Guild Wars 2

Let me throw it down real simple and fast like. As much as the game is awesome and fun, from outsider’s point of view, things look like kitten.

It has been 6 months since HoT launch and what does the player on a break/potential HoT buyer hear about it and what’s going on:

1. HoT Price to content ratio is deemed bad by many.
2. Strongest redeeming feature – LS and free additional content that goes with it to fill that hole has yet to be heard of, let alone seen. And it’s already half a year after launch.
3. Numerous loud complaints on all fronts – grindy and short PvE, neglected spvp (one new map and infrequent balance patches (take a look how frequently LoL does it’s balancing), and botched WvW map.
4. Fixes that address the #3 at the same time indicate that we’ve got even longer wait for actual new content ahead of us, since up till now they were working out the kinks on the already existing stuff.
5. Game went F2P. Yes, awesomely made if we’re talking GW2, but for someone who’s not into gw2 specifics, but knows the basic rules of the market, that’s a death flag.
6. HoT sales figures remain a mystery. A-net aren’t the ones to be modest about their userbase numbers and sales figures when things go peachy.

Bottom line – i’m not saying game is bad or dying, but what i am saying is that IT’S GIVING OFF A LOT OF DEATHFLAGS from outsider’s point of view, with no one from a-net core crew stepping up to straigten this out.

If you want an influx of returning players who are on a break, or new players who are already now tempted by new releases (we got booming mmorpg year here) MAKE SOME GODkitten NOISE! Let the world know gw2 is alive, kicking and here to stay with new stuff to come soon!

I think the real trouble will come if they’ll try selling their next expansion for 50 bucks while giving away HoT for free again.

Well the next xpac is gonna have a bumpy road seeing the moods regarding HoT. On one hand it’ll feel bit more fair, as this time around the base version (HoT included) will have elite specs to access and use, unlike this time when it’s HoT or go home with your crappy base specs.

On the other it’s gonna be even more brutal comparison of base game + hot content size vs new xpac content volume. If it’s anything HoT sized with nothing added after that (which is what we got now), goooood luck trying to sell it for 50$.

I honestly hope the for a-net’s sake the next xpac will be the underwater dragon one, cause they’ll have a lot of flames to put out if HoT doesn’t see some major content drops before things move on to next expansion.

What do you mean by you being an outsider? Do you not play this game?

I do not. I had played quite a lot but had little accident with my hdd 2 months ago and now am on Linux on new ssd. That story aside, reading the website, googling for articles about GW2 current state and upcoming things (not many, noooot many) and reading recent metacritic user reviews for HoT throws warning signals all over the place.

Almost from every direction you get two impressions:
1. xpac is not worth it’s asking price and messed up a good game.
2. game feels abandoned by it’s devs while everyone pretends there’s no elephant in the room.

Now i don’t know how much of above is true, but i know it’s true that this the impression you get after hitting the internet and doing some snooping on how the game is doing.

So i don’t know about their weekly shows for their players, but it’s about time someone from A-net stepped up to the outside gaming media and let them know that GW2 is alive and what’s in store to keep it that way, because the rule of thumb is if they don’t talk about you, that’s prolly cause you’re dead or dying.

The recent patch update (19th April) made a ton of changes that has pushed the game in the right direction.

Alas, all MMO’s are reported on in this way, especially when the new ‘behemoth’ is coming out (WildStar, Elder Scrolls Online, ArcheAge, Black Desert, Blade & Soul), all of which have failed to ‘kill’ GW2 as many people like rave on about coming up to a MMO.

Comparing LoL and gw2 makes no sense. They both could be considered e-sports, but LoL challenger has one map…. I’m fairly certain working on a single map is easier then working on more then one. Gw2 is pvp, wvw, and heavy pve so if you choose not to go into a particular content that’s a player side decision. Short changing yourself then ignoring the massive amount of things that came with HoT is ridiculous.

ZeftheWicked.3076:

I do not. I had played quite a lot but had little accident with my hdd 2 months ago and now am on Linux on new ssd. That story aside, reading the website, googling for articles about GW2 current state and upcoming things (not many, noooot many) and reading recent metacritic user reviews for HoT throws warning signals all over the place.

Almost from every direction you get two impressions:
1. xpac is not worth it’s asking price and messed up a good game.
2. game feels abandoned by it’s devs while everyone pretends there’s no elephant in the room.

Now i don’t know how much of above is true, but i know it’s true that this the impression you get after hitting the internet and doing some snooping on how the game is doing.

So i don’t know about their weekly shows for their players, but it’s about time someone from A-net stepped up to the outside gaming media and let them know that GW2 is alive and what’s in store to keep it that way, because the rule of thumb is if they don’t talk about you, that’s prolly cause you’re dead or dying.

Erm.. You believe EVERYTHING you read on a gaming forum?
Play some, you will be pleasantly surprised (I hope)
GW2 remains MY favorite past time, and I will NEVER make a ‘chore’ of playing a game I won’t enjoy (My opinion of course)

That’s logical and all…but it wasn’t me who sung about gw2 spvp being an e-sport. It was A-net. And if you sing it you better bring it. Especially seeing how both WvW and PvE got beefy new maps with HoT, while spvp got shafted with nothing but stronghold..

You can’t have a balanced competitive title if you make changes once every 3 months. Once every 2 weeks (+ hotfixes for totally game breaking changes) is a good start for having a balanced pvp. Hell once in a month would still be acceptable. but once every 3 months? That’s just … not gonna work, period.

And maps? When was the last time before this patch A-net did anything regarding spvp maps (save adding stronghold for which we payed in xpac)? Anyone?

@trub – problem here is we’re taking about ppl on gw2 break/not believing HoT is worth it/who left. They are by default not happy with the game, and need a strong signal it’s changing for the better to go back in. A long period of silence from devs with zero new permanent content (as in new heart of maguuma maps, stat sets on gear) is the opposite of that. And many sources suggest game is fixing itself at pace of 5 milimeters a year, while new content is nowhere in sight.

Remember HoT got bigger sales then it would due to one thing – Living Story. Even if it felt short and unworthy of it’s price, some ppl went through with it, on the basis that Living Story will soon come and pad that missing content to the size of proper expansion. If they fail to deliver on that, the next xpac will be welcomed with pitchforks and torches and extreme prejudice.

And every day they stay quiet and nothing is known about adding new content to the game is a day that already hair thin trust from these ppl gets even thinner…

AMA summary they did back in March:
http://dulfy.net/2016/03/05/gw2-reddit-developer-ama-summary/

AMA summary they did last week:
http://dulfy.net/2016/04/19/gw2-spring-quarterly-update-reddit-ama/#Summary

They’ve answered plenty of questions, if you search. Living Story S3 is due to be released around the time of the July quarterly update.

Really? Dying? If it was really dying then they would not be working on LS3. If it was really dying then they would not be working on big updates like the one on the 19th. If it was really dying they would not be working on another expansion.

Don’t believe everything you read ………

Baamoink.4281:

The recent patch update (19th April) made a ton of changes that has pushed the game in the right direction.

Alas, all MMO’s are reported on in this way, especially when the new ‘behemoth’ is coming out (WildStar, Elder Scrolls Online, ArcheAge, Black Desert, Blade & Soul), all of which have failed to ‘kill’ GW2 as many people like rave on about coming up to a MMO.

The closest thing that came to killing GW2 was probably HoT. The patch has fixed most of the problems though.

Shinzan.2908:

I think the real trouble will come if they’ll try selling their next expansion for 50 bucks while giving away HoT for free again.

They already stated ahead of time, before HoT even launched, that that’s exactly what they’re going to do. All future expansions will include the base game and previous expansions for a single price.

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/pre-purchase-community-address/

Business Model Clarification
We want to be clear about our business model for future expansions now that we are approaching our first paid expansion for Guild Wars 2. We believe that to keep the game dynamic and vibrant with a constantly growing community, it should be as easy as possible for new players to get into Guild Wars 2. For Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns, we didn’t want the core game’s price to be a factor in a new player’s decision to begin playing Guild Wars 2. In the future, if we release further Guild Wars 2 expansions, we plan to offer all of the prior expansions, the core game, and the latest expansion for one single purchase price.

Personally, I think I got my money’s worth. And I’d be happy to purchase the next expansion that they already announced they’re working on.

You can’t expect them to just give it away for free simply because you already have an existing account. They need to make money to keep the game going.

Oh and, people who claim there wasn’t enough content with HoT are really saying there wasn’t any content they want to do. The content is there. You payed for it. If you don’t like it and/or want to do it, that’s your problem. There was beta testing and plenty of announcements for all the stuff included with HoT. You knew what you were paying for. If you didn’t know, you should have researched it before buying the expansion.

I’m also getting sick and tired of the claims that “the game is dying”, “everybody is leaving in droves”, “everybody hates this or that”. It’s not true one bit. There are still plenty of players in the game. I see lots of people everywhere I go.

Shinzan.2908:

I think the real trouble will come if they’ll try selling their next expansion for 50 bucks while giving away HoT for free again.

GW2 is not the only MMO that is now bundling the core + expansions into the new one that comes out for one price. $50 is also the going price for just about every expansion out there. You may find a few at the $40 range, most at $50 and some even at the $60 range.

And? Plenty of other MMOs probably have such “death flag” signs to them too…yet they continue on for the time being.

One thing about journalist, they print the bad stuff because that’s what news is. An article saying that everyone is happily playing doesn’t get the readership of an article that points out flaws and problems. It’s like reading a newspaper. Wars, murders and burglaries on the front page because reading how the rest of the citizens in the town or city or country are quietly going about their business isn’t newsworthy. You need to take all of the gloom and doom writing with a grain of salt since somewhere there’s a writer getting a salary for writing it.

I think it’s silly to think GW2 is doing badly now, but as said above I do think their next expansion will be a hard sell given how HoT went. If nothing else a lot of people probably won’t prepurchase and wait for actual word of mouth – and considering they went on record saying they consider HoT a finished product that could go badly.

Shinzan.2908:

I think it’s silly to think GW2 is doing badly now, but as said above I do think their next expansion will be a hard sell given how HoT went. If nothing else a lot of people probably won’t prepurchase and wait for actual word of mouth – and considering they went on record saying they consider HoT a finished product that could go badly.

Unless the expansion is cheaper and comes with a feature many people want, and the preorder bonus is good.

People didn’t buy HoT, at least many people, because it didn’t look like a good deal. I’d be sorta suprised if Anet made that same mistake again.

preorder bonus? Preorder? Bonus. <Calculating odds, please wait.>
… <Calculation complete.> PfhahAHahahAHAHAha! N1, mate!
It’s like a “Bone Us” for those who not just buy, but do it AHEAD of release of the """content""" that’s “surely” gonna be in it. OMG these forums are times more fun than the game itself right now. xD

LoL NooBs.5076:

preorder bonus? Preorder? Bonus. <Calculating odds, please wait.>
… <Calculation complete.> PfhahAHahahAHAHAha! N1, mate!
It’s like a “Bone Us” for those who not just buy, but do it AHEAD of release of the """content""" that’s “surely” gonna be in it. OMG these forums are times more fun than the game itself right now. xD

Right because no one ever prorders a game to get a preorder bonus. Oh wait…

Well another HoT won’t sell for sure. It could slide once with “making foundation for xpacs” but now they have it and the work better go into content amount this time around. And some more weapons that aren’t just recolors of eachother (machined ones for example).

Not to mention they got quite a few unhappy player groups with HoT such as dungeon runners, legendary hunters, WvW folks and spvp’ers.

ZeftheWicked.3076:

Well another HoT won’t sell for sure. It could slide once with “making foundation for xpacs” but now they have it and the work better go into content amount this time around. And some more weapons that aren’t just recolors of eachother (machined ones for example).

Not to mention they got quite a few unhappy player groups with HoT such as dungeon runners, legendary hunters, WvW folks and spvp’ers.

And here I thought the last update got several of these groups happier.

Vayne.8563:

Right because no one ever prorders a game to get a preorder bonus. Oh wait…

Dear Vayne, <3
We are the NooBs who say LoL. The LoL NooBs. You don’t know us, but we have been watching you. Of all the self-proclaimed “white knights” among the forum goons, you are the one who isn’t outright hostile. The one who can keep his cool in your every response. And we respect that. We regret that we were not granted the honor of being greeted by you in our very first post on these forums.

Because you are different. We have seen your noble battles against the unenlightened in other forum threads. You appear to be fair and just. You have style. Even when you say “lol” in other threads, we quietly lol (as if there is any other kind) together with you.

Regrettably, there are not many of us left with money who suffer from the hopeless delusion that when ANet promises, ANet delivers. Regardless of how many words were written. There are not many of us left whom ANet didn’t rob of the ability and will to preorder. There are not many of us left who can be tempted by any form of “Bone Us” (especially one that ANet speaks of). For, although we are NooBs and we never learn, we know too well that possessing an OP “Bone Us” doesn’t make us better players. We are NooBs. We are not proud of that. But it is who we are.

So when you say “Oh wait…”, we will wait for you, Vayne. This once. We will wait because you said to. And we will be silent. For now.

But you must understand: the NooBs’ patience with ANet runs thin with every passing hour. Therefore, in the meantime, the NooBs will have the audacity to ask that you, Vayne — the most noble and honorable of the “white knights” — consider where your own allegiances lie. <3

Charrbeque.8729:

Oh and, people who claim there wasn’t enough content with HoT are really saying there wasn’t any content they want to do. The content is there. You payed for it. If you don’t like it and/or want to do it, that’s your problem. There was beta testing and plenty of announcements for all the stuff included with HoT. You knew what you were paying for. If you didn’t know, you should have researched it before buying the expansion.

I’m also getting sick and tired of the claims that “the game is dying”, “everybody is leaving in droves”, “everybody hates this or that”. It’s not true one bit. There are still plenty of players in the game. I see lots of people everywhere I go.

Compared to other MMOs expansions, HoT has scarce content – there really is no arguing with this. Heck, one of Elder Scrolls Online’s DLCs has twice the number of hours of story compared to HoT. And that’s only one lousy DLC – not an expansion, and they push 4 of them per year.

I get that there were a lot of features implemented, but unfortunately they don’t count as content, however nice they may be. The constant reworks have taken manpower from developing new content, plus the abandonment of planned content(fractal leaderboards and legendary weapons).

I enjoy every aspect of this game, but there are players who aren’t skilled enough or don’t have the time for raids(which were advertised from the beginning as challenging, for organised/skilled players only, so naturally the game should cater to the rest of the playerbase as well, since it excludes them outright). Well, for them there is little else to do. Unfortunately, your average PvEr is stuck with 4 maps.

And I completely agree with OP. The game is far from dying, but HoT has really stained the image of the game. Honestly, if not for raids, the game would probably be in decline. Gw2 has the stigma of being faceroll and too casual friendly(a reason why a lot of people don’t touch it) – I think the raids helped bringing back and retaining a considerable amount of players who want a challenge.

Charrbeque.8729:

Oh and, people who claim there wasn’t enough content with HoT are really saying there wasn’t any content they want to do. The content is there. You payed for it. If you don’t like it and/or want to do it, that’s your problem. You knew what you were paying for. If you didn’t know, you should have researched it before buying the expansion.

I’m also getting sick and tired of the claims that “the game is dying”, “everybody is leaving in droves”, “everybody hates this or that”. It’s not true one bit. There are still plenty of players in the game. I see lots of people everywhere I go.

- Why would someone research bicycles when A-Net is advertising cars ????
A-Net promised tons of contend and lots of entertainment.
They delivered their same old washed up regular story of "dragon comes, group who can fight it doesn’t want to work together, you make them work together,
defeat the dragon.
People are absolutely sick and tired of that, even without research

- Game is not dying… and tons of people are everywhere …. really ?
And how do you explain that when you need an event which is bugged,
it is bugged for weeks because because they are never enough people to open another map ?
When i am walking around i see maybe 3-4 other people doesn’t matter what map.
There is even stuff happen like asking me to change maps 5x in 20 seconds because the next map is also empty

All this has nothing to do with missing research, it just means GW2 is far away from bein entertainment for a huge part of the crowd… period

Kirschsahne.2081:

Charrbeque.8729:

Oh and, people who claim there wasn’t enough content with HoT are really saying there wasn’t any content they want to do. The content is there. You payed for it. If you don’t like it and/or want to do it, that’s your problem. You knew what you were paying for. If you didn’t know, you should have researched it before buying the expansion.

I’m also getting sick and tired of the claims that “the game is dying”, “everybody is leaving in droves”, “everybody hates this or that”. It’s not true one bit. There are still plenty of players in the game. I see lots of people everywhere I go.

- Why would someone research bicycles when A-Net is advertising cars ????
A-Net promised tons of contend and lots of entertainment.
They delivered their same old washed up regular story of "dragon comes, group who can fight it doesn’t want to work together, you make them work together,
defeat the dragon.
People are absolutely sick and tired of that, even without research

- Game is not dying… and tons of people are everywhere …. really ?
And how do you explain that when you need an event which is bugged,
it is bugged for weeks because because they are never enough people to open another map ?
When i am walking around i see maybe 3-4 other people doesn’t matter what map.
There is even stuff happen like asking me to change maps 5x in 20 seconds because the next map is also empty

All this has nothing to do with missing research, it just means GW2 is far away from bein entertainment for a huge part of the crowd… period

Would you be so kind as to link the source of ArenaNet ‘promising tons of content’ in Heart of Thorns? Because I’ve only ever read/seen them say the expansion would be light on content, and heavy on foundations (such as the Mastery system and Elite Specialization systems).

Thank you in advance.

I keep being asked to change servers in Lion Arch which is a bit of a worry imo… Wouldn’t you think hubs would be full 24/7 if they game was doing well?

Dante.1508:

I keep being asked to change servers in Lion Arch which is a bit of a worry imo… Wouldn’t you think hubs would be full 24/7 if they game was doing well?

Maybe they aren’t in Lion’s Arch. I know I rarely go there.

LoL NooBs.5076:

Vayne.8563:

Right because no one ever prorders a game to get a preorder bonus. Oh wait…

Dear Vayne, <3
We are the NooBs who say LoL. The LoL NooBs. You don’t know us, but we have been watching you. Of all the self-proclaimed “white knights” among the forum goons, you are the one who isn’t outright hostile. The one who can keep his cool in your every response. And we respect that. We regret that we were not granted the honor of being greeted by you in our very first post on these forums.

Because you are different. We have seen your noble battles against the unenlightened in other forum threads. You appear to be fair and just. You have style. Even when you say “lol” in other threads, we quietly lol (as if there is any other kind) together with you.

Regrettably, there are not many of us left with money who suffer from the hopeless delusion that when ANet promises, ANet delivers. Regardless of how many words were written. There are not many of us left whom ANet didn’t rob of the ability and will to preorder. There are not many of us left who can be tempted by any form of “Bone Us” (especially one that ANet speaks of). For, although we are NooBs and we never learn, we know too well that possessing an OP “Bone Us” doesn’t make us better players. We are NooBs. We are not proud of that. But it is who we are.

So when you say “Oh wait…”, we will wait for you, Vayne. This once. We will wait because you said to. And we will be silent. For now.

But you must understand: the NooBs’ patience with ANet runs thin with every passing hour. Therefore, in the meantime, the NooBs will have the audacity to ask that you, Vayne — the most noble and honorable of the “white knights” — consider where your own allegiances lie. <3

This is a very cute post. I really dig it.

But not everyone buys games the way fans of games buy games. I’m going to guess that more than half the people that buy Guild Wars 2 had no idea what was or wasnt’ promised. Many people are casual and doin’t follow games so closely.

How many peoiple buy this game and complain there’s no GvG, because the name of the game is Guild Wars. I’m not sure if you’re seriously contending that the small percentage of people who post here are the main group of people who buy the game. Even in the poll on here lots of people seem willing to purchase the expansion (25%?) even though Anet didn’t come through on stuff like Legendaries.

On the other hand, as I’ve said before they told is directly that they wouldn’t be added gliding to core Tyria and they ended up doing that, so not every broken “promise” is equally bad. That one worked out well for me.

However, I don’t buy games based on promises or not. I buy games based on how much fun I’m going to have with them. Do I think HoT was too expensive? I do. But you know, tickets to ball games are too expensive. Movie tickets are too expensive. A cup of coffee is too expensive. That doesn’t mean I don’t go to the movies or I don’t drink coffee. It means that things are sometimes expensive.

I buy coffee, because I love coffee, even though it’s too expensive. I enjoy it and so that value means something to me.

I could play other MMOs, but I don’t enjoy most of them, while I do enjoy this one. Most of the time anyway. So this $50 that I spent some something that gave me a couple of hundred hours of play (and I’m still playing it in fact) is definitely worth it to me. It’s much cheaper than a cup of coffee.

From the value I got from this, I’ll go out on a limb and say I’d get a similar value from a new expansion.

Now of that expansion came out and said, we’re only doing raids and that’s it, I wouldn’t buy that expansion because I have little interest in raids. However, if it lists a bunch of stuff I like the look of, yes, I’ll buy the expansion and a lot of other people will to.

If you don’t want to preorder the expansion that’s okay. But with the last patch fixing many people’s complaints, there’s certainly reason to hope.

The problem seems to be that some people think they have a grievance and everyone or most people share that grievance. But I don’t think that’s always the case, or even mostly the case.

Most people aren’t bean counters and unless they signed on for a very specific reason, like legendaries, they’re not going to bemoan the loss of legendaries.

Also some reasonable people believe making an MMO is really hard, which is why so many of them suck, and so they cut devs a bit of slack if they can’t do everything they intended. I know this is an unpopular stance, but I don’t care. It’s not a crime to be reasonable.