Guild Wars 2

The feature pack and all of the feedback from it makes me wonder just how much it’s going to hurt ANet in the pocketbook.

How many new players will be dissuaded from trying the game by veteran players because of the new low level game?

How many veteran players will decide not to buy that character expansion for an alt because of the new low level game?

How many transmutation stones will people not buy because they don’t have the alts worth putting skins on?

How long until they undo the changes because the lack of income from new accounts and the lack of income from people buying gems will all be traced back to this one feature pack?

I have a feeling that leveling scrolls might be put in the gem store to compensate for what they did to leveling. I mean the code for the level, 40, 60, and 80 scrolls are in the game. Lets hope that never happens though.

I doubt it, but they’ll lose their reputation, heck even pcmag took a swipe at them for this update.

They will not lose money. The metrics have told them that these changes are highly desired. Working as intended.

I do not know how new players will react to this (although my guess is: “Jezz, this game is freaking boring, how do you play this?”), but I do know that leveling was a big part of my own GW2 experience. The last feature pack made it much less fun, but manageable. This feature pack has knocked the last bit of fun right out of it.

Guess I’ll wait until November to play my 2 hours worth of content. Until then I don’t have anything to do anymore.

If my theory is correct (and many changes over the past few months have supported it), the company is already in a financial struggle. As far as this patch goes, I think in time it will hurt them more than aid them. Less is going into the veteran players of this game and more is going to brand new players that currently don’t exist.

They already lost my support a while back, unfortunately, so I can’t withdraw it at this point. I would, if I was still supporting them.

Bean Muncher.5197:

I do not know how new players will react to this (although my guess is: “Jezz, this game is freaking boring, how do you play this?”), but I do know that leveling was a big part of my own GW2 experience. The last feature pack made it much less fun, but manageable. This feature pack has knocked the last bit of fun right out of it.

Guess I’ll wait until November to play my 2 hours worth of content. Until then I don’t have anything to do anymore.

You gonna miss Halloween!!! Oo!

all the miniscule revenue they got for getting these non-gamer new players that they tailored this patch towards pales to the revenue they will lose from veterans who boycott the store.

I was actually planning to buy some gems, but with the feature pack and the annoncement that LS2 is comming back in November and not like they said a little bit after september I feel less and less interested.

I am sorry, but they need to pull a good one and fast. Somehow they fail a lot recently and they really need to step up their game. They had their head in praises enough, it`s time they come down back to earth.

The trend toward more and more Black lion items and very little actual content has pretty much led me to not spending anymore money on the game until there is. Twi years in, I would have hoped for a larger chunk of new area. Why not just open Maguuma. Even if they did that, there is still a substantial amount of map yet to be opened. If they opened one of those new areas per year, that alone is at least 5 years of content, considering Shiverpeaks, Crystal Desert, Woodland Cascades and Ring of Fire, Sea of Janthir.

Maybe hopefully all of Maguuma will be open by the end of December, but somehow I’m doubting it.

Vayne.8563:

You gonna miss Halloween!!! Oo!

If it`s a cheap and bad reuse like last year with a terrible gated archievment storyline i gladly pass.

The premise was great, the outcome very disapointing. Sorry, but even the Mad King will have it hard to rekindle any emotions at the moment

They will . Not instantly as there be enough players who just want to finish the collection and will trade gems for gold. After a while though it will go down and if this keeps up they will just die out. New players won’t bother to get to max and old players have less and less to hold them ( alt leveling and eq is a big thing to keep old players)

Jedisa.9513:

Maybe hopefully all of Maguuma will be open by the end of December, but somehow I’m doubting it.

I highly doubt that, since Maguuma consists of many more regions than just dry top. Considering the living story continues on November 4th and we explored only 50% of dry top before the mid-season break we’re currently in, I think it’s reasonable to assume that the other 50% of dry top will be opened up step by step in the second half of Season 2. After that? who knows… There’s no indicator that Arenanet suddenly puts their gears into overdrive and releases one map after the next. The pace we’re going right now is a good indicator how fast we’re going to proceed in the future.

I’d be happy to be proven wrong though!:)

Dakota.4591:

The feature pack and all of the feedback from it makes me wonder just how much it’s going to hurt ANet in the pocketbook.

Let me put it this way: I spent more on GW2 than I would have on a WoW subscription. My last purchase was late August. Client is now deinstalled.

No.

If you’re a player who really will stop buying gems because of the changes that were introduced in this patch, then you weren’t going to be buying them much longer anyway. You would have found some other justification for stopping soon after.

There are two ways to bring in more money: you get your current customers to buy more, or you get more customers. In this case the customers who are buying less will be more than made up for by the new customers that can finally get into the game because it’s more accessible. Don’t think like an MMO or even an RPG player. Think like a Game of Thrones fan whose exposure to gaming is mostly on the iPhone

I think it’s fine to lament that a game (or the industry) is moving away from the things that appeal to you, but the reason it’s moving away from those things is because you no longer represent the audience that will generate the most income.

Hybrid.7059:

They will not lose money. The metrics have told them that these changes are highly desired. Working as intended.

I hope they have 3.5 million metrics playing the game and spending money in the gem store then…

lol the metrics told them players want this? How, there is no metric that could say that except for a poll. They did not give any polls in game to the playerbase so its all lies. Please tell me how a metric could tell you that the majority of players would like to have there abilities gated more than they already were with out a poll.

Since there is no subscription and no exit poll for canceling said subscription where did they get this information. They didn’t. They made it up because some guy in a suit that doesn’t play games is in charge of making the decisions. Nothing else makes sense.

bartmoss.5107:

Carcerus.9107:

If you’re a player who really will stop buying gems because of the changes that were introduced in this patch, then you weren’t going to be buying them much longer anyway. You would have found some other justification for stopping soon after.

At least in my case, you are incorrect. Not that I need a “justification” when it comes to my money. But thanks for trolling, it was a cute attempt.

Yeah I had no problem spending money on the game until I saw the direction the game was going. Saying I wouldn’t have spent money anyways is weak. I’m one of those guys that prefers a subscription and realized that many players spend more in the store than what they would have with a subscription. I spent money because I believe in supporting something that I like. I am not a freeloading ftp kiddie. I have extra money that I really want to spend on a good MMO but sadly this is no longer it.

I keep hoping with every patch they will prove me wrong and get me to come back. And every patch I get pushed farther away from that. It was a great game at launch and had huge potential. Its just too bad that whoever is making the decisions is allowed to keep making them.

Here’s an off the cuff take. I’m a filthy casual. That means: For the past year I’ll come back and play for about a month at a time, check out new stuff, then take a month off. Often when I do come back I’ll make gem store purchases of things that look cool or that I want to make the life of a new alt easier or more entertaining. So I spend maybe $100 or so a year. Not a lot, I know that.

That said, I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one. There are a lot of what I assume are called Vets who like to come back sporadically. I for one haven’t got the will to re-install this time. It just doesn’t sound like fun to me. So I’m making this post on the off chance someone will read it.

So, in terms of my revenue? Yes ANet has lost it.

Jaken.6801:

I was actually planning to buy some gems, but with the feature pack and the annoncement that LS2 is comming back in November and not like they said a little bit after september I feel less and less interested.

Would you prefer less features and living story coming back in the middle of Halloween?

Hybrid.7059:

They will not lose money. The metrics have told them that these changes are highly desired. Working as intended.

Too bad reality and metrics are often polar opposites. Every time they improve something they end up kittening off a lot of people doing so by taking away stuff that was actually useful and helpful.

I wonder what metrics told them that making it more of a hassle to level was somehow going to improve the game. I am wondering what metrics told them that removing choices on daily items would somehow “encourage” (read force) people into trying other parts of the game they had no interest in trying before, and if anything, might have even less interest now.

For me this isnt even triggered by the latest Feature Patch but the overall trend of late.

I thought the fact there was no ingame mention of the 2nd annivsary to be very telling. Only BL sales. Even GW1 had a party ingame for the GW2 birthday and there was nothing in GW2. Not a whisper ingame. I didn’t expect a huge event, but I dunno. Something. Anything better than silence.

That’s when I really started to worry….

Carcerus.9107:

No.

If you’re a player who really will stop buying gems because of the changes that were introduced in this patch, then you weren’t going to be buying them much longer anyway. You would have found some other justification for stopping soon after.

There are two ways to bring in more money: you get your current customers to buy more, or you get more customers. In this case the customers who are buying less will be more than made up for by the new customers that can finally get into the game because it’s more accessible. Don’t think like an MMO or even an RPG player. Think like a Game of Thrones fan whose exposure to gaming is mostly on the iPhone

I think it’s fine to lament that a game (or the industry) is moving away from the things that appeal to you, but the reason it’s moving away from those things is because you no longer represent the audience that will generate the most income.

So, making it so that there is more bullkitten to deal with leveling, and will get out by word of mouth(some of the most influential advertising there is, according to some people), encouraging people to NOT buy the game is going to increase their player base how exactly? All the while kittening off your existing player base and by result encouraging them to stop buying gems at the same time? I am at a loss trying to understand how this makes good financial sense.

We know that every decision Anet makes is a money grab – the sad thing is that we also know it won’t work.

Historically, every MMO that goes down this path ends up dying.

In order to make a profitable game, make a great game. Give players a game they want to play, and they will find a way to support it.

Make a game based on the decisions of your corporate accountants, and the game will tank.

Every.
Kitten.
Time.

ipan.4356:

Make a game based on the decisions of your corporate accountants, and the game will tank.

Every.
Kitten.
Time.

Two of my favorite games did a “New Player Experience”
SWG and MXO
Both are still going strong today!
Oh… wait.

jclink.6308:

ipan.4356:

Make a game based on the decisions of your corporate accountants, and the game will tank.

Every.
Kitten.
Time.

Two of my favorite games did a “New Player Experience”
SWG and MXO
Both are still going strong today!
Oh… wait.

I think its funny that such an epic failure like SWGs NGE would be forgotten and actually repeated by any other company after such a short period of time. 20-30 years I can see making the same mistake but not this soon. And just like with SWG by the time they come around and start giving the players what they want it will be to late. If they cut the BS right now and said sorry bad mistake lets roll back it might be salvageable. But we all know the guys making these decisions will never admit they are wrong. Plus they can fudge the metrics with the megaserver and china’s income subsidizing the losses in EU/US servers, so they will spin the metrics to say what they want them to say.

weskay.9217:

If my theory is correct (and many changes over the past few months have supported it), the company is already in a financial struggle……

You are 100% wrong in that theory….financials show GW2 has consistantly made money for NCSoft since release (and continues to do so).

I’m not saying that will not possibly change……

….and that’s when they announce the Expansion Pack….

They have a solid financial plan for years of operation but I have to think this update was either a brilliant plan by the Devs to speed up the Expansion release or a hideous error in judgement.

Lobo Dela Noche.5127:

lol the metrics told them players want this? How, there is no metric that could say that except for a poll.

Sorry, but you are completely wrong.

Anet, like every other modern game dev, collects analytics that can be used to understand player behavior. Self reporting is not very valuable, as your sample will only include respondents who are motivated enough to fill out your questionnaire.

If, let’s say, you see a drop-off of players when players first get to level 20, you can run a query to see if those players ever used certain game features. Did that person ever slot a utility skill? Did that person ever swap weapons? Did that person ever equip a ring? You can use this data to focus in on what players who leave the game aren’t doing and then use that information in usability tests (or AB testing) and discover what is confusing players most.

Narrow in on problem points, iterate, and then you might see an uptick in retention. That’s how modern game development works.

But nevermind, reality isn’t as much fun as forum hysterics. “Players are leaving IN DROVES and ANET DOESN’T EVEN PLAY THE GAME, and I WAS GOING TO SPEND A FEW GRAND BUT I GUESS THERE’S NO REASON TO NOW.” kitten .