Guild Wars 2

Nymia.3256:

Xpiher.5209:

This is … just too much. If all that is right I’m not worried. I’m relieved. It means I can quit this game and never come back and rely on all themepark games becoming utter trash in the name of profit.

Just a note… I have been playing EVE Online since last Friday or so, and while the game has a MASSIVE learning curve it really is a blast.

100% PvP, Full Loot Drop, Sandbox-Style game based on being an immortal space ship captain.

I have given up on all MMOs, and all multi-player “themepark” style games.

Yes, Eve seems nice at the start… You will quit in less than 90 days.

We have a problem if Nexon is involved.

Nefar.8135:

Nymia.3256:

Xpiher.5209:

This is … just too much. If all that is right I’m not worried. I’m relieved. It means I can quit this game and never come back and rely on all themepark games becoming utter trash in the name of profit.

Just a note… I have been playing EVE Online since last Friday or so, and while the game has a MASSIVE learning curve it really is a blast.

100% PvP, Full Loot Drop, Sandbox-Style game based on being an immortal space ship captain.

I have given up on all MMOs, and all multi-player “themepark” style games.

Yes, Eve seems nice at the start… You will quit in less than 90 days.

Most people that quit eve in 90days do so because they dont’ like the fact that when they die, they lose all their stuff.

The ethics of random chests is interesting.

The Japanese government is regulating the sales (read: banned) a version of this sort of thing called “complete gacha”:
http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2012/05/gacha-watch-japan-social-games/

They’ve also banned “bingo gacha”, which is a variation of the same thing. “Gacha” is the Japanese term for random reward chests bought with cash. The word is Japanese onomatopaeia for a certain kind of random toy dispensing machine, much like gumball machines, which make that sound.

If it makes a whole nation uncomfortable, I’d say the ethics of this are pretty grey. Personally, I think random chests reflect poorly on the company selling them, as they are unscrupulous, underhanded, and have already demonstrated negative externalities in Japan.

ironzerg.3196:

-A golem named BUY-4373 (4373 is a MS security error about remote attacks)

Has anyone checked what item has the id 4373 in gw2db?

Xpiher.5209:

Nefar.8135:

Nymia.3256:

Xpiher.5209:

This is … just too much. If all that is right I’m not worried. I’m relieved. It means I can quit this game and never come back and rely on all themepark games becoming utter trash in the name of profit.

Just a note… I have been playing EVE Online since last Friday or so, and while the game has a MASSIVE learning curve it really is a blast.

100% PvP, Full Loot Drop, Sandbox-Style game based on being an immortal space ship captain.

I have given up on all MMOs, and all multi-player “themepark” style games.

Yes, Eve seems nice at the start… You will quit in less than 90 days.

Most people that quit eve in 90days do so because they dont’ like the fact that when they die, they lose all their stuff.

Not exactly. I love the concept of EVE and I do play it from time to time. I do hate the control scheme and the fact that so much of the game revolves around huge corporations and their power struggles. Each individual player in virtually insignificant and is treated like a line worker by these mega corporations and coalitions.

It’s basically paying $15 a month to roleplay real life. Oh and as far as that whole losing stuff when you die, if you’re smart with ship outfitting and insurance, you’ll actually come out ahead if you die.

Iruwen.3164:

OT: I hope you contributed to this project http://www.robertsspaceindustries.com

That looks impressive.

Can a fully crowdfunded MMORPG really be that far behind?

I think it’s the indie scene, and only the indie scene, that can lift this stagnation from the genre.

In truth, it’s not just MMORPGs either. The whole industry has gone real stale and formulaic. It’s just particularly bad in this corner.

It’s interesting that EVE came up in this thread. Isn’t it still growing after, what, 8-9 years? What “standard model” MMORPG can claim that kind of trajectory? None that I know of. Not even the Big Dog can claim that.

I poked around on Maple Story a while ago for research purposes. It felt kinda sleazy. Ever since this game launched, I’ve felt much the same about its cash shop. It seemed like a racket. Now that I know someone from Nexon is in charge of it, it all makes sense.

If I were writing material for a game, and my studio was co-opted or compromised by some outside corporate interest, you can bet your booty I’d “comment” on that in my work somehow. The worst part about the crazy conspiracy theory is that it’s not all that crazy.

What I noticed after the monocle incident in EVE, that you have gamemasters, developers, designers etc. in the normal chat channels in regular intervals, asking around how things are, asking what the players feel has to be done (always in the scope of their specific job), telling about stuff they are working on (only to a certain degree). And there were mostly quite constructive discussion ongoing after some minutes.

Anyway, I am subbed there having my training queue running all the time and play from time to time. I got shot down once by pirates xD.

Why does anyone think that 14.7% changes anything. Its just an investment in Nexxon’s Portfolio…not a controlling interest.

Raf.1078:

Why does anyone think that 14.7% changes anything. Its just an investment in Nexxon’s Portfolio…not a controlling interest.

Because it does, on a publicly traded company.

Controlling interest is the largest interest. Also, substantial but non-controlling interest can still have massive impact on company direction.

Shaula.6940:

ironzerg.3196:

-A golem named BUY-4373 (4373 is a MS security error about remote attacks)

Has anyone checked what item has the id 4373 in gw2db?

Tactical Pauldrons.

So, what can we do against Nexon?

I’m tempted to begin a smear campaign and ask people in all the Nexon’s games forums to stop supporting the company.

Raf.1078:

Why does anyone think that 14.7% changes anything. Its just an investment in Nexxon’s Portfolio…not a controlling interest.

Right before the announcement of Nexon’s purchase of NCSoft shares, a certain ex-Nexon employee got hired by ArenaNet as a monetization producer. Soon after, the dyes went from account bound to character bound and the Mystic Forge was introduced, we all know how huge of a money sink that is, right?

Then we got the Halloween event BLTC chest skin drop rate fiasco and now ascended gear and the insane grind associated with it.

If you have played GW1 and have followed the development of GW2, all of these changes are counter to ArenaNet’s philosophy. In other words, either ArenaNet went a complete 180 on us or someone else is calling the shots. Even the new instance, as fun as it is, doesn’t really follow the ease of access design like rest of the game.

The NA/EU MMO market is a lot older and a lot more male than Maple Story’s.

@Krookie, I have two posts in here previously that go in depth about all of that.

Attached is an image of the Maple Story Cash shop, which our illustrious new monetization manager was a producer for. Does anything look familiar?

This is what we are in for from now on folks. And Im not sure there is anything we can do to change it. Just gonna watch investors influencing bad design decisions and cash-shop mistakes ward off players and bury the Guild Wars franchise. Then Nexon will turn around and blame ArenaNet for players not wanting to buy the junk they tried to feed us before pulling Crystin out and sending her off to another studio to kill.

AcidicVision.5498:

And Im not sure there is anything we can do to change it. Just gonna watch investors influencing bad design decisions

This is like the story of videogames since they went mainstream.

Dont blame nexon for anything. I love me a good conspiracy but I think this is greed plain and simple. They surpass their sales projections and saw the signs. $$ signs – they are chasing it now. Dont blame them one bit – I am sure there are huge incentive bonuses tied to how well aspects of this game meets internal targets. They got greedy- Anet thinks it could treat gamers like brain dead risen – So far so good. Just wait and see how the bottom line is. A clear case of
Hanlons razor.
I am only 1 person that wont effect them at all nor do they care.

maaprid.2168:

Kinda funny, as soon as my husband and I completed that puzzle and got the “Under New Management” achievement we both looked at each other with a “hmmmm, That’s how we’re feeling about this game!”

It really feels like someone in the higher ups just said "OMG Make something quick, make a wow clone!, give them gear grind! Hurry, and give them lots of good drops after the final event so they will say “oooooh Shinies!!”

I have yet to do a fractals, I…just really want to pretend it doesn’t exist, but the constant spam is very annoying. Plus I need to do it if I want to finish my monthly =/

While I sympathize with you, and personally don’t really feel like logging in to play anymore, I will say that Fractals are a ton of fun. Really great content; shame they’re tied to this horrific new gear tier.

Once/if nexon/NCSoft bleed the game dry through terrible decisions, they’ll just shut it down. Or just stop funding it, I don’t know. They’ll have their eyes on the next big thing that they can ruin.

This theory is so sad I can’t even find it funny.

Crystin Cox is running the show in ArenaNet now. The new Monetization Producer (former Nexon Producer) recently placed in ArenaNet by Nexon.

Nymia.3256:

Raf.1078:

Why does anyone think that 14.7% changes anything. Its just an investment in Nexxon’s Portfolio…not a controlling interest.

Because it does, on a publicly traded company.

Controlling interest is the largest interest. Also, substantial but non-controlling interest can still have massive impact on company direction.

Actually a controlling interest is greater than 50%, not the largest. But a 14.7% is substantial and is likely to get them some board placement which gives them influence over management decisions. In the US, shareholders must file a schedule 13D with the SEC once they obtain a 5% interest or higher to give you perspective on what is considered exercising influence.

Waffler.1257:

Nymia.3256:

Raf.1078:

Why does anyone think that 14.7% changes anything. Its just an investment in Nexxon’s Portfolio…not a controlling interest.

Because it does, on a publicly traded company.

Controlling interest is the largest interest. Also, substantial but non-controlling interest can still have massive impact on company direction.

Actually a controlling interest is greater than 50%, not the largest. But a 14.7% is substantial and is likely to get them some board placement which gives them influence over management decisions. In the US, shareholders must file a schedule 13D with the SEC once they obtain a 5% interest or higher to give you perspective on what is considered exercising influence.

While I agree with all of your points, I disagree about controlling interest (in practice).

50.1% is an unshakeable controlling interest, for sure.
Controlling interest can be far less than that. As long as no group of stockholders can outvote you, you have controlling interest. So while technically this is going to depend on the company bylaws, practically even an amount such as 15% combined with politics and other stakeholder opinions can be quite nearly a controlling interest.

Narkosys.5173:

They got greedy- Anet thinks it could treat gamers like brain dead risen – So far so good.

From what I’ve seen over the years, it’s not the studios that are the source of this mentality. It comes from on high, from publishers.

The stories of titles that have been torpedoed by a corporate agenda that was forced onto a studio have really piled up over the last decade.

Nymia.3256:

Waffler.1257:

Nymia.3256:

Raf.1078:

Why does anyone think that 14.7% changes anything. Its just an investment in Nexxon’s Portfolio…not a controlling interest.

Because it does, on a publicly traded company.

Controlling interest is the largest interest. Also, substantial but non-controlling interest can still have massive impact on company direction.

Actually a controlling interest is greater than 50%, not the largest. But a 14.7% is substantial and is likely to get them some board placement which gives them influence over management decisions. In the US, shareholders must file a schedule 13D with the SEC once they obtain a 5% interest or higher to give you perspective on what is considered exercising influence.

While I agree with all of your points, I disagree about controlling interest (in practice).

50.1% is an unshakeable controlling interest, for sure.
Controlling interest can be far less than that. As long as no group of stockholders can outvote you, you have controlling interest. So while technically this is going to depend on the company bylaws, practically even an amount such as 15% combined with politics and other stakeholder opinions can be quite nearly a controlling interest.

Maybe so, but my background is in accounting so we have precise definitions for everything.

Narkosys.5173:

Dont blame nexon for anything. I love me a good conspiracy but I think this is greed plain and simple. They surpass their sales projections and saw the signs. $$ signs – they are chasing it now.

I could see this as being 100% correct if it were most studios. But there are a few I can’t buy that idea from. Anet, Funcom, Telltale, and Gearbox. All of them have had huge success, made enough money to expand and keep making games, and have had the players in mind every step of the way (well except Funcom. Those guys have had horrible luck. But they have great ideas and they try so gosh-darn-hard).

I don’t think Anet turned around on seven years of iterative design, careful crafting, enthusiasm and planning, to have the life’s work of many of their employees lambasted all over the internet.

GuildWars is also the studios only IP. It actually is their baby. From a personal and business standpoint, the activity as of late doesn’t make any sense. Unless coming from someone outside with little understanding of the company culture, demographic or player expectations.

I actually considered this briefly (not all those points, but “Under New Management” and the "FOTM’ abbreviation).

Would be great if tomorrow I logged in and saw patch notes “All item progression was just an in joke. We hope you had fun with it and no hard feelings! Item quality now scaled back to exotic as intended”

This is getting way out of hand. I love me a good conspiracy theory, but everyone’s talking about this with such certainty as if it was proven to be so.

As far as we know, this is nothing more than just a theory.

Minion of Vey.4398:

I actually considered this briefly (not all those points, but “Under New Management” and the "FOTM’ abbreviation).

Would be great if tomorrow I logged in and saw patch notes “All item progression was just an in joke. We hope you had fun with it and no hard feelings! Item quality now scaled back to exotic as intended”

Would be nice, but they have a whole generation of gamers trained by WoW to think that the point of playing a game is to endlessly chase after better items and meaningless achievements.

This is so worrying and nothing is funny about it. If this is ever going to happen then the game is doomed. Oh no…

Umbra Unu.4260:

This is getting way out of hand. I love me a good conspiracy theory, but everyone’s talking about this with such certainty as if it was proven to be so.

As far as we know, this is nothing more than just a theory.

Just a sec here, I’ll post you the link to the photo I found of T-Shirts on ANet’s wall that spell out “The Fnords are running GW2”.

BRB….

Adrenaline rising!

Umbra Unu.4260:

As far as we know, this is nothing more than just a theory.

• We know Nexon invested largely in NCsoft.
• We know Anet created a new position just to be filled by a producer from Nexon.
• We know she was the producer of Maple Story
• We know the GW gem shop is looking more and more like Maple Stoy’s, while nothing like that existed in the original GW cash shop.
• Multiple times we were told dye unlocks were account wide and the first announcement that woman made was that they would be character specific and sold in a cash-shop. We haven’t heard from her sense.

Exactly how much more do you need? And on that last point, just to drive a nail home, why was a producer for micro-transactions releasing a statement on a game-design change as her first order of business? Dude, if that doesn’t give you shivers, nothing will.

I like to think it went like this:
(Dramatization)
Cox: “So i’ve gone over the initial details and I thin kwe can make some money off of these dyes, but not if you only need one per account. So lets change that.”
O’Brien: “umm…well we have already released info that…”
Cox: “Ok, I just need to call and give my weekly update…”
O’Brien: Ok we will look into it..but you can make the announcement."
Cox: -tappidy-tap-tap-tap-click-post-
Guru: RRRAAWWRR COMMUNI-SAURUS-REX RAGE
Cox: “Ok, that’s enough of that. From now on you deal with them.”
O’Brien: /snicker

Umbra Unu.4260:

This is getting way out of hand. I love me a good conspiracy theory, but everyone’s talking about this with such certainty as if it was proven to be so.

As far as we know, this is nothing more than just a theory.

It’s not so much a conspiracy as a case of very curious coincidences. Ex Nexon person gets hired days before the announcement of NCSoft shares purchase by Nexon. Right after than there are some game changes to entice the use of the cash shop.

I can’t tell you whether or not the new ascended gear or this new patch with all those “Under New Managements” and Blinggs and whatnots are part of the whole thing but it’s pretty evident that there have been some changes to the game once Nexon came into the picture. Changes that were counter to overall design philosophy that ArenaNet advertised prior.

OP… I love it! I’d noticed the FoTM acronym connection, but put together with all of the other little things and hell, yeah! Gotta love a good conspiracy theory.

As for whether it’s accurate… I am hoping against hope it is not and that the ANet folks still have control over their game’s design.

P.S. Acidic… that script, while funny, rings eerily true!

Acidic, you made me smile. I love imagining how these kinds of interactions go on behind closed doors.

AcidicVision.5498:

Exactly how much more do you need? And on that last point, just to drive a nail home, why was a producer for micro-transactions releasing a statement on a game-design change as her first order of business? Dude, if that doesn’t give you shivers, nothing will.

I like to think it went like this:
(Dramatization)
Cox: “So i’ve gone over the initial details and I thin kwe can make some money off of these dyes, but not if you only need one per account. So lets change that.”
O’Brien: “umm…well we have already released info that…”
Cox: “Ok, I just need to call and give my weekly update…”
O’Brien: Ok we will look into it..but you can make the announcement."
Cox: -tappidy-tap-tap-tap-click-post-
Guru: RRRAAWWRR COMMUNI-SAURUS-REX RAGE
Cox: “Ok, that’s enough of that. From now on you deal with them.”
O’Brien: /snicker

Hahahahaha

Argh! It’s so SAD that this is the future for GW2 :-/

This is all conspiracy.

http://img15.hostingpics.net/pics/146133mike.png

Well whomever is running the cash shop is making it feel cheap and dirty (probably a reflection of their personal character). Like many other posters have pointed out about the chests, mini pets etc… I was one of those that couldn’t wait to buy the silly things, but until they stop “sleazing” it out like a cheap hooker…no thanks.

IE:
I would definitely but up tons of dye packs for my whole account, but PER character feels cheap…It’s like “Hey I know what you are trying to do there..and no thanks, don’t treat me like an idiot.”

Same with bag slots too.

this is probably the most sensible thread on this forum.

money seems to be the only consideration for A-Net.

i suppose that the massive delay in releasing GW2 led them down a path towards Corporation-Loan-Sharks.

now that they have “sold their souls” they have no real control over the game they produced.

this would explain the turnaround stance on every decent idea they ever had.

they are being controlled like puppets.

expect any more “cries for help” to be stifled and removed.

just like any negative viewpoints anyone cares to post here.

Lol, almost compelling.

Now you just need to demonstrate how the New Blizzard Order is in turn the one pulling the strings behind Nexon.

must be true they infracted him for the post lol. Good post though was fun reading.

Thank you Op – it made me laugh.
and then it made me cry because even though this is a conspiracy theory it rings all too true
edit: following your post to GuRu

Nexon could be for ANet what Activision was to Blizzard.
We all know the story …

I’m trying not to jump to conclusions btw, but I’m fed up of witnessing a pattern that happened too much in videogames, really.
- A great studio produces a great title,
- then a cash-shark bangs in, just at the tipping point of the success wave,
- game is ruined by money-driven bad gamedesign decisions

It’s especially a big damage for mmos, as mmos are supposed to live over years.
Players create emotional attachment to their chars, but get banged in the process.

So yes, yes, I know, it’s a business beforemost. But I also know that some businesses were able to be run without screwing things up. GW1 anyone ?

Hehe… this thread has cheered me up little about the current state of the game. Nice to think there might be some subversive shenanigans going on at ANet HQ, however useless it will likely prove to be.

Take your tinfoil hats off, everybody. There’s nothing sneaky or subversive going on.