Guild Wars 2

In light of the recent patch and of course ongoing criticisms, I thought I would give my thoughts on these issues. There has been a lot of controversy on ArenaNet’s decisions, discontent with the content released or lack thereof, and just dissatisfaction from players whose demands aren’t met. First, change will always be met with resistance as not everyone will agree with them. Second, it’s debatable but considering the scope of the game, ArenaNet has released quite a bit of content considering what resources they have available. Third, not everyone is going to get what they want because they don’t want all want the same things. The customer is always right except when you have many customers and they can’t really agree on what they want.
It’s necessary to consider different viewpoints when looking at things. First, it gives you a better understanding of the issue at hand. Second, it actually makes your argument stronger when you have acknowledged and defeated opposing views. I’ve put together a number of topics that I see coming up quite regularly on the forum. Each of these topics can probably use their own threads but is important here is putting things in perspective.

The New Player Experience
Let’s address the elephant in the room first. A lot of veteran players have expressed their dissatisfaction with the direction that ArenaNet has taken with the leveling experience for new characters. I won’t go in the details of this as there are already numerous threads that discuss this. Just to be clear, I don’t agree with the changes myself but I can see why ArenaNet felt that they were necessary.

Khong Zhong may be the distributor of Guild Wars 2 in China and they may even be responsible for maintaining the server infrastructure but ArenaNet is most likely still responsible for development of the game. It’s pretty well known by now that the Chinese version of Guild Wars 2 is quite different than the one most of us have been playing. Many of you may have come to the conclusion that ArenaNet’s reason for making these changes is not actually to help new players but to make the North American/European version the same as the Chinese version. The question then is “why would they do this?”.

This would allow ArenaNet to consolidate Chinese client with the North American/European client. Maintaining two separate clients would have used up a lot of resources- resources that could go towards creating new content and adding new features. It would not be surprising if having to code two clients at the same time is the reason there has not been much progress in terms of content in the game. It’s unlikely that you will hear such a justification from ArenaNet as it is not very good marketing. However, they most likely made the decision to go ahead with the changes even knowing that they would be unpopular because they felt it was what would be best for the game. Unfortunately, only time will tell.

Emphasis on the Gem Store
It’s probably obvious already that ArenaNet is a business. What many take for granted is that the goal of a business is not only to make profit but to actually keep itself running. I do not know how much money it takes to run a company with 300 plus employees like ArenaNet does but we can probably do a very rough estimate. If we assume that the average employee makes $50,000/year and we multiply that by say 310 employees it would indicate that it takes $15,500,00 (or more than $15 million) per year just to keep everyone employed. We’re not factoring in things like building lease, utilities, infrastructure, and other expenses. It could easily go up to $18 million per year. ArenaNet needs to make at least that amount just to avoid losing money. I’m talking about making profit; that’s how much they need just to stay in the black. Like I said, this is just a very rough estimate but it gives you an idea of what happens on the business end of things.

To keep their cash flow going, ArenaNet charges players for the game client and if players so choose, items and upgrades in a cash shop. They don’t charge a subscription fee so there is no guaranteed revenue. Given all this, it would not be unreasonable at all for cosmetic upgrades to be available for purchase with real money. In fact, it would not even be unreasonable if cosmetic upgrades were only available in the gem store. However, that is not the case as we have seen skins being released in the game and outside the gem store. Furthermore, because they are not relying entirely on the free to play model, ArenaNet has the luxury of allowing players to purchase cash shop items with the in-game currency. This actually reduces the revenue the gem store that would otherwise have been made if real money was mandatory. Let’s not forget that the current largest MMORPG will charge you for the client, will charge you a monthly subscription, and on top of all that has a cash shop with items that you can only purchase with real money. With everything considered, ArenaNet is completely justified in putting so much emphasis on the gem store.

Expansion vs Living Story
Many players have been clamoring for an expansion for quite some time now. It may just be that ArenaNet is working on an expansion but all past communications would indicate that they are not. It makes certain players upset especially considering that they have been unsatisfied with the amount of content released since the game’s release. ArenaNet has stated that they want to release content that would traditionally be found in an expansion for free through the Living Story. While this has been met positively by some players, others feel that this is not the right approach. They argue that content that is normally featured in expansions such as new races, new professions, and new areas have not been added through the Living Story. Moreover, the pace at which new content is delivered is not adequate to meet their arbitrary definitions of expansion content. This is something that we can examine further.
First, let’s take a look at some of the advantages of ArenaNet actually releasing an expansion. I’m not only talking about advantages for players but for ArenaNet and the game as well. On the business side of things, selling boxed copies of an expansion would be a guaranteed source of revenue. The gem store, while profitable isn’t totally reliable. Many players have flat out stated that the only way ArenaNet will be getting any more of their money is through an expansion. Not only that, the marketing power behind an expansion would be much greater than that of any single Living Story update. Many players that have left the game don’t even realize that the game has changed dramatically since it was released. They don’t realize ArenaNet has continually pushed updates to the game as well as new content. An expansion for the game would be big news and would raise much more awareness for the game. Let’s take a look at another game that did much better after it was re-released. When Final Fantasy XIV was first released, it was panned by players and critics alike. It was broken, unfinished, and just not very fun. Square Enix, not wanting the game to tarnish the Final Fantasy brand, decided that it would be worth putting in the time and effort to redoing the game. To their surprise, when A Realm Reborn was released, the game sold exceptionally well and it was highly praised despite the shortcomings of the original game. Original players were willing to give Square Enix a second chance and the game was reborn. Guild Wars 2 was different because it was praised from players and critics alike from the very beginning. If even a failing game can get a second chance, imagine then what an expansion could do for a game that was incredibly successful both critically and financially. An expansion could be seen as the rebirth of Guild Wars 2.

Second, we’ll look at some of the challenges facing the creation and release of an expansion. While an expansion could lead to an increase in the number of players and even bring players back to the game, we have seen in the past that any game or expansion will only get a temporary spike in player populations. After a few weeks or months, the population will decrease dramatically. This has been the case not only for Guild Wars 2 but for every other MMORPG. The population does eventually stabilize but you simply won’t get the same numbers as launch. Many players will play through the content and then leave when they’re done. Some players will stick around if there is their definition of “end game”, others will leave regardless because they’re content locusts, and the remaining ones will stick around regardless. You also have another challenge with what type of content the expansion will contain and the features to be included. Not all players would purchase the expansion so now you have a split player base.

1. Would ArenaNet raise the level cap?
2. If they do so, would that not invalidate all the work players have put into crafting their ascended and legendary items?
3. What about new zones and new free updates?
4. If you don’t purchase the expansion, will you have access to the free Living Story updates like you do right now?
5. Other games have restricted new content to just those that have purchased the latest expansion.

With the Living Story, ArenaNet does not have to worry about these issues. They could very well release content that is traditionally found in an expansion through the Living Story. The issue is with how quickly they can do so. If you really think about it, if the pace at which they work is the same, you will get the same amount of content in the same time span regardless of whether they pursue the Living Story or expansion route. It’s just a matter of whether you get frequent but small updates or one very large update and long periods of stagnation. Some players want new races and they think only an expansion can provide that. I think it’s important to consider what impact adding a new race to the game would be. You would get a new capital city, a new starting zone, new character models, and a new personal story. The truth is that ArenaNet would not be adding much to the game by adding a new race. It would certainly be a lot of work but with little payoff. In the original Guild Wars, you could only play as a human and that was fine for most people.
The important thing to remember is that the Living Story enforces player retention. You as the player have made an investment in the story, similar to how you would be invested in the story of a TV series. You want to see things through until the end even if you aren’t necessarily happy with the direction the series is going in. If this strategy didn’t work, I doubt that ArenaNet would keep going with it. In the end, it’s just not really worth it to put all that time and effort into releasing an expansion if the payoff in the end is going to be the same.

On NPE:
Maintaining two separate clients would have used up a lot of resources
You could say the same thing about what we have now.
You can also end up throwing your game into a death spiral for one market in order to satisfy another, then end up using resources changing things to suit which ever market is in disarray.

In regards to Khong Zhong, and any influence that could have been placed on them. It’s not impossible to think so. A lot of game devs have creative freedom only up to a point. If the developers say X, Y and Z is not going to be fun, and the publisher states they’ve run tests and metrics say A, B and C should be done, you kind of have to take that on board or that could place you bad standing with them, and in the climate we’re in, any sign of something failing only gives publishers a reason to shut a game down, or seize more control.

nethykins.7986:

On NPE:
Maintaining two separate clients would have used up a lot of resources
You could say the same thing about what we have now.
You can also end up throwing your game into a death spiral for one market in order to satisfy another, then end up using resources changing things to suit which ever market is in disarray.

In regards to Khong Zhong, and any influence that could have been placed on them. It’s not impossible to think so. A lot of game devs have creative freedom only up to a point. If the developers say X, Y and Z is not going to be fun, and the publisher states they’ve run tests and metrics say A, B and C should be done, you kind of have to take that on board or that could place you bad standing with them, and in the climate we’re in, any sign of something failing only gives publishers a reason to shut a game down, or seize more control.

I did not actually touch on this topic too much but Khong Zhong most certainly would have had influence on how ArenaNet developed the game. NCSoft are probably open to giving ArenaNet creative freedom but they most likely trusted Khong Zhong since they were the purported experts of the Chinese market. The three companies would likely have been doing talks before the game was even released in North America, Europe, and Oceania. There used to be a Cantha district in Divinity’s reach but it was removed due to “feedback” from some anonymous source citing that the inclusion of Asian-themed elements would be offensive. I’m willing to bet that feedback came from Khong Zhong. Of course, we know this is silly now considering that WoW had an entire expansion, Mists of Pandaria, with an Asian theme.

What this means is that future content based in Cantha would not be out of the question. As for the NPE, I would see it as a necessary evil. It’s something that new players won’t notice because they wouldn’t know any better. MMORPG veterans would have been used to worse. Of course, it’s always going to be a hot topic.

nethykins.7986:

On NPE:
Maintaining two separate clients would have used up a lot of resources
You could say the same thing about what we have now.
You can also end up throwing your game into a death spiral for one market in order to satisfy another, then end up using resources changing things to suit which ever market is in disarray.

In regards to Khong Zhong, and any influence that could have been placed on them. It’s not impossible to think so. A lot of game devs have creative freedom only up to a point. If the developers say X, Y and Z is not going to be fun, and the publisher states they’ve run tests and metrics say A, B and C should be done, you kind of have to take that on board or that could place you bad standing with them, and in the climate we’re in, any sign of something failing only gives publishers a reason to shut a game down, or seize more control.

They already sent the game into a death spiral by listening to the 1%, now it’s arguably sound that they are aiming for the 65% group, the open world PVE players/RPers to try to increase the number of players.

The rest of us left long long ago some multiple times and were told by the 1% multiple times to go play something else, even tho originally this game was made for the 65% not the dungeoneers, these things were said here in the forums and some even harassed us in game because we spoke out against the changes that were imposed on the game to satisfy the “everything isn’t hardcore enough” crowd. (I’ve personally only recently returned.)

Now I think they are on the best track sure I dislike many of the elements of alt making right now but I feel that for the most part (particularly because they included two of the things that were requested from the now archived Suggestions folder in this patch) they are making an honest attempt at getting back the players they lost. I have hope this trend will continue.

As far as their products in store, the single worst thing I can think of about it is that they have items out temporarily. Leave them in and have sales imo. That would make these things purchasable even after the sales go out and it would still bring in revenue for some of the items, like the endless gathering tools for example. I know for a fact that many people I’ve played with have been highly disappointed these things were removed shortly after release. I can think of plenty of examples on getting items from the store, like cosmetics for example, that were for some reason only sold during the LS events they were tied to (not talking holidays) that would totally have been acceptable to keep these items in store.

So while I feel they do tie too much to the gem-gold conversion, I also feel that they’ve basically harmed themselves by removing items they didn’t need to remove thus losing money they didn’t need to lose in the process. I sincerely hope this isn’t the work of that economist they have working for them but if it is it explains so many things wrong with his methods, it really does and I would hope that they don’t have a contract so they can get someone in there who is a bit more practical about keeping future items in the store for longer, they don’t even have to continue the sales for longer just keep the items there.

Part of the problems I’m seeing as a vet with the new player experience really have more to do with the previous feature patch requiring gold to advance because some of the things they have on the list really don’t get done anymore by players. Like the Krait Witch for example. I’ve not seen that done in months.

tigirius.9014:

The rest of us left long long ago some multiple times and were told by the 1% multiple times to go play something else, even tho originally this game was made for the 65% not the dungeoneers, these things were said here in the forums and some even harassed us in game because we spoke out against the changes that were imposed on the game to satisfy the “everything isn’t hardcore enough” crowd. (I’ve personally only recently returned.)

This game has never been hardcore. Ascended equipment didn’t change that. Grinding for hours and hours for a metric ton of silk doesn’t make anything hardcore. It just means that someone has a lot of time to waste.

tigirius.9014:

As far as their products in store, the single worst thing I can think of about it is that they have items out temporarily. Leave them in and have sales imo. That would make these things purchasable even after the sales go out and it would still bring in revenue for some of the items, like the endless gathering tools for example. I know for a fact that many people I’ve played with have been highly disappointed these things were removed shortly after release. I can think of plenty of examples on getting items from the store, like cosmetics for example, that were for some reason only sold during the LS events they were tied to (not talking holidays) that would totally have been acceptable to keep these items in store.

So while I feel they do tie too much to the gem-gold conversion, I also feel that they’ve basically harmed themselves by removing items they didn’t need to remove thus losing money they didn’t need to lose in the process. I sincerely hope this isn’t the work of that economist they have working for them but if it is it explains so many things wrong with his methods, it really does and I would hope that they don’t have a contract so they can get someone in there who is a bit more practical about keeping future items in the store for longer, they don’t even have to continue the sales for longer just keep the items there.

I think this all comes down to artificially making items scarce in order to increase their value. When I say value, I don’t necessarily mean their value in terms of gold or gems. Time limited items have a special value to them for players that possess them. It’s something that money can’t buy. ArenaNet keeps them rare so that people who have them can feel better about themselves. You could say that this caters to an elitist mentality and you would be correct. It’s certainly not something I agree with as I have an optimistic belief that everything should be available to everyone at all times as long as they put the effort into getting them.

As for whether this hurts ArenaNet in the long run, it’s hard to say. It does create a sense of immediacy when ArenaNet puts something on sale and then removes it later on. It makes certain people want to purchase these items because they know they won’t get to later on. I’m sure they have their reasons but I wouldn’t let the blame rest solely on John Smith alone.

zeromius.1604:

It’s certainly not something I agree with as I have an optimistic belief that everything should be available to everyone at all times as long as they put the effort into getting them.

You mean, like the launch version of the game where getting max tier gear didn’t take a ludicrous amount of grind.

Sokia.3710:

zeromius.1604:

It’s certainly not something I agree with as I have an optimistic belief that everything should be available to everyone at all times as long as they put the effort into getting them.

You mean, like the launch version of the game where getting max tier gear didn’t take a ludicrous amount of grind.

Not necessarily like with launch. I should put emphasis on ‘put the effort into getting them’ here. The issue is with certain items like certain minis or skins that are impossible to get once a time limit has passed. Granted, ArenaNet did bring some old skins back this one time. Ascended items is a different issue that has been discussed quite heavily in the past. From what I can tell, introducing them has certainly changed the game but it hasn’t broken it- at least not from what I can see. Of course, other people might see it differently.

zeromius.1604:

“ArenaNet has the luxury of allowing players to purchase cash shop items with the in-game currency.
This actually reduces the revenue the gem store that would otherwise have been made if real money was mandatory.”

Gemstore Items can be obtained with gold.
Many people play.
Many people want gemstore items.
Many people convert gold to gems.
Price of gems rises.
People need more time to farm more gold.
More gold they farm more gold they need.
More gold they need, more time they play, keeping company to the paying users.
Meanwhile converting gems to gold starts giving you more gold.
Then even some of the players who were not inclined to farm and not willing to spend money in the past, start trading their money to bypass the time required to farm (gems>gold), and acquire what they want in the game, in addition to the guys that already spend a ton of real money to buy legendaries/ascended (expensive, but google it yourself, ppl do buy those things using real money even legally).

There is a balance in all this and Anet is not having pity of the poor player giving him a way to acquire what he want for free, they’re using the non paying users to entertain the paying users, hoping and trying to transform the first ones in the second ones.
Not that is a bad thing, but I suppose that’s a more realistic scenario of what you depicted.
And even if probably no one cares about it, I would have preferred the expansion route.

Yes, the game needs to make money. The irony of your point is that it’s because of poor ongoing development issues and major missteps like the NPE that financial viability even comes into question.

GW2 was the best MMO of the last decade at release. To thrive with existing customers, the games strengths had to be built on. To broaden the appeal, the game needed an optional system to provide more direction for those having trouble adapting to a non-linear, exploration based title.

Living Story was a huge misstep that led to the abandonment of Dynamic Event content and the game world that needed to evolve for the game’s core concept to thrive.

To address the difficulties that some new players used to less choice, more guidance and a shallower mastery curve were having, ANet started down the path of dumbing down the game, rather than building in better guidance to teach the game to those players. When initial efforts to dumb down the game failed to have much positive impact, rather than getting the message and putting in the much needed guidance, they produced the NPE.

NPE has not only dumbed the game down even further, but it actually makes the game more confusing and more frustrating. I finished completion of Queensdale this weekend with a fresh character and if that had been my experience with the game back in 2012, I would have called the game out as being pure trash.

There is no more guidance on how to experience the game or enjoy the zone than previously. Fun, unique elements of the starting zone experience have been removed entirely. Gating the display of POIs, Vistas and Skill Point Challenges on the map removes important clues and the inability to access SP Challenges until level 14 becomes extremely frustrating.

Personal Story was actually a decent mechanism for introducing players who chose to follow it to the flow of the zone, but now that isn’t unlocked until level 10 and following it is now even less obvious a choice for a new player.

The pace of weapon skill unlocks was tedious at launch, but the pacing adjustments last year had pretty much corrected that. Even as a returning player, unlocking weapon skills would have provided a welcome sense of achievement and reintroduction to each weapon skill in an intuitive manner. The NPE system is obnoxious and, once again, actually counterproductive from a “helping newbs learn the game” perspective.

Pushing back skill unlocks and traits makes for a boring, frustrating start to the game. The game starts to get more challenging post level 20, but now, rather than having several levels of gradually increasing challenge to learn your skills and the dodge mechanics, plus the role that traits play, players need to learn these things just as encounters start to really require them.

The “level rewards” are transparently bogus and even most newbs will realize that the first 20-30 levels provides them with almost no actual character progression. What they may not realize is that the game never used to be that way and this system was implemented because ANet apparently thinks that the problem attracting new players was that new players were too stupid to grasp the game, to the point that a better tutorial would have been pointless.

It’s an utter mess that’s just near impossible to deny no matter how devoted a fan one might be.

It seems to me that ArenaNet are booting their existing community in the hopes of replacing them with a new one. They’re doing almost nothing to address longtime criticisms – and when they do communicate, it’s largely platitudes and lip-service.

So at this point, I think it’s clear that they could give a rip about the community – they’re just going to try and make a new one.

Rather like they did with the original Guild Wars community…

Chuo.4238:

It seems to me that ArenaNet are booting their existing community in the hopes of replacing them with a new one. They’re doing almost nothing to address longtime criticisms – and when they do communicate, it’s largely platitudes and lip-service.

So at this point, I think it’s clear that they could give a rip about the community – they’re just going to try and make a new one.

Rather like they did with the original Guild Wars community…

I’m really starting to think something similar. I think they realize they have been killing the game in the West, so they’ve devoted all their effort into retuning the game for the East, in hopes that market will save their bacon. Current customers that can stomach the changes are welcome to stay and everyone else can just get the heck out.

The problem is that I don’t think they are any more capable of developing for the East. If NPE is a real indication of how much they seem to feel they need to dumb down the game for China, I have to believe that many Chinese are going to be very insulted when they realize how much ANet felt they needed to dumb down the game for them.

It’s as good an explanation as any. To me, the missteps have been so great that I still have trouble comprehending how the studio that made such an awesome game has become so fail since launch.

Chuo.4238:

It seems to me that ArenaNet are booting their existing community in the hopes of replacing them with a new one. They’re doing almost nothing to address longtime criticisms – and when they do communicate, it’s largely platitudes and lip-service.

So at this point, I think it’s clear that they could give a rip about the community – they’re just going to try and make a new one.

Rather like they did with the original Guild Wars community…

Perhaps you can elaborate on these criticisms. The ones I have heard of tend to revolve around the following:

• Trinity
• Endgame
• Profession balance
• Expansion
• Difficulty

I doubt that ArenaNet can satisfy those that want the inclusion of a trinity system in the game. There already is what people refer to as trinity lite. Even if they do implement such a system it would make a lot of players unhappy. No, they can’t please everyone.

They did say they wanted to redefine endgame but for many people, world completion, WvW, sPvP, and fractals doesn’t constitute as endgame. They are probably looking for something that makes them feel exclusive. You tend to see that with hardcore raiders that do the hardest content and expect to get rewards exclusive to this content. The problem is that this would cater only to a small percentage of the player population.

People will always complain that there is imbalance in the game. It’s going to be that way no matter how many changes are made. Certainly, you could say that the current meta discourages build variety in PvP but you can’t say that profession x is too strong or profession y is too weak. The reason is that players will have their individual biases. The profession of their choice will always seem to weak and other professions will always seem to be too strong.

I’ve already addressed the idea of releasing an expansion in my original post so I won’t go into any more detail on this. The game is a little easy in most areas while you may run into a few difficulty spikes here and there. I do think that they are trying to make the game accessible to a larger audience. Players that constantly find themselves dying are less likely to continue playing out of sheer frustration. I’m not saying that this is necessarily the right thing to do but I can see the reasoning behind it.

I’m sure there are many other complaints, many of which ArenaNet have already addressed in their patches. They said they are aware of the WvW server population problem. I think it’s a very difficult problem to tackle so it would take some time. I don’t know if they will actually include an actual GvG mode any time soon. I’m sure many players would be happy to see it but I doubt that accounts for all players.