Guild Wars 2

That infinite coin down the toilet.

Braxton.3926:

Hi..

Just was curious if there was an estimate as to how many players are logged into Guild Wars 2 at any given time?

Hi Braxton, have you looked at the latest Raptr stats?
http://caas.raptr.com/most-played-pc-games-july-2014-summers-winners-and-losers/
GW2 is in the top 20 list!

Now, you might call BS on it, however, look at the relative percentages to the other games within the stats, then compare with the Steam stats:
http://store.steampowered.com/stats/
Beware not all the games in the Raptr list is in the Steam list because those games aren’t released on Steam.

You’ll notice eg. DOTA2 ~2-3 times the numbers of Counter Strike, CS ~4 times higher than Civ 4, etc, so the Raptr stats do seem to provide a reasonable estimate in terms of relative positions.
Now looking at where GW2 lies in the Raptr ranking, it’s about the same as Garry’s Mod, Civ4, Skyrim, so looking at those games concurrency, you get peak of ~50k-60k and normal of ~20-30k, so GW2 is probably around those number, so it’s fairly small.

On a side note, NCSoft have released their latest earnings, where the outlook is good/stable.
Summarized on reddit http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/2diwg3/ncsoft_earnings_2q_14/

Dusty Moon.4382:

BlueZone.4236:

The guild wars name is a reference to StarCraft since the old anet had/have ex-blizzard members, and is also a reference to the type of gameplay they wanted for the original the game. The lore aspect is slapped on afterwards.

The lore was part and parcel. Also the Original A.Net people worked on Diablo 2 not StarCraft.

Gameplay conception came first. Reference to their old game next. Lore last (or at the same time with the reference).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_O%27Brien_%28game_developer%29
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Wyatt
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Strain
Ctrl+F — Starcraft: Matches found.

You were saying?

The guild wars name is a reference to StarCraft since the old anet had/have ex-blizzard members, and is also a reference to the type of gameplay they wanted for the original the game. The lore aspect is slapped on afterwards.

Hehe, is this like ANet’s version of corrupt a wish? Well played, I must say.
I think we need a thread called “corrupt a wish CDI style”.

Guhracie.3419:

storiessave.3807:

Sean.8274:

Who are the poorest players in the game? WvW Commanders!

Who will benefit most from the new color commander tags? WvW Commanders!

Lets make them spend 300g for each additional color they want. Makes sense. Let’s make the poorest people even poorer.

So much this.

Adding in a gold sink for a population that’s already perpetually poor…brilliant idea.

I was excited about this change until I heard it was 300g per color.

Have they announced that each color will be 300g yet? They’ve just announced that you will have to buy additional colors, not how much they will cost, as far as I know.

Depends if you consider this official:

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/2djnv8/interview_with_devon_carver_commander_tag_will_be/cjq72z4
http://www.guildmag.com/command-tag-gamescom-2014/

“Yes, so each color is purchased individually, and it is important to note that there is no hierarchy for colors so that you have to purchase blue and then have to go to red or yellow or whatever. It is also important to point out that if you already bought a commander tag, it will become account bound so that when you’ve bought a blue commander tag you’ll never have to spend money on that again. So if you bought blue already you can go ahead and buy other colors if you want. If you’ve bought more than three you can contact costumer support and get a refund.”

I guess we’ll see more Cursed Shore farming/“exploits” leading up to this date.

Vayne.8563:

BlueZone.4236:

Vayne.8563:

BlueZone.4236:

Vayne.8563:

BlueZone.4236:

Vayne.8563:

BlueZone.4236:

Ok OP, so to summarize, looking at Raptr, Steam, Xfire & Overwolf, the top 3-4 PC games have a large population, whereas the rest are small, including GW2.
GW2 is financially well, as per NCSoft’s earning report, with it’s small population.
No sarcasm.

It’s not small, if it’s like in the top ten, it’s just not huge. All size is relative. Didn’t anyone ever tell you that?

Relative to the top 3-4 it’s small, so it’s small.

What is it relative to #20. lol

Anyway the top game is completely free to play.

You must have a tiny set of vocabulary. Hey, look, I even slipped in the word for you.
And yes, the top game has a massive number of registered players, huge twitch viewership, huge hours logged compared to the others and huge concurrency. Up to you to piece the information together.

The way I read it, and of course you can read it any way you want, there are six games higher than Guild Wars 2, but only one of them is an MMORPG, which is WoW. If you really want to compare numbers, the most popular free to play Moba is going to have more users than even the most popular MMO. But Guild Wars 2 has a purchase price and some of the games above it don’t. So it having more people playing means what exactly? Compare apples to apples maybe?

The thing is, Guild Wars 2, for a 2 year old MMO in a crowded field, with so many free MMOs out there should be happy to be on that list at all let alone near the top of it.

In your desire to prove that this game isn’t doing well, you’re proving just the opposite. Thanks.

Oh look, shifting goal posts now.
And your petty stunt to imply I’m trying to prove the game isn’t doing well? Wow, bravo. Good stretch of imagination.

People can read your post history and figure that out. I’m out of here. Feel free to get the last word.

Yeah I said NCSoft reports the game is doing well financially. Man, this must be so embarrassing for you.

Vayne.8563:

BlueZone.4236:

Vayne.8563:

BlueZone.4236:

Vayne.8563:

BlueZone.4236:

Ok OP, so to summarize, looking at Raptr, Steam, Xfire & Overwolf, the top 3-4 PC games have a large population, whereas the rest are small, including GW2.
GW2 is financially well, as per NCSoft’s earning report, with it’s small population.
No sarcasm.

It’s not small, if it’s like in the top ten, it’s just not huge. All size is relative. Didn’t anyone ever tell you that?

Relative to the top 3-4 it’s small, so it’s small.

What is it relative to #20. lol

Anyway the top game is completely free to play.

You must have a tiny set of vocabulary. Hey, look, I even slipped in the word for you.
And yes, the top game has a massive number of registered players, huge twitch viewership, huge hours logged compared to the others and huge concurrency. Up to you to piece the information together.

The way I read it, and of course you can read it any way you want, there are six games higher than Guild Wars 2, but only one of them is an MMORPG, which is WoW. If you really want to compare numbers, the most popular free to play Moba is going to have more users than even the most popular MMO. But Guild Wars 2 has a purchase price and some of the games above it don’t. So it having more people playing means what exactly? Compare apples to apples maybe?

The thing is, Guild Wars 2, for a 2 year old MMO in a crowded field, with so many free MMOs out there should be happy to be on that list at all let alone near the top of it.

In your desire to prove that this game isn’t doing well, you’re proving just the opposite. Thanks.

Oh look, shifting goal posts now.
And your petty stunt to imply I’m trying to prove the game isn’t doing well? Wow, bravo. Good stretch of imagination.

Vayne.8563:

BlueZone.4236:

Vayne.8563:

BlueZone.4236:

Ok OP, so to summarize, looking at Raptr, Steam, Xfire & Overwolf, the top 3-4 PC games have a large population, whereas the rest are small, including GW2.
GW2 is financially well, as per NCSoft’s earning report, with it’s small population.
No sarcasm.

It’s not small, if it’s like in the top ten, it’s just not huge. All size is relative. Didn’t anyone ever tell you that?

Relative to the top 3-4 it’s small, so it’s small.

What is it relative to #20. lol

Anyway the top game is completely free to play.

You must have a tiny set of vocabulary. Hey, look, I even slipped in the word for you.
And yes, the top game has a massive number of registered players, huge twitch viewership, huge hours logged compared to the others and huge concurrency. Up to you to piece the information together.

Vayne.8563:

BlueZone.4236:

Ok OP, so to summarize, looking at Raptr, Steam, Xfire & Overwolf, the top 3-4 PC games have a large population, whereas the rest are small, including GW2.
GW2 is financially well, as per NCSoft’s earning report, with it’s small population.
No sarcasm.

It’s not small, if it’s like in the top ten, it’s just not huge. All size is relative. Didn’t anyone ever tell you that?

Relative to the top 3-4 it’s small, so it’s small.

Ok OP, so to summarize, looking at Raptr, Steam, Xfire & Overwolf, the top 3-4 PC games have a large population, whereas the rest are small, including GW2.
GW2 is financially well, as per NCSoft’s earning report, with it’s small population.
No sarcasm.

Vayne.8563:

BlueZone.4236:

NCSoft still haven’t announced their 4 million sales milestone for the west (Kong Zhong’s PR does not count), that’s why they’re pushing for sales again.
I think GW2 has reached near saturation in terms of interest.

That was true a long time ago. It’s true with well over 90% of all games. As a retailer who sold games for a very long time, I can tell you that over 90% of all game sales occur for a title during it’s first three months, for most games. Only sales and making the title cheaper and cheaper make more sales but they still only extremeliy rarely significantly add to the overall game’s population. There are exceptions to this but they’re very few and far between.

For example Eve Online is increasing subscribers. They now have the most they’ve ever had, which is about half a million. But they’re a niche game, and half a million people, as a game high, isn’t all that impressive. And they’re still a huge exception to a very broad rule.

Yes, that’s right. GW2 is essentially normal.
And if GW2’s ranking is anything to go by, GW2 is pretty much in the niche area as well.

NCSoft still haven’t announced their 4 million sales milestone for the west (Kong Zhong’s PR does not count), that’s why they’re pushing for sales again.
I think GW2 has reached near saturation in terms of interest.

Vayne.8563:

BlueZone.4236:

Vayne.8563:

BlueZone.4236:

Vayne.8563:

BlueZone.4236:

Yeah, looking at the Raptr stats, I believe GW2 does fall around the range of Gary’s Mod or Civ 5.
Looking at the Steam stats for those games, 50k peak concurrency does sound about right.
A far cry from 460k peak, but yeah, sustainable.

The 460k peak was around launch or shortly after. Very very few games end up sustaining that. For one thing, everyone is doing stuff at the same time. People took days off from work. I played more the first week than I do now too. Therefore I’ll be on less hours, therefore, I’ll not be concurrent with people I used to be concurrent with.

I’m not sure how many games you can play for 12 hours a day after a year or two.

The point is, 50k peak concurrency for a 2 year old game is pretty good. It’s probably very had the day new content comes out and tapers off during the next few days.

By the end of the two week cycle it’s probably at a low.

But the game being dead or being abandoned, or not making money is just plain silly.

Yeah, that’s obvious with the 460k peak.
Not sure what’s up with the strawman setup in your reply. More clarification for your unintelligent fanbase?

No. It’s very simple logic, for the more intelligent members. Like a company that’s hiring and producing new content on a regular basis, whether or not you like it, is probably not doing so for a game that’s dead. Simple, basic logic.

K bro, here’s a fact for your “intelligent” members.
I never said the game was dead so stop implying so with your strawman.

No, but people have. And the OP quoted so much for those who say the game was dead. So it’s not really a strawman since it’s., you know, the topic of the thread. When you want to talk about the topic of the thread (this shows Guild Wars 2 isn’t dead or dying), by all means come back and we can talk about it.

Quote the OP and not me next time, buddy? It’s called getting the right context. Smh.

Vayne.8563:

BlueZone.4236:

Vayne.8563:

BlueZone.4236:

Yeah, looking at the Raptr stats, I believe GW2 does fall around the range of Gary’s Mod or Civ 5.
Looking at the Steam stats for those games, 50k peak concurrency does sound about right.
A far cry from 460k peak, but yeah, sustainable.

The 460k peak was around launch or shortly after. Very very few games end up sustaining that. For one thing, everyone is doing stuff at the same time. People took days off from work. I played more the first week than I do now too. Therefore I’ll be on less hours, therefore, I’ll not be concurrent with people I used to be concurrent with.

I’m not sure how many games you can play for 12 hours a day after a year or two.

The point is, 50k peak concurrency for a 2 year old game is pretty good. It’s probably very had the day new content comes out and tapers off during the next few days.

By the end of the two week cycle it’s probably at a low.

But the game being dead or being abandoned, or not making money is just plain silly.

Yeah, that’s obvious with the 460k peak.
Not sure what’s up with the strawman setup in your reply. More clarification for your unintelligent fanbase?

No. It’s very simple logic, for the more intelligent members. Like a company that’s hiring and producing new content on a regular basis, whether or not you like it, is probably not doing so for a game that’s dead. Simple, basic logic.

K bro, here’s a fact for your “intelligent” members.
I never said the game was dead so stop implying so with your strawman.

Vayne.8563:

BlueZone.4236:

Yeah, looking at the Raptr stats, I believe GW2 does fall around the range of Gary’s Mod or Civ 5.
Looking at the Steam stats for those games, 50k peak concurrency does sound about right.
A far cry from 460k peak, but yeah, sustainable.

The 460k peak was around launch or shortly after. Very very few games end up sustaining that. For one thing, everyone is doing stuff at the same time. People took days off from work. I played more the first week than I do now too. Therefore I’ll be on less hours, therefore, I’ll not be concurrent with people I used to be concurrent with.

I’m not sure how many games you can play for 12 hours a day after a year or two.

The point is, 50k peak concurrency for a 2 year old game is pretty good. It’s probably very had the day new content comes out and tapers off during the next few days.

By the end of the two week cycle it’s probably at a low.

But the game being dead or being abandoned, or not making money is just plain silly.

Yeah, that’s obvious with the 460k peak.
Not sure what’s up with the strawman setup in your reply. More clarification for your unintelligent fanbase?

Yeah, looking at the Raptr stats, I believe GW2 does fall around the range of Gary’s Mod or Civ 5.
Looking at the Steam stats for those games, 50k peak concurrency does sound about right.
A far cry from 460k peak, but yeah, sustainable.

Regarding Fresh Start, if the level 60 experience scroll that was datamined on reddit is anything to go by…raise the level cap…?
Where’s the mounts? :P

Vayne.8563:

BlueZone.4236:

Vayne.8563:

BlueZone.4236:

Vayne.8563:

BlueZone.4236:

Domino.1359:

I hope something big is being worked on – 2 years for planning is long gone – LS is just too stale to keep some in-game. It takes 1 day to finish a new LS chapter. Content is very small to justify this long of a wait for an expansion.

What?! The Dry Top map is so massive, it’s like they’re squeezing water out of dry rocks! You should be like “whoa, ANet, slow down! You’re releasing too much content again!”.
On a more realistic note, I think it took them over a year to get this map developed (it around one year for the EotM map), so their big project on display.
Here, right now.

Interesting theory. It may be one of the things they were working on. But since Anet did say they had multiple teams working on big projects, it might not be all of them. I suspect it’s not.

Map development is a big task for them. Not a theory. It’s a fact.
And of course they’re working on multiple projects, big and small.
Fact is this was a big project for them.

You say in your first post “so their big project is on display”. In any English I know, that means this is their one big project. You may not have meant it, but you certainly said it.

If you think there might be more, it might have been better to say this was one of their big projects (which might or might not be the case).

Wow…smh.
Is your fanbase really that dumb to need such a clarification? Jesus.
This is their big project on display.

No, it really does mean something other than you’re saying. Saying their big project is very different than saying one of them. This means it’s over. We’ve seen it. There’s nothing else.

Given your post history not sure why you’d think I’d assume anything else.

BlueZone.4236:

Nick.6972:

That reminds me of.
Remember the last year (summer) when people said they disliked Living Story and asked Arena Net to work on other stuff instead? Remember how Arena Net commented that only smart percentage ot company is actually working on Living STory and how there are huge “secret” background projects? What happened to that?

EotM, wardrobe, Dry Top map, mega servers…
EotM took one whole year to develop.
It’s a guess, however it’s logical these were the so called big projects.

Learn to remember? Smh.

Vayne.8563:

BlueZone.4236:

Vayne.8563:

BlueZone.4236:

Domino.1359:

I hope something big is being worked on – 2 years for planning is long gone – LS is just too stale to keep some in-game. It takes 1 day to finish a new LS chapter. Content is very small to justify this long of a wait for an expansion.

What?! The Dry Top map is so massive, it’s like they’re squeezing water out of dry rocks! You should be like “whoa, ANet, slow down! You’re releasing too much content again!”.
On a more realistic note, I think it took them over a year to get this map developed (it around one year for the EotM map), so their big project on display.
Here, right now.

Interesting theory. It may be one of the things they were working on. But since Anet did say they had multiple teams working on big projects, it might not be all of them. I suspect it’s not.

Map development is a big task for them. Not a theory. It’s a fact.
And of course they’re working on multiple projects, big and small.
Fact is this was a big project for them.

You say in your first post “so their big project is on display”. In any English I know, that means this is their one big project. You may not have meant it, but you certainly said it.

If you think there might be more, it might have been better to say this was one of their big projects (which might or might not be the case).

Wow…smh.
Is your fanbase really that dumb to need such a clarification? Jesus.
This is their big project on display.

Vayne.8563:

BlueZone.4236:

Domino.1359:

I hope something big is being worked on – 2 years for planning is long gone – LS is just too stale to keep some in-game. It takes 1 day to finish a new LS chapter. Content is very small to justify this long of a wait for an expansion.

What?! The Dry Top map is so massive, it’s like they’re squeezing water out of dry rocks! You should be like “whoa, ANet, slow down! You’re releasing too much content again!”.
On a more realistic note, I think it took them over a year to get this map developed (it around one year for the EotM map), so their big project on display.
Here, right now.

Interesting theory. It may be one of the things they were working on. But since Anet did say they had multiple teams working on big projects, it might not be all of them. I suspect it’s not.

Map development is a big task for them. Not a theory. It’s a fact.
And of course they’re working on multiple projects, big and small.
Fact is this was a big project for them.

Domino.1359:

I hope something big is being worked on – 2 years for planning is long gone – LS is just too stale to keep some in-game. It takes 1 day to finish a new LS chapter. Content is very small to justify this long of a wait for an expansion.

What?! The Dry Top map is so massive, it’s like they’re squeezing water out of dry rocks! You should be like “whoa, ANet, slow down! You’re releasing too much content again!”.
On a more realistic note, I think it took them over a year to get this map developed (it around one year for the EotM map), so their big project on display.
Here, right now.

Niii Yu.4572:

Bloodstealer.5978:

I hope they do nerf it to the ground and perma ban those players that have relentlessly exploited it to hell this past few weeks then perhaps Cursed Shore can return to its normal eventing.. I mean its not like there aren’t enough champs to legitimately farm on the ANET rotation for that map.

They will nerf event soon for sure, i cant see it last. But it may not be priority since the event can succeed quite easily. Most maps that run this event dont last for longer than an hour half an hour because there is always some who capture the camp. As for people getting banned for it, lets be real. That wont ever happen. If they ban people for “exploiting” they should ban everyone who exploits something. Im looking at you dungeon players.

Ahh, so it’s easy to shut down the farm.
Ok yeah, they aren’t going to put much effort into fixing this, and players won’t be banned.

Bloodstealer.5978:

BlueZone.4236:

— SNIP —

Except it wasn’t about the achievements that they cared about. It was the rewards, hence success or failure of the event was irrelevant, just like here.
In any case, it sounds like you’ve just described the ember farm which ANet participated in, so it’s all good for now.
It’s clear people are bored with this game. Maybe they’ve nerf it in the upcoming patch.

No nothing like on CS.. purposely failing to reset endlessly is not the same as farming a single event that does not respawn.. and actually most of the time it got completed anyway just by sheer participation.
Keep burying ya head in the sand … you know as well as others this is an exploit that has repercussions due to the unhealthy amount of loot that is simply endlessly farmed all day long… with some added toxicity thrown in from the Queensdale mobs to ensure players that wANT to run the event chain as it should be, don’t come back.

I hope they do nerf it to the ground and perma ban those players that have relentlessly exploited it to hell this past few weeks then perhaps Cursed Shore can return to its normal eventing.. I mean its not like there aren’t enough champs to legitimately farm on the ANET rotation for that map.

Patch notes don’t mention it unless it got stealth merged.
If it’s still there that means they don’t see it as a major threat.
Maybe we should all join and see what all the fun is about.

Bloodstealer.5978:

BlueZone.4236:

Bloodstealer.5978:

BlueZone.4236:

Bloodstealer.5978:

BlueZone.4236:

Yet here we are with champ farming, EotM karma train, black lion key farming, as well…
I don’t think failing events counts as an exploit.

You keep trying to convince yourself of that – Farming events legitimately that are on a timed rotation is not the issue, that is an inerrant part of any champion/boss/world boss in pretty much any MMO.. as long the events get completed as they should be there is nothing wrong with it (except maybe the Queensdale toxicity issue).
Key farming is just a character creation run and has nothing being failed on purpose.. unless of course you want to kill off the ability to create alts -sure alter the reward trees or the point in the Story where you get one if its really that big an issue but 1 key every 20-30 mins is not even close to the scale of the exploit in Cursed Shore where hoards of players are repeatedly failing events on purpose in order respawn another event (rinse repeat every 10mins all day long, 6-10 champs per run with the sole purpose to farm hundreds and hundreds of champ loot is definitely against the Code of Conduct whether its bad game design or not.. players know its an exploit but carry on regardless.

So creating a character and deleting it after 20-30 minutes is intended gameplay?
Remember Anet employees participating in the Ember farming? Are they banned yet?
What about people scaling Aetherblades during the Scarlet invasion to guarantee tons of champs? Banned yet?
What about people with tons of alts parking outside a node cluster to farm logs? And further more, changing map instances to respawn said trees?

Rewards in this game is rubbish, anyway. No one really cares.

None of which is purposely failing any content… parking on a node is common gameplay, its one of the reasons for rolling up alts. – bank toons or farming toons and there is nothing wrong in that as long as they are not node hacking by way of teleport/coordinate hacks.. simply logging some trees or mining a rich node then logging off is normal gameplay because they can only be farmed once per day per character and rightly so.
Stacking numbers to scale events is why there is scaling in the first place.. more scaling more difficulty (at least in terms of hp vs time in GW2).. that is not exploiting.. you need to learn the difference.
Scaling up events in order to generate champs but then purposely failing the events in order to get the events to endlessly reset/respawn to farm the same scaled up champs is definitely an exploit all those oing it know it is.. so please stop trying to paint yourself white.. those that do it deserve the ban hammer hard down on them period!

I guess you missed where people complained where no one was killing Scarlet anymore because the main zerg was only going for champs.
In any case, I’m not defending their actions. Anet condones it. They participate in it.

I guess your just determined to miss the point… the Scarlet event towards the end became a champ farm, no one can deny that and that is ANET’s fault for making the content temporary and meaningless once players gained achievs. But that is a different t scenario to that which happens now on Cursed Shore… the Scarlet events didn’t endlessly reset did they?
If the Scarlet event failed that was that and a bunch of other trash mobs would be left behind for players to contend with. Cursed Shore Shelter event is purposely scaled then failed inn order to farm the champs outside of the circle then once it fails it simply resets the Blix Tunnel event .. scale more champs, farm a bit of karma and coin then rescale Shelter kill champs, fail.. rinse repeat on a never ending cycle… totally different scenario to the Scarlet events.

Except it wasn’t about the achievements that they cared about. It was the rewards, hence success or failure of the event was irrelevant, just like here.
In any case, it sounds like you’ve just described the ember farm which ANet participated in, so it’s all good for now.
It’s clear people are bored with this game. Maybe they’ve nerf it in the upcoming patch.

Bloodstealer.5978:

BlueZone.4236:

Bloodstealer.5978:

BlueZone.4236:

Yet here we are with champ farming, EotM karma train, black lion key farming, as well…
I don’t think failing events counts as an exploit.

You keep trying to convince yourself of that – Farming events legitimately that are on a timed rotation is not the issue, that is an inerrant part of any champion/boss/world boss in pretty much any MMO.. as long the events get completed as they should be there is nothing wrong with it (except maybe the Queensdale toxicity issue).
Key farming is just a character creation run and has nothing being failed on purpose.. unless of course you want to kill off the ability to create alts -sure alter the reward trees or the point in the Story where you get one if its really that big an issue but 1 key every 20-30 mins is not even close to the scale of the exploit in Cursed Shore where hoards of players are repeatedly failing events on purpose in order respawn another event (rinse repeat every 10mins all day long, 6-10 champs per run with the sole purpose to farm hundreds and hundreds of champ loot is definitely against the Code of Conduct whether its bad game design or not.. players know its an exploit but carry on regardless.

So creating a character and deleting it after 20-30 minutes is intended gameplay?
Remember Anet employees participating in the Ember farming? Are they banned yet?
What about people scaling Aetherblades during the Scarlet invasion to guarantee tons of champs? Banned yet?
What about people with tons of alts parking outside a node cluster to farm logs? And further more, changing map instances to respawn said trees?

Rewards in this game is rubbish, anyway. No one really cares.

None of which is purposely failing any content… parking on a node is common gameplay, its one of the reasons for rolling up alts. – bank toons or farming toons and there is nothing wrong in that as long as they are not node hacking by way of teleport/coordinate hacks.. simply logging some trees or mining a rich node then logging off is normal gameplay because they can only be farmed once per day per character and rightly so.
Stacking numbers to scale events is why there is scaling in the first place.. more scaling more difficulty (at least in terms of hp vs time in GW2).. that is not exploiting.. you need to learn the difference.
Scaling up events in order to generate champs but then purposely failing the events in order to get the events to endlessly reset/respawn to farm the same scaled up champs is definitely an exploit all those oing it know it is.. so please stop trying to paint yourself white.. those that do it deserve the ban hammer hard down on them period!

I guess you missed where people complained where no one was killing Scarlet anymore because the main zerg was only going for champs.
In any case, I’m not defending their actions. Anet condones it. They participate in it.

They are probably going to raise the level cap or introduce another tier and are practising with their PR team on their excuses.

Dusty Moon.4382:

You cannot compare GW1 to GW2. GW1 was an Instanced game, meaning that the maps were isolated for just your party and once the mobs died, they didn’t respawn. GW2 is an open world game, even though it is segmented into maps. Everyone sees the same map (except for dungeons) and that makes it that much harder to develop for.

And by everyone, you mean ~100 (or 150 via taxi exploit) per map instance.

Ctrl+F → mounts. Word not found.

Mounts! Oooooooooh yeaaaaaaaaaaah! Neeeeeeeeeeeeeigh!!

Bloodstealer.5978:

BlueZone.4236:

Yet here we are with champ farming, EotM karma train, black lion key farming, as well…
I don’t think failing events counts as an exploit.

You keep trying to convince yourself of that – Farming events legitimately that are on a timed rotation is not the issue, that is an inerrant part of any champion/boss/world boss in pretty much any MMO.. as long the events get completed as they should be there is nothing wrong with it (except maybe the Queensdale toxicity issue).
Key farming is just a character creation run and has nothing being failed on purpose.. unless of course you want to kill off the ability to create alts -sure alter the reward trees or the point in the Story where you get one if its really that big an issue but 1 key every 20-30 mins is not even close to the scale of the exploit in Cursed Shore where hoards of players are repeatedly failing events on purpose in order respawn another event (rinse repeat every 10mins all day long, 6-10 champs per run with the sole purpose to farm hundreds and hundreds of champ loot is definitely against the Code of Conduct whether its bad game design or not.. players know its an exploit but carry on regardless.

So creating a character and deleting it after 20-30 minutes is intended gameplay?
Remember Anet employees participating in the Ember farming? Are they banned yet?
What about people scaling Aetherblades during the Scarlet invasion to guarantee tons of champs? Banned yet?
What about people with tons of alts parking outside a node cluster to farm logs? And further more, changing map instances to respawn said trees?

Rewards in this game is rubbish, anyway. No one really cares.

Yet here we are with champ farming, EotM karma train, black lion key farming, as well…
I don’t think failing events counts as an exploit.

The guild wars name is a reference to StarCraft since the old anet had/have ex-blizzard members, and is also a reference to the type of gameplay they wanted for the original the game. The lore aspect is slapped on afterwards.

There’s lots of people foolish enough to throw away thousands of dollars on virtual items.
It only takes a small percentage of people to contribute to the majority of revenue (google “f2p revenue” to get an idea).

Also, considering the state of the game right before mega servers were introduced, it’s highly unlikely the majority of the 3.5 million accounts were still active.

Knighthonor.4061:

Did Anet confirm yet that this has nothing to do with the china model of GW2?

I think this has more to do with their idea of “fixing” the lack of horizontal progression…

chemiclord.3978:

BlueZone.4236:

He pulled that number out of thin air. You, on the other hand, have a source.

EDIT: having thought about it. I have no idea what that number really means, since this game has a lower grind requirement.
However, 1-2% of 10 million players is a lot compared to GW2’s under 4 million players (where the majority are probably gone, anyway)

Well, here’s something I CAN tell you, based on what I personally witnessed.

By the time that instance was given a pretty sizable nerf (a few weeks before launch of Wrath of the Lich King), there was only about 100 guilds that confirmed a “kill” of Kil’jaeden (the final boss in Sunwell Plateau). Let’s be generous and assume that they ran a good share of “second team” runs, say 75 players from each guild were present for at least one completion of that raid instance (it was a 25-man raid, after all).

Even at the most generous numbers I’m willing to entertain, you’re talking about 7,000-8,000 people TOTAL completed that content at the degree of difficulty it was intended.

Those numbers were so dismal that Blizzard vowed to NEVER make content that difficult ever again. The return on that investment simply wasn’t worth it to the company. It wouldn’t be worth it for a game with a player base a tenth WoW’s size.

In fact, within two expansions, they created a “Looking for Raid” faceroll difficulty, which was basically get 25 people to press “1” over and over. Does that sound familiar to you?

That’s the problem with challenging content. The percentage of the player base that welcomes that content is so very small when compared to the whole that it just isn’t worth the time and money investment. If you want more than that very small slice to enjoy what you’ve made… you’re gonna have to make it depressingly easy, because otherwise the overwhelming bulk of your players WILL reject it, if not be outright ANGRY at its existence.

Hey, thanks for posting. I think there’s a difference in making (or trying to make) challenging content and “content so hard we doubled it and didn’t test it”.

Anyway, I can’t find the quote but there was an Anet post somewhere here that said the overall skill level of everyone is below expectation, and they wanted to raise it.
Based on the number of challenging content they tried to add, I wonder if they’ve already been scared off then.

He pulled that number out of thin air. You, on the other hand, have a source.

EDIT: having thought about it. I have no idea what that number really means, since this game has a lower grind requirement.
However, 1-2% of 10 million players is a lot compared to GW2’s under 4 million players (where the majority are probably gone, anyway)

Lore writers have a trick called retcon. Solves everything.

Pro for mounts: gold and gem sink.
Con for mounts: too much work to solve clipping issues.

No fake numbers this time, so it’s all good.

Vayne.8563:

BlueZone.4236:

I would just like to say on record the percentages Vayne mentioned were pulled out of thin air, therefore meaningless. I hope this clarifies any mislead readers.

Thank you for your time.

They weren’t hard and fast percentage it’s called an example. There was nothing in that post that should have made anyone think they were supossed to represent actual numbers. Most people reading this would have understood that. Thanks for clarifying it further for those who didn’t get it.

Yep, just to reiterate, the numbers are meaningless so the example is also meaningless…meaning it means absolutely nothing.
Using a meaningless example to support an argument is meaningless.

I would just like to say on record the percentages Vayne mentioned were pulled out of thin air, therefore meaningless. I hope this clarifies any mislead readers.

Thank you for your time.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

BlueZone.4236:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

- Longer development time means they have more chances to scrap bad work, but it also means more wasted time and less time to work on it if they have to scrap something or change it late.

I don’t see what you’re arguing here. Release bad content no matter what?
If they have to scrap something extremely late, then it was poor decisions the whole way through, or no decisions being made at all until the last minute.

. . . neither of which is unheard of in game development, you realize.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

- IF they announce an expansion, and IF they give a due date . . . then miss it for whatever reason, just how badly do you think that will reflect? Especially if, in their words “it’s not ready”? It will be worse than a LS chapter which is heavily bugged, because then it will have been paid for.

Are you talking about pre-orders? Pre-orders which can be cancelled at any time?
If you’re just talking about normal funding from the publisher, I think the LS content are still funded from the publisher.
The “just get it out of the door” philosophy can still be applied if they’re that desperate…

I’m talking about expansion, out the door, to consumers who paid money for it.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

- Last time I checked, expansions do not always cater to multiple groups at once. They instead cater to the top of the playerbase who have already done the top-tier things and itch for the next tougher thing. There might be multiple level ranges included, but only if a new race was introduced, due to the new race requiring a starting zone and “pecking order” of zones to get going.

True, I also have extremely low expectations from Anet, nowadays.

I don’t know how you got that from what was quoted there. And it’s not low expectations so much as remembering there’s always the chance of the nice people higher up the budget chain who go “Get it out by December” when it can’t possibly be done.

And knowing ANet, they won’t cut things as much as they’ll try to finish what they have. Halfway I admire this tendency, but unfortunately . . . it leads to things which just are head-scratchingly left in without a reason. (Ferocity/Charisma/Dignity anyone?)

Of course, expansions = higher risk. And higher risk = higher gain or spectacular failure (well, to be honest, I can’t think of an expansion that killed a game outright).
However, LS = guaranteed lower quality work overall. Because of the time constraint that must be enforced.

Regarding low expectations, if they had an expansion and didn’t do something that provided content for PvE, WvW and PvP (not saying how large or small), and you think that’s expected that they didn’t do something for all 3, then yes, that’s low expectations.

Yes, they rushed out the last parts of main game.
Yes, some of the LS content are rushed low quality work, set by their own time limits.
They’ve had time management problems right from the start, and now they’re just churning out content for the sake of the fulfilling the 2 week cadence…even though they never properly resolved their time management issues.

They don’t need a paid expansion. They need scrap the 2 week cadence in favor of longer development time. Much longer. Like expansion development length.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

- Longer development time means they have more chances to scrap bad work, but it also means more wasted time and less time to work on it if they have to scrap something or change it late.

I don’t see what you’re arguing here. Release bad content no matter what?
If they have to scrap something extremely late, then it was poor decisions the whole way through, or no decisions being made at all until the last minute.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

- IF they announce an expansion, and IF they give a due date . . . then miss it for whatever reason, just how badly do you think that will reflect? Especially if, in their words “it’s not ready”? It will be worse than a LS chapter which is heavily bugged, because then it will have been paid for.

Are you talking about pre-orders? Pre-orders which can be cancelled at any time?
If you’re just talking about normal funding from the publisher, I think the LS content are still funded from the publisher.
The “just get it out of the door” philosophy can still be applied if they’re that desperate…

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

- Last time I checked, expansions do not always cater to multiple groups at once. They instead cater to the top of the playerbase who have already done the top-tier things and itch for the next tougher thing. There might be multiple level ranges included, but only if a new race was introduced, due to the new race requiring a starting zone and “pecking order” of zones to get going.

True, I also have extremely low expectations from Anet, nowadays.

Arewn.2368:

With regards to expansion, I don’t really understand it. They’re fundamentally the same as regular patches, and anything they can deliver can be delivered in patches as well. In my experience (talking about other games as well here) it’s really just a matter of packaging.

Longer time to develop content can lead to higher quality work, the ability to delay/scrap bad content, cohesive design and story, content that tailors to many groups simultaneously.

Vayne.8563:

BlueZone.4236:

Vayne.8563:

BlueZone.4236:

Vayne.8563:

BlueZone.4236:

If you like to think changes happen for mysterious reasons, sure.
But, they’re just like any other company. If things aren’t working, then change it.
Resolving some of the issues aren’t some happy accident as a byproduct of restructuring here. No one is saying that’s the sole reason.
We’re not dealing with rocket science here.

Again, you can make changes without things being “bad”. They can always be better. I’ve restructured many things in the past that were working fine..but I made them more efficient.

That’s not rocket science either. It’s good business.

Yes, and they’re addressing things because it wasn’t working.
I know you’re trying very hard to get into another semantic argument, but I’m not biting. No need to put them on a pedestal.

Now you’re just trying to bait me. I said I wasn’t putting them on a pedestal and you repeat over and over again that I am. When you’re done playing games and would like to discuss the matter at hand, feel free to respond. Until then, I think all that needs to be said has been said.

Sure thing. You done twisting your own logic to make Anet look like they deserve high praises?
One minute you argue “they aren’t changing it because the numbers don’t support it”, next minute you’re arguing “they’re changing it but it’s not related to the numbers, they’re looking for improvement.”.
When you’re done making pointless arguments, feel free to respond.

Also, twice is not repeating “over and over again”.

You refuse to deal with the fact that there are a lot of people who enjoyed the Living Story Season One.

It definitely got off to a rocky start. I don’t think anyone would disagree. The improvement from earlier installments to later installments was vast. There were a lot of people who praised the later installments of season one.

Obviously you learn and evolve. That’s not spin. That’s logic. They learned even from the beginning of the season to the end of the season. The end of the season wasn’t prefect, hell it was far from perfect, but it was good for a lot of people.

Having flaws doesn’t make something bad. That’s all anyone is saying here.

You may think it’s bad. It may have been bad for you. It may have had flaws that prevented it from reaching it’s full potential…but if people weren’t playing it, I don’t believe Anet would be continuing it.

I don’t need to “deal” with anything because I never claimed no one enjoyed it.
It’s clear you’re projecting negative opinions as facts.

Dramatic changes were done internally and externally because it was bad. Bad enough to compromise the original concept because the original concept was bad.
Other than your silly semantics, you’re agreeing with me.
You don’t like the word “bad”? Too bad!

Vayne.8563:

BlueZone.4236:

Vayne.8563:

BlueZone.4236:

If you like to think changes happen for mysterious reasons, sure.
But, they’re just like any other company. If things aren’t working, then change it.
Resolving some of the issues aren’t some happy accident as a byproduct of restructuring here. No one is saying that’s the sole reason.
We’re not dealing with rocket science here.

Again, you can make changes without things being “bad”. They can always be better. I’ve restructured many things in the past that were working fine..but I made them more efficient.

That’s not rocket science either. It’s good business.

Yes, and they’re addressing things because it wasn’t working.
I know you’re trying very hard to get into another semantic argument, but I’m not biting. No need to put them on a pedestal.

Now you’re just trying to bait me. I said I wasn’t putting them on a pedestal and you repeat over and over again that I am. When you’re done playing games and would like to discuss the matter at hand, feel free to respond. Until then, I think all that needs to be said has been said.

Sure thing. You done twisting your own logic to make Anet look like they deserve high praises?
One minute you argue “they aren’t changing it because the numbers don’t support it”, next minute you’re arguing “they’re changing it but it’s not related to the numbers, they’re looking for improvement.”.
When you’re done making pointless arguments, feel free to respond.

Also, twice is not repeating “over and over again”.

Vayne.8563:

BlueZone.4236:

If you like to think changes happen for mysterious reasons, sure.
But, they’re just like any other company. If things aren’t working, then change it.
Resolving some of the issues aren’t some happy accident as a byproduct of restructuring here. No one is saying that’s the sole reason.
We’re not dealing with rocket science here.

Again, you can make changes without things being “bad”. They can always be better. I’ve restructured many things in the past that were working fine..but I made them more efficient.

That’s not rocket science either. It’s good business.

Yes, and they’re addressing things because it wasn’t working.
I know you’re trying very hard to get into another semantic argument, but I’m not biting. No need to put them on a pedestal.

If you like to think changes happen for mysterious reasons, sure.
But, they’re just like any other company. If things aren’t working, then change it.
Resolving some of the issues aren’t some happy accident as a byproduct of restructuring here. No one is saying that’s the sole reason.
We’re not dealing with rocket science here.

Vayne.8563:

BlueZone.4236:

Vayne.8563:

BlueZone.4236:

Vayne.8563:

See, that’s ridiculous. Claiming I’m putting something on a pedestal. I’m not. I’m simply not using an subjective term objectively. If you wish to defend that, by all means go right ahead. It doesn’t change anything at all.

There’s nothing to defend here. It was bad enough for them to do a drastic change internally and externally.
The old structure wasn’t working. Some of us saw it. Anet sees it. You didn’t.
Now they’re testing a new structure, that tries to retain some of the philosophy of the old structure.

The fact that the old structure was temporary and unsustainable was definitely not working. However, that has nothing to do with the quality of the story when you play it.

Uhh…yes, it does. The dev I quoted included the word “cohesion”.
Their teams worked fairly independently from one another.
People picked up on how poor the cohesiveness of the story was even if they didn’t know how Anet was internally structured. Because it showed in their work. No, I don’t care that you didn’t see the problem. People saw it. Anet addressed it.
Again, this is just one part of the problem amongst many others.

I doubt the current structure solves the QA problem, though.
That requires something they can’t address with the old or new structure: development time.

All of which still doesn’t make it objectively “bad”. You kept using the word. I’m happy to say that it lacked cohesion. That still is one deficiency. There’s still an over all bad and good. The way you post makes it seem like the living story was bad, when in fact the living story wasn’t bad, even if it had elements that needed work.

You refuse to acknowledge that painting the living world as bad, deficiencies or no deficiencies, is your opinion and the opinion of other people. There are others, plenty of others, who found the living story good. There’s no objective good and bad here, it’s all opinion.

You can read it however you like. I’m not here to carefully craft my words to not step on your toes because you can’t handle criticism to this game.
Plenty of people have pointed out what’s wrong with the living world. No need to go through all of them again.
Anet restructured to address some of the things that was bad. Some.

Vayne.8563:

BlueZone.4236:

Vayne.8563:

See, that’s ridiculous. Claiming I’m putting something on a pedestal. I’m not. I’m simply not using an subjective term objectively. If you wish to defend that, by all means go right ahead. It doesn’t change anything at all.

There’s nothing to defend here. It was bad enough for them to do a drastic change internally and externally.
The old structure wasn’t working. Some of us saw it. Anet sees it. You didn’t.
Now they’re testing a new structure, that tries to retain some of the philosophy of the old structure.

The fact that the old structure was temporary and unsustainable was definitely not working. However, that has nothing to do with the quality of the story when you play it.

Uhh…yes, it does. The dev I quoted included the word “cohesion”.
Their teams worked fairly independently from one another.
People picked up on how poor the cohesiveness of the story was even if they didn’t know how Anet was internally structured. Because it showed in their work. No, I don’t care that you didn’t see the problem. People saw it. Anet addressed it.
Again, this is just one part of the problem amongst many others.

I doubt the current structure solves the QA problem, though.
That requires something they can’t address with the old or new structure: development time.

Vayne.8563:

See, that’s ridiculous. Claiming I’m putting something on a pedestal. I’m not. I’m simply not using an subjective term objectively. If you wish to defend that, by all means go right ahead. It doesn’t change anything at all.

There’s nothing to defend here. It was bad enough for them to do a drastic change internally and externally.
The old structure wasn’t working. Some of us saw it. Anet sees it. You didn’t.
Now they’re testing a new structure, that tries to retain some of the philosophy of the old structure.