Guild Wars 2

Chris, I appreciate the post. However, I would appreciate it even more if you guys could do something like a State of the Game. And what we should expect moving forward. A lot of players don’t know where GW2 is going and they don’t know what to expect. It seems like a game without direction at the moment, and to me that is the key issue. There seems to be some sort of indecisiveness within GW2 (real or perceived).

You don’t have to do something like that, but players would like to see something like that. People are not being negative for no reason (most of the time). There are some underlying issues why it seems like people are upset. And yes I agree, being a troll or angry is not the best way to go about it.

I am afraid without tackling the root issue, nothing will change.

SpyderArachnid.5619:

There is so many things that you’ve tried to “sweep under the rug” and completely ignore. That is completely disrespectful.

I think this is extremely relevant and I agree 100%. Chris and team, here is some constructive advice from one random customer of yours:

• Sweeping issues under a rug, doesn’t make it go away. Ignoring the issue only magnifies it. We have seen a couple instances of that on these very forums.

• Please be open and honest with us, speak to us as people. I can assure you most of us would appreciate that more than excessive PR speak. Some ANet developers use way too much PR speak when talking to their customers.

• You have a great community team, please use them more. We don’t expect developers to be on the forums or answer questions. But there needs to be more communication between ANet and the community. It is severely lacking.

• This goes with the previous point. More interaction less moderation.

Thanks.

kokiman.2364:

mexay.3902:

ColinJohanson.2394:

You will absolutely see a way to create a precursor available in the future. As detailed in our plans for the second half of the year here:

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/looking-ahead-guild-wars-2-in-2013/

As mentioned at the end of the blog, as always things are subject to change as test and prepare various systems. Most of the stuff covered in the blog you’ve already seen implemented, or steps towards being implemented, however the precursor building (and corresponding additional legendary items) is the one highest at risk to not make it this year.

It is still something we absolutely plan to do!

So we’re seeing “replace a dungeon path with a somewhat buggy one, Add lore-breaking stories to the game, E-SPORTZZ and create 2-minute Content™”

Instead of
“focus on what the playerbase actually wants and has been asking for”

Angry forumposters =! playerbase

Agreed, usually the player base silently just quits. The angry ones on the forums are the one with hope.

Maybe you should type in German? Since it is the majority as you said. Instead of the majority trying to mold in to fit the minority?

In forums if there is a balance between positive and negative comments that is the norm. But when it turns mostly negative there is something definitely wrong with the direction of the game.

The “free” excuse can’t be used anymore. Most of the MMOs on my computer are free (PlanetSide 2, FireFall, Rift, Secret World, SWTOR, Neverwinter, Tera) etc.

People expect a lot from all MMOs, just not GW2. Problem is I think GW2 might have promised a little more than they can actually deliver.

I think they make backpacks because it is the easiest thing to do, basically a shortcut. Why make armors for all races when you can just make one backpack?

I had to laugh at Riondron copy/paste post because it has nothing to do with the discussion. Those rules are completely irrelevant and mean nothing in terms of this topic. All it says is “ANet can do whatever they want”. Sure they can. And as customers people can tell them how they feel.

Are you saying ANet is going to ban people if they GvG in WvW? They would never do something like that in a million years. That action itself would be a death sentence in terms of PR.

Lord Kuru.3685:

Fernling.1729:

Anet was willing to give away 5000 free accounts just for submitting a video of yourself taking the GW2 oath.
Why didn’t you people submit a video to get a free account for a friend, family member or even for yourself as a storage?

Because for many people, it’s not worth publicly embarrassing yourself for the equivalent of $30 (the current sale price).

Exactly, which is why it was bad marketing.

Riondron.1069:

Sube Dai.8496:

@Riondron – none of that means kitten if no one is playing the game.

People are complaining because they care. And if ANet continues to ignore what people say, they won’t have any players left.

Over 3,500,000 copies of GW2 was sold just in the first year. Are you seriously going suggest that All of those players will leave the game, just because 1,000 or even 10,000 players are crying foul?…..I don’t even know how to respond to that.

Copies sold doesn’t mean players playing. As they say with MMOs, box sales mean nothing, retention means everything.

Diablo 3 sold 12 million copies in 2012, but during the end of 2012 only 1 million people were still playing it. (i.e. 12 million people are not playing Diablo 3) I would not be surprised if GW2 had a similar ratio.

It won’t stop anyone. In South Korea, they have people’s social security numbers tied to their online identities and trolling is pretty horrible there.

Blizzard tried to enforce real name on forums, it got so bad that the President of Blizzard had to go on the forums and apologize for the decision.

Basically it will never happen, and even if it does, it won’t work.

I think the opposite actually. I think GW2 PvP is a little to simple and lacks depth. It has the least keybinds compared to most other MMOs. The devs obviously tried to emulate LoL and other MOBAs but failed because that doesn’t work in MMOs.

In other MMOs a good team can chain CC or silence the opponent at the correct time, in GW2 that rarely happens against other players. Too many instant casts and no spell bar are couple of the reasons for it. The lack of abilities and UI just makes the combat bland and literally faceroll.

One thing however I do think is stupid is that they didn’t launch with a rating system. When that happened noobs that just joined the game went up against players that have played for months and they probably never queued again.

10-12 keybinds are easy especially coming from most other MMOs. Adding a dodge mechanic doesn’t make combat hard. A game like Tera that actually had aiming and tons of abilities can call itself hard.

mrstealth.6701:

The most important part is that it’s WvW, not GvG. WvW is in the intended and designed game format, so of course that takes priority. GvG is not “another aspect of this gametype”, it’s a separate player-generated gametype that happens on the same maps.

I disagree with this completely. In an MMO you should play how you would like to play as long as you are not going against the ToS. If I just wanted to chain jumping puzzles in WvW I should be able to do that. If I want chain duel other players in WvW I should be able to do that. If I want to just kill PvE mobs over and over again in WvW, I should be able to do that. The company shouldn’t be telling me “Hey you can’t just kill NPC mobs here you need to kill other players”. If it gets to that point, they failed in designing the game properly. And they need to take steps to fix it.

If the game is designed to level from 1-80 doing heart quests, but I like to grind on mobs over and over again to get to level 80, I should be able to do that. Even though it wasn’t designed for that type of game play.

This should be the case in all aspects of the game just not WvW and that is how it works in almost all MMOs. If anything Anet should realize that players like to GvG and do something to cater to them instead of bashing them and telling them to go away. To me that shows a lot about the character of a company, in a bad way. Chris Whiteside’s words are what ANet should ideally be.

Companies should never blame the players for playing the game. They should either blame the design of WvW or give the players a venue to do what they want to do. Games like DayZ and DotA were born out of gameplay that the company didn’t intend.

It just feels so wrong looking at that video. Players gathered and were doing something they like to do. And a dev tells them they shouldn’t be doing that in “his game”. That to me goes against everything an MMO should be.

And the worst thing about all of this? ANet caused a conflict between their own players, that is just unhealthy. Not only did they cause it, they are fueling the fires of it instead of putting it out. Don’t turn your own player base against each other. But that is all I have seen from ANet lately.

I wish there was a queue.

Wow, I read what Colin said. And it is AMAZING to me how they completely made a 180 from that. This was the funniest. He is doing the OPPOSITE of what he said.

You get leveling systems that take insane amounts of grind to gain a level, loot drop systems that require doing a dungeon with a tiny chance the item you want can drop at the end, raid systems that need huge numbers of people online simultaneously to organize and play, thousands of wash/repeat item-collection or kill-mob quests or dailies with flavor text support, the best stat gear requiring crazy amounts of time to earn, etc.

Vayne.8563:

My point is, without knowing how many people or the percentage of people, the entire post becomes 100% meaningless. If two people want it, why should Anet consider it? It’s only worth posting if “enough people” want it.

Do you know how many “people” want it? Do you know a “majority” of the GW2 community want it? Off course you don’t. You are just making assumptions just like everyone else.

Which is why ANet should decide not you. They are the only one with data behind things like this, not you or I. You are not the judge of this or the gate keeper.

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

Zackie.8923:

so that means no precursor making this year?

Not necessarily. He simply said its the greatest risk for not making the year end deadline, not that they wouldn’t. Honestly, I feel that they should simply take the time they need to get it right, rather then just rushing something out the door to make people happy. If they miss the deadline, so what. He’s stated that it is something they are doing, I’m sure a few extra months wouldn’t kill us if they needed more time to fine tune.

What he basically said is that it is not going to happen. Colin never answers any question directly. So don’t expect it this year.

ProxyDamage.9826:

I’ve mentioned before that GW2 felt schizophrenic, regarding something else at the time. I fear that particular disease has spread. Currently the game feels… Lost. Without direction. Like it’s trying to be everything, and do everything on a surface level, with no real idea where it’s going from there. Like a kid in a playground that is trying so hard to belong to every group that ends up never being a part of any. “We don’t want grind! Just grind! Ok a little bit! But not too much! Grind this much exactly! But do it everyday. We’re all about the PvE… PvP, I mean. E-SPORTS! HERE IS ANOTHER STORY OF SOMETHING WHO CARES WHAT! PLEASE LOVE ME!”

I agree with almost everything you said, especially this point. It almost feels like they were forced to go away from vertical progression. They keep saying “This is the last one we promise”. I don’t think they know exactly how they are going to go moving forward.

One of the worst things for a game is the lack of direction and indecisiveness. And since the end of last year it has happened. It seems like they don’t know the direction of their own game.

They want to be a part of everything, but still don’t want to be implicated. At this point, the best option would be just go with one thing. Stop being so schizophrenic.

I wish GW2 stuck with their original model. If they did they would have been unique in the MMO market place. Now why will a person pick GW2 over games in the market? Or future games coming out? If I am to grind anyway, I can just grind in the dozen + MMO in the market.

What nonsense, there are crybabies and elitists in PvE also. Probably even more so in PvE from what I have seen.

That is how my server looked during the first week. But we just guested to Blackgate and did it. The thing about events like this is if you don’t get it done the first week you are pretty much screwed.

Open world bosses that require 80+ people is just bad design, in terms of long term content.

Vayne.8563:

I’m not going an extra mile to defend a change. I’m taking on people who say this is what the game was sold on. No. This may be what sold YOU on the game, but this was not what Anet PUSHED.

No it was a major thing they pushed, everywhere. Including in their sPvP which still remains horizontal. I fully understand people prefer vertical but that doesn’t mean the core message of the game before release was no grinding and no gear tiers.

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

Without further clarification (which we won’t get, because they can’t be that clear with us for aforementioned reasons) neither of us is right, neither of us is wrong. It simply is what it is, and all we can do is what and see….

Off course we don’t know for sure. But “highest risk for not making it this year” is a nice way to say no. So don’t expect it, or you will be disappointed.

If he said something like “our plan is to release it this year but we don’t know for sure as it needs testing” that is a maybe.

EgonVenkman.1907:

Chris starts up topics on how to improve things, Josh posts all the reasons why it can’t/won’t be done. Sounds like more of the same Anet double speak we’re used to. One side says, “We’ll never do that….” 2 months later, “Get used to it. It’s happening.”

There is ALWAYS a reason something can’t be done. Easy to find reasons; staff, complexity, talent, time, etc….. Time to start finding solutions instead of excuses

I agree with Josh’s rules, but eventually players will want to see solutions to said issues. I personally understand you guys are hard working, love what you are doing, love the game and want to make it the best it possibly can be, I also understand that sometimes what you say can’t be done.

However, points 2, 3, 4 & 5 sound like excuses as to why things are not done on time, why “promises” are not met and why there is a perceived lack of direction to this game. They are all valid reasons, but unfortunately, to be totally blunt as you can see on these forums, players want to see solutions.

At the end of the day, regardless of the forums or not. Regardless of communication or not, the proof is in the pudding, results need to be seen in game. And solutions to problem either real or perceived also need to be seen in game.

ASB.4295:

Jackie.1829:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/What-A-Dev-Think-About-The-Official-Forums

Here’s a mirror: http://www.guildwars2guru.com/arenanet-tracker/topic/268673-what-a-dev-think-about-the-official-forums/

That is pretty amusing.

Had to double check the dates for a second.

Totally agree with the OP. The thing is they did promise something and delivered something else. I do think they did it to please the masses, however, doing so will alienate their core fans. And the gear progression is no where done, it is coming more often.

Vayne.8563:

I’m not twisting what Colin said, because we talked about the manifesto. Looking at Anet’s web page for Guild Wars 2, grind and vertical progression was barely mentioned at all. They talked about dynamic events, personal stories, and a living breathing world. That’s the main thing the game was marketed on.

If you can find 3 quotes over five years that say vertical progression….okay, you’ve found three quotes. So what? It’s three quotes over five years.

There were literally hundreds of hours talking about everything else. It’s people’s focus that make this the depth of the promise it was, not what was actually said.

By percentage, Anet talked about vertical progression very little.

No you are just making excuses, and stretching the truth to justify that excuse. As I said before, changing small things and backing out here and there is fine. But not when it goes against the core design philosophies you preached. It is if a game like WoW talked about Raiding and how important raiding is in their game and removed it a year after launch. Even if it didn’t take a lot of “percentage” of their time talking about it, it still is a major change for your core philosophy.

Regardless, it is idiotic to think importance is based on how long they talk about it. Talk about going the extra mile to defend this change.

Elder Scrolls Online will do this, but they have to, since their game doesn’t have servers. The matches are longer and players are put into a campaign. Each campaign is balanced for player population in the 3-factions.

Then again ESO has the genius behind DAoC, which is Matt Firor. So you can expect better design choices from them.

I personally think servers should be separated from WvW, it will make a better experience. But that is just me.

I highly doubt they go through all accounts and define what is inactive and what is active. So I am fairly certain it is based on all accounts, both active and inactive.

Vayne.8563:

No one seems to remember Eric Flannum pre launch telling us there would be stuff to grind for….just as there was plenty of stuff to grind for in Guild Wars 1.

LOL I did a google search trying to find Eric Flannum say something like that and your name came up almost 5 times. You use this argument a lot don’t you? I will paste a quote from that thread:

“We will not be retaining the level 20 cap. [from GW1] We will announce the exact nature and level of the Guild Wars 2 level cap early next year but let me state that our philosophy of allowing players to play the game without grinding their life away is something that is unchanged from Guild Wars 1.” – Lead designer Eric Flannum

“Our goal with our crafting philosophically is that you’ll never make an item that is a throwaway item. You’ll always be making something that is going to be valuable to someone. Whether it’s for yourself, whether it’s to put on the auction house, whether it’s a consumable that people want, there’s never a time when you’re just making something to increase your skill and then you’re just going to vendor it or chuck it or whatever else you’d do with it afterwards.” – Lead designer Eric Flannum

Oh I already know your next response. Using the iteration argument basically means they can do anything and we can’t complain. You know trinity + raids + tier every 3 months can also be “iteration”.

Ok I spent sometime and looked at NCSoft’s releases on sales. Please be aware, that generally the developer only gets 10% to 15% of the total revenue and NOT all of it.

Unit : Korean Won in Millions

3Q 12 = 45,841
4Q 12 = 119,013
1Q 13 = 36,382
2Q 13 = 28,899

Without an expansion we will keep seeing drops. The only way to rejuvenate their revenue is a new expansion. They know this better than anyone else, which is why I am 100% sure there will be an expansion. It would be silly not to have one.

Hannelore.8153:

Even on heavily populated servers, many maps are simply completely barren.

The thing is “High” means nothing in GW2. I was on a High server for months and rarely saw more than 20 people in Lion’s Arch during Primetime.

I agree with you about “Underflow” servers, there are many servers that are completely barren, and if ANet doesn’t do anything to fix it, the effect will snowball as people will think no one is playing the game.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Chris Whiteside has a team of writers/PR people and Marketeers talking through him!
This is not the case. i just happen to write this way. Everything i say comes from the heart and if it helps i can write in a less passionate manner. Note i am English and this may have some effect on the way i write (People in the studio tend to blame a lot of the mistakes i make on being English so you are all in good company there)

To me it is so much more refreshing to see you post something like this, than your original post. The first one was so PR this one is so much more human. Some other devs do that, and they can, their choice. But you don’t have to use PR on us, you already got us man!

But thanks for your comments, people do appreciate it. As I said earlier, secrecy breeds distrust and uncertainty (I don’t think you were being secretive but some perceived it as such).

I don’t think anyone expects developers to post on the forums a lot. We know how hard your job is in the MMO space, and I personally appreciate it a lot. But the communication needs to be more open. For example, it would have been better if you guys had communicated with us the stats of precursor crafting a little while ago, instead of us asking about it, and then getting the answer it might not come this year.

Another issue that we haven’t gotten any communication on for almost a year is condition damage:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/No-love-for-condition-builds/page/2

There are some examples that I have seen asked about for a year, with little to no updates/response.

Thanks Chris.

The event was terrible on low population servers when 40 people show up. So if they can scale it for 40+ players, yes. If they can’t, then no.

It is an artificial way to make players log in. Things like dailies and weeklies are also forums of “temporary content”.

Also, having 2-week cycles of temp content means they have something to sell you every 2 weeks, with the limited time sale feeling we all will have because we know the item is going away.

Russ check out Tier 1 or Tier 2 servers here:

https://leaderboards.guildwars2.com/en/na/wvw

But remember that these servers might have queues during Primetime.

Belenwyn.8674:

NCSoft launched their Q3 earnings report and answered questions on the conference call.

http://www.ncsoft.net/global/ir/earnings.aspx

Some interesting points:

• Sales for the quarter 22.9 M $
• solid and stable income via store sales; decreasing box sales
• Launch in China slightly delayed
• More information about an expansion probably after launch in China
• Servers for Korea not before launch in China

We have to be patient until the first months of the next year to receive more details about an expansion. Good news is that the players supporting the game with the shop in a strong way.

It is important to note that they lost 15% of revenue quarter over quarter. And the previous quarter over quarter they lost somewhere about 20%. I am sure NCSoft looks at this with some some concern as they keep going down every quarter when there is no competition in the market. Next year when there is tons of competition the revenue drops will be higher unless we see an expansion.

The most important thing I got from the call is that the Chinese launch for GW2 is delayed. Blade&Soul is doing extremely well in China, significantly better than GW2 so NCSoft has shifted their focus to B&S and its China release. At least what I got from the NCSoft representative’s tone is GW2 isn’t going to be released anytime soon in China. Maybe end of 2014.

Zodian.6597:

it had around 2k viewers, which is great for gw2. We also must keep in mind that it was happening at the same time as the GTA 5 preview streams (50k viewers twitch) and the League of Legends s3 world championships (~1mil viewers across twitch, azubu, youtube, and various other streaming services). Even I found myself switching between streams and only watching the matches I REALLY wanted to see!

That is an overly optimistic way of looking at it. Not to be a downer but you ever hear of the game called Forge? Probably not. You know how many concurrent viewers it had for its ESL Finals? About 1200-1300. And do you know when it was held? Around the same time as the GW2 tourney including LoL and GTA as you mentioned.

http://www.playforgewar.com/forums/index.php?/topic/5327-esl-forge-test-cup-recap/

And this game is extremely small and bad (imo). The company for example has 200 followers on Twitter.

Those MMOs are coming out in like 8 months. If they wait that long, the other MMOs are least of their worries.

eisberg.2379:

Their not making an expansion because they can’t afford it, it is a choice of theirs. They plan on release expansion style content over time and for free instead. Guild Wars 2 is making more money per month then the vast majority of the sub MMOs are, I think Lineage and WoW are the only sub games that beat it, and both of those games have been released world wide and in the biggest MMO markets in the world, where as Guild Wars 2 has not.

What other subscription MMOs are there? It is Eve? Eve is an extremely niche MMO and it makes roughly 17 million dollars a year. GW2 last quarter made 26 million dollars. Is there any other subscription MMOs you are comparing it with?

I believe NCSoft has another sales call coming up next week, hopefully GW2 doesn’t go down another 30% like it did last quarter or it will be in Eve range in terms of revenue. SWTOR supposedly has 500k subscribers and makes just as much as GW2.

The problem with GW2 at the moment when it comes to revenue, is that unless they release an expansion, revenue will keep going down. At least based on the trend I am seeing currently.

Vayne.8563:

Xcom.1926:

Vayne.8563:

I’m not going an extra mile to defend a change. I’m taking on people who say this is what the game was sold on. No. This may be what sold YOU on the game, but this was not what Anet PUSHED.

No it was a major thing they pushed, everywhere. Including in their sPvP which still remains horizontal. I fully understand people prefer horizontal but that doesn’t mean the core message of the game before release was no grinding and no gear tiers.

You mean everywhere except their web page? What an odd omission. From recollection, vertical progression was usually mentioned during interviews or when specific questions were asked. It wasn’t something I saw Anet push. I think it resonated with people and so people clung to it. That doesn’t mean Anet pushed it though.

People hear what they want to hear.

You also said Eric Flannum said there would be grinding, even though you had an argument with someone 2 months earlier and he proved to you they didn’t.

They had pushed that feature everywhere before launch even on their website with articles linking back to those statements. It was one of their core design philosophies. See Mike O’Brien’s comment again if you missed it.

playandchill.3908:

Cant wait for next subbed mmo.

I don’t mind paying subscription at all, if the game is good. I won’t pay subs to bad/average games.

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

Xcom.1926:

What utter nonsense. I have played plenty of MMOs before, and 2-3 weeks is a long time to get an item in any MMO.

It is amusing to me that people actually think they fulfilled the “Is it Fun” and the “Manifesto”, they did nothing of that sort, they did a total 180. I have to facepalm everytime someone tries to explain why they actually fulfilled their promises.

They are not building their game around “fun” anymore, they are building their game around what they said “subscription” games do. And that is grinds, time sinks, gated content and all of that type of content they criticized.

I’m not talking about any item, I talk about best in slot items and explained with an example how these are quite difficult to obtain. Ignoring this won’t get you anywhere. You can complete a raid in WoW only once a week, 2% chance per week means that you’d grind your time out of that raid for weeks/months to get the best in slot item. And then you’d have to do this for most slots.

People still clinging on the Manifesto because they want to prove that the game is bad just annoy me. The game is out for over a year and players have tons of feedback and behave in a certain way so that Anet has to react to that. The game is evolving according to that spoken/unspoken feedback in the best interest of the game, and ONLY Anet has the right to judge what this is. The only thing we can do to change this: give advice or behave differently ingame. When 90% of the players buy Black Lion chests once a month, then Anet gets a clear sign from us.

Just facepalm.

When you are comparing GW2 to WoW Heroic raiding, that itself should be a sign about how far this game has done a 180.

No one is using the Manifesto to say the game is bad. People use the Manifesto and articles like “Is it Fun” to show how far from their original design the team has come. They completely abandoned their original goals and went with the same old MMO formula. The point was for GW2 to be different in terms of core game design, not minor differences here and there which all MMOs have.

When GW2 tried to be like every other MMO, it also started competing with every other MMO. It is not good for the game or its future.

Companies do have the right to judge where they take their game, but companies can also be very wrong when they do.

I will tell you what is happening. People on high population servers have no issues. People on low/mid population servers have no chance unless we get help.

Vayne.8563:

Xcom.1926:

Vayne.8563:

No one seems to remember Eric Flannum pre launch telling us there would be stuff to grind for….just as there was plenty of stuff to grind for in Guild Wars 1.

Probably because ANet didn’t feature it somewhere in their official publications and advertising. I am sure he isn’t in the Manifesto.

Sure, he’s not. But what Colin was saying in the manifesto is pretty clearly not talking about GRIND, it’s talking about a specific type of grind.

Grind can mean more than one thing. The definitions of grind are:

1. Killing mobs to earn experience to level
2. Doing repetitive tasks to get higher level gear

When you look what Colin was saying, the whole paragraph…there’s no mention of gear at all. Nothing about that. He’s talking about combat and hes’ talking about “fun things to do”. How anyone can imagine he’s talking about gear grind there, when he’s obviously (to me anyway) using the original definition of grind, I don’t know.

No he just said “grind”, but you can twist it however you like. How are you going to twist this from back in page 5:

“Here’s what we believe: If someone wants to play for a thousand hours to get an item that is so rare that other players can’t realistically acquire it, that rare item should be differentiated by its visual appearance and rarity alone, not by being more powerful than everything else in the game. Otherwise, your MMO becomes all about grinding to get the best gear. We don’t make grindy games — we leave the grind to other MMOs.” – Mike O’Brien, President of Arenanet

I guess he meant a different “grind” too, huh?

TheDaiBish.9735:

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

Safari.3021:

In game Polls:

Barmen.

You talk to a barman in a tavern, they chat yto you, ask you questions, you give your responses.

Anet get their poll.
Player recieves tankard of ale for their time.

Encourage participation by making “visit tavern for a drink” a daily achievement when a poll is needed

haha this makes ingame polls actually immersive, nice idea Only problem I can think of: how do you make the connection between the things you want to ask about (a specific event etc.) and the dialogue?

NPC: “Grab a seat, I’ll pull up a drink for you. Heard news at the Splintered Coast is pretty bad. One of the Dragon’s lieutenants seems to be getting stronger”

Player: “Yep, you wouldn’t catch me there” [didn’t participate] / “I was actually there in the fight” [participated].

NPC [if participated]: “Really?! I bet it was a close fight.”

Player: “Psh. A walk in the park for someone like me” [easy] / “Well, it was a sight more difficult than the usual fights I get into” [medium] / “You have no idea. Bodies. Bodies everywhere” [hard].

NPC: “Really…Fancy talking about it?”

Player: “Sure” [brings up a text box] / “Not really, it’d probably bore you” [if answer was easy] / “I’m trying to forget it, why do you think I’m here?” [hard]

NPC: “Truly a thrilling tale” [text box filled] / “No problem, I understand” [text box not filled]

NPC: “Here you go. This drink is on the house.”

Or something along those lines.

That is pretty cool.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Hi,

As detailed in the thread the point of this initiative is to get us back to a more constructive dialog. We have been super super busy all this year and with the help of the community we are trying to create a sustainable process in which we can have constructive discussion and brainstorming around specific areas of the game without hampering the output or quality of the GW2. We hope that this process works out and that we will see 2 way discussion from the community and devs on a daily basis across all the areas of the game.

Chris, I actually think most of the posts on these forums were actually constructive. Yes there were some with anger and trolling but most were constructive. However, a lot of the constructive ones were negative (some extremely negative). And I have noticed they are getting more negative as time goes on. I notice these three topics mostly:

• Promises not being met (real or perceived)
• Things/balance not being fixed or looked at quickly enough. (Some have taken a long time to be fixed or even addressed)
• Expectations of content (temp vs perma; 2-week updates vs. something else)

I personally think, unless those things are addressed and communicated correctly, nothing will change.

Thanks.

Oh also you skipped Ree saying “You are rescuing a village that will stay rescued”, missed that part too?

I am not holding devs to every word that would be silly, but I do hold them to honor the core fundamentals that they promised.

eisberg.2379:

Most likely not WoW, but I think it has a good chance to beat Lineage.

I just looked at the last report from NCSoft and Lineage made 3 times what GW2 made, wow. It is unbelievable how a game that is 15 years old is doing so well. There is no way in hell it catches up to that.

Another surprising thing is that GW2 and Aion are neck in neck in terms of revenue. Another shocker.

Those Koreans must love their mmos.

I just want more armor and better armor. The armor choice is lacking so much in this game.