Normal patch schedules could solve complaints
I don’t think the people with limited data would be happy about this.
Edit: self face palm.
“Caithe, someday you’ll see, Tyria needs me. -Scarlet”
The game has no sub.
How do you supposedly entice players to return month after month in order to dangle gem store items in front of their eyes in the hopes they will purchase something?
LS and tie in items.
Can’t “batch up” content.
Batching up 3x the amount of content I don’t like won’t help me have a better customer experience. But then I am definitely not one of ANet’s “target” audience.
I just get used to not doing LS after LS after LS and wait for WvW updates.
Besides, drawing out the stories like late 1800’s magazine novels in installments is supposedly part of the draw of the LS.
BG: 52 alts, 29 lvl 80’s. They all look good, so I am done with the game: Oct 2014
It wouldn’t really make a difference. People will complain anyways because people love to complain.
Batching up 6 weeks of LS which hard core players could do in couple of days isn’t the solution. Also it prevents events from previous parts of the tale to impact the later parts.
We are heroes. This is what we do!
RIP City of Heroes
RIP City of Heroes
Now imagine they held onto about 3 patches worth and released them all at once.
Yeah, imagine three bi-weekly patches. The options are:
I like all three.
Result with 2 week patch schedule: 1/2 days worth of content every two weeks.
Result with 6 week patch schedule: 1 1/2 days worth of new content every six weeks.
I like 2 of 3.
Result with 2 week patch schedule: 1/2 days worth of content, with something new with 2 two week and one four week wait.
Result with 6 week patch schedule: 1 day worth of new content, with a six week wait in between.
Like 1 of 3.
Result with 2 week patch schedule: a few hours of content every six weeks.
Result with 6 week patch schedule: a few hours of content every six weeks.
Like 0 of 3.
Both options are unappealing.
The game sold over 2 million copies with just the core content. Most people would agree that most of the core content was above average to excellent.
TBH, the LS just isn’t of the same caliber as the core content. And it has not attracted the sales that the original core content has, and has even pushed some people away.
Quality over quantity is the only solution here.
Edit: And add in a meaningful progression mechanic!
(edited by killcannon.2576)
The game sold over 2 million copies with just the core content. Most people would agree that most of the core content was above average to excellent.
TBH, the LS just isn’t of the same caliber as the core content. And it has not attracted the sales that the original core content has, and has even pushed some people away.
Quality over quantity is the only solution here.
Edit: And add in a meaningful progression mechanic!
The problem with this logic is that you’re making the assumption that quality like the original stuff would attract more sales, but there’s no actual evidence for this.
Most computers games, almost all of them, sell most copies within 90 days of release. The only that that might drastically change the number of copies sold is an expansion, but that’s not because it’s necesssarily better content. It’s something extra to buy.
Most people who were interested in the game, bought it before it came out or when it came out. An overwhelming majority. Some people waited to see what others said, but a year down the road the largest percentage of people interested in the game have already bought it.
No matter what level of content you provide, there’s no real guarantee or proof that people who weren’t interested are going to suddenly become interested.
I managed a computer store for a very long time (and I was the game buyer as well) and this is completely normal for games…even popular ones. It’s a very very rare game that keeps selling three months after launch. A couple of games like Sim City or Warcraft 2, sure.
But again, out of all the games out there, it’s a tiny percentage.
The game sold over 2 million copies with just the core content. Most people would agree that most of the core content was above average to excellent.
TBH, the LS just isn’t of the same caliber as the core content. And it has not attracted the sales that the original core content has, and has even pushed some people away.
Quality over quantity is the only solution here.
Edit: And add in a meaningful progression mechanic!
The problem with this logic is that you’re making the assumption that quality like the original stuff would attract more sales, but there’s no actual evidence for this.
Most computers games, almost all of them, sell most copies within 90 days of release. The only that that might drastically change the number of copies sold is an expansion, but that’s not because it’s necesssarily better content. It’s something extra to buy.
Most people who were interested in the game, bought it before it came out or when it came out. An overwhelming majority. Some people waited to see what others said, but a year down the road the largest percentage of people interested in the game have already bought it.
No matter what level of content you provide, there’s no real guarantee or proof that people who weren’t interested are going to suddenly become interested.
I managed a computer store for a very long time (and I was the game buyer as well) and this is completely normal for games…even popular ones. It’s a very very rare game that keeps selling three months after launch. A couple of games like Sim City or Warcraft 2, sure.
But again, out of all the games out there, it’s a tiny percentage.
I will never understand why people expect the internet at large to respect any type of claim of past experience in the real world. Unless I get faxed a resume and some references, three forms of id, and a genetic sample….it doesn’t matter. Let whatever post you make stand on it’s own. As far as I know you got fired from the job for making horrible decisions.
That being said.
You failed to list MMO’s which count on continued main game sales to make money. Any mmo that can not continue strong sales will suffer.
MMO’s sale and are marketed mostly and to the greatest effect by word of mouth.
All indications for success of an MMO come from quality of content first, then quantity of said content after. If quality falls off for additions to the game, the game suffers dramatically, because of word of mouth. You can have all the quantity of game play you want, won’t matter if it’s sub par, especially if it markedly so from the original.
Honestly though, I’m just going to stop here and let you google MMO Quality over Quantity
You failed to list MMO’s which count on continued main game sales to make money. Any mmo that can not continue strong sales will suffer.
Not sure what you’re talking about here. GW2 depends on cash shop sales to make money. If they went with a box sales model, there would be a monthly sub to fund development of expansions and the first expansion would have come before the end of 2013 to capture holiday sales or in the next month or two to compete with new releases.
This model is largely unsustainable, considering the recent MMOs like TSW, TOR, TERA, Rift that started out this way and then abandoned it for F2P/B2P with cash shop/sub options. I’ve played all four, three of them before the changeover. And I have to say, the change was for the worse in all three cases.
I mean, really, there’s a pretty short list of successful MMOs that do this: WoW. EVE kind of follows the same model, but hardcore players can pay their sub by playing the game so even that is a hybrid sub/F2P model. Are there any other successful games that work this way?
It may be possible to sustain this model but I don’t see ESO or Wildstar doing it. WoW continues only because of years of momentum and players who are attached to their characters and guilds. But they are slowly bleeding subs and there are not enough new players to sustain them forever.
GW2 features biweekly releases because it keeps the game fresh in people’s minds. Instead of forgetting about it for 12-18 months and going back to play the expansion for a month, the majority of active players log in at least once a week to do the new content. The more they log in, the more chances they have to be redirected to the cash shop to buy the new shinies that were released with the new content. New shinies that come every two weeks.
It’s not hard to figure out what they do and why they do it. You can choose to support it or not, but dev posts have made it clear that they have no interest in changing to a more traditional pace of content releases.
(edited by tolunart.2095)
I prefer the bi-weekly release cadence. I felt it was too long to wait when releases had nothing I was interested in, such as Fractals, and the Wintersday release dragged on too long before there was new content. I don’t begrudge ArenaNet their holiday break, but I would not enjoy having to wait that long between each release. I usually finish the Meta within the first week, so if three releases were bundled together, I would be finished before the second week was up, or nearly, and then have to wait a month for new content. If the release had nothing I was interested in, a near-three month wait. Ugh.
I prefer the bi-weekly release cadence. I felt it was too long to wait when releases had nothing I was interested in, such as Fractals, and the Wintersday release dragged on too long before there was new content. I don’t begrudge ArenaNet their holiday break, but I would not enjoy having to wait that long between each release. I usually finish the Meta within the first week, so if three releases were bundled together, I would be finished before the second week was up, or nearly, and then have to wait a month for new content. If the release had nothing I was interested in, a near-three month wait. Ugh.
Exactly. And that’s three months for you to become engaged in another game, and when they finally do release new content “oh well, I can do that in two weeks so I’ll just play this other game another two months and then go back to GW before the next update and do them both.”
Assuming you don’t lose interest in GW2 altogether, that’s five months of missed opportunities to sell you something from the cash shop, and results in a much lower income for Anet.
It’s good to make suggestions, but when the most obvious result of the suggestion is “Anet will make a lot less money,” there is little chance of convincing anyone with the authority to make decisions that your suggestion is a good idea. Hint – the people with that authority are not devs and don’t actually play the game.
You failed to list MMO’s which count on continued main game sales to make money. Any mmo that can not continue strong sales will suffer.
Not sure what you’re talking about here. GW2 depends on cash shop sales to make money. If they went with a box sales model, there would be a monthly sub to fund development of expansions and the first expansion would have come before the end of 2013 to capture holiday sales or in the next month or two to compete with new releases.
This model is largely unsustainable, considering the recent MMOs like TSW, TOR, TERA, Rift that started out this way and then abandoned it for F2P/B2P with cash shop/sub options.
GW2 features biweekly releases because it keeps the game fresh in people’s minds. Instead of forgetting about it for 12-18 months and going back to play the expansion for a month, the majority of active players log in at least once a week to do the new content. The more they log in, the more chances they have to be redirected to the cash shop to buy the new shinies that were released with the new content. New content that comes every two weeks.
It’s not hard to figure out what they do and why they do it. You can choose to support it or not, but dev posts have made it clear that they have no interest in changing to a more traditional pace of content releases.
Sigh. It always pays to have a basic understanding of the medium.
The only thing that fuels cash shop sales is players. Are you buying new players in the cash shop?
MMO’s suffer from player churn, or simply put, player turnover where old players leave or move on or get bored and new players come in and take their place. Without box sales the player base gets smaller and smaller as old players move on or play less or have already bought everything they need from a cash shop like extra bank space, character slots, bags, what have you. Those are the base and big earners of cash shops in games. And older players, even if they haven’t moved on, stop buying them eventually.
New players are what drives the cash shop, and you get new players from…drum roll please… box sales.
As an aside, you are blaming the payment model for games failing or success. We can see plainly this just isn’t true. WoW makes more money in the western markets than almost all the f2p or b2p games combined. Both Rift and TOR are hybrid models, not f2p or b2p, which offer subscriptions as well as free to play. FFXIV is doing quite well as subscription based. It is more accurate to say that each of these games lost subscribers for different reasons based on their game play and not the payment model.
TOR lost subscribers because they couldn’t make up their mind if they were making a MMO or a sequel to KOTOR. Most players just bought it and played it as such and left after the story ended.
Rift was a direct competitor with WoW. Not much chance there, especially considering how similar the two games were.
TSW was too highbrow, quality game though.
Tera failed because it followed a normal progression model, had very little end game content, and was extremely easy to hit max level quickly.
In short, the games failed because of poor mmo mechanics or poor marketing choices, not the payment model. People are more than willing to pay a subscription for a quality game with good mechanics. You f2p’ers crack me up. People are willing to pay a subscription for an almost 10 year old game with dated graphics, but if you introduced a sub model here? The game would be a wasteland…so much for evolutionary.
(edited by killcannon.2576)
You f2p’ers crack me up.
LOL
I subbed to Rift for two years. I played TERA and TOR for several months each before they were free. I tried FF (boring and my computer didn’t like to run it). I plan to preorder copies of ESO for my wife and I. I don’t mind paying for a good game, but I try to spend my money wisely.
Post-changeover, those games have suffered from less frequent, lower quality updates, and a tendency to push people towards the cash shop. The sub “benefits” are not worth giving them money every month for a game you can play for free. Picked up TSW on sale a few weeks ago and it’s a good game, but very clunky and small. It doesn’t feel like an MMO.
The last several years have shown that the sub model simply is not going to work. There are too many choices out there, companies have to come up with something different to keep players’ attention from wandering. Anet made their choice and it’s a good idea to avoid changing horses while halfway across the river.
(edited by tolunart.2095)
New players are what drives the cash shop, and you get new players from…drum roll please… box sales.
Um, there’s an argument on the forums about how the Queensdale champ train is bad for new players… but there aren’t any new players because there hasn’t been an expansion? Box sales have definitely slowed down, but the game does not depend on box sales to survive.
Anet gives players frequent reason to return to the game to see what’s going on. The B2P model means that any of the nearly four million people who bought the game can come back at any time, and the way the game works it’s easy to pick up again no matter how long you’ve been away.
The sub model “locks” players into the game by penalizing them for going away, and the psychological effect of the sub means that they feel bad if they don’t log in for an extended period. Gear resets and such enforce this by making them essentially start over every so often. GW2 was designed around an entirely different mindset, the casual player.
You f2p’ers crack me up.
LOL
I subbed to Rift for two years. I played TERA and TOR for several months each before they were free. I tried FF (boring and my computer didn’t like to run it). I plan to preorder copies of ESO for my wife and I. I don’t mind paying for a good game, but I try to spend my money wisely.
Post-changeover, those games have suffered from less frequent, lower quality updates, and a tendency to push people towards the cash shop. The sub “benefits” are not worth giving them money every month for a game you can play for free. Picked up TSW on sale a few weeks ago and it’s a good game, but very clunky and small. It doesn’t feel like an MMO.
The last several years have shown that the sub model simply is not going to work. There are too many choices out there, companies have to come up with something different to keep players’ attention from wandering. Anet made their choice and it’s a good idea to avoid changing horses while halfway across the river.
So you’re saying you’re willing to pay a sub for a game as long as it’s high quality with enough content to keep you satisfied?
I look at the last few years and don’t see a failure of the sub model, instead I see a failure in game makers understanding how to keep players playing their game. I generally buy a game a month; sometimes a triple A title, sometimes a bargain indie, sometimes a steam sale. If a game can keep me occupied and playing I am more than willing to throw money at it, as long as it’s good.
Quality is what drives game purchases and keeps players coming back. The LS quality can’t be agreed upon by most people. It’s good, it’s bad, it’s grindy, it’s worthwhile….sounds like the introduction to a Tale of Two Cities. And that’s not a good thing for players to hear.
New players are what drives the cash shop, and you get new players from…drum roll please… box sales.
Um, there’s an argument on the forums about how the Queensdale champ train is bad for new players… but there aren’t any new players because there hasn’t been an expansion? Box sales have definitely slowed down, but the game does not depend on box sales to survive.
Anet gives players frequent reason to return to the game to see what’s going on. The B2P model means that any of the nearly four million people who bought the game can come back at any time, and the way the game works it’s easy to pick up again no matter how long you’ve been away.
The sub model “locks” players into the game by penalizing them for going away, and the psychological effect of the sub means that they feel bad if they don’t log in for an extended period. Gear resets and such enforce this by making them essentially start over every so often. GW2 was designed around an entirely different mindset, the casual player.
The LS also penalizes players for going away by missing the story, AP, unique collectibles, unique gem store purchases, unique skins, time gated content locks. Most sub games you have access to the entire game you pay for. Both have pros and cons.
I really wish I had the metrics to base a discussion upon, but I don’t. I could say that less than 100k of the players that bought the game still play or will ever come back or I could say that every single one that bought the game will come back. All any of us have are anecdotal accounts of our own experiences.
I rolled Devona’s Rest originally. I watched that server go from being highly populated and active to watching it die a little more each month of the LS. I never seen the people come back. I’m now on BP watching it do the same exact thing as DR did.
So you’re saying you’re willing to pay a sub for a game as long as it’s high quality with enough content to keep you satisfied?
I suppose so. Rift kept me engaged for a long time but I started to lose interest around the expansion’s release. I suppose it’s because that was my first experience with MMOs, and I’ve never gotten into raiding and PvP… by the time the expansion arrived I’d done everything in the game that interested me, and didn’t care to start over again.
Other games have not always engaged my attention like that. TOR seemed to have been developed as KOTOR 3 and halfway through some executive figured they can make more money from an MMO than a SP game. So they changed horses and… drowned. If they hadn’t done that it would have been a huge success.
GW2 is far from the perfect game, but I get a sense that it was designed for players like me. I “get” it, and appreciate its casual nature. Not everyone will, particularly those looking for the traditional MMO experience.
The LS also penalizes players for going away by missing the story, AP, unique collectibles, unique gem store purchases, unique skins, time gated content locks. Most sub games you have access to the entire game you pay for. Both have pros and cons.
I really wish I had the metrics to base a discussion upon, but I don’t. I could say that less than 100k of the players that bought the game still play or will ever come back or I could say that every single one that bought the game will come back. All any of us have are anecdotal accounts of our own experiences.
I rolled Devona’s Rest originally. I watched that server go from being highly populated and active to watching it die a little more each month of the LS. I never seen the people come back. I’m now on BP watching it do the same exact thing as DR did.
I think that’s the gist of it. You’re looking at the game from a completely different perspective, and looking for another kind of experience.
To be honest, the LS doesn’t do a lot for me either. But I don’t care about getting AP or achievements, doing fractals or crafting ascended gear, or chasing a Legendary. I think that the majority of players are a lot like me.
But ultimately we can only discuss how we feel about the game, because neither has the facts. But I believe that even though you can’t see the moon’s influence on the earth, you can see its effect as the tides go in and out. In the same way, you can see the effect of Anet’s choices in the way the game progresses. They have said they plan to make some adjustments to how they approach the LS, as a result of what they learned over the last year. But the fact that they flat out refuse to abandon it indicates that the overall effect has been satisfying to them.
And Anet does have the numbers to back them up, so their actions trump our guesses and feelings.
So you’re saying you’re willing to pay a sub for a game as long as it’s high quality with enough content to keep you satisfied?
I suppose so. Rift kept me engaged for a long time but I started to lose interest around the expansion’s release. I suppose it’s because that was my first experience with MMOs, and I’ve never gotten into raiding and PvP… by the time the expansion arrived I’d done everything in the game that interested me, and didn’t care to start over again.
Other games have not always engaged my attention like that. TOR seemed to have been developed as KOTOR 3 and halfway through some executive figured they can make more money from an MMO than a SP game. So they changed horses and… drowned. If they hadn’t done that it would have been a huge success.
GW2 is far from the perfect game, but I get a sense that it was designed for players like me. I “get” it, and appreciate its casual nature. Not everyone will, particularly those looking for the traditional MMO experience.
I think GW2 is a great game, and I still have a lot of fun playing it when I can.
I just don’t think the LS mass produced temporary content love fest is a good selling point to try to talk someone new into playing it. I don’t know if pushing out expansion packs would be better or not. I just know that many gamers prefer quality over quantity.
Which is all I was ever posting about.
The LS also penalizes players for going away by missing the story, AP, unique collectibles, unique gem store purchases, unique skins, time gated content locks. Most sub games you have access to the entire game you pay for. Both have pros and cons.
I really wish I had the metrics to base a discussion upon, but I don’t. I could say that less than 100k of the players that bought the game still play or will ever come back or I could say that every single one that bought the game will come back. All any of us have are anecdotal accounts of our own experiences.
I rolled Devona’s Rest originally. I watched that server go from being highly populated and active to watching it die a little more each month of the LS. I never seen the people come back. I’m now on BP watching it do the same exact thing as DR did.
I think that’s the gist of it. You’re looking at the game from a completely different perspective, and looking for another kind of experience.
To be honest, the LS doesn’t do a lot for me either. But I don’t care about getting AP or achievements, doing fractals or crafting ascended gear, or chasing a Legendary. I think that the majority of players are a lot like me.
But ultimately we can only discuss how we feel about the game, because neither has the facts. But I believe that even though you can’t see the moon’s influence on the earth, you can see its effect as the tides go in and out. In the same way, you can see the effect of Anet’s choices in the way the game progresses. They have said they plan to make some adjustments to how they approach the LS, as a result of what they learned over the last year. But the fact that they flat out refuse to abandon it indicates that the overall effect has been satisfying to them.
And Anet does have the numbers to back them up, so their actions trump our guesses and feelings.
I hope so, and I can say I’ve enjoyed this content update slightly more than others. I enjoyed the story instance, wish there was more of that. The bosses are fun and challenging, even if not all servers get the same kind of play experience.
I hope that the quality of the LS continues to improve to the point where I can put it in the pro category when I tell someone about the game, instead of the con.
PS: I’m a player a lot like you
I think GW2 is a great game, and I still have a lot of fun playing it when I can.
I just don’t think the LS mass produced temporary content love fest is a good selling point to try to talk someone new into playing it. I don’t know if pushing out expansion packs would be better or not. I just know that many gamers prefer quality over quantity.
Which is all I was ever posting about.
Well, one thing I am absolutely certain on – making a game that copies WoW will not lead to WoW-like success. That ship sailed years ago, and there are dozens of pale imitations sinking behind it.
The original GW took a lot of risks and produced a unique game that was quite a success in itself. Instead of copying that success they have gone in a different direction from both GW and WoW, and seem well on their way to producing another, different successful game.
This involves risk, and may ultimately fail. Copying either GW or WoW, however, involves no risk and will certainly fail.
Another comment: although I haven’t gone far in either game, it seems to me that those who liked the original GW would be pleased with TSW. It shares the flexibility of GW’s skill system where you choose a set of abilities from an expanding selection, and the lack of classes and semi-lack of levels makes it easy to fill multiple roles with a single character.
The downside is that the first zones, at least, are tiny and in the process of learning the game I’ve repeated the same content over and over. There’s not a lot to explore without running into beef gates where you need “gear level X” or die.
The second downside is that the first part of the game is all about zombies. They are easy to create from a programming standpoint (the basic models already exist since most games have human PCs), but there are soooo many zombie games out there that I’m tired of seeing them.
Another comment: although I haven’t gone far in either game, it seems to me that those who liked the original GW would be pleased with TSW. It shares the flexibility of GW’s skill system where you choose a set of abilities from an expanding selection, and the lack of classes and semi-lack of levels makes it easy to fill multiple roles with a single character.
The downside is that the first zones, at least, are tiny and in the process of learning the game I’ve repeated the same content over and over. There’s not a lot to explore without running into beef gates where you need “gear level X” or die.
The second downside is that the first part of the game is all about zombies. They are easy to create from a programming standpoint (the basic models already exist since most games have human PCs), but there are soooo many zombie games out there that I’m tired of seeing them.
That is also my take on it, although I only have second hand experience for GW.
I look at all this as WoW has created a type of MMO player that burns through content as fast as a California wildfire burns though a new housing development.
This leads to the problem that no new MMO can possibly have the quantity of content that a 10 year old MMO has and insist on a subscription model. They’ve tried but the conditioned “rush to max level” to get to the “fun stuff” leaves players staring over the edge of where content stopped quicker than say 10 years ago. And without content or replayablity, subscribers leave. That’s why all those MMOs quickly switch to a hybrid F2P/B2P/Cash Shop + VIP subscription payment model as a means to keep players coming in. B2P if you are still looking to recover development costs or keep the RMT sharks from swamping the playerbase, F2P if you don’t care and just want bodies in hopes to covert some to VIP and get a percentage to use the cash shop.
Without income no new content can come out and the MMO goes into a death spiral of fewer but more devoted players and eventually those left can’t support the development team any longer. That’s why WoW can still be subscription based after all these years and why subscriptions have failed time and again with new MMOs. You can’t take 5 years to develop content before releasing the game. Yes MMOs take that long to make but a good chunk of that is making all the assets in the world and all the game’s various components. Content as in missions/quests come last. So maybe two years of a five year development cycle. Two years of content gets burned through in two months if that.
If content is key then MMO development is a fools battle. Players consume a lot faster than it can be developed. So now everyone makes the barrier to enter as low as possible to keep new players joining up and that means low or free copies of the game and no monthly fees unless you want to.
That’s why ANet tried the LS. Keep players engaged with something new every two weeks so they don’t churn away to whatever new MMO that catches their eye. And that’s why I expect the ESO and Wildstar to abandon their subscription model in a year or two at most.
We are heroes. This is what we do!
RIP City of Heroes
RIP City of Heroes