Guild Wars 2

Tyr.1965:

Crackbone.5710:

Creslin.1758:

Crackbone.5710:

jboynton.7894:

Crackbone.5710:

HTXL.2598:

Crackbone.5710:

jboynton.7894:

Crackbone.5710:

Lordrosicky.5813:

They lied to us for years.

/Thread

Or, they fully intended to go the route they had “promised” only to find out it wasn’t going to meet the needs financially.

What would you have them do? Just allow the game to crash and burn?

Reality has a way of being a kitten when it comes to lofty ideals meeting a market driven economy.

GW1 was f2p from the start and had multiple expansions. That game was successful enough to warrant a sequel. This game is doing fine.

This isn’t 2004.

The market is a ton more competitive now. Furthermore, GW2 isn’t GW1. Not even close. The design of the game is completely different across the board.

This is a real MMORPG. People expect mechanics that will keep them engaged in their characters.

You can’t get by with MMOG mechanics in a MMORPG in 2012. There has to be a carrot or a reason for folks to keep playing.

And horizontal progression gets older faster than vertical.

Precisely.

Pulling all of the emotion out of this debate, you really have to consider the “Why.”

Why add vertical progression? I assert that it’s because their current model of horizontal progression isn’t retaining customers as they hoped it would. Furthermore, they likely had this entire model in their backpocket if the numbers stacked up this way.

It’s simple, Either you want Guild Wars 2 to be around as a healthy and profitable game for ANet and NCSoft for the next 3-5 years, or you want outdated mechanics from 2004.

They are, in my opinion as ANet has figured out, mutually exclusive, and it’s coming home to roost now as Ascended Gear.

Sorry man, but NCSoft’s financials just don’t mimic what you’re posting. Frankly put, the game had a massively successful launch and continues to be successful to this day. The problem is, that the suits who make the decisions get jealous of Blizzard. Period.

You cannot compete with WoW. This has been proven time and time again. The only thing that will kill WoW is Blizzard.

My interpretation of the numbers is far different than what the marketing speak out of NCSoft was.

Those numbers are far below what they should be for a title of this quality and size.

I want to be clear about something here :

I am not stating that a gear grind is the RIGHT way to do things. There are plenty of other ways you can add in character progression that’s more fun and more engaging.

However, the advantage to gear is this :

1. It’s quick. Same stats, marginally better, with a gated content slot. Easy to put it into the game, takes relatively little balance if the increases are largely the same across the board.

For whatever reason, and you can debate the why, I have my opinion, and you have yours, but, ANet clearly needed something “Quick.” If time wasn’t of the essence here, they would’ve gone a different route.

May I ask what you are basing your assertion that GW2 is essentially in a downward spiral on? Please do not say XFire.

This move.

Give me another logical reason that you would completely alter the core philosophy of all of your marketing and game design less than 3 months after the game launched.

It’s simple, the only reason you would do something like that is because the current model isn’t working. The blog post said as much. “We’ve listened to player feedback.”

This is a calculated move. ANet knows that this move is likely going to alienate a certain percentage of their players, however, it’s likely to open up the game to more players, who will stay longer and play more, and put more cash into the shop.

It’s not that difficult to decipher.

It’s not going to bring in as many people as it pushes away and the people that it does bring in won’t stay for long because that crowd has no loyalty.

No, you guys have no loyalty. Whether someone betrays you are not, you should still be loyal if you are say you are loyal. Whether the people who left were loyal to begin with, they’ll continue to play if it’s a good game and that’s what Anet is working on. They are going to give it a chance at every corner and come back at new releases. But for you “loyal” fans who are leaving after this one release. Overtime, the people who leave and comeback will overrule how much you’ve put into the game.

I can’t speak for anyone else, but I simply feel misled. Why should I stick around and spend time and money on a developer I can’t trust who is taking their game down the same path that hasn’t worked out well for every other mmo to release since WoW?

And it makes me sad because all the core mechanics of Guild Wars 2 are really strong.

It also concerns me because power creep and separation of power levels between pve and spvp will cause a balance rift. Or a scarier version: they start upgrading the gear in the mists and cause scaling issues guaranteeing that the competitive aspect of the game will never be balanced.

showatt.9413:

Except how will we know it’s the worst possible ’direction"?

What? Maybe because it killed every game so far? There is literally no MMO like that (except for WoW) that is fun in any way, shape, or form (okay, maybe EVE). That is exactly why you all are here; because you got bored of it all.

That framework is just a bug trap. A light that shines like a “shortcut to profit” and attracts all the talentless hacks, only to zap them to death on the electric fence.

The popular things are usually not popular because of a single visible thing that you can copy. They are popular because they are fully harmonized wholes in themselves, products which have every part of them fit together in the most balanced manner. You cannot just lift parts of it and expect the same results. That is how businessman think, but businessmen more-often-than-not have absolutely no concept of the product that they are trying to sell (and usually, the higher we go in the hierarchy, the more that applies).

• The only reason why Guild Wars remained active for so many years was because the amount of content was always larger than what you could complete in a reasonable amount of time before ArenaNet released new content in the form of expansions or random add-ons.

That was the trick, nothing more.

You did not need this mechanic gear progression.

• After 7 years I still had quests in my quest log that I picked up when I started the game. You could never get all the skills in the game as fast as here, and then I haven’t even talked about the Elite Skills. Every profession had its own armors, nor this free-for-all bs; that means that every single one of them had its own set of goals that you could not have reached with the others. Making an alt in Guild Wars 1 made sense.

Here what do you do? Stop at lvl 7 because by that point you have unlocked all your weapons skills and looked through all the utility skills in the skills section – or in other words, because by that time you have seen mostly everything that is different?

Maybe people wouldn’t be raging about lack of content if this game would have been the same in that sense! Not the exact same, just the general idea being the same. Gamers cannot make games, just like readers cannot write books either. They can only work with what they know. Of course they want the vertical bs because that is all that they know. Half the people here never played Guild Wars, the vertical bs is all that they know. They do not know better. The developers are the creative people, that is why they are called the developers. They can invent new things. It is their job to invent new things, and ANet already did that once.

Getting it?

When you just take what people want literally, you stop being a developer. If it would only depend on the consumer, all we would have is endless repetition (and maybe that is why we have so much repetition today) but Guild Wars proved that horizontal progression is a viable model, so we can say that the developers did know better.

So to be short, what is this kitten here?

It’s like as if the Communist Party would suddenly switch to being a Capitalist Party just because those have more followers.

You don’t just do that. You discredit yourself if you do.

• And maybe I was a bit harsh there, but I don’t think a perfect post exists. I tried my best.

showatt.9413:

Mandrax.7342:

Crackbone.5710:

jboynton.7894:

Crackbone.5710:

Lordrosicky.5813:

They lied to us for years.

/Thread

Or, they fully intended to go the route they had “promised” only to find out it wasn’t going to meet the needs financially.

What would you have them do? Just allow the game to crash and burn?

Reality has a way of being a kitten when it comes to lofty ideals meeting a market driven economy.

GW1 was f2p from the start and had multiple expansions. That game was successful enough to warrant a sequel. This game is doing fine.

This isn’t 2004.

The market is a ton more competitive now. Furthermore, GW2 isn’t GW1. Not even close. The design of the game is completely different across the board.

This is a real MMORPG. People expect mechanics that will keep them engaged in their characters.

You can’t get by with MMOG mechanics in a MMORPG in 2012. There has to be a carrot or a reason for folks to keep playing.

That carrot doesn’t need to be vertical progression. They have taken the easy, and in fact, cheap option.

Which is logical for a company that’s out to make money to do especially when their game is free to play and its going downhill.

Face it, if it wasn’t going down hill, if no one ever got bored grinding for skins and everything is the way it was back at launch, they probably would not have done this.

Accept the reality; Gw2 was dying slowly when they thought this up.

Sorry dude, but the game is doing fine. Couple the server populations with the NCSoft 3Q financial statement, and you are just plain wrong.

I’m going to echo what others have said here. Expanding endgame is about content. A gear treadmill no matter how slight is a really contrived way to do it.

ArcTheFallen.7682:

StormcrowX.9236:

prenavo.3926:

Metafrank.9017:

prenavo.3926:

This question only works if the majority of the games population answers this question. For that the majority of the players would have to be on the forums. I’m pretty sure more than half of the people who play never visit the forums.

So who were the people that were for it? Because Linsay states that the decision was made due to feedback of the community. Well, it’s certainly not THIS community, I think that is pretty obvious now.

This is actually something that I’d love to know myself. I really wish they would tell us exactly how they find out this stuff. I’m all for the new content coming in, but this one thing remains a mystery to everyone. To be fair, I think it’s something we should all know the specifics of.

This. Quoted and bolded for truth.

Because if the devs haven’t noticed by now, the feedback since the announcement has been overwhelmingly negative. So the question becomes, who the kitten thought this was a good idea and who the kitten is actually getting precedence (suggestions-wise)? Several popular and oft-asked for features eg. TP preview, FoV slider, appearance change, guild halls etc. have not been added, yet Anet had the time to implement this kind of nonsense.

Forums are the worst place to get a survey. And let’s not forget the many threads complaining about what to do at lvl80 that piled up over the course of 3 months. You kinda forgot that. Quit trying out the mob effect, and thinking you guys represent everyone. This is a hot topic that’s why there’s a huge thread. And gaining more playable content will help get some groups back. What’s wrong with that? You want Gw2 to be a successful game, but you do not want to support it if it goes a certain way. Some of us actually want to support a game if it’s good. Not by what some manifesto/blog said.

It was a promise to the players of GW1 as well as everyone else that set GW2 apart, they had a vision and a promise that’s a MAJOR reason why so many people are here, and they’re backing out on it. People have the right to be angry about it, they’ve handed Anet their money based off the product we’ve been sold and promised, and they’re going back and changing it now that they have made their profit? People came here to get away from the run of the mill gear treadmill games that have plagued the genre, they came here because ArenaNet had a vision for GW2 and was actually bringing it to fruition, they came here because of a promise and a philosophy sold to them for YEARS. If ArenaNet backs out on their promises, then players will back out as well and you should KNOW how unforgiving the MMO community can be, sometimes it’s ridiculous but in this case it’s completely understandable.

Tyr.1965:

Crackbone.5710:

Creslin.1758:

Crackbone.5710:

jboynton.7894:

Crackbone.5710:

HTXL.2598:

Crackbone.5710:

jboynton.7894:

Crackbone.5710:

Lordrosicky.5813:

They lied to us for years.

/Thread

Or, they fully intended to go the route they had “promised” only to find out it wasn’t going to meet the needs financially.

What would you have them do? Just allow the game to crash and burn?

Reality has a way of being a kitten when it comes to lofty ideals meeting a market driven economy.

GW1 was f2p from the start and had multiple expansions. That game was successful enough to warrant a sequel. This game is doing fine.

This isn’t 2004.

The market is a ton more competitive now. Furthermore, GW2 isn’t GW1. Not even close. The design of the game is completely different across the board.

This is a real MMORPG. People expect mechanics that will keep them engaged in their characters.

You can’t get by with MMOG mechanics in a MMORPG in 2012. There has to be a carrot or a reason for folks to keep playing.

And horizontal progression gets older faster than vertical.

Precisely.

Pulling all of the emotion out of this debate, you really have to consider the “Why.”

Why add vertical progression? I assert that it’s because their current model of horizontal progression isn’t retaining customers as they hoped it would. Furthermore, they likely had this entire model in their backpocket if the numbers stacked up this way.

It’s simple, Either you want Guild Wars 2 to be around as a healthy and profitable game for ANet and NCSoft for the next 3-5 years, or you want outdated mechanics from 2004.

They are, in my opinion as ANet has figured out, mutually exclusive, and it’s coming home to roost now as Ascended Gear.

Sorry man, but NCSoft’s financials just don’t mimic what you’re posting. Frankly put, the game had a massively successful launch and continues to be successful to this day. The problem is, that the suits who make the decisions get jealous of Blizzard. Period.

You cannot compete with WoW. This has been proven time and time again. The only thing that will kill WoW is Blizzard.

My interpretation of the numbers is far different than what the marketing speak out of NCSoft was.

Those numbers are far below what they should be for a title of this quality and size.

I want to be clear about something here :

I am not stating that a gear grind is the RIGHT way to do things. There are plenty of other ways you can add in character progression that’s more fun and more engaging.

However, the advantage to gear is this :

1. It’s quick. Same stats, marginally better, with a gated content slot. Easy to put it into the game, takes relatively little balance if the increases are largely the same across the board.

For whatever reason, and you can debate the why, I have my opinion, and you have yours, but, ANet clearly needed something “Quick.” If time wasn’t of the essence here, they would’ve gone a different route.

May I ask what you are basing your assertion that GW2 is essentially in a downward spiral on? Please do not say XFire.

This move.

Give me another logical reason that you would completely alter the core philosophy of all of your marketing and game design less than 3 months after the game launched.

It’s simple, the only reason you would do something like that is because the current model isn’t working. The blog post said as much. “We’ve listened to player feedback.”

This is a calculated move. ANet knows that this move is likely going to alienate a certain percentage of their players, however, it’s likely to open up the game to more players, who will stay longer and play more, and put more cash into the shop.

It’s not that difficult to decipher.

It’s not going to bring in as many people as it pushes away and the people that it does bring in won’t stay for long because that crowd has no loyalty.

Loyalty in a P2P game is largely meaningless unless that loyal base is paying for items.

As to your second statement, that’s an assumption. Rest assured, they have more data than we could fathom, and something in that data is pushing them to do this.

killcannon.2576:

In other words you’re saying “Don’t complain unless it’s something I want” ? The forums have been run constantly by the few complaining that they want a gear grind/raiding/mounts, but now that the other side shows up and says we don’t want it, your upset? Gotcha.

No, Not at all. It is not all about “me” I’m not the only one in this world that wants some type of personal satisfaction/progression. No one is forcing you to grind this instance for new gear. The people who are satisfied sitting in LA crafting all day can continue to do that while we kill stuff. Keep doing what you’ve been doing if you’re so satisfied with the game “as is”.

People actually supporting the ascendant gear are really close minded.

1. We. got a promise before release this game wouldnt have a threadmill, its been quoted several times already here.
2. We got promised an equal playing field in WvW. All you need is gold which doesnt take long to get.
3. Gear would only have a cosmetic impact, not stats.

They go against all 3 points with ascendant gear and how it works now. So the people pro this release say the following:

1. It’s only a minor stat increase, it wont have a big impact on WvW.
2. They arent using full exotics in WvW so they dont see the big change, they claim you dont need full exotics to compete. So if you dont get the ascendant gear its no biggy.
3. Ascendant gear will be the new top tier, so once you have it you have it.

We’ve currently seen 1 ring as an example with magic find, what happens when that ring becomes a ring with crit damage? Thats alot of extra crit damage.

Right now everyone can get full top gear without doing dungeons, dungeons are there as an option. After patch it will be mandatory if you want top gear to PvP (doesnt make one bit of sense to me).

Ascendant gear will be the top tier after patch, until the next patch. And then we start to get more and more stat inflation alá WoW. Also with the hint of legendaries becoming buffed means everyone will need to get them. Too bad for us that didnt want the skins and skipped them early on now are shafted due to gold sellers and gold buyers (thanks for fixing that Anet…).

I guess they only ripped me off around 120 Euro total for the game and stuff I bought in the gems store under false hopes and expectations that an MMO company would do something original and not listen to the WoW crowd (most who have already left the game).

Thats alteast how I currently feel if these items become usable in WvW.

Also, you’ve done a great job giving the elitists another thing to pick on people about, not only dungeon stats, also optimal tier items with higher combat stats.

When will MMO companies learn?

HTXL.2598:

Az z.2746:

Dear ANet, do you want to do gear progression?

Fine, but please keep it away from WvW.

We already have to grind gold for siege and structure upgrades, don’t make us also grind equips every new content patch.

I assure you, the commanders have an endless supply of siege equipment. Especially in tiers 1-3.

I assure you they don’t. I also assure you this if the have or haven’t, it does not matter. Making people that only play the game for WvW suffer doing PvE is not a good idea.

Tyr.1965:

OdinBudd.5298:

Holy cow, you would think this gear has already been released and tested with all the QQ going on in this thread. Does anyone think that waiting to see what it is, THEN QQ’ng would be a good idea? I understand the desire to not want a gear grind. I am also 100% in this boat and have no desire to get on that carousel of fail. But… I am also willing to wait until this new gear is released before slamming a game I have enjoyed so much, so far.

If it looks like crap and smells like crap, it’s crap. How far does the crap have to be shoved up your nose before you admit that it stinks?

Some people get served up a hot steamy crap and like to call it a sirloin steak.

showatt.9413:

jboynton.7894:

Crackbone.5710:

Creslin.1758:

Crackbone.5710:

jboynton.7894:

Crackbone.5710:

HTXL.2598:

Crackbone.5710:

jboynton.7894:

Crackbone.5710:

Lordrosicky.5813:

They lied to us for years.

/Thread

Or, they fully intended to go the route they had “promised” only to find out it wasn’t going to meet the needs financially.

What would you have them do? Just allow the game to crash and burn?

Reality has a way of being a kitten when it comes to lofty ideals meeting a market driven economy.

GW1 was f2p from the start and had multiple expansions. That game was successful enough to warrant a sequel. This game is doing fine.

This isn’t 2004.

The market is a ton more competitive now. Furthermore, GW2 isn’t GW1. Not even close. The design of the game is completely different across the board.

This is a real MMORPG. People expect mechanics that will keep them engaged in their characters.

You can’t get by with MMOG mechanics in a MMORPG in 2012. There has to be a carrot or a reason for folks to keep playing.

And horizontal progression gets older faster than vertical.

Precisely.

Pulling all of the emotion out of this debate, you really have to consider the “Why.”

Why add vertical progression? I assert that it’s because their current model of horizontal progression isn’t retaining customers as they hoped it would. Furthermore, they likely had this entire model in their backpocket if the numbers stacked up this way.

It’s simple, Either you want Guild Wars 2 to be around as a healthy and profitable game for ANet and NCSoft for the next 3-5 years, or you want outdated mechanics from 2004.

They are, in my opinion as ANet has figured out, mutually exclusive, and it’s coming home to roost now as Ascended Gear.

Sorry man, but NCSoft’s financials just don’t mimic what you’re posting. Frankly put, the game had a massively successful launch and continues to be successful to this day. The problem is, that the suits who make the decisions get jealous of Blizzard. Period.

You cannot compete with WoW. This has been proven time and time again. The only thing that will kill WoW is Blizzard.

My interpretation of the numbers is far different than what the marketing speak out of NCSoft was.

Those numbers are far below what they should be for a title of this quality and size.

I want to be clear about something here :

I am not stating that a gear grind is the RIGHT way to do things. There are plenty of other ways you can add in character progression that’s more fun and more engaging.

However, the advantage to gear is this :

1. It’s quick. Same stats, marginally better, with a gated content slot. Easy to put it into the game, takes relatively little balance if the increases are largely the same across the board.

For whatever reason, and you can debate the why, I have my opinion, and you have yours, but, ANet clearly needed something “Quick.” If time wasn’t of the essence here, they would’ve gone a different route.

May I ask what you are basing your assertion that GW2 is essentially in a downward spiral on? Please do not say XFire.

This is a calculated move. ANet knows that this move is likely going to alienate a certain percentage of their players, however, it’s likely to open up the game to more players, who will stay longer and play more, and put more cash into the shop.

Sorry for the snippet; but, history does not share your assumption. Historically, every MMO that has done that has failed miserably.

Right because Wow is dead.

And that’s a game with gear progression IN PVP.

I’m sorry but your history seems a bit different from mine.

If you’re going to interject yourself in the middle of a forum conversation, at least follow the posts to get some form of comprehension of what’s being discussed please.

This specific line of conversation was in regards to alienating the current player base in the hopes of attracting players from other MMOs.

showatt.9413:

But if you are actually “LOYAL” you would stay and play the game despite the change, would you not?

You confuse “loyal” with “stupid”.
Loyal is buying the game even though you’re not sure you will like it as much as GW1, but have faith in the company.
Stupid is continuing to play (and perhaps spending real money) it after the game changes beyond what you ever thought it would be.

Dear Arena I’m relay worried what i have read in news about Ascended EQ. On first impression i though “Cool new gear” but when i read through specific of this items i was terrified. First of All u take first upgrade slot to make infusion slot, and in my opinion it’s bad very bad call. Ok add infusion slot it’s great idea more diversity in gear but don’t take old one. Next thing which makes me worry is that we would need Ascended Eq to finish new dungeon? Well solution to this problem would be possibility to ascend exotic (rare 80 even?) gear. But ascension of this eq would add just infusion slot.
About Infusion I have to little information to say anything but please don’t add things like resist bleed, poison, or other things like that.

Hope U will read my post and think about suggestion i wrote in it.

Tyr.1965:

showatt.9413:

Accept the reality; Gw2 was dying slowly when they thought this up.

It is WAY too early in the game’s life to say it was dying slowly. How do we know that people werent just taking a break and waiting for the new content to come out? There is no subscription fee. People will come and go. So now we should come to expect major overhauls to the game’s design philosophy everytime ANet gets nervous that activity is starting to dip?

Compare the amount of people that’s playing this game to the launch.

Swtor actually lasted for 5 or 6 month before it starts struggling for breath.

Gw2 is struggling in 2 month, and since this is a game that has no sub….

So yeah. Expect major changes whenever the popularity of this game crushes.

ArcTheFallen.7682:

No, you guys have no loyalty. Whether someone betrays you are not, you should still be loyal if you are say you are loyal. Whether the people who left were loyal to begin with, they’ll continue to play if it’s a good game and that’s what Anet is working on. They are going to give it a chance at every corner and come back at new releases. But for you “loyal” fans who are leaving after this one release. Overtime, the people who leave and comeback will overrule how much you’ve put into the game.

The same crowd that ANet is now catering to is the same crowd that left WoW for Rift and SWTOR and AoC and WAR and Aion and when all those games turned out to not be better at delivering WoW without being WoW, all those players went back to……drumroll please… WoW!

And guess what will happen with GW2? The exact same thing!

Waar Kijk Je Naar.8713:

xtorma.1283:

Shootsfoot.9276:

Waar Kijk Je Naar.8713:

Quitting + getting a refund is essentially boycotting.

OMG, stop it.

You’re not getting a refund after playing the game for hundreds of hours.

Good lord.

I think you can get a refund in the EU up to six months.

This.

I love costumer laws.

“Right of withdrawal

1. For any distance contract the consumer shall have a period of at least seven working days in which to withdraw from the contract without penalty and without giving any reason. The only charge that may be made to the consumer because of the exercise of his right of withdrawal is the direct cost of returning the goods."

Source: http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:31997L0007:EN:NOT

As for a boycott, I don’t really think there’s anything in the patch that’s worth missing a fun event for but if people do it at least there might be a little less server trouble than there was at Halloween.

As for false advertising – online games include a stipulation in the ToS which states that the game is subject to change over time. You agreed to the ToS.

You know, guys, we can argue from here to eternity whether Ascended Gear is a bad idea – and I think it is – but something else has occurred to me, in light of recent events: maybe this isn’t Anet’s fault. Maybe they didn’t want to take the game in this direction, or stray so far from what they so proudly proclaimed in the manifesto. Maybe they wanted to put new Halloween masks in GW this year, too, but were denied. And maybe, just maybe one of those masks would have been… a faceplate!

Well, yeah, probably not a faceplate. Still, a sword was swung recently, and it could easily swing again.

Crater.1625:

Arnath.2319:

The only thing that comes close to a “gear treadmill” is the Infussions.

Once you have your Ascended armor then thats it! No more upgrading the armor after that, i think the reason they added the Ascended armor was because it was easyier than reworking every single Exoctic armor in the game.

PVE needs a major boost and Ascended armor and more importnatly Infussions is the sollution to this.

I suggest they introduce Ascended armor for PVP as well but that version wont have a Infussion upgrade slot it will just have a normal upgrade slot.

PVE needs life, and Infussions are the life saver.

How long until people have all of the available Ascended pieces that they want, and enough Infusions banked to fill out their whole set?

What’s going to “breathe life” into the game after that?

Firstly. Calm done, take a deep breath.

Secondly, they made it very clear that this Ascended gear AND the Infussions will be released very slowly, it will be delibretly gated for many months even years before we get the max Infussions sloted into our gear. When that time comes we can worry about it then.

For all we know we may not get a full set of Ascended armor and the highest Infussions until 3+ years from now after multiple exspansions.

dirtyklingon.2918:

Crackbone.5710:

jboynton.7894:

Crackbone.5710:

HTXL.2598:

Crackbone.5710:

jboynton.7894:

Crackbone.5710:

Lordrosicky.5813:

They lied to us for years.

/Thread

Or, they fully intended to go the route they had “promised” only to find out it wasn’t going to meet the needs financially.

What would you have them do? Just allow the game to crash and burn?

Reality has a way of being a kitten when it comes to lofty ideals meeting a market driven economy.

GW1 was f2p from the start and had multiple expansions. That game was successful enough to warrant a sequel. This game is doing fine.

This isn’t 2004.

The market is a ton more competitive now. Furthermore, GW2 isn’t GW1. Not even close. The design of the game is completely different across the board.

This is a real MMORPG. People expect mechanics that will keep them engaged in their characters.

You can’t get by with MMOG mechanics in a MMORPG in 2012. There has to be a carrot or a reason for folks to keep playing.

And horizontal progression gets older faster than vertical.

Precisely.

Pulling all of the emotion out of this debate, you really have to consider the “Why.”

Why add vertical progression? I assert that it’s because their current model of horizontal progression isn’t retaining customers as they hoped it would. Furthermore, they likely had this entire model in their backpocket if the numbers stacked up this way.

It’s simple, Either you want Guild Wars 2 to be around as a healthy and profitable game for ANet and NCSoft for the next 3-5 years, or you want outdated mechanics from 2004.

They are, in my opinion as ANet has figured out, mutually exclusive, and it’s coming home to roost now as Ascended Gear.

Sorry man, but NCSoft’s financials just don’t mimic what you’re posting. Frankly put, the game had a massively successful launch and continues to be successful to this day. The problem is, that the suits who make the decisions get jealous of Blizzard. Period.

You cannot compete with WoW. This has been proven time and time again. The only thing that will kill WoW is Blizzard.

My interpretation of the numbers is far different than what the marketing speak out of NCSoft was.

Those numbers are far below what they should be for a title of this quality and size.

I want to be clear about something here :

I am not stating that a gear grind is the RIGHT way to do things. There are plenty of other ways you can add in character progression that’s more fun and more engaging.

However, the advantage to gear is this :

1. It’s quick. Same stats, marginally better, with a gated content slot. Easy to put it into the game, takes relatively little balance if the increases are largely the same across the board.

For whatever reason, and you can debate the why, I have my opinion, and you have yours, but, ANet clearly needed something “Quick.” If time wasn’t of the essence here, they would’ve gone a different route.

gw2 has had one of the launches for day 1 sales in the genre ever, and quite comparable to non mmo games.

1 million + prelaunch sales.
2.3 million launch week sales.
who knows how many units have been sold since.

to put it this way, revneue from gw2 for first month unit and MT sales put it above BNS’s revenue in korea, which toppled aion easily over night.

from a financial stand point, gw2 has been very succesful, and seemingly devs were expecting number sto become lower, at least their posts during headstart and the first few weeks giving high concurrency rates for any number of things not working correctly indicates that.

“First few weeks”

It’s 90 days out now. I don’t have to go back and point to every MMORPG that’s launched since 2005 that has had great launch day/month numbers that have failed due to lackluster customer retention do I?

MMORPGs depend on retention. That’s the key. Sure, they may have recovered some of their development costs, but what about ongoing costs? Something in the data was likely not matching up to their projections.

That’s why you have vertical progression sneaking in.

showatt.9413:

Tyr.1965:

Crackbone.5710:

Creslin.1758:

Crackbone.5710:

jboynton.7894:

Crackbone.5710:

HTXL.2598:

Crackbone.5710:

jboynton.7894:

Crackbone.5710:

Lordrosicky.5813:

They lied to us for years.

/Thread

Or, they fully intended to go the route they had “promised” only to find out it wasn’t going to meet the needs financially.

What would you have them do? Just allow the game to crash and burn?

Reality has a way of being a kitten when it comes to lofty ideals meeting a market driven economy.

GW1 was f2p from the start and had multiple expansions. That game was successful enough to warrant a sequel. This game is doing fine.

This isn’t 2004.

The market is a ton more competitive now. Furthermore, GW2 isn’t GW1. Not even close. The design of the game is completely different across the board.

This is a real MMORPG. People expect mechanics that will keep them engaged in their characters.

You can’t get by with MMOG mechanics in a MMORPG in 2012. There has to be a carrot or a reason for folks to keep playing.

And horizontal progression gets older faster than vertical.

Precisely.

Pulling all of the emotion out of this debate, you really have to consider the “Why.”

Why add vertical progression? I assert that it’s because their current model of horizontal progression isn’t retaining customers as they hoped it would. Furthermore, they likely had this entire model in their backpocket if the numbers stacked up this way.

It’s simple, Either you want Guild Wars 2 to be around as a healthy and profitable game for ANet and NCSoft for the next 3-5 years, or you want outdated mechanics from 2004.

They are, in my opinion as ANet has figured out, mutually exclusive, and it’s coming home to roost now as Ascended Gear.

Sorry man, but NCSoft’s financials just don’t mimic what you’re posting. Frankly put, the game had a massively successful launch and continues to be successful to this day. The problem is, that the suits who make the decisions get jealous of Blizzard. Period.

You cannot compete with WoW. This has been proven time and time again. The only thing that will kill WoW is Blizzard.

My interpretation of the numbers is far different than what the marketing speak out of NCSoft was.

Those numbers are far below what they should be for a title of this quality and size.

I want to be clear about something here :

I am not stating that a gear grind is the RIGHT way to do things. There are plenty of other ways you can add in character progression that’s more fun and more engaging.

However, the advantage to gear is this :

1. It’s quick. Same stats, marginally better, with a gated content slot. Easy to put it into the game, takes relatively little balance if the increases are largely the same across the board.

For whatever reason, and you can debate the why, I have my opinion, and you have yours, but, ANet clearly needed something “Quick.” If time wasn’t of the essence here, they would’ve gone a different route.

May I ask what you are basing your assertion that GW2 is essentially in a downward spiral on? Please do not say XFire.

This move.

Give me another logical reason that you would completely alter the core philosophy of all of your marketing and game design less than 3 months after the game launched.

It’s simple, the only reason you would do something like that is because the current model isn’t working. The blog post said as much. “We’ve listened to player feedback.”

This is a calculated move. ANet knows that this move is likely going to alienate a certain percentage of their players, however, it’s likely to open up the game to more players, who will stay longer and play more, and put more cash into the shop.

It’s not that difficult to decipher.

It’s not going to bring in as many people as it pushes away and the people that it does bring in won’t stay for long because that crowd has no loyalty.

But if you are actually “LOYAL” you would stay and play the game despite the change, would you not?

Nope.

Waar Kijk Je Naar.8713:

What about false advertising?

Hey hey.

What false advertising? I guarantee you if you tried to get your money back through claiming false advertising, you would get laughed all the way home.

What every -normal- person will see is you trying to get your money back because the game you play is trying to give you -free- content.

“This is just the beginning.” This is the quote from the blog that worries me the most. Yes, the difference between the stats doesn’t seem that high, but this is the first gear with stat changes they put in after launch. I don’t know, but that one sentence makes it feel like they will be adding newer gear with even higher stats lateron in expansions and maybe even other updates.

Rally!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QMz_RQuTBlI

Vadren.9045:

I can’t speak for anyone else, but I simply feel misled. Why should I stick around and spend time and money on a developer I can’t trust who is taking their game down the same path that hasn’t worked out well for every other mmo to release since WoW?

And it makes me sad because all the core mechanics of Guild Wars 2 are really strong.

Pretty much exactly where I stand. ANet, for a long while, has stressed its manifesto and design principles, and a big part of that is was that there would be no gear treadmill, and that the highest stats would be easy to obtain. Progression at 80 would be horizontal, primarily through new skins.

Ascended items violate these design principles. It’s just disappointing to a lot of people when a company betrays its principles and goes back on its promises – particularly only a few months into the game.

showatt.9413:

Tyr.1965:

showatt.9413:

Accept the reality; Gw2 was dying slowly when they thought this up.

It is WAY too early in the game’s life to say it was dying slowly. How do we know that people werent just taking a break and waiting for the new content to come out? There is no subscription fee. People will come and go. So now we should come to expect major overhauls to the game’s design philosophy everytime ANet gets nervous that activity is starting to dip?

Compare the amount of people that’s playing this game to the launch.

Swtor actually lasted for 5 or 6 month before it starts struggling for breath.

Gw2 is struggling in 2 month, and since this is a game that has no sub….

So yeah. Expect major changes whenever the popularity of this game crushes.

How is it struggling? How do you know it’s struggling? Are you judging this by the constantly high/full population on EVERY SINGLE SERVER??

showatt.9413:

Mandrax.7342:

Crackbone.5710:

jboynton.7894:

Crackbone.5710:

Lordrosicky.5813:

They lied to us for years.

/Thread

Or, they fully intended to go the route they had “promised” only to find out it wasn’t going to meet the needs financially.

What would you have them do? Just allow the game to crash and burn?

Reality has a way of being a kitten when it comes to lofty ideals meeting a market driven economy.

GW1 was f2p from the start and had multiple expansions. That game was successful enough to warrant a sequel. This game is doing fine.

This isn’t 2004.

The market is a ton more competitive now. Furthermore, GW2 isn’t GW1. Not even close. The design of the game is completely different across the board.

This is a real MMORPG. People expect mechanics that will keep them engaged in their characters.

You can’t get by with MMOG mechanics in a MMORPG in 2012. There has to be a carrot or a reason for folks to keep playing.

That carrot doesn’t need to be vertical progression. They have taken the easy, and in fact, cheap option.

Which is logical for a company that’s out to make money to do especially when their game is free to play and its going downhill.

Face it, if it wasn’t going down hill, if no one ever got bored grinding for skins and everything is the way it was back at launch, they probably would not have done this.

Accept the reality; Gw2 was dying slowly when they thought this up.

SWG was slowly going downhill before they introduced the NGE, once that hit, I’ve never seen so many players leave a game so quickly. The NGE was meant to bring in new players, all it did was alienate the loyal playerbase and those that wanted the standard MMO fare that was offered, got it elsewhere in games that did it better.

Would be very sad if this is Arenanet’s ‘NGE’.

Sky.9347:

ZudetGambeous.9573:

stof.9341:

ZudetGambeous.9573:

3. The added stats on Ascended gear is NOT I repeat NOT a gear treadmill. A gear treadmill is adding in gear with significantly higher stats so you can clear content that is otherwise unclearable without said gear. This is not the case here. Ascended gear is in no way required to beat anything in the game. You can see 100% of the content in the game without ever getting ascended gear. Just like you can currently see 100% of the content in the game without getting exotic gear.

I was using suboptimal gear. I grinded money to get the best gear available. A patch came in and now the best gear available isn’t exotic it’s ascended. The treadmill just sent be back to step one : I am using suboptimal gear.

This is a treadmill.

How much would you pay for an exotic ring + gem before the patch? Around 2.5-3g for an exotic 80. Now that you know there’s a plain better ring available with the only infusion slot required to make the best use out of the new dungeon. How much are you ready to pay to get a 80 exotic ring?

So what you are saying is that there was already a gear treadmill in the game, you didn’t start with exotics, you had to grind and earn better gear.

Now there is new gear and you have to do the same thing… see nothing is changing, what you are defining as a gear treadmill is already in the game, it has been since launch, which is why it is crazy to freak out about it now that we are 2 months into the game.

You do realize the difference between walking on a sidewalk, and a treadmill right?

A journey begins, and then ends.
A treadmill causes you to work without ever going anywhere.

With a set, defined gear progression – which ENDS permanently – we have a journey.
With a continuous stream of more powerful gear being added to the game, which will be required in order to continue engaging in the newest content – we have a treadmill.

I’m sort of surprised that you are too stupid to understand that difference. Or is it that you just have no real response and want to try to play gotcha with people who are truly upset by this betrayal?

I’m sorry if I personally offended you, but if you go back and read my post I actually claimed that this new set of gear is to offset the journey between Exotic and Legendary. I see absolutely no evidence that they will continue to add higher tiers of gear after this. The blog post was quite clear, the “legendary wall” as they put it, discouraged a large % of the player base from playing the game. There was this HUGE jump in progression from the amount of work to get an exotic to the amount of work to get a legendary.

They are attempting to fix this problem by the introduction of Ascended gear which they will slowly add to the game. I have seen no reference, no hint of and no evidence for this prevailing theory that they are going to be adding a new tier of gear every 2 months from this point on. It seems from what evidence that we do have that this is a 1 time thing.

To put it in terms of your analogy, the sidewalk was too short for people, they made it longer. No treadmill just a longer sidewalk.

ArcTheFallen.7682:

No, you guys have no loyalty. Whether someone betrays you are not, you should still be loyal if you are say you are loyal. Whether the people who left were loyal to begin with, they’ll continue to play if it’s a good game and that’s what Anet is working on. They are going to give it a chance at every corner and come back at new releases. But for you “loyal” fans who are leaving after this one release. Overtime, the people who leave and comeback will overrule how much you’ve put into the game.

I’m not leaving the game.

There is a lot of stuff I want to do in it still.

I’m not spending more money in the cash shop, though. (€50 so far, which is 3 months worth of subs in a game that isn’t 3 months old and they generally come with 1 month).

Buying the expansion will be dependent of what path Anet will take.

Cyberman Mastermind.6012:

showatt.9413:

But if you are actually “LOYAL” you would stay and play the game despite the change, would you not?

You confuse “loyal” with “stupid”.
Loyal is buying the game even though you’re not sure you will like it as much as GW1, but have faith in the company.
Stupid is continuing to play (and perhaps spending real money) it after the game changes beyond what you ever thought it would be.

Stupid, to me, is believing that expecting the game to be exactly like what was promised even when is popularity is going downhill.

Loyalty, to me, is sticking by the company that brought you the game you loved so much (Gw1) and understand the difficult situation they’re currently facing.

Guess we’re too different to understand each other.

http://www.arena.net/blog/guild-wars-2-design-manifesto
“So much of traditional MMO combat is rote and repetitive. You execute the same strategy over and over again, just augmented over time with better and better gear.”
“better and better gear.”
“better gear.”
“GEAR.”

ZudetGambeous.9573:

4. Agony is a difficulty gate, not a content gate. I’m 99.999% sure that you will be able to see all 9 mini dungeons without any agony resist. The only thing agony is restricting is the higher difficulty levels of those same dungeons. This means that the “hardcore” people who want to go to extreme levels have something to work towards and a reason to do it, while people who just want to see the content can without having to worry about it at all.

I disagree, it’s stated on the Massively post that after you completed the first 3 (random) mini dungeons you get ported back to repair and sell before continueing to the next 3 (random) mini dungeons. It’s stated on the blog post by Linsey Murdock that: “…Players who wish to delve deep into the Fractals will find that Agony makes progress increasingly difficult, until they reach the point where some defense against this condition is a must. The only way to mitigate Agony damage is by building up resistance through Infusions…”

That means that there is a point where defense against this Agony condition is a must, whether that would be in (random) mini dungeon number 4, 8 or 9 is irrelevant, fact remains that at some point it’s mandatory to have protection against the Agony condition. That is what creates the gating… you need to acquire a specific infusion and slot them in your gear in order to see the dungeon in which you would otherwise stand no chance at all without that protection.

I can see why you are saying it’s just a difficulty gate, but this mechanism is not likely to be limited to this dungeon with this set up, but for future dungeon to build upon this very mechanism. So in my opinion it’s not a difficulty gate, but a content gate.

Tachenon.5270:

You know, guys, we can argue from here to eternity whether Ascended Gear is a bad idea – and I think it is – but something else has occurred to me, in light of recent events: maybe this isn’t Anet’s fault. Maybe they didn’t want to take the game in this direction, or stray so far from what they so proudly proclaimed in the manifesto. Maybe they wanted to put new Halloween masks in GW this year, too, but were denied. And maybe, just maybe one of those masks would have been… a faceplate!

Well, yeah, probably not a faceplate. Still, a sword was swung recently, and it could easily swing again.

I for one welcome our new Nexon overlords.

(Not.)

Arnath.2319:

Secondly, they made it very clear that this Ascended gear AND the Infussions will be released very slowly, it will be delibretly gated for many months even years before we get the max Infussions sloted into our gear.

Where did you read this? The blog looks more like “this is just the beginning, we’ll be bringing in more and more!”.

nowadays, some games are made by corporations.

these are the “rihanna” and “bieber” of gaming.

GW2 is such a thing.
its still enojyable, but doesnt feel honest/genuine/ innovative.

jboynton.7894:

showatt.9413:

Mandrax.7342:

Crackbone.5710:

jboynton.7894:

Crackbone.5710:

Lordrosicky.5813:

They lied to us for years.

/Thread

Or, they fully intended to go the route they had “promised” only to find out it wasn’t going to meet the needs financially.

What would you have them do? Just allow the game to crash and burn?

Reality has a way of being a kitten when it comes to lofty ideals meeting a market driven economy.

GW1 was f2p from the start and had multiple expansions. That game was successful enough to warrant a sequel. This game is doing fine.

This isn’t 2004.

The market is a ton more competitive now. Furthermore, GW2 isn’t GW1. Not even close. The design of the game is completely different across the board.

This is a real MMORPG. People expect mechanics that will keep them engaged in their characters.

You can’t get by with MMOG mechanics in a MMORPG in 2012. There has to be a carrot or a reason for folks to keep playing.

That carrot doesn’t need to be vertical progression. They have taken the easy, and in fact, cheap option.

Which is logical for a company that’s out to make money to do especially when their game is free to play and its going downhill.

Face it, if it wasn’t going down hill, if no one ever got bored grinding for skins and everything is the way it was back at launch, they probably would not have done this.

Accept the reality; Gw2 was dying slowly when they thought this up.

Sorry dude, but the game is doing fine. Couple the server populations with the NCSoft 3Q financial statement, and you are just plain wrong.

You keep spouting off that the game is doing fine.

I want a logical explanation as to why, if that were the case, that they would completely change their endgame design, less than 3 months out from the game launch.

Why upset the applecart if there’s no reason to do so?

Crackbone.5710:

dirtyklingon.2918:

Crackbone.5710:

jboynton.7894:

Crackbone.5710:

HTXL.2598:

Crackbone.5710:

jboynton.7894:

Crackbone.5710:

Lordrosicky.5813:

They lied to us for years.

/Thread

Or, they fully intended to go the route they had “promised” only to find out it wasn’t going to meet the needs financially.

What would you have them do? Just allow the game to crash and burn?

Reality has a way of being a kitten when it comes to lofty ideals meeting a market driven economy.

GW1 was f2p from the start and had multiple expansions. That game was successful enough to warrant a sequel. This game is doing fine.

This isn’t 2004.

The market is a ton more competitive now. Furthermore, GW2 isn’t GW1. Not even close. The design of the game is completely different across the board.

This is a real MMORPG. People expect mechanics that will keep them engaged in their characters.

You can’t get by with MMOG mechanics in a MMORPG in 2012. There has to be a carrot or a reason for folks to keep playing.

And horizontal progression gets older faster than vertical.

Precisely.

Pulling all of the emotion out of this debate, you really have to consider the “Why.”

Why add vertical progression? I assert that it’s because their current model of horizontal progression isn’t retaining customers as they hoped it would. Furthermore, they likely had this entire model in their backpocket if the numbers stacked up this way.

It’s simple, Either you want Guild Wars 2 to be around as a healthy and profitable game for ANet and NCSoft for the next 3-5 years, or you want outdated mechanics from 2004.

They are, in my opinion as ANet has figured out, mutually exclusive, and it’s coming home to roost now as Ascended Gear.

Sorry man, but NCSoft’s financials just don’t mimic what you’re posting. Frankly put, the game had a massively successful launch and continues to be successful to this day. The problem is, that the suits who make the decisions get jealous of Blizzard. Period.

You cannot compete with WoW. This has been proven time and time again. The only thing that will kill WoW is Blizzard.

My interpretation of the numbers is far different than what the marketing speak out of NCSoft was.

Those numbers are far below what they should be for a title of this quality and size.

I want to be clear about something here :

I am not stating that a gear grind is the RIGHT way to do things. There are plenty of other ways you can add in character progression that’s more fun and more engaging.

However, the advantage to gear is this :

1. It’s quick. Same stats, marginally better, with a gated content slot. Easy to put it into the game, takes relatively little balance if the increases are largely the same across the board.

For whatever reason, and you can debate the why, I have my opinion, and you have yours, but, ANet clearly needed something “Quick.” If time wasn’t of the essence here, they would’ve gone a different route.

gw2 has had one of the launches for day 1 sales in the genre ever, and quite comparable to non mmo games.

1 million + prelaunch sales.
2.3 million launch week sales.
who knows how many units have been sold since.

to put it this way, revneue from gw2 for first month unit and MT sales put it above BNS’s revenue in korea, which toppled aion easily over night.

from a financial stand point, gw2 has been very succesful, and seemingly devs were expecting number sto become lower, at least their posts during headstart and the first few weeks giving high concurrency rates for any number of things not working correctly indicates that.

“First few weeks”

It’s 90 days out now. I don’t have to go back and point to every MMORPG that’s launched since 2005 that has had great launch day/month numbers that have failed due to lackluster customer retention do I?

MMORPGs depend on retention. That’s the key. Sure, they may have recovered some of their development costs, but what about ongoing costs? Something in the data was likely not matching up to their projections.

That’s why you have vertical progression sneaking in.

I respect your posts and the fact that nothing we’ve said to each other has in anyway devolved into a flame war; but, please, please, please, stop citing that it’s based on financial pressures.

The data coming from NCSoft does not support this stance. NCSoft just released the 3Q financials on November 7th, stating: “B&S and GW2 have firmly positioned themselves as main revenue drivers for the company.”

That was a week ago.

imagin all the changed minds that would say this game is fail if u had to sub fee it. just take a few deep breaths and picture your time in tyria on a sub fee

Tyr.1965:

showatt.9413:

Tyr.1965:

showatt.9413:

Accept the reality; Gw2 was dying slowly when they thought this up.

It is WAY too early in the game’s life to say it was dying slowly. How do we know that people werent just taking a break and waiting for the new content to come out? There is no subscription fee. People will come and go. So now we should come to expect major overhauls to the game’s design philosophy everytime ANet gets nervous that activity is starting to dip?

Compare the amount of people that’s playing this game to the launch.

Swtor actually lasted for 5 or 6 month before it starts struggling for breath.

Gw2 is struggling in 2 month, and since this is a game that has no sub….

So yeah. Expect major changes whenever the popularity of this game crushes.

How is it struggling? How do you know it’s struggling? Are you judging this by the constantly high/full population on EVERY SINGLE SERVER??

Lol do you actually believe the server status reflect the actual population of a server?
There was a time when the server is full on tarnish coast and the entire orr map is contested.

Sorry, but I’m pretty sure Anet twink with the sever status to stop people from fotm server rolling.

If legendary armor were out at release, people would be crying that it’s too hard to get and exotics aren’t good enough.

There is just no winning with some people.

I don’t care what their “reasoning” was, and I don’t care what your definition of my “loyalty” is.

I was advertised a product based on a few set development parameters, which were clearly and repeatedly expressed to anyone who would listen.

I pre-purchased, participated in the betas, defended the game from detractors, convinced friends to abandon their endless gear grinds, and even got my children and wife involved in the game. Yes, I currently own 4 accounts all with extra slots and many gem store purchases.

I have spent hundreds of dollars, and will gladly spend thousands every year, far more than I ever have in subscription based games.

But they just implemented a game changer… a deal breaker… a violation of their OWN stated design philosophy.

The last question in my mind is – will Ascended be the final tier, and this was just a one time correction to a miscalculation… or is Ascended the first of many more to come?

I absolutely will be deciding what to do with my time, and my large disposable income (which I will be spending on games and other entertainment regardless) based on the answer to that question, and that question alone.

I can forgive a mistake that needed to be corrected… I can not waste time with a company who will chase Blizzard Entertainment around until they fail, because you will NEVER beat Blizzard when it comes to “end-game content”. You just won’t.

Kana.6793:

Waar Kijk Je Naar.8713:

xtorma.1283:

Shootsfoot.9276:

Waar Kijk Je Naar.8713:

Quitting + getting a refund is essentially boycotting.

OMG, stop it.

You’re not getting a refund after playing the game for hundreds of hours.

Good lord.

I think you can get a refund in the EU up to six months.

This.

I love costumer laws.

“Right of withdrawal

1. For any distance contract the consumer shall have a period of at least seven working days in which to withdraw from the contract without penalty and without giving any reason. The only charge that may be made to the consumer because of the exercise of his right of withdrawal is the direct cost of returning the goods."

Source: http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:31997L0007:EN:NOT

As for a boycott, I don’t really think there’s anything in the patch that’s worth missing a fun event for but if people do it at least there might be a little less server trouble than there was at Halloween.

As for false advertising – online games include a stipulation in the ToS which states that the game is subject to change over time. You agreed to the ToS.

so you are basically saying; they can say whatever the hell they want if we sign that 100pages documents?
welcome to america corporate!

showatt.9413:

Tyr.1965:

showatt.9413:

Tyr.1965:

showatt.9413:

Accept the reality; Gw2 was dying slowly when they thought this up.

It is WAY too early in the game’s life to say it was dying slowly. How do we know that people werent just taking a break and waiting for the new content to come out? There is no subscription fee. People will come and go. So now we should come to expect major overhauls to the game’s design philosophy everytime ANet gets nervous that activity is starting to dip?

Compare the amount of people that’s playing this game to the launch.

Swtor actually lasted for 5 or 6 month before it starts struggling for breath.

Gw2 is struggling in 2 month, and since this is a game that has no sub….

So yeah. Expect major changes whenever the popularity of this game crushes.

How is it struggling? How do you know it’s struggling? Are you judging this by the constantly high/full population on EVERY SINGLE SERVER??

Lol do you actually believe the server status reflect the actual population of a server?
There was a time when the server is full on tarnish coast and the entire orr map is contested.

Sorry, but I’m pretty sure Anet twink with the sever status to stop people from fotm server rolling.

Did you put on your tin foil hat while you typed up that response?

I’m sorry if I personally offended you, but if you go back and read my post I actually claimed that this new set of gear is to offset the journey between Exotic and Legendary. I see absolutely no evidence that they will continue to add higher tiers of gear after this. The blog post was quite clear, the “legendary wall” as they put it, discouraged a large % of the player base from playing the game. There was this HUGE jump in progression from the amount of work to get an exotic to the amount of work to get a legendary.

They are attempting to fix this problem by the introduction of Ascended gear which they will slowly add to the game. I have seen no reference, no hint of and no evidence for this prevailing theory that they are going to be adding a new tier of gear every 2 months from this point on. It seems from what evidence that we do have that this is a 1 time thing.

To put it in terms of your analogy, the sidewalk was too short for people, they made it longer. No treadmill just a longer sidewalk.

I love you, i started to loose hope in the Guild Wars community but what you just said nailed it.

People are overreacting and fearmongering when there is NO EVIDENCE to back up there wild claims.

Teva.2807:

Why is everyone freaking out and acting like this is “God 1 hit everything” gear? its only 8 more stat points, 3% magic find, and You cannot even apply a talisman/rune to it. Not to mention that the stats are ONLY power/prec/magic find. Also, it has similarities to legendaries. And yes, legendaries ARE better than exotics, even though it isnt by much. So basically, this gear is only good for dungeons since there is agony condition.

1: most of the posts you’ve read are prior to the release of the screenshot showing one item’s stats compared to an exotic.

2: it is so not an exaggeration that this is a slippery slope of descent into the type of game we were all promised this game would NOT be.

3: there are major issues with DR in open world and with MF not functioning properly making it almost impossible for most to gather the necessary resources to gear up our characters, to add this gear update when they haven’t properly addressed the issues with DR/MF is adding insult to injury.

Crackbone.5710:

jboynton.7894:

showatt.9413:

Mandrax.7342:

Crackbone.5710:

jboynton.7894:

Crackbone.5710:

Lordrosicky.5813:

They lied to us for years.

/Thread

Or, they fully intended to go the route they had “promised” only to find out it wasn’t going to meet the needs financially.

What would you have them do? Just allow the game to crash and burn?

Reality has a way of being a kitten when it comes to lofty ideals meeting a market driven economy.

GW1 was f2p from the start and had multiple expansions. That game was successful enough to warrant a sequel. This game is doing fine.

This isn’t 2004.

The market is a ton more competitive now. Furthermore, GW2 isn’t GW1. Not even close. The design of the game is completely different across the board.

This is a real MMORPG. People expect mechanics that will keep them engaged in their characters.

You can’t get by with MMOG mechanics in a MMORPG in 2012. There has to be a carrot or a reason for folks to keep playing.

That carrot doesn’t need to be vertical progression. They have taken the easy, and in fact, cheap option.

Which is logical for a company that’s out to make money to do especially when their game is free to play and its going downhill.

Face it, if it wasn’t going down hill, if no one ever got bored grinding for skins and everything is the way it was back at launch, they probably would not have done this.

Accept the reality; Gw2 was dying slowly when they thought this up.

Sorry dude, but the game is doing fine. Couple the server populations with the NCSoft 3Q financial statement, and you are just plain wrong.

You keep spouting off that the game is doing fine.

I want a logical explanation as to why, if that were the case, that they would completely change their endgame design, less than 3 months out from the game launch.

Why upset the applecart if there’s no reason to do so?

Because they want more. MMOs will always bleed subs until something new is released. It is the nature of the beast. However, the introduction of something new does not entail a reversal in the core development philosophy that’s been touted since virtually the game’s first announcement.

There are plenty of ways that new things can be introduced without including a vertical gear grind. NCSoft did this to cater to a different crowd because they are flat out jealous of Blizzard.

jboynton.7894:

I respect your posts and the fact that nothing we’ve said to each other has in anyway devolved into a flame war; but, please, please, please, stop citing that it’s based on financial pressures.

The data coming from NCSoft does not support this stance. NCSoft just released the 3Q financials on November 7th, stating: “B&S and GW2 have firmly positioned themselves as main revenue drivers for the company.”

That was a week ago.

And that data includes the box sales and all income associated with the release. How does GW2 maintain its position as a revenue driver without that income in future quarters?

[/quote]

gw2 has had one of the launches for day 1 sales in the genre ever, and quite comparable to non mmo games.

1 million + prelaunch sales.
2.3 million launch week sales.
who knows how many units have been sold since.

to put it this way, revneue from gw2 for first month unit and MT sales put it above BNS’s revenue in korea, which toppled aion easily over night.

from a financial stand point, gw2 has been very succesful, and seemingly devs were expecting number sto become lower, at least their posts during headstart and the first few weeks giving high concurrency rates for any number of things not working correctly indicates that.[/quote]

“First few weeks”

It’s 90 days out now. I don’t have to go back and point to every MMORPG that’s launched since 2005 that has had great launch day/month numbers that have failed due to lackluster customer retention do I?

MMORPGs depend on retention. That’s the key. Sure, they may have recovered some of their development costs, but what about ongoing costs? Something in the data was likely not matching up to their projections.

That’s why you have vertical progression sneaking in. [/quote]

I respect your posts and the fact that nothing we’ve said to each other has in anyway devolved into a flame war; but, please, please, please, stop citing that it’s based on financial pressures.

The data coming from NCSoft does not support this stance. NCSoft just released the 3Q financials on November 7th, stating: “B&S and GW2 have firmly positioned themselves as main revenue drivers for the company.”

That was a week ago.[/quote]

It’s marketing speak.

Don’t be naive.

Actions, as they say, having more meaning than words. This action speaks volumes.

You don’t turn your game design on a dime if everything is peachy.

Honestly, people.

Explain to me.

if the game is doing so fine.

If everyone was so okay with horizontal progression.

Why are they doing this?

Why would a company disobey the wish of the “SUPPOSED” majority, if their game is still supported by the majority?

Obviously the game is not doing fine, and they’re forced to change the way they have been operating.

For god sake have a little understanding, will you?

Sky.9347:

I don’t care what their “reasoning” was, and I don’t care what your definition of my “loyalty” is.

I was advertised a product based on a few set development parameters, which were clearly and repeatedly expressed to anyone who would listen.

I pre-purchased, participated in the betas, defended the game from detractors, convinced friends to abandon their endless gear grinds, and even got my children and wife involved in the game. Yes, I currently own 4 accounts all with extra slots and many gem store purchases.

I have spent hundreds of dollars, and will gladly spend thousands every year, far more than I ever have in subscription based games.

But they just implemented a game changer… a deal breaker… a violation of their OWN stated design philosophy.

The last question in my mind is – will Ascended be the final tier, and this was just a one time correction to a miscalculation… or is Ascended the first of many more to come?

I absolutely will be deciding what to do with my time, and my large disposable income (which I will be spending on games and other entertainment regardless) based on the answer to that question, and that question alone.

I can forgive a mistake that needed to be corrected… I can not waste time with a company who will chase Blizzard Entertainment around until they fail, because you will NEVER beat Blizzard when it comes to “end-game content”. You just won’t.

Legendary is the final tier and legendary quality has been out since alpha.