Guild Wars 2

Mike O Brien.4613:

I previously addressed the “half an expansion” thing, and I can point you to pages like this one and this one (https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Guild_Wars_2:_Heart_of_Thorns), but that doesn’t matter because it’s just arguing. My job is to entertain you, not to argue with you.

I strongly believe that we will in fact entertain you. We’re a team of people who love the game that you love, and are working on things we’re confident you’ll love. But I’m not here to convince you of that, and I wouldn’t expect you to take my word for it. You can make that judgment in April, and each subsequent time we ship. I will work to make you happy, and I’ll do it by making you happy with what we ship, not with what we promise to ship.

Mo

I’m sorry Mike your job previously was simply to entertain us before you sold us another product. When it was just bi-weekly updates, and things of that nature in which we could choose to log on for or not. When it was gemstore armors we may or may not buy. That’s when your job was to simply entertain. But now that you’ve resold your game through a new expansion promising certain content the players are now owed that content with zero exception. Delay it, postpone it, whatever you want, but until that’s done there should not be a large team working on the next expansion when you’re not even giving the players the one they bought already. This isn’t about which content we would enjoy more, this isn’t about which content you feel is more important, this about you charging us for promised content then pulling staff off of that project to finish another one while you still have plenty of people working on something to charge us more for. It’s disrespectful. You can say that we’re here to entertain you but you’re ostracizing anyone and everyone who bought said expansion for the prospect of new weapons. You’re saying “It doesn’t matter if that’s what’s fun to you in this game, because I’m just going to entertain you with something you don’t care about” and that completely diminishes their purchase, and the value of their money as customers. I personally love the idea of new content but it sickens me that a company would choose the steps you’re currently taking instead of choosing to delay their next sale when they have yet to finish their first.

Let’s look at it in terms of other business’s.

Example 1:
You buy from a magazine catalog, you wanted to purchase fireworks for the 4th of july, they promise they’re delivering you 16 mortars and some fountains for your party at $100. Instead they send you 4 mortars and some pop its, with the promise that someday you may get the fountains, but for now you’re for certain you’re not getting the mortars.

Solution:
You never buy from that company again, and in most cases that would be enough evidence for a lawsuit. (I have zero intention of suing this company because I still love the game, and really hope that it will somehow make a turnaround)

Example 2:
You go to a tech store to buy a computer. Said computer is advertised to have 8gb ram, and a i7 processor in it as stock. You know it’s not the most amazing machine ever, but it’s within your price range and its better than what you have so you get it. You’re super excited about it, but when you get home you find out that processor will be mailed to you in 7 months, and the ram may or may not show up this year.

Solution:
The company offers compensation for the inconvenience, you take the computer back, you accept being lied to and purchase nothing from the company ever again.

My point is this; if you promise us a certain product and charge us a premium price for a new “expansion” and then don’t deliver what you promise. In any other business that would at the very least result in a loss of business on a massive scale if not more. You’re no longer thinking of the players, instead you’re thinking about how you can manage to satisfy enough of them to make a sale on your next expansion.

Had you not promised this much content to us with our purchase of HoT then sure you could argue the fact that this isn’t a half baked expansion. And to be quite honest this expansion is a lot of good content all things considered and by any right would be a full expansion in most circumstances. But what it is right now is a half baked sham of an expansion because you charged people for content that you have yet to get around to supplying several months after the purchase date, and your argument is “but we gave you something”. Something is not what we paid for, something is not what you promised us.

HiggsBoson.1976:

Thank you for considering the silent minnow majority, instead of caving to the entitled whales.

I seriously think you may need to revisit any amount of ethics if you think insulting the now lied to playerbase that was looking forward to paid content is anything to be thankful for. While sure I may not have been as excited for weapons as Living World this content was a selling point and a promised part of HoT. The issue is not which should come first its that this should have been done and if not done constantly in the work as a priority until its finished. ESPECIALLY before they ever thought to devote 1/2 their staff to the next expansion. Also just because they said they’re moving to what you want, there’s no guarantee at this point that will happen either because as of this moment all of their promises about HoT are null and void. If they can suspend this they could just as easily suspend your LW to fix WvW, followed by suspending that to work on Fractals, Followed by suspending that to sell another expansion with all new “gemstore” armor. I’ll repeat myself for clarity this isn’t an issue of who they’re listening to this is an issue of they sold a product and have yet to deliver said product before devoting 50% of their staff to the sale of their next expansion while scrapping projects that should have been in this one.

I tend to be one of the last to want to say anything negative about this game. I read patch-notes carefully, I remember the small details and back up the ArenaNet staff whenever I can about what they’ve said they were going to address that people complain about. I tell people programming new content is difficult and that while there wasn’t as much to this paid expansion as most of us hoped that we did get a lot and that a lot was promised to be on the way and asked people to be patient. But this is actually almost disheartening because now I find out that what we “paid” for may not ever actually be released in a timely manner. Updates are one thing, we’re not entitled to bi-weekly content, nor are we entitled to new outfits every month. However what we are entitled to is what we paid for. We paid for an expansion, with content that was promised to follow in the months to come, but nearly half a year later we still only have 4/16 legendary weapons, 0 extension to the personal story, 2/3 raid wings (even if we do have a tentative date as to the 3rd), the first “legendary” backpack released has yet to be finished, and so on. The team has talked about how “difficult” armor/weapons are to make and yet we see gemstore outfits and armor being released frequently asking us to pay more money on them when we still have yet to receive what we already have paid for. When will our “expansion” actually be released? If not players will start expecting some sort of compensation for what you’ve failed to deliver despite promising the player base (correction after reading this thread, people already do). I will always be a fan of this game and I want to keep buying the shiny things you all work so hard on creating, but after this I may choose the “free to play route” because how do I know if I’ll ever actually get what I pay for if I don’t buy it in micro transactions.

While I understand that there is a “dishonor” system or what have you that supposedly discourages people from afking in a match that only affects those that stay afk long enough for the autokick timer to do something or those that fully disconnect. There ought to be a way for players to report when someone says this match is “unwinnable” and afks for 4/5ths the game because they have no idea what they’re doing and died blaming it on their team for not trying to spawn camp with them.

I thoroughly agree with everything that has been said here. I have 8 level 80s (1 of every class) and now i have to auto attack through the entire intro because its too overwhelming to be given 3 skills?! Seriously if 3 skills is too much for a new player they shouldn’t even be playing games. More over I loved how you unlocked weapon skills by using the weapon now instead you just automatically have every weapon skill for that slot handed to you, so say you play levels 1-10 using a scepter you swap to a staff and boom 5 new skills right off the bat (how is that simpler than making them unlock and learn each skill with the new weapon?!) Secondly though there are a lot of new players there are also a lot of us “veteran players”, and I think I speak for us all when I say “WE DON’T NEED TO BE TAUGHT HOW TO DODGE!” If you’ve made it to level 80 and haven’t learned that then I don’t think there is anything that will teach you that. Also now not only do we have traits from the previous change that require us to complete maps well above level 30 to obtain them without simply buying them but we don’t get our elite skills until half way through the game. More over using the wardrobe at level 6 are you kidding me? I can’t even make all my alts pretty anymore? Because allowing us to have outfits was too much? And banking even later than that? Also not to mention on an ele (the first class i made after patch) you’re not even given 2 atunements at the start, and by level 10 I still have only 2 atunements available, this was a key part of the ele, the part that made them different than a normal caster from any other game. Also you are now essentially barred from wvw until level 10 because you’re not even able to get all 5 skills out there now, you can go there right out of the intro but you have to just pray you can auto attack something to death. Fortunately spvp still lets me play with all the skills so at least there is somewhere i can take my new toon and not feel babysat and given a handicap that inhibits me being able to successfully play more than i feel it actually helps me learn anything.

Also all these “Skill challenges” in the starter maps? You can’t use them until you’re level 13. As my fiancee so kindly pointed out the suggested levels for starting maps is 1-15 that means you have exactly 2 levels to get all the skill points from that map before you’re technically advised to move on. You’ll actually run past things in the game and as compared to being able to “challenge” yourself you’re simply told sorry you’re not strong enough yet please come back later.

This patch is probably the worst thing I’ve seen any game do as an update since LotRO’s last major expansion when they gave the information of “we’re going to remove 3/4ths your skills because we’ve given you too many and we don’t know how to give you anymore.” It’s on the verge of telling your veteran players to f off because even though you know how to play the game and learned the game on your own just fine that you’re now forced to be treated like you know absolutely nothing on your new characters and there’s nothing you have to say about it.

I beg of you anet if you want to keep me, and likely quite a few other veteran players, please let us play the game like we actually know what we’re doing. Otherwise I probably won’t be leveling anymore characters (i have 7 at the moment I have been working on). And honestly I don’t even want a new race to come out if this is how leveling is going to be, because I’d hate for something that would be cool to just be annoying and on the verge of angering to play due to a poor implementation of a tutorial system.

This may have already been answered, however I don’t have the necessary spare time to read every comment at the moment. I have a question with armor purchased through the store (i.e. Phoenix Armor in my case) I have the outfit on my Necromancer and on my ele. Will any form of a refund or even so much as an exchanged be offered to players who spent money on acquiring these outfits for multiple characters? If not I will be very dissatisfied seeing as it is essentially going to be entirely wasted on my ele alt when I could have bought her something else that would at least be new.

~Note: If there isn’t any plan to do this at the moment please take this into consideration. Even if its only a 50% refund or an exchange for another set of store armor I would be happy. I just don’t want to lose 800 gems on nothing.