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They lied to us for years.
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Or, they fully intended to go the route they had “promised” only to find out it wasn’t going to meet the needs financially.
What would you have them do? Just allow the game to crash and burn?
Reality has a way of being a kitten when it comes to lofty ideals meeting a market driven economy.
GW1 was f2p from the start and had multiple expansions. That game was successful enough to warrant a sequel. This game is doing fine.
This isn’t 2004.
The market is a ton more competitive now. Furthermore, GW2 isn’t GW1. Not even close. The design of the game is completely different across the board.
This is a real MMORPG. People expect mechanics that will keep them engaged in their characters.
You can’t get by with MMOG mechanics in a MMORPG in 2012. There has to be a carrot or a reason for folks to keep playing.
And horizontal progression gets older faster than vertical.
Precisely.
Pulling all of the emotion out of this debate, you really have to consider the “Why.”
Why add vertical progression? I assert that it’s because their current model of horizontal progression isn’t retaining customers as they hoped it would. Furthermore, they likely had this entire model in their backpocket if the numbers stacked up this way.
It’s simple, Either you want Guild Wars 2 to be around as a healthy and profitable game for ANet and NCSoft for the next 3-5 years, or you want outdated mechanics from 2004.
They are, in my opinion as ANet has figured out, mutually exclusive, and it’s coming home to roost now as Ascended Gear.
Sorry man, but NCSoft’s financials just don’t mimic what you’re posting. Frankly put, the game had a massively successful launch and continues to be successful to this day. The problem is, that the suits who make the decisions get jealous of Blizzard. Period.
You cannot compete with WoW. This has been proven time and time again. The only thing that will kill WoW is Blizzard.
My interpretation of the numbers is far different than what the marketing speak out of NCSoft was.
Those numbers are far below what they should be for a title of this quality and size.
I want to be clear about something here :
I am not stating that a gear grind is the RIGHT way to do things. There are plenty of other ways you can add in character progression that’s more fun and more engaging.
However, the advantage to gear is this :
1. It’s quick. Same stats, marginally better, with a gated content slot. Easy to put it into the game, takes relatively little balance if the increases are largely the same across the board.
For whatever reason, and you can debate the why, I have my opinion, and you have yours, but, ANet clearly needed something “Quick.” If time wasn’t of the essence here, they would’ve gone a different route.
May I ask what you are basing your assertion that GW2 is essentially in a downward spiral on? Please do not say XFire
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This move.
Give me another logical reason that you would completely alter the core philosophy of all of your marketing and game design less than 3 months after the game launched.
It’s simple, the only reason you would do something like that is because the current model isn’t working. The blog post said as much. “We’ve listened to player feedback.”
This is a calculated move. ANet knows that this move is likely going to alienate a certain percentage of their players, however, it’s likely to open up the game to more players, who will stay longer and play more, and put more cash into the shop.
It’s not that difficult to decipher.
It’s not going to bring in as many people as it pushes away and the people that it does bring in won’t stay for long because that crowd has no loyalty.
But if you are actually “LOYAL” you would stay and play the game despite the change, would you not?
Nope.