Guild Wars 2

I wanted to repost something that I saw earlier. NO credit goes to me.
Original Article.

Arenanet and NCSoft collect data about everything you do while in game. It’s called analytics. It’s the same thing that Google does, the NSA, and social media as well.
Their data gives them objective information about what players are doing, what they are not doing, and what they will likely do. This gives management a pool of data to make decisions with.
Do you want to know why SAB is not coming back? Not enough people were interested in it to justify developer resources in that area.
Do you want to know why Precursors are not a priority for them? They listen to economists and nod their heads when the pseudoscientific idea of scarcity justifies people having to deal with RNG to get their legendaries.
Do you want to know why they have waited 2 years to actually make steps to support PvP, despite their GW1 history? They wanted to pay back the initial costs of launching GW2, which was considerable, before reinvesting into the company.
Why Living World/Story and no expansions? The management wanted to cut costs and improve revenue. Living World was likely a pain in the kitten to do, but is a lot cheaper than a traditional expansion overall. They didn’t have to make more than a few new zones. They didn’t have to make new classes. They didn’t have to make new item tiers or new dungeons. You know the expensive, time consuming stuff.
Why don’t they care about our rants? They have data to show what people choose to do, and take what they rant about and talk about with a grain of salt. They have taken the route of ignoring the subjective and embracing the objective alone, which is going to generate profit but will certainly create contempt as well.
Is GW2 going to “figure it out” at some point? No more than you’re going to figure out what a good company that is worth spending money on is. They are going to ignore the vocal minority, ignore the fringe groups, and ignore anything that is too expensive and not popular enough.
Why are they making us buy individual colors for commander tags? It creates scarcity and value for commander tags and being able to organize a server into multiple commander units. It ultimately saves money for the altoholics, and is one of those mathy “DUURRRR WHY DOES IT COST SO MUCHHHHH” l2kitteningcount situations.
Why are they making 1%er PvP skin rewards instead of _________ (insert hobosacks or some other stupid QQ)? PvP is about Darwinism and rising to the top of the pile of scrubs. You cannot satisfy the competitor without giving him/her the satisfaction of winning and being able to exhibit their superiority. This is why Gold (colored) medals are provided at the Olympics, Super Bowl rings, and such an emphasis is placed in the media on winners of sport. It’s as old as the ability to run in a straight line in a race is.
What about Cantha and Elona? Living Story/World has proven that Anet does not have to make a traditional expansion to satisfy the GW2 playerbase. They are too spineless and easy to please for that kind of work. So it is possible that they will inch bit by bit into those regions, but only in the kind of way you see with Dry Top and the way they’re breaking up the Seasons with Feature Packs.
Isn’t the backbone of the game population PvE? Why are they doing these 50k tournaments now? PvE funded their initial costs and produced those numbers, but because it took such a smaller cost to please the horde of drooling PvE idiots than expected, not much more effort is going to be required moving forward than making a steady episodic narrative. The money can then be spent in PvP, where the MMO market has been hemorraghing due to Dota2/LoL/Smite, and stand out as the esports MMO. Yes WoW has a dedicated community, but a polished GW2 PvP system will be THE most attractive MMO in the world to play PvP in. Crowdfunding and 3rd party sponsors could create massive royalties for NCSoft. It’s a business Golden Egg scenario, especially driven by the Chinese competitive spirit that is dominating Dota2 and will definitely seek to dominate GW2.
Ultimately, the B2P model and NCSoft are financially successful and a growing powerhouse in the MMO genre. They aren’t doing it by listening to the fringe – they’re letting the mob of lowest common denominator tell them what they want and delivering.
It’s tacky, gross, cheap, and insulting to people who want something better, but at the end of the day…
What does that tell you about the average consumer?
Grow a spine. Do research. Don’t spend money on people you aren’t getting the experience you want from.

And yet they admitted that PvP attendance jumped 40% with the simple addition of pve rewards in it, oh and a new map, but that’s not even part of the normal rotation. Soooo yeah I think listening to players paid off there, I mean analytics cant show you what players want when -they aren’t doing it because it currently isn’t there-. It will show you what way to best perpetuate the current data. We keep doing LS kuz they keep dishing out LS. We keep grinding kuz we keep getting stuff to grind for. WvW attendance is down because jee whens the last time it got some love? The meta there has been the same since I started playing, Its been probably half a year I think since they admitted they wanted it to be less zergy. And the answer is apparently multicolored tags that are going to cost players more than they have. I’m sorry I didn’t realize our inability to read was what was preventing us from splitting up into different groups and having interesting tactical battles

They can analyze all they want, its most likely not going to match up to the combined perception of a fanbase of players who spend hours on the game every week.

Or Anet does care. They’re catering to the majority, because that’s where the money is. It doesn’t mean they don’t care.

I ran a computer store. At some point it became unprofitable to support mac. It wasn’t worth it to us. People who had macs might, erroneously, think I didn’t care. I did care. I felt bad for them. But a business isn’t a charity and I had to make a business decision. It doesn’t mean I didn’t care.

Those people feel let down. But there weren’t enough of them to make a difference to the business. I liked many of them…but that didn’t mean I should have kept an entire department running for them.

Sorry everyone. We’re all royally p’d off, but the fact of the matter is that no one at ANet cares what you think. Devs are never going to come in here. If they do, they’ll say 1 or 2 things and run the risk of getting fired (ex. Robert Hrouda). Nobody at ANet cares about us, and as long as we keep buying gems, there’s no reason for them to care.

It doesn’t matter if you leave, as there’s no sub fee; they won’t even notice that you’re gone.

You simply DO NOT MATTER to ANet or NCSoft, unless you’re buying gems.

I think they are letting the majority rule their decisions, and i think that’s a HORRIBLE idea. Speaking as one of the majority, I always go after the latest shiniest thing, that shiny thing is always game play. If I see another game with better gameplay in a certain area, like oooh I dont know (EDIT not gona drop another games name thats not cool) with its apparent -shipbuilding and sandbox gameplay-, I’m tempted to go over there and check it out, don’t get me wrong, I’m not gonna leave gw2 but my time will slowly start to get sucked off to other games that advance in certain areas while gw2 is still…giving people something to grind over to keep people here….yup.

Jesus, what a long statement. But I’ll feel your pain.
All I have to add is that this is a game. A game should make you happy to play and keep you from come back, again an again.
I don’t why Anet/NC soft not creat expansion instead they went on to expanded the living story if they focus on increasing revenue. I have to said, Anet/NC Soft has done very well of keeping players to continue to play their game. Of course they could better.
All the posting I have been reading are for individual interest. It is time that we think for the community. What the purpose of creating this game? Why we play this game?

I’m saying this out of concern for the game community. Half the reason of playing is always the other players. When players leave they leave in chunks. I literally thought I was gonna lose half the guild i played with when (insert other MMO here) came out, Thank god it boned, all but one of us are still here, -this time-. But we lost a person, one guy who enjoyed PvP as a ranger, both things which at the time needed some serious love, and that was one guy out of about 30 active players. I’m not sure how that percentage reflects the total player base, I hope it doesn’t. But when this game came out it advertised graphics, WvW, Pvp, all sorts of gameplay features other games didn’t have, quality of life kidna things, we didn’t come here for the grind. That may be what gives us something to do but its not what keeps us from getting yanked over to other games -just like how Anet got us to come here-

Well, if you let rabid hardcore fanbois dictate development you wind up with something like wildstar, which no one likes to play. that said, one thing raw analytics can’t account for is if you have tainted data. I know SAB W2’s data was bad, and god knows the bugs in 2-1 were terrible and 2-2 too long and hard (gong room)… but I wonder how much of that drop off can be accounted for the fact that ascended weapons were released at the same time, and that players would be really interested in a more casual (and not gamebreaking) SAB w3 if it was released. Because people really, really loved W1, so the W2 numbers may not really mean that people aren’t interested in SAB for the future.

I used to work in copyediting, have some training in statistics, and occasionally hang out with consultants and such. One of the many things I learned is this: every company claims to use analytics. Shareholders and analysts love that stuff, as does upper management – it appeals to their vanity that they there must be a team of Nate Silver-types exhaustively analyzing every decision they make and concluding that it’s the right one.

The truth is usually much more mundane. They most likely canned SAB because influential people at the company just don’t like it. At any given company usually about half of upper management has no clue what’s going on and the same is likely true at Anet. I doubt that there are any kind of comprehensive data analyses going on about these various decisions, demonstrating that ROI is lower for SAB than hypothetical alternate content.

I don’t doubt that they’re collecting a lot of data and arranging it into graphs and such. That’s the easy part, especially in an online game where data collection is relatively easy. But the truth about Anet’s missteps is most likely simpler. They’re just normal garden-variety mistakes, which become habits if they go unchallenged. Raising a big stink on the forums is actually one of the more effective ways to challenge them – at least one of the more effective we have access to.

Yeah, I wouldn’t be surprised if their data analysis consisted of “bad numbers, sky is falling, kill the project” — without critically thinking about why the numbers were bad , what may have caused it, and what it means about the prospects for further project expansion.

So you’re saying Anet do what best for their game company like they are suppose to…

MMO development has always been an odd beast. MMO design has always been tied into the method of monetization. Pretty much everything about subscription, expansion, F2P, B2P based MMOs is tied to the method of monetization. A lot of what was stated in the referenced comments on game design, how metrics and player feedback are used are probably true, but when you think about it that way, there is no perfect or even reasonably decent MMO where profit is a motive. In this sense, the only happy player is an ignorant player. Still, to say that the voice of the players is irrelevant because of anayltics is a half-truth. Mixed in the with the facts of the opening statements are anger, resentment, and misinformation. I agree that educating yourself is the only way to be an informed consumer. So, remember not to take everything you hear at face value and learn about how MMOs are made.

laokoko.7403:

So you’re saying Anet do what best for their game company like they are suppose to…

…with rose tinted glasses? Yes, they are.

IvanTheGrey.2941:

Sorry everyone. We’re all royally p’d off, but the fact of the matter is that no one at ANet cares what you think. Devs are never going to come in here. If they do, they’ll say 1 or 2 things and run the risk of getting fired (ex. Robert Hrouda). Nobody at ANet cares about us, and as long as we keep buying gems, there’s no reason for them to care.

It doesn’t matter if you leave, as there’s no sub fee; they won’t even notice that you’re gone.

You simply DO NOT MATTER to ANet or NCSoft, unless you’re buying gems.

Guess you polled everyone at the company.

Don’t speak for everyone who works anywhere. Because in actuality you’re just making it up.

I guess you, Ivan, are saying the Devs are lying to us then, when they tell us personally that they care. Have you spoken to any Devs, personally? I have, and they certainly said they cared to me.

I think they care about the game and about the playerbase very much. Still, opinions are like certain body parts….every one has one. /shrug

i like the way you think , as long as a company makes money they should not care about the minority, the most important thing for ncsoft is the profit and that is /should be the most important thing for every company, if you want to exist in 5 years..

News flash: Company concentrates on providing more of what the majority of their (paying) customers want, discontinues work on what the majority of their (paying) customers don’t care about.

This has never happened before in the history of business. You’d think they’re trying to make a profit or something.

Sadly, this is what MMO have become, a quick cash grab. “Cash shop” are turning MMO into a real joke. In GW2 first years I spent around 300$ on gems store, and I was glad to do it, I haven’t in the last year, I feel that what they are releasing is not worth my money.

Someone stated in another thread how I feel about GW2. At this point, we all know what GW2 should have been, what it is and what it will never be. Every update I am disappointed, because they could do much better with what they have. I stay, because this game has so much potential but I’m tired of hoping.

Edit : Of course company wants to make money, but I remember when game actually meant something to their developers. Why not just put Legendary directly in gems store, for 8000 gems, and ascended armors/weapons while removing them from the game otherwise, that would make them some more money.

Assassin Zero.4628:

SAB OR RIOT
SAB OR RIOT

Dude, GROW UP.

Its fine to go where the money is, but wouldn’t it be a better idea to just get as much money as you can get? A happy customer usually ends up a paying customer because a paying customer is comfortable enough to give their money to something they know is going to produce that will more than likely be desirable.

Even if they are just a potential customer, they will eventually become a paying customer given enough time and right circumstances. This potential customer could have a multitude of reasons why they are not paying which can range from a lack of good enough deals to simply not having enough income to justify dumping any amount of money into the game. Even so, a potential customer > an unsatisfied customer or no customer at all.

An unsatisfied customer will more than likely leave and the chance of them leaving forever is dependent on the quality (and lack thereof) of the services provided to them.

Since it is impossible to please everyone, the best way Anet could ever go about appeasing their customers is by using an ingame poll and branch out priorities from there. That way when minorities complain, Anet can say “You should have put your vote in the poll.” And when they said they did vote, anet can say, “Well there weren’t enough votes to focus on that, but perhaps another time.”

I mean it’s only fair, right?

And to remove illegitimate polling, offer a requirement like “most out of multiple choice wins” or “70% wins” on either/or polls.

Trice.4598:

Sadly, this is what MMO have become, a quick cash grab. “Cash shop” are turning MMO into a real joke. In GW2 first years I spent around 300$ on gems store, and I was glad to do it, I haven’t in the last year, I feel that what they are releasing is not worth my money.

Someone stated in another thread how I feel about GW2. At this point, we all know what GW2 should have been, what it is and what it will never be. Every update I am disappointed, because they could do much better with what they have. I stay, because this game has so much potential but I’m tired of hoping.

Do you want to know why MMOs in general do worse than expected, almost universally?

Because all MMOs face similar problems. It’s so easy to say stuff like, what an MMO could have been. Having never made one yourself, it’s easy to say they could have done better. But if someone could have done better, why is no one actually doing better? That’s the real question.

Maybe, just maybe, it’s harder than it looks to make a AAA MMO.

One has to wonder what’s going on at Arena Net if they fail to deliver most of their so called promises and road maps.

WvW forum broke first, and now the general forums have broken down.
I’m surprised their metrics didn’t detect this. :P

Vayne.8563:

Trice.4598:

Sadly, this is what MMO have become, a quick cash grab. “Cash shop” are turning MMO into a real joke. In GW2 first years I spent around 300$ on gems store, and I was glad to do it, I haven’t in the last year, I feel that what they are releasing is not worth my money.

Someone stated in another thread how I feel about GW2. At this point, we all know what GW2 should have been, what it is and what it will never be. Every update I am disappointed, because they could do much better with what they have. I stay, because this game has so much potential but I’m tired of hoping.

Do you want to know why MMOs in general do worse than expected, almost universally?

Because all MMOs face similar problems. It’s so easy to say stuff like, what an MMO could have been. Having never made one yourself, it’s easy to say they could have done better. But if someone could have done better, why is no one actually doing better? That’s the real question.

Maybe, just maybe, it’s harder than it looks to make a AAA MMO.

Because doing better wouldn’t bring as much profits? I’m not asking for AAA, when they make a complete armor set and just throw it in gems store, because it’s an easy cash grab, maybe once in a while, just maybe, make some quick content for us to obtain it otherwise?

And please , don’t tell me it’s hard to make a “build save” option, or queue system to “join in” or fix most of the problem dungeons have. For god sake, it took them 1 year to fix the -10% damage on potion to actually reduce instead of adding 10%.

The problem is the people spending money. This is a business. They don’t care about what you think unless it directly hurts their profits. You don’t like something? Stop giving them money. Your opinion doesn’t talk, your play time doesn’t talk, your forum posts don’t talk. Money talks.

Now here’s the next problem. You stop giving them money. They don’t care, nothing changes, game continues as usual. Why? Because the majority of people are too content with the slops they’re given to stop spending money on it. It is still overwhelmingly profitable to Anet, and a couple drops in the ocean don’t matter.

Trice.4598:

Vayne.8563:

Trice.4598:

Sadly, this is what MMO have become, a quick cash grab. “Cash shop” are turning MMO into a real joke. In GW2 first years I spent around 300$ on gems store, and I was glad to do it, I haven’t in the last year, I feel that what they are releasing is not worth my money.

Someone stated in another thread how I feel about GW2. At this point, we all know what GW2 should have been, what it is and what it will never be. Every update I am disappointed, because they could do much better with what they have. I stay, because this game has so much potential but I’m tired of hoping.

Do you want to know why MMOs in general do worse than expected, almost universally?

Because all MMOs face similar problems. It’s so easy to say stuff like, what an MMO could have been. Having never made one yourself, it’s easy to say they could have done better. But if someone could have done better, why is no one actually doing better? That’s the real question.

Maybe, just maybe, it’s harder than it looks to make a AAA MMO.

Because doing better wouldn’t bring as much profits? I’m not asking for AAA, when they make a complete armor set and just throw it in gems store, because it’s an easy cash grab, maybe once in a while, just maybe, make some quick content for us to obtain it otherwise?

And please , don’t tell me it’s hard to make a “build save” option, or queue system to “join in” or fix most of the problem dungeons have. For god sake, it took them 1 year to fix the -10% damage on potion to actually reduce instead of adding 10%.

It is hard to make a build save option and anyone who says otherwise, doesn’t get programming at all. If the game wasn’t written for it originally, it needs to be reworked which can break other things if you don’t do it very carefully. They’re working on a build save template now. We know they are.

Fixing dungeon problems? There are many of them. Every time they fix one people find exploits that break something else. Most people find a way around the problems, but again, do we know what percentage of the player base actually runs or cares about dungeons? I’m guessing it’s a lot lower than you think.

Making the game better means different things to different people.

Vayne.8563:

Trice.4598:

Vayne.8563:

Trice.4598:

Sadly, this is what MMO have become, a quick cash grab. “Cash shop” are turning MMO into a real joke. In GW2 first years I spent around 300$ on gems store, and I was glad to do it, I haven’t in the last year, I feel that what they are releasing is not worth my money.

Someone stated in another thread how I feel about GW2. At this point, we all know what GW2 should have been, what it is and what it will never be. Every update I am disappointed, because they could do much better with what they have. I stay, because this game has so much potential but I’m tired of hoping.

Do you want to know why MMOs in general do worse than expected, almost universally?

Because all MMOs face similar problems. It’s so easy to say stuff like, what an MMO could have been. Having never made one yourself, it’s easy to say they could have done better. But if someone could have done better, why is no one actually doing better? That’s the real question.

Maybe, just maybe, it’s harder than it looks to make a AAA MMO.

Because doing better wouldn’t bring as much profits? I’m not asking for AAA, when they make a complete armor set and just throw it in gems store, because it’s an easy cash grab, maybe once in a while, just maybe, make some quick content for us to obtain it otherwise?

And please , don’t tell me it’s hard to make a “build save” option, or queue system to “join in” or fix most of the problem dungeons have. For god sake, it took them 1 year to fix the -10% damage on potion to actually reduce instead of adding 10%.

It is hard to make a build save option and anyone who says otherwise, doesn’t get programming at all. If the game wasn’t written for it originally, it needs to be reworked which can break other things if you don’t do it very carefully. They’re working on a build save template now. We know they are.

Fixing dungeon problems? There are many of them. Every time they fix one people find exploits that break something else. Most people find a way around the problems, but again, do we know what percentage of the player base actually runs or cares about dungeons? I’m guessing it’s a lot lower than you think.

Making the game better means different things to different people.

I do get programming, and if you think a build template would be hard, you’re the one who doesn’t, Fact : it doesn’t take 2 years. Anyway, I’m done arguing with you for the simple fact, I have disagree with EVERY posts you have ever made on this forum so it would be pointless.

Trice.4598:

Vayne.8563:

Trice.4598:

Vayne.8563:

Trice.4598:

Sadly, this is what MMO have become, a quick cash grab. “Cash shop” are turning MMO into a real joke. In GW2 first years I spent around 300$ on gems store, and I was glad to do it, I haven’t in the last year, I feel that what they are releasing is not worth my money.

Someone stated in another thread how I feel about GW2. At this point, we all know what GW2 should have been, what it is and what it will never be. Every update I am disappointed, because they could do much better with what they have. I stay, because this game has so much potential but I’m tired of hoping.

Do you want to know why MMOs in general do worse than expected, almost universally?

Because all MMOs face similar problems. It’s so easy to say stuff like, what an MMO could have been. Having never made one yourself, it’s easy to say they could have done better. But if someone could have done better, why is no one actually doing better? That’s the real question.

Maybe, just maybe, it’s harder than it looks to make a AAA MMO.

Because doing better wouldn’t bring as much profits? I’m not asking for AAA, when they make a complete armor set and just throw it in gems store, because it’s an easy cash grab, maybe once in a while, just maybe, make some quick content for us to obtain it otherwise?

And please , don’t tell me it’s hard to make a “build save” option, or queue system to “join in” or fix most of the problem dungeons have. For god sake, it took them 1 year to fix the -10% damage on potion to actually reduce instead of adding 10%.

It is hard to make a build save option and anyone who says otherwise, doesn’t get programming at all. If the game wasn’t written for it originally, it needs to be reworked which can break other things if you don’t do it very carefully. They’re working on a build save template now. We know they are.

Fixing dungeon problems? There are many of them. Every time they fix one people find exploits that break something else. Most people find a way around the problems, but again, do we know what percentage of the player base actually runs or cares about dungeons? I’m guessing it’s a lot lower than you think.

Making the game better means different things to different people.

I do get programming, and if you think a build template would be hard, you’re the one who doesn’t, Fact : it doesn’t take 2 years. Anyway, I’m done arguing with you for the simple fact, I have disagree with EVERY posts you have ever made on this forum so it would be pointless.

If you’ve disagreed with every post I’ve ever made on this forum, I’d say the problem is yours. I suppose you like the new trait acquisition system then, because I don’t and think it needs to be changed.

If a program is set up to do something, it’s easy to add functionality. If a program isn’t it’s not so easy. It doesn’t take two years if that’s the only thing you have to do.

That OP post is hardly right, and seems to be largely inspired by someone that felt (s)he wasn’t being heard. Personally I think Anet listens to their player base a lot, maybe even to much… Thing is, on most topics even the players base isn’t agreeing, so whether you do one or the other, there will always be people disappointed, and those are generally the people that you will read about on the forums.

Why do I think they listen ‘to much’? Well look at how the balancing seems to be done, I personally feel like the classes that get whined about the most, receive the most nerfs, regardless whether they actually need them (yes f/e Thief, instead of Warrior). And this might be backed by some analytics where they determine that most people play a warrior, so better not kitten them off to much. Thing is though, and this is also the risk of using big number analytics (Read Silhouette a bit above here) the way balance currently is, it is more likely for more people to flock to the Warrior, simply because it is by far one of the strongest well rounded classes. Aka, people are not all of a sudden interested in playing a warrior, ‘no’, people see that this is by far the most rewarding class to play and flock to it… Similar to thieves are said to be, thing is, I play a thief, and I do hope people will flock to it, as it is not that OP class everybody thinks it is! And they will find out soon enough, if they start playing one, but I digress…

Another area in which they listened to their player base ‘to much’ is on the LS front, they did a whole ‘180’ on the approach… Is it better? well that is very subjective, BUT, I will say that after 4 instalments I sort of miss something really BIG happening for all of us to tackle. Yes, having something big every 2 weeks and only 2 weeks was way over the top, I felt entirely burnt out at the end, but that didn’t mean I wouldn’t like doing that kind of content every once a while. LS1 was just way over the top with it, and the story was hard to follow, LS2 is better to follow story wise, but sofar it’s fairly anticlimactic in its MultiPlayer Approach. AKA, they are entire opposites…

And in regards to the ‘Meta Data’ I’m sure their data will say that over 80% of the community played all the LS1 stuff… so why the change? Because of player feedback on the forums… And rightfully so… YET, Less stress full 2 week only BIG events, does not mean, do not do any! :P … it means, Anet please pick your fights, the big stuff is realy nice, but not everything can be this huge deal, with only 2 weeks to do it…

continued on the next post…

There are numerous other areas that can be pointed to where it is clear that Anet takes hints from their player base… The thing that gets us all worked up though, is that there are at least as many (if not more) places where we can point that Anet may not be listening enough! And that there are a lot of things that we think are way over due, or simply do not understand why they do not take ‘a hint’, this is further escalated because by now it is completely unclear where the game is heading… in regards to:

It’s been 2 years and we have not (to hardly) seen:
- More permanent Areas to explore
- More event chains, or expansions to their story
- More skills for professions
- More Weapons for professions
- More Races to play.
- More viable builds (balance)
- Bug fixes
- WvW maps
- PvP maps/modes.
- Guild features
- Quality Deepening of Lore
- and I will leave out all the extras like player housing, sticking to whats already there as part of the game

And from a player point of view it is hardly understandable, we see the list up there as the ‘main meat’ of the game, heck, ‘meat’ is more of a luxury food, the list up there is the ‘Rice & Beans’ of the game. And quite frankly we are ‘starving’ and do not understand why Anet isn’t feeding us properly, while we put in the time and money to have them prepare a proper meal…

So what have we seen in those two years?
- two new areas (- south sun, dry top)
- two new ‘dungeons paths’ (eather blade path, reactor fractal)
- Various ‘one time’ or ‘circumstantial’ areas. (SAB, Queens pavilion, Zepherite Sanctum)
- Various new ‘sub-challenges/games’ as part of pre-mentioned areas or circumstantial events.
- A new world boss and a rework (Wurm, Teq)
- PvP Reward Tracks.
- A whole lot of backpacks.
- Two? new armours.
- A couple new weapon sets.
- Ascended Crafting
- A whole lot of minis, backpacks, Armour pieces (mainly head/shoulder/gloves) and other stuffz in the Shop.

Then we have seen various things that do not necessarily effect us as players, or only marginally (somewhat negative on some fronts):
- Disappearance of Town Clothing for ‘costumes’ (un-understandable how the previous town clothing got to become a tonic, instead of a costume ?!?); the skin unlocks are nice though…
- Mega Servers (while great for some things, the whole ‘my town is my server’ feeling disappeared – which is a great deal for as far as WvW goes.)
- A Karma Train ‘WvW’ map, great for an overflow on high population servers, but drawing people away to ‘karma train’ from less populated servers.
- More ‘ascended’ and ‘circumstantial’ materials than I care to receive.
- A ‘partial’ nerf to ‘Champ Trains’, soon met by alternative routes, changing nothing…
- A steady and extensive increase in inflation, to a point where making any lvl80 build is a huge investment. Making ‘playing the game’ less and less rewarding and increasing the need to ‘Champ train’, ‘Karma farm’, ‘Farm, Farm’ and grind some more, just to keep up.

And obviously we had ‘one time’ content:
- Ancient Karka Queen
- LS1

Well, I guess you can’t say that ANet did nothing for those 2 years! Thing remains though, ‘we’ are starving for our Rice ‘n Beans! sure there were a lot of ’Hordeuvres’ but we are craving for a meal by now !

IvanTheGrey.2941:

You simply DO NOT MATTER to ANet or NCSoft, unless you’re buying gems.

Ah! Ah! ah! Not so fast!

Myself and my AARM guildies have been buying gems for months. Some of our members have even been in this game since launch. Anet doesn’t listen to us gem-buyers either.

OP, the data is only as good as its parameters.

Does the data account for RP activities? The RP community is, generally speaking, an extremely loyal group of players. These are the people still playing GW1, a large portion of the gamers still paying their monthly sub to WoW even as the game sheds hundreds of thousands of accounts per quarter. Does the data account for them? Then how can decisions reflect their purchasing power? Megaserver scattered these communities. My own guild no longer logs in; I struggle to do so.

How about the digital tourists? The people who love to walk around, explore, take “photos” of their journey across Tyria. Does the data account for their preferred method of enjoying the game? Surely, these people buy gems too. How does the data reflect their concerns, with regard to a first person camera for instance?

I agree with you; if the game is not delivering the experience you came for, you should not support development of a game that has no interest in your stated desires/modes of play.

Data is good. But data is only as strong as its parameters. I find ArenaNet’s parameters to be lacking, and the frequency of my time in game shows a direct correlation. If one of the mystery features to be revealed for the upcoming Feature Pack doesn’t have anything for me, then I will be moving on. Hopefully, that will at least register a blip in their vaunted data.

IvanTheGrey.2941:

Sorry everyone. We’re all royally p’d off, but the fact of the matter is that no one at ANet cares what you think. Devs are never going to come in here. If they do, they’ll say 1 or 2 things and run the risk of getting fired (ex. Robert Hrouda). Nobody at ANet cares about us, and as long as we keep buying gems, there’s no reason for them to care.

It doesn’t matter if you leave, as there’s no sub fee; they won’t even notice that you’re gone.

You simply DO NOT MATTER to ANet or NCSoft, unless you’re buying gems.

Ohh please, you make a lot of assumptions and some of them make no sense.

You said they went with the living story because its actually cheaper then an expansion. What could you possibly base that on? Its not like Arenanet Outsource stuff, Art, Music, Sound, Animation… everything is done in house. Their only expense is Wages. Living story, Expansion or even doing absolutely nothing costs exactly the same thing provided they dont fire people and they done, quite the contrary they’ve been hiring all along.

As for who they care about… you said they dont care about people leaving because there is no subscription? Sure there is no subscription but they still need money and they get money off gem sales and who buys gems? the crickets chirping when no one is left? Nope people so even if all they cared about was cold hard cash and nothing else (which they also proved isnt the case with some of the changes they made to improve the game which at the same time cut into their profits like say the wallet, crafting from the bank and wardrobe.) They still have a vested interest in caring about the people and making sure they stay playing the game if anything more so then if they were subscription based. Think about it, in a subscription based game anyone still playing has to pay you. In a cash shop environment its not just about convincing people to play, its also about making them happy enough to spend money.

The choices are absolutely about money, & analytics are a huge way for them to figure out how to get that profit. But analytics just show where people gravitate in what you have it’s not that great at showing where to go. Do people gravitate towards LS more than SAB, well dur.. of course they do. it’s the only IN GAME content they add that also has rewards. Doesn’t mean we don’t want full expansions with new classes, races weapons & dungeons way more.
Also I thought SAB was made by basically 1 guy. or just a very tiny team. Shouldn’t that make 0 impact on the LS team?

They sold $21 million in gems last quarter. Okay some may have been new accounts but it’s not “crickets”.

Vayne.8563:

IvanTheGrey.2941:

Sorry everyone. We’re all royally p’d off, but the fact of the matter is that no one at ANet cares what you think. Devs are never going to come in here. If they do, they’ll say 1 or 2 things and run the risk of getting fired (ex. Robert Hrouda). Nobody at ANet cares about us, and as long as we keep buying gems, there’s no reason for them to care.

It doesn’t matter if you leave, as there’s no sub fee; they won’t even notice that you’re gone.

You simply DO NOT MATTER to ANet or NCSoft, unless you’re buying gems.

Guess you polled everyone at the company.

Don’t speak for everyone who works anywhere. Because in actuality you’re just making it up.

Your statement has the same factual value as the OP’s.

leman.7682:

Vayne.8563:

IvanTheGrey.2941:

Sorry everyone. We’re all royally p’d off, but the fact of the matter is that no one at ANet cares what you think. Devs are never going to come in here. If they do, they’ll say 1 or 2 things and run the risk of getting fired (ex. Robert Hrouda). Nobody at ANet cares about us, and as long as we keep buying gems, there’s no reason for them to care.

It doesn’t matter if you leave, as there’s no sub fee; they won’t even notice that you’re gone.

You simply DO NOT MATTER to ANet or NCSoft, unless you’re buying gems.

Guess you polled everyone at the company.

Don’t speak for everyone who works anywhere. Because in actuality you’re just making it up.

Your statement has the same factual value as the OP’s.

It does. He’s factually making this up.

No one can say not a single person at Anet cares, without talking to every person at Anet. That is a fact.

Saying that the two guys who answered the interview don’t care…maybe…but even that’s questionable. It’s an assumption.

Blanket statements about what everyone at Anet are doing is just making stuff up.