak for everyone when you (again) claim that an expansion model would be better for the game.

To each his/her own. =)

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

A better game for you. I’m not sure an expansion model would be better for Guild Wars 2. I enjoy the bi-weekly release cadence. I know you do not, but you can’t really speak for everyone when you (again) claim that an expansion model would be better for the game.

To each his/her own. =)

Well looking at the many complains it’s not only me but a lot of people.

Besides I did give very specific examples to show it would a better game in general. The fact that you ignored those examples says enough really.

Also I don’t say they may put in bi-weekly updates. All I dislike about them is the temporary nature of it. One again I’m not the only one but many many many people are complaining about that. Maybe it’s you who is the exception here? Who knows?

Even Anet said they would make it more permanent because of all the feedback. Lets hope they indeed do so in LS S2.

But obviously to each it’s own. For sure there will be thinks you like and I dislike and the other way around.

And a lot of people enjoy the cadence, what does that mean? I didn’t ignore what you said, you’ve said it countless times before, so that’s not possible.

I didn’t say you were an exception, just that you don’t speak for everyone when you say that would definitely ‘improve’ the game. That’s how you see it, not how it may or may not actually be.

We know this is your pet peeve, and you are welcome to it. =)

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

A better game for you. I’m not sure an expansion model would be better for Guild Wars 2. I enjoy the bi-weekly release cadence. I know you do not, but you can’t really speak for everyone when you (again) claim that an expansion model would be better for the game.

To each his/her own. =)

I have no issues with how the content gets to me (expansion or content patches), however it’s the quality of content that get my attention. I’m willing to give GW2 some slack for S1 as they were still figuring out how to do it, S2 is going to be the make or break for me at least.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

And a lot of people enjoy the cadence, what does that mean? I didn’t ignore what you said, you’ve said it countless times before, so that’s not possible.

I didn’t say you were an exception, just that you don’t speak for everyone when you say that would definitely ‘improve’ the game. That’s how you see it, not how it may or may not actually be.

We know this is your pet peeve, and you are welcome to it. =)

Those examples are indeed improvements or tell me how it’s better for the game in general to have a mini in the cash-shop vs in the game from a game-play perspective.

There are indeed things that are personal depending on the person but no I don’t believe there are many people who say “Yeah I love mini’s in the cash-shop and not as drop because it makes the game so much better” .

So if it comes to those examples I do feel it’s general not personal. But if you prefer temporary content every two weeks or not that’s indeed personal. There are for sure some people who love that stuff.

Devata.6589:

Those examples are indeed improvements or tell me how it’s better for the game in general to have a mini in the cash-shop vs in the game from a game-play perspective.

There are indeed things that are personal depending on the person but no I don’t believe there are many people who say “Yeah I love mini’s in the cash-shop and not as drop because it makes the game so much better” .

So if it comes to those examples I do feel it’s general not personal. But if you prefer temporary content every two weeks or not that’s indeed personal. There are for sure some people who love that stuff.

Mini in cash-shop = more money.
More money = more resources for developing stuff for the game.
Mini in cash-shop = more gameplay stuff develop.

I’d rather a min in the cash shop (no impact on game play) vs having something like ascended stats in the gem shop (impacts game play).

They have to put something in the shop to generate income. GW2 isn’t build to work like GW1. I’m perfectly content with cosmetic, trivial items being there.

Xae Isareth.1364:

(…)

Look at the big ESports. LoL for example: pretty much non-costumizable characters with extremely limited play options designed to enable balance. You’ll never see games like GW1 or TSW being big in ESports.

Did you mean GW2 instead of GW1 here? I never played in them, but GW1 in its day seemed to have a very active GvG scene with official tournaments, money prices and stuff.

Vol.7601:

Just a note on the ‘hottest’ game comment.

Probably it is a pretty hot game in China, or it could just be because it’s new.

Warhammer Online had something like 3,000,000 million subs in it’s first month, but we all know how that game turned out.

Some of it may be the ‘new’ factor but some friends playing the Chinese release that are new to the game actually love the story, combat mechanics, and wvw. The question is will they get burned out to fast or will enough ‘fresh’ content be released at a pace fast enough to satiate the Chinese gamer appetite, the market there will not tolerate slow release schedules especially when it comes to PvP/WvW updates in regards to balance/bug issues. It’ll get abandoned fast if ANet follows it’s current modus operandi.

I’m still depressed over Warhammer the RvR really needed to be a 3way Ultimately though it turned out most of the bad decision making came from the suits in the long run not allowing resources to be allocated where they needed to be to get things done and matters got even worse after the EA acquisition.

GW2 has been giving me that exact same vibe recently as well.

Devata.6589:

“on the long run the shop will be the predominant source for income”
Poor people will get the same breakdown of the game as we, but at least there they are honest about it. Hope they also said that before release, not only a week after.

Or perhaps a year or more before launch as was the case for GW2.

Devata.6589:

There are indeed things that are personal depending on the person but no I don’t believe there are many people who say “Yeah I love mini’s in the cash-shop and not as drop because it makes the game so much better” .

I would certainly rather minis be in the cash shop where they can generate income from the players who desire them than have them be assigned as rewards for content so that anyone who does not care about minis is guaranteed to get nothing they care about as a reward from said content.

Make all minis tradable and my concern disappears as then those who dont care for minis can trade them for something they like..

The report part made me chuckle a bit. WoW tried to be an esport, and was removed. And it made sense as you saw the same team comp over and over at the top. It was stale and boring. Gw2, though a bit more balanced as with more stat restrictions at least (though not perfect), will still fail as well as again, same classes, same specs. Where as MOBAs like LoL have MANY champs now to fill each roll, it gives a different play style each game. There would have to be a major class rework for that to even work in gw2, something you know won’t happen.

So please, give up on gw2 report, it’ll save you from the pain later.

Devata.6589:

Belenwyn.8674:

Devata.6589:

“on the long run the shop will be the predominant source for income”
Poor people will get the same breakdown of the game as we, but at least there they are honest about it. Hope they also said that before release, not only a week after.

This is a normal process. An expansion with costs would produce a straw fire . A sharp peak in income for on quarter and a sharp declension after that quarter. After a more or less short time the shop will become the main source of income again.

Define ‘normal’.

GW1 mainly used the expansions-sales so do most non-mmo games.

You are correct that if you use expansions as income you get a drop after the q where you sell the expansion and then your next peak will be when you sell the next expansion. That however does not have to be a problem. You simply get a steady income on a yearly base. That is fine.

In fact when we look at the sales of GW1 and compare it’s expansion-peaks to it’s initial sale it’s about 100%. GW2’s cash-shop sales start to drop and are now at a steady +- 21% every q. That means that after the second expansion GW2 would have started to earn more money with a pure expansion-based model then with the pure cash-shop model they use now.

And then I am not even talk about the fact that the compromises you need to make to the game for the cash-shop to work scares away people so that number might drop even lower and if they now would sell an expansion it would likely also sell less and less people playing a game also results in less opportunity to make money with merchandise. Lastly is does not benefit the game and so in also not a benefit for the long-term perspective of the game.

The cash-shop model however is a fairly easy, risk-low, proven, cash-grab approach. That is likely why it’s the way but it does not benefit the game or the customers and when done correctly it does even not benefit the company.

earning money is only half the equation for a business. how much a company earns in sales is meaningless if you don’t know how much they spend in generating those sales. I would guess that creating expansions costs significantly more than running a cash-shop

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

I didn’t say you were an exception, just that you don’t speak for everyone when you say that would definitely ‘improve’ the game. That’s how you see it, not how it may or may not actually be.

It would definitely improve the GAME.

You are talking about what you ENJOY as if it were the same as what would IMPROVE the game. There is no required correlation between those TWO things.

ArenaNet already talked about how they have TROUBLE hiring voice actors to do SMALL roles. Which is why OUR characters say so little – hiring 10 people to do small talk HERE and THERE is way too expensive. Hiring fewer people is CHEAPER.

That’s why our CHARACTERS are WORTHLESS mutes who do as the real heroes tell them to do. And why, while there is zero player agency, the heroes who defeated SCARLET are represented by the five “biconics” characters.

With an EXPANSION, ArenaNet could hire actors for LONGER periods, which would be more COST EFFECTIVE. Which means, the story could be told in such a way that our characters would be SLIGHTLY less worthless than in the Living World.

Not to mention how an expansion adds new permanent areas, multiple weapon sets as part of the EXPANSION, and all the other kinds of content that the Living Story has FAILED to add to the game so far. New armors and weapons, IN PARTICULAR, are one of the obvious fields in which the Living Story is worse than EXPANSIONS: while weapons in the Living Story are given through a LOTTERY system, in expansions multiple new skins are introduced and made available EXCLUSIVELY through in-game activities.

I hope your caps lock gets fixed. ; )

I believe we were speaking about delivery models. I don’t think an expansion delivery model would improve the game. You do. I prefer not to wait six months to a year for my content delivery. You do.

Again, a matter of opinion. /shrug

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

I hope your caps lock gets fixed. ; )

I believe we were speaking about delivery models. I don’t think an expansion delivery model would improve the game. You do. I prefer not to wait six months to a year for my content delivery. You do.

Again, a matter of opinion. /shrug

I believe he’s talking about the development process. The living story is proof of a weak foundation, brought on by ‘thought of the month/on the whim’ ideas, whereas an expansion tends to have a clear plan and direction.

It is interesting how many people here seems to be fully aware about how ArenaNets development works.

Another thing that is funny is that when they don’t change things based on feedback (as in not follow their plan and do “on the whim ideas”) people whine about them ignoring feedback.
But now apparently they shouldn’t listen to feedback and just do their thing.

Make up your kitten minds.

lordkrall.7241:

Devata.6589:

Those examples are indeed improvements or tell me how it’s better for the game in general to have a mini in the cash-shop vs in the game from a game-play perspective.

There are indeed things that are personal depending on the person but no I don’t believe there are many people who say “Yeah I love mini’s in the cash-shop and not as drop because it makes the game so much better” .

So if it comes to those examples I do feel it’s general not personal. But if you prefer temporary content every two weeks or not that’s indeed personal. There are for sure some people who love that stuff.

Mini in cash-shop = more money.
More money = more resources for developing stuff for the game.
Mini in cash-shop = more gameplay stuff develop.

More money from mini’s means more mini’s in the cash-shop and other bad cash-shop behavior. They see the cash-shop making money so focus even more on the cash-shop. Overall it does not do much good for the game but worse. Meanwhile thinks like mini’s are out of the game what might not be a problem for your game-play but is for many other players. Of course you can replace mini’s with a lot of things..

Oow and that still does not show how mini’s in the cash-shop is better is good for your game-play vs them out of the cash-shop. You simply ignore the mini’s here as game-play and talk about if they have money (what they can earn in multiple ways) they can make new game-play elements so in a way you are only confirming that it’s a negative from the game-play perspective surrounding the mini.

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

I’d rather a min in the cash shop (no impact on game play) vs having something like ascended stats in the gem shop (impacts game play).

They have to put something in the shop to generate income. GW2 isn’t build to work like GW1. I’m perfectly content with cosmetic, trivial items being there.

It does not effect YOUR game-play. In fact if they put ascended stats in the cash-shop it would not effect my game-play. However I would still be against it as it does effect the game-play for other people.

You might be fine with those items because they don’t effect your game-play. I’m not because overall it still effects the game-play just not your game-play. There are only trivial for your gameplay not for game-play in general.

And what I am saying is not that they have to do anything for free. Simply that they make there money with expansions in stead of with the cash-shop so they don’t have to put any of those things in the cash-shop.

Ashen.2907:

Devata.6589:

“on the long run the shop will be the predominant source for income”
Poor people will get the same breakdown of the game as we, but at least there they are honest about it. Hope they also said that before release, not only a week after.

Or perhaps a year or more before launch as was the case for GW2.

Devata.6589:

There are indeed things that are personal depending on the person but no I don’t believe there are many people who say “Yeah I love mini’s in the cash-shop and not as drop because it makes the game so much better” .

I would certainly rather minis be in the cash shop where they can generate income from the players who desire them than have them be assigned as rewards for content so that anyone who does not care about minis is guaranteed to get nothing they care about as a reward from said content.

Make all minis tradable and my concern disappears as then those who dont care for minis can trade them for something they like..

You mean they said they would have a cash-shop to generate money not that it would be ‘predominant source for income’. You know that is a huge difference! In fact they said they would have expansions ‘for sure’ to finance the game and would also the cash-shop to generate money in-between (during development of the next expansion). From there statement you could not say that the cash-shop would have been the focus or it would be the predominant source. And after launch they pretty much dropped expansions as a total by stating “if we do this right we will never have an expansions”.

You know I never like it if people tell untruths to get there right because by doing so they put the onus at me and need I to show the facts and search for the resources. On the other hand, if people need to tell untruth to be right it pretty much shows they are wrong.

Here is where they made there 180 about a year ago. (Yeah officially it’s still on the table but it does show what there main plans are)
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-07-03-its-unlikely-guild-wars-2-will-ever-get-an-expansion-pack

And here is what they said about how they use the cash-shop AND expansions to generate income.
http://www.videogamer.com/news/guild_wars_2_expansions_a_sure_thing_says_arenanet_2.html

So with the knowledge of how GW1 worked and what they said there is no reason to believe cash-shop would be the main focus or predominant source for income. In fact looking with all the information you had it would make sense that expansions would be the ‘predominant source for income’ as that is what made ArenaNet big with GW1.

“I would certainly rather minis be in the cash shop where they can generate income from the players who desire them than have them be assigned as rewards for content so that anyone who does not care about minis is guaranteed to get nothing they care about as a reward from said content.”

I am happy to see people here trying to proof that mini’s in the cash-shop are in fact better for the game-play. Because it shows they are not trying to be objective about it but trying to make up excuses (what was not needed if it would be better for the game-play in any way). One person who starts about how money can make new game-play.. well that does not say anything about how the mini’s in the cash-shop are better for that part of the game-play itself.

You say that else people might not get drops they do not care about what is just well the worse excuse. As if, if mini’s would drop something else would not drop anymore.??? What make no sense whatsoever. So those people who like those other thinks could still get there drop and sell the mini’s got that drop. While in fact now there are people who do not get that sort of drops they like because they are not in the game in the cash-shop.

And yes at least most items that drop should be tradable. Including mini’s. Maybe you want have a select few that are account-bound but by far most drops should be tradable.