Guild Wars 2

ICEing.9237:

This is short and sweet. It’s a cycle that I’ve seen happen over and over again.

Anet will release or change something. Like Megaserver for example. People immediately start complaining on the forums, the pages are filled with topics: “I’m quitting!” “Let’s make Anet hear us!”

Anet will not change anything. They are in the buisness to make money. Just like the era of Megaserver, they will ignore EVERYTHING you guys say until things die down. They know eventually you will accept it and buy the expac anyway. Just like it took about a month to accept the Megaserver, and now nobody complains and have grown to accept it, it will be the same here.

And the folks at Anet are probably laughing at the threats to not buy the expansion when they know well, when it releases and people realize the price will be the same, they will purchase it anyway. All while copy pasting reassuring messages your complaints are being heard.

That’s how it is.

“. Just like it took about a month to accept the Megaserver, and now nobody complains and have grown to accept it, it will be the same here.” This part is a huge misconception. Simply because people stop complaining on the forums does not mean they have accepted it. Megaservers still has major issues, while they have become smaller because the player-base has slinked down (so there usually is only one or maybe two maps, meaning you will end up with your friends).

However if it comes to guild-recruitment and WvW for example the problems are still just as big, you are now recruiting over multiple servers with your PvX guild, then you decide to go into WvW but woops, a big part of the guild is on another server. As one example. When servers get more crowded again after HoT gets released many of the other problems also will be visible again and people still dislike it. However they said about it on the forums what they did have to say about it. Some people will have left, others dislike it but not enough to stop playing. That all does not mean they accept it / are now fine with it.

Thinking like that is a huge mistake because it means you don’t fix your problems and with every negative thing added people grow more and more dissatisfied until something is the final straw for them and leave while you keep telling yourself they accepted everything.

While not being completely happy with the packages I find the price oke, however I find it supposing so many people dislike it.
Many GW2 players seem to not be able to handle money and throw a lot of money in the cash-shop. There is an item in the cash-shop that lets you buy 6 finishers, that cost the same as the expansion.
So many people have been throwing away money to buy out of the grind a big part of the game has become (driven by that same cash-shop) and spending it on skins. But now they ask you to spend money on actual content and the bomb explodes.
Again, I agree the packages are not perfect, standard should have a char-slot and we should have a CE edition, but the $50,- price-tag, just as the $75 one is fine. If you want to want to spend your money right start with not buying gems, that was a waste of money and did only harm the game in making it a big grind. Rather spend that on expansion for €50,- on a yearly base.

This is the worse excuse in any topic that always keeps popping up again.. It’s just a vocal minority… Yes forums are a minority but they are also a sample of your player base. For every person who say x on the forum, there might be 1000 people feeling the same way. While it’s likely not a perfect representation of the player-base it for sure is something you as company should look at, ignoring it with excuses as ’it’s just a vocal minority’ is closing your eyes for problems what is the worse you can do.

Note I personally do not have a problem with the price, but would like to see a CE edition and think a extra char-slot in the standard edition would be nice.

In light of the ‘free GW2’ (that is false, as you don’t get it if you already have it) it would also not be bad to give something extra to players who already have a copy.

So I don’t have a problem with the price, more with the packages and what’s not in them / available.

That however does not mean I dismiss the complains with a bad ‘vocal minority’ claim.

I find the price especially fine if they would also go back to a true B2P model (what it does not look like).

Anet is still always pointing to the no-sub-fee as if that is something special. What was special with GW1 was their game being B2P, this game is not a true B2P game but mainly a cash-shop games and so nothing special on the market. From that perspective I can understand people expect also the price to be more like the rest of the market (so around 40). I would however vote to keep the current price but let’s get rid of the ‘F2P-mode’ they are using, focusing on all those micro-transaction.

Healix.5819:

Not offering a physical product also means that they’re not restricted by it. Normally, there’d be a guaranteed ~3 month window to account for production, shipments, retailers, etc. By being entirely digital however, they could actually release at any moment. It’s just a large patch.

It’s not entirely digital.. luckily, but ‘no plans’ for CE however. Well they have until 23 to change their mind and come up with those plants, if they don’t have anything announced by then I don’t expect anything to come anymore.

Targos.9516:

I hope people are smart enough not to purchase this, i quit 2 games that got greedy for money. l am ready to quit this game too.

GW2 has been making everything into a grind for the last 2.5 years and letting you buy your way out if that grind. That was the greedy part, while I don’t think the expansion pricing is optimal (not so much the price itself is a problem, but a char in the standard edition, and a CE edition would be nice) at least this time you get something for your money.

So the greedy part was / started 2,5 years ago. I don’t cosider the xpack greedy, maybe not optimal.

insanemaniac.2456:

SkiTz.4590:

If you honest to god believe there are 7 million ACTIVE accounts ..woah.. i don’t know what to tell you…

did i say active? no i didnt kittening say active. i said entire playerbase. holy kitten.

“active” is wow losing 3m subs, 30% of their active playerbase, upon xpac release.

if your boycott can hurt that much, youll make anet stumble. some piddly 3% isnt gonna do that.

Losing 3m after gaining 3m (the highest gain they had with an expansion so far) it’s not really a lost. So a bad comparison but I understand you want to vent your hate for WoW as much as you can.

thrag.9740:

Honestly I think its foolish to preorder it. There are no good incentives and Anet has already shown us that it is better to wait.

On the faq page for months it has said that the base game is required for the expansion, leading new players into buying the base game, only to flip flop on that issue. Leaving players who joined in the last few months out in the cold.
http://i.imgur.com/1h0wSaL.png

You have a very strong point there my friend, as I am not a ‘new’ player I did not think about this but you are right, the faq did indeed say that so for all people who did buy GW2 recently, preparing for HoT they are pretty much screwed big-time. For veteran GW2 players you would still say you did pay GW2 to play it for 3 years but that does not hold true for people who did buy it in the last 6 months. Imho they should just still require GW1 (for any addition) and start selling it for €10 but I’m not sure that is even possible anymore and sales have already started.

While this does not apply to me, this is a pretty big fail. I am guessing this was a mistake so will name it fail.

For me personal a CE addition is still the biggest issue, but I agree what the original expansion should include the char slot.

So the changes I would make in total would be still required the base game but starting to sell that for a lower price (maybe as low as €10, anyway in the price range 10 / 35). Then put a char slot into the standard edition and put something else extra into the Deluxe edition, lastly I would also start selling a CE that includes everything as the UE but in a nice / better looking box then the standard and Digital hard copies. Prices would stay the same, or add 10 dollar for the CE but then also put one extra thing ingame in it, like a title.

I think these (minor) changes would please most people.

Hearte.6852:

If the upvotes on the reddit thread “Don’t Pre-Purchase Heart of Thorns” are any indication, that’s a bare-minimum loss of $78k, so far, not including any upgrade packages. So the total is easily over $100,000 in lost sales, just from those who have viewed that thread and voted. It’s not a perfect metric, but people are speaking their minds and voting with their money right now.

Maybe if there was some discussion about the HoT packages and price points, this disaster could have been avoided. It’s not like we don’t want to give Anet our money, but we also want good value. If the price cannot be lowered at this point, at least pad the packages, especially the base one. It’s nickel and diming your customers, when you make them pay $50, then force them to buy a character slot for the new class.

I don’t have a big issue with the price while I agree the character slot should be in there for free.

I do have a problem with the fact that there is no CE or that the Ultimate Edition is not available as physical copy. Why not release a nice looking physical box (like a metal box) that for example holds the content of the Ultimate Edition (Does not have to be as big as the original CE).

I guess Anet has until the 23th to change it’s mind about that but in a way I will be voting with my wallet against that if they don’t, if I buy the Deluxe copy (I will only buy a physical copy) that means they miss the money I would else have spend on the CE / UE. I am even getting forced into doing that.

Btw, I did always vote against gems by never buying any of those in-game. If you want to vote against anything that I would suggest voting against that.

Thnx, I did also read the Faq now, and it is even worse, if you would want a physical copy and the Ultimate edition that is also not possible. WTF?:S

Physical editions will only be available in Normal and Deluxe. I want the Deluxe at least, was thinking about the Ultimate if there was no CE edition simply because it would be a nice addition to my Collectors Edition (on the table) but that is of course not possible with a digital copy, and for the people who do care for the gems (I don’t, but if it would be a nice box that said Ultimate (maby made of metal instead of plastic) it might have be more of a reason to buy it than the gems) and want a physical copy they are also out of luck. I don’t really get this choice to be honest.

Just for the record, the faq does not say for 100% there will be no CE available “There are no plans for a physical collector’s edition for Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns.”, there are no plans is not, no. I guess they have until the 23th to make up there mind about that, so if Anet is reading, please reconsider that. Sell next to the standard and deluxe edition also a CE addition, simply include the same as the Ultimate (or more) and sell it with a little different box, like a metal case or something like that. That would make many people happy I’m sure.

(I do understand that even if they would change their mind before June 23 it will be impossible to have it in the shops by then, but as long as we then know it’s coming.. or not)

Does anybody know if there will, or will not be a physical collector’s edition, just as with the initial release?

On the shop site of Guild Wars 2 there is talk about a Standard, a Deluxe and a Ultimate but nothing about a collector’s edition, I also checked out some game-stores but there I can only see Standard editions so I was wondering if there has been any conformation about this?

I also don’t see any difference between the Ultimate and Deluxe edition other than some gems, but that might be me.

I guess the SAB coins and skins. I still have multiple yellow coits but can’t anything with them. The Liadri mini was not that hard and most of the others items can be gained by brainless grinding so not much too be proud of any of those items (not that I have many of those as I dislike brainless grinds).

Smooth Penguin.5294:

The fact that the text filter changed your name to “kitten” is a sign that isn’t not an acceptable name. There’s no sense in submitting a ticket, because it’ll just be rejected.

That does not say anything.

I mean, Type the short version of ‘Is it not’ and you get a lot of kitten. In fact the whole text filter seems like a bad system not belonging in a free world (While I see one good reason to use it, what I will come back to later). Of course Anet can use it but it does not really make it any better.

The main reason to not use a system like this is because it’s all language depended. There are many words being kittened in English that you can typed in another language without problems but also words that are perfectly fine, but if you type them in another language they become a ‘bad’ word in English.

Just as two examples. Use google translate to translate the sentence ‘you can do that’ from English to Dutch. Now imagine that Dutch people have completely normal conversation or even want to use that word in names.

Another even better example. We have this item in the game named Polla, implemented by Anet. Now use google translate to translate the word Polla from Spanish to English.

If anything, these examples proof the nonsense of such a list, on the other hand, when I would create an MMO I would also want to implement such a list because stupid name can completely destroy the immersion of a game. If people run around with names like ‘kitting kitten to kitten’ or fill up the chat with a lot of kitten that damages the game for other people, not because they read ‘bad’ words but because it destroys the immersion. Just as much as things like ‘boss x will spawn in 5 min’ will do btw.

The best way imho opinion would be to implement a editable list. That is default on and has default words in it, but players can change it in the way they want (so also make words on the default list visible again). They can not only ban words but also edit to what it should be changed. Of course now people can change normal words to strange ones but then they only destroy the emersion for themselves.

I would not put people at work banning people, no word or sentence is reason for a ban but if they see childish, immersion breaking names those names simply get added to the default list and changed into something else childish but not / less immersion breaking.

That is imho the only correct way to solve this in a free world.

It’s been the first time, in a long time, that I have seen people really having fun again.

In the Guild-hall CDI I talked about having the ability to build you own guild-halls be predefined blocks. This shows it’s possible and why it’s a good idea.

scerevisiae.1972:

$45, a lot of people not going to be happy…

Why not? The game was released as B2P, we should have had the 3th expansion coming up by now (for about $45).

The only people who would not be happen are those that started to see GW2 as a F2P game, what you can’t blame them for because GW2 did indeed started to be more of a F2P game in all aspects (including the negative ones).

However, it’s still a B2P on paper and who knows might become a true B2P after HoT again, one can only hope.

Brother Grimm.5176:

The most interesting part of this thread is the constant vision I get of some players actually enjoying killing the same skelks over and over again to obtain materials rather than performing a number of other (repetitive) tasks to obtain gold and buy what those skelk drop…..

I guess I can see being upset that Anet thwarts the ability to farm skelk to your hearts content, but they do provide other options that sane players would consider less tedious…..but to each their own (I guess).

There might be other option, but to consider them less tedious? The positive about the skelks at least is that if you need 10 of some mats you can kill them to get it (while also having the option to do something else) and then you need 10 of some other mats so you kill a few karka’s and so on.

The current system means the thing that rewards the best gold is the best way to get everything. So it results in people grinding only a limited part of the game and usually a very brainless grind. How many people do not grind GW2 while watching TV? Well I do not see that as a positive. Then I would rather just go a few skelks if I new a few mats and kill something else when I need something else tomorrow.

Another problem with mats btw is that they are very hard to get in this game. Mats (and everything you need a lot of) should be pretty easy to get. No endless farming of skelks but at most like half an hour.

The thing that should be hard to get (and so take longer) are things like recipe’s or items you only need one of, being it a skin or whatever. That could then also be put behind some longer challeging content or a quest chain. This would turn something like crafting into a few smaller farms and a few longer challenges to eventually get what you want versus grind, gold, grind gold and grind some more gold. You might find that more sane, I don’t.

Prototypemind.4026:

Again, I ask, if random drops are so great, what if you couldn’t get soft wood from certain trees, oricalcum ore from specific nodes? Wouldn’t that make the game even better because of your love of random drops? Go harvest and pray to the RNG gods that you get what you need.

I think that many of the people who do like this don’t really care what they need. They simply like to brainlessly grind for whatever drops, then sell it and buy it for gold.

Obviously the game now has many, if not mostly, people playing it that do like this grind because it scared away other people.

The thing however is that even if you could work directly towards the items the brainless grind would still be an option. You would still be able to do whatever, to get whatever to sell that and buy what you want.

Also let’s not forget this is not only true for Mats but for most things you might want in the game like cosmetics. toys and mini’s.

All stuff I rather work towards in the game (not just by farming but also by completing specific content) but now basically gives you only two options. Grind or buy with cash. That is not why I play a game or go to a B2P game. It’s what I do expect in a F2P game, then again there is a reason I avoid F2P games.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Lambent.6375:

But in Gw2, for example, if one wanted to make a Gift of Light, directly farming 100 charged loadstones from sparks would be absurd. It would be far easier to just farm gold, and buy 1-3 lodestones or cores a day.

I have done exactly that, 4 times. Foefire’s Essence, Foefire’s Power, Eidolon and Sunrise. With high enough MF and lots of DPS, you can get a lot of lodes. This was done when Charged Lodes were like 4g, my best was 8 lodes in 1hr, good luck farming 32g in 1hr Average was about 4, so that worked out to be 16g per hour. Plus all the other drops, many rares and exotics too, plus the opals they drop sell for 1s+ per.

Although, the drop rate for normal mats should be increased. I remember playing LoTRO and farming Exquisite hides, I knew there was a place in the Ettinmoors that had lots of mobs that dropped them, so you could go there and farm for a couple of hours to get a couple of stacks, then make stuff or sell them.

Now, I just do an hour of overtime at work and buy 350g.

And this is exactly why the game works as it does. Because there are people like you. It says enough about the game itself that you rather work and buy the stuff with cash then play for it.

Hannelore.8153:

Prototypemind.4026:

Obtena.7952:

As a farmer I would PREFER MORE randomization in nodes because it would result in more money when I go to sell the mats I get from them and when I do farm for my own mats, means I can do it where ever I want. The people claiming random drops are a great system acknowledge the equality in availability through the market, not on the supply side, which has no effect on them anyways. They know that their supply is through the market, not through doing stuff.

Unless someone decides to buy up everything and price it higher. What do you do when you need mats? You then have to bite the bullet and pay because there’s no reliable way for you to farm them.

So being able to gain large amounts of gold by playing the game in many differnt ways (harvesting nodes, running dungeons, Silverwastes, etc.) and then spending that gold to buy only what you want off the trading post is “no reliable way”?

Have you ever even played any other MMO?

Obtaining the materials that you need in most games is horrible. You end up investing all of your time to get what you need because nobody sells them. Instead you have to trade one rare material for another. And it all requires farming.

Yes, people can manipulate the costs. But it requires a huge effort and for the most part it averages out and is beneficial to everyone involved.

Well I played other games, and gathering mats usually is not a real problem. The higher tier maps are simply available in higher level area’s. That is about it.

Also I can’t say you ever see mats not being sold on those trading post.

“You end up investing all of your time to get what you need because nobody sells them. Instead you have to trade one rare material for another. " While usually not needed (You are usually able to get to the item you want directly) this is indeed an option and is in fact similar to how get your mats in GW2.

You sell one thing to buy another. So where is that difference? Other then that that is an option there while farming directly for them is also an option here and in GW2 the grind is the only reasonable way to get them.

While they clearly state everything (or most) will be implemented in one patch “due to the advantages of off-site construction—one morning in the next few months you’ll awake to a newly refreshed Lion’s Arch.” and I completely agree they should have do it in steps. When looking at LA at this moment you would think that is what they are doing but based on the article you would expect it to (after the current state?) be implemented in one patch.

In fact, Anet has always been talking about making the world feel alive and they used mainly events and LS to do so. However imho those fail at it. Sure events make an area feel like there is something going on but because they keep rotating it feels to fake, not like an ongoing life.

The LS are also feel more like a separate story that does not really help to feel the world itself more alive.

What I did feel make the world more like an ongoing living world was for example how the rebuild the Statue after it got destroyed after the first Halloween, and how they rebuild the tower that got destroyed in the Karka attack and how with the first LS episodes you did see more of such small changed where they put up signs for the refugees and later added settlements and so on.

It should only have gone in more, smaller steps.

So to create the feeling they want to create they should indeed build up LA in stages, not with one big (or a few) patch.

So to conclude, I would love to see it being build up much like the last patch does suggest it will go (while I would prefer smaller steps) and not that the next patch or the patch after that suddenly the new LA is there.

Obtena.7952:

As a farmer I would PREFER MORE randomization in nodes because it would result in more money when I go to sell the mats I get from them and when I do farm for my own mats, means I can do it where ever I want. The people claiming random drops are a great system acknowledge the equality in availability through the market, not on the supply side, which has no effect on them anyways. They know that their supply is through the market, not through doing stuff.

So then you are not a farmer but a grinding. You are then just grinding for gold not farming mats.

“it would result in more money” What is useless because the mats you will then buy for the money will also cost more. Of course mats that drop more wil still be cheaper than the ones that have rare drops.

“and when I do farm for my own mats, means I can do it where ever I want.” You mean you can grind everywhere and then sell it to get the money to buy the mats you really want.
Surprise, you can also do that with the current system. Mats are not account-bound so go ‘farm’ wherever you want, sell the mats you got for gold and buy the ones you want.

“The people claiming random drops are a great system acknowledge the equality in availability through the market, not on the supply side, which has no effect on them anyways. They know that their supply is through the market, not through doing stuff.” It has nothing to do with acknowledging anything, it has to do with considering something fun vs finding something boring.

“They know that their supply is through the market, not through doing stuff.”
Yeah what results in the fact that brainlessly grinding is how you get what you want instead of really ‘doing stuff’ and many people are playing an MMO to do stuff other than brainlessly grinding. Whatever makes the most money is what ‘makes’ the market at this moment.

Kelly.5293:

Wow, The original argument was AGAINST an expansion and people wanted the continual bi-monthly updates. Many liked this. I’m quite satisfied they have delivered an expansion sized amount of content over the last three years even though it wasn’t all at once making us wait.

Now they are trying to make the other half happy with an expansion.

+1 to penelopehannibal – “First World Problems.”
+1 to Anet for being awesome.

The OP was a complain that 3 years for expansions was to long, not that the LS approach was good.

I can also not say that what they released can be compaired to what your everage expansions delivers. But if we talk about ‘size’ then I guess it depends on how you define ‘size’ bit I think in develpment-time it likely was much more then what you would need to put in an expansion. So if that is how you define size then yes in size it was more as an expansion.

Anyways, fact is that the LS approach was meant to be an alternative for expansions and where the expansion approach helpted Anet in GW1 to keep a steady number of players over the years (well, income) the LS in GW2 as best reduce the bleeding of players but it was bleeding players quarter after quearter. So while you like it, clairly many people did not like it.

tigirius.9014:

Brother Grimm.5176:

Varrg.2704:

You can’t farm mats because of gem store. ANet wants you to buy stuff with real money, no to get stuff by actually playing the game.

….and by “actually playing the game.”, you mean farming for specific mats? Right…..

Exactly, they keep using the phrase, “Handed to them” but they completely negate the fact that farming IS ACTUALLY PLAYING THE GAME. These arguments are amazing aren’t they? Remember back in the day when they said welfare epics were handing epics to people even though people who got those epics were doing the exact same things as those who wanted to flaunt that they did something they thought made them special from all the rest? Yeah, these are the same people but this time they are talking about loot and their arguments are no more valid today then when they were talking about welfare epics.

I think that the big difference is that the current grind approach is considered more boring then when people can farm directly for the items. So then it becomes more interesting to buy the mats.

At least I can say for a fact that I find the gold grind way more boring and have no problem with some farming. Now I also don’t fall for the trap of spending money on it and I will also not do the grind but that does result in the fact that a big part of the game / content falls away.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Wanze.8410:

Thatkitten Rat.1236:

Wanze.8410:

aophts.9862:

In every other MMO out there, you can farm to acquire materials to create something, it takes some time, but you can, you have a DECENT drop rate. But in GW2 you can’t, even with high magic find you only get junk and the drop rate of good materials (the T6) are ABYSMAL (to be gentle).

“B-but you have moldy bags!”
Do you mean those bags that have a 0.0000000000000000001% chance of T6 mats and a lot of Thick Leather Section?

Yes, it is a complain, but what i want to know is, why we can’t farm the materials? Why it boils down to farm gold like a madman in dungeons and fractals?

I think the main reason is because how the economy and tp works.

Anet tries to make it very hard to farm all the mats for your own demand because if everybody could easily farm his own mats, those that dont need it, wouldnt be able to sell their drops. That would result in alot of useless drops.

IF there goal was to prevent useless drops then they’ve failed abysmally.

No, their goal was to make sure that the drop that is useless to you, is still valuable to someone else, so you could barter it for gold and choose what you buy with it.

Absolutely. It’s clear from nearly everything they publish and especially John Smith’s posts on the forum: ANet believes that the Trading Post is a critical core component to the economy and to player rewards.

• Everyone gets stuff.
• Keep the stuff you like or can use.
• Sell the stuff you don’t like or can’t use so that you can buy other stuff you like or need.

Some folks prefer a system that offers specific progress towards specific goals. This game also offers that with dungeon tokens (for dungeon skins), geodes (for amberite skins), bandit crests (for carapace/lumi skins), PvP rewards, WvW skins, and so on.

I realize a lot of people are used to MMOs and single-player RPGs that allowed them to “live off the land” (in effect: gathering all the materials themselves), but, like the traditional combat trinity, it’s a historical artifact from pencil & paper gaming and the storage-limited early days of gaming. It wasn’t just that you could farm everything yourself, you pretty much had to.

In GW2, you get to play whatever content you want and gain all basic tools/gear for the game and plenty of luxuries, too.

It’s not an artifact, many people (including me) simply find that way way way more enjoyable.

And then the ‘In GW2, you get to play whatever content you want’ statement based on this is FUBAR (Where the F stands for flawed).

You do not increase the options to play the way you want, you decrease them only leaving the grind for currency to buy what you really want. An option also available in most games that use the “live off the land’ approach as you name it (nice way to name it, should remember that) because those items where not account-bound. So the option was there so grind th gold and get them that way, but you could also ‘life of the land’ if you wanted. What (I say it again) is way more enjoyable if you ask me.

To be honest, the only reason I can see why they use this new model is because it makes gold way more important and of course you can buy gold with cash so it makes that way more attractive. But with the fact that in “Live of the land” approach you ALSO have the option to do it as it works in GW2 there really isn’t any positive the GW2 model has against the Live of the land model. At least none I can see.

Carighan.6758:

Devata.6589:

It’s funny how on this forum until reaching that moment, those defending the lack of expansion pointed out that WoW also took longer (while WoW is an P2P game, for a B2P game I expect more regular expansions as that should be the way to finance a B2P game). However at the moment we reached that point (I made a thread about this subject about 2 years, one month and 23 days after GW2’s release) suddenly that comparison should not be made anymore and it’s not relevant what other games do. It’s nice to see that now you (who got the number wrong) point out to that date again pretty much as an excuse.

Actually, last content I saw was about a few months ago. And it was monthly or biweekly before that. I dunno where you get your GW2 numbers, but I played WoW for ~9 years, and the content release model is worlds different.

That being said, yes, ANet is lethargically slow in dev speed, but this is not related – or rather, limited – to the content releases. If they were to use WoW’s, they’d do it half as fast, but they don’t. All of their dev work is slow. Balance patches are virtually inexistent, content releases take a long time, new features come out at a snail’s pace.

Ofc, given the fact that I don’t pay for this game outside of the odd gem store payment, I couldn’t really mind this any less (consider a steam backlog of ~200 games, it’s good my MMO isn’t using up all my game time). So the whole complaint is a wee bit moot, I don’t pay for anything I’m not getting, I’m not paying for getting stuff slower than when I was paying.

Sure, then again I was very much prepared (no prefer!) to pay for an expansion once a year if that also resulted in the content I liked and a game where not many of the fun items would be in the cash-shop or many of the cosmetics would be behind a boring grind.

So simply the fact that I did not have to pay for it does not make it better for me personally.

Vayne.8563:

Devata.6589:

Why do I mention this. Because it does show how many of those who defend any complain are clearly doing it out of a love and for them it’s like somebody is saying something negative about their baby. In the end however it does not matter much what Anets throws at them, as long as long as they add in an ‘excuse’ why it’s ‘oke’.

Okay but I never mentioned how long WoW took to make an expansion. Not once. I did mention how little content WoW provides between expansions though and I did provide context that there are people in my guild who play WoW for a short period of time after an expansion and then return to Guild Wars 2, all of which is pertinent.

Your blanket dismissal of people because they disagree with you is a terrible tactic to try to win an argument. Even words like defend any complaint…well I don’t defend any complaint, I only stand up to the ones I disagree with or the ones I think are unfair. There are plenty of complaints I don’t stand up against at all and a few that I’ve mentioned myself.

In your attempt to discredit people, you lose credit.

The game has no expansions so far, but it’s still released content during the time between launch and the release of the first expansion and that content can’t be ignored.

Some people realize Anet hadn’t planned the expansion at launch and was trying something else that didn’t work out, so now they’re putting what they had been working on into an expansion.

I think that’s pretty clear. But I’d prefer if you avoid trying to imply that people who love the game are blind to it’s faults, because it’s not true.

“Okay but I never mentioned how long WoW took to make an expansion. Not once.” Nor did I say you did. Not once.

“I did mention how little content WoW provides between expansions”
I also did not say anything about this.

“Your blanket dismissal of people because they disagree with you is a terrible tactic to try to win an argument.”
Yeah.. maybe you should not feel so ‘addressed’ by everything you read and then complain you did not say it. No you did not say any of those things, that is why I also did not say you did, anywhere. I also did not try to dismiss anything of as as it was not addressed ad you.

“Even words like defend any complaint…well I don’t defend any complaint” Also that was not addressed at you specifically but an general. I even gave mount examples clearly nobody talked about here and now.

Talking about a bad way to try and ‘win an argument’. But I guess you simply mistakes my comment as being addressed to you so forgive you for it. Just, next time make sure somebody it talking to you and talking about your statement before you go bezerk on him because ‘you did not say those things’.

“I think that’s pretty clear. But I’d prefer if you avoid trying to imply that people who love the game are blind to it’s faults, because it’s not true.”

Ah this is why you did feel addressed? Anyway, I did not say they where blind for it’s faults. I simply gave some examples where people where defending the then current system over suggestions being made. Then Anet did implement those suggestions or part of them meaning many of the reasons those defending did not want the change, where now in the game, and then suddenly it where no problems anymore. That is a simple fact (you very likely know this to be true as you are a lot on the forums) and is very useful to hold in the back of your mind when having these sorts of discussions here.

However I did not blame you for doing this. I fact I know you stay honest to your idea’s. You where ‘defending’ the temporary content. After it changed you did settle for it but also keep saying the temporary content did have elements you now miss in the current system. (Those same things you used before to ‘defend’ the temporary content). So no, I was not talking about you.

Rin.1046:

Devata.6589:

What I am wondering is who did claim they did not give us anything? Who are you addressing with this comment?

While the OP did not directly state Anet has not given us anything, it did indirectly (by complaining about no expansions for 3 years) imply that Anet should have given us something in that time.

To be honest, I really don’t see the point of this topic. People are complaining its taken Anet 3 years to make an expansion, when it is painfully clear to anyone with eyes, that Anet HAS been giving us other stuff INSTEAD of an expansion. I personally like both methods (LS and Expansion), and do not see any issue with a lack of expansion for 3 years.

The fact of the matter is, its taken 3 years before we got an expansion, but that is not a bad thing because we got lots of free stuff given to us in that time. How many buy to play games can you say do that? Subscription based games still charge you for expansions AND other extra content. Very rarely do MMO companies give you free stuff, especially in the quantity Anet has given it. People really don’t have any reason to complain about having no expansion for 3 years, and if they think they do then they need their heads examined.

“Very rarely do MMO companies give you free stuff” Except all F2P games that is.

“people really don’t have any reason to complain about having no expansion for 3 years, and if they think they do then they need their heads examined.”

So if people prefer the content you see in expansions over the content released during the last 3 years / LS they are sick in the head?

And if people prefer Expansions because they do not want ‘free’ content because that means Anet needs to make money with the cash-shop making everything such a grind or meaning most cosmetics are not in-game but in the cash-shop they are also sick in the head.

Come on now. There are plenty or perfectly good reasons why people they don’t like it that it took 3 years for an expansions.

Wanze.8410:

aophts.9862:

In every other MMO out there, you can farm to acquire materials to create something, it takes some time, but you can, you have a DECENT drop rate. But in GW2 you can’t, even with high magic find you only get junk and the drop rate of good materials (the T6) are ABYSMAL (to be gentle).

“B-but you have moldy bags!”
Do you mean those bags that have a 0.0000000000000000001% chance of T6 mats and a lot of Thick Leather Section?

Yes, it is a complain, but what i want to know is, why we can’t farm the materials? Why it boils down to farm gold like a madman in dungeons and fractals?

I think the main reason is because how the economy and tp works.

Anet tries to make it very hard to farm all the mats for your own demand because if everybody could easily farm his own mats, those that dont need it, wouldnt be able to sell their drops. That would result in alot of useless drops.

Now you almost only get ‘useless’ drops that people then sell to buy the stuff they really want. (that is why GW2 is by many considered as such a grind). For your example, as long as people can sell the mats that problem would not exist. In fact, this it how it works in many mmo’s, those who like to grind gold to buy the stuff they want are able to do so, and those who want to go directly for the items are also able to do so. Play the way you want. The way it’s implemented in GW2 you usually see in F2P games because it gets people to buy the things they want spending real cash.

Spirited Was Eceni.3869:

Buy a second account the next time there is a sale. Last time there was a sale you could buy the deluxe version for £12.50. Log on for 5mins each day to open the daily chest, every 4 weeks that will give you 55 laurels which you trade for T6 crafting bags. 3 T6 mats per laurel = 165 T6 mats every 4 weeks for doing next to nothing. Mail them and anything else you have to your main account.

In a couple of months your second account will have paid for itself in money you don’t need to spend in game.

The fact that people ‘play’ the game like this perfectly demonstrates the problem of the current system.

Brimstar.9036:

Doflamingo.6957:

Come on we waited 3 years for 1 expansion this is even higher than the World of Warcraft waiting times lol (its 2 years there) and the funny is that after this elder dragon there are 4 more that means at least 4 more expansions, so the players who are 40+ years old might not even make it till the last expansion if it continues so slow. Will Heart of Thorns be released this year at least?

You must not know WoW very well. It took 3.1 years for BC to come out after Vanilla and to be fair it hasn’t even been 3 years of this game yet, at least not for another 3 months.

Release date Vanilla: 23-11-2004
Release date BC: 16-01-2007

That is to be exact 2 years, one month and 23 days. And when looking at other MMO’s WoW was one of the slowest with releasing its first expansion.

Debates are very useful, but only if the correct numbers are used.

It’s funny how on this forum until reaching that moment, those defending the lack of expansion pointed out that WoW also took longer (while WoW is an P2P game, for a B2P game I expect more regular expansions as that should be the way to finance a B2P game). However at the moment we reached that point (I made a thread about this subject about 2 years, one month and 23 days after GW2’s release) suddenly that comparison should not be made anymore and it’s not relevant what other games do. It’s nice to see that now you (who got the number wrong) point out to that date again pretty much as an excuse.

However, it does say a lot about those ‘defending’. Whatever happens, they always turn it so it’s good. Follow any mount discussion. Every time a step in the direction of mounts was set the reason why mounts where bad changed making what there was now fine. I remember the mount discussion from in the beginning, the mounts would be in the way filling up the space to much and they would be ugly and not fit the lore (while the lore cleary has them). Then when we did see some cosmetic mounts like the flying broom and the flying carpet. Suddenly the ‘space’ and lore was not a problem anymore but mounts should not be able to give you better movement (like speed) ‘forcing’ other people to use them. Then the gliders for HoT where introduced. Now it suddenly was not a problem anymore then you could fly (something that did get a lot of hate in the past) and that for some elements of the game it was required. No, it was now fine because you could not use them everywhere, only in some areas.
You could simply add in mounts as you see them in any game, give them some combat ability and they would be fine with it, because you could not compare them to mounts in other games.
Why do I mention this. Because it does show how many of those who defend any complain are clearly doing it out of a love and for them it’s like somebody is saying something negative about their baby. In the end however it does not matter much what Anets throws at them, as long as long as they add in an ‘excuse’ why it’s ‘oke’.

Azala Yar.7693:

Devata.6589:

For all the people pointing to the LS.

Clearly the LS was not able to deliver what many people like to see and expect from an expansion. That also explains while quarter after quarter results dropped while last quarter with the announcement of the expansion is did go up again.

So it’s very nice that for you the LS works, still the LS is no expansion and did not deliver what many people expect from an expansion / what they wanted. That makes the LS irrelevant. Sure, it is what Anet had in mind (LS as a way to release expansion-like content) but it’s not how many players experience the LS.

LS isn’t irrelevant, it was the model they were working to.

A lot didn’t really like LS including myself but that still doesn’t make it irrelevant.

3 years for an expansion, what a load of kitten. If you want to judge how long it’s taken for an expansion, you should start from when they abandoned the LS model and started to work on an expansion.

It’s irrelevant for those asking for an expansion (because clearly the LS did not bring what they wanted). While people here point to that same LS as a reaction to the person asking for that expansion. In that light the LS is irrelevant.

I don’t say it’s irrelevant to the game in general, it’s irrelevant in that discussion.

And you are right they are likely not much longer than a year building on the expansion (I think most of the work started after the Chinese release).

CureForLiving.5360:

Devata.6589:

So it’s very nice that for you the LS works, still the LS is no expansion and did not deliver what many people expect from an expansion / what they wanted. That makes the LS irrelevant. Sure, it is what Anet had in mind (LS as a way to release expansion-like content) but it’s not how many players experience the LS.

So because it’s not an expansion it’s irrelevant? Irrelevant in regards to what?

Irrelevant to those asking for an expansion because the LS did not deliver what they wanted.

OP talks about not having expansions, or that they take to long, and then people point towards the LS, but OP did not ask for the LS, the LS clearly does not deliver what he expect from an expansion (proven by his comment) so then the LS is irrelevant a comment to his question.

CureForLiving.5360:

Devata.6589:

(like a true B2P game like Gw1)

I was sure GW1 had an cash shop? Guess not then.

Funny how you quote one element out of the complete sentence and then made a false assumption based on that while the complete sentence clearly makes a difference between the two models, and having a cash-shop not being that difference.

Let me quote myself again.

“This ‘free’ living story simply means the game needs to make money with the cash-shop (like a F2P game) not with expansions (like a true B2P game like Gw1) with all negative side-effect of cash-shop games that come with that (like the boring grind that you can of course buy your way out of).”

So the difference I make in this sentence is making money (mainly) with the cash-shop vs making money (mainly) with expansion. GW1 had a cash-shop but they ‘made the money’ with expansions. GW2 has now a focus on the cash-shop to make i’s money.

maddoctor.2738:

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

How do we know, positively, that the ‘announcement’ caused sales figures to increase? Could it possibly have been the multiple sales of the original game? Or, a combination, at best?

I think I’ve seen more posts from people who purchased a second (or more) account, than posts from new people. Does news of an expansion cause people to buy multiple accounts?

Hmm…interesting, if that is the case.

I doubt the expansion announcement alone caused more sales, the price reduction was far more important. People won’t buy a game because an expansion was announced to be released in some unspecified time in the future. I expect them to do another sale when the HoT release date is revealed, that might give an ever higher boost in sales.

You see how the two are related. There where sales before, while not as cheap, and they did not create an increase in results (at best it made for less drop).

The fact that it’s now so low / cheap is very likely because a new expansion is coming (they do not want to create a big paywall for new players) and the news around the expansion gets attention to people, getting people back. So the two are very much related to each other and together make for better sales. It’s very much like how around the release of the second GW1 campaign there was likely also an increase in sales of the initial game and with around the release of GW2 there was likely an increase in sales of the complete GW1 series.

Rin.1046:

While not everyone has enjoyed all the stuff added since launch, you cannot say Anet has sat on their hands for 3 years. They have worked on, and added, quite a lot over the last few years.

Anet’s initial plan was to frequently add content to create a living world experience, and avoid the standard expansion model used by most MMO’s. They added LS.S1 and LS.S2, as well as a few feature patches and other stuff. We’ve had new skills, new stories, new maps, new features, new items and many more.

None of the things they added over the years have been packaged up into an expansion, so to those who maybe haven’t looked into it, or to those who are new to the game, it may appear that Anet has done nothing for 3 years, when in fact they have done a lot. Some might argue it wasn’t enjoyable, but that doesn’t change the fact that they have added a lot of stuff to the game.

Moving forward I suspect Anet will adopt a mix of both models. Continued LS content and feature packs, alongside the occasional expansion pack. And for that reason I do not think we have any reason to complain. If you do not like that content added, then that is a different topic all together, but you cannot claim Anet has not given us anything since launch.

What I am wondering is who did claim they did not give us anything? Who are you addressing with this comment?

mtpelion.4562:

Doflamingo.6957:

Come on we waited 3 years for 1 expansion this is even higher than the World of Warcraft waiting times lol (its 2 years there) and the funny is that after this elder dragon there are 4 more that means at least 4 more expansions, so the players who are 40+ years old might not even make it till the last expansion if it continues so slow. Will Heart of Thorns be released this year at least?

While most of the people here have been kind of harsh in their response, my initial reaction to your OP was one of pity. I can’t imagine how awful it must be to have been brainwashed into thinking that paying an additional fee for content that lasts 1 month once every 2 years on top of a monthly fee just for access to the game is superior to receiving free content updates on a semi-monthly schedule. I mean, you’re being robbed of both enjoyment and cash and being told to say you like it!

OP is asking for a subscription now? I was thinking he only says he prefers more expansions, possible suggestion he likes the content you see in expansions more. That is about it.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

You didn’t answer the question, as usual. No matter; nothing more than was expected.

Quoting your questions followed by my answer:
Question: How do we know, positively, that the ‘announcement’ caused sales figures to increase?
Answer: “there was not much more else going on in that quarter”

Question: “Could it possibly have been the multiple sales of the original game?”
Answer: “I see the sales of the games as part of the announcement.”

Question: “Or, a combination, at best?”
Answer: “Yes I think it’s a combination of the two, but I also see the two as linked to each other. The sales where clearly done in the light of the upcoming expansions don’t you think?”

Question: ”Does news of an expansion cause people to buy multiple accounts?”
Answer: “It makes sense that as soon as you come with a new expansion the last expansion (or game) does get cheaper what indeed will also mean many people who did not have it or wanted a second account will buy that.”

I also asked a question: “The sales where clearly done in the light of the upcoming expansions don’t you think?” and that is the only question that did go unanswered.

So a lot of false blaming but doing exactly what you falsely accuse others of. No matter; nothing more than was expected. It’s what you get if you only see what you want to see being it form blind hate or blind love.

Why? I think because the way to do it now it with a currency and currency is the way Anet does everything. Now you may decide for yourself if that may be related to the fact that you can buy the main currency (gold) with cash.

It’s at least one of the examples I blame to the cash-shop focus. The official reason is “now you can do any content and earn it that way. it’s play the way you want”. Of course that is a strange reason as the “farm approach” still allows for this because you would still be able to sell / buy them.

Of course you can simply grind gold and buy the mats. But if you find that way, way, way more boring than a normal farm (like me) you are out of luck in GW2. Same holds true for many cosmetics and toys.

HoT should have a solution for this problem where you can do specific events in maps that then reward specific mats. That would then also rotate so if you want charged lodestones (for example) today you need to do the event in map x and tomorrow in map y.

But we have to see how that works out. If after a day of farming you would have 4 of the 250 mats you need it’s still not really ‘farmable’, and if at the same time some brainless gold grind is still faster it’s even worse. Also if the rotating means some mats cannot be farmed for a full week it’s still a problem. So we can only wait and hope this gets implemented well in HoT.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

How do we know, positively, that the ‘announcement’ caused sales figures to increase? Could it possibly have been the multiple sales of the original game? Or, a combination, at best?

I think I’ve seen more posts from people who purchased a second (or more) account, than posts from new people. Does news of an expansion cause people to buy multiple accounts?

Hmm…interesting, if that is the case.

Well there was not much more else going on in that quarter and I see the sales of the games as part of the announcement. It makes sense that as soon as you come with a new expansion the last expansion (or game) does get cheaper what indeed will also mean many people who did not have it or wanted a second account will buy that.

It’s the type of stuff that comes with an expansion. So it’s not just sales of the expansions (that of course is not available) it’s also the news around it, the price-drop for older versions, the fact that people who left and new people might come (back) for a look and leave some money in whatever other way. It’s all part of an upcoming expansion.

So to answer your question. Yes I think it’s a combination of the two, but I also see the two as linked to each other. The sales where clearly done in the light of the upcoming expansions don’t you think?

Balsa.3951:

I personal be against a expansion

I dont see any win from that. ecxept anet sees that they dont make money with the Gemshop alone.

I even think there will be a big group of people who dont buy the expansion what will make the game a kind of empty in the new zones.

It is fair to assume that almost all people actively playing will buy an expansion (maybe not at day 1), and it will for sure also get back players that stopped playing. So you would rather see an increase of players and not a decrease. This is also suggested by the fact that results did go up (since a long time) in the quarter that HoT was announced.

Many zones are already getting empty, and that with the megaservers. So it’s not like the LS approach prevents that.

For all the people pointing to the LS.

Clearly the LS was not able to deliver what many people like to see and expect from an expansion. That also explains while quarter after quarter results dropped while last quarter with the announcement of the expansion is did go up again.

So it’s very nice that for you the LS works, still the LS is no expansion and did not deliver what many people expect from an expansion / what they wanted. That makes the LS irrelevant. Sure, it is what Anet had in mind (LS as a way to release expansion-like content) but it’s not how many players experience the LS.

That also makes this statement “The only people who think we’re waiting 3 years for an expansion are people who aren’t actually paying attention to what’s been going on. Or people who decided there much be expansions and started counting from day 1 when no paid expansion was actually in the works.”
A little short sighted. You know, forgetting the group of people for who the LS simply was / is not able to deliver what they expect from an expansion.

And of course there is also another reason why you might want an expansion and so don’t see the LS as an alternative and that is that this game was supposed to be B2P. This ‘free’ living story simply means the game needs to make money with the cash-shop (like a F2P game) not with expansions (like a true B2P game like Gw1) with all negative side-effect of cash-shop games that come with that (like the boring grind that you can of course buy your way out of).

So there are many reasons for wanting a expansion and why you can’t simply act as if the LS is the substitute for that. The LS was supposed to be the substitute, that is true, but that does not mean it is / meets the requirements as substitute for many people.

@Vayne.
“The only people who think we’re waiting 3 years for an expansion are people who aren’t actually paying attention to what’s been going on. Or people who decided there much be expansions and started counting from day 1 when no paid expansion was actually in the works.” Why do you say this? You are stating this as a fact while you cannot know this. In fact, I know enough people for whom the LS simply was not able to deliver what they normally expect form an expansion. So that makes your statement factually false. So why do you state this? You could never say for a fact that the only people complaining do that because of the two reasons you state here.

No, just kidding.. but you see what I did here?

Vayne.8563:

Devata.6589:

Vayne.8563:

@Devata

You almost got it now. You say, if we crunch numbers we’d get this as if it were some sort of fact. You’re the one claiming to know something definitively.

Where exactly do I say that is definitively?

This is your unedited paragraph:

“When you crunch the numbers (and that’s all we have to go on) you conclude that the expansion model would have made them more money, and the fact that even an announcement of an expansion increases income only backs that up.”

This is stated as a fact. The implication of crunching numbers allows you to “conclude”…there’s nothing TO conclude from the numbers posted. Crunching numbers is never about opinion. Crunching numbers is about doing something mathematical that leads to a conclusion.

You can’t crunch numbers and get any kind of conclusion from the numbers we have. It’s not possible.

More to the point, you keep bringing up Guild Wars 1 as an example of this working, without acknowledging that came out ten years ago, in a completely different market place.

It’s fine to have an opinion. Really, it’s great that you feel strongly. And your opinion might resonate more strongly if this game wasn’t actually successful. But saying it would be more successful your way is asking people to take a whole lot on faith.

It’s the conclusion of the numbers.. it’s the outcome of the numbers. Is that really so hard to get?

“Crunching numbers is about doing something mathematical that leads to a conclusion.” Yes that is what we do right. We do some ‘math’ and get a outcome based on that, a conclusion based on those number. That however does indeed not mean for a fact that the outcome will be the same. It might make it more likely, and when that’s all you have to go on it’s useful to look at it, but gain your right it’s not a fact things will go that way.

If we calculate the probability or heads and for tails it’s 50%, that is the conclusion. But it does not factually mean that if you throw the coin twice you will defiantly get heads one time and get tails one time.

“More to the point, you keep bringing up Guild Wars 1 as an example of this working, without acknowledging that came out ten years ago, in a completely different market place.”
I did bring that up. But is that so relevant? Q1 seems to show that expansions still work, also is this new market. And is it really that different? Back then P2P was the main way to go, B2P was the alternative, these days F2P is the way to go, B2P still is the alternative.

Vayne.8563:

@Devata

You almost got it now. You say, if we crunch numbers we’d get this as if it were some sort of fact. You’re the one claiming to know something definitively.

Where exactly do I say that is definitively?

“But when you make some sort of claim that if you crunched the numbers, you’d get this, that’s just fantasy. Saying so doesn’t make it so.”
Well I make that claim because I did, in fact I did it in the forums for everybody to see it and being able to comment about it. I think in your mind, by saying I crunch the numbers I automatically say that this is a factually outcome. Of course, I did not say that, that’s something you made up. It is however the outcome of the number crunching. And that is al that I am saying it is.

Sure I do believe the numbers would hold truth in reality but I never claimed that it would be a fact that it would work this way. I mentioned multiple time that we obviously never will know what would happen in the alternative reality.

Vayne.8563:

@Devata

When you crunch the numbers? How? With what? Which numbers are you talking about.

~

You’re so vested in your specific point of view, this anti-cash shop agenda, you don’t have the ability to admit it’s not possible to know that it would have been better your way. There’s no way anyone can know.

~

No, we don’t know what would have happened if we would life in the alternative reality where GW2 was a true B2P that released an expansions +- every year keeping more true to the GW1 model.

We would not know if using that model would indeed have resulted in them using a reward model where more items are behind content instead of behind a currency grind and so we don’t know if the game would have been more successful (game-wise and business-wise).

It’s your basic argument for almost every suggestion made on this forum and your right.. There are things you cannot know for sure. You can’t factually know if any suggestion made on this forum will work as planned. Easy way to ignore everything, but also a useless addition to any topic. just as you always seem to ignore common sense with the same argument.

We also do not have all the numbers, again true. But heey, with those arguments why have a forum. Anything anybody suggest can work out different then they think so it’s useless right? Well it isn’t, but it is when following your logic on the matter.

Still we do have numbers here and we use them.

We see how the expansion-model did work for GW1 where every expansion (campaign) resulted in a spike of about 100% of initial sale of that game.

We have the quarterly numbers of GW2 and see how income did only decrease after initial sale.

We can compare those income after the initial spike over a year and compare that with a ‘fictional’ expansion, based on GW1’s numbers and see that if those expansions where able to also create a spike of +-100% just as those of GW1 did the total income for GW2 by now would have been higher.

We also see results for Q1 of 2015 was finally an increase again while the only real big thing to happen in the land of GW2 was the announcement of HoT. Common sense tells you it’s very likely that announcement is then to ‘blame’ for the higher results.

So that is the number crunching. But you are right.. you can simply dismiss all that by saying ‘we do not have all numbers, we are not all knowing, things could have gone different’. You right, but then why talk about anything anymore. Decisions are always made based on these sorts of numbers but without knowing for a fact that it would also work as the numbers predict. In fact, those tiny bits of information (the quarterly reports) are there for the investors to make their future decisions based on that.

But you are welcome not to look at them because ‘Past Performance is No Guarantee of Future Results’.

" you don’t have the ability to admit it’s not possible to know that it would have been better your way." Uhhm only that in about every discussion we have about this you come with this same story and I agree that indeed you can’t know anything for sure as long as you don’t life in that alternative reality. So far for not admitting that.. I do admit that, I simply do not work with that as doing so would mean you could not make any suggestions as you could never know how anything would work out. So I admit you are right. I admit things could work out different, just as I did those previous times. However I still base what I am saying on the numbers I have, even knowing it could still work out differently.

“There’s simply no way to know. I wish you’d stop trying to make it sound like you have some mathematical proof of something when such proof is an impossibility.” Again, I never put it as some factual truth. I say (as you quoted) ‘if you crunch the numbers.. this is what you get’. Because that is what it is. Yes I make also assumptions like ‘increase of Q1 must be because of the HoT announcement’ that is an assumption, do we know that for sure? No, is there really any other good explanation for it? no.

Or like Sherlock Homes would say “‘If you’ve eliminated all other possibilities whatever remains must be the truth” and I am then only saying ’it’s likely the truth’. That is the common sense I know you also never want me to mentions.. because common sense is also not something you ca know for sure.

Vayne.8563:

phys.7689:

Vayne.8563:

~

the last xmas quarter was a record low, i would hope they could outperform that.

It’s still Christmas, there were still sales. I’m not really sure why anyone things a game that gets older and older with no expansion is going to keep out performing itself.

It doesn’t work with almost anything. Books, movies, games on the whole, the vast vast majority of them, make less money as time goes on. That’s normal.

So yeah, a quarter on, out performing the previous quarter is a good thing.

Maybe it’s because I was in the publishing industry for so long that it seems very natural for books, games, or any type of entertainment to go down in revenue as the months and years ago on. It’s accounted for in business plans. The only thing that matters is whether the expectations of the business plan is met, not what a bunch of people on forum’s think.

From what we’ve seen from investor reports, Guild Wars 2 has always met or exceeded expectations, which means saying any quarter was the slowest is almost irrelevant even if it is true. What’s relevant is that according to the business plan put forward before launch, the game is meeting or exceed expectations.

If it weren’t, we’d have seen layoffs.

That does not mean it could still be better, with also a better game for it and stay better in the longer run.

I agree that for the biggest part GW2 is meeting its expectations, especially from the investors perspective. A little less from what Anet envisioned as they talked about how they would use the LS to keep the game going and so would not need expansion. That part they had to come back on seeing the numbers fall, but overall the game is successful and likely meeting expectation.

However, now put investors’ expectations next to gamers expectations. Investors made their money, sure they would love to keep making money but did their expectations and so their plants go as far as seeing GW2 as an investment that would keep making them money for 10 years into the future? Do they also care for the game itself?
Nope, just for the money and it’s not likely they did look 10 years into the future.
So simply because it’s meeting business expectations does not mean it can’t still be better from a gamers perspective and from a business perspective.

If HoT can create one more big spike of income and the games slowly starts do decline after that the investors are probably fine with that, they made their money, possibly more than their expected. But the most gamers want a MMORPG to stay interesting for years to come. I am trying to look at it from both perspectives, not only from the perspective where both parties can be happy.
There is one big positive, while investors are not likely not looking that far into the future, Anet is, they have a company they want to keep running and successful for many years. So let’s hope they also see the numbers, they see the strength and the weaknesses of the game and do something with that information.

Behellagh.1468:

Devata.6589:

Fact that there are less games on the shelves does not mean GW2’s expansion can’t be? Besides, you really think shelves are the only place where people see new games? Shelves are generally not the place where people learn about new games.

Point being missed.

GW’s model sold as well as it did because there was a version of the game on shelves for years. The first three were each a stand alone game and not a true expansion. That means someone could buy the third one and like it enough to go back and buy the other two. Stores had the space to keep a game that came out 6 months ago on the shelf. With the current tiny amount of space stores currently devote to PC games that aren’t Sims or Blizzard means older games don’t get restocked after they sell out for as long as they use to.

So today if GW came out the first campaign wouldn’t still be on the shelf when the 2nd came out, or the 2nd when the 3rd came out. You don’t get the advantage of someone seeing the series. Some may not want to buy the 3rd if they can’t buy the 1st. Sort of like a book series, who wants to start at book 3. Or some may wrongly assume the later campaigns were expansions and you needed the original which isn’t on the shelf. You lose those sales.

Selling games is a lot like movies. You make the bulk of your sales during the first month or two and then you have a long tail in terms of sales income. So the fact GW2 is making more income every quarter than GW with the single sale and gem shop than spike/tail every six to twelve months works. And that’s important because ANet would not have been able to do what they did with GW for GW2 in getting enough content for a paid expansion before they ran into a cash flow crunch.

So do you think they were just stupid or something? Don’t you think they crunched the numbers at what they did with GW and abandoned it on a whim? No they couldn’t see a way that method would lead to as much money as a cash shop would over time. And so far they’ve been right. If they thought they could pull in another $100-200 million every 12-18 months don’t you think that would be their plan from the start?

I’m not saying anybody was stupid, but I do say numbers indicate they were wrong if they did think this would make them more money, especially overtime.

When you crunch the numbers (and that’s all we have to go on) you conclude that the expansion model would have made them more money, and the fact that even an announcement of an expansion increases income only backs that up.

I think the ‘shelve’ space you base your ideas on is false. There is not so much limited space of shelves, there are simply less PC games being sold because more people buy it online, but the games being sold are on the selves (You can still find GW2 in many game-shops).

Don’t think that just because there is some big company behind the current model is does mean it’s the best numbers. As that is basically what you say in your last paragraph.. They crunch the numbers, came to the current model so that must be the best. There is a big company behind the model ESO used and that model failed, just as with Wildstar and many, many other games that did fail or where the model failed.

This cash-shop model is mainly a safe model, so that might be the reason they did go for it but it does not help the game from a game-play perspective because it takes items out of the game and behind a grind (what is bad for the game-play) and it does not mean it’s the most profitable model.

Vayne.8563:

As I see it, there are two things a lot of people here seem to be ignoring. Yes, the uptrend in sales over last quarter is marginal, but last quarter was also the Christmas season which means beating it in the next quarter can be misleading. Most games don’t beat the Christmas quarter at all, because ‘tis the season’.

And let’s not forget, a lot of the sales we’ve seen are at 25% of the price of the game that originally launched 2.5 years ago. In order for a sale today to match a single sale, two-four copies would have had to been sold. So that 3% is pretty kitten ed good.

Without new content it’s even more surprising, since we are in a content drought.

Six million dollars a month is pretty good for a 2.5 year old game, particularly one that’s not had an expansion.

Now, some people in this thread have drawn the conclusion that the expansion path, instead of the cash shop path, is THE way to go, because sales have tapered and the expansion is bringing more cash in…even just the expectation of the expansion.

This is a bad conclusion to draw. No one is saying that the expansion isn’t something you should have in addition to a subscription or cash shop. The expansion is obviously going to bring in more numbers.

However when Guild Wars 1 managed this with just an expansion every year, the entire complexion of the genre was different. Competition was minimal. Guild Wars was the only MMO type game at the time without a sub. There was very little competitive. More to the point, the entire industry has changed back then. Games cost more to make. Shelf space for computer games back then was how they sold. That’s not true anymore. Shelf space for computer games has gotten smaller and smaller over the years. Having that boxed product for a computer game at this point only minimally affects sales.

At the end of the day this game is successful in sea of games that have been less successful. Even Blade and Soul which made more money this quarter, reached that height by releasing the game is a brand new area.

Some people are arguing the game would be MORE successful if it was done differently, but no one knows. And that it’s successful at all in this climate is telling.

“This is a bad conclusion to draw. No one is saying that the expansion isn’t something you should have in addition to a subscription or cash shop. The expansion is obviously going to bring in more numbers.”

You don´t really explain why it´s a bad conclusion. You talk about that we life in a different time (what you always say when we talk about the expansion approach) but how does that change anything to these numbers? Sales where going down and in Q1 (in fact a bad quarter in general) income manage to get up while the only big thing in the land of GW2 was the announcement of HoT.

You want GW2 to be successful for many years to come, maybe just accept that expansions work.

Still, yearly expansions are not going to cut it. I agree on that. If HoT is a bad expansion people get bored with soon again the next expansion would sell bad and GW2 will still be going to decline. An expansion is only able to get some people back and the first expansion will get many back that got bored with the game but are willing to give it a second try. Not many people going to give it a third or forth try.

So all this really seems to proof is that the model itself can work, not that the game can work.

As you know I see the way cosmetics are a grind (mainly because of the cash-shop and the way rewarding works (what I blame on the focus of the cash-shop) as the main problem of GW2 and one of the bigger reasons why those people coming back, did leave in the first. Now thats a discussion for another thread. But at least this seems to proof the expansion model can work, and even better then the cash-shop model. Now lets hope Anet will be able to make HoT able to hold the people that did leave in the first place because if they get bored again I don’t think many will be coming back for the second expansion, if there even will be a second expansion, and sales of GW2 will be back to the point of Q4 2014.

Only time can tell but while I know this sounds arrogant (I don’t care) the numbers only seem to suggest what I have been saying all along about the expansion model.

Behellagh.1468:

Never said expansion is bad. I’m saying the model that GW used isn’t as effective anymore in an age if digital distribution.

And since the game’s underpinnings are very different than GW2, there was no chance that GW2 could deliver a similar amount of content that each GW campaign did every 6-12 months. We got an 80 level true MMO vs three 20-level hub/instance quests MMO.

Sorry you are all comparing apples to emus here.

I don’t think HoT will manage to raise sales to where it was at release simply because Anet already did some irreversible damage. Still I think yearly expansions would make for a better income even if it’s not able to match GW1’s rate (so compared to original sales). The simply fact that sales increase simply by the announcement supports that idea.. and there is no HoT on any shelve yet. So those shelves aren’t as important as you think.

About them not being able to make the content that fast.. It looks like HoT is only really in development for a year now.

Obtena.7952:

Devata.6589:

You are right, these numbers do not say anything about grind, or precursors or mounds. But they do say something about expansions.

This is how it start man. … <expansions, not LS> AMIRITE?!! I hope everyone’s padding is refreshed on their armchairs.

Well, not so much not ls. But to say expansion would work better then LS I would not need these numbers. As you know I campaign for expansion for a long time.

Behellagh.1468:

Devata.6589:

“How can you say that with any authority? There never was a previous model and if you are talking GW” We where talking about the GW1 model applied to GW2 based on the numbers. Explained in this comment: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/NCSOFT-1Q-2015-Results/first#post5061015

It was an ongoing discussion I had with Kill, but because he did not quote me I can understand how it’s a little confusing.

“The only thing GW had was a relatively steady stream of income during it’s first 3 years” So pretty much for it’s real life-spawn. After those 3 years the focus shifted to GW2. Anyway, it’s that steady income I talked about. A year (and two years) after release GW1 made about as much money as it did on release while GW2 had dropped a lot already. So when applied it to GW2 (and if it would work the same) you would have had made more money.

“that’s because it was from a time when PC games on shelves were still a thing” Not sure how you come to the conclusion that because people now also buy a lot of games online that would have any effect on this.

“something that having a new box release every year or so helped, as well as stoking sales of the previous boxes.” So what you are trying to say is that because people buy the game online this would not be true anymore? You do understand these results posted here very much suggest they do. Also you do not explain why it would not work anymore.

“GW2 came out at a time when non-Sims, non-Blizzard PC games had maybe 6 linear feet of shelf space and BestBuy, WalMart and Target? Maybe one side of a small mid floor display at GameStop to hold all unsold PC games from the last 5 years?” So.. what is your point? Many PC gamers buy there games online.. yeah.. fine. How does that change anything about how expansions increase sale and how yearly expansion might work for a more steady income overall? Missing the correlation here.

The point is that before the shift to digital purchasing, it was essentially free advertising having a box on the shelf. GW’s “new” campaigns kept the brand up in front of eyes of potential customers looking for a new game to buy. A new “expansion”, that campaigns weren’t really, drives sales of the original.

The loss of this vector of getting eyes on product is a big hit in terms of driving purchases. Since shelve space is a limited commodity, what was on the shelves were a mix of what’s new and what’s popular. It’s curated, yes by upfront money from distributors but you didn’t have a near unless number of games to choose from via digital download. Sure Steam recently added curated selections and try to guess your preferences and show you similar titles but that doesn’t replace walking down an aisle of PC games and having an interesting title or box art catch you eye. Or having a chunk of shelf space with a large number of the same title facing you, universal sign of “I’m new”.

So how many GW players started with a later campaign and back filled? So instead of their 1st title being on display for only a few months you have each campaign keeping the brand “Guild Wars” front and center for two years. Then you had the combo box sets appearing for several more years. All of that is free advertising of the brand. All of that drive player sales.

What we have now are a few shelves in stores that use to have multiple aisles for PC gaming. A potential player has to come here to buy the game since it’s not on Steam or any other PC digital distributor of games. GameStop didn’t even carry the box but sold you a serial number for download. Sure you can buy it from Amazon like everything else but again you have to be looking for the game first. Once off the shelve it’s out of sight out of mind.

This is a different era for selling PC games. What helped sales with GW doesn’t exist anymore. You aren’t getting impulse buyers at full price. You aren’t keeping a brand in front of people for years every time they visit the store. Therefore popping out an expansion every 6 to 12 months may work well for those already playing but it won’t drive new people to the game. Not the same way as before.

BTW I am the OP of this thread.

Fact that there are less games on the shelves does not mean GW2’s expansion can’t be? Besides, you really think shelves are the only place where people see new games? Shelves are generally not the place where people learn about new games.

Behellagh.1468:

Devata.6589:

Killthehealersffs.8940:

But again you must read the reactions of the ppl in every forums and games …

GW2 Devs must takes the holidays Breaks (Christmass + Summer) = that means -3 less contents months
an extra —3 or -4 if the need time to create the next x-pack
= that means with yearly x-pansions there will less conent ingame (just like last year , when the game launhed in China or even this year content)……
Even the ppl in WoW hate it … and neither we have the next date for the WOw x-pack (they original planned 1 yeal x-packs – that one that the old gg are w8 to listen…)

And your idea of less money = that automatically GW2 will goes into the ’’passive’’ mode where it will stop risking to inovate things and will adopt the other games behavour , where they will w8 and copy-paste other games riskless ideas …

Cant you understand that ?
Or shall be harsh enought to be Banned again for 10 days , while i atacked a prestigious PvE raider in a CDI ?

The current model resulted in less money, what I suggested was more based on the numbers. And as you see in results posted by the OP, even the mention of a expansion increases income. You can keep repeating it’s not what some people want, but the numbers seem to proof otherwise.

How can you say that with any authority? There never was a previous model and if you are talking GW, the largest quarter they ever had was 4Q2006 with 18,635 million KrW. GW2 has yet to be below that. The best 4 consecutive quarters of GW was 57,830 million KrW (2Q2006 to 1Q2007); the worst 4 consecutive quarters of GW2 was 80,490 million KrW.

The only thing GW had was a relatively steady stream of income during it’s first 3 years and that’s because it was from a time when PC games on shelves were still a thing, something that having a new box release every year or so helped, as well as stoking sales of the previous boxes. GW2 came out at a time when non-Sims, non-Blizzard PC games had maybe 6 linear feet of shelf space and BestBuy, WalMart and Target? Maybe one side of a small mid floor display at GameStop to hold all unsold PC games from the last 5 years?

“How can you say that with any authority? There never was a previous model and if you are talking GW” We where talking about the GW1 model applied to GW2 based on the numbers. Explained in this comment: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/NCSOFT-1Q-2015-Results/first#post5061015

It was an ongoing discussion I had with Kill, but because he did not quote me I can understand how it’s a little confusing.

“The only thing GW had was a relatively steady stream of income during it’s first 3 years” So pretty much for it’s real life-spawn. After those 3 years the focus shifted to GW2. Anyway, it’s that steady income I talked about. A year (and two years) after release GW1 made about as much money as it did on release while GW2 had dropped a lot already. So when applied it to GW2 (and if it would work the same) you would have had made more money.

“that’s because it was from a time when PC games on shelves were still a thing” Not sure how you come to the conclusion that because people now also buy a lot of games online that would have any effect on this.

“something that having a new box release every year or so helped, as well as stoking sales of the previous boxes.” So what you are trying to say is that because people buy the game online this would not be true anymore? You do understand these results posted here very much suggest they do. Also you do not explain why it would not work anymore.

“GW2 came out at a time when non-Sims, non-Blizzard PC games had maybe 6 linear feet of shelf space and BestBuy, WalMart and Target? Maybe one side of a small mid floor display at GameStop to hold all unsold PC games from the last 5 years?” So.. what is your point? Many PC gamers buy there games online.. yeah.. fine. How does that change anything about how expansions increase sale and how yearly expansion might work for a more steady income overall? Missing the correlation here.