Guild Wars 2

People born in the 1950s and 1960s were somewhere near the age of 25 when the first Personal Computers went for sale to the public. During the next 35 years, they used computers more and more each year at work and then at home. They are now retiring in large numbers, to a life with some extra leisure time and buying power. Reading the AARP Bulletin shows a study citing larger and larger numbers of these retirees are entering the online gaming world. Do you think they will be looking for challenge, for difficulty, for complication, for requirements that force them into specific content? I suspect that is very unlikely. They will be looking for fun. Plain and simple fun.

These are not people disadvantaged by “no child left behind”. They received at least good to excellent educations from high schools, equivalent to a college education of today, and often more. They know how to find a goal of value and achieve that goal regardless of the level of difficulty included. But they did that for most of their real lives. Now they just want to play a game and have fun at it. Personally I believe GW2’s cooperative PvE could draw in a whole lot of those future players and their significant ability to spend money, to the game.

The single biggest thing that will surely prevent this from happening is the movement over the last year or so to require game play in the other two game modes, PvP and WvW, in order to achieve most of the game’s worthwhile rewards. These people have fought their whole lives to achieve what they have and now they just want to have fun. Does anyone really think that class of player will thrive in that trash talking player versus player combat? I just can’t see it happening.

Anyway, I just thought a large influx of wealthy players might help, but the game seems to be moving away from that possibility. Ok, gotta go apply for medicare…

Wat? Are you saying rich people would play if there was no PvP?

GreyWolf.8670:

Wat? Are you saying rich people would play if there was no PvP?

Not at all. I’m just suggesting that if the rewards weren’t tied to playing all 3 game modes,
more and more of these people would play PvE in the future.

You’re framing it as a growth/expansion target (recruit more retirement-age people,) but it seems to me the only rewards that require PvP and WvW are generally high-end rewards that are mostly of interest to people who are already in the game. If I’m looking for a game to get into, regardless of my age, I’m not going to hear that The Ascension requires me to PvP and get turned off of GW2 because of it. I’m not going to be aware of The Ascension, period, and I’ll make my decision based on art style, gameplay, and whether I hear the game is enjoyable.

If I don’t like PvP, I’m not going to get into an exclusively PvP game like Overwatch or League of Legends, but unless the mere existence of a PvP / esports scene is a turn off for me, I don’t see why I’m going to be worrying about high end rewards needing PvP/WvW, when I don’t even play the game yet. If Anet really wanted to go out of their way to court that market segment, targeted advertising would accomplish more than worrying about which game modes get which rewards.

Just my two cents.

Um … I was born in 1965. I’m a retired lawyer, no kids. I’ve been into F&SF and gaming since I was 10 years old. I’ve played GW2 since beta. I do love the cooperative nature of the game, especially after 7 years in WoW with all the node and kill stealing.

I get plenty of rewards without touching WvW or PvP. I even made HOPE, just had to buy the WvW/PvP tokens on the TP.

And y’know? People who truly care for cooperative interactions won’t mind that some people get rewards they can’t, when those people go into competitive play that doesn’t interest them. Cooperation means not worrying about keeping up with the Joneses.

As an older gamer who grew up on playing nothing more exciting than Pong, WvW is my preferred game. PvE is way too static and boring for me.

I had to do Octovine to get my Durability runes and I had to farm the maps for mats for my ascended gear. I’ll never get a Legendary because I won’t do the amount of PvE required.

I was Born in 1976. Even then computers were still in the low end development. There use to be not such thing as colour or internet or, 3D! I believe everyone got along fine.

And now games are offering a variety of game types in one game, and you want more wealthy players and more PVE. The variety is why players love GW2. It caters to everyone. Some dislike PvP but love WvW. Some like PvE and PvP, and some strictly like PvE. Doing the story is an option also. That is what makes games like GW2 player friendly.
Anet is also doing their best to have an ever changing environment for players so GW2 does not stay stagnent.
And a news flash for you, there ARE wealthy people playing this game. Who do you think spends the most on the cash items. Be thankful we are helping the game and not trying to over take it.

I’m not trying to say anything derogatory about any specific game mode, only that it seems reasonable to assume that most of these potential new players would be more likely to join the game if all rewards were available in the game mode of their choice.

I’d expect they are smart enough to try the free2play first. The first thing they’d see is the dailies motivating players into every game mode, which is good, until they find what they like, and then find they can only get some of the rewards there?
That’s where I think we lose most who would buy.

Been spending money on this game too since the start. No news flash there.
Generating a discussion over bringing in new players is not trying to over take the game , or take it over.

Yes. GW2 base is ftp. AKA do not have to buy it anymore. If they want to play HoT, yes they HAVE to buy the game and expansion. Either way, GW/GW2 has no monthly fee. The only fee is buying the game. Everything GW2 base is available to all and Black Market gem store items are optional. They are not required to play GW2. I have played since day one, and the game tries to include everyone.

What are some specific examples of rewards that you have in mind?

I keep thinking about The Ascension and Legendaries, and I can’t seriously believe their mode requirements are a major factor in whether someone starts playing GW2, or converts from a free account to a paid account. That would be a surprising market niche, of people who will quit early on (or refuse to start) if they can’t get some specific, high-grade items, but also aren’t willing to play anything other than PvE.

You may be right. There may be little interest in things like legendaries, but when I think back to starting this game that doesn’t really have that much beginning documentation, Legendaries held a prominent place among all that documentation available. It’s easy to take a basic look at loot and how it’s designed to be sold for gold, or restructured into crafting materials so we can buy or make better and better gear, except not the final goal, the best.
I simply think many if not most older starting players will recognize this simple fact and it will affect their buying decision(s).
I’m saying it also because this game has alot to offer those players and I think they would really enjoy it, but may not see that right away.

I’m not sure age has anything to do with whether one is looking only for ‘fun’ (whatever that may be), or has an interest in other elements of gameplay.

What’s to say PvP isn’t fun for someone, or WvW? I can assure you I am older than most here, and I enjoy WvW, as well as Fractals, HoT, and sundry other features of the game.

Not shoehorning segments of the population based on arbitrary things like age, gender, race or anything else may be prudent.

Good luck.

Tumult.2578:

People born in the 1950s and 1960s were somewhere near the age of 25 when the first Personal Computers went for sale to the public. During the next 35 years, they used computers more and more each year at work and then at home. They are now retiring in large numbers, to a life with some extra leisure time and buying power. Reading the AARP Bulletin shows a study citing larger and larger numbers of these retirees are entering the online gaming world. Do you think they will be looking for challenge, for difficulty, for complication, for requirements that force them into specific content? I suspect that is very unlikely. They will be looking for fun. Plain and simple fun.

These are not people disadvantaged by “no child left behind”. They received at least good to excellent educations from high schools, equivalent to a college education of today, and often more. They know how to find a goal of value and achieve that goal regardless of the level of difficulty included. But they did that for most of their real lives. Now they just want to play a game and have fun at it. Personally I believe GW2’s cooperative PvE could draw in a whole lot of those future players and their significant ability to spend money, to the game.

The single biggest thing that will surely prevent this from happening is the movement over the last year or so to require game play in the other two game modes, PvP and WvW, in order to achieve most of the game’s worthwhile rewards. These people have fought their whole lives to achieve what they have and now they just want to have fun. Does anyone really think that class of player will thrive in that trash talking player versus player combat? I just can’t see it happening.

Anyway, I just thought a large influx of wealthy players might help, but the game seems to be moving away from that possibility. Ok, gotta go apply for medicare…

While not quite there yet myself, I am approaching the age group to which you refer to, and I can tell you, you got things exactly and precisely backwards as far as the specifics go and what defines fun. So let me shed some light on it for you.

While you are correct about our education, experiences, etc, you have to understand we can smell a bad scripting job fro ma mile away and it really turns us off from it, which is essentially the entirety of PVE in GW2.

We have also done the arena style PVP countless times in everything ranging from FPS games, to MOBAs, etc.

Also have done raiding, the supposedly challenging content. Here, we take a hit because our reflexes are not as high as young people, but once we do learn an encounter, it becomes extremely boring and very fast because we have done it before. Remember, we have done scripted raiding not just here, but pretty much as long as it has existed.

Realistically speaking, the only thing that has not been explored throughout gaming history to anywhere near its full potential and fully developed, is RVR style PVP. There has been initially DAOC and then a few other games tried, but they all fell very short. Even now, Black Desert Online for example, the grind in it ……. just not even worth it.

This is because tactics and strategy play a much more vital role in it then your usual arena style pvp, to an extent, you can make up for your lack of top notch reflexes by how smart you actually play, as well as eliminate the boredom of fighting scripted opponents at the same time.

You would be very surprised how many people I have ran into on TS that are same or around my age and share my feelings about this.

If a game came out that is built for RVR in an MMORPG setting, and which has a good dynamic combat system but actually menages to eliminate a lot of the grind “a la BDO”, I’d be in it.

I don’t agree that older players just want to have fun, don’t want a challenge, I am old, I play all 3 modes at least a bit just about every day. I wouldn’t have ever even tried WvW or PvP if they weren’t tied to getting something I wanted. I would have missed out on so much, granted I felt put upon at first, even a little tricked into “having” to do something I was so sure I wouldn’t like, challenge is good no matter your age.

Tumult.2578:

Do you think they will be looking for challenge, for difficulty, for complication, for requirements that force them into specific content? I suspect that is very unlikely. They will be looking for fun. Plain and simple fun.

This game is so casual and care-bear friendly that the idea of that not being at a sufficient magnitude for you is hardly believable. I’ve had enough of the instant-gratification teenagers who want everything handed to them and (APPARENTLY) the elderly who want the very same. You’ve changed the business model of MMO’s completely and have pretty much ruined it for anyone who derives fun from difficulty and challenge.

You are playing a pvp game, broseph. Sounds like you just picked the wrong game.

Tumult.2578:

These are not people disadvantaged by “no child left behind”. They received at least good to excellent educations from high schools, equivalent to a college education of today, and often more. They know how to find a goal of value and achieve that goal regardless of the level of difficulty included. But they did that for most of their real lives.

After this part, and laughing at it for a while, I don’t know whether to take you seriously.

That said, if you are serious then focusing purely on what is in-game: They have plenty to play and achieve without getting the “hardcore” rewards handed out to them.

You don’t want to WvW fine, but, please don’t try shifting that on to us elderly, we certainly weren’t born yesterday and we ain’t falling for that nonsense.

Tumult.2578:

These are not people disadvantaged by “no child left behind”. They received at least good to excellent educations from high schools, equivalent to a college education of today, and often more. They know how to find a goal of value and achieve that goal regardless of the level of difficulty included. But they did that for most of their real lives.

I like how you managed to kind of insult both your generation and the generation of “No child left behind” in the same paragraph. Nice moves.

And those players you’re trying to cater to? Weren’t around for the movement where everyone deserves all rewards.

They were in the group that were taught if you want to be eligible for a reward, you had to do the requirements to achieve it.

So I’m sure that if there are some in the group that want a specific reward that’s tied behind content they don’t like to play that they’ll be just fine not getting it or will suck it up and do the content long enough to get what they want from it.

Tumult.2578:

I’m not trying to say anything derogatory about any specific game mode, only that it seems reasonable to assume that most of these potential new players would be more likely to join the game if all rewards were available in the game mode of their choice.

There’s a problem with that approach, though.

ANet only has so many developer resources. Even with what they have, people who play all three main modes — never mind the multiple exclusive play-styles in PvE — are almost constantly complaining about not having enough to do. So, ANet has to prepare new stuff for each mode, as often as they can given the resources they have to do it with.

Using rewards as carrots to entice players to engage with game elements they might otherwise avoid is a means to stretch player interest in the game as a whole. The more game modes a player has a reason to play, the more likely s/he is to stick around. MMO business models are extremely dependent on keeping people playing.

As a player in the demographic you’re referring to, I can say that I am at peace with ANet decisions on where to put rewards. One thing I’ve gained with age is a modicum of perspective. I don’t have to have everything.

That demographic is not so much embedded in the entitlement attitude that seems to be flourishing in the First World. Such thinking was certainly not encouraged during our upbringing. Rather the opposite, in fact. Not to say that some of us haven’t embraced such thinking, but I’d venture that there are less people in that generation with entitlement attitudes than there are in later generations. Thus, I don’t think your concerns about such potential customers avoiding the game if they can’t get anything they want no matter what they might want to do are that much of a deterrent.

LOL getting all up in arms just because anet put a few shinies in pvp. Your rant has barely anything to do with the game. Somehow you attempted to connect “no child left behind” , college education, retirement and video games together. Also, I don’t think the kind of people you’re talking about is anywhere as entitled and petty as some of the pve players.

Donari.5237:

Um … I was born in 1965. I’m a retired lawyer, no kids. I’ve been into F&SF and gaming since I was 10 years old. I’ve played GW2 since beta. I do love the cooperative nature of the game, especially after 7 years in WoW with all the node and kill stealing.

I get plenty of rewards without touching WvW or PvP. I even made HOPE, just had to buy the WvW/PvP tokens on the TP.

And y’know? People who truly care for cooperative interactions won’t mind that some people get rewards they can’t, when those people go into competitive play that doesn’t interest them. Cooperation means not worrying about keeping up with the Joneses.

Nailed it.

Further, consider the converse of the OP’s argument, the people who only PvP or play in WvW; These players have missed out on all of the rewards the PvE-only crowd has gotten access to pretty much since release, and had no real tie-ins to their gameplay to get fancy loot and things.

Legendaries and prestigious gear in GW2 are not rewarded to necessarily the best or most dedicated players to one particular format, but to players who are on the top echelons of all the game modes.

While I don’t really agree with it, stating that the game needs to enable PvE/non-competitive players to get the best/most dignified gear in the entire game because of a dependency or two on things outside of PvE is a pretty big slight to those who exclusively play the other formats (and there are and once were a huge number of people who played only such formats).

Further, we’re not talking even competitive gear but instead BiS “Legendary”-rarity stuff. It’s not supposed to be attainable by everyone and is supposed to reward the best of the best. Unless one proves himself as being of that status (I.E. having such exclusive skins/content), one can’t make the claim that they’re as good as they say they are.

Frankly, the prospect of RNG on precursors is more infuriating to me, as there are times when new 80’s get their first exotic and it’s a precursor, while others struggle to get one after thousands of drops/forges/gold in attempts from hard work and come out with nothing.

Old people still want to engage in active competition. Some people are driven to the max of their potential on competition alone. A kitten those guys I can do better than them attitude is what landed people on the moon. A kitten u guys, I’m heading to the new world lead to the most successful and powerful country on the planet. Competition on all forms is what drives us.

I dunno, it seems to me that people in that age group seem to understand more about working for something. Know much about arcade gaming, or gaming of the 80s of which this group would have been exposed to first for video game medium? There wasn’t much of a net back then— beating that buggy poorly documented game was often for the challenge.

Or perhaps those who played in a pvp environment where getting killed might have meant the lost of valuable items, or even your entire character don’t find offense in getting killed in a pvp environment where death has little consequence like it does here?

I don’t know man. Games have been getting easier; people always seem to cry to nerf everything. Back then, you weren’t getting any patches. It was just there to stay even if the design was buggy or bad. If anything, it seems like the younger folk can’t stand having their feelings hurt or having to deal with failure. But let’s cool it with the stereotypes I guess.

Anyhow, there’s actually quite a few people of umm… advanced age… in my wvw server, fwiw.

Can you imagine if we had net like that back then? We’d get threads like “Warp Zones trivialize the entire game”, 1UP EXPLOIT FORCES EVERYONE TO EXPLOIT IT and “I haven’t gotten a line block for the last minute. Is tetris rigged?” To be fair, I think if there was a chance to vent, it’d be done though.

When I first started reading this thread I thought…….ah a kindred spirit…….someone in the same demographic as me.

With all do respect to Tumult, ( everyone is entitled to a opinion and he was not rude or disrespectful ) about the only thing I agree about is the average age of gamers is going to continue to rise.

Here’s a link…

http://www.aarp.org/research/topics/technology/info-2016/electronic-gaming-research-adults-50plus.html?cmp=RDRCT-PRI-OTHER-TECHNOLOGY-042816

With that in mind, and from what others have already said, I’m not sure dumbing down GW2 would be the way to go. Maybe that’s not quite the way to say it, but some seniors do what challenging content. I’m not one of them but that’s fine.

That fact is there is plenty of content that do like. Sure there are a few things that I will never get.

If you spend any time on this forum at all, its clear that the people that plays this game is all over the place from hardcore to casuals, not just young and old.

Overall, I think they have done good job to try to accommodate everyone. Its impossible to please everyone.

Sure you can say they should concentrate on one type of player, but that’s a business thing. As to what is most profitable……well I don’t know.

I personally don’t like PvP 5v5… but WvW trust me, it’s really easy to just find a mass of people and wade in with them and do whatever. Not a huge learning curve.

A lot more fun to me than dealing with “meta builds” and stuff in normal pvp.

WvW is just a whole new cool for gaming. Sure there are people who act stupid and try to trash talk but it’s rare and hardly ever thrown your way unless you’re outspoken a lot.

I am and take some heat from a few guys on Maguuma but I have fun with it so all’s good. Easy to make friends there.

WvW has lots of fun. Lots of different kinds of fighting. More laid back than you’d think, if you want it to be. Your age you mentioned doesn’t matter at all.

It’s definitely my GW2 endgame, though PVE is still cool in some areas.

Few things as cool in gaming, as watching a zerg of enemies, attacking a zerg of other enemies, and your group portals in and wastes em all.

Or watching 2 guys beating up one of yours, and you join in and together slaughter em both with impunity.

Oh the memories.

Maguuma… (salute)

Tumult.2578:

People born in the 1950s and 1960s were somewhere near the age of 25 when the first Personal Computers went for sale to the public. During the next 35 years, they used computers more and more each year at work and then at home. They are now retiring in large numbers, to a life with some extra leisure time and buying power. Reading the AARP Bulletin shows a study citing larger and larger numbers of these retirees are entering the online gaming world. Do you think they will be looking for challenge, for difficulty, for complication, for requirements that force them into specific content? I suspect that is very unlikely. They will be looking for fun. Plain and simple fun.

These are not people disadvantaged by “no child left behind”. They received at least good to excellent educations from high schools, equivalent to a college education of today, and often more. They know how to find a goal of value and achieve that goal regardless of the level of difficulty included. But they did that for most of their real lives. Now they just want to play a game and have fun at it. Personally I believe GW2’s cooperative PvE could draw in a whole lot of those future players and their significant ability to spend money, to the game.

The single biggest thing that will surely prevent this from happening is the movement over the last year or so to require game play in the other two game modes, PvP and WvW, in order to achieve most of the game’s worthwhile rewards. These people have fought their whole lives to achieve what they have and now they just want to have fun. Does anyone really think that class of player will thrive in that trash talking player versus player combat? I just can’t see it happening.

Anyway, I just thought a large influx of wealthy players might help, but the game seems to be moving away from that possibility. Ok, gotta go apply for medicare…

Yah as an older player myself, I agree with all of what you have said, and Anet is really shooting themselves in the foot with their move to make more Challenging PvE content with HoT and Raids.

Equally so, I loved WvW. It was a blast, and as far as sPvP goes it’s just a matter of finding a nice daily arena to hang your hat to get the dailies done.

Personally, I think it’s more the attitude of the game mode, the people that advocated raids happened to be the most vile people I have ever dealt with, far, far, worse then PvP players. Just my sampling tho.

I’m one of those people the OP describes. I simply don’t do PvP and I accept being ganked in WvW because there are things about WvW I enjoy that isn’t ganking other players.

First PC in college was an Atari 800.

So there has been some discussion. Let me add that the article specifically said they are unlikely to play a first person shooter. That’s what caught my eye and made me think maybe cooperative PvE, and then naturally, reduced rewards.
Yes, some of us started playing text based games in the early 90s and then every hack and slash that came along but we are not an accurate representation of the age group in question.
Anyone can perceive something as insulting if they try hard enough. That doesn’t change what happened, or the results.

Even after reading all this, I still don’t know what the point was. I got confused by the history lesson with the mile-wide generalisations of people and the presumption that the most ‘worthwhile’ rewards are in pvp/wvw, which somehow leads to the game needing more wealthy players who will presumably spend more in the gem store and generation 1950/1960 are those players? My head is spinning.

As a member of the group the OP describes I am afraid that I have to disagree with his assumptions.

We are a generation that came of age not expecting everything to be handed to us. The idea that I will need to participate, to stretch myself and my abilities, and fulfill the requirements for a given reward is no more than I would expect. The idea that top tier rewards would be thrown my way without having to work for them ensures that I would not value them. I don’t need someone to hand me trophies for participation in order to feel special.

That said, fun is not necessarily tied to rewards for me. I can play for the fun of playing with or without any given specific reward.

Zoltar MacRoth.7146:

Even after reading all this, I still don’t know what the point was. I got confused by the history lesson with the mile-wide generalisations of people and the presumption that the most ‘worthwhile’ rewards are in pvp/wvw, which somehow leads to the game needing more wealthy players who will presumably spend more in the gem store and generation 1950/1960 are those players? My head is spinning.

I assumed it was because us old folks don’t have lightning quick reactions anymore and may also be suffering maladies associated with our advance age. :p

Behellagh.1468:

Zoltar MacRoth.7146:

Even after reading all this, I still don’t know what the point was. I got confused by the history lesson with the mile-wide generalisations of people and the presumption that the most ‘worthwhile’ rewards are in pvp/wvw, which somehow leads to the game needing more wealthy players who will presumably spend more in the gem store and generation 1950/1960 are those players? My head is spinning.

I assumed it was because us old folks don’t have lightning quick reactions anymore and may also be suffering maladies associated with our advance age. :p

Maladies like grumpiness and belligerence?
Bah! Pesky kids.

If the senior population did increase it would certainly help the sales of gems. Simply announce 200 gems for sale for $19.95 and if you order right now you’ll double the amount to 400.

Since I was born in 1967 (my first game console was PONG!), I’m no quite old enough to retire, but definitely older than a lot of the GW2 population, so I’m a bit confused as to where I fit in with these generational generalizations.