Guild Wars 2

Krysard.1364:

Broom.2561:

Teutos.8620:

insanemaniac.2456:

the practice button was a noob trap. noobs would click it and go in to a match where rank 80s are kittening around and zerging the kitten out of everything and basically playing conquest wrong in every possible way, and then theyd either quit after getting dragon stomped or come here and complain they were being dragon stomped and then quit. oh, and, the people doing the dragon stomps tell them they suck and they should quit too. is that really the kind of experience you want a new player to have when they first set foot in pvp? no.

^ This exactly.

If you want to practice -> go to unranked!

That’s a wrong line of reasoning. It never was about practice, it was about having a hotjoin option.

To elaborate on my previous post: personally, I do not have the time to turn PVP matches into a career. I want to do my dailies and get my PVP fix. I do NOT want to bother with voice chat, teaming up or getting into arguments whether I am using the exact meta people think I should be using. I do NOT want to end up in endless shouting matches on who was the biggest fail. I just want to play a few matches and go to work.

I will freely admit hotjoin has/had serious issues, but those were something the developers chose to add (leave matches without penalty? seriously? stupidest idea ever) and which I’d happily do without.

But I do very much want the no-queue option back. At this point, it is pretty much the only thing in GW2 that still holds (a little bit of) my interest.

As said, hotjoin still exists ^^

Not entirely. The maps often have different rules. And finding one with an actual match (NOT a duel, NOT roleplay, not whatever else odd thing people come up with) takes an annoying amount of time in itself.

Teutos.8620:

insanemaniac.2456:

the practice button was a noob trap. noobs would click it and go in to a match where rank 80s are kittening around and zerging the kitten out of everything and basically playing conquest wrong in every possible way, and then theyd either quit after getting dragon stomped or come here and complain they were being dragon stomped and then quit. oh, and, the people doing the dragon stomps tell them they suck and they should quit too. is that really the kind of experience you want a new player to have when they first set foot in pvp? no.

^ This exactly.

If you want to practice -> go to unranked!

That’s a wrong line of reasoning. It never was about practice, it was about having a hotjoin option.

To elaborate on my previous post: personally, I do not have the time to turn PVP matches into a career. I want to do my dailies and get my PVP fix. I do NOT want to bother with voice chat, teaming up or getting into arguments whether I am using the exact meta people think I should be using. I do NOT want to end up in endless shouting matches on who was the biggest fail. I just want to play a few matches and go to work.

I will freely admit hotjoin has/had serious issues, but those were something the developers chose to add (leave matches without penalty? seriously? stupidest idea ever) and which I’d happily do without.

But I do very much want the no-queue option back. At this point, it is pretty much the only thing in GW2 that still holds (a little bit of) my interest.

Personally, I like ‘Practice’ (and they NEVER should have renamed it into that) because it’s hot-join and I just cannot be bothered with metas and queues.

Vayne.8563:

Broom.2561:

Vayne.8563:

Your personal hype level is completely 100% irrelevant. First of all, I don’t see the value of keeping people hyped in the first place. I think it’s a bad idea. They need the hype toward the end, not now. When they need hype, they’ll create it.

Secondly hype just means people get over excited and judge everything by the highest standard. Most games end up being treated unfairly by fans, because fans have hyped themselves into a state where nothing real could satisfy them. Most MMOs, just about all of them, take time to get off the ground. But fans are hyped and don’t give them that chance.

Most MMOs improve over the first year or two, and fans tend to move away and never look back. And people wonder why companies are reluctant to invest an creating an MMO.

Since it’s the gaming companies CREATING that hype, very consciously, your argument is not really relevant.

It’s a marketing trend, really. They know that the initial interest is the greatest (new! shiny! must have!), so they boost that interest to maximize the amount of early sales, thus recouping the development cost and (usually) making a good initial profit.

And they usually get it wrong. They promise features that never make it to live, post videoclips that do not really represent actual in-game experience, and publish before polish (or even bugfixing) is completed. And then they wonder about the backlash of angry/disappointed customers.

But the game company is NOT creating that hype. Are you even paying attention. This very thread is about not being hyped.

Most people are saying Anet isn’t hyping enough. Hype comes from the fans, not the company. Anet has come out with relatively little hype themselves. The fact is, this game has been tremendously underhyped by Anet and it’s kittening some people off.

The very definition of hype says you are wrong:
Hype (derived from hyperbole) is promotion, especially promotion consisting of exaggerated claims.

If you are announcing a smallish expansion more than 6 months before it’s even released (announcement on 24 January 2015 in this case), trickle-feed your audience features that go into that expansion, give excited interviews making much of those features, without actually saying all that much about the facts of that expansion, then yes, you are most definitely hyping that product.

And yes, hype is definitely a mechanism used by marketing departments. They know they’re doing it, they have a purpose in doing it, they have exact methods in how to create the maximum amount of it. And I’m pretty certain you can google all this, there are training courses on the topic, as well as (long) forum discussions on what not to do.

If anything, ANet fails at doing this, though. They’ve made some remarkable public relations blunders, and are not consistent enough in feeding new information in an attractive enough way. Which is why the ‘under-hype’ or ‘fail of hype’

Vayne.8563:

Your personal hype level is completely 100% irrelevant. First of all, I don’t see the value of keeping people hyped in the first place. I think it’s a bad idea. They need the hype toward the end, not now. When they need hype, they’ll create it.

Secondly hype just means people get over excited and judge everything by the highest standard. Most games end up being treated unfairly by fans, because fans have hyped themselves into a state where nothing real could satisfy them. Most MMOs, just about all of them, take time to get off the ground. But fans are hyped and don’t give them that chance.

Most MMOs improve over the first year or two, and fans tend to move away and never look back. And people wonder why companies are reluctant to invest an creating an MMO.

Since it’s the gaming companies CREATING that hype, very consciously, your argument is not really relevant.

It’s a marketing trend, really. They know that the initial interest is the greatest (new! shiny! must have!), so they boost that interest to maximize the amount of early sales, thus recouping the development cost and (usually) making a good initial profit.

And they usually get it wrong. They promise features that never make it to live, post videoclips that do not really represent actual in-game experience, and publish before polish (or even bugfixing) is completed. And then they wonder about the backlash of angry/disappointed customers.

Lol. Wait till he finds out he needs 100% world unlock for his hero points…

Sorry OP, but I think the system is fine the way it is. No free world unlock for you.

Maladon.5760:

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

VOLKON.1290:

And… who cares? Giving new players the core as well in no way hurts me or affects my game play, with the possible exception of there being new players around. I’m not losing anything, I’m still gaining the expansion.

You are losing money. A lot of money.

Are you 12 years old or something? Fifty bucks is just a couple of lunches…

I’m 47 and employed. And for me, 50$ is half of my weekly grocery budget. That’s not an inconsiderable amount of money.

Not everyone has a great income or a income at all. Some people need to spend that money on necessities. Not to mention that some people are in countries where salaries are CONSIDERABLY lower than what you are apparently used to and that some people are students with the attendant budget restraints.

Part personality, part physical abilities, in my case. I have RSI, so I don’t really do well with twitch and instant reaction. This meshes with my personal preferences though: I’m a strategist, I like to study the situation and anticipate and exploit enemy behavior. I also tend to lead, not follow. And since I’m usually not really enamored with casters, I traditionally play tanks and rangers. Since there’s no such thing as a tank in GW2, it’s mostly ranger for me here.

Grimrah.9256:

I spent 99.99 plus tax today for the Heart of Thorns expansion and I have spent thousands of dollars on Gems from day one until now and do not regret a moment of it. I enjoy this game so much and has brought me and family together for quality game time together. I wish people would try and think about the purchase as a way of supporting the company and brand rather then focusing on what the rest of the genre is doing or has done. I am just pointing out that it is a matter of perspective and how much you really want to support the brand. I think in the long run including the core game as part of the Heart of Thorns is going to save many head aches for the company and the players.

Now here’s the thing. I very much feel I should support those companies I trust to deliver quality. Which is why I pre-purchased Dragon Age 2. And why, after playing that game, I decided never to order another Bioware game before the (non-shill) reviews are in. Which is why I pre-purchased The Witcher 3 (definitely not regretting that one).

The point being: pre-purchasing is a matter of trust. And I do not trust ANet anymore, not when it comes to making good on what is essentially just another promise. They broke too many already. So the ‘Bioware protocol’ is in place. Show me what you’ve got, and then I’ll decide if it’s worth the $50. And not adding a free character slot to the post-launch purchases is a BAD start.

I’ve been thinking much the same as the OP, and I don’t really think it’s undoable. You’d just have to combine a few different mechanics.

The original Guild Wars actually has pre-searing and post-searing maps. The one flaw there is that once the searing happened, you can’t go back.

City of Heroes had another approach, that might add what’s needed in this case. They at one point decided it was a good idea to make old content accessible again using an intermediate zone that featured time manipulation. Once you’d finished the content in your original leveling timeline, you could choose to revisit it. Good example of having your cake and eating it: new content gets added, old content remains accessible.

So why not: have Asura time gates leading to ‘Old Orr’, add an epic story of how you go help the pact in the past so there’s more survivors for future dragon fights.

Lendruil.9061:

So what is normal PvE then? Daily Silverwastes Farmer?

Way back when, you had things like these:

‘kill x mobs’
‘kill 10 different mobs’
‘harvest 10 items’
‘kill 1 veteran’

Etc. Not saying in which location you had to do it, not saying it had to be mob a, b or c. Basically, play how you want, where you want. I much preferred it.

ScribeTheMad.7614:

1. I disagree with rewards for just logging in, but they are effective at getting people to, you know, log in at the very least.

2. Fractals are not part of normal PvE and should not be lumped in with the other PvE achievements. They are welcome to create a Dungeons category, or even a Fractals category. But Fractals is no more a part of normal PvE than sPvP is.

Pretty much this.

Mordalus.8146:

Taunt is a good idea imo. The game needs some soft roles instituted to make small group content more interesting. Right now, healing and tanking are completely unnecessary in the PvE meta even though we have gear for those types of roles. Anet can certainly implement these things without fully embracing the trinity. Honestly, it would be a breath of fresh air compared to the everyone in zerker gear meta.

Funny you should say that. You DO know, I hope, that in most ‘trinity’ games, dedicated tanks and healers are scarce, right? It’s a never-ending pain, with everyone wanting to be DPS and DPS charging into mobs without letting the tank get agro. And even in this game, people capable of healing just DO NOT HEAL OTHERS even when it’s essential (e.g. temple of balthazar, keeping the NPCs alive).

And you think it’s a good idea to introduce the type of gameplay where taunts/healers become more important? Give me the berserker meta any day…

Been thinking it over, but looking at the whole picture, I’m thinking the game is increasingly moving in a direction I do not enjoy. I loathe the NPE, I can’t STAND playing new characters anymore. I really and truly hate the dodge mechanic and other twitch aspects of the game, and am physically unable to do much of it, which increasingly bars me from parts of the content (living story 2 has achievements I simply CANNOT physically manage). I loathe Dry Top and Silverwastes because they’re grindy and boring.

And then I look at the expansion. I’ve seen beta, and what I saw looked like more twitch, more grind. Add to this the whole debacle of a fairly expensive prepurchase without knowing even half of what the expansion will be about. Add to this essentially making people PAY for beta testing (seriously, ONLY in the gaming industry…). Add to this the whole controversy around extra character slots (which in my opinion ought to be something EVERYONE buying the expansion pre OR post launch gets).

Strong feelings of ‘meh’ here.

In my country, everyone can marry or form a personal partnership… and that has been the case for over 20 years. Haven’t seen signs of armageddon, apocalypse, social collapse, divine retribution or any other negative effects yet.

OUR statistics say by far most of the population have zero issue with it and actually support it. /shrug

Devata.6589:

Broom.2561:

I’m going to throw an example at you…

In Warhammer Online, guilds could gain access to all kinds of goodies by just playing the game. Mind, not doing special missions, just playing the game. Pretty much how influence started out before GW2 decided to go and make it something you could buy for gold.

Warhammer added something though. How fast ‘influence’ accrued depended on how many members a guild had. The smallest of guilds would be a bit slower than the largest, but they would STILL get the good stuff, eventually.

And honestly, I don’t remember these arguments over there… maybe because it was a faction based PVP game, and everyone having certain guild facilities (like faster travel) made it easier for the entire faction.

I’m getting REALLY tired of this attitude where people want to deny other people content because they feel cheated if anyone else but them gets access to it….

Yeah just do some general stuff and earn a currency that way… boring! That simply is not fun, and we have seen the same with influence, it was a boring system. You should get specific task to do with the guild, challenges you complete as a guild. That makes a guild fun.

Now that’s something I strongly disagree with. For me, personally, a guild is a place where people hang out, help each other, exchange information about games and do things together that they enjoy doing.

Please note that line: DO THINGS TOGETHER THAT THEY ENJOY DOING.

I think every guild should play as they like, and no one should be forced into specific types of content for something as basic as guild facilities. Especially, I might add, when this is one of the main features of a paid expansion. And a model where you get influence for doing what you like doing is FAR more in line with that than restricting advancement to group activity of any kind.

ADDING group content to this is always an option, especially if they manage to get the scaling right and maybe add some group-only incentive (special decorations maybe, or an influence bonus). But I really think the influence model (with influence scaled to guild size) is at the core a good one for allowing EVERYONE to experience the content in their own way.

I’m going to throw an example at you…

In Warhammer Online, guilds could gain access to all kinds of goodies by just playing the game. Mind, not doing special missions, just playing the game. Pretty much how influence started out before GW2 decided to go and make it something you could buy for gold.

Warhammer added something though. How fast ‘influence’ accrued depended on how many members a guild had. The smallest of guilds would be a bit slower than the largest, but they would STILL get the good stuff, eventually.

And honestly, I don’t remember these arguments over there… maybe because it was a faction based PVP game, and everyone having certain guild facilities (like faster travel) made it easier for the entire faction.

I’m getting REALLY tired of this attitude where people want to deny other people content because they feel cheated if anyone else but them gets access to it….

Balancing things by making sweeping changes tends to only produce more imbalance.

Where did you get that information of 10 maps? We’ve only seen 1 and there’s been no firm announcements.

EdgarMTanaka.7291:

And the thing about claiming a guild hall by our own hands it’s like… Meh… Why not make Dungeons Soloable? I mean I hate playing MMO’s with others!

That is an old argument, and not really a good one. Massive Multiplayer Online game… it means nothing more than that there are other players to interact with. And there are very many ways to interact with players.

As to your solo-able dungeons: by far most dungeon groups rush through and have zero patience for people who want to actually SEE those cutscenes and read the story. So it is basically a good thing that those who want to experience that part of the content, now can. Whether ANet did this in a good way… hard to say. I’ve done Arah storymode solo, to see what it’s like (faster, still boring, way less reward), so I cannot really say how it is for a group.

I think ANet just has to work on getting the scaling right. If they do that, there REALLY shouldn’t be a reason for anyone to feel cheated. Plenty of other games have gotten it right, so there’s no reason ANet wouldn’t. One can hope…

KStudios.2850:

… it’s also one of the only two condi cleanse utilities we have as a class…

Correction, it WAS.

=/

yakuza snowdragon.4639:

ColinJohanson.2394:

Lord.4270:

Hi,

We are a guild of 3 guys . We love WWW.
With Guild halls , we will have to do guild missions.

So why we have to do puzzle jump and things like this , when in this game we just love killing people on the battlefield !

Why can t we play as we want .. ??

HoT will include a solution for this for both guilds that are WvW, and PvP oriented that want to build and expand their Guild Halls and need the favor generated by guild missions. Same goes for guilds that have a mix of players interested in all three. More info down the road a bit on how this will work once we’ve got it a little more solid on our end.

Edited to add: Everyone will have to do the actual mission to capture the guild hall once per hall though no matter what. If your group online is too small, you’ll need to invite friends (or pay/beg/sing-songs-to-woo peeps in Lion’s Arch!) to come with you and help you claim the guild hall to own one. Or you could always grow your guild

Grow your Guild? That’s actually a pretty decent slap in the face, Multi guilding has killed smaller growing guilds completely, If people are not tied to a guild in some way briefly then they will never get to know the players, everyone wants all options ready and running so as for GROWING a guild easier said then done. This could be easily fixed by having 1 guild policy and having alliances like GW1.
Members get the chat and benefits of multi guilding without chopping and changing constantly using guilds like a LFG tool. This is imo by far the worst guild/clan system I have seen online to date. People will argue they want to and do roll multiple guilds for what ever reason but that is exactly what Alliances provide but without crippling the creation of guilds along the way. Arenanet needs to seriously look into this because this is after all GUILD wars.

QFT. The guild system is horrible. And mass recruiting is generally not the greatest idea ever. Especially if you have a tight-knit group that’s know each other for years.

ColinJohanson.2394:

Randulf.7614:

Any indication on group size required for capture mission?

Will they have to be in the guild to help?

We’re still debating minimum size, you can see a lot of discussion down in the guild CDI thread that’s helping us inform some of those decisions.

And no – you don’t need people to be in your guild to help you capture it. Bring friendly guilds to help you out, ask nicely in Lion’s Arch, etc.

My guild – an international guild – has been around since 2003. Our active member count in some games was well over 200. But we have a few problems with Guild Wars 2, as a guild. Mostly a problem with not being able to play on the same server, even after nearly 3 years. Which is a rather bad thing for a WvW focussed guild.

We are very much a guild. Joining another guild is very much out of the question. And we rarely have more than 3 people on line at the same time in this game. So we would REALLY appreciate it if you gave us an option to gain favor that could be done with 2 people or even solo.

Halvorn.9831:

Spirited Was Eceni.3869:

I’m fully convinced there are lucky accounts where that account has a better chance to get desirable items. If luck was equal across all accounts then drops would even out but instead we hear all the time about people getting multiple drops of precursors.

The ‘multiple drop’ phenomenon was clearly highlighted during the last closed beta testing for HoT where people farmed in SW for hours for an access key and got nothing but others got lots in a relatively short time.

I’m in the ‘never lucky’ group so have had to earn anything I have by grinding but that’s fine, no one ever said life is fair. I’m currently saving everything I get on the off chance it becomes part of the crafted precursor recipe.

I have been ridiculed for stating this view before and expect to be again but kitten it, I believe what I see.

RNG does not mean ‘fair’. There are no luck accounts. There are too small sample sizes.

The problem is, that the drop chances are very small and the sample sizes – even if you do thousands of attempts – are still way too small to even out the fluctuations in the random distribution. Do a million attempts several times and you will see that the random chance is evenly spread on that sample size. If you do smaller sample sizes, streaks start dominating the distribution. That’s normal and in the nature of randomness.

This would only go away if the drop chances would rise significantly. Then the sample sizes we can achieve by playing would be big enough. So… if instead of directly dropping a precursor you would receive a precursor shard at 100x the drop chance and you’d need 100 shards – there would be way less people feeling they are unlucky.

Then how would you call a guy who spends 1 hour farming champions and gets 3 precursors? I was with him in TS, he was giggling like a maniac. And he already owned 10+ legendaries, by his guildmates’ account.

Flatley.1620:

Am I reading their FAQ right? In that you only get an extra slot if you pre-purchase… I might be having a senior moment here.

You’re right. I missed that on the first read-through. A bit of a fail on ANet’s part, really. I think an extra character slot should be part of every HoT sale, whethere prelaunch or post.

Yamsandjams.3267:

Gele.2048:

iv never ever did understand those American time conversions or that stupid imperial system "METRIC RULES :P "can u kindly tell me what time is it in EU in a time zone that 99% of the planet is using thx also we dont use pm am and i dont understand that part as well

Technically they are not “American” time conversions or anything to do with the imperial system (which was originally used by the British and brought over to North America along with all sorts of diseases and the like).

Further, you don’t state which EU timezone you need as there are multiple EU timezones.

In any case, you can always Google the answer to those sorts of questions.

PST is equivalent to UTC-7, which is the same as GMT-7. So you will need to take the time in GMT, add 7 to it, and then convert that to whichever local time zone you use.

The US is pretty much the only country still using imperial, so er, yeah…
=p

Pretty much the same here. Been here since closed beta, never got a precursor anywhere. Husband tries the mystic fountain with some random rares, gets a precursor.

Some accounts, apparently, are extremely lucky. And some are anything but.

When I was in university, I had this housemate called Frans. He imagined himself to belong to the avant-garde cultural elite. Always wore black, went to ‘cultural’ fims and theatre productions. Bit of a snob, really.

It really came to the fore what exactly that meant to him when there was this Italian pop song he professed to like a lot. We, his housemates (15-ish of us) listened to the song, and agreed we liked it too. All of a sudden this guy didn’t like it anymore. Because when it was available to and liked by the masses, it wasn’t good enough for him anymore.

And that, dear boys and girls, is exactly what this whole ‘exclusivity’ thing sounds like to me. Childish, greedy, immature. Who cares if someone else has the same pixels you have, as long as they have to put the same effort into it…

I honestly couldn’t care less that they include the core game with the expansion. The core game was already getting discounted to next to nothing, so piffle. And bringing in new players is always a good thing.

What had my hackles raised was that an expansion that was already a priced bit steeply for the announced content, didn’t even have an extra character slot to experience a big chunk of that expansion’s new content (the Revenant) with.

And that has now been resolved.

GeekDavid.2786:

Solori.6025:

So have they responded to this buzz yet or can we just label this concern and the veteran players dust under the rug?

“Dust in the wind… all we are is dust in the wind…”

Not sure how many here are old enough to remember that song, tho.

You’d probably be surprised….

Greymelken.1892:

ITT: People who didnt read the EULA.

Coles notes version:

You agree to buy what we sell you when we sell it to you, however and whenever we want to sell it to you, as is.

Click accept or reject.

or leave.

You all talk about leaving, not buying HoT, yet you are all still here. Not leaving. Each of you has the power within yourselves to determine your own reality, to welcome into it happiness or discomfort. You have chosen discomfort. You have chosen to be angry, you have chosen to feel cheated, you have chosen to lament these percived injustices.

Each of you have larger problems then a video game ‘cheating’ you out of whatever you think you are being cheated out of.

Look in a mirror and decide if its really worth the stress

I think you’re quite misunderstanding the situation.
1) Not buying HoT does not necessarily mean leaving. Quite a few have indicated they’ll just play vanilla, refuse to buy any gems, and leave it at that
2) Quite a few people will simply keep posting because that’s what our species does. We don’t sensibly run away from trainwrecks, we flock to them to watch things burn.

Gravox the Terrible.2157:

As every GW2 players BFF Treahearne likes to day: “This won’t end well.”

Trahearned was nerfed… nowadays he says ‘well done’ all the time. I still want to burn him and salt the ashes…

GeekDavid.2786:

Broom.2561:

ProtoGunner.4953:

Broom.2561:

ProtoGunner.4953:

Lol, I love posts that start with “my wife and I” or “my husband and I” – who the kitten cares that you’re married.

Well, here’s the thing… generally, there’s only one active poster in a household, if that. I’d say they basically say ‘this is 2 people playing this game who have this same opinion’.

Yeah of course. But where I came from fathers didn’t play games and especially not their wives. Those are the people who casualize the game community since the huge commercial success of games. Where are the days of pizza eating nerds playing games? Ah, I miss those times… (not so serious)

Lol. Well, I started out gaming with the original Pong and Space Invaders. The first computer I owned was a Commodore 64. Hubby’s the same. Old gamers don’t STOP gaming, they just eat less pizza and keep healthier times. And they tend to marry one another, because let’s face it, no one else could survive our crazy habits.

I need to find me a girl like that. And I started with a VIC-20 and then graduated to the 64.

We’re out there. I’ve got 6 married couples in my guild, some with kids. The future of the breed is assured! (and yes, the kids do tend to pick it up young)

ProtoGunner.4953:

Broom.2561:

ProtoGunner.4953:

Lol, I love posts that start with “my wife and I” or “my husband and I” – who the kitten cares that you’re married.

Well, here’s the thing… generally, there’s only one active poster in a household, if that. I’d say they basically say ‘this is 2 people playing this game who have this same opinion’.

Yeah of course. But where I came from fathers didn’t play games and especially not their wives. Those are the people who casualize the game community since the huge commercial success of games. Where are the days of pizza eating nerds playing games? Ah, I miss those times… (not so serious)

Lol. Well, I started out gaming with the original Pong and Space Invaders. The first computer I owned was a Commodore 64. Hubby’s the same. Old gamers don’t STOP gaming, they just eat less pizza and keep healthier times. And they tend to marry one another, because let’s face it, no one else could survive our crazy habits.

ProtoGunner.4953:

Lol, I love posts that start with “my wife and I” or “my husband and I” – who the kitten cares that you’re married.

Well, here’s the thing… generally, there’s only one active poster in a household, if that. I’d say they basically say ‘this is 2 people playing this game who have this same opinion’.

MMOGamer.6175:

Scoundrel.2139:

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20130604134550-284615-15-statistics-that-should-change-the-business-world-but-haven-t

Interesting reading, for those who are sure that only those being vocal are those unhappy with the HoT situation.

Great post, as I have a background in sales as well.

I’m a big believer in #3.
3. The probability of selling to an existing customer is 60 – 70%. The probability of selling to a new prospect is 5-20% – Marketing Metrics.

Which is why bundling the core game with HoT DOESN’T make sense.

I’ve run a business since 1994, and yeah, that’s linkedin post pretty much sums it up. Which is why I’m having a bit of a hard time wrapping my head about the PR disaster ANet have allowed this to become. And every day of added non-communication only makes it worse.

Sir Alymer.3406:

I’ve yet to encounter any of this ‘toxicity’ that people keep going on about. Can anyone enlighten me as to how to see it? Do I have to ask questions in a rude manner, insult other people’s intelligence, purposely grief an event, and/or destroy a player made farm in order to see this?

Sometimes you just have to be seen playing the ‘wrong’ profession
Sometimes playing profession X with weapon Y will set people off
Sometimes asking someone (politely) please to not use knockback in group fights will do it
Sometimes you enter a zone and find people are engaged in shockingly racist, sexist or just obscene conversations. And things get truly vile when politics or religion get involved.

Both myself and guildmates have run into this. The correct reaction is /block /report, but it’s a nuisance regardless, and it’s very definitely there.

And just to be clear: I’m talking about people minding their own business, who suddenly get hate tells and abusive chat comments for equipping an axe on a warrior, a rifle on an engineer, playing a ranger etc.

Also, no, this is not just in the PVP lobby and LA, though those two zones are prime candidates.

Inshiro.3620:

Vayne.8563:

Inshiro.3620:

Vayne.8563:

Hey OP, I have a question for you. With all the great comparison work you’ve done, and all the comparing, how come you left out dynamic events which the game is centered around. For example Guild Wars Prophecies had 209 quests.

If you add up all the quests in all four Guild Wars 1 products, you’ll find it was less than the number of dynamic events than Guild Wars 2 launched with.

This is just silly.

Because of the nature with dynamic events most players will barely see yet even half of the dynamic events in Guild Wars 2. In the later development of Guild Wars 2 they had to add in hearts because testers were complaining they had nothing to do. Quests on the other hand can be played on demand. You cannot simply ask players to wait around for an event to kick off. (People only do this with World Bosses simply because they are on a fixed timer and give rare loot)

I am not saying quests are better than dynamic events, both have their strengths and weaknesses. But in terms of content, quests can be accepted on demand whereas dynamic events (while they can be triggered) take place randomly (the content will be running regardless of you being there).

Vayne.8563:

You also left out species and starter areas. Seems to me I can play five races in this game, but only play 1 race throughout all of Guild Wars 2.

Saying Guild Wars 2 has more content because it has more races is completely illogical.
While yes it does give you access to new story arcs/instances it does not change the fact that they are playing in the same world as everyone else. ArenaNet have even stated that the racial story branching system was silly because none of the players would even experience that half of all that content (Rough Diagram) . Hence why with HoT there are no branching story arcs that are dependant on your race).

My point was, depending on what you count or look at, different things look differently. With less than 220 quests in Prophecies, that game at launch didn’t have nearly as much actual content as Guild Wars 2 at launch.

But here, the OP is comparing zone numbers, but that doesn’t necessarily represent content either. If I were going to get a comparison, I’d like to know how many quests were in those expansions, compared to how many dynamic events are in this expansion. I’d like to compare how expansive this story is to the story missions.

You can compare things all you want, when you have enough information to compare. So far we don’t have enough information and thus the comparison is premature.

A zone is technically content (exploration wise). The amount of condensed playable content in these zones however do vary between the games.

Guild Wars 1 (Prophecies, Factions, Nightfall, EotN) featured:
999+ Quests (not including special events)
58 Co-op Missions [Story Missions] not including EotN
10 Challenge Missions [3 of which were Elite]
7 PvP Game Modes
19 Mini-games
1319 Skills/Abilities
10 Professions
16 Guild Halls
19 Distinct Regions
18 Dungeons
plus much more (features like Heros, etc).

This was the amount of content Guild Wars 1 pushed out in a period just over 2 years [April 2005 – August 2007]. Compare that content to what we’ve gotten with Guild Wars 2 over the past years (almost 3 years) and ask yourself what offered more?

Yes, Guild Wars 2 is very different and has new mechanics and systems (like jumping). However no matter how many systems/features you have in place, if there is no content to utilize these systems/features than people will find the game quite lacking.

A good example of this is jumping. While you can jump over rocks and objects it isn’t completely necessary. However ArenaNet has built content based off this mechanic such as vistas and jumping puzzles. Resulting in jumping much more than a simple movement mechanic.

So far most of the information from HoT is heavily based on features:

• Guild Halls (in which we can choose of 2)
  – Guild Teams
  – Sandbox Arena
  – Hall Customization (we do not know how extensive this is)
• New Crafting Profession
  – Consumables (Banners, Transformations [Char Cars], Deployables [Air Strike])
  – Decorations for Guild Hall
• New WvW Borderlands
  – New/Revamped map mechanics
• New PvP Game Mode
  – Stronghold
• New Profession
  – Revenant
• New Progression system
  – Masteries
• Elite Specializations
  – A total of 9
• Challenging Group Content
  – Nothing of which we have seen yet (Wyvern is not CGC)

Mostly correct, but the PVP and WvW content will be available for vanilla players too, so it shouldn’t really be in that list.

EdgarMTanaka.7291:

Ultimaistanza.4793:

EdgarMTanaka.7291:

And about the rest of the legal crap, I don’t care… If it was illegal why don’t you sue them then? Stop crying and do something.

You were the one who who asked for it…

“I would like to see where they lied and false advertised…”

lol

lol all you want.

The point of it all was that you and many more are crying out that they did an illegal action. Now if you all are so confident that it is illegal then stop crying about it and sue them. I asked you to show me where they lie and use false advertisment and what some of you “showed” me was from the FAQ and I do not agree with you there so I am confident that you will loose that trial if you sue Anet.

I don’t have to be a lawyer to see that it was not an illegal act from Anet. I think that some people are just trying to find more arguments to justify their unhappiness with the price and/or the call that they give a free Original Copy for new players but nothing for existing players.

I beleave that they would have earned more money if they continued to sell the Original Copy of GW2 and the expansion seperatly. But i think that in their mind they was trying to be kind to future players and give them a free copy of the original copy of GW2. So assume they did this to milk some extra $ from the orginal game before they announced the pre-order infromation is just stupid in my opinion.

If you’re not a lawyer or trained in law, you should not comment on what is or isn’t legal. Your power of belief will not convince any court.

Also: correct spelling makes for better arguments. Spellchecker is most definitely your friend.

maddoctor.2738:

Omocha.4931:

Yes it is, maddoctor. HoT ain’t a dlc/expansion/addon. Can’t be. 2-3 maps and 1 profession is a bit shabby.

IT won’t be just 2-3 maps that’s insane

I think someone mentioned 3-5 maps in one of those youtube interviews, not sure though. Maybe someone has a link and a time?

Celtic Lady.3729:

No, I’ve seen nothing like this. The first day of the HoT pre-purchase, there was a lot of negativity in chat in general. Ever since, though, map chats I’ve been in have been largely positive.

I remember a Celtic Lady from COH, Freedom server. That you?

Palimow.6342:

Here’s what’s going to happen. Everyone who is raging about this price and lack of content will come to the forums and post about it. They’ll make grandiose statements about how they’ll NEVER buy the xpac or speak to other peoples intentions on buying it. the forum threads will be condensed into one massive thread and the post counts with get upt to 10k-12k at which time Anet with claim something happened in the system and that thread was lost. People will QQ for a little more but no where near extent like before because everything has been said and people are tired and don’t want to redo everything. Everyone moves on and buys the game, spends a couple gems for an extra slot and enjoys the xpac.

Where do I come up with this you may ask and what “proof” do I have? I ask you to turn your attention to the introduction of Ascended gear.

Cheers and enjoy HoT!

I (and many others with me) never said I would never buy it. I assure you, HoT will be bought at such a time as I deem the price to be good value for what the expansion offers… but definitely no sooner.

And for the record: at this time, the basic expansion without a free character slot is NOT what I consider value for money. The digital items (especially the finisher) are useless and pointless fluff, imho, so the other expansion bundles aren’t even a consideration.

So… I’ll do what I do now: collect my log-in reward, work towards an achievement or two for 30 mins or so, and go do something else, like my RL job. And I will not be buying gems anymore.

If you’ve never seen this type of behavior in GW2 before, you’re lucky. I have taken a few new player rangers into my guild just so they’d have friendly voices to talk to… they were getting harassed ALL OVER map chat in Diessa Plateau just because they’d rolled a ranger as their first toon. I mean seriously…

rhapsody.3615:

Kalavier.1097:

GuzziHero.2467:

Tere.4759:

Why would Anet do #2? I got the base game for a friend for 20.00. Why should people who got the game for 20.00 recently, get HOT for free? That would kitten me off and I bought the ultimate xpac. So I bought the original game at 60.00, I bought friends the original game at between 20.00 and 60.00 and bought the ultimate xpac yet I don’t think I should be getting anything for free.

Because they were mislead into buying the core game?

At the VERY least, anyone who purchased after HoT announcement should be given HoT at a reduced cost.

Mislead? How. Frankly that’d kitten off even more players because then you’d have the guys going “WHAT THE kitten? I bought GW2 the day before/week before they announced that!”

And the people who have been in the game since beta/launch (Like me and many others, including most GW1 vets) would be kittened off even more.

This is just like people kittening about paying full price for something the week before a sale goes live and moan endlessly about “How they would’ve waited until the sale if they had known about it, GIMME REFUND FOR THE AMOUNT THE DIFFERENCE WOULD BE!”

I don’t know of a single business that’d go “Oh, I’m so sorry, here, let me refund the full price item and give you the discount item!” if you bought it before the sale.

Now if you got it DURING the sale and were charged full price, that’s another issue.

Most businesses give you a refund of the difference on items you bought that go on sale within one week to 30 days depending on the company (in the US anyway).

There’s a legal cooling off period for everything bought on the internet in the EU. Not completely sure how long, but I think it’s 14 days. Which would make the ANet policy a generous one in that respect.

Problem is just that this only extends to goods bought directly from ANet. I’ve seen some ticked off posts from people who bought retail on the strength of the original HoT FAQ, and who are NOT getting their money back.

Decrypter.1785:

The link i provided is pre purchase but from 23rd of june , its also $10 cheaper , im just curious how they can off it for cheaper ? im hoping anet can explain later

Oh, I can explain that for you. This is basically valid for ALL products sold by a retailer.

When producers hand things over to retailers, they aim at reaching a wider public, people who may never have even heard of the product before. The producers tend to give an advisory price, including a certain profit margin, but generally, the retailer is free to accept a lower profit margin and sell at a lower price (for possibly more sales). The producer, on the other hand, is generally bound to keep selling at the advisory price.

If you consider that the profit margins calculated into the advisory price can – depending on the product – run up to 80% of the total (or even more), that leaves retailers a lot of wriggle room for price stunts.

And then, of course, there’s also the old trick of stepping up to a producer, saying ‘I have pre-sold 1000 of your product, how about you give me a nicer price’.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Guild-Wars-Heart-Thorns-Purchase/dp/B010023XAQ/ref=sr_1_sc_1?s=videogames&ie=UTF8&qid=1434863898&sr=1-1-spell&keywords=guild+wars+2+heart+of+thornes

Reputable retailer, I’d say…. selling HoT with all that ANet offers, only cheaper. ANet may have some explaining to do.

With the OP all the way.

For me, the word ‘entitled’ just seems equivalent to the whole ‘kitten’ thing. A polite-ish way of saying ‘noob’, ‘scrub’, ‘HTFU’ and all those other interesting words you can find in e.g. the EVE forums. But still very much meant to insult, and to imply the user is right, because the insulted party doesn’t know what they’re talking about, doesn’t have ‘what it takes’, is a greedy kid without a brain etc. Tiresome, inaccurate and juvenile. I vote to just have ‘entitlement’ and ‘entitled’ replaced by ‘kitten’ and have done with it.

Rhanoa.3960:

Broom.2561:

Apples and oranges indeed. WoW… I’ve never even played that game, so I can’t comment on anything wow related. The other games I play, though, offer ‘expansions’ either entirely for free (both sub games and f2p ones) or at 1/5 of the cost of HoT. And the original Guild Wars expansions were both cheaper and offered more content (and free character slots, where relevant).

3yrs of such an amazing game at $69.99.

Value over time for another 3yrs at $49.99.

Cash Shop once again (OPTIONAL)

While I’ll admit GW2 is a decent game (or I wouldn’t be playing it, with or without long breaks), I don’t really find it all that amazing. I’ve actually played better. Though please keep in mind I prefer full-on world PVP, without artificial population limits, and complex crafting, the type you’d get in EQ2 and SWG. And that I positively loathe dungeons/fractals.

As to value over time for another 3 years… I REALLY REALLY doubt it after seeing what’s in beta so far.
- I think the map verticality is a gimmick, not ‘extra value’ in itself.
- I am not encouraged by the statement we’ll get 3-5 more maps total. That’s really not all that much for the price.
- I couldn’t care less about specializations.
- I hate grinds, and the idea of grinding for precursors/specializations/masteries doesn’t exactly fill me with joy

In fact, I’ve been having problems with the direction the game is going in for a while now. I burned out on SW and Drytop pretty fast: got what achievements I could and went back to other stuff. I am physically unable to get a bunch of the special storyline achievements (too much twitch). And what I saw from the beta is more of the same.

Your mileage may vary. Either way, ANet won’t get another penny out of me till they add some content I find worthwhile paying for.

Oh: and I’d probably have bought HoT anyway if they’d just added another character slot. Not doing so was pretty much the last straw.

Greymelken.1892:

WoW is the Gold Standard for the industry, like it or not.

Must be why I’ve never played it then…. .

In all honesty, yes, WoW has been influential. It’s not, however, the be-all-and-end-all of MMO games. Especially nowadays, when MMO’s are a dime a dozen.