Guild Wars 2

I’ve never seen a game surrounded with so much hype. I myself who rarely gets carried away with these things eagerly followed the build up and launch with huge anticipation. I read somewhere they managed to sell 2 million copies straight up surely putting them in instant profit. Kinda proves you can make a bunch from anything if your marketing and hype is top notch. There are a few other factors at play but I would say Diablo 3 is a good example of this too. Anet has made their money which is good for them and gaming but I wonder how this game would have done on its own merits in a saturated market. I think numbers in about 6 months should show us either way but what do you guys think? MMO’s require so much investment, I personally don’t think not having a sub fee is going to keep ppl here as much as others seem to.

You seem to forget that Anet didn’t hype their game. The players did.

With Blizzard, they advertise all over the place. They throw ads everywhere from television to random websites (even product placement). Blizzard hypes their own games up.

Anet didn’t do all that. It was the players that brought up all the hype and tossed it around everywhere. They didn’t spend millions on advertising, and instead, let the players spread the word.

For a game that doesn’t advertise everywhere, I’d say it did pretty darn well and will continue doing well.

I truly am sorry for those that don’t enjoy the game, as they seem to feel very btiter about it. I think it’s a little disingenious of you, Crunch, to suggest that this game has sold only on ‘hype’.

Personally, I’m looking forward to many more months of fun, as I’m currently having. I didn’t actually buy the game at launch as I didn’t think it would be what it said it was (piercing through the hyperbole), but now I’m in (for 3 weeks now), and have about 60 hours logged, I feel that I’ve only scratched the surface, and it has delievered on the parts of the marketing that interested me as a player.

It really does take all sorts I guess. My feeling is that the game will stabilise to a following of long-term players, and I hope that the predicted profit of that known quantity of the playerbase will help fuel more content.

SpyderArachnid.5619:

You seem to forget that Anet didn’t hype their game. The players did.

With Blizzard, they advertise all over the place. They throw ads everywhere from television to random websites. Blizzard hypes their own games up.

Anet didn’t do all that. It was the players that brought up all the hype and tossed it around everywhere. They didn’t spend millions on advertising, and instead, let the players spread the word.

For a game that doesn’t advertise everywhere, I’d say it did pretty darn well and will continue doing well.

This. You literally couldn’t start a conversation about any MMO in a public or semi public forum without someone coming in to tell you what a great revolution GW2 will be and omg omg. Then you would look at what those people were saying about GW2, took a look at what the devs of the game actually said about it and predict the resulting crash and burn.

Honestly, it is better then I predicted it to be. Not that typical marketing newspeak did not play a role in the hype snowball, but I seriously got the impression that they lost control of the fan-hype avalanche and tons of misconceptions that grew as a result.

For me, the game did in fact live up to the hype… for the most part. What is huting the game for me is dev decisions after launch. Things like too many gold sinks, not reimbursing players for anet mistakes, bugs left and right, bots (lets face it they should have had something in place prior to launch), nerfs…. the list goes on.

Crunch Rest.2945:

I personally don’t think not having a sub fee is going to keep ppl here as much as others seem to.

And a sub fee cuts more purchases from happening entirely.

And no WoW is not a usable example.

Ordin.9047:

For me, the game did in fact live up to the hype… for the most part. What is huting the game for me is dev decisions after launch. Things like too many gold sinks, not reimbursing players for anet mistakes, bugs left and right, bots (lets face it they should have had something in place prior to launch), nerfs…. the list goes on.

This……so much this. The game I played in beta is not the same game I can log into tonight. The one from beta might have had some issues, but at least it was fun to play. The mess that we have now due to drastic inaction on some issues and drastic over reaction on others is just not fun any more, and the reason people like me are so upset is because we still easily remember the fun to play game we had just a few short weeks ago.

Crunch Rest.2945:

I personally don’t think not having a sub fee is going to keep ppl here as much as others seem to.

Actually that’s the best part of it. Once you buy it you’re not obligated to grind the game to get your money’s worth. You can come and go as you please. You can expect this game to be busy during holidays, and not so busy when schools open and everyone’s back to work. As for the hype, it has lived up to it.

Guild wars 2 probably will not meet a lot of people’s expectations, but I am not shocked either. A lot of people over the years build it up in their mind as the best thing ever. For me guild wars 2 is a great MMORPG and it did for the most part what it set out to do.
Of the people that seem to complain at either those that were guild wars 1 players and love gw1 for what it was but never understond it is, WoW players looking for their next “WoW with a better graphics and different lore” (basically something exactly like WoW but not WoW but WoW) and there isn’t anything wrong with that; unfortunately, you should have better research the game or LISTEN to what the developers were saying and showing and not some random internet person telling you how to think.

Ordin.9047:

For me, the game did in fact live up to the hype… for the most part. What is huting the game for me is dev decisions after launch. Things like too many gold sinks, not reimbursing players for anet mistakes, bugs left and right, bots (lets face it they should have had something in place prior to launch), nerfs…. the list goes on.

This is how I feel, and the somewhat snarky answers on this forum.. I’m sorry Anet if your players are an inconvenience to you

SpyderArachnid.5619:

You seem to forget that Anet didn’t hype their game. The players did.

Is this your first week on the internet or something? ANet has been hyping GW2 for years. “If you like MMOs, you’ll want to play Guild Wars 2. If you hate MMOs, you’ll really want to play Guild Wars 2”. Yeah, some random user on a forum didn’t say that first, ArenaNet did. And they kept at it. Hyping everybody up with how they were going to do away with old models and change the way MMOs are looked at forever.

I’m not saying they did or didn’t, or how much, that’s something that every player has to think about and feel for themselves, but to say that ArenaNet didn’t hype anything is to conveniently pretend you paid no attention to the internet (as far as gaming/MMOs are concerned) for the last couple of years.

Game lived up to the hype for me.

Six months after release there is always a drop in playership. People come in they consume their product and they move on to consume a new thing. This is what we players do. We always are in pursuit of the next shiny object.

Either way I’ll be around in six months and they will probably have kicked out some bonus stuff for me then!

Crunch Rest.2945:

MMO’s require so much investment, I personally don’t think not having a sub fee is going to keep ppl here as much as others seem to.

If you mean time investment to get anywhere in the game then thats not the case in GW2. There is NOTHING in this game that you cant obtain VERY casually and be on equal footing on others.

All you really need time for is.

1. Buy the game.
2. Roll a toon and level it to 80 (pretty fast and fun) or sPvP.
3. Gather around 25g and buy full exotic/runes/sigils
4. Grind Dungeons for new skins, WvW your brains out, farm gold, craft or whatever rocks your boat.

Neither of things under note 4 are time consuming or gets you left behind if you take a week, month or whatever off. You can play when you feel like it and have time. All you need is to pick up expansions and such to get higher levels and new gear when the time comes, but no grinding is needed for anything really.

25g are obtained by gathering orichalcum 2x per day for 15 minutes per run during roughly 5 days, thats an hour and 15 minutes for a full exotic gear. Lets say 3 hours maybe since you need to find the nodes on the first day.

This game is designed around having fun and I think they nailed that perfectly, giving everyone the choice about what they wanna do in-game. But you dont need to spend hours on end to get anywhere, because you are already where you need to be shortly after hitting 80.

Well, if this game had a subscritption fee I doubt even 10% of the population would keep playing. So yes, awesome marketing and hype, terrible deliver of the promised game.

Knuckledust.5621:

Well, if this game had a subscritption fee I doubt even 10% of the population would keep playing. So yes, awesome marketing and hype, terrible deliver of the promised game.

Exactly right.

Ironically, it was probably ex-WoW players (which there are millions of) who hyped it up since many of them are so desperate for a new MMO.

Halo.1064:

Ironically, it was probably ex-WoW players (which there are millions of) who hyped it up since many of them are so desperate for a new MMO.

More likely the legions of WoW haters that have hyped up so many games in the last few years hoping to see someone kill off WoW. Once again the game did not come close to matching the hype.

flyinpoons.6481:

More likely the legions of WoW haters that have hyped up so many games in the last few years hoping to see someone kill off WoW. Once again the game did not come close to matching the hype.

Those are the best types. They want to play the most popular game to feel popular. Not because it is fun. If it isn’t popular YOU CAN’T PLAY IT and it is made into a failure.

SpyderArachnid.5619:

You seem to forget that Anet didn’t hype their game. The players did.

Someone needs to Google “Astroturfing”.

Didn’t even realized GW2 came out.. So basically the hype flew past me ….
Anyways just learning the game while playing it instead of fantasizing about it and building up all these unrealistic expectations i came to the conclusion that this game is awesome..

And i love the casual part about this game

Maybe wow players enjoy the genre done right so much they want to be part of something new thats as much fun?

Crunch Rest.2945:

Maybe wow players enjoy the genre done right so much they want to be part of something new thats as much fun?

Maybe most WoW players are so addicted that they are incapable of enjoying anything else