“I’m waiting for the staff to get off their lunch
break. I feel like they should be back by now..”
break. I feel like they should be back by now..”
So what is this company's focus?
They have to make money somehow without a subscription and at this point in it’s life it’s probably not making much at all from box sales. I’m sure they have NCsoft/nexon pushing sales as well.
Living story has been their focus and seems to be that it will stay their focus. They haven’t been shy in saying this.
Focus is gem store and living story, since gem store is revenue, and living story is mediocre quality extreme low replayability type content in a game that’s starving for new highly replayable content, BUT living story gets people logging in more. The more people log in, the more likely they’re going to use that gem store!
If they can dish out gem store updates this frequently why aren’t there bug fixes this frequently? Why are new and obvious (with proper examples and facts to back it up) balance changes ignored for months letting people soak in its misery without just tweaking things? They are against a wac a mole balance approach which I can understand, but when you tap a screw in once very 5+ months is it really amounting to anything? There are some bugs still existing since launch!
Yes, there are different people for different jobs but where is the prioritization exactly? There is very little communication on these problems, they don’t get dealt with on any level, and people just get more and more impatient waiting for any answer. They can sure dish the resources to release some gem store skins and get some money but I guess bug fixing and reacting to problems with so much as a response is asking too much.
“I’m waiting for the staff to get off their lunch
break. I feel like they should be back by now..”
break. I feel like they should be back by now..”
They said they have an entire team dedicated to just the gem store updates, these employees don’t handle bugs etc.
What’s going on with the other teams? We don’t know. Some suspect they have been working on an expansion for awhile now.
Somehow they never fail to release more item mall skins heaven forbid they add aesthetics that can be obtained from playing the game :/
…snip…
You do realize Anet could have altogether removed Gold to Gem conversion right?
By that same idea, all items in the gemstore can be bought, in your own words, “from playing the game”.
Sure, the inflation has gone up, but players who save up and play the game, always have the option to get the items they “want” (thank goodness, it’s NOT about the items we NEED) by playing the game.
Lv80 Thief |Mesmer |Necromancer|Ranger|Guardian|Warrior|Elementalist|Engineer
[Aeon of Wonder]
Maguuma Server
[Aeon of Wonder]
Maguuma Server
From the amount of free trial periods I start to wonder if the game is banking on the gem store to afford it or are they desperate for new players with a declining player base.
If that’s the case, they have a funny way of attracting new players what with the absurd changes to leveling up in the 15 April and 9 September patches.
“You can teach ’em, but you cant learn ’em.”
What businesses don’t need a steady monthly income? Sure, ANet is getting some monthly sales from new players buying the game but is it enough to support them? They suggested strongly that any expansion type releases wouldn’t be sold separately but would be part of the Living Story. If so, then they need to make money some other way. Fluff and cosmetics in the gem store seem to be their way to get a monthly income.
I don’t know…what’s it been? Three free trial periods in two years? Four, at most? That does not seem like an amount to be ‘wondering’ over.
Releases to the Gem Store happen every Tuesday, and have for as long as I can remember. It seems a viable and, for me, acceptable alternative to a monthly subscription. Anything offered in the Gems Store, including Game Upgrades can be purchased with in-game Gold. That seems pretty accommodating to me.
Gem store funds the game. MMOs, unlike most other games, NEED funding, because they don’t end when you release them. If you release a driving game, you’re basically done and working on the next version of it. With an MMO you’re still putting content into the game, fixing a lot more bugs (because the game is more complex) balancing and changing things up, running servers that cost a lot of money.
Subscription games charge $15 a month. If a game has a million players that’s 15 million dollars a month funding that game.
This isn’t a charity.
stupid thread.
they have to make money……….and outside of new players buying the game, in their pay-model, it can only happen in the gem store.
the gem store is the one thing they HAVE to update regularly. now….we can argue whether what they offer is good….but not whether they should consistently offer new things.
Chaos Organ (Ele), Pistol Opera (Thief), Modular Man (Eng)
MARA (EU) Gunnar’s Hold
MARA (EU) Gunnar’s Hold
People seem to be missing the point and assuming I want the gem store removed or something. I am grateful this isn’t subscription based, my point is they obviously have the time and resources to add onto the gem store but they seem to ignore other departments. You don’t need to hide in the shadows for months on end to fix bugs and tweak the profession balance with an update here and there. Hell even throw in a new champion/legendary drop skin or touch up on a crafting recipe skin/consumable to keep things fresh.
Expansions for land or a new profession or any other major project is nice but not my concern. My concern is that there seems to be little to no effort made on looking over the game except for gem store updates. When you get no service and all gem store purchases it seems like the company just shifted to income only mode and left the rest in the dust.
“I’m waiting for the staff to get off their lunch
break. I feel like they should be back by now..”
break. I feel like they should be back by now..”
(edited by NinjaEd.3946)
You are aware that people making skins and such for the gem store does not work on fixing bugs, right?
You are also aware that we have had updates more or less monthly (at least) for most of the games life, that did not focus on gem-store?
Krall Bloodsword – Mesmer
Krall Peterson – Warrior
Piken Square
Krall Peterson – Warrior
Piken Square
its not a question of they need to make money, that’s a given, its a question of what path do they follow to make that money, and its appeared for a long time as tho its all about the easiest way to turn a buck off its player base. GW1 also had to make money, they went about it a different way and that’s what made Anet the initial success it was, the anet of today is a somewhat soulless version of its former self, and I know what your gonna say – that they have 5 times the employees of the initial Anet so they need to make more money to pay ppl…well in that case they should’ve of released 5 times the content, but theyre not doing that are they? not when there’s an easier way to make money through the cash shop.
You are aware that people making skins and such for the gem store does not work on fixing bugs, right?
You are also aware that we have had updates more or less monthly (at least) for most of the games life, that did not focus on gem-store?
You must’ve skipped over the part where I did acknowledge that, and resources are complimentary of both so why is one department getting them and the other not?
Yeah, they released a little chapter once every 2 weeks and then took a break something I’m sure they had worked on for months prior. How much of that content can you actually walk through and enjoy? All I see is blobs running to a boss with it being either too challenging because the scaling is way off or its too easy where people can just afk with auto attack and collect loot afterwards. I enjoyed that content for a few weeks and got immediately bored with the same layout as the rest of the game’s open world events.
A few neat things in this section of LS, but it didn’t exactly turn the tide when the best tactic is just more players. Atleast tequatl and the wurms takes some thinking where bring massive numbers makes sense given they are actual world bosses. I thought they would continue with that kind of thinking instead of going back to the brain dead bum rushing that almost every bit of content promotes.
“I’m waiting for the staff to get off their lunch
break. I feel like they should be back by now..”
break. I feel like they should be back by now..”
snip
^ this
its not a question of they need to make money, that’s a given, its a question of what path do they follow to make that money, and its appeared for a long time as tho its all about the easiest way to turn a buck off its player base. GW1 also had to make money, they went about it a different way and that’s what made Anet the initial success it was, the anet of today is a somewhat soulless version of its former self, and I know what your gonna say – that they have 5 times the employees of the initial Anet so they need to make more money to pay ppl…well in that case they should’ve of released 5 times the content, but theyre not doing that are they? not when there’s an easier way to make money through the cash shop.
Indeed. GW1 went with the whole buy actual power for real money instead.
Comparing a lobby-based game with an open-world game is also quite silly, since the costs are completely different.
It is also quite likely that it takes way more time to create and release content for a game like this compared to a game like GW1.
You also have to keep in mind that their original plan was new campaigns every six months, a plan that only ever worked on time. And quite soon after the original release they saw that it would not work and thus abandoned it.
If it had worked so well as people here love to claim, why didn’t they use the same model for GW2?
Krall Bloodsword – Mesmer
Krall Peterson – Warrior
Piken Square
Krall Peterson – Warrior
Piken Square
Not sure if anyone mentioned it yet or not as I only skimmed the thread before work but Gem Store Items are designed and released by completely different teams than those working on the game. Its as with any company, different teams do different things at a different pace and generally they don’t always all intertwine with one another.
Think of it like a retail store, as an example at my work in the Apparel Dept. The Women’s section got their Fall Line in but the Men’s Section didn’t yet. That didn’t stop US from putting out our Fall Line while the Men’s Line had to wait an extra two weeks. Doesn’t mean the mens line wasn’t coming it was just delayed and my team doesn’t handle that so there was nothing we could do about it.
Also, there are those of us that have a strong suspicion that ANet IS working on some kind of expansion or big Content update, also new maps were datamined from yesterday’s update, you can reddit them if you want.
-It’s Lady Paradox- Sweet Adrenaline
“What Part Of Living Says You Gotta Die?
I Plan On Burnin Through Another 9 Lives”
“What Part Of Living Says You Gotta Die?
I Plan On Burnin Through Another 9 Lives”
its not a question of they need to make money, that’s a given, its a question of what path do they follow to make that money, and its appeared for a long time as tho its all about the easiest way to turn a buck off its player base. GW1 also had to make money, they went about it a different way and that’s what made Anet the initial success it was, the anet of today is a somewhat soulless version of its former self, and I know what your gonna say – that they have 5 times the employees of the initial Anet so they need to make more money to pay ppl…well in that case they should’ve of released 5 times the content, but theyre not doing that are they? not when there’s an easier way to make money through the cash shop.
Indeed. GW1 went with the whole buy actual power for real money instead.
Comparing a lobby-based game with an open-world game is also quite silly, since the costs are completely different.
It is also quite likely that it takes way more time to create and release content for a game like this compared to a game like GW1.
You also have to keep in mind that their original plan was new campaigns every six months, a plan that only ever worked on time. And quite soon after the original release they saw that it would not work and thus abandoned it.
If it had worked so well as people here love to claim, why didn’t they use the same model for GW2?
Because it’s much easier to earn their income through gemstore with average 2 new zone / year rather than releasing 20 every 1,5-2 year? (Zones are just an example, works with PvP maps/modes, skins, dungeons ,skills etc too)
Also, yes it’s not fair to compare a lobby game to an MMO, but we are comparing a company’s two released product, and that company released more content in one year to the lobby game with a much smaller team than to their MMO in two years with at least twice as big team.
98 gold for a skin that has to be obtained by blind chance or previously saved claim tickets is a much better deal than if the content was exclusive to paying customers.
I will never understand why people fret and whine about anything being placed in the gem store. Rather than put the skins behind content people might not want to even do, they can do whatever they want to save up the gold needed for a skin.
How is that bad? what’s with the :/ face; can someone explain the dissatisfaction with that option to me? Is saving 70-80 gold (it will likely deflate to that soon) too hard for people who otherwise do dungeons/fractals/Ktrain/WvW/Pvp/Mysticforge/Craftandsell/Blacklionflipping often?
I’m happy with it. chaos skins, which looked even better than these imo, dropped to about 60 gold before the price bump. and it gives them time to work on other maps, playable content, and the living story.
Resident Disgruntled, Coffee-drinking Charr.
Zarin Mistcloak(THF) Valkyrie Mistblade(WAR) Kossori Mistwalker(REV) Durendal Mistward(GRD)
I used to think (build op, pls nerf) like you, but then I took a nerf to the knee.
Zarin Mistcloak(THF) Valkyrie Mistblade(WAR) Kossori Mistwalker(REV) Durendal Mistward(GRD)
I used to think (build op, pls nerf) like you, but then I took a nerf to the knee.
(edited by Azure The Heartless.3261)
The focus of any company is profit. How is this even a question?!
If here they fall they shall live on when ever you cry “For Ascalon!”
Indeed. GW1 went with the whole buy actual power for real money instead.
Comparing a lobby-based game with an open-world game is also quite silly, since the costs are completely different.
It is also quite likely that it takes way more time to create and release content for a game like this compared to a game like GW1.
You also have to keep in mind that their original plan was new campaigns every six months, a plan that only ever worked on time. And quite soon after the original release they saw that it would not work and thus abandoned it.
If it had worked so well as people here love to claim, why didn’t they use the same model for GW2?
No, I recall Mike O Brian specifically saying that there is no difference in costs of hosting instanced to non-instanced, its merely a direction the devs chose for gw’s1, but I like the way you sound so certain even thou ur cluless.
on your second point, its illogical because they’ve released so little content, so if you really believed this, it would mean (more or less) that it takes them one year to make a new zone.
your last point, proves you’ve missed the point, its what ive said in my op, and so many others have said…
Indeed. GW1 went with the whole buy actual power for real money instead.
Comparing a lobby-based game with an open-world game is also quite silly, since the costs are completely different.
It is also quite likely that it takes way more time to create and release content for a game like this compared to a game like GW1.
You also have to keep in mind that their original plan was new campaigns every six months, a plan that only ever worked on time. And quite soon after the original release they saw that it would not work and thus abandoned it.
If it had worked so well as people here love to claim, why didn’t they use the same model for GW2?No, I recall Mike O Brian specifically saying that there is no difference in costs of hosting instanced to non-instanced, its merely a direction the devs chose for gw’s1, but I like the way you sound so certain even thou ur cluless.
on your second point, its illogical because they’ve released so little content, so if you really believed this, it would mean (more or less) that it takes them one year to make a new zone.
your last point, proves you’ve missed the point, its what ive said in my op, and so many others have said…
No difference in hosting, major difference in bandwidth. It’s not as simple as what he was talking about. Not to mention, a lot of stuff is a lot more expensive today then back then. A staff of 350 in a bigger office is a lot more to maintain than a staff of 50.
But there’s a lot more complexity in getting 150 people playing together on a the same screen at the same time with better graphics. It’s just a different product. It can’t be compared.
Gem Store purchases with free Dlc content patches; the only problem is they have not released a new gem armor set in months, outfits are one piece so they lack customization, weapons are locked behind a gambling wall, and everything else is basically happy meal novelty toys.
Somehow they never fail to release more item mall skins heaven forbid they add aesthetics that can be obtained from playing the game :/..
Question… when you say "heaven forbid they add aesthetics that can be obtained from playing the game " are you
1. Exaggerating to make a point
2. Actually not aware that they add aesthetics you can obtain by playing the game with
nearly every single update
3. well you know doing the opposite of telling the truth for whatever reason?
4. something else I didnt think about?
They have to stop with this kitten. Even I as a big fan stopped playing be cause of lack of content. This gem store kitten is really getting on my nerves.
FFXIV showed that people are even willing to pay monthly if the company dishes out content constantly. They even raised the amount of active subscriptions.
GW2 is a sinking ship and if they won’t change their abysmal post-launch update policy the game is gone in 1-2 years.
‘would have/would’ve been’ —> correct
‘would of been’ —> wrong
‘would of been’ —> wrong
No difference in hosting, major difference in bandwidth. It’s not as simple as what he was talking about. Not to mention, a lot of stuff is a lot more expensive today then back then. A staff of 350 in a bigger office is a lot more to maintain than a staff of 50.
But there’s a lot more complexity in getting 150 people playing together on a the same screen at the same time with better graphics. It’s just a different product. It can’t be compared.
There’s not a chance in heck that they have 350 ppl working for Anet on gw2 atm. That might have been the case during development or prior to the china release (although I think KZ took much of that burden), but atm, there’s simply no way.
I was also under the impression that Anet was fond of sub-contractors…….ie many of those that used to work on the game were only there when needed. Thus now since they are not needed, they are not there. This explains why we have minimal reflection from what once was a much larger group.
I’d wager that there’s maybe 35 employees tops at Anet actively working on the game itself atm.
Serenity now~Insanity later
Might as well remember that NCsoft takes the renevue from gem store…
Then they give budgets to ANet…
Then again we don’t have any numbers of GW2, so there’s not much to determine of…
Not to mention that forum community is quite small, not much to determine here either…
I wonder if forum people read every post in 1 topic tho…
I’m a casual PvE adventurer, I enjoy combat, adventure and helping, but not farming.
I rarely do PvP or Hard PvE, unless it’s organized.
I rarely do PvP or Hard PvE, unless it’s organized.
No difference in hosting, major difference in bandwidth. It’s not as simple as what he was talking about. Not to mention, a lot of stuff is a lot more expensive today then back then. A staff of 350 in a bigger office is a lot more to maintain than a staff of 50.
But there’s a lot more complexity in getting 150 people playing together on a the same screen at the same time with better graphics. It’s just a different product. It can’t be compared.
There’s not a chance in heck that they have 350 ppl working for Anet on gw2 atm. That might have been the case during development or prior to the china release (although I think KZ took much of that burden), but atm, there’s simply no way.
I was also under the impression that Anet was fond of sub-contractors…….ie many of those that used to work on the game were only there when needed. Thus now since they are not needed, they are not there. This explains why we have minimal reflection from what once was a much larger group.
I’d wager that there’s maybe 35 employees tops at Anet actively working on the game itself atm.
Where do you get your information…I’m quite curious.
A team of artist and developer just to add new skins of several items (new weapon, new gathering tool, new mini, new dye color …) is quite easy and doesn’t require many resources, totally new items you don’t see frequently, not even in the gem store.
Bug fixing, and content creation requires a lot more effort and time, which ANet was very impressive for a good while with bi-weekly update, only this new season wasn’t so impressive.
The lack of content lately, IMO, can mean one of 2 things, or they are working in a very huge project (expansion or not), or they are really lacking and almost giving up the game, I don’t see any middle ground between those 2 options.
Charter Vanguard [CV] – HoD
Bardy Belzebuson – Ranger Sir Belzebu – Herald
(and the other 8 elite specs maxed too)
(and the other 8 elite specs maxed too)
98 gold for a skin that has to be obtained by blind chance or previously saved claim tickets is a much better deal than if the content was exclusive to paying customers.
I will never understand why people fret and whine about anything being placed in the gem store. Rather than put the skins behind content people might not want to even do, they can do whatever they want to save up the gold needed for a skin.
How is that bad? what’s with the :/ face; can someone explain the dissatisfaction with that option to me? Is saving 70-80 gold (it will likely deflate to that soon) too hard for people who otherwise do dungeons/fractals/Ktrain/WvW/Pvp/Mysticforge/Craftandsell/Blacklionflipping often?
I’m happy with it. chaos skins, which looked even better than these imo, dropped to about 60 gold before the price bump. and it gives them time to work on other maps, playable content, and the living story.
That depends entirely on how the incorporate said skins. If you toss a non-sense dungeon requirement with say 50,000 tokens then yeah some people are going to be kittened they have to waste such time grinding content for a skin they may actually want. But what your in favor of isn’t exactly pleasing everyone either, some people don’t like to grind the most cost effective events/dungeons just to go on the TP and buy the skin flat out. Some of the newer back skins have a nice model where you go out and explore/play the game’s content to craft them, the TP/gem store skins are just buy gems -> gold or rack up gold to purchase it, its a very dull experience.
With how the skins are being constantly attached to the gem store, it seems like a majority the content that end-game is meant for (skins) is through the gem store/trade post and less about actually playing the game. Easier to keep people pleased except the fact that its a lazy model that people lose interest in. Technically the guy with $50,000 on his cc can just buy his end game and be done without having to step foot into anything because it’s too much effort. It is way to convenient having content released in this style.
Then you get the few open world add on which offer the same experience as the older events and follow the same grind train that many people are sick of. Sadly most skins are just purchases and that’s what leaves me with a bitter taste when I play this game. Where is the quality work exactly? Its been shown in past releases but few and far in between not making enough of an impact. I see a nice thing here and there but followed by months of sighs and headaches.
Conveinience items like endless harvesting tools, airship pass, bag/bank/etc expansion slots and the occasional skin on the tp are fine. I understand they have to make money somehow. However I’m sick of these incredibly long pauses between updates with most of the rewards being tied to the gem store. I’m even more sick of extremely slow profession balancing because it also makes it near impossible to expand on the profession’s weapon selection and skills with so much of their kit being underused and being pigeon held into a few select builds that actually pull weight.
“I’m waiting for the staff to get off their lunch
break. I feel like they should be back by now..”
break. I feel like they should be back by now..”
(edited by NinjaEd.3946)
In regards to the thread title “So what is this company’s focus?”, worthy of re-stating as many have tangented, I like many am unsure.
I’m assuming the China release has really kept them busy. The recent LS and “content” patch has really gone down like a wet fart for many, with I think justified reasons as personally re-rolling has kept me playing far outside the content either the LS or patches have brought to the game.By in large it’s pretty insubstantial.
In saying that’s just me and there are thousands of players grinding Dry Top who seemingly love it.
I guess only Anet knows the focus and future but I’m seriously hopeful an expansion is being worked on and kept under wraps. If LS and the gemstore is the future of GW in regards to content…after 2 years….I’m out in regards to anything other than casual play and certainly won’t commit the time on it as I did to GW1.
If your having adventurer problems I feel bad for you son, I dodged 99 arrows till my knee took one.
No difference in hosting, major difference in bandwidth. It’s not as simple as what he was talking about. Not to mention, a lot of stuff is a lot more expensive today then back then. A staff of 350 in a bigger office is a lot more to maintain than a staff of 50.
But there’s a lot more complexity in getting 150 people playing together on a the same screen at the same time with better graphics. It’s just a different product. It can’t be compared.
There’s not a chance in heck that they have 350 ppl working for Anet on gw2 atm. That might have been the case during development or prior to the china release (although I think KZ took much of that burden), but atm, there’s simply no way.
I was also under the impression that Anet was fond of sub-contractors…….ie many of those that used to work on the game were only there when needed. Thus now since they are not needed, they are not there. This explains why we have minimal reflection from what once was a much larger group.
I’d wager that there’s maybe 35 employees tops at Anet actively working on the game itself atm.
From February 2014: http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2014-01-14-you-thought-that-was-it-for-guild-wars-2
“As for dwindling investment, it appears to be a myth: ArenaNet had a whopping 300 people when Guild Wars 2 launched, and now… now there are 350 and counting – ArenaNet is hiring.”
1/19/2013 size of live teams
http://dulfy.net/2013/01/19/gw2-colin-johanson-mmorpg-livestream-transcript-jan-18/
“In GW1 we had a really small live team because the game wasn’t big enough to generate a consistent revenue. The gems/micro-transaction based model allow us to have a much larger live team in GW2, allowing players to see much more content on a monthly basis.
Our live team in GW2 is 15-20 times larger than the live team in GW1.”
Gw1 profit was based on game sales so we got years of nothing.
GW2 profit is from game sales and gem store items meaning more stuff like living story, if you hate it or not isn’t the point.
Kill stuff to unlock weapons skills, most confusing thing I ever heard of. (sarcasm)
As far as focus goes, they seem to have a lot behind the scenes they are working on. That may just be optimism on my part, but I really do think they have something big they are working on.
For me it’s been tough with this game because with GW1 new content came fast and furious the first 2 years. With this game, the release cadence was quick for a while, but the quality has been hit or miss. Now the cadence has really slowed down this year.
Things I learned from MMOs this year: If they say they have a 2 week or monthly cadence: It’s a red flag. ZeniMax, Carbine, and ArenaNet are all guilty of abandoning their promised cadences. I understand that things can change, but when you have 3 companies(all with MMOs that are big names)all say they will have this wonderful release schedule and all 3 can’t keep to that promise, it means you have to temper your expectations if another company says it can do it too.
We are in the middle of a few month stretch with only a WvW Tourney as current “content”(Feature Patch is not content). This would have been a perfect time for SAB 1&2 to come back as filler. What happened to the Dragon Festival? Heck, there wasn’t even a Birthday celebration this year? We got awesome gifts, but that’s the first time in any GW game I can remember there not being a festival.
It would have been nice to see a line or two about a new release cadence from ArenaNet. As a customer, what can I expect now? Where should my confidence be placed as a customer when ArenaNet was unable to keep the release cadence they were so excited about? What do I as a customer have to look forward to? Where are we headed?
Leader of The Guernsey Milking Coalition [MiLk] Sanctum of Rall
Gw1 profit was based on game sales so we got years of nothing.
That makes zero sense.
If your having adventurer problems I feel bad for you son, I dodged 99 arrows till my knee took one.
It’s just a different product. It can’t be compared.
You may be right, then let’s compare GW2 to GW2. It took ~ 5 year development. Looking at the world at release, they made:
~ 5 zone / year.
~ 6,6 dungeon path /year
~ 0,2 PvP mode /year
~ 3,8 usable weapons / year
~ 43,2 skills /year ( weapon skills not included)
~ 46 personal story instance/year
~ 22,8 armor sets/year
~ 1 race /year
etc. on average.
Probably I miscalculated some stuff, but I guess you see my point. I know this is not how it works, but I focused purely on numbers.
It’s just a different product. It can’t be compared.
You may be right, then let’s compare GW2 to GW2. It took ~ 5 year development. Looking at the world at release, they made:
~ 5 zone / year.
~ 6,6 dungeon path /year
~ 0,2 PvP mode /year
~ 3,8 usable weapons / year
~ 43,2 skills /year ( weapon skills not included)
~ 46 personal story instance/year
~ 22,8 armor sets/year
~ 1 race /year
etc. on average.Probably I miscalculated some stuff, but I guess you see my point. I know this is not how it works, but I focused purely on numbers.
The reason it doesn’t work is because the game launched in a terrible state…one so bad it took two years to get to where it is now. It needed more than five years. It’s been catch up/patch up since day one.
No, I recall Mike O Brian specifically saying that there is no difference in costs of hosting instanced to non-instanced, its merely a direction the devs chose for gw’s1, but I like the way you sound so certain even thou ur cluless.
on your second point, its illogical because they’ve released so little content, so if you really believed this, it would mean (more or less) that it takes them one year to make a new zone.
your last point, proves you’ve missed the point, its what ive said in my op, and so many others have said…
No difference in hosting, major difference in bandwidth. It’s not as simple as what he was talking about. Not to mention, a lot of stuff is a lot more expensive today then back then. A staff of 350 in a bigger office is a lot more to maintain than a staff of 50.
But there’s a lot more complexity in getting 150 people playing together on a the same screen at the same time with better graphics. It’s just a different product. It can’t be compared.
Increased staff should result in increased productivity, if you try argue that increasing staff leads to decreased productivity then your kidding yourself, or what you might be saying is that the reason the increase in staff hasnt lead to increased productivity is because anet has bad management, which in that case id have to agree you have a valid point.
arguing inflation is pointless because its always been a factor, it was just as relevant during gw’s1
if you want to talk difference in bandwidth yes that probably is a valid point, however not to the degree that anet is so busy paying for the extra bandwidth that they cant afford to invest anything else in significant content development.
I don’t doubt they had server issues during some of the lw, again you cant argue that’s why they haven’t been able to develop content
so it leads to 1 conclusion, namely they’re milking the cash shop for all its worth before they do release significant content.
No, I recall Mike O Brian specifically saying that there is no difference in costs of hosting instanced to non-instanced, its merely a direction the devs chose for gw’s1, but I like the way you sound so certain even thou ur cluless.
on your second point, its illogical because they’ve released so little content, so if you really believed this, it would mean (more or less) that it takes them one year to make a new zone.
your last point, proves you’ve missed the point, its what ive said in my op, and so many others have said…
No difference in hosting, major difference in bandwidth. It’s not as simple as what he was talking about. Not to mention, a lot of stuff is a lot more expensive today then back then. A staff of 350 in a bigger office is a lot more to maintain than a staff of 50.
But there’s a lot more complexity in getting 150 people playing together on a the same screen at the same time with better graphics. It’s just a different product. It can’t be compared.
Increased staff should result in increased productivity, if you try argue that increasing staff leads to decreased productivity then your kidding yourself, or what you might be saying is that the reason the increase in staff hasnt lead to increased productivity is because anet has bad management, which in that case id have to agree you have a valid point.
arguing inflation is pointless because its always been a factor, it was just as relevant during gw’s1
if you want to talk difference in bandwidth yes that probably is a valid point, however not to the degree that anet is so busy paying for the extra bandwidth that they cant afford to invest anything else in significant content development.
I don’t doubt they had server issues during some of the lw, again you cant argue that’s why they haven’t been able to develop content
so it leads to 1 conclusion, namely they’re milking the cash shop for all its worth before they do release significant content.
I’ll just leave this here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooks's_law
Edit: For some reason when I tested it the link didn’t work for me. Just look up Brook’s Law on Wikipedia.
Edit 2: This doesn’t even count that fact that two of the head guys walked away from the game during development, in one case taking key people with him. If you don’t think that sets a company back, not sure what to tell you.
(edited by Vayne.8563)
I honestly don’t mind the gem store. I’d rather just buy what I wanted from the gem store as opposed to playing the RNG crapola merry go round from the mystic forge or black lions chests. As others have said Anet has to continue to make money from their game and the gem store is a good way to do that other than expansions.
It’s just a different product. It can’t be compared.
You may be right, then let’s compare GW2 to GW2. It took ~ 5 year development. Looking at the world at release, they made:
~ 5 zone / year.
~ 6,6 dungeon path /year
~ 0,2 PvP mode /year
~ 3,8 usable weapons / year
~ 43,2 skills /year ( weapon skills not included)
~ 46 personal story instance/year
~ 22,8 armor sets/year
~ 1 race /year
etc. on average.Probably I miscalculated some stuff, but I guess you see my point. I know this is not how it works, but I focused purely on numbers.
The reason it doesn’t work is because the game launched in a terrible state…one so bad it took two years to get to where it is now. It needed more than five years. It’s been catch up/patch up since day one.
I’m not so sure that two more development year would have helped. Magic find stat, world servers, PvP crafting, not acc bound dye/legendary, temporary content, one time only events, 3 round PvP tournaments & lack of meaningful rewards and a lot more was bad design decision and these were changed (mostly) because of player feedback. Without player feedback they would still need to change these things even if they had 2 more years to complete what they wanted. (Got a little confused english wise, not sure I made sense)
You can always improve the game , especially on a MMO. There are still a loads of things missing that people expected at launch , even some things anet advertised. Also I don’t see any sign the next two year will be different.
Increased staff should result in increased productivity, if you try argue that increasing staff leads to decreased productivity then your kidding yourself, or what you might be saying is that the reason the increase in staff hasnt lead to increased productivity is because anet has bad management, which in that case id have to agree you have a valid point.
arguing inflation is pointless because its always been a factor, it was just as relevant during gw’s1
if you want to talk difference in bandwidth yes that probably is a valid point, however not to the degree that anet is so busy paying for the extra bandwidth that they cant afford to invest anything else in significant content development.
I don’t doubt they had server issues during some of the lw, again you cant argue that’s why they haven’t been able to develop content
so it leads to 1 conclusion, namely they’re milking the cash shop for all its worth before they do release significant content.
I’ll just leave this here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooks's_law
Edit: For some reason when I tested it the link didn’t work for me. Just look up Brook’s Law on Wikipedia.
Edit 2: This doesn’t even count that fact that two of the head guys walked away from the game during development, in one case taking key people with him. If you don’t think that sets a company back, not sure what to tell you.
Brooks’ law might be valid in this case, then again it might not, its difficult for a player to have the insight to know, however there are other possibility’s which seem logical, I remember reading right at launch that concept artist Kekai Kotaki was calling it quits with anet, I really wondered why, it seemed like the best time to be part of that company, about a 8 month to a year later I concluded that he must have left because he realised the direction the game was headed, these other 2 head guys you speak of, I had no idea about, but again what were their reasons? we don’t know what drove them to leave, it may very well have been that they had insight on the direction the game was headed.
Somehow they never fail to release more item mall skins heaven forbid they add aesthetics that can be obtained from playing the game :/
…snip…You do realize Anet could have altogether removed Gold to Gem conversion right?
By that same idea, all items in the gemstore can be bought, in your own words, “from playing the game”.Sure, the inflation has gone up, but players who save up and play the game, always have the option to get the items they “want” (thank goodness, it’s NOT about the items we NEED) by playing the game.
Yes but can I buy everything that comes out by just playing the game as it comes out? Do keep in mind that I have a life also.
Many players want to collect everything not just a few things every now and then. If GW2 does not allow this then players will leave to other game that come closer. In the end less money for GW2. Bad business model for long term game stability.
I honestly don’t mind the gem store. I’d rather just buy what I wanted from the gem store as opposed to playing the RNG crapola merry go round from the mystic forge or black lions chests. As others have said Anet has to continue to make money from their game and the gem store is a good way to do that other than expansions.
I’d rather buy an expansion.
If the gem store and “Flaming never-ending gathering tools” and “Uber awesome finishing moves!!” are the future as opposed to an actual expansion I won’t be here to much longer.
What people tend to forget is the expectation that players had after GW1. Expansions every 2-3 years.
If your having adventurer problems I feel bad for you son, I dodged 99 arrows till my knee took one.
From the work done since launch, we know they have :
- a LS team
- an ui team
- a gem store team
We know they don’t have :
- a dungeon team
- a class design team
- a balance team
- a www/pvp team
- a bug hunting team
I’d really like to know what it is working on in arenanet. I don’t care about CDI, that don’t tell us anything and we know that we won’t see what’s in their post. At most we will have a scrap of the cheapest suggestion ( see cm tags).
Yes their policy is “don’t say a thing until it is ready”, so nothing had been ready since launch. What are they doing ? What are they working on ? Can a manager look at the work done at this instant and say we will never see this work finished ? That the 300 workers that we don’t know what they do won’t ever see their job done ? That they will be moved before finishing their project to another project that won’t be finished, and bis repetita ?
So, what is really advanced that you can tell us ? You said you’ll communicate, but for the moment idc what you said, i want to know what we will have for the year to come.
Anet’s mistake is that they don’t yet realize how to get more people to spend money in the gem store.
Clue: it’s not by focusing on the gem store exclusively.
Make an awesome game. Update it with lots of new content. Make sure there are plenty of cosmetic options in the store for people to support the game with. Keep putting out lots of new content for people to play.
Publish how much money revenue you are receiving every month (transparency). This helps fans know how well the game is doing, and when it needs more money (prompts people to spend).
Anet doesn’t know how to adapt to the era of social media and transparency.
Look at how well Star Citizen is doing – they’re in the Guinness Book of World Records now, btw.
Everything Anet does is backwards – it’s indicative of the failure of corporate culture.
Instead of continuing their failed secrecy policy, instead of continuing their morbid fixation with squeezing fans for cash (without delivering new content), they need to pull a 180 and do the following things:
Be 100% transparent with your fans about where the game stands, why you are doing what you are doing, and exactly what your plans are for the future, and how you plan to fix your mistakes. Be transparent about the gem store – publish figures. Let us know where that money is being spent and how it’s being used to develop GW2 further.
And, above all, put out more content. Lots of it.
Build it, and they will come.
People are becoming disillusioned with GW2.
I’m having more fun right now playing Skyrim and Star Citizen (Arena Commander alpha).
Your game is stale, fix it.
They have to make money somehow without a subscription and at this point in it’s life it’s probably not making much at all from box sales. I’m sure they have NCsoft/nexon pushing sales as well.
Living story has been their focus and seems to be that it will stay their focus. They haven’t been shy in saying this.
I hate it when people use that lame excuse. Yes they do need to make money and they are making tons of it.
Arenanet already showed they could make money off just selling the game with out a real money store or a subscription needed. Now they are doing the same business model plus they have the real money store. They should being doing extremely better and have plenty of resources to invest in the game and not just the store. The only reason they wouldn’t be making that money now is because people are tired of spending money on a stagnant game. If they want to be stubborn and keep saying we know you really enjoyed the game at launch but that is all the content we are ever going to give you except for the LS and gemstore, then the game is going to die. The game already is getting a bad reputation on the internet. How bad does it have to get before some positive change happen here?
Anet’s mistake is that they don’t yet realize how to get more people to spend money in the gem store.
Clue: it’s not by focusing on the gem store exclusively.
Make an awesome game. Update it with lots of new content. Make sure there are plenty of cosmetic options in the store for people to support the game with. Keep putting out lots of new content for people to play.
Publish how much money revenue you are receiving every month (transparency). This helps fans know how well the game is doing, and when it needs more money (prompts people to spend).
Anet doesn’t know how to adapt to the era of social media and transparency.
Look at how well Star Citizen is doing – they’re in the Guinness Book of World Records now, btw.
Everything Anet does is backwards – it’s indicative of the failure of corporate culture.
Instead of continuing their failed secrecy policy, instead of continuing their morbid fixation with squeezing fans for cash (without delivering new content), they need to pull a 180 and do the following things:
Be 100% transparent with your fans about where the game stands, why you are doing what you are doing, and exactly what your plans are for the future, and how you plan to fix your mistakes. Be transparent about the gem store – publish figures. Let us know where that money is being spent and how it’s being used to develop GW2 further.
And, above all, put out more content. Lots of it.
Build it, and they will come.
People are becoming disillusioned with GW2.
I’m having more fun right now playing Skyrim and Star Citizen (Arena Commander alpha).
Your game is stale, fix it.
QFT
too many people are telling them this and they are just being stubborn. People like me want a reason to come back. No matter how bad arenanet wants that reason to be the living story, that just won’t be it. And making lame changes to the leveling experience to drag out current content is an easy to see through ruse. We want real content not stuff that is only their to make your metrics say what you want them to say.
I hate it when people use that lame excuse. Yes they do need to make money and they are making tons of it.
Arenanet already showed they could make money off just selling the game with out a real money store or a subscription needed. Now they are doing the same business model plus they have the real money store. They should being doing extremely better and have plenty of resources to invest in the game and not just the store. The only reason they wouldn’t be making that money now is because people are tired of spending money on a stagnant game. If they want to be stubborn and keep saying we know you really enjoyed the game at launch but that is all the content we are ever going to give you except for the LS and gemstore, then the game is going to die. The game already is getting a bad reputation on the internet. How bad does it have to get before some positive change happen here?
If the bold part is referring to Guild Wars 1 you are missing the fact that it did have a in-game store for the vast majority of its life. Which contained actual in-game advantages no less.
Krall Bloodsword – Mesmer
Krall Peterson – Warrior
Piken Square
Krall Peterson – Warrior
Piken Square