Guild Wars 2

vesica tempestas.1563:

‘promise’ or simply a feature that was deprioritised in place of something else? that’s the thing, everything has a cost, you cannot deliver everything, so you pick stuff. reality is a lot more complicated than jsut broken promises, no-one wants to break a promise, but choices for the best have to be made all the time. The alternative is the almost dead waterfall development life cycle – I promised to build ABCDEF even if tastes change or context changes or other issues arise that are critical.

they promised -> they lied -> they over hyped etc etc. Notices its always assumed that a decision was made in error.

I get defending Anet from attacks, I really do. But they dropped the ball. They said “if you buy this game, this thing will be in it” and when it was bought, that thing was not in it. That means the product was incomplete. That means ArenaNet over promised. That means ArenaNet messed up.

So yes, it is as simple as a broken promise, because if they were not sure it would be available at launch, they should not have promisd it. There objectively WAS a decision made in error. That decision was marketing stuff that didn’t end up in game.

If they had, from the beginning, said “here are a list of things we would LIKE to achieve, but it’s possible they won’t arrive”, that would have made things okay because they did not promise that all those things would be there. But promoting things that might not make it into the game is a BAD marketing strategy, so you promise everything that you feel you can finish. But, if you do that, you run the risk of not having some of those things ready by launch, aka an error in decision making occurred. Of course no one wants to break promises, but the marketing of HoT was messed up. HoT was marketed with things that weren’t there.

You can’t argue around this. The marketing of the game did not take into account the development process and the players are rightly frustrated with undelivered promises because the marketing department messed up. So yes, objectively speaking, there was an error in decision making. Objectively, ArenaNet messed up. And it’s a shame too, because what they did release was awesome. What promises WERE kept were awesome.

In short, understanding the development cycle does NOT mean that the disconnect between what was marketed and what was released cannot be criticised. It should be criticised because if game companies can get off scot free for promising things that don’t make it into the game, it could lead to an industry wide practice of deliberately promising things that were never part of the design process.

Hell, that trend already exists with certain companies and developers (aliens: colonial marines, evolve, everything Peter Molyneux worked on like Godus, a LOT of EA games shipped unfinished and there are countless more examples out there), ArenaNet is NOT one of those companies. I have absolutely no doubt ArenaNet intended on delivering everything they promised. But the reality is, they over promised and they under delivered and it needs to be criticised.

It IS worth mentioning that the development of living world season 3 is doing a lot of things right and is making up for some of the undelivered content, so definitely props to ArenaNet for at least attempting to follow through on some of the undelivered promises. But ArenaNet isn’t free from criticism. No one should be.

tbh season 3 would be the best so far if it only had like 2 3 maps which were more thought out and filled with more content and longterm goals for players but regardless gratz for keeping their schedule on point.

@castlemanic well lets explore what happened, lets assume a promise was made, something happened that meant that promise could not be fulfilled, now that can be a couple things:

- Something else went up the pecking order and became more desirable based on focus groups and feedback, resources and time is not infinite, things change. Being flexible to change is good.

- they screwed up. There’s a well known saying ascribed to great dev teams – fail fast, fail often. Maybe they screwed up and cou’dnt deliver, so they picked the next most valuable thing on the want list.

- They ran out of time. Also happens in reality, 1 bug could knock out a team for a month, could be an hour. Assumably that promised thing was more complex than anticipated, should they delay the release for that one thing (generally a poor call) should they deliver later etc etc, lots of choices to be made.

None of this is about poor development, its simply about being able to change plans on a day to day basis to meet day to day demands.

ofc this is where marketing or someone promised something early can be dangerous – it binds you in a terrible way, and that in my personal opinion is bad, i see it at work myself, the marketing team want to promise everything up front guaranteed, dev teams and product owners want to publish the ‘minimum viable product’ as a starter for 10.

I can’t imagine what Anet would ‘hype’ at this time … the continuation of a living story that only current players would understand? Why would anyone not playing the game even care about that? Personally, i think there is very little gain in advertising a 5 year old game to new players that’s F2P that isn’t so obscure that MMO players have never heard of it to begin with.

vesica tempestas.1563:

@castlemanic well lets explore what happened, lets assume a promise was made, something happened that meant that promise could not be fulfilled, now that can be a couple things:

I love how you say ‘assume’. Promises WERE made that never made it to launch. It’s an objective fact.

- Something else went up the pecking order and became more desirable based on focus groups and feedback, resources and time is not infinite, things change. Being flexible to change is good.

Being flexible is fine, but something was marketed when it shouldn’t have been/

- they screwed up. There’s a well known saying ascribed to great dev teams – fail fast, fail often. Maybe they screwed up and cou’dnt deliver, so they picked the next most valuable thing on the want list.

Again, that doesn’t excuse them from marketing something that didn’t come out.

- They ran out of time. Also happens in reality, 1 bug could knock out a team for a month, could be an hour. Assumably that promised thing was more complex than anticipated, should they delay the release for that one thing (generally a poor call) should they deliver later etc etc, lots of choices to be made.

This is probably the only fair argument you have. That STILL means that something was marketed that wasn’t delivered, but I definitely understand the pressures of release dates and publisher/investor demands.

None of this is about poor development, its simply about being able to change plans on a day to day basis to meet day to day demands.

NEVER DID I SAY IT WAS POOR DEVELOPMENT. Please don’t put words in my mouth. I SPECIFICALLY said it was a marketing error. There was a decision to market something that ended up not coming out. Never did I say it was the fault of the developers. In the first draft of that post (yes I actually had a first draft because I had so much to say) I mentioned how the marketing team misunderstood the development cycle.

ofc this is where marketing or someone promised something early can be dangerous – it binds you in a terrible way, and that in my personal opinion is bad, i see it at work myself, the marketing team want to promise everything up front guaranteed, dev teams and product owners want to publish the ‘minimum viable product’ as a starter for 10.

This is my point. There was a decision to market something that may not come out. As I mentioned before, I believe ArenaNet did everything they could to keep every promise made by the marketing department. But in the end, they did not deliver everything that was promised or marketed. That’s the issue. That’s the whole issue, the disconnect between what was marketed and what was released.

That doesn’t mean ArenaNet are bad developers, that doesn’t mean they maliciously promised something that they didn’t even want to make, that doesn’t mean that ArenaNet are evil or something like that. What it DOES mean is that ArenaNet messed up. The minimum viable product was smaller than what was promised. What was delivered was not everything that was promised. That’s the whole issue.

i would agree with that then and the answer to keep everyone happy i think is to show lots of stuff, but simply don’t promise it – say here are all the things that we will try to deliver, but no guarantees. Lots of people don’t get that though, they see a thing and call it a promise and equally im sure this could be a risky thing in the gaming industry I would guess?

Heres another angle, lets assume a marketing mistake, now lets assume Anet have learned from that – the answer is don’t market until you a 100% sure of mvp (i.e its built) – guess where we are at now.

Personally i would love transparency and offer everything up from with caveats, but then im just a dev, marketing guys know their stuff better than me

vesica tempestas.1563:

i would agree with that then and the answer to keep everyone happy i think is to show lots of stuff, but simply don’t promise it – say here are all the things that we will try to deliver, but no guarantees. Lots of people don’t get that though, they see a thing and call it a promise and equally im sure this could be a risky thing in the gaming industry I would guess?

It’s actually a terrible marketing strategy to do that though. Providing concrete ideas and saying “this is what we want to accomplish, but things might change” is the WORST thing you can do marketing wise. If you say a certain set of things may not come out, it’s not marketable, nobody will consider it a promise and everyone will simply ignore it. If you say “this WILL come with the game”, THAT gets attention. That is something solid that grabs people’s attention. That is marketable because it’s stated as a fact, something that WILL happen, something that you can put your money on because you know it will happen.

Unfortunately there’s no in between. That’s just the nature of human attention.

Ardenwolfe.8590:

The bottom line is this: Hype is nice, but we want results. Given what happened with HoT before and after, silence is the better course. The next expansion will make or break Guild Wars 2 . . . and there’s no getting around that.

Why they put themselves in this position in the first place, especially given their earlier success with a different model, is still beyond me. But here we are . . . and time will tell if they survive it. Guild Wars 2 is the MMO I’ve played the longest, and even I can see they’re in trouble.

Hype isn’t going to save them, but an amazing expansion might.

I basically agree with this.

I think that for a great deal of things they promised they did not say that these might not come but if we manage to implement them then hurray.

Einlanzer.1627:

Ardenwolfe.8590:

The bottom line is this: Hype is nice, but we want results. Given what happened with HoT before and after, silence is the better course. The next expansion will make or break Guild Wars 2 . . . and there’s no getting around that.

Why they put themselves in this position in the first place, especially given their earlier success with a different model, is still beyond me. But here we are . . . and time will tell if they survive it. Guild Wars 2 is the MMO I’ve played the longest, and even I can see they’re in trouble.

Hype isn’t going to save them, but an amazing expansion might.

I basically agree with this.

yeah i can already see a forum post from MO “next week the second expansion releases” ~and trailer drops at the same time~

And no a great expansion wont save them if nobody knows about it or expects it…

castlemanic.3198:

vesica tempestas.1563:

i would agree with that then and the answer to keep everyone happy i think is to show lots of stuff, but simply don’t promise it – say here are all the things that we will try to deliver, but no guarantees. Lots of people don’t get that though, they see a thing and call it a promise and equally im sure this could be a risky thing in the gaming industry I would guess?

It’s actually a terrible marketing strategy to do that though. Providing concrete ideas and saying “this is what we want to accomplish, but things might change” is the WORST thing you can do marketing wise. If you say a certain set of things may not come out, it’s not marketable, nobody will consider it a promise and everyone will simply ignore it. If you say “this WILL come with the game”, THAT gets attention. That is something solid that grabs people’s attention. That is marketable because it’s stated as a fact, something that WILL happen, something that you can put your money on because you know it will happen.

Unfortunately there’s no in between. That’s just the nature of human attention.

yup exactly so you go for best endeavor and try to predict the best that you can in an ever changing world knowing that the further in the future a thing is the more unpredictable it becomes and accept predictions for the future may and will go wrong,

zealex.9410:

Einlanzer.1627:

Ardenwolfe.8590:

The bottom line is this: Hype is nice, but we want results. Given what happened with HoT before and after, silence is the better course. The next expansion will make or break Guild Wars 2 . . . and there’s no getting around that.

Why they put themselves in this position in the first place, especially given their earlier success with a different model, is still beyond me. But here we are . . . and time will tell if they survive it. Guild Wars 2 is the MMO I’ve played the longest, and even I can see they’re in trouble.

Hype isn’t going to save them, but an amazing expansion might.

I basically agree with this.

yeah i can already see a forum post from MO “next week the second expansion releases” ~and trailer drops at the same time~

And no a great expansion wont save them if nobody knows about it or expects it…

Are you saying that if players aren’t made aware of future content six months to a year in advance, they won’t play it when it arrives? How does that make sense?

Skittish.4539:

zealex.9410:

Einlanzer.1627:

Ardenwolfe.8590:

The bottom line is this: Hype is nice, but we want results. Given what happened with HoT before and after, silence is the better course. The next expansion will make or break Guild Wars 2 . . . and there’s no getting around that.

Why they put themselves in this position in the first place, especially given their earlier success with a different model, is still beyond me. But here we are . . . and time will tell if they survive it. Guild Wars 2 is the MMO I’ve played the longest, and even I can see they’re in trouble.

Hype isn’t going to save them, but an amazing expansion might.

I basically agree with this.

yeah i can already see a forum post from MO “next week the second expansion releases” ~and trailer drops at the same time~

And no a great expansion wont save them if nobody knows about it or expects it…

Are you saying that if players aren’t made aware of future content six months to a year in advance, they won’t play it when it arrives? How does that make sense?

If the existance or the arival of content in the near future isnt made aparent to ppl then why would these ppl go out of their way to search for it. Especially if it flat out drops with no reall buildup behind it.

Chingiz.9167:

We simply need more Silverwates-like zones, that are actually worth returning into if you know what i mean.

Sometimes i even forget zones like Dry Top exist – usually once you finish your achievements in these zones, there is nothing interesting/profitable or even fun to do. At least we got dailies in the “new” zones.

I can’t stand the Silverwastes — spent way too much time there, it’s started to become boring, therefore I am glad you can farm with better/faster results in the new zones. Dry Top you need for many items (crafting certain ascended gear as well as legendaries requires things that can only be purchased there). Each map becomes boring when you grind it, why it is nice that now you can actually choose where to go and what to do.

@crafting your char to lvl 80: no longer doable for way over a year now, even less so since last summer/fall.

zealex.9410:

If the existance or the arival of content in the near future isnt made aparent to ppl then why would these ppl go out of their way to search for it. Especially if it flat out drops with no reall buildup behind it.

There’s a difference between hype and providing information. I just want to point that out. Hype is useless and potentially dangerous, but informing people that the expansion is coming and what’s in it IS useful.

Here’s an example of the difference. Let’s take the impossible scenario that mounts will be in the next expansion for instance.

Hype: GW2 PROVIDES MOUNTS IN THE NEXT EXPANSION

Providing information: Here is a list of features/masteries to be included in the next expansion: 1.Mounts 2. blah 3. blah etc.etc.

Let me provide a correction before I even post this. Hype IS useful, because it’s a good marketing strategy to get attention and reach a wide audience. However, it can also severely backfire because increased hype leads to increased expectations.

At a glance, hype seems like an ‘easy’ marketing tool for grabbing attention, but I’d rather not dive into that territory as I have no marketing experience and therefore couldn’t tell you if that were true or false. If I am wrong about hype being an ‘easy’ tool, please forgive me.

you could also choose where to go and what to do back then

zealex.9410:

Skittish.4539:

zealex.9410:

Einlanzer.1627:

Ardenwolfe.8590:

The bottom line is this: Hype is nice, but we want results. Given what happened with HoT before and after, silence is the better course. The next expansion will make or break Guild Wars 2 . . . and there’s no getting around that.

Why they put themselves in this position in the first place, especially given their earlier success with a different model, is still beyond me. But here we are . . . and time will tell if they survive it. Guild Wars 2 is the MMO I’ve played the longest, and even I can see they’re in trouble.

Hype isn’t going to save them, but an amazing expansion might.

I basically agree with this.

yeah i can already see a forum post from MO “next week the second expansion releases” ~and trailer drops at the same time~

And no a great expansion wont save them if nobody knows about it or expects it…

Are you saying that if players aren’t made aware of future content six months to a year in advance, they won’t play it when it arrives? How does that make sense?

If the existance or the arival of content in the near future isnt made aparent to ppl then why would these ppl go out of their way to search for it. Especially if it flat out drops with no reall buildup behind it.

A giant advertisement 1 week before an expansion could be an equal amount of making apparent as the same advertisement 6 months prior, with the added benefit of it being less likely to have been forgotten. I’m not sure how build up without content makes an expansion more profitable.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think you could pretty much craft to 80 if you were to abandon disciplines and do all of them. It seems like I’ve gotten about 10 levels out of one discipline, like chef, which is convenient to have on multiple toons.

I’m not advocating that it’s a good thing to do, but if it is something you enjoy… sure.

Over Hype is better than underhype in any retail product.
if Everyone knows what you have to offer, you ll get some % of those people, and possibly kitten of some other %
if no one knows what you have to offer, you ll get some % of zero, which is zero.

Obtena.7952:

I can’t imagine what Anet would ‘hype’ at this time … the continuation of a living story that only current players would understand? Why would anyone not playing the game even care about that? Personally, i think there is very little gain in advertising a 5 year old game to new players that’s F2P that isn’t so obscure that MMO players have never heard of it to begin with.

Its also advertising for former players, and if your new content has no appeal for old players and new players you are going to keep contracting.

I guess you are saying guild wars days of growth and increased earnings are over? or are you saying that they should start promoting the game when they get some more new content that actually might appeal to people who arent playing right now?

Skittish.4539:

zealex.9410:

Skittish.4539:

zealex.9410:

Einlanzer.1627:

Ardenwolfe.8590:

The bottom line is this: Hype is nice, but we want results. Given what happened with HoT before and after, silence is the better course. The next expansion will make or break Guild Wars 2 . . . and there’s no getting around that.

Why they put themselves in this position in the first place, especially given their earlier success with a different model, is still beyond me. But here we are . . . and time will tell if they survive it. Guild Wars 2 is the MMO I’ve played the longest, and even I can see they’re in trouble.

Hype isn’t going to save them, but an amazing expansion might.

I basically agree with this.

yeah i can already see a forum post from MO “next week the second expansion releases” ~and trailer drops at the same time~

And no a great expansion wont save them if nobody knows about it or expects it…

Are you saying that if players aren’t made aware of future content six months to a year in advance, they won’t play it when it arrives? How does that make sense?

If the existance or the arival of content in the near future isnt made aparent to ppl then why would these ppl go out of their way to search for it. Especially if it flat out drops with no reall buildup behind it.

A giant advertisement 1 week before an expansion could be an equal amount of making apparent as the same advertisement 6 months prior, with the added benefit of it being less likely to have been forgotten. I’m not sure how build up without content makes an expansion more profitable.

actually trying to do a mass advertisement one week before release, doesnt seem to be as effective as having anticipation and marketing over a long period with an increase in intensity close to release.

look at the commericially succesful movies, games, consoles, etc. Good marketing builds to a climax. I mean you can get lucky and some how go viral and come out ahead, but thats not something you can predict or plan.

As the OP I think its important I bring some things into clarity for people just incase there was a misunderstanding.

I do not think the game is bad, I love this game, alot, but I do agree with the points raised in the video. The biggest downside is that while this approach is definatley giving us more content when it finally arrives, we have a long, long wait, where we get “no” news at all on that contents arrival or what we can expect when it comes.

A teaser, a picture, a small indication of whats next could at least give us “something” to work with, instead, we are given silence, expected to wait 3 months per content drop, and finally be content with what ever arrived, which has hit mixed results.

Episode 4 is a good example:

When this new content first arrived people were outraged at how hard the final boss of the story segment was, almost unforgivingly hard. Immediatley it needed a day-one-nerf to even make it accessable to some extent.

This is why testing/hype is important, because that way all the problems are dealt with in advance and the people that want to play, do, play.

With minimal problems in tow.

Id say thats entirley worth the idea of hype, giving us something to look forwards to, while getting it properly built up.

Filler things, like the Treesus Ascended weapon quest chain, are a good filler for the short term, but in the long term, we need something more.

phys.7689:

Obtena.7952:

I can’t imagine what Anet would ‘hype’ at this time … the continuation of a living story that only current players would understand? Why would anyone not playing the game even care about that? Personally, i think there is very little gain in advertising a 5 year old game to new players that’s F2P that isn’t so obscure that MMO players have never heard of it to begin with.

Its also advertising for former players, and if your new content has no appeal for old players and new players you are going to keep contracting.

I guess you are saying guild wars days of growth and increased earnings are over? or are you saying that they should start promoting the game when they get some more new content that actually might appeal to people who arent playing right now?

Increased Earnings? no. but growth … probably. Let’s not pretend that the trend for MMO’s as they grow long in the tooth is ever up. Maybe you get a blip for expansions, but the point of adverts at this point wouldn’t be to recover AFK players … those players know what they left. They are waiting for something big, if at all.

Need Colin back to help game. He was king of hype.

Obtena.7952:

phys.7689:

Obtena.7952:

I can’t imagine what Anet would ‘hype’ at this time … the continuation of a living story that only current players would understand? Why would anyone not playing the game even care about that? Personally, i think there is very little gain in advertising a 5 year old game to new players that’s F2P that isn’t so obscure that MMO players have never heard of it to begin with.

Its also advertising for former players, and if your new content has no appeal for old players and new players you are going to keep contracting.

I guess you are saying guild wars days of growth and increased earnings are over? or are you saying that they should start promoting the game when they get some more new content that actually might appeal to people who arent playing right now?

Increased Earnings? no. but growth … probably. Let’s not pretend that the trend for MMO’s as they grow long in the tooth is ever up. Maybe you get a blip for expansions, but the point of adverts at this point wouldn’t be to recover AFK players … those players know what they left. They are waiting for something big, if at all.

EVE Online with a subscription based model in a niche area has maintained steady growth over-time with periodic fluctuations up and down but continue a general upward or steady trend.

Guild Wars has only been slowly going down since HoT released.

If ANet had small adverts for Living World or small information points for the next expansion that simply mention basic details, nothing that will cause headaches for being able to deliver or not.

It would help to encourage renewed interest in the game, for people to come back and play living world or new players to join what looks like an interesting game.

Those are assumptions and the comparison to Eve Online somewhat irrelevant; it’s a completely different business model than GW2. What you say aboue GW2 trending down is just as I said and it makes little sense to advert to new players for elements of the game they don’t even understand.

Even for vets … they KNOW about LS and even know it’s coming and can easily check it. Wasting money to advert LS to them is probably not a good ROI.

Lack of hype or lack of communication.
Is a big problem for content creators huge problem .
2 months of no solid think to talk about is a huge problems for content Creators. And if you think to yourself “who cares about content creators” than good luck promoting the game your self and keep the community interested.

phys.7689:

Over Hype is better than underhype in any retail product.
if Everyone knows what you have to offer, you ll get some % of those people, and possibly kitten of some other %
if no one knows what you have to offer, you ll get some % of zero, which is zero.

this

there are just to many mmorpg games out there
and how many are real hardcore fan off gw2 ??

most will jump to other games if they are out and keep jumping to others
as long they have a head start off other players and be beter then them

new players to gw2 will have a huge cap between the pro players here but they want that to best gear and weapons and so on but its to much work for them

and quit already so a new mmorpg give them a change to get a head start
some even play all day and night to be the highest lvl with the best stuff as long they are beter then the rest

zealex.9410:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

he OP hasn’t produced any evidence that the lack of hype matters that much. It’s clear that they want more hype; it’s not clear whether it matters to the majority of players.

idk pll quiting the game coz its stale feels like a legit reason to me

And people quit the game because it was over-hyped, too — they heard about good stuff, came back, found that it wasn’t what they expected, and left.

People quit for all sorts of reasons, including lack of hype, too much hype, the wrong sort of hype, and because they liked the game better when they weren’t as familiar with all its ins & outs. It’s hard to say which one of those is the most important.

It’s really only fair to say that the OP wants to hear more about what’s planned and that the OP isn’t alone in wanting that. It’s not clear if it’s going to matter in the long run.

I don’t think the issue is the lack of communication or lack of hype. This game, with its current content release schedule, is just not working.

Big patches every three months isn’t working, they need to spread the content a bit, like, last big patch we got Caladbolg quest line, Bastion of the Penitent, the fourth episode of the LW3 and everything that came with it, and some fractal changes.

That’s it, they released it all in one big package, people are done with most of that now and now we’re waiting for the next release because there’s nothing fresh or different to do for a few weeks now. I literally only login to do Fractals because I happen to need relics at the moment and raids at reset and maybe when people I know call me to fill a group.

They could’ve spread it by releasing all that with an interval of a few weeks between each other instead of a big package, it would give a better illusion of constant improvement and frequent releases.

They could work on small scale temporary events with stuff that already is in the game. I don’t know, do a weekend Keg Brawl Cup, small quests that can be done weekly to get an item worth 5g or unique guild decorations, or some kitten like this. I would participate in that just to do something different.

I feel this is what this game needs: constant smaller updates, not big updates with a large interval between each other with content that people will burn through in two weeks and people returning to farming right after getting tired of it. It would give something to talk about for a while and that small anticipation every little while knowing that something new might come any moment.

Its the community who builds the hype. I do not fault the developers for trying to sell their product..thats silly and honestly unheard of. (Yeah lets not advertise this up so we dont sell a bunch of copies) makes 0 sense.

Brimstar.9036:

Its the community who builds the hype. I do not fault the developers for trying to sell their product..thats silly and honestly unheard of. (Yeah lets not advertise this up so we dont sell a bunch of copies) makes 0 sense.

I think they are divided on how to approach this. On one side you have people saying.. “We want communication, what is going on with the expansion?”

Then the aftermath of once the expansion comes out.. “Hey why didn’t we get this, you said it was going to be in the game?”

So as they work on it, they are planning on announcing things that are actually going to be in the next expansion, instead of making broken promises.

nsleep.7839:

I don’t think the issue is the lack of communication or lack of hype. This game, with its current content release schedule, is just not working.

Big patches every three months isn’t working, they need to spread the content a bit, like, last big patch we got Caladbolg quest line, Bastion of the Penitent, the fourth episode of the LW3 and everything that came with it, and some fractal changes.

That’s it, they released it all in one big package, people are done with most of that now and now we’re waiting for the next release because there’s nothing fresh or different to do for a few weeks now. I literally only login to do Fractals because I happen to need relics at the moment and raids at reset and maybe when people I know call me to fill a group.

I try to avoid debates and discussions on this forum these days, but I’ll say this . . . you nailed it. The problem isn’t the lack of hype. The problem is the lack of interest. And the sudden change with how the game releases content is also a problem.

If you attracted your audience by doing something one way, and then you suddenly go in another direction . . . a direction other MMOs have done and your audience wanted to avoid? Yeah, you’re going to see your audience leave for other pastures.

The number one reason I’ve stuck with Guild Wars 2 was their ability to continually add new content on a rather frequent basis. I’m not interested in waiting months or years for an expansion much less new content. Been there, done that, and left those games because of it. And once an audience is gone, it’s near impossible to bring them back.

Yes, the lack of hype isn’t helping, but the lack of content in and after the expansion isn’t helping either.

Ardenwolfe.8590:

nsleep.7839:

I don’t think the issue is the lack of communication or lack of hype. This game, with its current content release schedule, is just not working.

Big patches every three months isn’t working, they need to spread the content a bit, like, last big patch we got Caladbolg quest line, Bastion of the Penitent, the fourth episode of the LW3 and everything that came with it, and some fractal changes.

That’s it, they released it all in one big package, people are done with most of that now and now we’re waiting for the next release because there’s nothing fresh or different to do for a few weeks now. I literally only login to do Fractals because I happen to need relics at the moment and raids at reset and maybe when people I know call me to fill a group.

I try to avoid debates and discussions on this forum these days, but I’ll say this . . . you nailed it. The problem isn’t the lack of hype. The problem is the lack of interest. And the sudden change with how the game releases content is also a problem.

If you attracted your audience by doing something one way, and then you suddenly go in another direction . . . a direction other MMOs have done and your audience wanted to avoid? Yeah, you’re going to see your audience leave for other pastures.

The number one reason I’ve stuck with Guild Wars 2 was their ability to continually add new content on a rather frequent basis. I’m not interested in waiting months or years for an expansion much less new content. Been there, done that, and left those games because of it. And once an audience is gone, it’s near impossible to bring them back.

Yes, the lack of hype isn’t helping, but the lack of content in and after the expansion isn’t helping either.

Except that caladbolg quest was not added with lake Doric patch. I do agree that though releasing the living story at the same time as the raid is not a good move.

flog.3485:

Ardenwolfe.8590:

nsleep.7839:

I don’t think the issue is the lack of communication or lack of hype. This game, with its current content release schedule, is just not working.

Big patches every three months isn’t working, they need to spread the content a bit, like, last big patch we got Caladbolg quest line, Bastion of the Penitent, the fourth episode of the LW3 and everything that came with it, and some fractal changes.

That’s it, they released it all in one big package, people are done with most of that now and now we’re waiting for the next release because there’s nothing fresh or different to do for a few weeks now. I literally only login to do Fractals because I happen to need relics at the moment and raids at reset and maybe when people I know call me to fill a group.

I try to avoid debates and discussions on this forum these days, but I’ll say this . . . you nailed it. The problem isn’t the lack of hype. The problem is the lack of interest. And the sudden change with how the game releases content is also a problem.

If you attracted your audience by doing something one way, and then you suddenly go in another direction . . . a direction other MMOs have done and your audience wanted to avoid? Yeah, you’re going to see your audience leave for other pastures.

The number one reason I’ve stuck with Guild Wars 2 was their ability to continually add new content on a rather frequent basis. I’m not interested in waiting months or years for an expansion much less new content. Been there, done that, and left those games because of it. And once an audience is gone, it’s near impossible to bring them back.

Yes, the lack of hype isn’t helping, but the lack of content in and after the expansion isn’t helping either.

Except that caladbolg quest was not added with lake Doric patch. I do agree that though releasing the living story at the same time as the raid is not a good move.

pretty much

OriOri.8724:

I’m fine with no hype from Anet. I’m not quite as ok with hearing absolutely nothing. I just want a general roadmap. I want to know what direction this game is headed in.

Yeah, agreed. Teaser videos are pretty terrible (super-low information density, too).

But a written 2-3 year roadmap with rough quarterly deadlines for each step, that’d be kitten nice.

As for the lack of hype due to the fact that we do not have constant release of new stuff, I don’t really agree with this sort of feedback. I mean, we are just getting off a period of time of four consecutive festival updates. We all know that the team in charge of these current events are also in charge in reviving these festivals. Before there was no festivals, we did get a good chunck of regular updates in the world that worked off as premises for the next release of living story update or closure to said updates like the event chain that lead off to ember bay with the primordius weapon collection, the rifts in core tyria (that came after first episode if I recall correctly), the champion bandits before the reveal of episode (please correct me if I am wrong). And even with these festivals they did find a way to add the caladbolg quest after the dragons ball luck events and before lake Doric. Now that they are no upcoming festivals to look for in the near future I am pretty sure they will go back to releasing these events and if they don’t then I would agree that the game really lacks some hype.

flog.3485:

As for the lack of hype due to the fact that we do not have constant release of new stuff, I don’t really agree with this sort of feedback. I mean, we are just getting off a period of time of four consecutive festival updates. We all know that the team in charge of these current events are also in charge in reviving these festivals. Before there was no festivals, we did get a good chunck of regular updates in the world that worked off as premises for the next release of living story update or closure to said updates like the event chain that lead off to ember bay with the primordius weapon collection, the rifts in core tyria (that came after first episode if I recall correctly), the champion bandits before the reveal of episode (please correct me if I am wrong). And even with these festivals they did find a way to add the caladbolg quest after the dragons ball luck events and before lake Doric. Now that they are no upcoming festivals to look for in the near future I am pretty sure they will go back to releasing these events and if they don’t then I would agree that the game really lacks some hype.

The current events with the bandits were mostly added with the big pactches before the living world season started.

And about the festivals, aren’t those just recycled content? I mean, I see no reason at all for me to do SAB this year just for a recolor skin… Chinese New Year was mostly recycled, so was Wintersday and Shadow of the Mad King. Doing these at the moment shouldn’t be taking much effort from the company.

Yes, they were all copy and paste jobs. Some the same for the last three years, if I recall correctly. Slightly different rewards in others. And giving a new color to a skin two or three years old as a reward isn’t exactly impressive.

And yes, new stuff does keep players interested and hyped. The sudden influx of returning players when Living World is updated with a new map and story proves this out. And their exodus when they’ve gobbled it up does the same.

Regardless, it’ll all be moot if the next expansion doesn’t deliver.

All this hype nonsense -.-
If you believe all those threads how no hype is killing the game – i wonder how the game survived so far.

Before the HoT hype began – how much hyping did they do about upcoming stuff?

ArenaNet is terrible at marketing. They have a beautiful game with beautiful graphics, yet you can’t find anything showcasing it properly.

Their so called trailers are not trailers, but teasers, and show nothing but smoke. They’re completely irrelevant and a waste of time. Also, no new player can be attracted to the game by them, period.

We need what other games have: Full-on previews, weeks in advance, including a list of all the new stuff coming in with the patchs. New raid patch? Showcase all bosses and their mechanics, together with the new rewards. Show the world this game has content, and it’s worth playing.

But, but, spoilers!

That’s the point. When you save all the new content for day one, it’s old by day two and no one cares. If you show it one month before release, there’s hype for a month. There’s noise, discussion, theories, and there’s life.

Not only they’re wasting countless basic marketing opportunities, they’re also creating false expectations by leaving the community in the darkness. People start to make their own crazy theories and assumptions from datamined or out of context details, and when the patch hits and it’s not what they expected, then comes the backlash. Meanwhile ArenaNet is watching the world burn, without intervening to stop the false hype train before it crashes.

Ask yourself this:

Is this game worth your time, when you don’t know where you’ll be in a few months? Is it worth investing your time and effort to upgrade your characters, when you don’t know where and when you will be using them?

GW2 feels like a dead game, and the saddest part is that such is a false image, because it’s perfectly alive. At this rate, for how long?

Vegeta.2563:

Brimstar.9036:

Its the community who builds the hype. I do not fault the developers for trying to sell their product..thats silly and honestly unheard of. (Yeah lets not advertise this up so we dont sell a bunch of copies) makes 0 sense.

I think they are divided on how to approach this. On one side you have people saying.. “We want communication, what is going on with the expansion?”

Then the aftermath of once the expansion comes out.. “Hey why didn’t we get this, you said it was going to be in the game?”

So as they work on it, they are planning on announcing things that are actually going to be in the next expansion, instead of making broken promises.

Then don’t promise things you can’t assure will be delivered?

This is a game company, a business, not a bunch of kids in a basement. Businesses make promises, and fulfill them. Game companies should be no different, and shouldn’t be getting excuses from their very customers.

MrPinks.2015:

Lack of hype or lack of communication.
Is a big problem for content creators huge problem .
2 months of no solid think to talk about is a huge problems for content Creators. And if you think to yourself “who cares about content creators” than good luck promoting the game your self and keep the community interested.

This is a very important point, too.

Ardenwolfe.8590:

The bottom line is this: Hype is nice, but we want results. Given what happened with HoT before and after, silence is the better course. The next expansion will make or break Guild Wars 2 . . . and there’s no getting around that.

Why they put themselves in this position in the first place, especially given their earlier success with a different model, is still beyond me. But here we are . . . and time will tell if they survive it. Guild Wars 2 is the MMO I’ve played the longest, and even I can see they’re in trouble.

Hype isn’t going to save them, but an amazing expansion might.

The question is, can they make an amazing expansion without proper community feedback? Looking back, I doubt so. I don’t think they even realize this, or they would have changed their ways already long ago.

The success of said new expansion requires sales to ex-players and new customers as well, and I don’t see them reaching anyone with their current approach to marketing.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think the game will die. It will still be here, but it won’t be huge. It won’t grow. We’ll still have similar discussions in the years to come.

I hope I’m proven wrong, but it’s been 5 years of disappointments and clunky decisions already.

Amaimon.7823:

but on topic: They have made a statement once that the long hype of the previous expansion backfired so they don’t want to hype up coming content anymore. So now we get a week advance LS teasers, and we’ll get a trailer and a reveal sometime soon when they’re closed to finishing the next expansion. The lack of hype may be what’s killing the game, I don’t know, but the overhype we got last time almost definitely killed the game so I rather have this silence.

It backfired because the expansion was too small, and lacked many of the things they had promised. Start by not making promises you can’t fulfill.

TorsoReaper.8530:

This is just typical Anet. They only know Zero or 100. They don’t know anything in between. Look at leather, look at balance patches, and now look at the communications. It’s always either all or none.

Quoting for truth. It’s one of their worst attributes by far. They always take their decisions to the extremes, instead of searching the middle ground.

Ardid.7203:

The problem with HoT is people alerted about a lot of problems BEFORE Anet even publish the expac. They hyped, they showed, they received feedback, they barely took that feedback into account, then the failures were just what the feedback screamed about.

This is what made the most damage: to not complete the product, to not hear the critics on time, and to get out in the proper date, without the proper quality.

The new WvW Desert Borderland got a lot of criticism, and made it into release with barely any changes, where it flopped and pretty much killed what remained of the WvW competitive scene.

They fixed many things later, but it was too late. Stronghold and guild halls are other two big flops as well, close to complete disasters.

And the worst about the Desert Borderland is that it had the right ideas. Somewhere at the core, there’s some good fixes in there. Including the complicated walkways, because that effectively increases the map size and we got told further actual maps isn’t possible due to the engine.

Just that the implementation was botched, and now that it’s here it is the usual mix of hotfixes instead of actual reworks. But why I really do not know, maybe they’re just that short on manpower.

The map chat “community” took a big hit with HoT, plus the new players to the game are F2P and can’t chat in map chat, so it further brings down the chatter.

Amaimon.7823:

Sariel.2143:

+1 Completely Agree
Never a hype
Overall communication is bad, if you look at the forums, devs respond on 1-2posts a page

The most communciation I ever got was that they changed a title of my topic without saying anything in the discussion.

but on topic: They have made a statement once that the long hype of the previous expansion backfired so they don’t want to hype up coming content anymore. So now we get a week advance LS teasers, and we’ll get a trailer and a reveal sometime soon when they’re closed to finishing the next expansion. The lack of hype may be what’s killing the game, I don’t know, but the overhype we got last time almost definitely killed the game so I rather have this silence.

Well that’s their problem since they weren’t able to keep their words (leg, armor, whole new leg set, leg backpiece and maybe I forgot smt) with initial release and they’re paying that now.

Hype and Communication is OK..but content draws people the more great content you have..the more people will cover it.?..if it wasn’t for gws1 ..i would have never got gws2 it wasn’t the hype,bloggers, and youtubers, it was all gws 1 that made me pick gws 2. gws 1 never hyped, it was all about content and story. glad to hear the the gws 1 leader Mike’O is back in control. maybe he can bring the epic content like we had in gws 1 to the gws 2 stage. i look forward to see what he can do with this team.

It’s gonna be a rough time fore GW2 if they continue like this with the 2 top competitors MMO releasing expansions very soon and free trial periods.

They really need to wake up.

What’s hurting GW2 is the fact that there’s nothing to do but grind. Dungeons got placed in a box and thrown in the closet, raids are extremely difficult for 90% of the players (not to mention elitism scrubs who won’t accept people without X number of LI’s, even though they might me sick playing their class), etc.

There is really no reason to do any other thing in the game than farm events to get richer, and when you do get rich what do you do twith the money? Nothing, there’s nothing to spend it on but legendaries or BL weapons, and even if you do acquire one, now what? play the same mindless stuff to show it off.

GW2 needs randomly generated stuff. Probably a dungeon/dungeons where you fight increasing number of waves of mosnters, each stronger than the last, until your party gets overwhelmed. Fun content is where its at. Feels like everything they put its an excuse to justify a farm of some kind.

Halloween? Farm for skins
SAB? Farm for skins
etc…

Just implement stuff for the sake of fun. Make the experience the main point instead of the prize at the end, not the other way around.

virus.4370:

Hype and Communication is OK..but content draws people the more great content you have..the more people will cover it.?..if it wasn’t for gws1 ..i would have never got gws2 it wasn’t the hype,bloggers, and youtubers, it was all gws 1 that made me pick gws 2. gws 1 never hyped, it was all about content and story.

Bingo. Word-of-mouth creates the biggest buzz. You can have fantastic trailers and hype, but if your product fails to deliver . . . well . . . people will let you know.

Looking at you, Suicide Squad.