Guild Wars 2

So my question is guys and girls, what would You do if You had 1 billion of $ only to invest on GW2.

For me

First of all i would buyout ArenaNet from NCsoft and give them full independence to what they create.

Second i’d try to convince Mike to hire more programmers, so it would be possible to assemble group of 10-15 programmers that works ONLY on fixing bugs, ofc i would rotate those ppl with guys from living story teams etc, so the work won’t be so boring.

Third i would like Mike to create 5th content team, that would consist same amount of ppl as ppl from all 4 living story teams. This team would be responsible for making BIG mini expansions every two months that would add additional stepps into presonal story, new 1-2 dungeons with story and explorable paths, new 1-2 fractals, new pvp map, new additions to the WvWvW, and i would expand dynamic events more, delete some old ones and exchange them with new ones.

Fourth I would ask Mike to assemble pvp balancing group that, but in addition except desingers, pvp content desingers etc., the team would consist each class top player from the ladder to discuss some balance adjustements. They would have dedicated forums. Each set of players would “be” in the team for one month.

Fifth i would add more money into content than marketing, so if ArenaNet worked on new expansion more money would go to content than marketing. More dungeons, more events, more pvp maps and modes, more WvWvW modes and featers…all more more more more

6th ArenaNet should have team dedicated for gem shop, they would work only on stuff that would be added to the is. No rng stuff, just real and actuall set skins, fluffy stuff etc.

Thats now for me, what’s Your ideas community??

nehezbegar.1065:

First of all i would buyout ArenaNet from NCsoft and give them full independence to what they create.

This would be what every developer everywhere needs to do. The suits have smelled money to be made in the games industry, and money makes all the decisions. That needs to change so games can go back to being made by gamers for gamers, not to make a quick profit.

nehezbegar.1065:

First of all i would buyout ArenaNet from NCsoft and give them full independence to what they create.

i have a bad news for you.

Anet claims continually to be really independent on GW2.
So they are the only responsible for any success or failure.

LordByron.8369:

nehezbegar.1065:

First of all i would buyout ArenaNet from NCsoft and give them full independence to what they create.

i have a bad news for you.

Anet claims continually to be really independent on GW2.
So they are the only responsible for any success or failure.

Source?

LordByron.8369:

nehezbegar.1065:

First of all i would buyout ArenaNet from NCsoft and give them full independence to what they create.

i have a bad news for you.

Anet claims continually to be really independent on GW2.
So they are the only responsible for any success or failure.

But NCSoft is the one who gives them any money.

LordByron.8369:

nehezbegar.1065:

First of all i would buyout ArenaNet from NCsoft and give them full independence to what they create.

i have a bad news for you.

Anet claims continually to be really independent on GW2.
So they are the only responsible for any success or failure.

Except for that whole Cantha thing right?

I vote we send nehezbegar 1 billion USD.

Uh, I’d like to ask a question. nehezbegar, are you a programmer?

I re-read your OP, just to be sure, and… it doesn’t sound like you’ve programmed much, if at all, in your life.

I’d buy food.
Decades of gaming have lead me to the conclusion that my gaming will suffer considerably once I’m dead through starvation. The only sensible countermeasure against starvation I have found is eating. Eating requires food. Food makes for a 150% richer and happier gameplay experience.

Esplen.3940:

LordByron.8369:

nehezbegar.1065:

First of all i would buyout ArenaNet from NCsoft and give them full independence to what they create.

i have a bad news for you.

Anet claims continually to be really independent on GW2.
So they are the only responsible for any success or failure.

Source?

There are many threads on it (with official dev answers) i don t keep record of all posts….but there are so many that maybe somoene have a link.

Esplen.3940:

Uh, I’d like to ask a question. nehezbegar, are you a programmer?

I re-read your OP, just to be sure, and… it doesn’t sound like you’ve programmed much, if at all, in your life.

Elaborate please, i don’t know how to respond to that. If You have team that is big enough and consist good amount of good programmers (if You have 1 billion $ You definetly can afford that) then it is possible to achieve many things, but i don’t know how i should answer to Your problem. What i asked is a hipotethical question, what would You do if You had 1 billion of $, not what would You do if You had 1 billion of $ and was a programmer

Wait, how much goes to NC Soft and how much goes to Anet? I’ll spend my money on a bouncy castle instead if it’s going to NC Soft and not Anet. A certain lady probably opened a new bank account when she read the OP’s title

Paul.4081:

Wait, how much goes to NC Soft and how much goes to Anet? I’ll spend my money on a bouncy castle instead if it’s going to NC Soft and not Anet. A certain lady probably opened a new bank account when she read the OP’s title

So much love for NC Soft lol… i dont like them too… lamely Anet depends of them…

nehezbegar.1065:

Esplen.3940:

Uh, I’d like to ask a question. nehezbegar, are you a programmer?

I re-read your OP, just to be sure, and… it doesn’t sound like you’ve programmed much, if at all, in your life.

Elaborate please, i don’t know how to respond to that. If You have team that is big enough and consist good amount of good programmers (if You have 1 billion $ You definetly can afford that) then it is possible to achieve many things, but i don’t know how i should answer to Your problem. What i asked is a hipotethical question, what would You do if You had 1 billion of $, not what would You do if You had 1 billion of $ and was a programmer

Yeah, you’re not a programmer. The reason why I asked that is because you don’t just “have a team of people fixing bugs”. People aren’t just going to scour through every line of code trying to find things that can be improved (if anything that would be the optimization team’s job, not the bug-fixers job). That, and it’s best to know what’s not working before you try fixing something.

Ever heard of the saying: Don’t fix something that ain’t broke? That applies directly to bug-fixing. You can spend years trying to bug-fix a game that has a few bugs, and never make a scratch on the real bugs until you figure out what the actual bugs are.

I’d buyout ArenaNet and Guild Wars 2.

I would move the sPvP team to WvW and scrap sPvP altogether. Nobody will ever be able to make an MMO into a successful e-sport, it’s just not going to happen. MOBAs are just better for that style of gamer.

I would tell the WvW team to focus on creating a map that favored small units over large zergs.

I would remove arrow carts from WvW.

I would not touch the PvE or specials events teams, I think they do an excellent job.

Well, that’s a start....

I’d make them implement UW, FoW, DoA and Mirror-Arah (basically the same as Arah now but always fighting 5 bosses at once instead of one) into the game. Then balance professions. And spend the rest on buying everyone in LA pink plush backpieces.

That’s why there is QA team? To test kitten, prepare testing scenarios etc.,to find core bugs. Then they create reports to the development team so dev team can catch those bugs and fix them if needed. They don’t have to scan the whole code, if they have good report on whats wrong, they consult it with the design team on how this and that should work and then they fix it. Also there are players who find bugs and send the feedback.

Maybe i should wrote that i would increase the amount of ppl in the QA, before i wrote stuff about bug fixing team.

And You are wrong…last month i was working on a project, i prefer my iterative process of fixing bugs, it takes a little longer, but have the best effects. I write a part of the programm and then i test it. I create some amount of test variables and pass them through the programm. When i finish writting the code at the end i create testing scenarios to catch bugs and features that don’t work as i designed them to work, then i try to fix them, test them again and release. Maybe not the best method but i’ve never said im a professional programmer and yes i’ve never worked in the game development company. Question is did You?

Also please back on topic i want to know Your ideas not the opinoin if ArenaNet is independent or if i am kitten programmer, because i don’t care about internet opinoins

• Buyout ArenaNet, fire Christine Cox.
• Implement a daily quest system from renown hearts.
• Refocus combat, revamp dungeons/bosses.
• Give Josh Foreman & Colin Johanson a raise.
• Revamp of loot tables.
• Make trinkets visible as well as your secondary weapons.
• Implement underflow maps.
• Fix various race issues, remodel humans so they actually look serious rather than a silly cartoonish look. Remodel Norn, touch up on charr; make an option where you can run normally like the npcs.

• Revamp the storyline. The Asura discovered something that was supposed to remain secret and are now mysteriously dying out, Metrica Province has failed to maintain it’s structure and has collapsed into ruin, this race is now endangered and is facing extinction.
  - With the aide of a powerful but yet ancient necromancer the humans were able to break free from the curse of Foefire and reclaim Ascalon with the full help of Divinity’s Reach forcing the charr back to the Blood Legion Homelands as well as the Crystal Desert and have accepted back the Flame Legion but now are facing a civil war. The Black Citadel has been salvaged for metal and is no more. Rin is in the process of being restored.
  - The Pale Tree has been destroyed by Isgarren’s servants forcing the Sylvari to join forces with the Nightmare Court.

HoelBrak remains unscathed.

• Factions! World PvP is now available(with pvp servers of course), Humans/Sylvari Vs. Norn/Charr, the Asura are a neutral faction choosing whomever they wish. Also With the additional option of allowing players to join the neutral faction: The Lionguard.

• RvRvR is now combined, a super server now allows everyone to fight in one map together.

• Trahearne shows his true colours as the infamous Lich and has taken control, he has killed off the last known protectors of Tyria(excluding Primordus who was killed by the Lord of Isgarren’s Castle), all but two guardians remain(Though one is severely wounded and is on the brink of death). It is up to the players to defeat the pact and put down the corrupted Destiny’s Edge, the once heroic champions of Tyria, now undead wights. Caithe died before these events could took place.

Edit* I would also add Dynamic weathering.

nehezbegar.1065:

Also please back on topic i want to know Your ideas not the opinoin if ArenaNet is independent or if i am kitten programmer, because i don’t care about internet opinoins

It’s not that your opinion is invalid because you don’t program. It’s that there are too many flaws in your opinion because you don’t understand the technical aspects. A QA team isn’t a magical team that finds every bug. The best QA team is a live audience because there are so many people that they WILL find the bugs.

A bug-fixing team is also not a magical team that will, given enough time, fix all the bugs. They have to look through lines of code to see why something isn’t working right, even though it seems to work sorta correctly (or maybe even entirely correctly). They can apply band-aids or figure out a true fix, but the band-aids are a lot easier. (See: Mesmer Shatter Global Cooldowns)

Esplen.3940:

nehezbegar.1065:

Also please back on topic i want to know Your ideas not the opinoin if ArenaNet is independent or if i am kitten programmer, because i don’t care about internet opinoins

It’s not that your opinion is invalid because you don’t program. It’s that there are too many flaws in your opinion because you don’t understand the technical aspects. A QA team isn’t a magical team that finds every bug. The best QA team is a live audience because there are so many people that they WILL find the bugs.

A bug-fixing team is also not a magical team that will, given enough time, fix all the bugs. They have to look through lines of code to see why something isn’t working right, even though it seems to work sorta correctly (or maybe even entirely correctly). They can apply band-aids or figure out a true fix, but the band-aids are a lot easier. (See: Mesmer Shatter Global Cooldowns)

When client send me the bug fixing request i ask him when the bug occured, what was he doing when the bug occuread, overall i gather as much data as possible (also i have stuff in my programm that create the error reports if sth crash or whatever to help me dealing with that) and then i try to recreate this scenario so i can “get” this bug, and then if it occurs i try to fix it. Thats how i work.

Also, did i say they will fix everything immediately? Did i elaborate about how the fixing process would go? If i want to go deeper into technical aspects and expand what i had in my mind by writting “create a dedicated bug fix team” i would need the whole new topic, this one is about sth different. Anyways having a dedicated team would probably speed the process up…srsly You don’t read everything i wrote. I clearly said that except QA team there are players who find bugs and send feedback, didn’t i?

I stop this discussion right here, because the topic isn’t about that. Please stay on the topic and if You want to discuss programming and stuff please PM me.

I would give the money to A-net’s “financial team” to distrubute the money well around their workers and congratulate them on a fine job and tell them to keep up the good work, I know they are working hard already.

You’ve contradicted yourself. You can’t give them complete independence to do what they what and dictate to them what they should be making, how they should be making it and how many people should be working on it.

Also I don’t know about you but I’ve never known a company with more than about 5 employees where the owner(s) have that much control.

Like the place I’m working now, it’s a small company, only about 35 employees, but the board does not have anything like that level of control. They set budgets and targets for each department (which usually means approving other peoples recommendations) and they need to approve big decisions – like a whole new project that requires a new team being set up – but most of the detailed decisions like how much time is devoted to each project within a department are made by the individual managers. All the board knows is “we met these targets and it cost this much and took this long”.

i bet the whole Arenanet-Team is sitting in front of their PC’s looking at this thread for their name, lol

I would put Square Enix in the place of NCsoft .

rogerwilko.6895:

I would put Square Enix in the place of NCsoft .

Yeah I heard that Final Fantasy XI was the best MMO ever.
Oh, wait…

nehezbegar.1065:

When client send me the bug fixing request i ask him when the bug occured, what was he doing when the bug occuread, overall i gather as much data as possible (also i have stuff in my programm that create the error reports if sth crash or whatever to help me dealing with that) and then i try to recreate this scenario so i can “get” this bug, and then if it occurs i try to fix it. Thats how i work.

And that is why you are not a programmer.
Knowing when a bug occurs don’t really fix the bug.
You still need to find the issue in the code, make sure the fix you apply don’t break anything else and so on.

And just hiring new programmers won’t really solve this either, since they would need to spend MONTHS actually learning the code and how the team works before even starting to change stuff themselves.

Danikat.8537:

You’ve contradicted yourself. You can’t give them complete independence to do what they what and dictate to them what they should be making, how they should be making it and how many people should be working on it.

Also I don’t know about you but I’ve never known a company with more than about 5 employees where the owner(s) have that much control.

Like the place I’m working now, it’s a small company, only about 35 employees, but the board does not have anything like that level of control. They set budgets and targets for each department (which usually means approving other peoples recommendations) and they need to approve big decisions – like a whole new project that requires a new team being set up – but most of the detailed decisions like how much time is devoted to each project within a department are made by the individual managers. All the board knows is “we met these targets and it cost this much and took this long”.

I didn’t

First of all i would buyout ArenaNet from NCsoft and give them full independence to what they create.

I’ve said i wouldn’t interfere into lore, designs and that kind of stuff decisions. If i was a publisher i wouldn’t hold ArenaNet when they wanted to add Cantha district in DR and probably many more decision were held back by NCsoft during the development process, but obviously noone will admit that.

Investors are brutal and they are focused only on incomes. That’s why GW2 has little to nothing similar with GW1 (except lore), because old scheme, that GW1 used to have would not cater nowdays mass game customers

I think ill go back to my old system…avoiding forums, everyone has problem with everything, that supposed to be a fun thread to just throw some ideas and it turned into bla bla bla thread when everyone has problem with everything, and don’t even try to read whole post or don’t even try to understand it.

Everyone just take this kitten too seriously…WHY? BECAUSE i will never have 1 billion $ to spend on GW2, i wanted this thread to be some like “You’ve become a game designer in ArenaNet”, but OFC some ppl have to take pixels to seriously and turn the thread into spam.

I broke my rule and i regret it, let this topic die, i’m returning to what i’ve been doing so far.

If I were to give 1billion dollars to Anet, I expect 1.2 Billion in return. That’s the way the world works and it’s not really a bad thing. Invest money into a game to make more money in order to have more money to invest into into more and better games which is good for all gamers.

Its always funny when people come up with ideas on how to do a job they’ve never done. Sounds like every boss i’ve had.

$1 billion is way too much money. I would never invest that in an existing game and/or company since that’s sufficiently more than enough to start my own gaming empire. :P

Regardless, my wish list would go something like this:

1. Hire real clothing/costume designers to put some actually attractive gear into the game.
2. Completely overhaul Orr with a likely ongoing story arc of it being progressively “healed”.
3. Flesh out Southsun Cove so there’s actually stuff to do there that isn’t overly punishing to soloists and smaller groups.
4. Focus on adding new character creation options on a semi-frequent basis. (Also, I would get rid of makeover kits and have in-game salons. It really irritates me that due to the gold→gems exchange changing your look continually goes up in price whenever something shiny is added to the store. It should remain a fixed price.)
5. Transmutation system would be completely overhauled. I’d likely just add an appearance tab so you’re not constantly having to destroy gear to change your look.
6. Dyes would be made account bound.
7. I’d create a PvE skins locker like what exists for PvP.
8. Expand on the personal story as frequently as possible.
9. Tone down DR a lot and possibly make it account wide (would have to see how well that worked).
10. Add a metric ton of minigames (because I love minigames and most MMOs are woefully lacking in them).

Just for starters. :P

Advertise: For example, a 45-second Super Bowl ad with Van Damme and the woman who played Miho in “Sin City.”

Release a free expansion, doubling the amount of zones and tripling the amount of dungeons. This will come with a dungeon finder feature.

Remove portals between zones, they’ll now be seamless.

Set up an awesome Guild Wars 2 Con, entrance is free to the public.

We need a Guild Wars 2 NASCAR and Rally Car team.

Buff support roles in dungeons. Some people really like support and even the most “supporty” build in this game still provides relatively weak support for allies.

Add more RP gear to the store. Add more things to the store in general – I always thought it was a bit lacking.

nehezbegar.1065:

If they were independent we would see Cantha district in DR.

Not really. If Anet would want to release in China (which they would probably still do), they still couldn’t, because China probably sees a China quarter as insulting.

Dangerkips.6035:

This would be what every developer everywhere needs to do. The suits have smelled money to be made in the games industry, and money makes all the decisions. That needs to change so games can go back to being made by gamers for gamers, not to make a quick profit.

Then they would have less money and be able to hire less people to work on GW2.

Make them develop Super Adventure Box standalone game.

Kk I need to stop mentioning SAB

Buy Arena Net and resell it to EA.

Nick.6972:

Buy Arena Net and resell it to EA.

you are so evil!

With a billion dollars? I’d have the team go and make ten different AAA games, aimed at ten different play styles (a raiding progression game, an arena PvP focused game, a pure WvW game etc.) That way everyone can go and play the game that bests suits them instead of insisting that a game that has to cater to a diverse audience is dedicated solely to their own personal likes and dislikes.

Nick.6972:

Buy Arena Net and resell it to EA.

I hope my deluxe account upgrades to a premium account so I can get all the living story releases for free.

If I had 1 billion dollars to invest in GW2…. hmmm.

Obviously I wouldn’t just throw it all into making the game what I would want. I’d need something that would return me a great deal of money so that billion dollars wouldn’t just be something that I once had but used entirely on a game that I played for X number of years.

—
So unfortunately for me, I’d have to keep at least the current amount of focus on PvP.
(I prefer PvE)

—
All the cool RPish stuff like bios, first person view whilst not in combat and multiple /sit emotes… even if that’s not going to return any extra money, I think with 1 billion USD I have enough elbow room to add them.

—
I would enforce 1 of 2 plans for instanced PvE:
1. Anti-warriorize instances by redoing the bosses new AC style. Also I would greatly reduce overall enemy vitality (especially bosses) and greatly increase their toughness. Not to the point of nerfing power/crit builds (though they’d see smaller numbers on their screens) but to the point of equalizing condition builds (toughness ignoring) with them.

2. Generate PvE-only (no WvW) skills and mechanics for each class that makes them both more unique and more effective in instances. Similar to Mesmer portals and Thief group-stealth.

—
On non instanced PvE I would work toward more exclusive rewards and goals. Hardmode challenges for example.

—
I would push for an expansion, I think that a lot of people are already going to be willing to pay for that, and what better way would there be to get your “on a break” friends and guildies back in the game to try out all these new features?

—
Again, just having elbow room with 1 billion dollars here… I would ask for an AA option that isn’t FXAA.

—
I would use my ArenaNet status to open up a business to business (dev to dev) communication with Valve and inform them that Steam STILL has a chance to delete non-steam games off it’s list requiring several players to re-add GW2 to it every few days.

1) Expansions
2) Marketing
3) Comic book / animated tie in with fully realized universe
4) Merchandize
5) Hire devs from single person ARPGs to brush up on dungeon mechanics
6) Kill all dreams of turning GW2 into an esport
7) Make GW2 a more region neutral audience friendly game

Oh before I forget:
0) A LFG system with customizable requirements for different paths. Bonus end dungeon rewards for parties with members with < x achievement points and not of the same guild.

1.) Remove all the fractal/ascended nonsense and boot out the WoW audience stuff.
2.) Work on the things that made me fall in love with the game during the beta, like the quirky end of beta phase events.
3.) Add more massive open world invasions and bosses.
4.) Cash shop would be cosmetic items only, mostly account bound.
5.) Encourage more staff + player interactivity, “GM events.”
6.) More options for your “home” phase, shopkeeper upgrades, etc.

nehezbegar.1065:

Billion Dollars

that would get you a 10% stake by today’s metrics if you were lucky…

Also, Here’s last year’s networth/profit figures plus lulz for the Fire

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2012-09-27-nexon-and-ncsoft-reported-in-talks-to-buy-valve

apparently ruining this one ain’t enough, they wanna ruin all your favorite indy games too. Thank God the PirateKing Delayer of HL3 and demolisher of 20lbs hamburgers was too beligerant about holding onto his own company to ever accept!
IoW:(they probably didn’t offer him enough hats)

I wouldn’t bother with these guys. I would buy the rights to develop “Rifts” from Kevin Siembieda and make a real MMORPG.

invest in player generated content. Players who can create = free labor when they have the right tools. More workers = more content for potentially no cost. Moderate rewards at the end of said content, build more dungeons and PvE.

ColinJohanson.2394:

I’d force the dev team to implement the sandwichmancer profession, and then spend the rest of the money making it really imbalanced so I can win the $$$ back in PvP tournaments.

Too bad there’s no tournaments with money prizes!!! Shame on you Colin! Or is that a sort of announcement?

Stop lurking the forums and enjoy the holiday Colin!

Play to win!

(15)

ColinJohanson.2394:

I’d force the dev team to implement the sandwichmancer profession, and then spend the rest of the money making it really imbalanced so I can win the $$$ back in PvP tournaments.

Haha pro holiday lurk GD , Seriously ill give you 1 billion dolla if you give me gvg ? deal

Ditch spvp/tpvp.
Keep wvwvw. Add in some more maps. One with a big open zone for mass battles, another that works great for small groups.
Buff the QA team (as in, have some full-timers working on it, instead of the intern’s girlfriend).
Do some more class balances and fix all the non-working traits that exist in a 10-month old game (seriously, this is just ridiculous).
Add in skritt and kodan as player races.
Add in some new weapons (melee spears on land, for one.)
More skins in the gem store.
Remove RNG for skins, etc., from the game. Chests would still provide some things, but everything would also be on the gem store.
Make on pick, one sickle, and one axe. They would work on all forms of nodes. You would still have to replenish them, though.
Add in Cantha and Elona. Maybe as the next big expansion.
Never, ever increase level cap or add any new “levels” of gear.

Force ANet to build the game a new DX11 engine, one capable of handling massive amounts of people on screen at once, so I can run large PvE world bosses and WvW at a decent framerate.

Basically, they’d just purchase steal the Camelot Unchained engine.