If you want to see some constructive criticism, visit the infamous Hobosack thread in the engi forum. It is now well past its first anniversary heading strongly towards the second.
You’ll find lots of great ideas there how to alleviate a longstanding problem for the engineer class concerning the endgame content that is cosmetics . We even got a dev to post there some time in the past
You may ask what this does have to do with complaints about the content you posted above. Well at least half of those content updates held a backpiece as a reward.
Now the latest update lets you collect/craft items to build what?
It’s highly unlikely that any devs looking into the issue of backpacks for engineers are responsible for determining or creating the rewards for these content updates.
Should ANet stop making backpacks completely due to the issues that one profession has with them?
I’ll admit to not finishing the PS on any of my 80s (in fact, only one of my 80s has been past the Claw Island mission), but that didn’t stop me from taking part in Season 1 and now you are able to play Season 2 at your own pace, including achievement hunting if you wish.
From the little of season 2 I’ve played, don’t deprive yourself from playing it.
The biggest problem is that developers need to be paid. Anet’s business model has them giving away the playable content and charging for (most of) the new skins.
The pool of gems in the exchange is finite (as is the pool of gold), but this is not a closed system. Players purchasing gems with gold subtract gems from the gem pool but add gold to the gold pool, and likewise, players converting gems to gold subtract from the gold pool and add to the gem pool.
So yes, the gem pool is finite, but it can shrink or grow depending on what transactions are occurring.
Not in this game please. I have no problems with the tools themselves, having used them in other games, but that experience has also shown me the drama these tools can cause once they’re in the hands of Joe Gamer.
Given that GW2 doesn’t have much in the way of dps check encounters you might commonly see in other games (i.e. enrage timers), I really don’t see a pressing need for these tools to be added.
The megaservers don’t alleviate all the design reasons for this feature not existing. Maps will need to have all their events reworked to allow for the different player factions for a start.
Remove the name from this post and submit a ticket. You will not get your gold back, but they will suspend or ban the other player if there is evidence he is scamming people.
This should be a warning to everybody else who wants to trade outside of the TP.
This is a statement made in ignorance. It’s as if you don’t know anything at all about the game.
There may be more to Wildstar than a cartoony WoW 2.0 in space, but that was my first impression when I checked out the game’s website many moons ago. Yes this is ignorant, but a game shouldn’t rely on players educating themselves on its intricacies to generate interest.
Fractal takes only one fractal, not all four. Just put up an lfg for “doing one level 1 fractal for daily” if you really want that 1 ap.
This is a good suggestion as it means the group that forms has the same goal and you don’t have to feel like a kitten for ditching after the first fractal is complete.
I sincerely believe that most Patches ruined the game rather improving it.
Reading the forum seems many people thinks the same.
Now this is not my first mmorpg (L2, granado espada, and Others to name some) and i never complained about Patches….
I like this game but Patches are ruining it for me.
P.S. forums are not a vocal minority….that is the common excuse of people that deson t want to accept ideas different from their being the real minority.
And the members of my guild seem to be enjoying most patches that have been released lately… however, this doesn’t diminish the fact that you (and many others) aren’t enjoying them. It’s always going to be hard to please everybody, but I do think ANet have made some good improvements based on the feedback they received from the earlier patches.
I wasn’t saying that the forums are a “vocal minority”, but that there was a very vocal group of negative posters who will happily critique the latest patch without having even logged on for months. I don’t see these types of complaints as adding any value to these forums or the game.
I think one of the things that annoys people is that playing the Trading Post is the only aspect of the game that doesn’t get nerfed once people figure out a way to make money on it. Want to farm CoF all day? We’re nerfing that! Making a lot of money in Queen’s Jubilee? We’ll hit that too! Think there’s too much money going to those are good at the TP? Well, we can’t touch them, they provide a service!
I think that’s partly because these people are just thinking in personal terms rather than the economy as a whole. CoF isn’t nerfed because Joe Guardian can make x gold more per hour than CoE (or whatever), but because the cumulative effect of players running CoF non-stop to farm gold can unbalance the economy due to the amount of coin being introduced to the game.
Apart from not seeing how ArenaNet could “nerf the TP” with any degree of effectiveness, the argument for nerfing CoF doesn’t apply with the TP. If you increase the number of players “playing the TP”, the available profits don’t increase, but instead gets spread more thinly amongst the larger pool of traders.
Anyone who buys almost anything on the TP is buying into the system where it is possible to flip prices etc. There isn’t strictly anything wrong with that – if people genuinely think this is a moral issue, then I hope they also don’t buy anything irl from supermarkets or any store where a third party middle-man is involved in the purchase of the products. It is very hard to do.
I just want to point out that flipping occurs even in games without a centralised auction house/trading post. Guild Wars had players who made their wealth from flipping items, so I don’t think you’re going to be able to ever stop someone from buying low and selling high without removing all forms of player to player trading.
I think I’ve found your problem… there is a very vocal minority on the forums that are having too much fun bashing a game that most of them admit they haven’t played in months.
Play the game and enjoy it for what it is. Offer feedback on the things you don’t enjoy (and the things you do enjoy if you feel so inclined), but don’t let the negative posts affect your enjoyment by dwelling on them too much.
I’m getting the feeling that players understand this game more than devs sadly… I wish good future to this game and don’t want to give it up… something has to be done.
Actually, I have the reverse feeling in the majority of cases. There are a few posters who are reasoned, articulate, and can even change my initial opinion on their subject, but I see a lot more posters arguing for their particular corner of the game without regard for how it affects the game or playerbase as a whole.
I think saying that the whole Season was planned is the smart PR statement to make. I hope that it is indeed a PR statement and that they have better writers on board than the ones who penned this story. I believe that they’ve had a good concept, an idea for a conclusion, and have fumbled the ball on execution in between.
I’ve just made this point elsewhere, but I believe the main difficulty with writing the LW is that chapters are published before the end is even written, and a lot of writers will struggle with trying to keep the story focused and coherent under that paradigm. For that reason, they obviously had to have the arc planned out, even if not all the details were filled in.
I think they’re getting better, and I don’t think it’s fair to blame it all on the writers. There was a comment from a dev a few weeks ago along the lines that the recent increase in story-related NPC dialogue in the open world was a result of them giving tools and training to another team within ANet that had the capacity to add these dialogues.
I’ll see if I can find the quote somewhere, but it illustrates the difficulty with getting story content into the game when you have deadlines and only so many resources.
I wonder whether they should try some different writers, maybe some that understand high fantasy.
Not that I think the story writing is good (I seriously don’t), but I don’t agree that this is the problem.
The problem is that they’re trying to write for a fairly difficult medium, and they’re trying it in a way few have done before. They’ve made some mistakes, but part of that is because they’re trying something new. Mistakes will be made.
I’m torn between waiting for the start of Season 2 to see if they’ve learned from past mistakes, and simply giving up all hope right now. But some of the best writers out there would have stumbled on this, because HOW you pace and present the story to the players is different than how it works in pretty much any other medium.
I’ve snipped your post for brevity, but I thank you for providing a good example of how a writer can struggle with a new medium. I think the writers also have to deal with the fact that they have to “publish” chapters of the story before the end has been written.
Sure, they can have the ending planned out, but once something has been put into the game, they can’t really go back and rewrite it. This means there might be inconvenient plot holes where early chapters don’t quite fit in with later story developments.
“We’re currently working on a system that will better direct players through Living World content. Eventually, it will also provide story context for LW and other content types. The first phase of the system should be ready before the end of the year.
I am hopeful that some of the new systems that we have in development (the LW tracking system, journal tracking, etc.) will make it easier for folks to make sense of the long-term story." -BobbyStein
Is the Atlas what Bobby was talking about back in September?
Lets hope not.
If you hadn’t noticed, there have been significant improvements in the UI that helps track what’s happening in the current LW release. Additionally, there has recently been a lot of story content delivered in-game that has been recapping the story so far.
So I don’t think it’s fair to say that the Atlas is ANet’s only response to complaints about the delivery of the LW.
Having said that, I think the Atlas still needs some work. I love the content, but it needs to be structured in a way that tells the story of the LW. The library has content organised by chapter, but there’s no narrative within or between chapters, only recent chapters are there, and the limited navigation functionality means it will become increasingly difficult to navigate between chapters as more are added.
Got to love ANet, instead of adressing the issue at hand, they give us off topic one liners such as, ‘we feel the title is rude, so we changed it.’ Never mind the fact thats its rude to: be off topic, not adress our legitiment concerns, and make promises that they don’t intend to keep. Simple statements like, ‘we appologize for going back on our word, but we lack suficiant resourses for that kind of content’, or ‘we still intend to hour our statement, this is merely a stepping stone in the right direction,’ or ’you’re mistaken, this has nothing to do with the promised in-game content, which, we are still working on’ would have surficed. No, thank you for devaluing our arguements and concerns.
You illustrate everything that is wrong with these forums.
An Anet poster on the community team puts a note that they have changed the thread title and why, and you decide to use that to attack the company.
Ectos are easy to obtain, and a large sell listing isn’t stopping anyone else from undercutting them. This is a high volume market, and will resist any attempt by traders to unbalance the equilibrium.
Despite the rocky start, I’m loving the LS episodes that ANet have been delivering since the beginning of the nightmare tower chapter and I’m excited for the next episode and the story development that it contains.
Having said that, I can sympathize with those who are turned off by the fleeting nature of most of the LS content. There have been parts of the content I haven’t had time to experience due to a limited play schedule, but that hasn’t diminished my enjoyment of the content I have played.
Lineage is by far NCsoft’s biggest earner, followed by Guild Wars 2, Aion, and Blade & Soul. The company said that WildStar is on track to launch in mid-2014 and that the key GW2 focus is not on an expansion but with bringing the game to China.
I hope I’m somehow wrong or this source is unreliable, but it’s looking really grim right about now. I guess we shouldn’t be surprised…
Stats matter when they give a clear advantage, Ascended armor by itself not including ascended trinkets do not give a clear advantage in this game. If you can prove that if 1 player with ascended armor and another with exotics that the player will 100% beat the other player in a 1v1 with exotics Ill hear you out. Or have any numerical real world advantage outside a calculator or spread sheet id eat my words.
Do you not understand how stats work or something? If someone has 50 power more than someone else, then they are 50 power stronger. It’s not hard math.
And without context, 50 power more is just 50 power more. A meaningless number.
The problem here is that filling Buy Orders still require you to list the item. Why should we treat people filling Buy Orders any different than people listing items for sale? The seller of the item is still listing them, so no matter how much you dislike it, you must pay the up front fees to access the Trading Post’s functions.
In the event you have a player without enough money to post a high end item for sale, then that player can buy some Gems, convert to Gold, and then selul his item. OR… wait until he has farmed enough Gold to cover the listing fees.
Functionally, the buyer creates a listing and when you fill it, a sell listing is created, and then instantly deleted because it is paired with the buy listing, and the transaction completes.
That system is kind of a garbled mess, but it takes significantly less time to code which is why we have it.
This suggestion would require the code to be improved to be more efficient, which isn’t going to happen.
In an efficient TP design, there would only be one listing for each transaction (either a buy or a sell) followed by a completion when it is filled.
I think you are underestimating the impact of the global nature of the TP in your theoretically more efficient design. The TP needs to synch up orders from multiple servers across two data centres, and that imposes a restriction on being able to directly match sales to an existing buy order and it makes more sense to create a sell listing at that price and then match those to any buy orders in the system.
Given the grief the playerbase has give ANet about Scarlet in these very forums, I doubt that we will see her in a major role again any time soon after her story is concluded.
Guess what, he wasn’t talking about legendaries when talking about the most powerful items. Please try to quote in context if you want to be relevant to the discussion.
Human nature … path of least resistance. I’ll leave it to you to connect the dots.
That said, is this actually a problem or is this just how the community is deciding to interact with this type of content using the “tools” provided by the game? I guest to blackgate for the wurm, but only guest for marionette if my server’s map or overflow is too empty to attempt the event, but I don’t feel like it is a big deal/hassle to guest to another server to attempt this content and it means I’m not stuck in an empty map trying to do content with too few players.
I enjoy both PvE and WvW and I’m looking forward to this update. For those who aren’t, at least try to wait for its release before judging the content.
Well my point is im Original Blackgate and when new raid content like TEQ/WURM/Marrionette , comes why should i be placed in Overflows because of others taking my spot from other servers ? its not right
Even without guesting, high pop servers like BG would still generate overflows.
@Mia: I suspect part of the problem was also caused by development process constraints and other similar issues. The recent nightmare tower chapter shows that they have improved in their ability to tell the story through the game as the LS has progressed. While this doesn’t necessarily excuse the writers from all the faults of the plot, the LS writing process faces constraints that the PS writers didn’t have to worry about.
Harlen Ellison, the sci-fi author, sometimes stages an event where he writes in public, and as soon as each page is finished, it is posted up to be read. At that point, he can no longer change what he wrote, so he has to continue on and deliver the next page. I’d imagine the writing process for the LS is constrained by a similar inability to go back and refine elements of the plot that aren’t working out, plus the public scrutiny of your unfinished work while still having to deliver the next “page” by deadline.
It’s annoying for certain, but at least maintenance outages in this game are fewer than in other MMOs I have played. Sadly though, in a choice between Na, EU, and Oz/NZ, we will always come in third.
What effect does this have on the masses? I’m not seeing high levels of deprivation (in game terms) due to the wealth inequality that is presumed to exist due to the largely unrestricted nature of the TP. If those with wealth could use that wealth to interfere with other player’s enjoyment of the game in a significant manner, then it could be considered morally unjust.
Who do you think is paying taxes and profit for market flippers?
A thing is someone seeing some craftable good price is profitable, that buys basic mats and craft and resell.
Another is a player that sees a good has or will have high demand and insufficient offer, buy most of the offer creating more demand, and profit out of that.
See sigil of generosity, silk, skins, any luxury, celestial recipes item etc etc etc.
This happens even without a TP. I refer you to GW where players made profit flipping goods via map chat in Spamadan. The TP makes this sort of trading more efficient, but it also has almost no barrier to entry for new participants and (for most goods) the scale to ensure that any attempt at market manipulation is short-lived.
There is no distinguishing wrong from right part of this equation, as there really shouldn’t be a huge morality issue driving the regulation of the game’s economy, but rather the needs of the game and the playerbase itself. That’s if you accept the premise that the TP needs to change to limit how much individuals can earn by “playing the TP”, which I’m not in agreement with btw.
In that context, adding regulations that don’t work because everyone can easily avoid them is not useful.
I sorta beg to differ on this a bit. I feel that in this genre of game keeping the game populated is objective numero uno. Everything else must come full circle to that objective. Thus something that has such an effect on the masses that is imbalanced via a few is (in game terms) morally unjust. I would wager that a lot of the population is put off by such an imbalance seeing the reactions from things that are unbalanced to lesser degrees.
What effect does this have on the masses? I’m not seeing high levels of deprivation (in game terms) due to the wealth inequality that is presumed to exist due to the largely unrestricted nature of the TP. If those with wealth could use that wealth to interfere with other player’s enjoyment of the game in a significant manner, then it could be considered morally unjust.
Avoiding many parts of the eula is exceedingly easy. Does that mean that it shouldn’t be there? Does it mean that any rule/law/ordinance that is easily bypassed is useless? If that is the case then most rules/laws/ordinances are wastes of time since they are easily avoided/broken/bypassed. I’m sorry I just don’t understand that reasoning.
Sadly, there are a lot of bad laws and regulations passed by governments of all stripes around the world, and it’s not likely to stop any time soon. A subset of these are indeed widely ignored, circumvented, and/or unenforceable, and therefore do not achieve the intended aims.
Due to human nature (greed), if there’s profit in circumventing something, people will do it, so any proposed TP regulation needs to take this tendency into account or it is likely to fail to achieve the intended results.
The reason is because of the cross-server nature of guilds and the server based guild influence “currency”. A guild exists on all servers when created, so when you moved server, nothing changed for your guild as it already existed as far as your new server is concerned.
Influence and the associated guild upgrades are however tracked separately by each server. I’m not sure why this limitation on influence and guild upgrades were put in place.
However, I disagree that a guild leader should be able to take upgrades with them if they switch servers, as the potential for guild drama (and associated impact on ANet’s support resources) isn’t worth it IMO. A preferable option would be to make guild influence and upgrades shared across all servers, but I suspect a change of that magnitude would take a lot of effort to implement, and I’m not sure the demand is there (yet?) for this change.
The imbalance is there because of human nature. Even in GW there were players making a lot of wealth from trading in Spamadan. The TP in GW2 makes this form of trading more efficient than in the original game, and therefore more lucrative in terms of time vs reward, but I’ve yet to see a concrete proposal for TP regulations that meet the following criteria:
- has minimal to no impact on how the majority of the playerbase is able to interact with the TP.
- does not overly restrict the supply of goods available on the TP.
- cannot be easily circumvented or alternatively, has a low enough cost associated with it, that it is generally not worth the effort to circumvent it.
A multitude of methods could be used to meet those criteria except the last. The last one is not the right approach. We don’t base rules on whether or not the will be broken. We make them to distinguish between right and wrong. Make the rule based on it’s merit of being right, then enforce it via some punitive measures upon those that circumvent it….ie exploit.
Human nature..in this case greed is not really an appropriate reason for allowing the imbalance imo. It would be a better reason for fixing it.
There is no distinguishing wrong from right part of this equation, as there really shouldn’t be a huge morality issue driving the regulation of the game’s economy, but rather the needs of the game and the playerbase itself. That’s if you accept the premise that the TP needs to change to limit how much individuals can earn by “playing the TP”, which I’m not in agreement with btw.
In that context, adding regulations that don’t work because everyone can easily avoid them is not useful.
For playing the TP you need to invest time and gold for the others you just need time.
You mean continuous gold investment? As the others require an initial investment.
Not once have I seen any concrete reason why the imbalance is there. There has been a lot of scuttling around the fact, but never any direct reasoning.
The imbalance is there because of human nature. Even in GW there were players making a lot of wealth from trading in Spamadan. The TP in GW2 makes this form of trading more efficient than in the original game, and therefore more lucrative in terms of time vs reward, but I’ve yet to see a concrete proposal for TP regulations that meet the following criteria:
- has minimal to no impact on how the majority of the playerbase is able to interact with the TP.
- does not overly restrict the supply of goods available on the TP.
- cannot be easily circumvented or alternatively, has a low enough cost associated with it, that it is generally not worth the effort to circumvent it.
Devata, the business model for this game was announced prior to launch. You might not like it, and there’s nothing wrong with your refusal to buy gems, but there are other players who are willing to support that business model.
At no point in there is there any mention of real world money purchase
Quote—Black Lion Trading Company customers who purchase at least 800 gems will receive an exclusive Green Quaggan Backpack Cover. If you purchase at least 4,000 gems, you’ll receive not only the Green Quaggan Backpack Cover, but also a Mini Mr. Sparkles of your very own!
Only after going onto the suport page there is this Quote: Please note that only gems purchased with real-life money (not gold) qualify for this promotion.
My own fault for being too trusting! Bye Mr Sparkles, should have know it was too good to be true ‘sniff’.
They talk about gem “purchases” and gem card redemption codes, it don’t see any mention of exchanging gold for gems. You assumed it was included when there was no specific mention of gems obtained from the exchange being counted towards the promotion.
You didn’t bother to check, despite having a month to do so, so this is on you.
I What I can say is that the free market design that GW2 uses is MUCH more effective than a barter system in keeping players engaged and happy as an aggregate.
You have no data to prove this….mostly because its not true….
If you just went in game asking random people what they think of this gaame economy your theory would crumble in seconds….
The inflation is worse than ever…
The balance of economy is totally broken with most people struggling and TP flippers having so much gold to waste it on silly experiments….
How you can say its wonderful? maybe standing only in a forum section frequented by players that plays the economy with 1000X rewards then those playing THE MAIN GAME?
Read the quoted text again. John is saying that the TP is much more effective than a barter system at fulfilling the “trading needs” of the majority of the playerbase.
As for the “broken economy”, I’d have to disagree. I’m a casual player who plays maybe 6-8 hours per week. I don’t farm, run dungeons, or join champ trains. I do dabble with the TP a little, but only clear about 20g per week, as I don’t have the time to devote to research markets and just invest in a few small and safe markets. I have less than 200g and have not completed my first ascended weapon yet, let alone made a start on ascended armor, and IMO the economy is functioning properly and not broken.
The majority of tradeable items have an abundant supply on the market at any time of the day or night, and for a good number of these items there are players willing to buy them. The global scale of the TP means that the volume of trading on most items makes it impossible to manipulate prices for very long, so the prices are a good indication of how an item is valued by the playerbase, and thus "fair ".
I’m given to understand that Ho-Ho-Tron would be further ahead if he wasn’t having to spend time dealing with customer support due to the numerous botting reports filed against him by Marcello.
In my view, the future of GW2 looks promising. While ANet have copped a lot of flak over various elements of the LS, their delivery of the Nightmare Tower chapters has shown that they have been listening to and incorporating player feedback into the LS development.
This isn’t the only area that shows that ANet are incorporating player feedback, but it’s one of the most obvious. This, along with the CDI initiative, gives me great optimism about the future of this game.
@Magnus: Can you point to any cases where new market players are being shut out by already wealthy players? Because I only recently started up playing the TP again after a break from doing so, and I had no problem making decent profits from a small initial amount of gold (< 50 gold).
Doesn’t take more than one person to put up a couple of hundred thousand buy orders at 4c.
Imo there should be a limit put into place to curtail activities such as this. Really who needs several hundred thousand of anything? There is only one reason for it and that is to play the only non restricted aspect of the game and profit from it in a way that no other avenue allows. I wonder why………….
There are probably a few reasons why, but I think liquidity would be the prime reason.
And I don’t see any benefit for imposing a limit on volume of trades a player can make.
I’ve skipped a few of the later responses, so forgive me if this has already been mentioned, but the big flaw in your initial assessment that Fractured would last longer is the premise that previous releases have lasted for a month. Some releases have only lasted for a fortnight.
That said, it would be nice to have an in-game timer for LS releases, although it is probably not feasible to add one that is accurate to the hour or minute of the patch that removes the associated LS content.
Despite the negativity on the forums, this is a great game (IMO obviously) and I believe it will only improve as it matures. While some posters may proclaim their fears for the future of the game, I’ve observed a game studio that has been learning from the mistakes they have made over the past year. The LS is an example of how ANet have been incorporating feedback from the earlier chapters into the development of the more recent chapters as part of an iterative process.
