Guild Wars 2

Does low revenue from WvW lead to bare minimum of dev resources invested into WvW?

or

Does extremely small allocation of dev resources, ineffective monetization, and alt excluding measures like one character only WXP lead to poor revenues?

Which came first? Are we sure WvW actually produces small revenues? Is the assumption of small revenues based on anything concrete or just a community myth extrapolated from the small commitment A net makes to WvW?

Great question. Too bad we’ll never know the real reason … because it seems obvious that ANet has already decided which one they believe.

Kalan.9705:

Does extremely small allocation of dev resources, ineffective monetization, and alt excluding measures like one character only WXP lead to poor revenues?

this one. i know people who have spent (several) hundreds of dollars who only play WvW. in fact, every time there was a new shiny put into the gem store, i’d see countless people running around with it in WvW. not to mention the whole “credit card commander” thing. so at least at one point, people who play WvW primarily were spending quite a hefty chunk of change in the gem store. i’d even go as far as to say that many still do. however, more and more are seeing the lack of support they’re getting, despite how much money they’ve spent, so they’re less inclined to continue spending money.

I have an 80 warrior, thief, Mesmer, Guardian, Ranger

I have spent £32 per class on gems to turn into gold so I could gear them with afew sets each of exoitcs, because im lazy.

now I don’t think im the only one crazy enough to do that.

The chicken came first.

Didn’t read the post. Just looked at the title.

I’m bored at work.

Nope, it was the egg. I mean where’d the chicken come from without an egg?

Direwind.8409:

I have an 80 warrior, thief, Mesmer, Guardian, Ranger

I have spent £32 per class on gems to turn into gold so I could gear them with afew sets each of exoitcs, because im lazy.

now I don’t think im the only one crazy enough to do that.

Nope. I know quite a few GMs who put 20-100$ into gems per month just to buy siege.

Johje Holan.4607:

Nope, it was the egg. I mean where’d the chicken come from without an egg?

Well, a critter could have given birth to the chicken in a mammel like birth.

Johje Holan.4607:

Nope, it was the egg. I mean where’d the chicken come from without an egg?

The chicken came first before the egg.

ALso why are there so many rabbits in wvw?

Fuzzion.2504:

ALso why are there so many rabbits in wvw?

Not enough for some D/P Thiefs….

The OPs question is just a variant of ‘Have you stopped beating your wife?’

There is no reason to suppose Anet see any connection between relative WvW figures and income. Especially since income is not subscription based.

The only assumption being made by anyone is in the question itself.

Fuzzion.2504:

Johje Holan.4607:

Nope, it was the egg. I mean where’d the chicken come from without an egg?

The chicken came first before the egg.

ALso why are there so many rabbits in wvw?

they are there to hide the eggs.duh!

I hope Devon does realize that to most people’s eyes, the recent re-focus on WvW is a recent development; one that has yet to produce substantial changes beyond the (very good) introduction of WxP and traits.

Before that, it was just fixes and patches so the WvW focused community of players is not incorrect in feeling neglected; especially given the rapid rate of PvE changes.

Also, as nice as the new traits with every update are, we are fast approaching the point of ridiculousness and that will not be enough very soon.

Johje Holan.4607:

Nope, it was the egg. I mean where’d the chicken come from without an egg?

no the chicken came first by way of non egg birth but with the genetic mutation that allowed that chicken to lay eggs.

or if you are a creationist…God made a chicken. lol

DevonCarver.5370:

We believe in WvW both as a game type and as a source of revenue. Perceived lack of resources devoted to WvW should be balanced against reasonable expectations of what can be achieved by any resources. It takes a lot less time to build new ability lines than it does to, say, build a new home map. We are working on some things that won’t see the light of day for a long time and we are also working on things that you will see very soon. Believe me, WvW is important to us as a company and we will continue to improve on it.

clearly resources have been taxed now that we know GW2 is the fastest selling MMO to hit 3 million.

I mean it all makes sense now….the WvW team must have been ridiculously busy burning 3 million cd’s and licking the stamps to get them mailed out to your customers so quickly.

And obviously accounting and HR were too busy counting all that revenue and patting themselves on the back to hire anyone new?

Contiguous.1345:

There is no reason to suppose Anet see any connection between relative WvW figures and income. Especially since income is not subscription based.

Why then is WvW the only gamemode that isn’t monetized via the Gemstore?

DevonCarver.5370:

We believe in WvW both as a game type and as a source of revenue. Perceived lack of resources devoted to WvW should be balanced against reasonable expectations of what can be achieved by any resources.

It’s sad seeing you say that in serious (as contrasted by, say, in a sardonic) manner. Because most every request I see is a lot more mundane and technical than you phrase, and certainly realistic within a year’s time – if WvW had adequate resources to it. No one is asking for a whole new map or other majorly upheaval changes right now. The front page sure doesn’t look like it. Though it should have been a reasonable expectation, one year ago, that there’d be a new map at least in sight by this point, before it became apparent what WvW’s status in-company is.

Jamais vu.5284:

Why then is WvW the only gamemode that isn’t monetized via the Gemstore?

Yes it is.
The only purchase I have ever made at the GemStore was a transfer to a more WvW oriented server.

Since WvW players are basically interested in beating each other and Anet don’t want this to become a play-to-win game, it’s difficult to see what specifically WvW related goodies they could add.

Don’t think I’m an Anet fan-boy – I think they concentrate on the wrong things a lot of the time. But this thread is just an unreasonable spurt of vitriol.

How do you monetize WvW in WvW specific ways?

I mean most gem store things already apply to wvw:

apperance, services, gold buying, finishers, boosts…

uh…

kites.

I mean why would Anet add something WvW specific to the gemstore when pretty much anything cool they could add would also work fine in PvE or PvP?

Contiguous.1345:

Yes it is.
The only purchase I have ever made at the GemStore was a transfer to a more WvW oriented server.

No it isn’t. I don’t think you’re aware of what the word “monetization” connotes. It doesn’t only a price tag. Server transfers are not a WvW specific service and the prime reason they cost Gems in the first place is to discourage people constantly switching home servers, be it for WvW or PVE/sPvP reasons (the latter of which is more important in regards to regions).
To claim that transfers are a monetization strategy is insane and disingenuous. How often did you or anyone you know purchase a server transfer? The answer in your head spells out to you why you’re wrong.

The topic question tempts me to get another infraction, but I think I’ve had enough for this month.

GG forum mods

Kalan.9705:

Does low revenue from WvW lead to bare minimum of dev resources invested into WvW?

or

Does extremely small allocation of dev resources, ineffective monetization, and alt excluding measures like one character only WXP lead to poor revenues?

Which came first? Are we sure WvW actually produces small revenues? Is the assumption of small revenues based on anything concrete or just a community myth extrapolated from the small commitment A net makes to WvW?

seeing how TESO are betting almost entirely on 3 faction War, am guessing the first one.

the problem here is WvW players are competitive by nature and there demand the “hardcore” type of game mode which Anet is either unable/unwilling to accommodate to this player base.

Devon may say 100 times how WvW is improving and more people are logging in and blah blah blah, but anybody who has played WvW from day one knows, how it turned out

From 24 hrs Ques and almost 3-4 hr ques on more popular servers to now almost dead borderlands in T2 and T4 barely able to even fill EB, things arent looking too bright.

IF people think the best of days of WvW is yet to come , then they are dilusioned.

all the 1500+ man guilds who have already left the game , who played only WvW wont be coming back.
and theres only Anet to blame for it!

We cant blame the players that burnt themselves out?

Furiousbeard.7602:

We cant blame the players that burnt themselves out?

Preventing burnout and population decline by adding new and varied content to keep up interest is pretty much exactly the job description for game developers post-launch.

Admittedly, it’s an un-ending and un-winnable task and you can’t please everyone. But blaming players for getting bored is a silly way of thinking.

DevonCarver.5370:

Believe me, WvW is important to us as a company and we will continue to improve on it.

Please, put your money where your mouth is. We’re just not seeing it, and every reset night we have fewer and fewer people to run with and against.

Neeho.3859:

DevonCarver.5370:

Believe me, WvW is important to us as a company and we will continue to improve on it.

Please, put your money where your mouth is. We’re just not seeing it, and every reset night we have fewer and fewer people to run with and against.

But haven’t you heard? WvW has “more players than ever!” If I wasn’t on a “top 5” server I would think they might be on the T1 or T2 servers, but I am on TC, so even that lie doesn’t really hold water. WvW matches are ghost-towns by monday on blowout matches.

Each reset there is less and less excitement. I selfishly hope whatever it is they’ve been working on refreshes everyone’s interest but I just have the worst feeling.

Urrid.4593:

But haven’t you heard? WvW has “more players than ever!” If I wasn’t on a “top 5” server I would think they might be on the T1 or T2 servers, but I am on TC, so even that lie doesn’t really hold water. WvW matches are ghost-towns by monday on blowout matches.

Each reset there is less and less excitement. I selfishly hope whatever it is they’ve been working on refreshes everyone’s interest but I just have the worst feeling.

I has anecdotes. I has evidence!

Sorry but, I couldn’t resist. But yes, yes, they are lying to you.

Dredlord.8076:

Johje Holan.4607:

Nope, it was the egg. I mean where’d the chicken come from without an egg?

no the chicken came first by way of non egg birth but with the genetic mutation that allowed that chicken to lay eggs.

or if you are a creationist…God made a chicken. lol

So wrong.

Having an excessive focus on PvE content, in my opinion, wasn’t entirely needed but has definitely had a broad effect on market share. The problem is the business model is based on more of an tourist trap than trying to be the greatest game ever. Ideally GW2 has set itself up to never fail, it’s a practical impossibility. 3 million is an impressive mark within the first year and it’s a clear indicator that the market will undoubtedly have Guild Wars 2 to contend with for years to come.

Basically the MMO climate is set so that if the game doesn’t offer the player something better or more focused to their individual interests (PvP for example), then there’s no way it can succeed in the long term sitting in a genre with Guild Wars 2. I think they realize the position they’ve put themselves in, and in that climate they don’t need to focus on PvP content. Say TESO launches and their RvR spin off is a smash hit, best combat system ever made, bar-none. It’s going to attract basically everyone who’s looking for what GW2 can’t deliver on, and in so doing the development focus of Zenimax will have to accommodate this crowd with the bulk of their resources. Even the slightest design flaw or shift to PvE content and it’s game over. People will come right back to GW2 with it’s non-sub based model.

I see this happening for years to come: If it’s not clearly better than GW2, it will wither and die. People aren’t going to be willing to pay more for something they can get elsewhere of near equal production quality for an already sunk cost.

PvE casuals are the bread and butter of the industry at large. Unskilled, talentless, skill spamming, drooling idiots that chase shiny things wherever they may get dangled. That being the state of the MMO community at large, ANets unrivaled pandering to them will be impossible to beat for years to come. Thus the only way an MMO will be successful in the future is by using a superior, rich, and immersive story, strong and balanced PvP, and truly challenging, dynamic, and meaningful gameplay. That model attracts the most zealous and passionate gamers in the industry and will play on that audiences inherent elitist mentality so they look down on GW2 as a game for those in the previously described bulk of the genre fanbase; a game for the unskilled and the casuals.

If a game can successfully defame GW2 in such a way it may prove to co-exist with it in the genre, but that could very well backfire and cause the game to get horribly alienated as something only the pretentious !@%holes play, further strengthening GW2 in the genre as a game for everyone.

The short answer is your asking the wrong question. Neither came first, WvW doesn’t generate large sums of revenue because WvW doesn’t generate large sums of revenue…and likely never will. Much easier to make content for people who won’t care about it anyways as long as you give them something shiny at the end they’ll just follow the streams of drool of the other witless idiots who went before them to get it. Very easy to sell things to stupid people…

DevonCarver.5370:

Perceived lack of resources devoted to WvW should be balanced against reasonable expectations of what can be achieved by any resources.

Compared to what you achieved PvE wise there is clearly a lack. In ~1 year of GW2 the only major improvement was the remove of culling. Placing Laurel NPC´s in Borderlands or the infamous WvW trait lines are i´m sorry just fillers compared to the Living World PvE stuff with the story telling, beautiful art etc. etc. So really Devon, the story that WvW is getting the same attention as PvE has gotten old and if you read carefully most people don´t believe that anymore.

CreativeAnarchy.6324:

The chicken came first.

Didn’t read the post. Just looked at the title.

I’m bored at work.

P.S. Which came first, the rtl nerf or the needless mass slaughter of critters?

DevonCarver.5370:

We believe in WvW both as a game type and as a source of revenue. Perceived lack of resources devoted to WvW should be balanced against reasonable expectations of what can be achieved by any resources. It takes a lot less time to build new ability lines than it does to, say, build a new home map. We are working on some things that won’t see the light of day for a long time and we are also working on things that you will see very soon. Believe me, WvW is important to us as a company and we will continue to improve on it.

Having now taken a break for a few months I returned to find… absolutely ZERO improvements. On the other hand you have run about 5 or 6 fluff pve events, according to my email. I am sorry but I find your response almost laughable.

I don’t know why people think WvWvW players don’t spend money in the gem shop by virtue of them being WvWvW players. I guess they have some kind of skewed image of WvWvW players as the “dual me brah” PvP only kittenbags.

I think the unaddressed fundamental flaws in WvWvW have turned even some dedicated players off and even some of those who stay will probably be less inclined to spend money. Not because there isn’t anything they can use in the gem shop(I see quite a few people with Quaggan pets, armor skins, finishers etc) but because of a growing resentment for Anet.

DevonCarver.5370:

We believe in WvW both as a game type and as a source of revenue. Perceived lack of resources devoted to WvW should be balanced against reasonable expectations of what can be achieved by any resources. It takes a lot less time to build new ability lines than it does to, say, build a new home map. We are working on some things that won’t see the light of day for a long time and we are also working on things that you will see very soon. Believe me, WvW is important to us as a company and we will continue to improve on it.

it took like 4 to max 8 weeks to come upt with the whole sanctum thing right. A new wvw map or adjustments to it should be a ton of work, it just needs the whole team for a short period.
Imo this could easily beat pve with numbers, it just needs a little(ok alot) work

@Devon,

I think it’s hard for people to believe your statement. Look at it this way… in the last year, PvP has received 3 new maps, a spectator system, and 2 types of arena queues.

PvE has received countless new maps for living story/special events and a whole new mode of fractals.

WvW has received the end of culling (a great thing) and a bunch of siege mastery skills that few people other than the developers want.

We just do not seem to be getting the same focus on WvW.

DevonCarver.5370:

We believe in WvW both as a game type and as a source of revenue. Perceived lack of resources devoted to WvW should be balanced against reasonable expectations of what can be achieved by any resources. It takes a lot less time to build new ability lines than it does to, say, build a new home map. We are working on some things that won’t see the light of day for a long time and we are also working on things that you will see very soon. Believe me, WvW is important to us as a company and we will continue to improve on it.

Well it’s good to know that the new map will be better than zephryite sanctum, southsun cove and the crown pavilion combined. Since, ya know…. It’s taking so much longer than the three of those. Therefore the quality should be superb!

I for one am excited that they are taking such good care of us WvWers!

Can we assume new WvW weapons and armor like southsun weapons and pineapple helmets? Score!!!

allocating resources like that rarely works well owing to bottlenecks and other malarky

smaller dedicated teams works better

Kalan.9705:

Does extremely small allocation of dev resources, ineffective monetization, and alt excluding measures like one character only WXP lead to poor revenues?

Which came first??

Clearly this, right up until the removal of culling and the WXP intro WvW got nothing.

Obscure One.4357:

Basically the MMO climate is set so that if the game doesn’t offer the player something better or more focused to their individual interests (PvP for example), then there’s no way it can succeed in the long term sitting in a genre with Guild Wars 2. I think they realize the position they’ve put themselves in, and in that climate they don’t need to focus on PvP content. Say TESO launches and their RvR spin off is a smash hit, best combat system ever made, bar-none. It’s going to attract basically everyone who’s looking for what GW2 can’t deliver on, and in so doing the development focus of Zenimax will have to accommodate this crowd with the bulk of their resources.

It already is the focus of the PvP side of the game, cause they don’t have instanced PvP arenas or battlegrounds, or at least they won’t initially. Thus there isn’t the stupid obsession with making the game an e-sport.

DevonCarver.5370:

We believe in WvW both as a game type and as a source of revenue. Perceived lack of resources devoted to WvW should be balanced against reasonable expectations of what can be achieved by any resources. It takes a lot less time to build new ability lines than it does to, say, build a new home map.

Sorry but this rings a bit hollow when looking at the new maps in the PvE and sPvP sides of the game.

morrolan.9608:

It already is the focus of the PvP side of the game, cause they don’t have instanced PvP arenas or battlegrounds, or at least they won’t initially. Thus there isn’t the stupid obsession with making the game an e-sport.

You’re right, but Zenimax is an unproven studio. It’s filled with some of the best game designers in the genre bar none, but game design is a team sport. If they can pull off a superior version of DAoC’s RvR that GW2 has made clear improvements to (then left gut shot to die slowly in the corner) then they’re going to put TESO in a strong place in the genre. At the moment I don’t have much faith in anything in the genre as they all have consistently failed to deliver across the board. If Zenimax cant pull off something clearly superior, the void will remain in the genre, and it will be difficult to contend with a non-sub based version of RvR.

My gut says Zenimax is going to have a tough time with an ambitious goal of fusing single player RPG elements with MMO elements and may end up just disappointing everyone by not being enough of either to succeed. Much in a way the overambitious design intent of ANet has led to a solid growing resentment from its PvP fanbase for focusing on the PvE fanbase. Devon can say whatever he wants, actions speak volumes, and only a fool can’t see GW2 is a PvE casual’s paradise of unending, unchallenging, yet highly rewarding content; PvP is regarded as a cute afterthought.

Cactus.2710:

Great question. Too bad we’ll never know the real reason … because it seems obvious that ANet has already decided which one they believe.

Why are you still playing the game? Other games don’t have a class that can carry you as hard as your thief one?