And I’m a guy that puts up with a lot of change before I move. I promise you there are a lot of people who walked away from the game because it’s become less casual than it was…probably more people than people who are raiding now…in my opinion.
Wow.
It’s been months since I checked in on the GW2 forum. I was a vocal GW2 advocate from before launch through the introduction of ascended gear. I hung on for quite a while after that, playing the game and participating frequently here on the forums. I loved the goals the developers said they had for the game, and the foundation they build in the game’s early months.
Shortly after HoT was released I found myself playing less and less, feeling that the expansion wasn’t really my thing and therefore failing to justify its cost. By the time the cost had dropped down to what I was willing to play, I’d missed logging in for LS updates, which means more cost to catch back up with the story, effectively sealing my departure from GW2.
On a lark, today, I popped back by the forums to see what the community is saying about the game.
To see Vayne, stalwart optimist and long time apologist for ArenaNet, thinking about whether it’s time to move on… I guess it’s something I never thought I’d see.
In my personal opinion, the answer to the thread title is not only, “Yes”, but probably “Repeatedly”. The initial vision presented for this game was bold and clear. I think it could have become a great niche game, the “MMO for people who hate MMOs”. It appeared to me that ArenaNet was surprised by the success of launch, then surprised by the player falloff shortly after. Instead of staying true to the original vision and keeping the core audience that agreed with it, they repeatedly adjusted the vision to try and capture back the rest of that audience that came and tried the game.
My history with GW2 felt like riding a ship with a captain who kept wildly changing destinations every six months or so.
Thank you all very much. This is good to hear. With the 50% off sale, the price of HoT came down to close what I thought it was worth to me, but I wasn’t ready to upgrade all four accounts belonging to my family at the same time. We’ll just make sure to keep logging in as LWS3 develops, then pick up HoT when ready.
Does living story still follow the rule that we have to log on during that chapter to unlock it for future play, or face paying to unlock the content later?
If so, do I have to have HoT to unlock it, or will logging on as a vanilla account unlock it for future use when I finally purchase HoT?
Hm, how long do you think before it gets down to $19.99? That’s when I’ll have to deal with the temptation to buy it.
How is it not clear, english aint my first language so might missunderstand.
But it states if you have expansion you will be able to get it by just log in to game to get free access
Because the “if you own HoT” may just be the provision that you can’t play it until you get HoT, not that your log in won’t count toward unlock.
It’s probably the case that we’ll have to have HoT to even do the unlock, I’m hoping that it’s not the case, however, and I haven’t seen an authoritative answer.
If you own the expansion, you’ll be able to simply log in to the game to gain free access to upcoming Living World releases!
Saw this, but it’s not exactly clear, because the answer to #1 is yes. Will we be able to log in to tag a particular chapter if we don’t have HoT, and then get access to it later when we pick up HoT?
If not, wouldn’t they be pretty much certifying that any current players without HoT will never pick it up? I’d think they’d want to keep that door open to current players, rather than having the cost of HoT steadily rise with each LW chapter released due to having to pay to unlock them on top of finally purchasing the “expansion”.
With the post about Living World Season 3 (LWS3 hereafter) in the near future, I have some questions that, as far as I can tell, haven’t been officially answered. If you don’t bear a red ANet tag next to your name, please provide sources for your answers.
1.) Will LWS3 require Heart of Thorns to access?
2.) Will LWS3 have the same requirement as previous seasons to log on during each chapter to open it, or pay for the unlock later?
3.) If the answer to 1) and 2) are both yes, will logging on during each chapter be sufficient to unlock it even if I don’t have HoT, provided I purchase HoT later? Or will any chapters released before I buy HoT automatically come with a price tag once I do buy HoT?
Thanks!
Exactly, JaFW.
That’s what I was trying to say earlier, but wasn’t sure if mentioning specific things like Josh’s slaps on the wrist would bring the wrath of the moderators.
Because they sell.
/thread
I don’t think it has anything to do with where the player response is more negative.
I think it has to do with a corporate culture that clamps down on unscripted developer communication. Remember when one of the developers said too much and had to back away from his previously open communication?
I think they post on Reddit because this is the OFFICIAL FORUM where every communication, if not completely devoid of detail, must be run through the PR department and triple stamped by the powers that be.
Can the developpers please stop ignoring us?
in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns
Posted by: Gibson.4036
Does anyone have an official link regarding GW2 playership? I see a lot of people saying that the number of players is dropping precipitously but I’ve never seen that to be the case.
There will never be a concrete, official statement. Like any company, they are going to play this information close to the chest, and when they do release it, it will be in a way that shines the most favorable light on player populations.
Megaserver obscures it. Statements like “X number of new accounts” leaves out how many people tried it and dropped it. “Y number of active users” won’t come with specifics on what “active users” entails.
It’s anybody’s guess until something happens that can’t be obfuscated, like reducing employee numbers, plummeting sales reports, or turning off servers. We haven’t seen those yet.
GW2 before the introduction of Ascended gear, and a commitment on the part of ArenaNet to develop it along their original vision going forward.
The shame shouldn’t be on any of the players for this.
This has been a repeated issue over the last three years. ArenaNet keeps finding ways to make it more rewarding to fail events. Early on, honest mistake, but hasn’t GW2 been around this particular mountain enough times now?
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/6-hours-of-wvw-for-22-dragonite-ore/first#post3050657
ArenaNet doesn’t it want to make it easy to play only one part of the game. That design goal from launch was shelved long ago.
One way to get their attention is to pull the plug on their income. I think I’ll be skipping Gem store purchases until they start listening to their customers on this. Maybe others will join me.
Unfortunately, for a while now it looks like their business model is based around a steady stream of new players, not consistent player retention. Waves of players have stopped spending and later stopped playing, but we are being replaced out by newcomers.
Look at Colin’s defense of the tournament. It’s essentially a commercial, run by marketing, not a strategy for long-term population health.
This has the to be the worst gaming company when it comes to communications with their players. These same players that they are trying to sell gems and expansion to…just unbelievable.
And the sad thing is that there was a time when it was the opposite.
Leading up to launch and a while after, I used to pitch the game to people partly based on the strength of ANet’s communication and openness.
“Give the players what they want” Which players? We want different things.
Yep. The big mistake of GW2 is that ArenaNet didn’t decide who they wanted their core audience to be. Launch was so successful, they went from building a niche game, “the MMORPG for people who don’t like MMORPGs” to trying to please everyone in turn. That just means that each group of players gets “what they want” for a brief time when the current development iteration heads in their direction, then spend the rest of the time feeling disenfranchised.
Fist thing they must listen is : Stop trying to make this game become an E-Sport like MOBA . This is MMORPG . Focus on WvW , contents , storyline , event , …. Those are strengths of their game .
It takes a lot less development time to keep the PVPers happy if they can get E-Sports off the ground. That’s a big if, but I can see why it’s a dream they want to chase.
Look how easily players burned through all the PvE content it took months to create for the first big “expansion”. Look at how they tried to crank up the grind in order to keep people doing that PvE content.
If you can get PvP to work, you get a lot more play-hours from your players than from the same amount of development time spent on PvE.
Forum bug fix.
/15Charr
Can the developpers please stop ignoring us?
in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns
Posted by: Gibson.4036
They have a company culture where they don’t like to communicate until they have landed on a solution. That’s why we get silence on a lot of things for a great deal of time until suddenly it’s, “We’re going to patch in this new fix!”
Hint: as many words have done in recent times its meaning has been warped to something entirely different from what it originally meant .. kind of like ‘hotfix’.
That’s how language works. It evolves based on use.
In current usage, decimate means, “kill, destroy, or remove a large percentage or part of.”
(edited by Gibson.4036)
Is the game made for me? No, of course not. It is made for a range of players. The range of players does seem to have shifted so it looks like I also need to shift to another game.
This is the tragedy of GW2. It seemed like it had a clear vision for a specific audience, but that changed shortly after launch. Over the last three years, ArenaNet’s design goals have lurched about first trying to please one core audience and then another, systematically alienating each one as they are abandoned in favor of the the next target of ArenaNet’s “iteration”.
People wanted raiding, they get the drama that goes along with it.
On the flip side, I have absolutely no regrets that I decided not to prepurchase it. Before launch, I thought it looked like we were getting about $30 worth with HoT. Now that I’ve got a chance to read about it and see feedback, I’m valuing it at $20, or $25 max. I’ll be waiting until the price comes down to that, and then purchasing it.
Please, no. The original LA had so much more character.
Depends on the material. I used Blue Ice for a long time before I got Celestial, but on some of my armor it does make a big difference.
I can’t help but think they have lost touch with their core audience.
I think this happened shortly after launch. It was marketed as a fairly niche game, but got an huge response. When sales vastly exceeded projections, ArenaNet quickly fell into the trap of trying to please everyone.
This explains why development has lurched from one direction to another over the course of the last three years. First it was the MMORPG for people who hate MMORPGs, then it was “we need progression for the carrot chasers lets add Ascended” and along the way we’ve experienced “let’s focus on the dungeon crowd” the “large guild crowd”, the “casual just log in for a little time crowd” and several others.
When you say “their core audience”, who do you think that is? Because if I was just trying to identify it by looking back over game development, I’d be at a total loss to know what that core audience was supposed to be.
The price will of course get cheaper over time, however keep in mind that you will not be able to unlock the living story for free without HoT.
Anybody? Is Healix assuming this, or has it been officially stated?
The price will of course get cheaper over time, however keep in mind that you will not be able to unlock the living story for free without HoT.
Has this been confirmed?
I’ve been posting off and on since HoT was announced asking about this, but have never seen an official response.
At the moment, my plan is to wait until HoT comes down to a price that matches the value I think I’ll get from it, but if that means I’ll have to retroactively pay to get access to all LS chapters released after tomorrow, I’m done with GW2.
I’m okay with logging in to my vanilla account during each LS update in the future to make sure they will be there when I finally get HoT.
HoT Price Feedback + Base game included [merged]
in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns
Posted by: Gibson.4036
So someone sells me a jewel for $60 that usually goes for $300.
A while later, the seller offers to sell me a nice chain to wear the jewel on for $50. I respond that it looks like it’s really only a $25 chain.
And some people here would come and argue that because the jewel was such a good deal, I should just plunk down my $50.
What kind of free-love utopia are you all living in?
Concerning narrative design – why create new characters when there is plenty to build on in existing lore?
It’s easier.
Or gw2 leads to us destroying the dragons one at a time. After the last dragon we have a great cataclysm…just in time for gw3 and new technology/graphics updates/etc.
Or by Dragon 3, we get a message from ArenaNet:
“While we have enjoyed the Elder Dragons and the enthusiastic engagement with them from the best game community in all of MMORPGdom, we don’t feel that the concept of, ‘Elder Dragon,’ really supports all of the amazing things we have for Guild Wars 2 in the future. In the next expansion, we will be retiring the Elder Dragons so we can bring you new, exciting things for Tyria.”
“At ArenaNet, we love our iterating.”
Also, as you can see in this thread, some people in this game don’t want mounts.
Fixed that for you.
ANet said that they would never implement them and they never should.
Can you provide a source for this? All I’ve ever seen them say is that they have no intention to do so at this time.
I’m surprised that there is anyone left who is surprised by this.
The game’s direction shifted long ago. I’d be a lot more surprised if HoT development suddenly started looking like the game GW2 was promoted as in the early days.
I think the designers dont know how to model actual pants so they cover it up with weird jacket and flappy bits, the only decent looking pants skin is the ascalon one,
That can’t be true. If you get the glorious chest piece for medium armor, at least on males, you don’t get butt-capes because they are attached to the chest armor for medium folk. Then you can wear a wide variety of pants and many of them look great.
But you’re locked into one and only one chest piece.
Just saying, it’s not a matter of designers having trouble creating pants or even decent looking buttocks. I have no idea why there are so many butt-capes in the game.
HoT Price Feedback + Base game included [merged]
in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns
Posted by: Gibson.4036
A rather inexpensive expac as well.
This thread got a lot of HoT price feedback dicussion merged. I have no problem with the base game being free. It’s the price tag on the “expac”, as you call it, that seems crazy based on what we’ve seen so far. Perhaps there’s a lot they haven’t shown us yet, but it doesn’t look like we’ll know if that’s true until launch day.
HoT Price Feedback + Base game included [merged]
in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns
Posted by: Gibson.4036
I don’t know what all I will be getting. Bought it anyway. Everyone else can buy or not as they choose. You know the price… make your own decision. No one is holding a sword to your throat to buy it sight unseen. I doubt ANet will change their position at this late date no matter how many pages this thread generates. (Now where is that graphic of beating a dead horse I saw somewhere else in this forum…)
I don’t know what all I will be getting. Waiting to see. Everyone else can buy or not as they choose. You know what this thread is about… don’t come here if you don’t want to see it. No one is holding a sword to your throat making you read it. I doubt complaining about the thread length or posting any amount of dead horse gifs will stop people expressing their disappointment over the pricing.
I’m still interested to know how HoT living story is going to work in the future.
Can we log in on a vanilla GW2 account to make sure we’ll get the LS without paying for them should we ever buy HoT, or will logging in only count if we currently have HoT.
I want to know if I purchase HoT when it comes down to a reasonable price, if I’ll also have to pay for all LS installments between HoT launch and then.
HoT Price Feedback + Base game included [merged]
in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns
Posted by: Gibson.4036
And now for the obligatory question… Why is this thread still alive?
Because the price still seems high for what we seem to be getting.
HoT Price Feedback + Base game included [merged]
in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns
Posted by: Gibson.4036
All that said, GW2 is still an incredible value and anyway you look at it ArenaNet is offering alot of game for very little price.
No, clearly there are ways to look at it in which that is not true. We wouldn’t have people disgruntled with the price, otherwise.
Conversations about “fairness” and the like are irrelevant to me. I don’t care if the price point compares to other MMORPGs. The only thing I really care about is whether I think the price is worth what I seem to be getting.
A handful of new zones with 1-3 biomes a piece and a bunch of fixed for various parts of the game that should have been there at launch. Gliding is new. This doesn’t seem like enough for the price of a full game. I might as well jump into another game and get a great deal more new stuff to explore.
Yes, my initial box price got me a lot of play over the last three years. But that is completely irrelevant to whether I want to pay this much for the content that it will unlock. No business in the world asks people to pay money for stuff they’ve already received because the initial price they paid was so cheap. It doesn’t work that way.
So I log in some days to get the login chest. I’ll buy HoT when it gets down to $20-30, and I’ll be swimming in laurels, loyalty chests and level up tomes to get going. I’ll have the added advantage of enjoying HoT after the worst of the bugs have been cleaned up because the early adopters have done their post-launch beta testing.
HoT Price Feedback + Base game included [merged]
in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns
Posted by: Gibson.4036
The only solution is to drop the game, spread the word, inform the others that ANet stops caring for you once they get your money in the bag and the only important customers for them are the potential new ones.
You mean like every company ever?
Companies vary. Some spend time courting their current customers to keep them current customers while still looking for new ones. Others just base their business model on a constant stream of new customers.
(edited by Gibson.4036)
Raids only work if you lock something desirable and exclusive behind them. If you can get the shinies some other way, the raiders get upset because there aren’t enough people to raid with them.
If there aren’t enough players that enjoy raiding then the developers shouldn’t waste time developing content for raiders. If there are enough players that enjoy raiding to justify making content for them, then they will play raids without exclusive rewards, so long as the quantity of rewards they receive is not less per unit of time than other activities. Any argument made in favor of the necessity of exclusive raid rewards is ONLY an argument against implementing raids at all.
I wholeheartedly agree.
HoT Price Feedback + Base game included [merged]
in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns
Posted by: Gibson.4036
I’ll be surprised if I see anyone in that armor.
I am wearing it, it looks neat on the Charr character I just rolled to play with the new guests the game got. I hope they decide to buy HoT too, cause so far, they are having fun getting their feet wet in the game.
Ah, good point. Didn’t think about Charr. Just thought it looked pretty bleh on the human preview.
The final nail in the coffin to bury the GW2 dream.
Your version of GW2 dream is not the same as others.
Obviously.
Its the final nail in Gibsons GW2, not mine or many others.
Which is why I posted it. Clearly there are people who don’t agree. It only makes sense for me to post the opinion I have.
The players who wanted GW2 to be more like standard MMORPGs have their victory.
Bye.
Bye.
HoT Price Feedback + Base game included [merged]
in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns
Posted by: Gibson.4036
I’ll be surprised if I see anyone in that armor.
Past experience is usually a better answer than current good intentions.
Raids only work if you lock something desirable and exclusive behind them. If you can get the shinies some other way, the raiders get upset because there aren’t enough people to raid with them.
They’ve been up front for a long time that they planned to continue a steady vertical progression.
Back when people were defending the introduction of Ascended gear by parroting ArenaNet that there would never be another gear tier added to the game, there were plenty of us warning that there are many other ways of creating a power treadmill without another tier of gear.
Buying something because you don’t think it’s worth the price isn’t a boycott. It’s just common sense.