Guild Wars 2

You can blame a lack of content if you want, but I believe Heart of Thorns gave this game a mortal wound from which it won’t recover. Asking an industry-high $50 for an expansion that delivered an egregiously low amount of content, not fully delivering on advertised content, and the stark shift in design philosophy to appeal to a more hardcore but less numerous group of players really hurt this game in a time when Guild Wars 2 needed all the good will and good publicity it could get.

John Smith.4610:

…and their prices no longer reflect the average wealth or income of players.

This hasn’t been the case in a very long time, so why is it just now becoming an issue?

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Perhaps, having successfully developed and operated multi-player games for over 10 years, ArenaNet has some idea of what is, and is not, in the best interest of the company.

I’m sure most would appreciate more in-game items to earn, but I’m not sure that would guarantee more income.

Regardless, good luck with your suggestion.

Their most recent quarterly financial report, the poorly received expansion, and the recent termination of their lead developer suggests that contrary to popular belief, ArenaNet is not infallible. It’s fair for you to point to 10 years of success as evidence that they’re doing a good job. It’s just as fair for me to point to the three aforementioned blackeyes as evidence that they’re doing a bad job.

Behellagh.1468:

Boxes give them an easy way to change up the loot found within them without touching the code that drops them.

It also gives the a means of bypassing Magic Find. Kind of a crumby thing to do, if you ask me; let people invest so much time and gold into raising MF only to implement a system to render it all virtually worthless.

LadyHawk.5319:

“People have more wealth than they used to and it’s changing behavior.”

Surely their resident economist saw this coming when they decided to pay people 2 gold a day to log in and play.

I don’t know what’s more disturbing: the fact that ArenaNet does nothing about insider trading or the fact that they openly mock those who are bothered that stopping insider trading doesn’t seem to be priority (as John Smith has done in this very topic).

Chyanne Waters.8719:

Why is everyone so worried about GW2 being at only 15 Billion Won? I think its great and I am sure that Nc Soft would agree with me. One dollar is equal to a little over 1000 Won. In one quarter of a year GW2 raked in profits alone over 13 million dollars (American) That is not small chump change that’s A lot of money for only a quarter year.

With all due respect, that’s not how the business world works. Investors want to see profits grow, not stagnate or decline. And given that everyone was expecting a big uptick in the expansion’s wake, this report is anything but good for ArenaNet. I’m not saying ArenaNet’s sky is falling, but trust me, they aren’t thrilled about 15 billion Won.

Behellagh.1468:

I’ve been playing since Dec 1st, 2012, and I have not seen this so called change in direction that some are claiming has happen.

Then you haven’t been paying attention. Like, at all. Or worse, you have but you’ve deluded yourself into thinking what’s been very clear, very obvious to everyone for years isn’t actually so. If you had been paying attention, or if you’d been capable of being honest with yourself, these are some of the changes in direction you would have noticed:
– “everyone should have the best statistical gear by the time they hit level 80” -> ascended gear
– “cosmetic skins are the end game” -> more and more weapon and outfit skins added to the cash shop
– “we don’t make grindy games” -> masteries and gates in HOT
– “have fun now, not later” -> masteries and gates in HOT
– “we’re fine if you take breaks from our game” -> limited availability of LS season 1
– “the only criteria for our content is ‘is it fun?’” -> run around a zone in a giant zerg auto-attacking for stacks of bags of loot
– “we want our players to work together in DEs” -> those of you who want Legendaries must compete with players who just want to complete DEs as intended

There are more examples, of course (many of them), but I suspect this has illustrated the point adequately enough.

Behellagh.1468:

The question I have then is why do you want the game to fail while others still enjoy it?

The same reason you want it to succeed while others don’t enjoy it: selfishness. Or are you going to pretend that your preferences inherently carry more weight than the person to whom you addressed this question?

Behellagh.1468:

Or do you think those players are experiencing a case of mass delusion?

I’m sorry, you’re going to have to be more specific if you earnestly want to foster discussion. As is, your ad hominem is too vague to illicit an actual reply.

slamfunction.7462:

I think this is more an issue with ANet not putting a whole lot on the gem store to drive sales.

They crank out glider skins, weapon skins, and outfits just as fast as they can make them. They release plenty of BLC weapon skins to boot. There are no shortage of special dye packs and infinite harvesting tools. I don’t think they could possibly offer more stuff to buy in the cash shop than what they’re already doing.

I suspect the real reason for the slump it HOT drove away players en masse. The game was created with a specific type of player in mind, and HOT cattered to that target audience’s polar opposite. It doesn’t help that what was on offer with HOT’s release was viewed by many to be underwhelming and that the expansion didn’t deliver on everything it promised.

“What we are planning to do going forward is that we are going to shorten the span for the next launch of the expansion pack. So right now we are in the phase for preparing for the 2nd expansion pack we ae going to shorten the launch timing between the different boxes that we launch to create more momentum. "

Good to see ArenaNet doubling down with their quantity over quality strategy.

Armor, like new legendary weapons, was deemed too much effort for the return. Outfits, like glider skins, are easier and cheaper to mass produce. Ergo, the more resource-intensive armor skins were dropped in favor of the more profitable outfits. Sad, but that’s the way it is.

Sarnax.8357:

I know we are beating this dead horse, but for me, making Legendaries was my end game.

If it’s any consultation, the pursuit of cosmetics is still present in the game. Granted, it’s been reduced to a cash shop purchase of what is essentially a virtual scratch-off lottery ticket, but new weapon skins will still be available for those of you who consider cosmetic upgrades an end game pursuit.

Vayne.8563:

darkace.8925:

Mirta.5029:

Vayne.8563:

Anet doesn’t have enough staff to get everything done at all once.

what you’re seeing is lack of organization and not lack of staff.

Agreed. That they’ve got this massive staff, yet continuously fail to deliver on what they aspire to do says quite clearly the resources they have aren’t utilized well. One need look no further than HOT’s dropped legendary weapons to know the score on this account.

Or they thought people would make them and people weren’t making them and they made a decision to stop because people weren’t utilising the content in large enough numbers.

A single example with no factual basis for the determining of the decision says very little. It’s proof of nothing.

Perhaps more people would have made them if they weren’t gated behind events that forced those who desired them into direct conflict with those who wished to successfully complete dynamic events. Unfortunately for everyone involved – from the players all the way up to Collin Johanson himself – the new legendaries were as poorly conceived and implemented as the rest of HOT.

Mirta.5029:

Vayne.8563:

Anet doesn’t have enough staff to get everything done at all once.

what you’re seeing is lack of organization and not lack of staff.

Agreed. That they’ve got this massive staff, yet continuously fail to deliver on what they aspire to do says quite clearly the resources they have aren’t utilized well. One need look no further than HOT’s dropped legendary weapons to know the score on this account.

The only players ArenaNet is concerned with these days are those who spend $10 a week on glider skins.

That glider skins in the cash shop are quite lucrative.

ArenaNet did a very poor job with crafting in general, and an especially poor job with Jeweler. Like so much of this game, you can tell there were too many ideas regarding crafting and not enough strong leadership and clear vision to take the good, weed out the bad, and meld the rest into a finely-tuned machine.

Vayne.8563:

I don’t personally find the expansion lackluster and I know I’m not alone in this.

That’s your opinion and you’re not wrong for having it, but enough people felt it was lackluster to prompt ArenaNet to make sweeping changes post-launch.

If they didn’t have the resources to add new legendary weapons to the game, what makes you think they’ve got the resources to add a new race?

EdgarMTanaka.7291:

As usuall I do beleave in Anet that they will do good, now it is up to the players and not keep the grudge from HoT.

Both your trust and your blame seem to be misplaced. After Heart of Thorns turned out to be lackluster – by ArenaNet’s own admission – perhaps you shouldn’t be so quick to place your faith in them. And to suggest that the customers – whose trust was just violated – should be so quick to forgive and forget that violation rather than approach the next expansion with a skeptical eye is just naive.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

The performance of HoT was not as expected. We learnt the lesson.

This part is what I found most intriguing. What lesson did they learn?

The contribution of item sales to the total sales is much stronger than the box sales. The revenue will weaken over time. The second expansion should address this fact.

That the cash shop is and will remain their top priority.

If they couldn’t find the manpower to finish the new legendary weapons they promised us in HoT, why would anyone still be holding out hope that they’re going to allocate the considerable resources into a new race?

Correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t this shift done specifically to render bypass the hundreds of points of account bound Magic Find people had accumulated?

If Dungeon rewards were nerfed because they were a harmful source of inflation, then someone’s going to have to explain to me why this is a good idea.

Cedric Ambidexter.9174:

Oh, and while I’m at it I’d like to take this opportunity to issue a formal complaint about the rewards I received after defeating the dragon. Where is my reward?

In the gem store.

The Ventari Ele.5812:

lol, I remember when HoT was announced and they were giving us a little details on what was coming.

A lot of us were asking where is all the content?! Surely this isnt it
And as usual the fanboys all rose up saying Anet wouldnt give us all the details, there was obviously a tonne more in the expansion, and other things would be released throughout the year.

Now that they know there isnt any more stuff, they only thing these fanboys can say now is “either buy it or dont buy it”

I specifically called it season 3 of the LS and a feature pack packaged together and labeled an expansion so they could charge $40+ and generate for themselves some much needed revenue. I’ve seen nothing from HoT to convince me I was wrong.

ProtoGunner.4953:

ZudetGambeous.9573:

Here are 3 reasons why the expansion is half done:

1. NO LEGENDARY WEAPONS

2. NO LEGENDARY WEAPONS

3, NO LEGENDARY WEAPONS

/thread, have a nice day

We have 3 new legendary weapons. It’s not no and we also get one additional. So in other words, about 25% of the Legendary weapons we got.

“We’ll deliver 25% of the stuff we promised when we took your money.” That’s one hell of a pitch for the next expansion, huh?

> 0 people working on an unfinished feature from the last expansion
> 70 people working on the next expansion

Seems reasonable to me. Sure, you charged an industry-high for an unfinished expansion on the understanding that all the unfinished features would be added post-launch. And sure, you’re now telling us you won’t be delivering the features we already paid for. But it’s not like the lack of trust from your customers that you’re operating in good faith will hurt the sales of your next expansion. Or at least that’s the gamble you’re willing to take.

Coulter.2315:

I’m not sure you could find me a single business in existance that doesn’t aim for “cost efficiency.”

SquareEnix once threw an Final Fantasy XI event in my college town. Admission was free. Pizza and drinks served all day long was free. Entry to the Q&A panel was free. Mingling with the models they’d paid to dress up like Mithra was free. Entry into the tournament was free. Entry into the level 1 race through an endgame zone was free. Entry into the costume contest was free. They gave away all kinds prizes, up to and including a PC in a tower with a custom FFXI graphics design. And great fun was had by all.

Given that all of this cost SE a lot of money, and they recouped none at all from admission, how was that event “cost efficient”? I’ll tell you; because though “good will” isn’t listed on earnings reports, it can greatly contribute to profitability.

By my estimate, ArenaNet burned all of their good will some time ago and now they’re just milking whatever loyal customers they’ve got left while the milk’s still flowing. You can disagree with me if you want, but one look at the cash shop offerings over the last year contrasted to those added in-game will tell you quite clearly that I’m right.

To me, the real kicker is that we were sold on the idea that the end game in this MMO was all about collecting cosmetic items (weapon and armor skins), yet the overwhelming majority of new cosmetic items added to the game since launch have been cash shop items. So essentially, Guild Wars 2’s end game consists of swiping your credit card. Fun stuff.

Merciless weapons were released on the 2nd, and Timekeeper weapons were released on the 15th. Don’t get me wrong, I love spending real money on lottery tickets that might pay out 1/10th of a new weapon skin as much as the next guy, but I find myself pining for a time when these sorts of things were earned in-game.

BinkyofFuraffinity.4629:

darkace.8925:

BinkyofFuraffinity.4629:

I am one of those in the pictures. And for those of you here calling us " LOL crybabies" for wanting our precursor, i’ll state this:

I don’t even want to hear your excuses. There’s no justification for reporting someone for completing an event. Period. You lot should be ashamed of yourselves for doing so.

i DIDNT report anyone though. Those screenshots do not show me saying “REPORT THEM” anywhere, and anyone who was there doing the event; both players there for Nevermore and also to complete the heart, can attest i never demanded reporting of innocent players.

And there would be no point in reporting anyone as i stated because they are doing what the event was intended to be done; completed. Anet knows i have not reported anyone, since my reports would obviously go to them :\ but believe whatever you want to believe. You dont have to take my word for it.

The only people i think that should of been reported were the people admitting to trolling people there.

I’m glad that you realize that your behavior was poor form. I also understand your frustration over this poorly designed system. The notion that failing an event should ever be the correct course of action is asinine; even more so considering they’ve already had these sorts of problems crop up when they overhauled the Skill Point system. How they didn’t learn from that mistake is beyond me, but it doesn’t speak well to management.

But treating those who genuinely wanted to complete the event for whatever reason with hostility is wrong doesn’t promote a friendly gaming environment, and nobody wins when the player base turns toxic towards one another. When these sorts of situations come up, it’s best to direct your ire towards those kittenponsible. Just be sure to do so in a respectful and constructive manner.

BinkyofFuraffinity.4629:

I am one of those in the pictures. And for those of you here calling us " LOL crybabies" for wanting our precursor, i’ll state this:

I don’t even want to hear your excuses. There’s no justification for reporting someone for completing an event. Period. You lot should be ashamed of yourselves for doing so.

Ardenwolfe.8590:

Vayne.8563:

They didn’t reinvent the wheel and call it content. They said, that this expansion would be lighter on content while they set up the game for future expansion so they could move the game forward.

That’s what was said. That’s what they did.

In other words, they asked us to pay for the gateway to more Living Story and called it a light expansion. And people got happy because they heard the word ‘expansion’, so it silenced the expansion crowds’ demands for it.

But in truth, all we did was pay for delayed Living World content which would’ve been free otherwise.

Good to know.

Almost. You paid for Living Story season 3 and a features pack that were rolled into one so they could be boxed and packaged and sold as an expansion. The real kicker, though, is that ArenaNet had the gall to charge an industry-high $50 for this “expansion” despite it not shipping with a good number of features it was supposed to have.

Update:

On November 17, a new weapon set was added to the cash shop.
As of November 17, three new Legendary weapons have been added to the game.

PS – I’ve chosen to highlight to lack of new Legendary weapons vs the plethora of new weapons made available in the cash shop, but the scope of the discussion need not be so narrowly defined. The question of priorities can be applied to everything from the dissatisfaction many World vs World players are experiencing to the seemingly unfinished state of the new Scribe crafting discipline, and everything between.

Ranlares.2513:

I love how people don’t realize how much work it was redoing the entire legendary system and not only writing the quests for each new one, going back and writing ones for all of the existing ones. Get your head out of your doggy and think bud.

I love how “when it’s ready” didn’t apply to Heart of Thorns. The expansion is undeniably unfinished, but ArenaNet released – and charged an industry-high $50 for – it anyway.

Vayne.8563:

I think until raids are in and until fractal rewards are changed, and the new raid/commander UI is in, it’s still premature.

What an absurd thing to say. “You can’t judge the item for which you’ve already paid full price because there is a promise that more is to come.”

Vayne.8563:

Yes, the priority of any company is to support itself, pay it’s employees and in general make a profit.

And what better way to do these things than to ship a half-finished expansion for which you charged an industry-high $50 while simultaneously flooding the cash shop with items many believe should have been included in the expansion as rewards for playing the game.

Two days ago, a new weapon set was added to the cash shop.
On August 11, a new weapon set was added to the cash shop.
On June 23, a new weapon set was added to the cash shop.
On Jun 9, a new weapon set was added to the cash shop.
On May 19, a new weapon set was added to the cash shop.
On April 28, a new weapon set was added to the cash shop.
On March 16, a new weapon set was added to the cash shop.
On February 10, a new weapon set was added to the cash shop.

On January 24, Heart of Thorns was announced at PAX South.

One of the big selling features of the expansion was new Legendaries. Then we were told that only three new Legendaries would be available when the expansion was launched, with the rest to come later. Then we were told that those three Legendaries wouldn’t be available at launch either.

So by my count, that’s eight new sets of weapons added to the cash shop since HoT was announced, and 0 new Legendaries added to the game as of now. Even accounting for any mistakes on my end (if I miscounted or didn’t realize some of the sets were re-releases, etc), I can’t help but feel at least some of the new Legendaries would have been ready to go if ArenaNet had actually shifted some of their resources away from the cash shop weapons and focused on getting the new Legendaries ready. And that feeling has left me most disappointed.

Taltevus.3289:

It’s so incredibly obvious:
1.)The obvious, obvious intentional grind in everything (buying more time to rush that missed content)

2.) Elite specs becoming the carrot at the end of the stick.
Obviously was not the original idea and ultimately blemished HoT release.

3.)Partial parts of…Class Armor: epaulets of the Chronomancer…wheres the rest?
3b.) I am not buying the lack of armors introduced.

4.)The further you go down heart of thorns the more it’s like you see where the work slowly started to wane. There are entire sections of maps; Strictly MobTown USA. For what?

5.)Verdant brink obviously being the most complete.

6.)480potatoes cut-scenes.

7.) One of the expansion’s biggest selling features was new Legendary weapons. Then we were told we’d only be getting three new Legendary weapons at release. Then we were told we’d be getting those three new Legendary weapons sometime after release. But hey, a new month means a new, full set of weapon skins in the cash shop.

Tiara.7952:

PS: Guild Wars 1 did it right. 1-20 was story progression then if you want to add achievement hunting after that for those pve hardcore players by all means go ahead.

Yep.

If ArenaNet’s intent with the mastery system was to give players a fun and interesting way to progress their characters, I’d call Heart of Thorns a rousing success.

Archy.1046:

darkace.8925:

So let me get this straight. When the number of negative reviews outnumber the positive, it’s because a vocal minority is the only one bothering to review the game. But when the number of positive reviews outnumbers the negative, it’s a vocal majority? Is that what you’re saying? Surely I’m just misunderstanding what it is you’re actually trying to say?

1. When op made this topic the link had very low scores and low amount of votes. So that means the first guys who went voting were the ones that rage. I voted only an hour ago for example, because was too busy enjoying the game. Same for my friends and etc.

2. When 20 hours or so passed, the number of votes increased many times and so did the average score. Which means most of people actually enjoy HoT and the rage quitting whires are the minority.

So I did understand you. Wow…okay then.

Archy.1046:

Most of people who like expac are playing expac. The ones that RAGE are making whiny cry baby threads and make 1/10 score on websites. But now as we can see scores went up and continue to do so, because the amount of raging casuals is very low compared to the general player base.

So let me get this straight. When the number of negative reviews outnumber the positive, it’s because a vocal minority is the only one bothering to review the game. But when the number of positive reviews outnumbers the negative, it’s a vocal majority? Is that what you’re saying? Surely I’m just misunderstanding what it is you’re actually trying to say?

You can either give them X gold now, or go toil in the dirt for weeks on end to scrounge up X gold worth of items A, B, and C. Either way, it’s going to cost you X. Yeah, this is the fabled account-bound precursor system we’ve all waited years for.

Tanrenth.6450:

Blaine Tog.8304:

Optional or not, we are the exact intended audience for this option and we’re unhappy with it.

The thing is some of the posts here are people that are unhappy with the time/cost it takes to get it. The fact that its a legendary weapon, shouldn’t it take a lot of time/effort to get?

It’d rather it take more skill and less time to earn, but that’s just me.

I can’t help but feel some of you guys picked up Commander Tags for all the wrong reasons.

There are quite a few reviews giving the expansion a 10 that don’t even discuss the actual game, but rather try to discredit any and all criticism leveled against the it. Most of these reviewers have just one review in their history; perhaps they didn’t realize we could check that…perhaps they didn’t realize how thinly veiled their white-knighting would be when they rushed to ArenaNet’s defense.

My favorite review is this one…

“Even if ithink it need improving, not-so-smart ppl using score to get theyr way needs to stop. And this 10/10 is to help that at leats in a small way. Go ANET”

That’s one’s ironic on many several levels. Objectivity, it appears, it not required to review video games on Metacritic.

Doubtful. With these kinds of games, 90% of cash shop purchases comes from 10% of the actual player base, generally speaking. And I’m willing to bet those kinds of “whales” – as the industry refers to them – are loyal to a fault.