Guild Wars 2

DoctorDing.5890:

I heard that they were just going to add another three layers above each of the HoT maps accessible only by an infernally difficult jumping puzzle and gated by a new adventure where you have to shoot invisible sparks with a bent rifle whilst standing on a greased branch in a negative gravity sandstorm.

I might be wrong though.

This is GOLD!! GOLD I tell you!!

And please don’t forget the plethora of Veterans and Champions all standing everywhere, all gunning for you and only slightly vulnerable for a half second per minute. ANet don’t let us down!! Make it insanely hard, make sure there’s a booby trap right next to the end chest that forces us to restart from the very beginning!!

It’s good to see GW2 doing better. Hopefully Anet keeps momentum and comes out with lots of kick kitten xpacs.

Noa.7490:

DoctorDing.5890:

I heard that they were just going to add another three layers above each of the HoT maps accessible only by an infernally difficult jumping puzzle and gated by a new adventure where you have to shoot invisible sparks with a bent rifle whilst standing on a greased branch in a negative gravity sandstorm.

I might be wrong though.

This is GOLD!! GOLD I tell you!!

Make it insanely hard, make sure there’s a booby trap right next to the end chest that forces us to restart from the very beginning!!

A very tiny hole right in front of the chest that you can’t see unless you position the camera just right. And the hole disables your glider and causes you to fall all the way to the ground level again. Where every WP for a hundred miles is contested.

I’m pretty sure MO coming out and giving everyone with the expansion a free level 80 and gear to go with it on top of a permanent shared inventory slot with an apology on the basis that the expansion failed to deliver promised content on top of repeated first-hand account from NCSoft execs stating the expansion was not as economically successful as planned in the moths afterwards in respects to whether or not the expansion was a success in the eyes of the players is really up for debate.

Don’t get me wrong, I give the developers credit for their hard work and really want to support them financially and with morale for doing their best (props to the team working on WvW right now, I love the efforts being made as of late), but claiming HoT is a resounding success is just a blatant lie.

saye.9304:

second expansion as soon as possible which means q3 or q4 2017 in my opinion.
gw2 still doing fine and things will get better with LW/LS back next update.
wildstar goodby.
blade and soul doing much better than gw2 for now but i think the revenue will drop.

Not really and a quick look at the regional numbers can place a range on how well BnS did in the NA/EU market.

The NA/EU income numbers include all of GW2 (as China is folded into royalties), Wildstar (only available in NA/EU), NA Lineage 2 and NA AION (EU versions of both games are run by 3rd parties so are also reported as royalties).

In 1Q2015 after subtracting out GW2 and WS, we get 3.125 bn KrW that represents NA Lineage 2 and AION.

In 1Q2016, again after subtracting out GW2 and WS, we now have a whopping 28.935 bn KrW. Even if all of it was BnS, GW2’s income was 30.557 bn KrW. BnS is likely 3-4 bn KrW less so around 25 bn KrW which places GW2 post HoT 2nd quarter income at roughly 20% above BnS’s 1st quarter in NA/EU.

That’s my back of the envelope analysis of how well BnS did Vs GW2 in the first quarter.

There are a lot of GW2 players with degrees in economics or business management.

The only problem with HoT expansion at launch was the rewards. They fixed that now though in the latest update. The content in HoT is really good though.

I hope they don’t remove vertical designed maps. It works very well and makes the maps feel more real and alive. Exciting way to adventure. A flat map would be very boring now after HoT.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

^But, did ArenaNet make those statements, or was it NCSoft? Are the lessons learned (no such word as learnt) the same for publishers as they are for developers? Does ArenaNet even agree with the statements made by NCSoft?

Questions to mull over, perhaps?

no such word as learnt

This word is the same as learned. It is a word, I promise… I’ll wait while you google it.

Squee.7829:

There are a lot of GW2 players with degrees in economics or business management.

Well there are 3 million players in GW2

The average age of the MMO player is now post college (only 25% are pre-college)
(http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/130552/unmasking_the_avatar_the_.php?print=1)

Economics and business management is the most popular college major
(http://college.usatoday.com/2014/10/26/same-as-it-ever-was-top-10-most-popular-college-majors/)

so 75% of players are in or post college = 2.2 million

45% of people over 18 have gone to college = 990,000
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Educational_attainment_in_the_United_States)

and 21% of people are business majors = 207,000
(https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=37)

So yes there are actually about 200,000 players with business/economics degrees playing this game. So I wouldn’t dismiss people out of hand.

I don’t need your logic ruining my snarky, probably self-righteous cynicism! >:o

Thanks good info, Someone above said the events in Hot are bad, i disagree the events are fine if they weren’t so hard to do, they’d actually be fun..

That said the figures on all those games apart from Linage seem really low, not great not overly bad except poor Wildstar..

Either way i think NCsoft might be going into damage control from the way it came across, on all games not just GW2..

Dante.1508:

Thanks good info, Someone above said the events in Hot are bad, i disagree the events are fine if they weren’t so hard to do, they’d actually be fun..

That said the figures on all those games apart from Linage seem really low, not great not overly bad except poor Wildstar..

Either way i think NCsoft might be going into damage control from the way it came across, on all games not just GW2..

I see no real evidence that that’s the case, and I don’t know what you specifically see that gets you this idea.

To put it into perspective, Guild Wars 2 is actually roughly steady for a couple of years now. It hasn’t gone down in profits. NcSoft is saying that HoT didn’t meet sales targets and there are many reasons why that happened. One of the biggest, in my opinion, is that character slot fiasco. That was just silly. For $50 Anet should have given a character slot with the expansion.

But once the bad feelings/publicity started, before the game even launched, obviously that would heavily affect preorders. Lots of people decided to wait.

And of course a myriad of complaints followed up the launch, so that didn’t help either.

But at the end of the day, the company is fine. The only real issue right now is Wildstar, and that’s had issues for a long time now.

“The performance of HoT was not as expected. We learnt the lesson. A second expansion is in work and will be released as soon as possible.”

Not releasing “as soon as possible” is the lesson they should have learned.

If they really want money they need to rethink PvP with GvG in mind.

Basically right now they’re almost just milking it from the gem store, this is just sad.

Vayne.8563:

Dante.1508:

Thanks good info, Someone above said the events in Hot are bad, i disagree the events are fine if they weren’t so hard to do, they’d actually be fun..

That said the figures on all those games apart from Linage seem really low, not great not overly bad except poor Wildstar..

Either way i think NCsoft might be going into damage control from the way it came across, on all games not just GW2..

I see no real evidence that that’s the case, and I don’t know what you specifically see that gets you this idea.

To put it into perspective, Guild Wars 2 is actually roughly steady for a couple of years now. It hasn’t gone down in profits. NcSoft is saying that HoT didn’t meet sales targets and there are many reasons why that happened. One of the biggest, in my opinion, is that character slot fiasco. That was just silly. For $50 Anet should have given a character slot with the expansion.

But once the bad feelings/publicity started, before the game even launched, obviously that would heavily affect preorders. Lots of people decided to wait.

And of course a myriad of complaints followed up the launch, so that didn’t help either.

But at the end of the day, the company is fine. The only real issue right now is Wildstar, and that’s had issues for a long time now.

Look again at the GW2 Q1 Q2 etc are low HoT boosted that then its dropped again since, i’m betting it’ll drop to match last years Q1 Q2 etc.. as customers fall off HoTs high.

Vayne.8563:

Dante.1508:

Thanks good info, Someone above said the events in Hot are bad, i disagree the events are fine if they weren’t so hard to do, they’d actually be fun..

That said the figures on all those games apart from Linage seem really low, not great not overly bad except poor Wildstar..

Either way i think NCsoft might be going into damage control from the way it came across, on all games not just GW2..

I see no real evidence that that’s the case, and I don’t know what you specifically see that gets you this idea.

To put it into perspective, Guild Wars 2 is actually roughly steady for a couple of years now. It hasn’t gone down in profits. NcSoft is saying that HoT didn’t meet sales targets and there are many reasons why that happened. One of the biggest, in my opinion, is that character slot fiasco. That was just silly. For $50 Anet should have given a character slot with the expansion.

But once the bad feelings/publicity started, before the game even launched, obviously that would heavily affect preorders. Lots of people decided to wait.

And of course a myriad of complaints followed up the launch, so that didn’t help either.

But at the end of the day, the company is fine. The only real issue right now is Wildstar, and that’s had issues for a long time now.

I predict that GW2 will keep momentum through great xpacs, Wildstar will go bye bye and NC will make CoH2!

Vayne.8563:

Dante.1508:

Thanks good info, Someone above said the events in Hot are bad, i disagree the events are fine if they weren’t so hard to do, they’d actually be fun..

That said the figures on all those games apart from Linage seem really low, not great not overly bad except poor Wildstar..

Either way i think NCsoft might be going into damage control from the way it came across, on all games not just GW2..

I see no real evidence that that’s the case, and I don’t know what you specifically see that gets you this idea.

To put it into perspective, Guild Wars 2 is actually roughly steady for a couple of years now. It hasn’t gone down in profits. NcSoft is saying that HoT didn’t meet sales targets and there are many reasons why that happened. One of the biggest, in my opinion, is that character slot fiasco. That was just silly. For $50 Anet should have given a character slot with the expansion.

But once the bad feelings/publicity started, before the game even launched, obviously that would heavily affect preorders. Lots of people decided to wait.

And of course a myriad of complaints followed up the launch, so that didn’t help either.

But at the end of the day, the company is fine. The only real issue right now is Wildstar, and that’s had issues for a long time now.

To be fair, Anet was under no obligation to throw in a free character slot and to my knowledge never suggested that there would be a free slot. As someone who played GW1 though I expected such a slot in the tradition of said game where you always got new slots in expansions. The outrage that followed showed that I was not alone in excepting Anet to hold up that concept.

I bought HoT two days before launch and was thinking hard if I really wanted to buy something that would include raiding, gating and jumping in massive quantities, but my love for the franchise won over these concerns. Awkward silence from Anet did not help to push me to buy it either.
Many choices Anet made were just unpopular from the start, like the many hero points needed for the new skill bars or adventures that were basically locked 23/7, a rather meek story and some of them have been indeed given attention too. But that is probably too late for HoT now.

“The performance of HoT was not as expected. We learnt the lesson.”

“A second expansion is in work and will be released as soon as possible.”

Oh the irony…3rd times the charm hopefully…

Dante.1508:

Vayne.8563:

Dante.1508:

Thanks good info, Someone above said the events in Hot are bad, i disagree the events are fine if they weren’t so hard to do, they’d actually be fun..

That said the figures on all those games apart from Linage seem really low, not great not overly bad except poor Wildstar..

Either way i think NCsoft might be going into damage control from the way it came across, on all games not just GW2..

I see no real evidence that that’s the case, and I don’t know what you specifically see that gets you this idea.

To put it into perspective, Guild Wars 2 is actually roughly steady for a couple of years now. It hasn’t gone down in profits. NcSoft is saying that HoT didn’t meet sales targets and there are many reasons why that happened. One of the biggest, in my opinion, is that character slot fiasco. That was just silly. For $50 Anet should have given a character slot with the expansion.

But once the bad feelings/publicity started, before the game even launched, obviously that would heavily affect preorders. Lots of people decided to wait.

And of course a myriad of complaints followed up the launch, so that didn’t help either.

But at the end of the day, the company is fine. The only real issue right now is Wildstar, and that’s had issues for a long time now.

Look again at the GW2 Q1 Q2 etc are low HoT boosted that then its dropped again since, i’m betting it’ll drop to match last years Q1 Q2 etc.. as customers fall off HoTs high.

But this is completely normal. It happened when Guild Wars 2 launched. It happens with every game.

The first quarter when a game launches is high and then it recedes. I’m not even sure why you’d expect otherwise.

I was in the business, from the point of view of sales I can tell you most games sell 90% of all the copies they’ll ever sell in the first 90 days. This is completely normal.

Obviously MMOs are different for a lot of reasons, but the bottom line is preorders and boxs sales apply on release date. It creates a bubble. Again this is normal.

Basically this game is making more than 8 million dollars a month. That’s not hay. They’re working on another expansion, but that’s what most games do anyway. Successful games are always working on another expansion and some expansions are better received than others.

WoW’s last expansion wasnt’ well received and they lost a lot of subscribers and now they’re making another expansion. Yet I don’t see anyone thinking WoW is in any trouble.

I dunno about anyone else, but I am more concerned about what “lesson” was learned, I mean there are all kinds of things players hated and loved about HoT, but as far as I could tell, there nothing really universal (beyond say the Character Slot) where if you looked at community reactions, you could point a finger at and say “That was our mistake”.

Everything was met with some group loving or hating it, it all depended on who you asked.

STIHL.2489:

I dunno about anyone else, but I am more concerned about what “lesson” was learned, I mean there are all kinds of things players hated and loved about HoT, but as far as I could tell, there nothing really universal (beyond say the Character Slot) where if you looked at community reactions, you could point a finger at and say “That was our mistake”.

Everything was met with some group loving or hating it, it all depended on who you asked.

I think the lessons learned were from the april patch. It did fix a good chunk of the problems from HoT. So now they need to take what they did right in that patch and apply it to further expansions and updates

Income NOT profits. There is no profits reported on a per game basis in these reports, just profit for the corporation overall.

Serophous.9085:

STIHL.2489:

I dunno about anyone else, but I am more concerned about what “lesson” was learned, I mean there are all kinds of things players hated and loved about HoT, but as far as I could tell, there nothing really universal (beyond say the Character Slot) where if you looked at community reactions, you could point a finger at and say “That was our mistake”.

Everything was met with some group loving or hating it, it all depended on who you asked.

I think the lessons learned were from the april patch. It did fix a good chunk of the problems from HoT. So now they need to take what they did right in that patch and apply it to further expansions and updates

They need to deliver all the content they took payment for.

um actually Anet offered Hot, and people bought it because they thought it was value for money for them – well that’s what people with half a brain did., the rest appear to have bought a game expansion before researching if it suited their needs – and then complained to the world when it did not.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

^But, did ArenaNet make those statements, or was it NCSoft? Are the lessons learned (no such word as learnt) the same for publishers as they are for developers? Does ArenaNet even agree with the statements made by NCSoft?

Questions to mull over, perhaps?

ArenaNet is wholly owned subsidiary of NCSoft. When you’re owned by something, you don’t have agency and you don’t get to make any decisions not permitted by your owner.

Zenith.6403:

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

^But, did ArenaNet make those statements, or was it NCSoft? Are the lessons learned (no such word as learnt) the same for publishers as they are for developers? Does ArenaNet even agree with the statements made by NCSoft?

Questions to mull over, perhaps?

ArenaNet is wholly owned subsidiary of NCSoft. When you’re owned by something, you don’t have agency and you don’t get to make any decisions not permitted by your owner.

Nothing about decisions, but all about statements. Also, note that ArenaNet has stated previously they have pretty much free reign when it comes to development.

Not to mention the time there was a statement by NCSoft regarding an upcoming expansion, and ArenaNet stated no such expansion was in the works. (Long before HoT was being worked on.)

Torolan.5816:

To be fair, Anet was under no obligation to throw in a free character slot and to my knowledge never suggested that there would be a free slot.

If I was charging 45 bucks for expansion that included new profession and not have the courtesy to throw in character slot to create said character, I would be taking a gamble. The risk of this gamble is having tons of players who have their slots maxed, wondering if they should buy HoT, knowing that there’s no way around to create the new character without deleting old one and deciding against buying the expansion. Payout is them buying expansion and a new slot from gem store.

Anet took that gamble and it didn’t quite work out for them.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

“The performance of HoT was not as expected. We learnt the lesson.”

“A second expansion is in work and will be released as soon as possible.”

Oh the irony…3rd times the charm hopefully…

I’m very far from a white-knight, but this essentially only means they’re not going to intentionally withhold the next expansion or announce features they can’t deliver in advance.

We’ll have to see what happens next to really determined which lesson, if any, was truly learned.

Torolan.5816:

To be fair, Anet was under no obligation to throw in a free character slot.

Agreed.

And players were under no obligation to buy an expansion which had a new profession as one of its selling points, but which did not include a character slot with which to explore that selling point.

Now to see if that was part of the lesson learned.

@Zenith and Ashen
I was in no way trying to white-knight here for Anet and I completely argee with the both of you in this case. I did not even question a new slot until I learned that there would not be one for base HoT buyers and was really baffled that you got a class without a slot. I was just saying that Anet was not obliged to do it and it is more something that people expected in a common sense fashion than an actual obligation.

Vayne.8563:

Dante.1508:

Vayne.8563:

Dante.1508:

Thanks good info, Someone above said the events in Hot are bad, i disagree the events are fine if they weren’t so hard to do, they’d actually be fun..

That said the figures on all those games apart from Linage seem really low, not great not overly bad except poor Wildstar..

Either way i think NCsoft might be going into damage control from the way it came across, on all games not just GW2..

I see no real evidence that that’s the case, and I don’t know what you specifically see that gets you this idea.

To put it into perspective, Guild Wars 2 is actually roughly steady for a couple of years now. It hasn’t gone down in profits. NcSoft is saying that HoT didn’t meet sales targets and there are many reasons why that happened. One of the biggest, in my opinion, is that character slot fiasco. That was just silly. For $50 Anet should have given a character slot with the expansion.

But once the bad feelings/publicity started, before the game even launched, obviously that would heavily affect preorders. Lots of people decided to wait.

And of course a myriad of complaints followed up the launch, so that didn’t help either.

But at the end of the day, the company is fine. The only real issue right now is Wildstar, and that’s had issues for a long time now.

Look again at the GW2 Q1 Q2 etc are low HoT boosted that then its dropped again since, i’m betting it’ll drop to match last years Q1 Q2 etc.. as customers fall off HoTs high.

But this is completely normal. It happened when Guild Wars 2 launched. It happens with every game.

The first quarter when a game launches is high and then it recedes. I’m not even sure why you’d expect otherwise.

I was in the business, from the point of view of sales I can tell you most games sell 90% of all the copies they’ll ever sell in the first 90 days. This is completely normal.

Obviously MMOs are different for a lot of reasons, but the bottom line is preorders and boxs sales apply on release date. It creates a bubble. Again this is normal.

Basically this game is making more than 8 million dollars a month. That’s not hay. They’re working on another expansion, but that’s what most games do anyway. Successful games are always working on another expansion and some expansions are better received than others.

WoW’s last expansion wasnt’ well received and they lost a lot of subscribers and now they’re making another expansion. Yet I don’t see anyone thinking WoW is in any trouble.

I never said it wasn’t normal, i just predict it to fall back to last years Q1 and Q2..

I’ve never played WoW not even a trial so i have no idea what to expect with that game.

Dante.1508:

Vayne.8563:

Dante.1508:

Vayne.8563:

Dante.1508:

Thanks good info, Someone above said the events in Hot are bad, i disagree the events are fine if they weren’t so hard to do, they’d actually be fun..

That said the figures on all those games apart from Linage seem really low, not great not overly bad except poor Wildstar..

Either way i think NCsoft might be going into damage control from the way it came across, on all games not just GW2..

I see no real evidence that that’s the case, and I don’t know what you specifically see that gets you this idea.

To put it into perspective, Guild Wars 2 is actually roughly steady for a couple of years now. It hasn’t gone down in profits. NcSoft is saying that HoT didn’t meet sales targets and there are many reasons why that happened. One of the biggest, in my opinion, is that character slot fiasco. That was just silly. For $50 Anet should have given a character slot with the expansion.

But once the bad feelings/publicity started, before the game even launched, obviously that would heavily affect preorders. Lots of people decided to wait.

And of course a myriad of complaints followed up the launch, so that didn’t help either.

But at the end of the day, the company is fine. The only real issue right now is Wildstar, and that’s had issues for a long time now.

Look again at the GW2 Q1 Q2 etc are low HoT boosted that then its dropped again since, i’m betting it’ll drop to match last years Q1 Q2 etc.. as customers fall off HoTs high.

But this is completely normal. It happened when Guild Wars 2 launched. It happens with every game.

The first quarter when a game launches is high and then it recedes. I’m not even sure why you’d expect otherwise.

I was in the business, from the point of view of sales I can tell you most games sell 90% of all the copies they’ll ever sell in the first 90 days. This is completely normal.

Obviously MMOs are different for a lot of reasons, but the bottom line is preorders and boxs sales apply on release date. It creates a bubble. Again this is normal.

Basically this game is making more than 8 million dollars a month. That’s not hay. They’re working on another expansion, but that’s what most games do anyway. Successful games are always working on another expansion and some expansions are better received than others.

WoW’s last expansion wasnt’ well received and they lost a lot of subscribers and now they’re making another expansion. Yet I don’t see anyone thinking WoW is in any trouble.

I never said it wasn’t normal, i just predict it to fall back to last years Q1 and Q2..

I’ve never played WoW not even a trial so i have no idea what to expect with that game.

Well the point is if it’s normal, then it’s not really worth commenting on. That is to say if it does fall back to what it was a year ago, that’s fine. It’s not an issue. It doesn’t show a problem. It doesn’t show desperation.

I’ve been following MMOs for a very long time. Even games people claim are dead aren’t actually dead, though some are dying faster than others. But at the end of the day, the game is relatively healthy, in spite of the fact that the expansion didn’t sell as well as expected.

The problem with the expansion not selling well as expected, however, is an issue because people always assume they know why that’s the case. Well, the real case, in my opinion is bad publicity.

Some people claimed it was too hard and couldn’t be soloed. I know some people who held off buying it for that reason only to buy it later and find they soloed it just fine.

No the real issue is the negative publicity from so many directions at once. The combination of price, the lack of a character slot, the complaints about difficulty, the backlash from the dungeon community, the backlash from the WvW sank the chances of the game ever really getting off the ground.

The dungeon nerf is better now, far less complaints. Less complaints about fractals. Les complaints about WvW and after all is said and done it doesnt’ matter, because the sales window has passed. It’s not longer a new game and the initial surge can never be repeated.

In the future Anet has a lot of work to do with expansions. Being fairer to veterans, while still offering incentives to new players, not nerfing anything significant that was churning along to bring extra bad publicity like the dungeon nerf, managing expectations so people don’t think they’re getting more than they’re getting, and perhaps pricing the expansion more along the lines with what you’d expect for the amount of content.

At the end of the day, Anet has it’s work cut out for them. Let’s hope people who like the game won’t just on the torch and pitchfork road before launch or the same thing will just happen again.

EdgarMTanaka.7291:

… now it is up to the players and not keep the grudge from HoT.

Hold a grudge? NOT!

Be wise with my money? NOW you’re talking.

I spent $100 on HoT expecting GW to just get better. Instead, it was nearly destroyed. There’s no way I’m going to pay them that kind of money again unless I am CERTAIN that they will not be so foolish again.

They spent 6 months basically ignoring their fans, until the fans turned around and left in droves. Then, they scrambled to try to patch over the crazy changes they tried to put into the game. They are only marginally successful so far, in my opinion.

The number one thing they need to fix has only been tweaked lightly: the grind. It just takes to long to do anything fun in HoT.

The number two thing is maps. There is simply no excuse for having a three-dimensional map without a three-dimensional mini-map, or at least some way of figuring out how to get up or down once you’ve already mapped the spot.

Number three is to return the core game back to it’s original shine. They’ve gone part-way, but they still need to give people some credit for doing the things that are supposed to be rewarding. Why rez NPCs any more? Why kill random monsters? Why do events in low-level areas? Why make Chef items? Why make potions? Why use boosters?

The answer to those (and many more) questions is as painful as it is obvious: there is no reason, because mountains of XP we earned are simply thrown away.

There are a lot more small reasons HoT failed miserably. But, none of the rest would keep me from buying it. The above three are show-stoppers, in my opinion. Unless they all are dealt with positively BEFORE the expansion, I will not buy the next expansion. Promises to fix them are not good enough; we have learned the hard way how good ANet’s promises are.

Zoid.2568:

I hope they don’t remove vertical designed maps. It works very well and makes the maps feel more real and alive. Exciting way to adventure. A flat map would be very boring now after HoT.

To make sure my statements on the maps aren’t mistaken:

I don’t have a problem with the 3D maps. What I have problems with is not being able to figure out where to go, no matter what I do.

They need to give us a way to tell how to get from point A to point B once we’ve already walked that path. Perhaps colored paths based upon how far up or down one must travel. Blue and pink like a litmus test. Or, the 7 colors of the rainbow. I don’t care what, really, just SOMETHING to navigate by.

But, the maps by themselves aren’t so much of a problem.

And, there needs to be hints in the storyline compass that tell you how to get to the next place in the story. Like the green arrows in front of you in the original storyline missions.

brently.7946:

This word is the same as learned. It is a word, I promise… I’ll wait while you google it.

I found this amusing, especially considering where your post came from.

Learnt is actually a better word for what you meant, because it only has one meaning. Learned can be either a past participle (like learnt), or it can be an adjective (prounced lur-nid). So, to avoid ambiguity, one should use learnt.

But, I DID have to look it up, to be sure.

I hope they go back to flat maps. The vertical nature of HoT is my most disliked feature of the expansion. Minimap does a very poor job of translating multiple levels.

Vayne.8563:

The first quarter when a game launches is high and then it recedes. I’m not even sure why you’d expect otherwise.

It did indeed follow the model. What didn’t follow was the actual numbers. It peaked too low, and the after-launch drop-off was too large. Basically, the whole graph was shifted downwards (and maybe squeezed a bit closer to the start).

STIHL.2489:

Everything was met with some group loving or hating it, it all depended on who you asked.

Except there were two extremes. One was very loud, and the other was just numerous. Numerous beats loud when the actual finances are looked into. Numerous buys lots of things. Loud buys only a few things.

Some of the numerous camp were also loud. But, as is always the case when hardcore vs. casual is the breakdown, there weren’t enough loud ones in the numerous camp.

If they really want to learn the lesson strongly, they should poll their player base randomly. NOT via the forums, where zealots far outnumber “normal” players. They must poll the actual player base.

Dashingsteel.3410:

I hope they go back to flat maps. The vertical nature of HoT is my most disliked feature of the expansion. Minimap does a very poor job of translating multiple levels.

I would be OK with making a mini-map that worked. I’m not sure how they would do it, however. Maybe color-coding, wire-frame 3D, just something.

DaikonSamurai.6714:

April patch, AMAs, WvW polls etc. indicate to me that ANet is moving in the right direction or is at least making an effort to get in better touch with their player base. If the WvW poll were any indication though it’s that the “general” player base is not nearly as single minded as most people probably think and “just do what the players want” is far more difficult to determine than many of us realize.

Also I came into this thread expecting a lot more drama. Got popcorn and everything. C’mon guys!

I agree with this 100%. Including your awesome Gravity Falls reference.

Substance E.4852:

True but a lot of that is just terribads complaining about having to actually put in effort to play the game (jumping, “too hard” mobs).

Or the elitist mentality demonstrated by your comments which has increased 10 fold since the release of H.O.T. Once you drive away your “terribads” i’m sure the remaining dozen or so of you will have a very fun game.

ArenaNet will be taking my money anyway, no matter what, when the next expansion comes out.

Let’s face it, they’ll be taking most of yours too, even if you deny it now.

penelopehannibal.8947:

ArenaNet will be taking my money anyway, no matter what, when the next expansion comes out.

Let’s face it, they’ll be taking most of yours too, even if you deny it now.

They will have to earn my money with the next expansion. I seriously doubt I will pre-purchase the next expansion like I did HoT after my disappointment with it. I threw money at them once and won’t do it again. Anet will have to show me a lot more if they want to earn my money for the next expansion. Even then I’ll probably wait a month or so after release to read up on player feedback.

Blackhearted.1264:

The performance of HoT was not as expected. We learnt the lesson. A second expansion is in work and will be released as soon as possible.

They’re learned their lesson eh? Does that mean they wont try charging $50 for a very content light xpack again?

The problem wasn’t a “lack of content” but rather that interrupt skills such as air focus 5 have too much precasts so you can’t interrupt skills in line with your reflexes. Distracting daggers almost hit the mark here but needs a slight precast shave. Another issue is too many safety nets and a raised skill floor. The maps actually had a good design, especially Tangled Depths.

Twitch judgment and reaction plays a lessened role in HoT and that’s likely why it hasn’t met sales expectations.

penelopehannibal.8947:

ArenaNet will be taking my money anyway, no matter what, when the next expansion comes out.

Let’s face it, they’ll be taking most of yours too, even if you deny it now.

LOL you really think so huh?

penelopehannibal.8947:

ArenaNet will be taking my money anyway, no matter what, when the next expansion comes out.

Let’s face it, they’ll be taking most of yours too, even if you deny it now.

Well, it is going on seven months now and they haven’t had any money from me for HoT.

Not buying a product that doesn’t meet your desires/interest/expectations is not as hard as some people seem to think.

Now sure what boat anyone else is in, but, I’ll be the first to admit to this that when I heard about HoT, I bought the biggest bundle, all the gems, and all that, got the whole kit, on top of that, pre-ordered it as soon as I was able (had to wait for the pay check, or I would have bought it sooner) that was how much I trusted them to put out a great expansion.

Ok, I know you’re all expecting a “But” in there, however, I’ll have to admit, the expansion was very well made, I was not let down by their efforts, I could see the detail, the planning, the massive amount of work and time they must have invested into it, so, I have nothing but mad props for them for their creation.. but … I simply didn’t like it.

Now, you might think that is contradictory, but it’s not at all. You can admire the quality and effort of something, without liking it, for example, it’s very easy to appreciate the rich creamy texture of a scoop of top quality vanilla ice cream, even if you really don’t like vanilla ice cream.

Same way with HoT for me. I could see that it was a great expansion, for the people that would enjoy it, but, it simply was not appealing to me, so, unfortunately, while I still trust the quality of the brand, I am now going to be far more reserved before I buy any content, to make sure that it is something I would enjoy. If it is, or seems like it would be, then I still have no issue investing the money for it, it’s just now… I wanna see it first.

How that pans out for their sales, I have no idea. I mean, they can still very easy, get my money. Just.. not sight unseen anymore.

STIHL.2489:

Now, you might think that is contradictory, but it’s not at all. You can admire the quality and effort of something, without liking it, for example, it’s very easy to appreciate the rich creamy texture of a scoop of top quality vanilla ice cream, even if you really don’t like vanilla ice cream.

I agree with you. I also can see that they poured a lot of effort into it. It was quality work, in many respects.

But they made some major blunders, all of them political.

I hope they won’t cave in to the complaints and make the new expansion a braindead faceroll like the core game. One of the biggest issues with HoT was the accessibility, not the difficulty. You can still do any of the meta events just auto-attacking, but it’s annoying to taxi around to find a good map or to wait for a timer.

I hope to see more raids and more fractals – a ton of people don’t touch Gw2 because it has little challenging content to do. WvW and PvE are in good states right now, but PvP feels abandoned – only one new map, with bad mechanics and a powercreep from elites that killed diversity. They really need to push out balance patches more often.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

The performance of HoT was not as expected. We learnt the lesson.

This part is what I found most intriguing. What lesson did they learn?

honestly I’m not sure what there is to learn, HoT was everything I wanted…. granted, it was mostly the free stuff that came along with it like action cam, but I can’t imagine the game without autoloot, and raiding is fun and engaging, and the HoT area as a whole is great, the new classes and elite specs are super fun, not sure what people don’t like about it… but if they intend to do even more for the next expac, all the more power to them!

It’s good to hear Anet is doing well. And I’m eager to see what Anet will bring the next expansion.