(edited by Obtena.7952)
Time to refocus and clarify GW2's goals?
Anyone that thinks that they should feel respected and listened to as a consumer has a big ego complex.
Funniest thing I’ve seen all day.
Congrats.
Anyone that thinks that they should feel respected and listened to as a consumer has a big ego complex. Companies provide specific goods and services. If you don’t like a particular companies approach to providing or the actual goods or their service, they have competitors.
Being intune with the Voice of the Customer is not the same thing as placating complainers.
. . . I’m sorry, may I stop and review this statement?
Everyone deserves to feel respected, and everyone deserves to be respected so long as they are acting . . . respectful. Standing there screaming at someone with curses dropping every third word will . . . and should . . . preclude you from getting the respect of a company having to cater to your patronage.
There is a reason why I am an advocate of the original “The Customer should be treated as though they are right, even when they are not”. It’s not saying the Management has to bend over, it’s saying you do all reasonable actions to please a customer who is in your place of business.
The key word being “reasonable”.
Seeking assistants for the Asuran Catapult Project. Applicants will be tested for aerodynamics.
Anyone that thinks that they should feel respected and listened to as a consumer has a big ego complex. Companies provide specific goods and services. If you don’t like a particular companies approach to providing or the actual goods or their service, they have competitors.
Being intune with the Voice of the Customer is not the same thing as placating complainers.
You have obviously never worked in customer service for a company. At one company I worked for my supervisor had a motivational poster on the wall directly opposite the door, it read simply; “It’s not your fault. It is your problem.”
As long as the customer is not vulgar or abusive it is the job of customer service to try to solve customer issues to the best of their ability, which is why you see Gaile in here trying her best to provide whatever assistance she can within the constraints her supervisor and company have given her.
I don’t understand why, when so many are having a calm and respectful discussion, some of you feel the need to jump in and defend ArenaNet by telling us to shut up and stop complaining. It’s rude, and frankly it is an actionable offense that too rarely gets enforced.
(edited by BilboBaggins.5620)
You guys want to feel respected? You want to feel like your voice is heard? Dish out!
This game takes money to run, and it’s exploding with content built with the money players have invested in the game. Not the money spent to buy the game; that money paid off ANet’s pre-dev debts. The money spent in the gem store is keeping the game alive.
Yeah, you can play free forever and that’s awesome, but if you play ALL THE TIME and you’re feeling like you have nothing to do, then maybe you DON’T have anything left to do and it’s time to play two games instead of one.
I stopped playing the game for about 6 months. When I came back I was SO behind everyone. So many fractals levels, so much ascended gear, everyone has tons of gold. There is so much in this game I’ve yet to complete I don’t know when I’m going to catch up even though I’m playing obsessively again.
If you feel like there is not enough content in the game then WOW! That means either one of two things:
1. You rushed through the game. You brought this upon yourself. Rushing through the game is a fast track to boredom and burnout. Don’t believe me? Go get on a free private Aion server that has speed-leveling enabled and see how anti-climactic and underwhelming your game experience becomes.
2. You play the game way too much to be healthy and it’s time to cool it down. Take break and do something else every once in a while.
If you’ve been playing the game since launch you probably have wads of gold and tokens in your wallet and you could feasibly enjoy this game without ever having needed to spend real money on gems. In other words, some of you have been playing this game for over 2 years for the low low price of $60. At the current life of the game that comes out to $2.25 a month. If you’ve burnt out all your time on GW2, it’s time to spend money on a new game to play while you’re waiting for new GW2 content.
This game takes MONEY and TIME to create. If you don’t feel like they’re chugging out content fast enough, first off you’ve gotta be joking me. Second, try and commit to spending a little money on gems as you are able, and encourage others to do the same.
You don’t have to spend any extra money to enjoy this game, but if you want MORE game than you already have, then SOMEBODY is gonna have to open up their wallet.
[/justsaying]
Since you feel the need to white-knight for ANet:
Many of those complaining about content or lack thereof are not those who have not spent anything but those who have spent the most. I’m certain that my bill for this game has extended at least triple the amount I could have spent on say, WoW in the last two years. Simply, the paying customers are upset because their money seems to be going nowhere.
Also note that GW2 built so much hype that it profited before it was even released, since ever single player on day 1 spent $60 or more. $60 is close to what Blizzard can expect to make in the lifetime of a given player based upon drop-out rates and the overall in-game lifespan of the average MMO player.
I think you’re mistaking content and meaningful content. I assure you that this game shipped with an absolutely immense amount of content and detail, and that while a lot has been released since the game’s launch, not a lot of meaningful content has.
And quite frankly, a lot of what has been released as “major content updates” has ultimately been terribly detrimental to the game, such as the NPE and trait “rework” which have threads about them which have views into the hundreds of thousands with thousands of replies demanding that the system be reverted, reworked, and/or simply removed because it’s absolutely terrible and has been nothing but detrimental to both new and veteran players alike, and has costed both ANet and the players a lot of money and a massive number active of community members. Remember that we’re in an MMO. It’s a combination of both publisher and player responsibility to keep new players interested and playing. The core systems and overall population of the game seems to be in a very good place in this regard. Frankly, ANet has been failing on many fronts to properly implement changes and find new engaging content for everyone to enjoy.
The speed at which you resorted to name calling renders your rude posts meaning less.
The key word being “reasonable”.
I’m glad you pointed this out because it’s debatable that the point of this thread is reasonable in the first place. It’s funny people speak of respecting customer, but then turn around and disrespect Anet’s policy to withhold their future plans for the game without understanding why; it’s pretty ignorant actually. I think it’s also rather stupid for people to imply Anet doesn’t respect its players because they withhold their plans. That’s simply not a service they provide, nor should they be compelled to unless you happen to own a part of the company (Hint: Remember, this is a business). Anyone with a clue understands that what’s being asked for here is related to business intelligence and that’s not public information Anet appears to freely give their customers or their competitors access to.
Honestly, the goals of the game are pretty simple: Provide a gaming service to players and make some money doing it. I get people want to know HOW that’s going to happen but it’s really not that relevant. If you need Anet to tell you what’s going to happen ingame in a year to convince you to play now, then you’re falling into a trap of your own making. Look at precursor crafting if you need an example. Anet’s policy is actually helping players focus on the value the current game provides and avoids misleading information that make people carry lingering resentment. That’s a sensible policy that absolutely respects the customer IMO.
Players simply don’t need to know what’s happening in development so the value in telling them is questionable. If people value knowing future development so much that it affects their satisfaction with the current game, there are lots of competitors that will gladly take consumer’s money to tell them years in advance of what they want to hear to string them along.
(edited by Obtena.7952)
… it’s debatable that the point of this thread is reasonable in the first place.
A matter of opinion; completely subjective.
It’s funny people speak of respecting customer, but then turn around and disrespect Anet’s policy to withhold their future plans for the game without understanding why; it’s pretty ignorant actually.
“Comprehension is not a requisite of cooperation”. Maybe true as a militant standpoint, but in regards to gaming and customer satisfaction to keep buying more of your product, it’s absolutely false and ultimately counter-productive. You want your game to do well, you keep your customers informed of stuff, especially what they want from the company.
I think it’s also rather stupid for people to imply Anet doesn’t respect its players because they withhold their plans.
More opinion. Here’s a hint: you want people to remain interested in your product, you promote it however, wherever. Other examples have been pointed out already in this thread about enticing potential and current customers with early access to upcoming content. While that example is probably not entirely relevant here, it’s as good an example as you’re going to get, as to keeping people gunning for your stuff. When they won’t divulge even so much as a roadmap to what they want to do with the game in the medium-long term, then yes I believe trust is called into question.
Honestly, the goals of the game are pretty simple: Provide a gaming service to players and make some money doing it. I get people want to know HOW that’s going to happen but it’s really not that relevant.
It’s completely relevant. If all they’re going to do is LS then a lot of people will become disinterested (and moreso disenfranchised) with the game. Like I said earlier, it’s become a game for newer players who want to sink their teeth into this LS crap; the veterans want more content that is NOT LS-based. I think that’s been proven here already.
Anet’s policy is actually helping players focus on the value the current game provides and avoids misleading information that make people carry lingering resentment.
Oh, they’ve already created that resentment. Again, from a veteran standpoint in regard to those looking to make their own precursors and fractals players who put up with the reset; two classic examples of where they’ve either jumped the gun and announced something will be here when it still isn’t, and failed to communicate their intentions for the game, respectively. They’ve built up enough resentment in this significant portion of the playerbase alone.
Players simply don’t need to know what’s happening in development…
So very very wrong. I’ll say it once more — you want to keep players in your game then you tell them what you have coming up for it. For many, it’s the only way to keep invested players involved with the game, before they go out and play something else and leave GW2 behind. This isn’t about which game company is going to snipe whom for insider tid-bits that they can put in the game for themselves. Maybe to a lesser extent, but seriously, what can you bring out in a game that hasn’t been brought out or rehashed already? In this genre you can take an idea so far before it looks like something else you’ve seen somewhere before.
But in regard to players, and keeping them in the game (especially the people who have been playing since the beginning) then yes, you work up the balls to tell your playerbase (your paying customers) what’s going on with the game ahead. Fair to say that the policy is ruining player excitement. It’s good business to keep your customers (the playerbase) informed.
The old-school Arrow-Key warrior.
“Obtaining a legendary should be done through legendary feats…
Not luck and credit cards.”
“Obtaining a legendary should be done through legendary feats…
Not luck and credit cards.”
That’s simply not a service they provide, nor should they be compelled to unless you happen to own a part of the company (Hint: Remember, this is a business).
Without our continued patronage, the game fails. If the game fails, they lose their revenue. If they lose their revenue, they lose their jobs.
In all logic, we are their investors. Without the funding of the players, the game fails and the company fails.
Any good company quite clearly has reason to keep its investors happy, rather than ignoring them and just saying, “Well, if you don’t like our policies, go fund our competition.”
Your argument might have slightly more (but still practically none) weight if it was a sell once type of game, where the customer isn’t supposed to be enticed to spend more. But it isn’t. If they want people to continue spending, they have to show that the game is worth spending on. Without any knowledge of anything that’s being worked on, nobody knows if their money is going towards something good or just more ways to take their money.
This is, objectively, bad business. There is no spin on this that you can give that will make it look intelligent to ignore a vocal portion of the game and convince them to look elsewhere for better things to throw money at.
And remember, even if it’s a vocal minority, it’s still a vocal part. And being vocal also means spreading the information to potential new customers that it’s not worth buying the game. Heck, I’ve already turned people away from the game.
It is reasonable to bring up the bugged Collections, or the problems with how the Trait Masteries were adjusted, or how you don’t like the NPE. It’s reasonable to say how you don’t like the story, or the characters, or you think asura should blow themselves up in another Thaumanova-like explosion and be gone forever.
It’s not reasonable to request, or demand, the game be altered significantly . . . in less time than it takes a holiday time present to be delivered through FedEx.
Seeking assistants for the Asuran Catapult Project. Applicants will be tested for aerodynamics.
There won’t be any change to public relations towards players and such regarding roadmaps and stuff unless Guild Wars 2 playerbase drops suddenly or something similar happens.
I’ve realized Anet won’t use energy or resources to anything ‘extra’. They keep going onwards with their plans stubborn no matter what we say here. Impact of these forum discussions to Anet’s plans are minimum at best. If that either.
Some think it’s good way and others don’t. Can’t please everyone and if you want to then you’ll find yourself in the road of compromises and halfbaked promises towards every direction and usually that won’t end well.
In my opinion roadmap and more open doors to year ahead plans would be great like Blizzard does. But I understand Anet’s stand and who knows they might some day change their PR politics about stuff to come if they see it benefit their plans.
It’s not reasonable to request, or demand, the game be altered significantly . . . in less time than it takes a holiday time present to be delivered through FedEx.
Well heck, it’s not MY fault they don’t just push the “Fix everything” button. Maybe they should try doing that and then there’d be no more problems. Just part of their laziness, I guess. Button’s too hard to push or something.
A core business philosophy of MMO’s is that developers want players to become invested in the game. They want us to emotionally connect with and buy into the world that they have created so that we continue to play and to pay over an extended period of time. They do not want us to buy the box, play for 40, 60, 80 hours and then move on to another game without a backward glance as we might do with a single player game.
It is not at all unreasonable for a player to want to have a sense of the direction the developers will be taking the game in order to invest themselves in the game and its future. If a developer wants players to stay for the ride, make the game a second home of sorts, then its a good idea to give an idea of what the ride will entail.
ANet is no different than any other MMO developer in this regard. Redesigning aspects of the game to increase retention demonstrates that they seek the same thing that every other MMO does…players invested in the game.
It is reasonable to bring up the bugged Collections, or the problems with how the Trait Masteries were adjusted, or how you don’t like the NPE. It’s reasonable to say how you don’t like the story, or the characters, or you think asura should blow themselves up in another Thaumanova-like explosion and be gone forever.
It’s not reasonable to request, or demand, the game be altered significantly . . . in less time than it takes a holiday time present to be delivered through FedEx.
FF14 begs to differ.
The game did a relaunch and now it’s one of the best MMOs in the market, with content patches being released every 3 months, and since most of my friends left and started playing that game, might as well.
I’m not sure how to interpret ANet’s silence, so I won’t even bother.
Anyone that thinks that they should feel respected and listened to as a consumer has a big ego complex. Companies provide specific goods and services.
Dumbest thing I’ve read all day. First of all, let’s start with the consumer thing, yes companies should respect their consumers but as we’ve seen here by this company, they don’t. They think we’re stupid (keeping us in the dark and then releasing the exact opposite of what was advertised and expecting us to just accept it, or trying to convince us that changes to loot [DR] are good for us or that they didn’t happen at all [see the message they posted about how it was all our imaginations during the 9 month long post of loot problems we were having in game on top of DR], they think we don’t know what we’re talking about when we tell them what makes a game popular and actually casual [as demonstrated by multiple titles out there including the elephant in the room WoW that converted much of it’s hardcore nature due to the demands of the population of gamers it was attempting to gather together and AGAIN it hit over 10million players so they must be doing something right], they think they know what we want but they haven’t really paid attention to the majority nor have they taken the time to give their game a well known practice of reporting feedback on features from inside the game so that players have a direct line to the devs nor have they even created a player council.) All of these actions speak loudly about how they truly feel about their customers.
Secondly, lets talk about the services they’ve provided for their consumer base. When this game was in the prelaunch/launch phase there’s a reason why they sold so much that they had to stop digital sales and it wasn’t because of the combat, or the dungeons, or the PVP. It was because they made it seem like they knew what they were doing when it came to the type of game the majority was looking for as posted in their manifesto and the numerous interviews prelaunch. Since then it’s very very safe to say somehow they lost all sense of who their audience was. They literally did an about face on the type of content people were buying their game to enjoy on a massive scale and they put into the game several problematic and fun killing adjustments in the name of profit.
And finally, one of the reasons why people like me come here to talk about these things is because of hope. Hope that one day we’ll login and see that there is a post on their news site about how they are terribly sorry that they never delivered the game they promised and that under new management they are going back to the drawing board in many aspects of the game to bring it around to what they said in early interviews and in posts to us 8 months ago. It might be wishful thinking, it might be childlike but there’s one thing it’s not, and that’s arrogant.
One of the best examples I can put forth to you about the seriousness of the ineptitudes in the decision making process that plagues this company is the most recent CDI. Their very sister company carbine made a game specifically for the 1%ers in which raiding was the T total focus of the game, that game is struggling now because he devs over there actually thought that the 1% loud as they are, would support their own community or a game specifically designed to help quell their own nostalgia. Now here we are in a game that was never supposed to be about dungeons or raiding that was touted as being the very thing that was against dungeons/raiding doing the exact same thing as Carbine did and they think this will bring in the numbers. Smh. What’s that phrase? Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. ~ Einstein
Balance Team: Please Fix Mine Toolbelt Positioning!
(edited by tigirius.9014)
It is reasonable to bring up the bugged Collections, or the problems with how the Trait Masteries were adjusted, or how you don’t like the NPE. It’s reasonable to say how you don’t like the story, or the characters, or you think asura should blow themselves up in another Thaumanova-like explosion and be gone forever.
It’s not reasonable to request, or demand, the game be altered significantly . . . in less time than it takes a holiday time present to be delivered through FedEx.
FF14 begs to differ.
The game did a relaunch and now it’s one of the best MMOs in the market, with content patches being released every 3 months, and since most of my friends left and started playing that game, might as well.I’m not sure how to interpret ANet’s silence, so I won’t even bother.
Yeah . . .
FF14 has a much bigger studio behind it to swing it, and from what I understand they burned all kinds of effort to make sure they could turn it around. And even then it didn’t happen over two weeks . . .
. . . which seems to be how people want GW2 to get fixed, from the tone of things around here. Sorry, that’s just less likely to happen than Gwen returning to the game. The “Realm Reborn” FF14 was something which worked, sure, and I actually play it from time to time. (It’s a pretty solid MMO, though it remains a bit focused on the expectancy of being the only thing you play or else.)
But it’s an exception of epic proportions and something I recall seeing comments to the effect of: “holy balls they pulled it off”.
Seeking assistants for the Asuran Catapult Project. Applicants will be tested for aerodynamics.
I’ve been reading the thread but haven’t commented in a few days. I am really torn on all of this. Part of me feels like the silence is begging for a “new” playerbase. When you couple the silence with the NGE it kinda makes sense. There has also been no push to fix the things that were implemented in the feature patch for veterans such as the collections still being broken. Gaile acted like those had never even been brought up before and we were getting mixed messages about them for quite a while. Some of us thought they were broken, others thought they weren’t in the game and ArenaNet didn’t even know they weren’t working despite many people posting they were bugged shortly after they were released. The point being, so many things seemed geared towards a newish playerbase or a more casually focused playerbase.
The other part of me thinks something may be coming down the pipe that a lot of us are after: A meaty content dump. I think a lot of things that were never talked about with the playerbase had to do with this: The China dev cycle, content got dropped, iteration, the Living World, The personal story system was not well received, and ArenaNet went back to the drawing board. It pushed back extensive content for a long time. Heck, even the PvP stuff that is coming on Tuesday is over a year overdue. Many of us harped on this ages ago. ArenaNet seems slower now than with GW1. It’s too bad. I expected a content cycle that was on par or better than GW1 with all of the hype that was pushed to us prior to this game coming out. Everything said was aimed to get us more excited about GW2 than what we got with GW1.
So part of me still wants to be patient, but the other part of me feels like we got this amazing base game that just stagnated because the people in charge didn’t have a clear direction they wanted to take the game. Heck, even if they do have a clear direction they want to take it, it got derailed, sidetracked, whatever you want to call it, it’s so much slower than the cadence of GW1 and that is disappointing when all of the hype from ArenaNet pointed to GW2 being better, faster, stronger than GW1 and that simply isn’t the reality of things.
This thread and many others like it are just the culmination of this community’s disappointment. Rethink your silence ArenaNet. If something big is coming, give us a “Star Wars Episode VII” 88 second trailer to get us on board with the game again.
Leader of The Guernsey Milking Coalition [MiLk] Sanctum of Rall
Just a quick point about GW1 content release speed: Guild Wars 1 was a much simpler and smaller game. Building and upkeeping an MMO is a beastly task.
Just a quick point about GW1 content release speed: Guild Wars 1 was a much simpler and smaller game. Building and upkeeping an MMO is a beastly task.
GW1 was a very different game with devs that actually knew what it meant to release a full expansion. They got things right. This game still has a reasonably large playerbase from GW1 and understand that it’ll never be GW1 again, but still want the content that that game delivered.
The old-school Arrow-Key warrior.
“Obtaining a legendary should be done through legendary feats…
Not luck and credit cards.”
“Obtaining a legendary should be done through legendary feats…
Not luck and credit cards.”
So the original post was about a possible roadmap or simply more transparent communication. The poster specifically mentioned dungeons and made it crystal clear, that this was his personal view.
Fast forward 14 pages and people are having the ages old “what is meaningful content?” discussion. Why?
This was never about meaningful content, or any form of content, it’s about informing players of the direction of the game. If someone would tell me that GW2 will focus on casual players in the future, while only maintaining Fractals and Dungeons in case new updates break existing content, I would quit. I am in the same situation as the poster was a year ago. I am hoping for more hardcore content and I would be severely disappointed if, a year from now, I would find out that this form of content wasn’t even planned any longer. It’s a year I could have spent catching up in another MMO.
You got it. The point was that the combination of remaining silent about the future and putting out content that is not competitive with other games leads to a giant trust gap between the players and the company. It’s about watching my friends leave the game because there’s nothing left that they want to do, nothing on the horizon, and that they’ve been waiting for more than a year to see new content in the area of the game that they play.
This thread wasn’t really even to discuss the types of content we’d like to see, or whether or not what’s there is enough. It was to say “Whatcha doing?” We’d just like to know which areas of the game will see updates in the next year, and which ones won’t, because it’s clear that ArenaNet can’t focus on all of them at once.
I’ve more or less stopped following the thread, it’s too much work to keep the “I DON’T AGREE WITH YOU SO YOU’RE A STUPIDHEAD” posts out (Looking at you, Obtena). We had a nice discussion for about 10 pages, and once Gaile said she understood our concerns and would raise them internally….well, that’s all I could ask for. It’s sad to see the quality of the thread going down hill with bickering and name-calling, but oh well. It’s lived its life.
Nevertheless, somehow, amazingly it’s managed to stay on the first page of this sub-forum for more than two weeks. I’ll come on here once a day and it’s always there, page 1.
The old-school Arrow-Key warrior.
“Obtaining a legendary should be done through legendary feats…
Not luck and credit cards.”
“Obtaining a legendary should be done through legendary feats…
Not luck and credit cards.”
True. Given what I’ve seen regarding the attitude most vets have towards this game’s future, it’s an important topic.
I just hope ArenaNet’s management realizes this soon.
Just a quick point about GW1 content release speed: Guild Wars 1 was a much simpler and smaller game. Building and upkeeping an MMO is a beastly task.
If you look at my point though, my criticism was about how ArenaNet hyped up GW2 as being “more” than GW1. Our expectations for GW2 because of GW1 set a really high bar, but ArenaNet still preyed on that with their teasers for GW2. Take PvP for example: GW1 had HA, GvG, FA, JQ, AB, RA, TA(later removed), and Hero Battles and that sealed deck format. GW2 only has Conquest after 2 and a half years. That’s a far cry from the hype they generated.
If I had been told that GW2 would only have 3 new maps to explore after 2 and a half years into this game’s life cycle I wouldn’t have believed it. This to me is exactly why we aren’t being told about anything anymore. They have a real issue of overselling what it is that they have to present to customers. By keeping silent, they aren’t overselling anything at all and in that regard, it’s kinda refreshing. The issue with that though is ArenaNet asking us to place faith in them that “Stuff” is indeed coming out at some point soon-ish after so many missteps is not IMO the way to handle it.
Just lay out a couple bullet point facts and leave out the hype.
Leader of The Guernsey Milking Coalition [MiLk] Sanctum of Rall
I’ve said it a long time ago. ANet has lost its original focus. They have no idea what to do with this game and are just going with the flow.
They abandoned PvE almost completely, they abandoned dungeons completely, balance is all over the place, they promised us new skills so long ago I don’t think anyone even remembers anymore. Suggestions are left unanswered completely on the forums. Legitimate complaints such as the whole Watchwork Mining Pick debacle are completely ignored.
I’ve seen this happen before with League of Legends and I’m seeing it happen here too. The community finally reached the breaking point and are venting. And what’s going to happen? As always, “We know about it”, “We’re on it” , “We’re totally reading all suggestions but we can’t answer to all of them. Or any of them.”.
In the end people will calm down and give up. And there’s always more people to replace the disgruntled ones.
I stopped caring some time ago. About at the same time ANet did.
I’ve said it a long time ago. ANet has lost its original focus. They have no idea what to do with this game and are just going with the flow.
They abandoned PvE almost completely, they abandoned dungeons completely, balance is all over the place, they promised us new skills so long ago I don’t think anyone even remembers anymore. Suggestions are left unanswered completely on the forums. Legitimate complaints such as the whole Watchwork Mining Pick debacle are completely ignored.
I’ve seen this happen before with League of Legends and I’m seeing it happen here too. The community finally reached the breaking point and are venting. And what’s going to happen? As always, “We know about it”, “We’re on it” , “We’re totally reading all suggestions but we can’t answer to all of them. Or any of them.”.
In the end people will calm down and give up. And there’s always more people to replace the disgruntled ones.
I stopped caring some time ago. About at the same time ANet did.
I remember seeing a post like yours a bit more than a year ago. Imo, I believe the disconnect has worsened.
You have my +1 non the less.
An expansion will never happen in the lifetime of GW2, because ANet depends on constant cash flow from the cash shop and needs to produce contents that would promote the cash shop stuff. They cannot just sit back for one year and create an expansion which people would run through in the matter of days and then ask for another expansion and so on.
If ANet ever decides to develop an expansion then its needs to introduce some VIP program to keep the cash flow going while developing an expansion. Honestly at this point I doubt anyone would pay a fee to play GW2 and a VIP program can easily ruin the economy in game.
The living story model is here to stay if you like it or not. At the end its just business, nothing personal. You don’t like it? there are subscription MMOs out there that have expansions. The question is, can you afford it?
Why on earth would they need to add a subscription to start working on an expansion? They didn’t have to add a sub to GW1 to make Eye of the North. There are dozens of other games that have expansions without a subscription. The expansions have their own price tag. That price tag is what compensates the company for development.
In all logic, we are their investors. Without the funding of the players, the game fails and the company fails.
In no logic are we their investors. I think you’re confusing terminology here. We’re their consumers. We don’t provide funding; we provide revenue. Without revenue investors are likely to withhold funding, so we can indirectly cause the company to fail.
Any good company quite clearly has reason to keep its investors happy, rather than ignoring them and just saying, “Well, if you don’t like our policies, go fund our competition.”
Again, you’re confusing investors and consumers. If the game and everything in the gem shop were to be given away for free, then the consumers would be ecstatic. However, this would undercut revenue and the investors would be mad.
That situation was purely hypothetical, but a similar dilemma applies here. Everything has a cost associated with it, including much of the content that the players (i.e. the consumers) are demanding. This cost detracts from profits, causing making the investors unhappy. To be successful ArenaNet has to find the right balance between giving the players what they want without cutting so far into profits that investors balk.
If they want people to continue spending, they have to show that the game is worth spending on. Without any knowledge of anything that’s being worked on, nobody knows if their money is going towards something good or just more ways to take their money.
I agree with that, but if the cost of creating goods exceeds the amount that players are willing to pay for those goods then that content will still be considered a failure, regardless of its merit. This is why features like new classes and new models are not coming as quickly as some players would like. There are only so many players who are willling to fork out 600 gems for a new skin.
This is, objectively, bad business. There is no spin on this that you can give that will make it look intelligent to ignore a vocal portion of the game and convince them to look elsewhere for better things to throw money at.
You stand corrected now. If a vocal portion of the game demands expensive content at unreasonable time schedules then ArenaNet can very well bankrupt itself by caving to each and every demand. Models and skins don’t come cheap.
And remember, even if it’s a vocal minority, it’s still a vocal part. And being vocal also means spreading the information to potential new customers that it’s not worth buying the game. Heck, I’ve already turned people away from the game.
And that’s not helping your cause any. In fact, it’s providing even less incentive for ArenaNet to generate new content.
(edited by Bernie.8674)
Just read again Mike O Brien’s post about communication, it seems CDIs are the roadmap, so for now we can expect raids, guild halls and GvG (next CDI topic), in about one year…
In no logic are we their investors. I think you’re confusing terminology here. We’re their consumers. We don’t provide funding; we provide revenue. Without revenue investors are likely to withhold funding, so we can indirectly cause the company to fail.
I am not.
We are investing our money in their game with the expectation of returns in a manner that was worth the money invested. I didn’t say we expected money back. By definition, we are investing in the future of the game by paying them money to continue working on it. I don’t feel my investment is a good investment, therefore I have stopped providing my money.
You stand corrected now. If a vocal portion of the game demands expensive content at unreasonable time schedules then ArenaNet can very well bankrupt itself by caving to each and every demand. Models and skins don’t come cheap.
Not ignoring is not the same thing as caving to each and every demand.
And that’s not helping your cause any. In fact, its providing even less incentive for ArenaNet to generate new content.
That’s fine with me. Me wanting new content is not enough for me to tell people to play a game run by people that I feel don’t really care and will do the minimal effort required.
If Anet decides not to generate new content because of people being turned away because of lack of new content, that’s their own hole they’re digging.
You are not an investor. No matter how you try and spin it you are a customer. You may see your money spent in the gem store as an investment. But that is merely your own perception. Anet see that as money spent on gems to use on ingame stuff. A source of revenue. You have bought goods, you have not invested in the future of the game.
If anets gemstore revenue continues to drop they will be incentivised to change their plan. Which would probably involve an expansion. So your decision to stop using the gem store will help.
(edited by spoj.9672)
You are not an investor. No matter how you try and spin it you are a customer.
You do know that “investor” and “investment” do not solely have anything to do with financial returns, right?
If I am giving them my money in the expectations that they will make the game better, thus profiting me with a better game, then I am investing into the future of the game. Just as a parent invests in the future of their child by putting money into a college fund, not necessarily expecting to be repaid by the child monetarily.
That’s by dictionary definition of the word “invest”.
Heck, I’ve already turned people away from the game.
And that’s not helping your cause any. In fact, it’s providing even less incentive for ArenaNet to generate new content.
Nursing a wrong makes you, sometimes, just as guilty as making that wrong.
In some cases, only a cut down in profits will show a company the only “NO” sign they will acknowledge. This is what separates the players who have faith in the company (trying and trying threads in the forums), and those who lost it (no more purchases, warning potential future customers not to join franchise).
Some players believe that even if ArenaNet closed, fired the staff, and shutdown the game, it still wouldn’t affect their chances to ever get to Cantha, nor see [Mad Memories] again, just for starters.
People don’t lose their faith in a company overnight. The company, and its reps, earn it.
(edited by Korossive.7085)
You are not an investor. No matter how you try and spin it you are a customer.
You do know that “investor” and “investment” do not solely have anything to do with financial returns, right?
If I am giving them my money in the expectations that they will make the game better, thus profiting me with a better game, then I am investing into the future of the game. Just as a parent invests in the future of their child by putting money into a college fund, not necessarily expecting to be repaid by the child monetarily.
That’s by dictionary definition of the word “invest”.
You didnt invest though. You bought gems.
You are not an investor. No matter how you try and spin it you are a customer.
You do know that “investor” and “investment” do not solely have anything to do with financial returns, right?
If I am giving them my money in the expectations that they will make the game better, thus profiting me with a better game, then I am investing into the future of the game. Just as a parent invests in the future of their child by putting money into a college fund, not necessarily expecting to be repaid by the child monetarily.
That’s by dictionary definition of the word “invest”.
You didnt invest though. You bought gems.
I did invest, though. I gave them my money in the expectation that the game would be improved upon.
Had I known that the game would end up like this, I would not have spent any money on gems.
What one chooses to spend the money on does not affect or have any bearing on the spirit in which it was given.
Now, are you through attempting to argue my intent, or can you just accept that you’re never going to be able to tell me why I spent money on the game and move on?
Why on earth would they need to add a subscription to start working on an expansion? They didn’t have to add a sub to GW1 to make Eye of the North. There are dozens of other games that have expansions without a subscription. The expansions have their own price tag. That price tag is what compensates the company for development.
The GW1 business model didn’t work out as anticipated. The original plan was to rapidly churn out content every three months or so and attach a price to it. Instead of paying $15 a month for subs, we would ideally have been paying $45 every three months for an expansion. There were several problems with this:
- Content wasn’t coming very quickly. After a few months went by they realized this and released Sorrow’s Furnace as it was free of charge. Factions came out 9 months after Prophecies. The expansion took three times longer than anticipated to create. As a result, only a third of the projected revenue was generated.
- The skill system made expansions extremely difficult to balance. The sheer quanitity of skills was only the tip of the iceberg. The fact that players could pick two classes at a time increased the complexity of balancing new skills exponentially.
- The meaning of “expansion” changed for MMOs, creating expectations that GW1 was simply not equipped to meet under their original business model: new playable races, for example. Consider that the addition of a new race requires two new versions of every skin and/or model that already exists in the game. This also dramatically increases the time it takes to add new skins and models. Content was already taking three times longer than anticipated to generate. How much longer does it take with multiple races???
Consider that Eye of the North had significantly less content than Factions. There were no new classes, and many of the skills that we got were not class-specific. EotN had about half the skills that Factions had, and there were no new missions in EotN (although to be fair they introduced dungeons). I think that at this point they realized that in order to accomodate the most heavily requested features (namely, playable races) they were going to have to start from scratch. That’s how we got to where we are today.
However, the problems haven’t gone away completely. Consider how many skins and models they’re going to have to generate in order to add a Tengu race, for example. Consider how much future work that’s going to generate too. Adding a new race means that every new piece of armor is going to require two more models and/ or skins going forward. There are six armor slots, so adding another race means an additional 12 models and/or skins every time.
TL;DR – A MMO expansion carries certain expectations that still can’t be met under this game’s business model, including (but not limited to) new races, additional skills, new areas, and additional features. Creating an expansion is not as simple as waving hands and making declarations.
In no logic are we their investors. I think you’re confusing terminology here. We’re their consumers. We don’t provide funding; we provide revenue. Without revenue investors are likely to withhold funding, so we can indirectly cause the company to fail.
I am not.
We are investing our money in their game with the expectation of returns in a manner that was worth the money invested. I didn’t say we expected money back. By definition, we are investing in the future of the game by paying them money to continue working on it. I don’t feel my investment is a good investment, therefore I have stopped providing my money.
You are not investing money. You are buying their product. ArenaNet is not giving you dividends. You can’t turn around and resell the goods you purchased from ArenaNet. In fact, the ToU expressly forbid you from doing so. An investment is expected to provide a return. A MMO is not an investment and never has been.
In no logic are we their investors. I think you’re confusing terminology here. We’re their consumers. We don’t provide funding; we provide revenue. Without revenue investors are likely to withhold funding, so we can indirectly cause the company to fail.
I am not.
We are investing our money in their game with the expectation of returns in a manner that was worth the money invested. I didn’t say we expected money back. By definition, we are investing in the future of the game by paying them money to continue working on it. I don’t feel my investment is a good investment, therefore I have stopped providing my money.
You are not investing money. You are buying their product. ArenaNet is not giving you dividends. You can’t turn around and resell the goods you purchased from ArenaNet. In fact, the ToU expressly forbid you from doing so. An investment is expected to provide a return. A MMO is not an investment and never has been.
Since I already went over this and you could have just read it on the same page, I’m not going to retype it. But I’ll be nice and copy paste it.
You do know that “investor” and “investment” do not solely have anything to do with financial returns, right?
If I am giving them my money in the expectations that they will make the game better, thus profiting me with a better game, then I am investing into the future of the game. Just as a parent invests in the future of their child by putting money into a college fund, not necessarily expecting to be repaid by the child monetarily.
That’s by dictionary definition of the word “invest”.
I did invest, though. I gave them my money in the expectation that the game would be improved upon.
Had I known that the game would end up like this, I would not have spent any money on gems.
What one chooses to spend the money on does not affect or have any bearing on the spirit in which it was given.
Now, are you through attempting to argue my intent, or can you just accept that you’re never going to be able to tell me why I spent money on the game and move on?
Since I already went over this and you could have just read it on the same page, I’m not going to retype it. But I’ll be nice and copy paste it.
Your intent and impressions have nothing to do with this. You think of yourself as an investor because you bought gems under the false impression that ArenaNet would then be obligated to make improvements to their game to accommodate your future needs. The fact that you mistakenly thought of yourself as an investor does not make you one.
I urge you to re-read the user agreement. Pay particular attention to this:
Gems — You may obtain Gems from NCSOFT (or a third party authorized by NCSOFT) for use in connection with the Game. Gems are a virtual currency which you may, in NCSOFT’s sole and absolute discretion, exchange for Items, services or access to other specific forms of Content not otherwise available without Gems. The Items, services or access to other specific forms of Content offered by NCSOFT in exchange for Gems may be discontinued, modified or removed from the Account by NCSOFT at any time in its sole and absolute discretion.
and this:
You acknowledge that Gems are digital material with no cash value, that no interest is paid or earned with respect to Gems, that Gems are not personal property, that the quantity of Gems in Your Account may be increased or decreased by NCSOFT in its sole and absolute discretion for any reason or no reason whatsoever, that You have no right to a refund related to Gems, that there is no right to transfer or exchange Gems, and that NCSOFT may limit Your license to use Gems with respect to any Item, service, Content or time period related thereto. You further acknowledge that additional restrictions related to Gems, as determined in the sole and absolute discretion of NCSOFT, may be applicable if, and when, Gems are made available to You or thereafter.
What the heck kind of an investment is that? About 75% of that user agreement can be summed up in these two sentences: You are buying transient entertainment. In no way, shape, or form is your purchase to be considered an investment.
Legally, investors receive many protections that are not available to consumers. I’d like to see you go into court and argue that you are entitled to such protections.
Legally, investors receive many protections that are not available to consumers. I’d like to see you go into court and argue that you are entitled to such protections.
I’ll just keep repasting these until you read them and understand the difference between the definition of the word “investment” that you’re asserting and the definition I’m actually using.
You do know that “investor” and “investment” do not solely have anything to do with financial returns, right?
If I am giving them my money in the expectations that they will make the game better, thus profiting me with a better game, then I am investing into the future of the game. Just as a parent invests in the future of their child by putting money into a college fund, not necessarily expecting to be repaid by the child monetarily.
That’s by dictionary definition of the word “invest”.
I did invest, though. I gave them my money in the expectation that the game would be improved upon.
Had I known that the game would end up like this, I would not have spent any money on gems.
What one chooses to spend the money on does not affect or have any bearing on the spirit in which it was given.
Now, are you through attempting to argue my intent, or can you just accept that you’re never going to be able to tell me why I spent money on the game and move on?
It seems, since the thread has devolved into a kittening contest over the word “invest,” that this thread has run its course.
I’ll just keep repasting these until you read them and understand the difference between the definition of the word “investment” that you’re asserting and the definition I’m actually using.
You’re going to be severely disappointed if you continue through life under the impression that reality conforms to your view of the world.
I know that you believe that you were “investing” in the game because by purchasing gems you were enabling ArenaNet to build a better game. I’m telling you that your impression is false. ArenaNet never sold gems to you for that purpose. In fact, they specifically stated why they were selling gems as well as what you could expect to receive in exchange for that purchase. Just because you intended for that purchase to act as an investment does not mean that it did. Cut and paste all you want, but at this point we’re not even having the same argument with each other any more. I don’t know what more you want me to say.
Let me put it this way: I agree that you purchased gems with the intent to invest. I’m telling you that, whatever your intentions were, gems are not an investment. ArenaNet told you so in their user agreement. Next time read agreements before accepting them.
Why on earth would they need to add a subscription to start working on an expansion? They didn’t have to add a sub to GW1 to make Eye of the North. There are dozens of other games that have expansions without a subscription. The expansions have their own price tag. That price tag is what compensates the company for development.
The GW1 business model didn’t work out as anticipated. The original plan was to rapidly churn out content every three months or so and attach a price to it. Instead of paying $15 a month for subs, we would ideally have been paying $45 every three months for an expansion. There were several problems with this:
- Content wasn’t coming very quickly. After a few months went by they realized this and released Sorrow’s Furnace as it was free of charge. Factions came out 9 months after Prophecies. The expansion took three times longer than anticipated to create. As a result, only a third of the projected revenue was generated.
- The skill system made expansions extremely difficult to balance. The sheer quanitity of skills was only the tip of the iceberg. The fact that players could pick two classes at a time increased the complexity of balancing new skills exponentially.
- The meaning of “expansion” changed for MMOs, creating expectations that GW1 was simply not equipped to meet under their original business model: new playable races, for example. Consider that the addition of a new race requires two new versions of every skin and/or model that already exists in the game. This also dramatically increases the time it takes to add new skins and models. Content was already taking three times longer than anticipated to generate. How much longer does it take with multiple races???
Consider that Eye of the North had significantly less content than Factions. There were no new classes, and many of the skills that we got were not class-specific. EotN had about half the skills that Factions had, and there were no new missions in EotN (although to be fair they introduced dungeons). I think that at this point they realized that in order to accomodate the most heavily requested features (namely, playable races) they were going to have to start from scratch. That’s how we got to where we are today.
However, the problems haven’t gone away completely. Consider how many skins and models they’re going to have to generate in order to add a Tengu race, for example. Consider how much future work that’s going to generate too. Adding a new race means that every new piece of armor is going to require two more models and/ or skins going forward. There are six armor slots, so adding another race means an additional 12 models and/or skins every time.
TL;DR – A MMO expansion carries certain expectations that still can’t be met under this game’s business model, including (but not limited to) new races, additional skills, new areas, and additional features. Creating an expansion is not as simple as waving hands and making declarations.
Factions was a standalone game like Nightfall and Prophecies whereas EotN was an expansion. Hence there being less content in it that in Factions.
Leader of The Guernsey Milking Coalition [MiLk] Sanctum of Rall
You’re going to be severely disappointed if you continue through life under the impression that reality conforms to your view of the world.
That’s cool. I mean, I’m only using an actual definition of the word “investment” that has nothing to do with expecting financial returns whereas you seem to be hung up on asserting that investment solely means that, but clearly I’m just expecting reality to conform to me. Like I said, I’ll keep repasting the same thing until you read it and understand that words have multiple definitions sometimes.
You do know that “investor” and “investment” do not solely have anything to do with financial returns, right?
If I am giving them my money in the expectations that they will make the game better, thus profiting me with a better game, then I am investing into the future of the game. Just as a parent invests in the future of their child by putting money into a college fund, not necessarily expecting to be repaid by the child monetarily.
That’s by dictionary definition of the word “invest”.
I did invest, though. I gave them my money in the expectation that the game would be improved upon.
Had I known that the game would end up like this, I would not have spent any money on gems.
What one chooses to spend the money on does not affect or have any bearing on the spirit in which it was given.
Now, are you through attempting to argue my intent, or can you just accept that you’re never going to be able to tell me why I spent money on the game and move on?
I know that you believe that you were “investing” in the game because by purchasing gems you were enabling ArenaNet to build a better game. I’m telling you that your impression is false.
Your assertion is false because you still don’t comprehend what I’m actually saying. What I’m saying has nothing to do with whether or not Anet views it as an investment or a purchase. It has to do with the fact that I spent my money in hopes that the game would grow and be good. It has nothing to do with whether I expect I’m owed anything or not or that they have to bow down to my demands. It has to do with the fact that I spent my money in hopes that the game would grow and get better, and those hopes were dashed when not only did it not get better, but they removed some of the good parts, making it worse.
Until you can comprehend that, then you’re right, we’re not arguing the same thing, because you’re still stuck on your assertions of what “investment” means. However, that’s your fault, not mine. If we’re not arguing the same things, it’s because you aren’t talking about what I’m saying.
Regardless of whatever academic argument you intend on having with the definition of ‘investor’, I was exactly referring to the definition of ‘investor’ that Bernie is describing to explain why I think this thread is not reasonable. From that definition (a widely accepted one in fact), players are not investors, they are consumers. That’s even MORE true and SIMPLE in this game because you exchange money for gems. People don’t go to Wal mart, buy and TV and say they’re a Wal Mart investor. That’s no different here. You pay money for gems. That financial exchange is finished; the ‘commitment’ that Anet gives you something YOU DEFINE beyond that exchange is unreasonable, including the expectation they ‘grow and make the game better’. That’s not where you ‘fit’ in the business food chain as a consumer. That’s what the ‘real’ investors do by voicing their opinion through provided (or approved) funding for development.
It’s interesting to see people re-defining things to justify their own desires and not recognizing where they fit into the business model of the game. It’s totally indicative of why this thread exists from people that think in this perceived manner. Check out reality sometime.
(edited by Obtena.7952)
I know that you believe that you were “investing” in the game because by purchasing gems you were enabling ArenaNet to build a better game. I’m telling you that your impression is false.
Your assertion is false because you still don’t comprehend what I’m actually saying.
By all means, tell me what you’re saying.
What I’m saying has nothing to do with whether or not Anet views it as an investment or a purchase. It has to do with the fact that I spent my money in hopes that the game would grow and be good.
Isn’t that what I just said? What exactly am I failing to comprehend here?
It has nothing to do with whether I expect I’m owed anything or not or that they have to bow down to my demands. It has to do with the fact that I spent my money in hopes that the game would grow and get better, and those hopes were dashed when not only did it not get better, but they removed some of the good parts, making it worse.
Believe me, I sympathize, but I’m telling you that your hopes were misguided. Going forward, you now know better than to spend money on a MMO in hopes of improving it. When you buy gems you’re buying access to features that exist here and now. You’re not buying any future features. In fact, the agreement pretty much states that ArenaNet reserves the right to delete all your gems (as well as the content you bought with them) at any time.
The ‘commitment’ that Anet gives you something beyond that for your gem purchase is unreasonable.
A consumer that isn’t kept happy stops being a consumer.
It’s hardly unreasonable to expect to be kept happy by someone that wants your money.
I don’t disagree with that, but it doesn’t mean you’re an investor. Investors provide money with the expectation for financial ROI. Consumers provide money with the expectations for goods and services. Those motivations mean different interactions between Anet and those groups. As a consumer, you aren’t in the group that approves how Anet or it’s parent directs the business unless Anet thinks it’s a good direction. I can see why Anet would think divulging future plans is NOT a good direction for the game. The way we ‘voice’ ourselves as consumers isn’t the same as an investors.
(edited by Obtena.7952)
I don’t disagree with that, but it doesn’t mean you’re an investor.
Is this post going to be a drag about investor. I remember kate welch talk about player’s investment in her video. So I go watch that again.
Arguing about it is as pointless as arguing about the definition of gay.
Me personally, mixed feeling about this post. I played a few games with budget warhammer online, age of conan, and those games content is qutie laughable compared to GW2.
It’s probably not as easy as people thought to keep pumping out content.
I don’t disagree with that, but it doesn’t mean you’re an investor.
By one strict definition, no it does not.
By a more general definition, giving them additional money past the purchase of the game in the hopes that keeping them afloat and showing interest will lead towards future content and enhancements is an investment.
There isn’t anything strict here. Revamping definitions to recast what you view yourself as in the business model doesn’t change why Anet’s policy exists and why it’s a reasonable one. It simply your self-justification for why you think you NEED to know the game’s future developments.
There isn’t anything strict here. Revamping definitions to suit your purpose doesn’t change why Anet’s policy exists and why it’s a reasonable one.
You mean like people can’t invest in college?
ya, people totally dont’ use the word investment in that situation.