Guild Wars 2

I think its about resources, I don’t think its about the technical issues involved, that’s just the cover story imo.

my humble theory is that the initial set of legendries were very lucrative for anet, ppl converted RL money to gold to make them and anet made good money off them, that crowds now been milked out/moved on and ppl (in general) have become less susceptive to spending money in the cash shop. anet thought with the expansion they would re-start this process which would then make sense for them to add more legendries, except the expansion didn’t achieve what they thought it would and there are far less ppl now who would spend RL money to get gold for their legendary, so it doesn’t make financial sense for anet to invest in further legendries when they need to put those resources into something that will have a better chance of creating revenue.

hence legendries were cut.

Flowerpower.6795:

Alex.9567:

so I’m probably not in the best position to answer this as I haven’t played gw2 in a while – a little over a year, but I have about 4k hours in gw1 and played gw2 from the first beta before calling it quits 2yrs in, the recent expansion did get me interested in reading the forums again to see what ppl are saying, hence this response.

What I expected of guild wars 2? To have a much deeper character connection, I mean I really wanted to have a sense that my character was unique but not just on a cosmetic level, cosmetics are important but I don’t like the way anet prostitute cosmetics in this game, it cheapens the whole point of armour which should be one of the primary ways a players shows off their achievements.

in the same vain I also dislike their 1 size fits all race armour design, for me this and the cheap cosmetic tricks are the primary reason I don’t play any more.

I still remember getting on the hype train during development and thinking how cool it would be to roll an asuran golemancer, basically an asura who rely’s heavily on his golem, I remember thinking there would be all sorts of upgrades for golems and my imagination just ran wild with it, I thought the same of norn animal forms and the cool quests that would lead to gaining those special powers, I remember thinking in WVW we would see armys of golems colliding with armies of shape shifted Norn.

currently I’m playing arkham knight quite sparsely, ive been a backer on SC since mid 2014 (spent more money on that game than I did in 2 yrs of guildwars 2) never really played a space sim before but it really looks like the right ppl are behind the project, also BDO coming soon, ill definitely check that out, hopefully there will be an early access package before Christmas.

just to say, I don’t think GW2 is a bad game, it does have many good things about it, it just wasn’t the game for me, I truly hope the game stays successful because competition amongst developers is good for everyone

Your imagination of GW2 sounds so much better than the actual game xD
I really dont understand why the Races are so unimportant in GW2. They could have done awesome stuff and if the Races would fight eachother on the huge tyria map this game could have been so much better x)
The first thing that makes me think that choosing a sylvari for my main character has actual any effect was in the expansion… but its still pretty much “choose the race that looks the best to you” x)

thanks you, yes it could be great, I used to have arguments with my guild about race being more than cosmetic, there was always this resounding opinion that it couldn’t work cause then you’d be forced to pick race to suit profession, but honestly it doesn’t have to be the case. but more honestly i don’t even care anymore:)

so I’m probably not in the best position to answer this as I haven’t played gw2 in a while – a little over a year, but I have about 4k hours in gw1 and played gw2 from the first beta before calling it quits 2yrs in, the recent expansion did get me interested in reading the forums again to see what ppl are saying, hence this response.

What I expected of guild wars 2? To have a much deeper character connection, I mean I really wanted to have a sense that my character was unique but not just on a cosmetic level, cosmetics are important but I don’t like the way anet prostitute cosmetics in this game, it cheapens the whole point of armour which should be one of the primary ways a players shows off their achievements.

in the same vain I also dislike their 1 size fits all race armour design, for me this and the cheap cosmetic tricks are the primary reason I don’t play any more.

I still remember getting on the hype train during development and thinking how cool it would be to roll an asuran golemancer, basically an asura who rely’s heavily on his golem, I remember thinking there would be all sorts of upgrades for golems and my imagination just ran wild with it, I thought the same of norn animal forms and the cool quests that would lead to gaining those special powers, I remember thinking in WVW we would see armys of golems colliding with armies of shape shifted Norn.

currently I’m playing arkham knight quite sparsely, ive been a backer on SC since mid 2014 (spent more money on that game than I did in 2 yrs of guildwars 2) never really played a space sim before but it really looks like the right ppl are behind the project, also BDO coming soon, ill definitely check that out, hopefully there will be an early access package before Christmas.

just to say, I don’t think GW2 is a bad game, it does have many good things about it, it just wasn’t the game for me, I truly hope the game stays successful because competition amongst developers is good for everyone

yeah I remember how a lot of ppl said anet would add a new race over a new class, kinda like they said there would never be an expansion, tbh the logic they were basing their conclusion on was sound, it made sense at the time, but its always great to see the self assured get debunked. I wonder what this means about gw’s future though, what kinda game itll be 2 years from now.

Ashen.2907:

Vayne.8563:

Chrispy.5641:

Vayne.8563:

Paul.4081:

It strikes me as that place where your dad knows he’s lost but keeps driving ahead. This is Anet.

I recently re-installed and the TP was removed from Queensdale, uhm, why? Probably because the new TP layout is rubbish. Why is selling to bids the auto choice? This will lose new players money because they’ll assume that the game has their interests at heart.

Eg. New player get’s an exotic, bid of 1 copper is there…gratz new player you just lost a ton of gold.

Maybe I’m wrong but if I am it means the new TP is more confusing than the old one. You see my point? Lose lose, WD Anet, WD. Slow clap.

New TP isn’t more confusing than the old one and the overwhelming response to it has been positive. Even with all the people who enjoy pointing out flaws in the game,. the response has been overwhelmingly positive.

Admittedly it’s hard to change from one system to another but that’s something that new players won’t have to worry about.

I’m relatively certain this is better for new players than the last one.

You should define overwhelmingly positive response. 1 person typing overwhelmingly positive posts on every thread does not mean that the response to the change was overwhelmingly positive. That doesn’t mean the response to the change was particularly negative either, but just because the response wasn’t negative doesn’t automatically make the change an 11/10.

When I say overwhelmingly positive, in every single thread that people posted negative stuff in,. more than 80% of the posts on those threads were positive. You can go back to any thread complaining about it and check that if you want.

Do you even read the forums?

You have, on many occasions, pointed out, when people point out that the forum response to something is overwhelmingly negative, that such is not representative of the response of the player base as a whole because the forum represents a tiny fraction of the player base.

You have also stated, on more than one occasion, that what is easy to understand, not confusing, to one person might be confusing to another and that no one can state absolutely what is difficult or confusing for others.

And yet you completely contradict your previous comments on these subjects with this post.

I’m just responding to this so that its easy for me to refer to it in the future, so funny

man that looks a lot like my dog, sorry for your loss Chris, I truly believe such beautiful things don’t just die but return to the spirit from which they came.

Vayne.8563:

Alex.9567:

Vayne.8563:

Alex.9567:

I never made any claims I was also merely pointing out possibility’s, in fact we’re BOTH pointing out possibility’s, the only difference is im challenging anets status quo on the game and youre challenging my arguments in that respect, youre happy to accept brooks law as a basis to why there isn’t any substantial further developments, while I see the reason as anet wishing to continue milking the cash shop, at the end of the day all we have is circumstantial evidence on both sides of the argument, and ill admit there probably is a fair amount of brooks law happening at anet, my whole enquiry into those 2 head ppl that left was to determine to what extent and why, I do however think you are fooling yourself to not give my argument some credence, after all what we have proven through our posts is that it cant be ruled out as a possibility.

If you can’t tell the difference between making a statement to start a conversation or responding to a statement that may or may not be true, I really don’t know what to tell you.

I didn’t come to these forums and start a conversation stating something was true when it may or may not be true. I responded to something which was stated as a truth which may or may not be true. I don’t initiate posts with stuff I can’t back up. I do respond to posts made by other people however, because I wouldn’t make such posts myself.

you missed it again, oh well, not really that surprised, w/e, ignorance is bliss.

Well, I guess when you run out of valid argument, all that’s left is insults. I won’t be responding to any more of your posts.

that’s literally the best news I’ve heard today, and listen when your ready to come down from your ivory tower and actually follow the argument as opposed to saying what you want, ill be here.

Vayne.8563:

Alex.9567:

I never made any claims I was also merely pointing out possibility’s, in fact we’re BOTH pointing out possibility’s, the only difference is im challenging anets status quo on the game and youre challenging my arguments in that respect, youre happy to accept brooks law as a basis to why there isn’t any substantial further developments, while I see the reason as anet wishing to continue milking the cash shop, at the end of the day all we have is circumstantial evidence on both sides of the argument, and ill admit there probably is a fair amount of brooks law happening at anet, my whole enquiry into those 2 head ppl that left was to determine to what extent and why, I do however think you are fooling yourself to not give my argument some credence, after all what we have proven through our posts is that it cant be ruled out as a possibility.

If you can’t tell the difference between making a statement to start a conversation or responding to a statement that may or may not be true, I really don’t know what to tell you.

I didn’t come to these forums and start a conversation stating something was true when it may or may not be true. I responded to something which was stated as a truth which may or may not be true. I don’t initiate posts with stuff I can’t back up. I do respond to posts made by other people however, because I wouldn’t make such posts myself.

you missed it again, oh well, not really that surprised, w/e, ignorance is bliss.

Vayne.8563:

Alex.9567:

your assertion to brooks law is no more substantial then me drawing a conclusion about anets business practices based on 2 years of gws2, in fact me drawing conclusions from their business practices after 2 years is far more convicting than quoting brooks law, then you say I have something against the direction of the company as if I haven’t made it plainly clearly what and why, you speak of evidence when we’re both obviously speculating conclusions on possibility’s, that’s why I believe youre irrational because you count what you’ve said as evidence when its in fact at the very most just as speculative as the conclusions I’ve made, so yes I do see a pattern, one in which your have a strong subjective bias towards your own opinion.

You obviously can’t tell the difference between refuting a statement to show it’s not necessarily 100% accurate, or making a statement.

I didn’t instigate anything. I didn’t make a statement. I RESPONDED to a statement. That changes the entire dynamic.

If I came into these forums and said, straight out, that adding more people won’t slow down the production of a program, you’d have every right to be saying what you’re saying….but I didn’t do that at all.

I was replying to someone who was making a claim. That is it say, I was showing the POSSIBILITY that what that person was saying, and stating with great certainty, was possibly not as certain as they were claiming. The same about Kekai. I never EVER claimed to know why he left Anet.

I’m simply pointing out possibilities, because someone else claimed to know why.

If you have no evidence, don’t make claims. If you do make claims with no evidence, don’t expect people to just accept what you say. I’m within my right to RESPOND with alternate reasons why this might happen.

If you have evidence, by all means present it. I don’t think you do.

I don’t have evidence either. It’s why I RESPOND to statements like yours rather than MAKING them.

I never made any claims I was also merely pointing out possibility’s, in fact we’re BOTH pointing out possibility’s, the only difference is im challenging anets status quo on the game and youre challenging my arguments in that respect, youre happy to accept brooks law as a basis to why there isn’t any substantial further developments, while I see the reason as anet wishing to continue milking the cash shop, at the end of the day all we have is circumstantial evidence on both sides of the argument, and ill admit there probably is a fair amount of brooks law happening at anet, my whole enquiry into those 2 head ppl that left was to determine to what extent and why, I do however think you are fooling yourself to not give my argument some credence, after all what we have proven through our posts is that it cant be ruled out as a possibility.

Vayne.8563:

Alex.9567:

my conclusion is based on – when Kekai Kotaki left anet in mid 2012, he had been with the company for 8 years, also he’s not just some random concept artist, he’s won awards for his work which is pretty much the guild wars art style we all love, so it strikes me as odd that a couple month before gw2s launch he decides to leave, also your the one who mentioned head ppl leaving, quite interesting how you forgot to respond to that part of the argument, im still curious why they left.

and what were your conclusions based on when you tried to argue Brooks’ law, inflation, bandwidth etc as a reason to justify lack of content and anet milking the cash shop? so in the very least you’ve also concluded terribly on more than one occasion, but for you to not recognise that is a strong point to concluded your arguing irrationally and its unlikely that we’ll be able to find any conclusion to agree upon.

The average amount of time people work in jobs in the industry is probably about 8 years. If he got a better offer he’d leave. He’s never said or indicated that he left because of the direction of a company. You have no valid reason to believe that except that you have something against the direction of the company. Without evidence, your guess is a guess.

My comments with Brook’s Law was in direct response to someone who claimed that adding more people couldn’t slow down production. It’s a non-true statement. It can absolutely slow down production. It was valid and it was a response.

One person claims something easily disproved or at least contested. I contested it. You claim something with no evidence at all and I contest it. Do you see a pattern?

Or do you have some evidence for your claim other than you think it’s true?

your assertion to brooks law is no more substantial then me drawing a conclusion about anets business practices based on 2 years of gws2, in fact me drawing conclusions from their business practices after 2 years is far more convicting than quoting brooks law, then you say I have something against the direction of the company as if I haven’t made it plainly clearly what and why, you speak of evidence when we’re both obviously speculating conclusions on possibility’s, that’s why I believe youre irrational because you count what you’ve said as evidence when its in fact at the very most just as speculative as the conclusions I’ve made, so yes I do see a pattern, one in which your have a strong subjective bias towards your own opinion.

Vayne.8563:

Alex.9567:

Brooks’ law might be valid in this case, then again it might not, its difficult for a player to have the insight to know, however there are other possibility’s which seem logical, I remember reading right at launch that concept artist Kekai Kotaki was calling it quits with anet, I really wondered why, it seemed like the best time to be part of that company, about a 8 month to a year later I concluded that he must have left because he realised the direction the game was headed, these other 2 head guys you speak of, I had no idea about, but again what were their reasons? we don’t know what drove them to leave, it may very well have been that they had insight on the direction the game was headed.

Terrible conclusion. He was a concept artist. Concept artist’s are often used most heavily before the game launches. It’s extremely likely he actually had less to do later on, because he probably expected new areas to be developed faster. A lot of artistic people leave jobs because their particular talents aren’t really needed for the phase the game was in. Concept artists are almost always the first to go when a game launches. That’s very common. So what exactly is your conclusion based on?

my conclusion is based on – when Kekai Kotaki left anet in mid 2012, he had been with the company for 8 years, also he’s not just some random concept artist, he’s won awards for his work which is pretty much the guild wars art style we all love, so it strikes me as odd that a couple month before gw2s launch he decides to leave, also your the one who mentioned head ppl leaving, quite interesting how you forgot to respond to that part of the argument, im still curious why they left.

and what were your conclusions based on when you tried to argue Brooks’ law, inflation, bandwidth etc as a reason to justify lack of content and anet milking the cash shop? so in the very least you’ve also concluded terribly on more than one occasion, but for you to not recognise that is a strong point to concluded your arguing irrationally and its unlikely that we’ll be able to find any conclusion to agree upon.

Vayne.8563:

Alex.9567:

Increased staff should result in increased productivity, if you try argue that increasing staff leads to decreased productivity then your kidding yourself, or what you might be saying is that the reason the increase in staff hasnt lead to increased productivity is because anet has bad management, which in that case id have to agree you have a valid point.

arguing inflation is pointless because its always been a factor, it was just as relevant during gw’s1

if you want to talk difference in bandwidth yes that probably is a valid point, however not to the degree that anet is so busy paying for the extra bandwidth that they cant afford to invest anything else in significant content development.

I don’t doubt they had server issues during some of the lw, again you cant argue that’s why they haven’t been able to develop content

so it leads to 1 conclusion, namely they’re milking the cash shop for all its worth before they do release significant content.

I’ll just leave this here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooks's_law

Edit: For some reason when I tested it the link didn’t work for me. Just look up Brook’s Law on Wikipedia.

Edit 2: This doesn’t even count that fact that two of the head guys walked away from the game during development, in one case taking key people with him. If you don’t think that sets a company back, not sure what to tell you.

Brooks’ law might be valid in this case, then again it might not, its difficult for a player to have the insight to know, however there are other possibility’s which seem logical, I remember reading right at launch that concept artist Kekai Kotaki was calling it quits with anet, I really wondered why, it seemed like the best time to be part of that company, about a 8 month to a year later I concluded that he must have left because he realised the direction the game was headed, these other 2 head guys you speak of, I had no idea about, but again what were their reasons? we don’t know what drove them to leave, it may very well have been that they had insight on the direction the game was headed.

Vayne.8563:

Alex.9567:

No, I recall Mike O Brian specifically saying that there is no difference in costs of hosting instanced to non-instanced, its merely a direction the devs chose for gw’s1, but I like the way you sound so certain even thou ur cluless.

on your second point, its illogical because they’ve released so little content, so if you really believed this, it would mean (more or less) that it takes them one year to make a new zone.

your last point, proves you’ve missed the point, its what ive said in my op, and so many others have said…

No difference in hosting, major difference in bandwidth. It’s not as simple as what he was talking about. Not to mention, a lot of stuff is a lot more expensive today then back then. A staff of 350 in a bigger office is a lot more to maintain than a staff of 50.

But there’s a lot more complexity in getting 150 people playing together on a the same screen at the same time with better graphics. It’s just a different product. It can’t be compared.

Increased staff should result in increased productivity, if you try argue that increasing staff leads to decreased productivity then your kidding yourself, or what you might be saying is that the reason the increase in staff hasnt lead to increased productivity is because anet has bad management, which in that case id have to agree you have a valid point.

arguing inflation is pointless because its always been a factor, it was just as relevant during gw’s1

if you want to talk difference in bandwidth yes that probably is a valid point, however not to the degree that anet is so busy paying for the extra bandwidth that they cant afford to invest anything else in significant content development.

I don’t doubt they had server issues during some of the lw, again you cant argue that’s why they haven’t been able to develop content

so it leads to 1 conclusion, namely they’re milking the cash shop for all its worth before they do release significant content.

lordkrall.7241:

Indeed. GW1 went with the whole buy actual power for real money instead.

Comparing a lobby-based game with an open-world game is also quite silly, since the costs are completely different.

It is also quite likely that it takes way more time to create and release content for a game like this compared to a game like GW1.

You also have to keep in mind that their original plan was new campaigns every six months, a plan that only ever worked on time. And quite soon after the original release they saw that it would not work and thus abandoned it.
If it had worked so well as people here love to claim, why didn’t they use the same model for GW2?

No, I recall Mike O Brian specifically saying that there is no difference in costs of hosting instanced to non-instanced, its merely a direction the devs chose for gw’s1, but I like the way you sound so certain even thou ur cluless.

on your second point, its illogical because they’ve released so little content, so if you really believed this, it would mean (more or less) that it takes them one year to make a new zone.

your last point, proves you’ve missed the point, its what ive said in my op, and so many others have said…

its not a question of they need to make money, that’s a given, its a question of what path do they follow to make that money, and its appeared for a long time as tho its all about the easiest way to turn a buck off its player base. GW1 also had to make money, they went about it a different way and that’s what made Anet the initial success it was, the anet of today is a somewhat soulless version of its former self, and I know what your gonna say – that they have 5 times the employees of the initial Anet so they need to make more money to pay ppl…well in that case they should’ve of released 5 times the content, but theyre not doing that are they? not when there’s an easier way to make money through the cash shop.

great, another set of twirly weapons with some slapdash particle effect added, we really needed another set of those.

I like your enthusiastic and imaginative approach, I always wanted to see more racial diversity in this game, something to make you proud of the race you chose, but anet arn’t interested, for them racial diversity is just a spanner in the works of the cash shop, they want everyone to be the same so that when new items go on sale they have the biggest possible market in which to sell those items, they don’t want to make something that’s only going to appeal to just one race, because then they would have to make something different for each race and that requires extra productivity, personally I think theyre doing their game an injustice and have been since launch but aint nothing gonna change, the more it does the more its the same.

I think the reason Anet cant make armours like that is because they approach the vast majority of their armour sets with race in mind, personally I think its a mistake but they’re intent on cutting corners and saving costs when it comes to armour design and making a 1 size fits all design.

I also just logged into my gw1 acc, was refreshing to see all the armour sets I had amassed, and how they compare to gw2’s direction of armour design, hope to post em a little later on.

id also like to see armours specifically designed for charr and norn, the majority of armours on those races just look stretched and badly fitted.

MikaHR.1978:

Actually people are dumb becasue they dont focus on the important matter but insignificant thing as 9/9 update, which in grand scheme of things, is insignificant.

Trait change was/is much more “dangerous” to new players, while NPE could potentialy retain more players in early levels.

So yeah, dumb.

Oh, and trait change was requested by “community”. just as now some other things are requested by “community”, so theres that also.

i tell you the way you reason has enlightened even the heavens.

yes with Quip:) it was coming sooner or later, anet had been testing to see how far they could stretch/push opposing parts of the playr base for a while now.

I think part of the reason the NPE blew up was not necessarily because it was solely to blame for everything, but because it became that one point that united a much larger part of the playr base enabling everyone to use it as a scape goat to vent built up frustration, I was thinking about it yesterday and for a moment these forums appeared to me as the classic historical scenario of peasants demanding/rebelling against their lords on failed promises etc, and the NPE being the fuel that sparked it to open rebellion.

I guess the lesson is that ppl arnt as dumb as big corps supposedly think, eventually if a company stops showing good faith to its loyal’s, resentment will start to build up, and it will only be a matter of time before it finds a way to be released.

if I could ruin the game, id make starter zones open PVP for lvl 80 characters, id also add events specifically designed around attempting to take control of another races home city, only players from that race would be able to defend but they’d have the aid of the home city’s tech.

excellent vid!!

MikaHR.1978:

Alex.9567:

MikaHR.1978:

Alex.9567:

MikaHR.1978:

wasted.6817:

Khristophoros.7194:

So my suggestion to Anet is go back to the standalone expansion pack model.

Look at gem price. 4000 gems will cost you 50$, 10 bucks short of expansion price. Now consider what you can buy with those 4k gems in gem store. Now just compare how much effort it takes to make those few outfits, armor sets etc. you can buy with 4k gems and how much effort it takes to make a decent expansion. That’s increasing profits by cutting expenses. I believe is to be the part of their business strategy and the reason we haven’t seen an expansion for 2 years now and prolly won’t see one for another ~year. Eventually they prolly will have to make one, just to try and restart the cycle.

Big hole in your – you can ignore cash shop altogether and you cannot ignore expansions (as was seen in GW1).

AND they have fastest content releases in industry and that require 0 cost after initial purchase.

Big hole in the way you type, why would I want to ignore the cash shop? and expansions? you’d also be fooling yourself for equating the “0 cost” bi-monthly releases as a reason to say they’ve added any significant content to the game.

Wut? Write more coherent as your post makes 0 sense.

wow, that’s exactly how I feel about everything you’ve said.

Well, youre the only one. Have fun.

so on top of not knowing how to type you also like to speak on behalf of everyone, i’m seeing a pattern here.

MikaHR.1978:

Alex.9567:

MikaHR.1978:

wasted.6817:

Khristophoros.7194:

So my suggestion to Anet is go back to the standalone expansion pack model.

Look at gem price. 4000 gems will cost you 50$, 10 bucks short of expansion price. Now consider what you can buy with those 4k gems in gem store. Now just compare how much effort it takes to make those few outfits, armor sets etc. you can buy with 4k gems and how much effort it takes to make a decent expansion. That’s increasing profits by cutting expenses. I believe is to be the part of their business strategy and the reason we haven’t seen an expansion for 2 years now and prolly won’t see one for another ~year. Eventually they prolly will have to make one, just to try and restart the cycle.

Big hole in your – you can ignore cash shop altogether and you cannot ignore expansions (as was seen in GW1).

AND they have fastest content releases in industry and that require 0 cost after initial purchase.

Big hole in the way you type, why would I want to ignore the cash shop? and expansions? you’d also be fooling yourself for equating the “0 cost” bi-monthly releases as a reason to say they’ve added any significant content to the game.

Wut? Write more coherent as your post makes 0 sense.

wow, that’s exactly how I feel about everything you’ve said.

MikaHR.1978:

wasted.6817:

Khristophoros.7194:

So my suggestion to Anet is go back to the standalone expansion pack model.

Look at gem price. 4000 gems will cost you 50$, 10 bucks short of expansion price. Now consider what you can buy with those 4k gems in gem store. Now just compare how much effort it takes to make those few outfits, armor sets etc. you can buy with 4k gems and how much effort it takes to make a decent expansion. That’s increasing profits by cutting expenses. I believe is to be the part of their business strategy and the reason we haven’t seen an expansion for 2 years now and prolly won’t see one for another ~year. Eventually they prolly will have to make one, just to try and restart the cycle.

Big hole in your – you can ignore cash shop altogether and you cannot ignore expansions (as was seen in GW1).

AND they have fastest content releases in industry and that require 0 cost after initial purchase.

Big hole in the way you type, why would I want to ignore the cash shop? and expansions? you’d also be fooling yourself for equating the “0 cost” bi-monthly releases as a reason to say they’ve added any significant content to the game.

wasted.6817:

Khristophoros.7194:

So my suggestion to Anet is go back to the standalone expansion pack model.

Look at gem price. 4000 gems will cost you 50$, 10 bucks short of expansion price. Now consider what you can buy with those 4k gems in gem store. Now just compare how much effort it takes to make those few outfits, armor sets etc. you can buy with 4k gems and how much effort it takes to make a decent expansion. That’s increasing profits by cutting expenses. I believe is to be the part of their business strategy and the reason we haven’t seen an expansion for 2 years now and prolly won’t see one for another ~year. Eventually they prolly will have to make one, just to try and restart the cycle.

This is exactly what’s going on, and theres nothing we can do about it other than leave, oh well who says life’s fair.

yea hate to say it but I just bought ArcheAge, gonna try that out for a while and see how it feels…(1st mmo I’ve bought since gw’s 2s pre-launch)

hey atleast the new patch made me laugh, I looked at the new backpiece items, theyre sooo ridiculous its funny, I’m still lmao everytime I think of them, like from which planet did the person who thought that was a good idea come from ? as someone who has all my craftings disciplines on 400 and half of em on 500 I was kinda interested to see what these new back pieces were gonna be about….. man so funny.

the irony of addiction is that in most cases the “addict” isn’t the best person to answer the question if they’re addicted or not, and that’s because usually there is an element of denial involved, its easier to say i’m not addicted and continue in an old pattern then to say ive been fooling myself and actually then have to become accountable for your actions.

OP my experience is I use to feel that need to satisfy the completionist in me, until I just stopped caring as much and let it go, some days I don’t even log in, I do log in for new content tho and if there is something I feel I need to chase, but lets be honest this games gone the way of the casual gamer in pretty much every shape and form, and theres nothing wrong with that, there are a lot of ppl looking for a casual game and its good that gw’s fulfils that need, so let this experience be what its intended to be, a casual one.

@blackoil, thanks for starting this. I want to apologise too, just for anything I might have said. I took a couple weeks off and now I’m back and excited about Septembers FP. and its pretty cool how the content was all there just waiting for me.

I just want to say a couple more things even though I know it makes v.little difference.

whether your complaining about or supporting the direction of development of the game, we all have one thing in common, and that is at some stage, present or past we enjoy/ed playing guild wars 2, so its only natural that when parts of the community stops finding the game enjoyable that they turn to the rest of the community with which they have this common interest and express their concerns. I agree criticism should always be constructive but I feel like there’s this part of the community that doesn’t want to hear anything negative about the game. you might say everyone entitles to their opinion and they are but the anet of today is not the anet of the past, I recall with gw1, they were one of the only company’s to go B2P, and everyone thought they were mad for doing it, I remember telling myself ill never pay a sub, and thinking good on anet for showing me it was possible, then when gw2 was in production, they had the guts to drop the healer class, sure there are arguments regarding how well this worked out but ive seen quite a few games copy this and also get rid of a dedicated healer, and anet were the first to do this too.

I just look at the state of the game for the past year, and if I take a step back and im honest with myself I don’t see any of that industry leading thinking in this games development anymore, the F2P/B2P model has become pretty common, which was the one thing anet had on its side for sometime, other games have copied their class system and learnt off their mistakes and done it better, so much of the content is just repackage content (and this is actually a point that kinda gets me mad but I wont go any deeper) I guess I just don’t feel gw has that x factor anymore, its kinda for me just become another mmo in the crowd, and the whole point is I wish it wasn’t.

it may be the case that ppl who don’t like the pastries just want to see the shop fail because they feel betrayed etc, but i ask you, is it not possible that the ppl who continue to eat the pastries are not fooling themselves into believing theyre getting value where they are not because of the massive time investment they made into the game..eh, shop ?

not trying to be inflammatory, but what do we have to do to get cooler weapon and armour skins? I feel like ppl have just settled and have become content receiving weapons with little fossilised bugs on them and thinking its cool, am I mad or do these crusaders look meaner than any war/guard in the current game?:/

I think I get what OP is saying, its not about just giving better loot, because there are ways to get better loot, its about the combination of exploring and discovering unique rewards, one of the most rewarding ways of discovering loot is by finding a hidden area etc then discovering a chest with unique loot within (id personally prefer having to pick the lock), they obviously cant give out unique loot all the time but they shouldn’t cheapen the experience that goes back to the earliest rpg’s by putting it everywhere then giving the most worthless loot in its place, rather take out 90% of the chests but leave the reminding 10% that are hard to find and put a garenteed exotic, id respect that more.

OP you wont win here, not because you don’t have a valid point but because your inadvertently trying to hinder progress, you might not see movement on the y axis as progress but the devs do and I share their view, as soon as you have a game that has vertical movement its inevitable that the devs are going to experiment with movement on that axis, personally I think they’ve done a good job with it, I understand you have latency issues (and your not being co-ordinated with jumping and I can respect and relate to that, I live in south Africa, ive had days in Skyhammer were because of lag I have the most terrible experience, literally making me question why I even bother with pvp) but I don’t expect Anet to restrict the evolution of their ideas because it doesn’t work for me. we live in an era of tech exponentially increasing, the way I see it jumpings only going to increase more in this game, if you done like it the best you can do is “jump ship” now before you invest more into the game

movement on the vertical axis is an obvious next step for mmo’s as a genre, while it can be annoying at times because of latency issues its an inevitable next step to explore movement on that axis. regarding the story and dry top, personally feel its a move in the right direction, story telling’s improved, feels to me the devs have become more aware with what works within the limitation of their systems, also I think dry tops a really cool area, love the layout and all the layers it has. not tying to just be contrary OP, just my opinion.

actually I’ve changed my mind this would be a good addition with a lot of potential if its done right, I’m enjoying the way the achievements in dry top have been done, it could work for other areas but mustn’t be done right

Smith.1826:

Alex.9567:

Just think of the millions of micro transactions that must have taken place on impulse, its not that there isn’t another way, its that the current way is more profitable than we realise.

Again, it’s not a matter of questioning results. It’s the matter of how gameplay is directed/affected in the attempt to achieve these results.

yes in a perfect world where money isn’t a factor. gameplays secondary to making money, besides its pretty easy to make the argument that if your making money, gameplay cant be that bad? and this game must be making money through the cash shop, otherwise they would’ve heeded the forums call for change long ago. im not saying they haven’t taken in some feedback from the community, or that I agree with the direction the cash shops gone, but we’re still playing despite all the things we complain about not being delivered, and we should keep giving criticism but don’t be under any false illusion that money isn’t the No.1 objective.

id rather do the content then whip out my kitten

sorry just had to say that, I think that despite the picture these forums paint, the truth is the cash shops making a killing, its the only logical explanation why they’ve stuck with its format, and think about, when its little timmy’s birthday and he sees something in the gem store that tickled his fancy, do you think hes not gonna buy it? just think of the millions of micro transactions that must have taken place on impulse, its not that there isn’t another way, its that the current way is more profitable than we realise.

Dragonic Elemental.2674:

GreenAlien.5623:

@alex
Sure.. but following a meaningful story also takes a lot of time for developers to do, and i want more than 30 mins of gameplay out of each patch, so “cheap” achievements are the way to go. If they make me revisit regions i havent visited outside of mega bosses since world completion i’m all in favor of this..

This.

Absolutely, couldn’t agree more, and ill end up doing it most likely, just have a difference of opinion on saying it has enormous potential, for me and i’m sure for some others it has slight to little potential.

OP im ok with the fact you enjoy that kind of content, personally for me it shouts nothing more than filler content, its the exact kind of thing we’ve gotten from the beginning of the LW and its just re-package filler content, im talking about for example the find the missing coins achievement, its just filler content linked to achievement points, if there were no AP linked to it I wouldn’t bother, ppl will just refer to a guide anyway to get it out the way, what’s so significant about exploring every nook and cranny anyway, its not like it changes anything, theres only so long one can hold the opinion of thinking every nook and cranny holds an adventure before common sense tells you it doesnt, for me it isn’t obvious why exploring every nook and cranny is fun, what is fun is following a meaningful story which connects the player to the world, which I still think season 2 could deliver.

the devs are to scared to open this ‘pandoras box’ because the community outsmarts them everytime, its like a dozen brains vs. 10000, they stand no chance, thats why they keep the leash tight, they’re are literally incapable of fully comprehending how the community might implement those skills and then it becomes their balancing problem, bit of a catch 22, ftfw.

calyx.9086:

Omar Aschi Popp.7496:

Pretty much.

Also I kittening hate Lions Arch, the way it looks, the geography and the unwashed vermin who infest it.

I actually like it a whole lot more now than I did before, I like the bombed-out, war-torn environment.

To each their own though.

Also prefer LA now, hated it before, it felt like a shopping mall on a saturday morning before, where all the cool kids hung outside the arcade..lol, now at least its cosy and intimate and as you say has that worn-torn feel to it.

would be nice if it culled human players before npc’s, for example in crown pavillion, i have player limit on low as i prefer higher frame rates and dont like seeing all the zerg, however it culls npc’s aswell, yes i can see their name plates but would prefer seeing npc’s and not just a floating “merchant” sign, just saying, dont care that much.

thief has one of the most unique mechanics with stealth and initiative, and its a play style anet want to enhance not nerf, besides if the downed team mate hits an enemy after SR is dropped it all goes to waste, op seriously its not right to demand/complain just cause it doesn’t suit your style of play, and if we nerf that where do we draw the line? everyones got something about another profession that they would like nerfed.

it was pointed out in another post, the problem is not zerker, its because there is only one combat role in this game, and thats DPS, even if they dismantle power, prec and ferocity, ppl will just look for the next strongest DPS build and that wil become the new “zerker” however ive joined zerker partys before and ran knights armour or power prec, condition damage armour, know one even knew.

ya im sorry ppl who keep trying to blame everything on zerker need to also consider the other variable in the equation..i.e themselves, if zerker is OP why dont you just run it? oh cause you keep dying..enuf said.

Prophet.6257:

Please no more Sylvari super villains.

(but I like your letter. In fact I would have liked this twist for LS1 over Scarlet any day.)

This.
would’ve been a great way to resolve the Trahearne fiasco, although it wouldve taken some real balls to try push another story with trahearne, imagine the potential flop that couldnve been if they got it wrong, guess thats why they chose to steer away from it.

dude why didnt you say it was their last chance earlier? im sure they wouldve done something if only you issued that warning earlier?

i think another big mistake is assuming the devs didn’t learn anything or take in any feedback from the players regarding LWS1, i remember Colin Johanson admitting the devs did find LWS1 to be problematic, so im pretty confident we’ll see some real differences the second time around.