Guild Wars 2

To The Elder Scrolls Online, Wildstar, and any other MMOs coming out soon, I want to say a huge THANK YOU !!! Your collective pending releases have done more to finally get ArenaNet to start making improvements to Guild Wars 2 than all the forum posts combined over the past 19 months. Keep up the good work and lets hope we see even more improvements in GW2 in the coming months.

Edit: The original title of the thread was “Thank you TESO, et al.” It appears a moderator changed the title.

It’s a shame that we had to wait for other competition to come along and get ArenaNet to release some impactful/lasting content.

Too little, too late. Had they made these changes earlier I might not be switching to ESO. Holding back on all these improvements and dumping them on us right at the launch of ESO was a colossal blunder from my POV. I hate being manipulated, and that’s exactly how A-net has made me feel.

Anet just needs to top ESO in the ‘way too many emotes’ department and optimize WvW to have 0 framerate lag like ESO. Also 1st person view.

I thought this was a post thanking them for finally releasing so as to displace all the complainers from these forums; I was wrong.

Carry on…

OP, I’m gonna make that post my sig.

Schizo.1375:

For the record Wildstar isn’t competition since it’s owned by the same parent company. Second neither is TESO since it will go free to play in less than a year after release. Thirdly these things take time and money to develop and I’m sure were in development for some time and information is just being released now. Fourthly Anet is not suffering for money or population as most people on these forums seem to assume without any actual metrics.

Wildstar is competition for ArenaNet; even if it’s a subsidiary of NCSoft. If the ArenaNet team wants to continue to receive parent company NCSoft’s support and money, they’ll need to produce results. Otherwise, they’ll be left to wither on the vine while NCSoft diverts resources to Wildstar, should it prove more successful. It’s like two kids competing for a parent’s affection.

Nor does TESO going free to play in less than a year after release (assuming it even does) have any bearing on the discussion of competition. If it threatens to pull players away from GW2 – regardless of its business model – then that’s still competition.

Nineteen months is more than enough time – too much, actually – to have developed basic QoL features that should have existed from launch. The whole, “Don’t criticize poor ArenaNet. They’re sensitive and criticism hurts. Just give them more time.” argument is old. That would have been valid 1 month after launch; not nineteen months.

As for suffering for money or population, we’ll see what happens as new MMOs start coming online.

Also, the subtext of my OP is that of a fan who played all expansions of GW1 over a 7 year period and wants to see GW2 succeed with over 4,000 hours already invested in it. That I’m disappointed in the direction the game has taken should be readily apparent, as well. But the hope that it will eventually achieve the potential it has fallen so far short of to date still exists. If it takes being an anti-fanboi to bring concerns to the attention of the developers in the interest of seeing the game improve, then so be it.

Daddar.5971:

Too little, too late. Had they made these changes earlier I might not be switching to ESO. Holding back on all these improvements and dumping them on us right at the launch of ESO was a colossal blunder from my POV. I hate being manipulated, and that’s exactly how A-net has made me feel.

Why is it too late? Is ESO F2P yet because if not then any time ESO puts out something that ppl do not like they can switch to the B2P of GW2. In effect as long as ESP is P2P all games that are F2P or B2P will always be hounding the game. Enjoy the self denial of why your paying 15$ a month for something that you may not like all the time.

Kraag Deadsoul.2789:

To The Elder Scrolls Online, Wildstar, and any other MMOs coming out soon, I want to say a huge THANK YOU !!! Your collective pending releases have done more to finally get ArenaNet to start making improvements to Guild Wars 2 than all the forum posts combined over the past 19 months. Keep up the good work and lets hope we see even more improvements in GW2 in the coming months.

BEINGHUMAN.4167:

It’s a shame that we had to wait for other competition to come along and get ArenaNet to release some impactful/lasting content.

LoL’s you make it sound as if they started coding all of these features yesterday.

Get real !

A lot of these changes / features had been requested for a very long time on these very forums.

The fact is, it takes coding time, testing time, retouch time plus bug fixing time to implement changes and systems of this magnitude.

They have probably been working on these features for quite some time, but couldn’t divulge anything about them before they were ready enough to actually talk about them.

Did those sorry excuses for modern mmorpg’s (ESO & WS) play a role ? YES

But, don’t make it out to be as if a.net went (oh kitten ESO and WS are around the corner let’s quickly give the community what they asked us for 16 months ago in the forums)

Ah yes. Because all these changes have been worked on only since the release date of ESO and Wildstar was announced……

We even know for a fact that the wardrobe have been worked on since the account-bound wallet was released at least.

Kraag Deadsoul.2789:

Your collective pending releases have done more to finally get ArenaNet to start making improvements to Guild Wars 2 than all the forum posts combined over the past 19 months.

I doubt it’s because of other MMOs coming out, since everyone including ArenaNet knew they were coming out anyway! They didn’t just make these improvements on the fly over the past couple of weeks, in some hysterical panic. This has been many, many months in the making, on top of making new PvP, WvW and Living World content!

Yes it takes time to develop content. No, they didn’t just start working on it “yesterday”. Guess what? They didn’t just find out about these games “yesterday” either. These are games that are years in the making.

Ah, yes, now the fanbois come out of the woodwork rallying to the defense of ArenaNet. I’m well aware the changes we’re seeing today were put into development months ago.

I’m also very acutely aware that any business that wants to succeed in a market as competitive and fickle as the video game industry keep tabs on what the competition are doing many, many months in advance of any public releases.

If you think the pending releases of TESO and Wildstar didn’t influence the direction of the improvements that are now being released (as well the “coincidental” timing of such improvements), then I have a bridge I’d like to sell you.

I have memory, i remember when Arenanet had no competition and ignored us for more than a year. I remember that very well.

Deamhan.9538:

Yes it takes time to develop content. No, they didn’t just start working on it “yesterday”. Guess what? They didn’t just find out about these games “yesterday” either. These are games that are years in the making.

No, but the OP seems to assume that they released it now because of the release date of TESO and Wildstar, which is quite silly. Since those dates have not been known long enough for all the changes to be made.

A-net likely had many of these new changes ready long ago, but they made a decision to hold them all and release them all now in order to coincide with competitor releases. Sure, some of them may have only been finished recently, but most of them were surely not. They may not have known the exact date of release, but clearly they waited strategically.

Kraag Deadsoul.2789:

Ah, yes, now the fanbois come out of the woodwork rallying to the defense of ArenaNet. I’m well aware the changes we’re seeing today were put into development months ago.

I’m also very acutely aware that any business that wants to succeed in a market as competitive and fickle as the video game industry keep tabs on what the competition are doing many, many months in advance of any public releases.

If you think the pending releases of TESO and Wildstar didn’t influence the direction of the improvements that are now being released (as well the “coincidental” timing of such improvements), then I have a bridge I’d like to sell you.

Of course competition is a key factor. But to make it out as the only factor that gets things done around here is just as silly as thinking competition has no effect.

Also in regards to your other response.

Yes they will be competing for NCSoft’s resources. What I meant by that is that they will be designed very similarly, as some people who are in beta are already reporting.

It will go free to play because it is proven to be the much more successful business model in the long run. The subscription cost is just to help initially pay off the high development costs that went into the game. By the time the majority of that has been paid off the novelty will start to wear off in players and they’ll start dropping subscription. Then TESO switches to the free to play model and and survive. It’s the cool thing to do now. Yes you are right they are still competition regardless. I’ll admit that this was mostly an emotional statement having played TESO and seen nothing new/special/worth the price tag and I’m sure most people will find this as well and are just excited for new game but not necessarily something “new” as is the case with most MMO’s. /personal opinion

I was not attempting to be a “fanboi” (nor do I appreciate name calling in debates. Really?) I was just trying to give some perspective that isn’t always appreciated in the forums of how long and intensive software development is. Let alone on something as massive as an MMO.

I don’t think anything will happen when the new MMO’s come online. The whole point of the free to play model is that they don’t need constant high population. They just need a few good whales.

lordkrall.7241:

Ah yes. Because all these changes have been worked on only since the release date of ESO and Wildstar was announced……

We even know for a fact that the wardrobe have been worked on since the account-bound wallet was released at least.

And how long have they been working on the precursor quest/hunt? And how far along on that are they?

Having a couple of people working on something when they’re not being told to do something “more important” for the LS or whatever seems to be the way ANet works. And yes, I do believe they realized they had a potential problem headed their way, and finally started to focus on these things they’d been “working on” for so long.

Palador.2170:

lordkrall.7241:

Ah yes. Because all these changes have been worked on only since the release date of ESO and Wildstar was announced……

We even know for a fact that the wardrobe have been worked on since the account-bound wallet was released at least.

And how long have they been working on the precursor quest/hunt? And how far along on that are they?

Having a couple of people working on something when they’re not being told to do something “more important” for the LS or whatever seems to be the way ANet works. And yes, I do believe they realized they had a potential problem headed their way, and finally started to focus on these things they’d been “working on” for so long.

For some perspective it took three years of development to release windows 8 after windows 7 was released. This is assuming that they weren’t working on it before windows 7 was released which is highly unlikely. And that’s just on OS they weren’t building from scratch. Now imagine the game design, the architectural design, considering the impact of these changes, coding, integrating, and testing major changes for an MMO of millions of players. Is it really so hard to believe that these things take so long.

Palador.2170:

And how long have they been working on the precursor quest/hunt? And how far along on that are they?

Having a couple of people working on something when they’re not being told to do something “more important” for the LS or whatever seems to be the way ANet works. And yes, I do believe they realized they had a potential problem headed their way, and finally started to focus on these things they’d been “working on” for so long.

Not especially long, and not with many people. As far as we know they have had a grand total of ONE person checking out ideas for it, and now put it on hold until they have released the new reward system.

lordkrall.7241:

Deamhan.9538:

Yes it takes time to develop content. No, they didn’t just start working on it “yesterday”. Guess what? They didn’t just find out about these games “yesterday” either. These are games that are years in the making.

No, but the OP seems to assume that they released it now because of the release date of TESO and Wildstar, which is quite silly. Since those dates have not been known long enough for all the changes to be made.

Instead they work on these things the moment they find out what their competition has in store (they can probably find these things out before it is publicly announced), then it is only a matter of time to get these finished in advance. Once they find out the release date later on, they either have all or most of it done already. They can then pick up the pace if need be or sit on it if they finished early.

Welcome to competitive business.

Schizo.1375:

Palador.2170:

lordkrall.7241:

Ah yes. Because all these changes have been worked on only since the release date of ESO and Wildstar was announced……

We even know for a fact that the wardrobe have been worked on since the account-bound wallet was released at least.

And how long have they been working on the precursor quest/hunt? And how far along on that are they?

Having a couple of people working on something when they’re not being told to do something “more important” for the LS or whatever seems to be the way ANet works. And yes, I do believe they realized they had a potential problem headed their way, and finally started to focus on these things they’d been “working on” for so long.

For some perspective it took three years of development to release windows 8 after windows 7 was released. This is assuming that they weren’t working on it before windows 7 was released which is highly unlikely. And that’s just on OS they weren’t building from scratch. Now imagine the game design, the architectural design, considering the impact of these changes, coding, integrating, and testing major changes for an MMO of millions of players. Is it really so hard to believe that these things take so long.

No, not when developing it from scratch.

Yes, when the features being added are – individually – relatively minor QoL improvements. Even more so when such features existed in the current game’s direct predecessor and using the same engine. And yes, I do code for a living, so yes, I do know what I’m talking about.

Anyone who would have taken as long to implement the relatively simple changes these improvements represent would have been fired a long time ago at my place of employment. Especially when models for them already existed in the previous game and with hordes of fans crying out for them on the forums practically since launch day.

The details aside, the point is to say:

1) Thanks for the improvements (as late as they are).

2) Keep going. Don’t rest on your laurels thinking that this April Feature Pack is your salvation. Take the momentum that has built up with this push to bring the improvements to market and now focus it on the multitude of bugs, balancing issues, and necessary improvements to the game which still are in dire need of being addressed.

This is the first ray of hope I’ve seen of ArenaNet getting back on track. I just don’t want to see it be a short-lived flash-in-the-pan. The depths of untapped potential in this game are vast; I want to see that potential realized.