Guild Wars 2

Do you really want that in the general game client? Is reporting and blocking them so inconvenient to you that you are willing to make the game inconvenient to every legitimate player cause that’s what you’re suggesting.

E-Sport is advertising. If it brings in new paying players, it’s a plus. The tournament structure in game gives gives PvPers a goal to strive for, the slight chance of money at the end is a bonus but it’s mostly about ego and the tag next to their name.

And toxicity in PvP, well that’s PvP. It’s been like that in every game with PvP. It’s been like that since kids first started to play king of the mountain.

Well the partners do get early copies of the patch notes and sometimes access to new content like the LS3 the evening before it dropped, many used that time to do their reaction videos. Then it’s scout’s honor that they aren’t going to use that info to profit.

But I don’t imagine the penalty to be severe enough to boot someone on the first offense. ANet needs content creation partners to promote the game at this pivotal time in the game live, dismissing a partner, especially a main one for a specific region, I would imagine it would be difficult.

Insider trading means ANet employees making ingame money. From what’s being presented it’s a question of insider information.

If the people involved got sanctioned, we will never hear about it unless those people make noise about their sanction on the forums or reddit.

Seems busier the times of day I play than it was six months ago. The last two major updates seemed to invigorate, at least for a while, the downturn I saw post HoT.

ikereid.4637:

Behellagh.1468:

ikereid.4637:

Behellagh.1468:

sirsquishy.2619:

Behellagh.1468:

darkace.8925:

“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.

Remember, this isn’t ANet saying this but NCSOFT to analysts, which is what they want to hear. They don’t care about any of the games NCSOFT markets, just the bottom line. Don’t forget, NCSOFT said an expansion was coming a year after the game launched in a conference call.

That was on a call though, if its on paper its more tangible.
Just like the 2015 Jan 3rd Budget report that projected what the Expansion set to release was going to make, I would put more weight into something down in a Financial document then something over a conference call.

What report was that? Certainly not the Daewoo outrageous guesstimate?

I dont remember which report, but it was the one that said the est HoT sales was going to be 10,000,000. Which if you did the math, put the MSRP of HOT at 49.99, which is what it was.

So say what you want….

That was an analyst’s guestimate what the expansion was going to bring in, not anything from NCSOFT or ANet. They, Daewoo, quickly walked back that estimate within a few weeks.

And I don’t remember any White Knights here asking for an expansion. It was the naysayers who disliked living world clamored for a “traditional” expansion.

Then you really weren’t on the forums that much from 2012-2014. I can remember a handful of threads with 200-300 replies about ‘why GW2 needs an expansion’.

So yes, the player base on the forums were fighting for/against expansions prior to 2015.

And Daewoo, or whoever, marked that the Expansion was going to cost 50 bucks and so it did. Even if they back stepped they were not wrong in the MSRP that NCSoft was going to ask for it.

Much like how if there is talks about a new Exp per year for GW2 I would guess we can expect a 14-16 month cycle for expansions realistically if they do go that route.

But, I/myself, will no longer buy expansions for this game. HoT left such a poor taste for me that I refuse to take another bite from that platter. Anet/NCSoft is going to have to come up with a new content delivery scheme if they want any more of my money.

I think I’m one of the top ten posters here, nearly 11K … so I’ve been here nearly the entire time the game’s been live.

I don’t deny there were threads asking for raids, harder content, I’m saying it wasn’t White Knights asking for it since they were satisfied with the game including living world as a means to add content to the game at a steady rate. It was players who were upset that GW2 wasn’t GW with a regular release of box expansions.

Now you may be confused because White Knights generally support whatever decision the devs make. So when the devs said the expansion will have raids, WK said okay. When the devs said the critter AI would be improved so they would be more challenging , WK said OK. WK just support the devs decisions whatever they may be.

ikereid.4637:

Behellagh.1468:

sirsquishy.2619:

Behellagh.1468:

darkace.8925:

“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.

Remember, this isn’t ANet saying this but NCSOFT to analysts, which is what they want to hear. They don’t care about any of the games NCSOFT markets, just the bottom line. Don’t forget, NCSOFT said an expansion was coming a year after the game launched in a conference call.

That was on a call though, if its on paper its more tangible.
Just like the 2015 Jan 3rd Budget report that projected what the Expansion set to release was going to make, I would put more weight into something down in a Financial document then something over a conference call.

What report was that? Certainly not the Daewoo outrageous guesstimate?

I dont remember which report, but it was the one that said the est HoT sales was going to be 10,000,000. Which if you did the math, put the MSRP of HOT at 49.99, which is what it was.

So say what you want….

That was an analyst’s guestimate what the expansion was going to bring in, not anything from NCSOFT or ANet. They, Daewoo, quickly walked back that estimate within a few weeks.

And I don’t remember any White Knights here asking for an expansion. It was the naysayers who disliked living world clamored for a “traditional” expansion.

sirsquishy.2619:

Behellagh.1468:

darkace.8925:

“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.

Remember, this isn’t ANet saying this but NCSOFT to analysts, which is what they want to hear. They don’t care about any of the games NCSOFT markets, just the bottom line. Don’t forget, NCSOFT said an expansion was coming a year after the game launched in a conference call.

That was on a call though, if its on paper its more tangible.
Just like the 2015 Jan 3rd Budget report that projected what the Expansion set to release was going to make, I would put more weight into something down in a Financial document then something over a conference call.

What report was that? Certainly not the Daewoo outrageous guesstimate?

darkace.8925:

“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.

Remember, this isn’t ANet saying this but NCSOFT to analysts, which is what they want to hear. They don’t care about any of the games NCSOFT markets, just the bottom line. Don’t forget, NCSOFT said an expansion was coming a year after the game launched in a conference call.

Monk Tank.5897:

Good, they deserve every bit of it. They destroyed the solo player and this is the end result. All the solo players have given up and gone elsewhere. First they ruined WvW with adding all that stupid crap. Then they turned what was a casual friendly game since April 26, 2005 into the steamy HoT piece of crap we have now. My friends have all left, I haven’t played in months and I don’t care what you fix or add to the game..I’m done. You can’t polish a kitten . You can’t force people to play together if they don’t want to. You can make the game harder so they have to group up to get through the content and you can watch by the sales how well that works.
I don’t care what they put in the next expansion I’m sure as hell not buying it. Or anything from Arena Net ever again. HoT is the complete opposite of everything Guild Wars was over the last 10 years. I don’t like where its going, and I won’t be here for it.

I’m a solo player too, but since since the April patch HoT is actually playable solo, at my level of skill. I just bid my time in Core Tyria trying to get MP to get autoloot.

Yes HoT was a horrible misstep in tone when compared to the core game. Most of that has been fixed now.

#hardcoregamerproblems

But for those of us who don’t play as frequently or as efficiently have plenty to do.

Daroon.1736:

From a post I made 6 months ago:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Ncsoft-s-earnings-4Q-2015/page/3

“I predict that Q1 2016 revenue will be around 26,000 KRW MLN (due to FTP Players upgrading after Christmas)
and Q2 will see GW2 revenue fall to its lowest point since launch at around 15,000 KRW MLN”

Nice guess on Q2 but you undershot Q1 by a fair amount.

Apples to carburetors comparison there @slashlizardy. Same could have been said about Farmville years ago. Or Angry Birds. Or Candy Crush.

That happens at times. A couple of years ago I had that happen in DR.

Since the game released at the end of August 2012, the 3Q12 numbers is not just preorders but preorders and September’s income.

Other than that, good summary.

Yep, looked like someone(s) is trying to stop gold and silver ore from dropping too far. Took roughly an hour to submit 1 million bids for silver, half that for 1/2 million for gold. Thats one stack bid every second, doable if you have 3.5 K of gold laying around (spent 2.5 K of gold on the silver bids).

They may be investing into the rumors that Jewelry 500 will finally be coming so they expect an influx of players leveling Jewelry as well as needing silver and gold for an ascended mat. There’s still a spot for Xunlai Electrum Ingot in the mat storage. If the formula for ascended mats is maintained, needing T2-T5 to craft, well silver and gold is T2 and T3 jewelry mats. This way they build up a supply of those mats to sell when prices spike when ascended jewelry finally arrives.

Every 25% damage done to the golem, a DPS will be displayed in your combat log.

On a brighter note, HoT is back on the UK PC sales charts at 19. That’s likely due to the LS coming back.

What we are seeing here is the April-June doldrums due to the lack of content. While the Spring Update bumped up the active players, the “Hey we fixed most of the missteps we did in the expansion” isn’t an advertising slogan you can take to the bank.

Since we now have some indication about how much of the income they book from selling gems, hopefully some will now realize why their is always new stuff at the Gem Shop.

Also in the 2nd quarter we saw the exchange rate go from 22 gold to 30.6 gold per 100 gems. We know the rate increases as more gems are withdrawn than deposited in the exchange. What if this increase wasn’t just due to the increased rewards delivered in the Spring Update but also a decrease in actual Gem purchases that were then sold into the exchange? If GW2Efficiency reflects a reasonable cross-section of players, players don’t keep gems around. They seem to sell the left over ones they have due to buying gems in amounts in excess of what they immediately need (hot dog/bun problem). Now if they aren’t buying gems (with cash) because there is either nothing they like in the shop (or they have everything they are interested in) or they can earn enough gold to satisfy their need, that may be one reason gem sale income is down. Just some armchair analysis.

Also if staffing is still around 300, 15.9 billion KrW (roughly $13.6 million) for the quarter is still not troublesome yet. It’s still $180,000 per person per year in income. And game/expansion income is used to buffer these dips in income. First two quarters of 2015 income was 42.5 billion KrW and in 2016 it was 46.5 billion KrW.

As for when to expect the next expansion? Not this year, maybe 3Q17 putting it two years after HoT and five years after launch?

Just my thoughts. I’ll listen to the call later but nice summary @Belenwyn.

Here is the first mention.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/48zlyd/im_mike_obrien_here_with_gw2_dev_team_ama/d0o2v9j

And don’t forget, the game’s development started in 2007. During that time a whole lot of assets are developed. The “new” armor sets we got in the first year were likely already in the pipeline being developed but once LS started to take hold, those dev artists got assigned other assets to create.

Bellatrixa.3546:

Behellagh.1468:

When I hear stripped down I think of other MMOs with F2P versions that are more like trials with limit access to classes with gold and level caps. And that’s on top of similar chat restrictions.

“Sripped down” is yet another example of forum hyperbole in an attempt to bolster a position that isn’t defendable from the get go.

When you hear it. Doesn’t mean that was the meaning designated by the person who said it or that other people interpret it in the same manner.

stripped-down
adjective
reduced to essentials.

Now, what other than those two words did you object to in my posts? Because right now it seems like you’re trying to argue about nothing based on one phrase that you’ve decided to give a more exaggerated personal meaning.
Also please bear in mind that you took on a f2p account as an already established and experienced player of GW2; your items and gold might not have been transferable to EU but your knowledge was. You already knew how to make those restrictions not matter as much. Newer players (using my boyfriend and f2pers that’ve been recruited to my guild) don’t have that advantage and in my personal observational experience have run into quite a few of the walls that don’t bother you as an already knowledgeable player. The TP restrictions are what seem to catch a lot of people but again, I understand why they’re there.

Considering expansions are generally required to stay current and progress in a game, just compare what HoT gives you that f2p doesn’t. The gap between f2p and core isn’t huge in terms of content (I’d say the restrictions affect how you go about things more than content itself), but when you factor in that HoT is required to progress the story to now, I’d say that part of the game is most certainly ‘stripped down’, whether you like it or not (using my definition, not your hyperbolic one). It’s like being able to read the first few pages of a book on Amazon before you buy it, which is perfectly fine in my eyes.

There’s not so many/harsh restrictions that it’d put most people off playing f2p, but the hand of ANet is firmly encouraging you to pay if you want to do more than just the basics, which is a good thing.

I’m not sure what you’re trying to pick a fight over other than personal definitions of a phrase; I’m pro f2p and I feel it’s been implemented fairly but whatever gets you through the day I guess -shrugs-

True, that is the definition but in colloquial usage it’s commonly used in a derogatory way. “Oh, you bought the stripped down model, do the windows even roll down?” If that’s not what you meant then I’m sorry.

The thing is the chat restrictions is no different than say the trial version of WoW but unlike a trial you have the full game in terms of core content. But comparing F2P with HoT and then complain about F2P is totally unfair. When you are leveling, there is very little you are missing by not having HoT, basically account wide mastery unlocks and picking Revenant. Once you hit 80 then yes, there is a lot of content you are missing out on but that’s the carrot to BUY the game cause at the end of the day ANet runs on cash.

Under a year I think, first word came during the AMA back in January I think.

I know the limits, I have one to play on EU and none of that consists of “stripped down” from the original.

• The level restrictions until access non-starter zones is trivial, an hour or two of play at most, or 10 minutes crafting. Plus you have WP to each of the starter zones.
• WvW is account wide unlock at 60 but honestly if you aren’t already 80 with rares at minimum you are putting yourself at a disadvantage.
• The various chat restrictions are necessary to discourage RMT usage and isn’t really that bad in practice. At the very least it gets players standing next to each other chatting out of map chat.
• No Gold to Gems? TANSTAAFL, buy the game or buy gems with cash, cheapskate.

When I hear stripped down I think of other MMOs with F2P versions that are more like trials with limit access to classes with gold and level caps. And that’s on top of similar chat restrictions.

“Sripped down” is yet another example of forum hyperbole in an attempt to bolster a position that isn’t defendable from the get go.

How is it heavily stripped down pray tell? You can do everything that isn’t tied to HoT. Yes you start with fewer character slots, fewer default bag slots per character and the restrictions to discourage it’s use as RMT burner accounts. But you have access to everything in the original game in terms of professions, crafting, dungeons, fractals, zones, etc.

Allison The Strange.4519:

People have been asking for this for a while (myself included). Anet has just blatantly ignored us & keep pumping out stupid outfits instead of letting us actually look the way we want…

They haven’t blatantly ignored you, they’ve stated their position repeatedly, first time over two years ago. Most recently a couple of weeks ago in the living story AMA on reddit from MO.

Armor sets are by far the most expensive reward we can make. A full set includes heavy, medium, light, times five races, times two sexes, so it’s like developing 30 sets. It takes nine months to develop. (That’s for a normal armor set — legendary is much longer.) It’s not something we can do for Living World episodes. Individual pieces are good rewards for Living World episodes; full sets are more something for expansion packs.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/4uqx15/out_of_the_shadows_devs_here_ask_us_anything/d5s52tj

Doesn’t mean they won’t release armor piece meal, helm here, gloves there but full sets of armor, aren’t coming to the TP anymore.

So much better since the April patch. Add in LS3 and the optional raiding I think it’s worth it. Of course those who suffered HoT before that may have a very different opinion. Glad I waited to seriously play this content even though I pre-ordered it.

Plus GLIDING. It’s so much fun even in core Tyria.

The game engine, unlike Excel, Handbrake, Winzip, Cinebench, etc doesn’t divide it’s workload across all logical cores. It basically uses just two but has enough utility threads also running to occasionally need more than two physical core’s worth of processor power. Toss in the OS and what ever else you have actively running, the question is how busy is your CPU overall? If you are close to 100%, not in the game but the overall system, then it might help a tad. But other than that no.

Also it’s common that CPUs with more physical cores have a lower clock speed so you actually may end up with less performance with a game engine like this.

There’s the new NPC in all race cities and pass areas to preview.

GW2 Professions aren’t about extremes. No super tanks, no glass cannons. Doesn’t mean there aren’t tougher or more brittle professions.

Linken.6345:

Amaimon.7823:

Please tell WHERE the difficulty lies, because I unlocked it all in one go when it was released (well, save the exp grind, which i mostly got from fractals)

Yea been playing said game for 3 years before masteries I had 48-50 points when the system came.

I wonder what have you other people been doing? playing the tradepost?

I’ve been here just as long and over 3000 hours and only had 10? 12? Why, cause I hadn’t done dungeons, fractals, finished the stories, do big organized content like TTW and Teq post change. Didn’t know ahead of time that those optional content was going to be a requirement for CT Masteries. Assumed it would be all exploration and world bosses.

Peura.3796:

Yeah where did all the spammers come all of a sudden. Im blocking multiple ones every day the past few days. Was there a discount and scammers bought hundreds of copies or what? This is getting out of hands. Infuriating.

That’s an easy question. Because of the LS release. Influx of players makes it more of a target rich environment that gold sellers are willing to use their leveled up/stolen/fraudulently bought accounts on, which will get deleted assuming players are reporting them as they spam, so we end up seeing more of them.

Don’t think LS is the reason? Looking at the UK PC games sales for last week, HoT is back on the list at 19.

Well the game’s anniversary is coming up. That always brings sales/returns to the gem shop.

Wow they are back in force because even I got one, first one in months. Reported, blocked and continued on.

Report, Block and remove those URLs cause you are advertising for them.

Harny.6012:

Mez Koo.9510:

Update added 11 HoT mastery points, and new mastery only used 1.

Unless there is going to be a way to use extra points, why keep adding more?

Because “complete chosen ones from range we offer to unlock all masteries” is simply better than “complete everything to unlock all masteries”.

Choice is almost always good for you.

And the next expansion will likely have it’s own Mastery points so excess isn’t an issue, unlike Hero Points for the next elite specialization.

But they are a currency for unique “crafting” materials; materials you use them to make something you can use or sell. And there already is a fairly substantial list of items to craft. Sorry you don’t see anything useful on that list.

A gem sale would be the same as if ALL items were on sale. And like I said earlier, they won’t do that. It is better for ANet to use targeted short term sales on items to get players off the fence and buy. Remember, knocking 20% off an item price means that item’s sales would have to increase 25% just to break even. So it’s put on items that may have a pent up demand for them, like BL keys.

But it’s not about saving, just convenience of having just about every service within a hop skip.

Gems will never be on sale outside of an expansion pre-purchase or via a discounted gem card.

That is why they put items on sale.

Well if it did provide a return trip unlike the other two passes @Pifil, it would upset everyone who has either of the other passes who will demand similar functionality or gem refunds.

There is convenience but then there’s too much convenience. Too much then players are able to process content quicker and accomplish all the goals they set for themselves quicker. Players who’ve done everything they wanted to do tend to leave and may come back for an expansion.

But unlike the last one, it’s being done alongside the Living Story and any live game content/events so in theory we won’t quite encounter another major content drought that we had from Jan 2015 to Oct 2015 when HoT came out or the intervening 9 months since HoT.

I think they announced the abandonment fairly early after the game released, letting 3rd parties provide offline tools. Don’t remember exactly where I heard that. Maybe one of the recent AMAs on Reddit reiterated it.

It’s exactly like the airship but on the ground with an NPC who can send you to any of the race cities or Lion’s Arch. And like the other two passes, it’s one way.

This simply provides a hub in the HoT area of the map so players don’t need to WP from DR or GF to get there or go back to CT to access services there.

Honestly now, the answer is as many who need a change of pace and were also WoW players buying time in GW2.

The reality of MMOs is you can’t keep players playing your game 100% of the time. It’s sort of pointless to try to counter program updates of existing MMOs against launches or major updates in other MMOs to hold onto players. It’s like network TV putting all the SciFi or Superhero shows on opposite one another and thus splitting the live audience so no show does spectacularly well.

And other than true sandbox MMOs like EVE, content can’t be generated fast enough for those players who chew threw it the quickest, so of course they could wander away until there’s something new.

But in the end it’s acceptable loses and doesn’t matter as much with a game without a subscription fee.

Gems for the most part are only created when they are bought with cash (I think there is a gem reward in a large achievement chest).

Now the exchange has been explained as a repository of gold and gems. The relative ratio of these two items determines the exchange rate, adjusted by whatever gold tax ANet applies to the transaction. The gold paid by players to buy gems is the gold other players are buying with gems and vice versa. This way no gold or gems (other than the start of the exchange) paid out by the exchange is created out of nothing by the exchange. Gold is earned in game while gems are bought with real world currency. Gems are only destroyed when spent in the Gem Shop, the exchange only destroys, via the tax, gold.

Thelgar.7214:

Behellagh.1468:

So the issue with you is the gold value. It’s unfair to you that someone got a lot more value out of the gift than you did.

Geez.

Please stop making up motivations. The number is a comparison. The birthday gift should be something that people enjoy. Getting to salvage a dye for 1 to 4 pigments as opposed to getting a dye that is something you couldn’t afford or is something nice but that you wouldn’t have bought for yourself is a big difference.

Unless you think “Celebratory Pigment Pack – salvage item – salvage this to get 1 to 4 pigments of your choice” is a great birthday gift…

I’ve been getting these for a year now, 18 of them, including when people were getting dyes worth hundreds of gold, if I cared that others were getting more than I, I’d have started a thread long ago. I didn’t even start this thread, and jumped in only because of the “entitled” post and the poor and mean-spirited arguments against making things better. I don’t care that people got a lot out of the dye packs, just that some of us got effectively nothing, which makes the Celebratory Dye Pack kind of a downer.

But when you don’t have a reasonable argument, trying to make me out as a bad guy is all you have left.

Then why have you mentioned, numerous times the value of dyes to those who didn’t have them vs picking one and salvaging it for pigments. It certainly seems like the gold value is something that bothered you.

Surprise … it takes a little effort to turn <currency other than gold> into gold.

Let’s see, last month I made 57 gold in 27 days using only the daily shards on mat promotions. It’s not a lot if you are looking for 100s if not 1000s of gold but it’s not a bad supplement.

So the issue with you is the gold value. It’s unfair to you that someone got a lot more value out of the gift than you did.

Geez.

Pyro.4765:

The worst are Instant Repair Canisters. They can make black lion goods boxes feel like a bad thing.

But the vast majority of Gem Shop items are bought with gems. Gems that someone paid with real world cash. Again making it a CS issue if it was too easy to delete them. But perhaps a threshold needs to be set that gem value below it can simply be deleted, one at a time but if the item(s) in the inventory slot is above that, then require the typing to delete. Or simplify it to a captcha style 5 character code.

I can understand if it’s an obtainable only once item. Cuts down on the CS calls. It’s the items you can get multiples of where it can get annoying.