And yes some of the now F2P still have a “premium” subscription tier but they had to move to that system because the subscription system failed.
I think you’re taking this a bit too black and white. You dont switch business model just because you failed, its a good idea to switch if you believe the other model will be more profitable. Take Swtor as an example. They said 500k subs would still make it profitable. Then look at EvE 500k subs is phenomenal for them. So what about rift? I am sure they had around 500k subs as well perhaps it was going down sure but that doesnt mean they failed.
At the end of the day people tend to underestimate the profit potential of f2p. Per player you might get less but f2p can attract big big numbers which in some cases more then makes up for it. Look at DC universe online for example when they switched to f2p they net profit increased by 8x going f2p.
Thing is most of the time MMOs that opt for P2P are just hoping to hit the holy grail which is matching WoW’s success. But WoW’s success isnt really the number of players it has, other games match and exceed that. We know League of legends is played by 12 million players on a daily bases. World of tanks claim 60 million accounts. Perfect world International claims 50 million accounts etc.. WoW’s success comes from the amount of money it makes 8m regular subscribers exceed the revenue generated by 12 million players who can opt not to pay anything month after month. But as with everything in the commercial world there is a break even point. I dont know what it is and in anycase it will vary depending on how successful your mmo is but lets say for the sake of argument its 1m subs. That means that if your MMO has more then 1m subs then its making more money then if it were to go f2p. However if you have less then 1m subs it means going f2p will make you a greater profit. However still as long as you have more then 100k subs you’re still profitable. So if such a company decides to switch to f2p once it hits 600k subs does it mean it failed? not really its just making the smart move but it is not really a failure until it hits that 100k point.
No I am not taking it to black and white. Because I do not say that changing to another payment model always means the old model has failed (The ‘they’ in my sentence refers to those who did). A good example of that is lineage 2. For them the subscription based payment model did not fail but when the game became older and it became harder to get new players they did change to another payment model.
But for those MMO’s that changed there payment model in about 2 years (usually after seeing a big drop in players, or the lack of players in the first place) you can definitely say it failed. And of course those companies will bring it in a positive way like if it not failed but they moved on to something else. It’s not really good for your company to say.. well this failed so we have to move on to something else, because people might lose trust in it. They still do as not many of those games made a real come-back. I think none did so far. But yeah, thats why you don’t see them really saying that.
And then your example is also kinda bad because Swtor is for sure a great example of the games where it did fail and they moved on to another system because it failed. The fact that they basically said it did not fail means noting.
And also for Rift it failed.. (not as bad as for Swtor I guess, but it still failed) They for sure had hoped to be able to go on for years with a subscription based model and a big playerbase, looking at WoW as there example.
The look at WoW and how they made money was the reason for most of those fails. Funny thing is you pretty much say that yourself ”Thing is most of the time MMOs that opt for P2P are just hoping to hit the holy grail which is matching WoW’s success.” and they did not succeed in that so they failed with there model.
And I don’t really want to go in to the F2P part as I do not say F2P can not make money. I think it can make and I think F2P, B2P and Subscription-based games all can do well if you have the correct game for it at the correct moment in the correct place. (At this moment I don’t think subscription based will work for any new mmo in the western word).
What you basically say is, it (the game / payment model) did not fail because they can still make money (with another payment model). Yeah they can, but I say, there payment model failed because it did not work out like they hoped. Anyway, this starts to get to far away from the subject so I would like to leave it with that.
We’ve said it a few times before, but I want to just re-iterate we’ve heard folks feedback on this and will be doing a much larger mix of permanent, recurring (content that can occur again in the future), and more world impacting releases as it relates to living world in the second half of the year. There will still absolutely be some amount of temporary, in particular story-driven moments to help drive the narrative forward. You’ll also see some of the content previously noted as “temporary” return permanently to the game in the 2nd half of the year.
Three additional notes ->
- As we recently announced, we’re up to four living world teams now, which means they will have a much longer development cycle later this year to build more polished content, and content that can be more impactful.
- The Living World teams are only a small chunk of the total developers at ArenaNet, we’ll be going into details on what many of those other teams will be doing in a blog later this month.
- We also have teams working on much longer term projects, which we will discuss when they are closer to arrival.
We’ve said all of this before, but I think it’s good to just put that message out more frequently so everyone understands where we’re going. Thanks very much for all the feedback folks, as always we continue to listen to your feedback and course correct as we try new things in the live MMO space.
This sounds awesome. Temporary content for those who like things to change. Perm for those who don’t. Returning temp content that shows to be popular (SAB will be back). Idk how you could ask for more.
The sort of temporary content the people who do not like the temporary part will still be in there. So it’s not good at all.
Im casual..in that I have only 2-3 hours to play per night, but take my toon, gear, class, experience serious enough where I want to do well.
And i hate living story. Innovative but its doing squat to further this game. Very stagnat right now.
would it be better if instead we had none of the living story and ended up waiting for an expansion for over a year? Expansions content will come any way, whether living story is there or not.
Please refer to this thread for that debate
I did not say that expansion will come, I said that the expansions content will come. As in we’re going to get the continuation of the main story for free.
Is NCSOFT a non-commercial company? Is ArenaNet a non-commercial company? Are the employee’s all working for free? No so there is no such thing as free. It has to come from some place and if it’s not coming from expansions it’s coming from gems and if it comes from gems they need to some how get people to buy gems and there we see the main reason for temporary content.. Create a sense of urgency to get people to buy things. First rule in every marketing book.
The thing is though if the conent is good the sence to get into it as soon as it is availble feeds itself. that’s exactly why I used the HBO Game of Thrones scenario. There’s a reason it’s the most pirated show around. Because not everybody can afford or wants a subscription to HBO but they REALLY WANT TO WATCH THE NEWSET EPISODE RIGHT NOW!
And there’s always the middleground of leaving the content but taking the limited time rewards.
But when they leave the content but take the limited time rewards you would still have the complains as thats exactly the part many people don’t like about the temporary stuff. BTW that post was not to disagree with you mean idea as I support it. It was only to explain why they do it this way. And if they would focus more on expansions there would be less need to do it this way.
So then the questions is what the average player would pay +- per year for gems and what they make on an expansion. Personally I think it will be close with the difference that the expansion option is better for the game and so may result in more players so that it in the long run may be even result in more money.
This is not something they just flew off the handle and stated this is the way we are going to do it.
Most likely they have several meetings on the issue. Had several graphs up showing the how other MMOs are trending and how they are handling bring income into the game. The very method that Vayne listed earlier.
So for them to adopt this method to Anet meant they felt they could make the most money doing it with bi-weekly updates instead of the traditional expansions method.
You must also realize they stated that expansion packs are not off the table just something they will not do for the next year or more.
Pure business sense always deals with the bottom line first the customer second. This is how Anet feels they can make the most income so that is why they are doing it this way.
Yeah sure they had meetings about it, but that does not mean it’s good for the game and from my point of view I want what is best for the game while also understanding they need to make money.. Maybe at some point they will change it and turn to making money with expansions but for now this is what they are going with and temporary content is part of the result of that decision and I, and with me other players, do not like that.
Besides.. Those meetings and graphs don’t mean anything to me.
The people behind LofR Online, Rift, TerA, Tabula Rasa, Warhammer Online, The Secret World, SW: TOR and many other MMO’s had a lot of meetings about there payment model and most likely had many graphs that showed them that subscription based was the best way to make money. But then again.. all those games failed as subscription based games.
The problem is that the people that talk about the money usually don’t play the games. Most decisions by management that are bad (turned out to be bad) are taken because they don’t really know what is going at the buyer level besides some graphs they see and there focus on the money. And there is nothing wrong with wanting to make a load of money. But that does not mean they are making the correct decisions.
Is NCSOFT a non-commercial company? Is ArenaNet a non-commercial company? Are the employee’s all working for free? No so there is no such thing as free. It has to come from some place and if it’s not coming from expansions it’s coming from gems and if it comes from gems they need to some how get people to buy gems and there we see the main reason for temporary content.. Create a sense of urgency to get people to buy things. First rule in every marketing book.
And what is wrong with that strategy? We can still play without paying a dime after we bought the game.
I did explain that in a earlier comments and basically it’s the subject of this whole thread.. How temporary content is not liked by many people and that strategy results in this temporary content.
So thats what wrong with the strategy.
But no one really has numbers on how many like the temporary content and how many more don’t care.
Many people don’t like dungeons, should they be removed from the game?
You see there is a big difference here. It’s really the other way around. If we remove dungeons we do harm those who like it but if we would not remove now content (make temporary content) we would not harm those who do not mind that it is temporary.
And check my first comment here to see what I am talking about if it go’s about temporary content. I do say they can still have temporary events. I understand how that may be needed for a story but dungeons (or dungeon-like content), items and achievements can easily be fitted in, in a non-temporary way. Just like them to the non-content stuff and your done.
OP, I disagree with you. I missed a good portion of the Aetherblade content, but I still disagree. It’s because, I know that there will be more NEW content right behind it. I think it’s GREAT that all this NEW content is continually being put out. If this content were temporary, and then we had NOTHING to replace it, it would be a problem.
For every opinion about something being wrong or bad for the game, there are just as many other ppl who enjoy it and think it’s great.
I just read this and see you say you disagree but then read a comment that means you also sort of agree.
You miss the old stuff, but you mind less because there is new stuff.. But the OP does not say the old stuff must stay and there may be no new content. He says, new content is fine but don’t take away the old one.
So that means you can be happy with your new content like you are AND don’t have to miss the old content. So I must conclude you agree with OP. You do mind a little less about it then he does but you do agree.
This is the same point I’ve been thinking for a while now. Most of what is being implemented feels like the same sort of time filler pieces in subscription game, collect 100vs of that, kill thousands of those. Just because you can create more of it is no reason to be applauded. There is no altruistic motive behind it either, it’s the same methods to keep people play but instead of a subscription it’s lockboxes.
Now they have done some amazing pieces of content, Halloween was amazing, the new dungeons and jumping puzzles great, and the Southsun cove changes were perfect but there is just too much meaningless filler as an addendum to it.
Be thankful there is a cash shop. Anet has made it clear that the cash shop is making it possible for them to start giving us this “Living World” experience. I for one thoroughly am enjoying the ride and plan on staying on the ride till they kick me out the door as they shut down the last server.
Partly true. They need to make the money.. but if you need to be thankful there is a cash shop? They could also make the money with yearly expansions and personally I think the ingame decisions that resulted out of that are much better then those that result out of cash shops.
It’s not like cash shops are the only solution, nor that it is the best solution.I don’t think that selling expansions is enough to support any real kind of content generation. Maybe it was 8 years ago when Guild Wars 1 launched, but the landscape has changed. As the simplest example, Guild Wars 2 has a staff that’s at least 6 times the size of Guild Wars 1, which required a move to a newer (and probably more expensive) office space. There’s for more competition for players now as well.
Games either have box sales and a monthly fee or box sales and a cash shop or just a cash shop. Some have box sales, a monthly fee AND a cash shop. Many went free to play after a period of time where they had a monthly fee where they made a lot of money.
Anyone can say that box sales would be enough to allow content generation but that doesn’t make it true. I don’t think it would work today, where as many years back it might have. The industry is too competitive, player expecations are too high, and the overhead is much higher than it used to be.
Well anyone could also say it would not be enough but that also doesn’t make it true. I don’t have the exact numbers so it’s hard to calculate. But if they used expansion I think it is fair to say that nearly all active players would buy it while a much smaller part of the players will ready buy gems. Now there will be some people who buy a lot of gems but they would most likely also buy gems when there was a less focus on the gem-store (like the first few months of GW2).
So then the questions is what the average player would pay +- per year for gems and what they make on an expansion. Personally I think it will be close with the difference that the expansion option is better for the game and so may result in more players so that it in the long run may be even result in more money.
If you go on forums of subscription-based games you see many of the subscription-based fans say thats the only way a game can be paid.
(edited by Devata.6589)
Is NCSOFT a non-commercial company? Is ArenaNet a non-commercial company? Are the employee’s all working for free? No so there is no such thing as free. It has to come from some place and if it’s not coming from expansions it’s coming from gems and if it comes from gems they need to some how get people to buy gems and there we see the main reason for temporary content.. Create a sense of urgency to get people to buy things. First rule in every marketing book.
And what is wrong with that strategy? We can still play without paying a dime after we bought the game.
I did explain that in a earlier comments and basically it’s the subject of this whole thread.. How temporary content is not liked by many people and that strategy results in this temporary content.
So thats what wrong with the strategy.
This is the same point I’ve been thinking for a while now. Most of what is being implemented feels like the same sort of time filler pieces in subscription game, collect 100vs of that, kill thousands of those. Just because you can create more of it is no reason to be applauded. There is no altruistic motive behind it either, it’s the same methods to keep people play but instead of a subscription it’s lockboxes.
Now they have done some amazing pieces of content, Halloween was amazing, the new dungeons and jumping puzzles great, and the Southsun cove changes were perfect but there is just too much meaningless filler as an addendum to it.
Be thankful there is a cash shop. Anet has made it clear that the cash shop is making it possible for them to start giving us this “Living World” experience. I for one thoroughly am enjoying the ride and plan on staying on the ride till they kick me out the door as they shut down the last server.
Partly true. They need to make the money.. but if you need to be thankful there is a cash shop? They could also make the money with yearly expansions and personally I think the ingame decisions that resulted out of that are much better then those that result out of cash shops.
It’s not like cash shops are the only solution, nor that it is the best solution.
Im casual..in that I have only 2-3 hours to play per night, but take my toon, gear, class, experience serious enough where I want to do well.
And i hate living story. Innovative but its doing squat to further this game. Very stagnat right now.
would it be better if instead we had none of the living story and ended up waiting for an expansion for over a year? Expansions content will come any way, whether living story is there or not.
Please refer to this thread for that debate
I did not say that expansion will come, I said that the expansions content will come. As in we’re going to get the continuation of the main story for free.
Is NCSOFT a non-commercial company? Is ArenaNet a non-commercial company? Are the employee’s all working for free? No so there is no such thing as free. It has to come from some place and if it’s not coming from expansions it’s coming from gems and if it comes from gems they need to some how get people to buy gems and there we see the main reason for temporary content.. Create a sense of urgency to get people to buy things. First rule in every marketing book.
If you do not buy items in the cash shop then the new content is free.
If you do buy items in the cash shop then you are keeping Anet in business and thus making more content for us to enjoy.
I am a successful businessman of a mufti-million dollar company. I am more aware them most on these forums of what is involved and what Anet is doing to keep themselves solvent and to keep this wonderful game coming to us the consumers of their product.
I must also add; that I do use the cash shop. So for me it is not free.
Not sure you got the point of that comment. I said it’s not free. The extra content is not free. aka it has to be paid.
For that is does not matter who pays it, it has to be paid.
You say the same “If you do buy items in the cash shop then you are keeping Anet in business and thus making more content for us to enjoy.” so it is not free. Like I said.
What I added to that was that the gem-store focus causes for decisions to be made like the temporary content, and if you are the mufti-million dollar company you also know that.
I personally think that is bad for the game and if you look at the forum (or this thread) many people complain about it so thats what I say, go for expansions packs so the content gets paid by expansions in stead of it getting paid by gems as it needs to get paid. One way or the other… It is not for free.
If it get paid by the expansion then the gem-store focus could be less and then there was no need for the temporary content.
And just for the record “a successful businessman of a mufti-million dollar company.”. So you deem yourself successful and work for a mufti-million dollar company? Or you own a mufti-million dollar company and if so, what company?
The problem with the temporary content has 3 problems..
1 You can not re-play good content like the dungeons.
2 You can not acquire items, skins, achievements and other things associated with that content.
3 You mis part of the story. (Miss one time events)
I wish to address your 3 “problems”
1) per Colin on Jan. 15th of this year: "Community and player relationships are key components to what makes Guild Wars 2 tick, and will be a massive part of the game as we evolve it further.
Allowing players to share experiences in an open world where other players are seen as helpful, rather than competition, is a huge component of what makes our game what it is. Open world online games are always strongest when players are encouraged and rewarded to interact as a community, to support other each other, and when the flow of the game ushers players to go places where they run into other players across all levels and have shared experiences."
dungeons are not open world nor do the help the community. They are also not a core element to this game.
2) Not everyone being able to get all the skins is really a good thing. This creates a sense of individuality. If everyone has every thing the same. Then everyone will be nothing but clones. It is this uniqueness that they have given us that helps make this game different and exciting. What you wish reminds me of Everquest where all the warriors had Longhorn Cattle horns on the armor. We all looked the same, make it difficult at time to tell who the main tank was at times in boss fights.
3) the stories are not required. I have already skipped three of them on purpose. that last being the pirates we just were given in the last Living Story. Do I feel like I have missed anything? no. Plus if you feel you need to catch up you can look back through the blogs or go here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/livingworld/lwd/The-Historian-for-people-who-missed-content/page/2#post2376921
Simply your problems are really not problems to most. Just a few folks like yourself consider them problems. I find it great that we can personalize our characters. So what if we didn’t get any wing. Will they have wings again? Most likely and maybe even better ones.
Then I will address your 3 reactions.
1
Except for he the SAB (that I did like very much btw) I did all the dungeons with party’s and was working together with them. Maybe you solo them all but most don’t so they do get to let the community play together. And then they work much more together then when they just do the same event somewhere.
2
You make one big mistake here. The fact that you are always will be able to get something will not mean everybody will have everything. Some stuff may be very hard to get and then you can’t possibly get all items and even if you did you would not be able to use them all on the same time.. You just have a possibility to go for the item you like to make you character unique in the way you like it.
I never played Everquest but if everybody had the same armor then it means they did not have a lot of choice or only one set that really looked cool. It has nothing to do with not being able to get all items at all times.
So no, if everybody is able to get everything it does not mean everybody will look the same.
3 I personally don’t see this as the biggest problem but whats the problem with having an in-game ability to see those events?
“Simply your problems are really not problems to most.” No, but then again.. if you see this forum you can see there are a lot of people complaining about the temporary stuff, not just me. I for example did not create this topic. And there are many topics directly or indirectly about this. And like I said before, the uniqueness will not be harmed when you are able to always get all items. As long as it are many and some (many) of them will always be hard to get (hard dungeon or something).
So ‘fixing’ it would also not harm the people who do not mind.
(edited by Devata.6589)
Im casual..in that I have only 2-3 hours to play per night, but take my toon, gear, class, experience serious enough where I want to do well.
And i hate living story. Innovative but its doing squat to further this game. Very stagnat right now.
would it be better if instead we had none of the living story and ended up waiting for an expansion for over a year? Expansions content will come any way, whether living story is there or not.
Please refer to this thread for that debate
I did not say that expansion will come, I said that the expansions content will come. As in we’re going to get the continuation of the main story for free.
Is NCSOFT a non-commercial company? Is ArenaNet a non-commercial company? Are the employee’s all working for free? No so there is no such thing as free. It has to come from some place and if it’s not coming from expansions it’s coming from gems and if it comes from gems they need to some how get people to buy gems and there we see the main reason for temporary content.. Create a sense of urgency to get people to buy things. First rule in every marketing book.
Holy cheezus
I managed to read it all and I’m afraid to tell you some things that might be bad news for you:
1. The previous dungeons will be coming back as a fractal, with the difficulty/length being reduced to be able to place it as a fractal.
2. Even with the dungeons returning, the achievements and the special rewards (like the Molten Jetpack) won’t be coming back.
Much like everyone else, we would love to have everything being permanent, but this topic has been raised way too many times in this forums… We’ll see how this goes when they bring back those dungeons, just don’t get your hopes real high since there’s always going to be temporary content.
Sorry to be the hopes crasher, oh and if I’m wrong somewhere with this information please feel free to correct me.
I know that they did not plan to do it like I said. I just said how it should be done.
But Colin seems to be surprised that people are still complaining even after they said some stuff would come back. And he seems to think people just do not know yet that they will also add more non-permanent content and get some old stuff back and so thinks it will go away if he keeps telling that.. But of course just adding in non-temporary content and getting some stuff back will not help.
So lets hope at some point they will do the stuff I said here. Pretty sure many people would be way more happier and the complains would indeed reduce. Not all of course, but many will.
We’ve said it a few times before, but I want to just re-iterate we’ve heard folks feedback on this and will be doing a much larger mix of permanent, recurring (content that can occur again in the future), and more world impacting releases as it relates to living world in the second half of the year. There will still absolutely be some amount of temporary, in particular story-driven moments to help drive the narrative forward. You’ll also see some of the content previously noted as “temporary” return permanently to the game in the 2nd half of the year.
Three additional notes ->
- As we recently announced, we’re up to four living world teams now, which means they will have a much longer development cycle later this year to build more polished content, and content that can be more impactful.
- The Living World teams are only a small chunk of the total developers at ArenaNet, we’ll be going into details on what many of those other teams will be doing in a blog later this month.
- We also have teams working on much longer term projects, which we will discuss when they are closer to arrival.
We’ve said all of this before, but I think it’s good to just put that message out more frequently so everyone understands where we’re going. Thanks very much for all the feedback folks, as always we continue to listen to your feedback and course correct as we try new things in the live MMO space.
Dear Colin,
The problem with the temporary content has 3 problems..
1 You can not re-play good content like the dungeons.
2 You can not acquire items, skins, achievements and other things associated with that content.
3 You mis part of the story. (Miss one time events)
By changing the story a little bid you can easily keep content like dungeons.
It has already been said that some of that content like the MF will come back (please do not do that as part of the fractals. MF was fun as dungeons including the rewards (mini, jetpack) but not as part of 4 mini dungeons.
So if all dungeons would come back that problem would been solved.
But 2 is the biggest problem. Make sure achievements and items will stay available in the game forever. So only link that only to the non-temporary content.
3 You miss part of the story and that is bad for reasons also explain in the video.
If only part 3 would stay in it would not be a problem but 1 and 2 need to go. So just making sure you ‘also’ add more permanent content will not help. Thats why you also still see the complains after you announced this already multiple times.
Just adding more non-temporary content does not fix the problem with the temporary content at all.
And let not fool each other. The reason for temporary items (2) is to try and get people to buy stuff from the gem-store by creating a feel of urgency..
Thats also the reason many people are not so happy about the announcement that for not there is no expansion planned. This means you guys need to focus on gems and so you get this sort of decisions.
So here are the way to solve the complains about temporary content.
Change the story a little bid so stuff like dungeons can stay in the game. (this would totally fix 1)
For 2. Link items and achievements to the non-temporary content so they stay acquirable forever.
For 3 Record the one-time events. Then I am not just talking about the cut-scenes but if possible also really the events with the players per server and make them available for everybody. Like a story-line. You guys have been testing already with that by giving an items that replays something. But then only the people who played it can see it and they need the items. There should simply be a place where you can see the whole story.
But the marketing people will not like solution 2, so to fix that make sure to DO focus on expansions as income so there is a lesser need to focus on the gem-store and so a lesser need for temporary items.
I hope you read it.. Even if you do nothing with it.
About the grind.. Well it’s more about farming but I think the definitions are close:
Grinding: Repeated battles for the sole purpose of increasing party level, stats, etc.
Farming: Repeated battles for the sole purpose of finding a rare item drop.
I see them the as the same because one person gets his joy out having better stats and another person finds his joy out of finding a rare drop.
Is the problem not that there are not enough ways to farm? Everything works with currencies with gold being the most important currency of them all. You can not really farm for mats, mini’s, skins and so on, you will always need to farm for a currency and then but what you want. Thats the most boring way of farming.
For the grind thats basically the same.. You do grind directly for a higher level but for the armor (stats) you farm for currency.
About the question if there is a need to grind because there are so many other thinks to do. Yes I think there is a need. I am now leveling some alts and there are some thinks I like to do in the game. In the PvE world that is mainly jumping puzzles. In WvW I like to mainly play tactical. However the only real way to level is to do hearts / map completion, craft (what cost money so require a gold-grind) or run in zergs in WvW. I can however not level my alts with jumping puzzles.
So maybe the solution to this would be to make the other possibilities there are also more rewarding.
In addition the achievements should maybe be more based on quality then on quantity. That would reduce the grind on those. As long as they are not also temporary that should be no problem.
@Devata
With or without the ( ), what you posted has nothing to do with the differences between what ANet promised vs what they gave us.
Oow is has a lot to do with it. They promised a B2P game while now it is getting more and more the characteristics of a F2P game.
Not sure what the first part has to do with anything. Even if they only need 10% to pay they still need to try and make them pay and the other 90% is then not so important so that seems totally irrelevant.
And no the decaffeinated brands taste horrible.
Because in a F2P/Cash shop model getting more people playing, because the entry cost to play is non-existent, translates into a larger pool of potential cash shop users. Also having a lot of people playing, again because the entry cost to play is non-existent, is a different form of MMO content. That’s the reason for guilds/friend lists, a means to structure the social content.
After all, it’s disheartening to play an MMO when it looks as it nobody is around, so other players are a form of MMO content, probably on of the cheapest. So Nexon doesn’t really mind the 90% that aren’t interested in paying that month to help defray the costs because their presence helps to keep the 10% who are paying excited because there are all these other players to play with.
Well they have more then 10 servers so they can close some and throw the gem-buyers together. But yeah you would say they still want the other people. I do not disagree on that, but that does not mean that the gem-store focus does not damage the game. It’s like all the subscription-based game. They would also just need to keep the people happy to make there money yet all of those mmo’s in the last years failed. I take that example to show that something the wrong focus on money may lose you money. What if those game where B2P from the start? Maybe they would have been way more popular and the people behind it would now have already made much more money. So, yes you would expect them to also want to keep the other 90% happy but the wrong focus might mean the don’t..
And it is now like we are talking about some hypothetical possibility. But we already see it. The first months where fine but look at the forums and you see many complains about RNG, temporary content and the gold-driven system. Those things can all be directly liked to a gem-store focus. So it’s not like we discussing a possibility it is already happening. And if they would stop with this but still need the gem-store for there main income it will simply shift to something else.
Thats why they should go back to the real B2P model with the focus on expansions.
First of all it is still ‘fake’.. The content is not based on what the players do. If it was then the influence from payers change the world. Like if they introduce an event and if players defeat the enemy then that area will forever become friendly territory else it will forever become hostile territory.
Anyway, You can still have persistent change without the temporary dungeons, achievements and items (and thats what people are complaining about). Remember the introduction of south sun cove? There we shaped the land by cutting down tree’s. These tree’s are still down. But there where no achievements or skins attached to that specific thing (cut down x trees).
With MF the story could be to defeat the new enemy and then keep them away.. keeping them away could then be done with the MF dungeon. Keeping the dungeon in forever (we need to keep them away forever), Make achievements for that dungeon (so they will also be available forever) and because the enemy is still there (not on or land) you can also keep the items in, they can then just drop from the dungeon and so on.
So it’s perfectly possible to have persistent change without the temporary skins, dungeons and achievements.
The reason they have it temporary is not because people asked for it but it is purely because they want people to buy stuff from the gem-store and to do that they try to give a idea of urgency. The oldest trick in the marketing book.. next to giving an idea of scarcity.
Yes and no. Its a theme park so yeah there is an intended conclusion and its a game so its all fake of course. The intention is not to have real change, you’d need a sandbox for that but to have “believable” change. Going with your southsun cove example, that too had temporary event which made it more believable. If the karka kept invading lions arch every 15 minutes players beating the karka on southsun itself would have been a gimmick so to speak. Just like cutting down the trees resulted in persistent cut down trees so beating the karka resulted in no more karka invasion of lion’s arch and so did beating the molten alliance result in no molten alliance dungeon. That being said we dont really have to loose the dungeon forever. I agree with you that such a situation would be a pity. Luckly we have FotM, I am hoping that perhaps the friendly asura there will perfect his device where as it will not be just random fractals which you can do but perhaps even choose more recent event so we can get the dungeons in their entirety and not a fractalize version. That would be nifty and can still carry forward the story.
I think you’re misunderstanding the situation. Its not that anything in particular is required to have story or persistent change, its what makes sense in the specific context. For example if they were to create a dungeon which is say I dont know a section of the underworld that holds lots of treasure its okey to have that permanently. Sure it still has the issue of why do enemies keep regeneration but its just a question of make believe its not driving forward any story. Its kinda like why we get story mode dungeons and explorer mode dungeons. Story mode are meant to run once as they drive the story forward while explorer mode arent tied to the story thus its not as much a big deal that they’re repeatable. Thats also another option for other dungeons they could do a story mode / explorer mode too.
You might have a point with urgency but I am not entirely convinced. Urgency might give them a few extra sales sure but a longer period of sale will give them sales from new players, players with new alts, players who stick to a monthly budget etc…
Well my point with the south sun cove example was that they can make a nice story that indeed has temporary events but they can keep dungeons, items and achievements available. I would prefer that and I think many people do.
This thread however is about not getting an expansion and why do I think they go for this option? To get people to buy gems. So if we got expansions there would be no need for that and they could still have temporary events but keep content like achievements, dungeons and items available forever.
However, even if they would change this, if they will generate income with gems and not with expansion I am afraid they will start doing yet something else to try to get people to buy gems that might be bad for the game.
With an expansion I have believe the decisions they will make are less likely to be bad for the game because there focus is.. make a good game, not get people to guy gems. Even if they may be connected.
People who just got bored with the game might come back with an expansion but once they moved on to the next MMO most of them will not come back anymore.
Or they might come back for an update. An update and an expansion pack has the exact same allure of content, except that one is free and the other one you have to buy.
And lets deal in reality. I see several people post here they would pay for an expansion pack, but lets get real. If you can get the same thing for free over a period of time instead of getting hit with a a lot of bug filled in one shot that you dish out money for. I bet most would really not have to pay a dime.
There is not such thing as free.
It needs to get payed one way or the other. Why do many people prefer the expansions?
Because they believe / know that if Anet does not get the money from expansions they need to get the money from the gem-store meaning they need to try to convince people to buy stuff from the gem-store and so make changes in the world that are not very good for the game. Like for example the temporary stuff we see not so many complains about.
It’s basically the same reason why many of those people will also not like to play F2P games and might have gone for a B2P game like GW2.
In my experience people like to pin everything they dont like on the payment model. Not just on this game but on all games regardless of payment model. I’ve seen things argued that games that have micro transactions like gw2 gives you limited storage space as to force you buy extra storage. yet nearly every p2p game I played from WoW to Aion to Rift to Tera (when they were still p2p) still had expandable storage which you had to spend a lot of play time to expand fully.
What I am trying to say is its easy to pin whatever you like on the gem shop so you have to be careful to ensure there really is a link.
Well I don’t. There is more stuff I do not like. I would prefer the world to be one big world not instances. I prefer mounts, I don’t like the lack of guild managing tools and I would prefer open world housing.
I don’t blame any of them on the payment model. Some things are, some things aren’t.
For example you mentioned that you believe temporal content is a result of the gem store. What link do you see there exactly? how is the gem store benefiting from temporary content? In my opinion its actually hurt by it. If I wanted to design the game around the gem store I would do it quite differently. What I would do is create the same nifty weapon skins. Ensure that like it happened in flame and frost mobs would be carrying them so that players can see how great looking they are. Have two chests like we had in dragon bash, one that drops from the mob and one thats purchasable from the cash shop. Have the one that drops, drop only for as long as that living story is going on say 2 months. After it ends the content remains in the game, the chest doesnt drop anymore but can still be bought from the gem store. That way people can still play the events and see how great the weapon skins look which will make them want one and the gemstore would be their only option at least for a while (might do an event with the same weapon skins again in the future). Dont you think this will definitely generate more money then temporary content? because I think it would for multiple reasons.
1. New players that join the game later can still spend money on past weapon skins
2. Not all players will like all the skins. I might think Fused weapons are amazing but sclerite weapon skins just dont fit the look of my character so while I would buy chests that might drop fused weapons I will not buy ones that drop sclerite
3. …. (cut because of the body length)
It’s a very nice idea but thats not how the marketing people think. They basically say.. Create a feel of urgency and way more people buy. Without that urgency less people will buy it if if you keep it in for longer.
Have a read: http://www.drewsmarketingminute.com/2012/06/how-do-you-create-urgency.html
As for your other point the gold driven system I will agree its not as clear cut as temporary content is. I personally think the main reason why gold is hard to come by is to control inflation which you have to admit this game does very VERY well. Its got one of the most stable economy systems I’ve seen in any game in terms of inflation. You can only do that if you limit how much money characters earn. Of course you’re also right in that a side effect of that is people are more willing to convert real money into gold. If thats the main purpose or if inflation control is the main purpose its hard to tell. Even if there was no RMT in game I would still hope they’d done things the way they are. Having good inflation control is not only good for alts but also new players that join the game.
It’s not just hard to get money.. it’s hard to get mats. But you can buy the mats with money. I first did wonder if the gold-driven system was basically simply a result of a failed attempt to have a game where you do not need to farm for items.. However it’s not like you don’t need to do it. You simply can’t really farm mats. Every time people find a way to farm mats a patch gets released reducing that. And that shows me that it has to do with the gem-store focus. Because you can still keep the gold limited and the economy stable with people having the ability to farm mats. (The mats would then just be less expensive, thats about it) But now if people want for example an legendary they will need money to buy the mats giving and they can get the money with gems. When people could get the mats easier it the need for money would be less. So it has not do to with the amount but with the need for it.
I dont understand why people dont think this is an awesome idea provided they make it work.
Honestly, it’s because some of us don’t think they are making it work. When an expansion is released for any other MMO, they don’t remove content and achievements after a certain number of weeks and then say, “Oops, sorry, you’re too late; we took it out of the game.”
I actually do like the general idea of adding story content every 2 to 4 weeks that builds a continuing story. A Living World storyline that you can play through on your own schedule without it being pulled out from underneath you would be fantastic. But that isn’t what they’re doing. They are intentionally creating content on a timer so that we have to play on their schedule or miss out. That’s a total deal-breaker for me.
They already said they’re going to change that going forward. Funny thing is this all came about due to player request those same players that now are hating it.
In a game like an MMO change is a tricky thing. You can either have contextual change or temporal change. Most MMOs go with contextual change IE you’re given a quest to say save a village, you kill a few of the whatevers that are threatening that village but nothing really changes except you’re told you saved the village by the same npc that ask you to save the village. GW2 went with temporal change, you actually save the village and things actually save but only temporary. In a few minutes things are going to repeat. A lot of player rejected that change, they called it gimmicky, they called it fake some even called it nonexistant because of that repetition.
So Anet improved on that by making the content itself temporary. Change such as we managed to beat the molten alliance became factual the moment all the events / dungeon were removed from the game. No one can call that change a gimmick, fake or nonexistant because the events happened and left their mark on the world (refugees, the changes to southsun etc…) but at the same time the molten alliance no longer attacks every 30 minutes even though we’ve beaten them.
Anet only gave us what we wanted. Meaningful persistent change. However like the saying goes, be careful what you wish for. Those same players who complained about changes happening on a schedule realized they wanted that change to happened on a schedule after all so now Arenanet are going to move towards there again.
This was all an evolutionary process. Remember the first time we got one such update, the november release, lost shores the situation was a lot worst. Events happened only once and never repeated. Again people didnt like that so Anet changed it to a repeating month long event. People still dont like it so Anet promised more persistent content going forward.
First of all it is still ‘fake’.. The content is not based on what the players do. If it was then the influence from payers change the world. Like if they introduce an event and if players defeat the enemy then that area will forever become friendly territory else it will forever become hostile territory.
Anyway, You can still have persistent change without the temporary dungeons, achievements and items (and thats what people are complaining about). Remember the introduction of south sun cove? There we shaped the land by cutting down tree’s. These tree’s are still down. But there where no achievements or skins attached to that specific thing (cut down x trees).
With MF the story could be to defeat the new enemy and then keep them away.. keeping them away could then be done with the MF dungeon. Keeping the dungeon in forever (we need to keep them away forever), Make achievements for that dungeon (so they will also be available forever) and because the enemy is still there (not on or land) you can also keep the items in, they can then just drop from the dungeon and so on.
So it’s perfectly possible to have persistent change without the temporary skins, dungeons and achievements.
The reason they have it temporary is not because people asked for it but it is purely because they want people to buy stuff from the gem-store and to do that they try to give a idea of urgency. The oldest trick in the marketing book.. next to giving an idea of scarcity.
But once “stolen” players reject these new games, as you seem to suggest will happen, they can always return here as if nothing happened.
WoW and EVE are both subscription games. A number of former subscription only games that have gone F2P still have a “premium” subscription tier. Pure F2P games like the ones from Nexon are designed to have enough inconveniences that the cash shop is only optional for masochistic players with patience of Job. Or some Chinese F2P games that are in reality P2W.
WoW is from 2004 and Eve from 2003. I was talking about the last 6 years.
Can they come back.. yes, has nothing happened? No they missed out on a lot of content but the big questions is.. will they come back. Looking at other mmo’s it’s not very likely that they will come back. Once a game ‘failed’ it almost never makes a comeback.
BTW I do not suggest they will all fail, I just say that it would not really mather if they fail or not.
And yes some of the now F2P still have a “premium” subscription tier but they had to move to that system because the subscription system failed. Usually the “premium” subscription tier also does not really work as they put the most interesting stuff behind that premium tier however that does normally not really matter as most as those games are seen as a failure. Getting some money is then nice for the people behind it but they usually go on to the next project hoping that becomes an success. That also means that the game itself becomes of a lower quality. This might also be why you almost never see such a game making a comeback.
People who just got bored with the game might come back with an expansion but once they moved on to the next MMO most of them will not come back anymore.
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Don’t be a doofus, F2P and B2P income models require only some, but not all, players to buy from a cash shop to keep a game in business. Nexon states (who has over a billion dollars in sales with this model) publicly that they only need roughly 10% of the active game population spending on average $15 a month for a game to be considered successful. Doesn’t have to be the same 10% every month. Could be 5% spending $30 a month or 50% spending $3 a month. That amount needs to support the monthly expenses as well as initial and continuing development costs and of course sweet, sweet profit.
Now with B2P, the number of players who have the game is smaller but the initial development cost is paid off at the moment of purchase. A smaller player base likely means that a larger percentage needs to buy from the cash shop (or the same amount but spending more).
Guild Wars 2 is unique as far as I can tell because it’s B2P but it doesn’t have a premium subscription tier since it was never subscription based. It relies only on it’s cash shop and any future paid expansions.
And Devata – and I am only saying this because I care – there are a lot of decaffeinated brands on the market today that are just as tasty as the real thing.
Not sure what the first part has to do with anything. Even if they only need 10% to pay they still need to try and make them pay and the other 90% is then not so important so that seems totally irrelevant.
And no the decaffeinated brands taste horrible.
Zadorojny: It’s always something we’ll investigate and what we look at, but currently we are left with limited resources in this area and has no priority. It is always a possibility that we will return to the Guild UI and make it work."
Just to clarify, the last part is not a good translation; It really says “It is always a possibility that we will return to the Guild UI to work on it."
Not to “to make it work”. This is a big difference as “to make it work” would suggest that he agrees that is does not work at this moment. But he does not say that. What is to bad because it does not work.
It’s a very good article.. the questions you see here on the forum are the ones that had been asked, the answers are however a little disappointing. Summarized they keep on pushing temporary content and for now we have not to expect any improvements on the totally broken guild management system. In addition they confirm that they are not working on an expansion but do expect people to ‘support them’. So basically, they want us to buy gems.
Well I am willing to support them but only with buying an expansion. Thats why I did go for a B2P game. If I wanted to support a game with ingame-shops I might have gone for a F2P game.
The funny thing is, he says Anet listens to the playerbase and gives as example that they will bring back MF (possible with a new story or else as a fractal dungeon.. lets not hope for the last option, I liked MF as it was, not as part of 4 dungeons that I need to complete) but the most heard complain on the forum (temporary stuff) gets totally ignored if you read the interview.
For a list of guild management improvements that we need check this thread: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/Guild-System-Improvements/page/4#post2195992
On page 4 I combined all ‘problems, additions, suggestions’ that I could find on the forum.
ArcheAge was boom and bust in Korea, I expect the same in the west.
TESO. The way people are talking about I’m betting they are once again setting themselves up to be disappointed by the actual implementation. Just as GW1 fans are loudly disappointed by GW2. Plus it’s going into the already crowded “swords and sorcery” genre.
Wildstar. It looks to blend the art style of WoW with a modern dynamic combat system plus going into the fairly sparse SciFi MMO genre, it looks to have promise.
Some people need to redefine what they think a expansion is. I consider anything permanent in the living story a expanion. Even if it’s a JP or mini game.
Major expansion will still happen. They may just be broken down into 1-3 living story arcs.
No, it’s not about the content it’s about the way they make the money that has influence on the game. And that might be positive or negative influence. Many of the people who want an expansion think that way of incomes results in a good game while generating money with the gem-store results in a bad game.
ArcheAge was boom and bust in Korea, I expect the same in the west.
TESO. The way people are talking about I’m betting they are once again setting themselves up to be disappointed by the actual implementation. Just as GW1 fans are loudly disappointed by GW2. Plus it’s going into the already crowded “swords and sorcery” genre.
Wildstar. It looks to blend the art style of WoW with a modern dynamic combat system plus going into the fairly sparse SciFi MMO genre, it looks to have promise.
If you go back 4 comments of me you see me saying how I do not believe in subscription based games and how they all fail. ArcheAge was released as subscription based game and indeed failed as subscription based. They now converted to a F2P game (also a system I do not believe in that much but still better as subscription based / P2P) I may assume they will not make the same mistake here and release it immediately as an F2P or even better a B2P game. And so the failure in Korea does not yet mean a failure here.
About TESO I agree with you. I think it will not be a huge success. It’s a GW2 clone so most of it has already been done and many of the signle-player fans will be getting something totally different as what they hope for.
I also have my reservations about Wildstar. I do like the humor in there video’s but I don’t think that will really work out in the game itself and it’s WoW with aliens.. Not really a good combination if you ask me. It’s a big hype but I don’t expect much of it.
Of those games I see the most potential in ArcheAge (but even that can fail if they do not make the correct change for the western marked, do not create a little hype and have a bad payment model).
However that all would not matter. Even if they would all fail they are still able to take away a lot of the GW2’s player-base and might even be the end for GW2 as big MMO. For that they do not need to be a big ongoing success.
(edited by Devata.6589)
You can define Buy 2 Play any way you want but for the industry Buy 2 Play means you must pay for the game and then you can play for free.
Free to Play means you don’t need to pay for anything to play. It may not be enjoyable to play. You may be highly restricted with a very tiny inventory, limited class and race selection and limited access to advance content. All of which can be alleviated with cash shop purchases.
It’s simple. Can you play the game (not a demo of the game) with out paying any money (playing someone else’s doesn’t count)? If you can it’s F2P, if not it’s either B2P or subscription based.
If anyone is playing loose and fast with definitions you are Devata.
Yeah right. I also love this part "but for the industry Buy 2 Play means you must pay for the game and then you can play for free. ". You know why I love this part? Because you say “the industry”. The industry will want to make money and so there is no such thing as play for free. Thats why you can’t ‘really’ play a F2P game for free and thats why B2P games also need to rely on expansions. And thats also why B2P does not means you only need to buy the game but also need to buy expansions.
And yes I was playing loose and fast with definitions, that was to show that with playing loose and fast with definitions (like the person I commented on was doing) i could turn any payment model into being a B2P model.
Your definition for B2P would be correct for a non-mmo because they do not require ongoing income, but because mmo’s do and companies (the industry) do need to make money thats not the case for an MMO where B2P means a focus on box-sales / game and expansions.
But heey, if you are correct then let them just rip out the whole gem-store. No need for that. B2P means you need to buy once and then play for free forever right? So also no need for a gem-store then. That while the discussion here was about the focus on gem-store vs focus on expansions but they don’t need any of it. Thats great.
(edited by Devata.6589)
Expansions are B2P format.
Anet just confirmed they’re not even planning Expansions right now
2/10 for intentionally misleading on the definition of B2P.Did you get to play this game for free without buying it? No? Then it’s not F2P.
Do you play a subscription fee? No?
Okay, so then did you buy the game to play it and can play it for forever? Yes? Well then it IS B2P.
Really really? You also want to give it a try..? Well guess what, then subscription-based games are also B2P as you need to buy playtime.. you see you then buy 2 play.
And most F2P times aren’t really playable until you buy some ingame stuff so those are then also Buy 2 Play.
Yes if you read it and don’t understand the meaning of it you might expect all those games are Buy 2 Play. But if you do know the meaning of B2P, F2P and subscription-based then you know B2P has the focus on box-sales (game and expansions) a F2P game has focus on ingame cash shops and a subscription based game has a focus on ingame subscriptions / playtime.
You do know the meaning of F2P and subscription-based so I must expect you also know the meaning of B2P what results in the conclusion that you are indeed ‘intentionally’ playing with the words to make it look different. I put intentionally in between ‘’ because you see it a lot in discussions and sometimes it’s there own mind playing tricks with them because something needs to be a certain way for them to fit there believes so then the brain just makes it that way even if they really know better.
TESO won’t be coming out until 2nd quarter 2014 unfortunately. Anet must thank the mmo gods every day for the window they’ve been given.
Yeah they have been very lucky about that indeed. Maybe a little bid to lucky as this may result in the idea that they do not need an expansion. Ever since release they only had to deal with to other big releases and that was Mist of Pandaria and The secret world. Last one failed and the first one did draw some people back away from GW2 but it was never there main target group anyway.
However we have now WildStar, TESO and ArcheAge upcoming and if GW2 has not everything sorted out at preferably a expansion ready before those releases they will lose a big player-base to them. If GW2 has not everything sorted out and one of those games would be released B2P (so aiming for the same player-base) it might even be the end for GW2 as big MMO. So lets hope they have stuff sorted out before then. If I however have to believe the article I think they are moving further away from having stuff sorted out.
Thing is what they’re saying they plan to do is just shift the release model. Its not that they dont want to release the stuff that one usually finds in an expansion, its just that instead of bundling everything together and release it all at once its being released gradually.
And so change there income / payment model, and so change / ‘improve the game-mechanics to fit this model’ and so might ending up making a game that is not as good as they would have had if they made money with the expansions.
What people like me here are talking about is that the way they release content is more then just the way they release content. And one may might be better for the game itself then the other.
translation = “we are making plenty of profit from the piecemeal selling of shinies to whales that we don’t actually need to produce new content”. Congrats, guys, for making this plan work for them.
So basically you are saying.. buying many gems is bad for the game?
Well then I must agree on this kryptonite effect.
..snip
My bottom line is. In both case they need to have people playing but with the expansion way they need to do that purely by having a good game while for the gem-store they also need to make people to really buy the gems and while doing that they might make the game worse in the progress (also resulting in not having people playing).
Btw it’s not totally the truth that they just need to have people playing. For the expansion part they just need to have people playing, for the gem-store focus they just need to have gem-buyers playing.
Sure but who are gem buyers? arent they just a subset of players? and what do they enjoy out of the game? For your statement to be true what they’d need to enjoy is buying stuff off the gem store without any particular love for the game itself. Do you really see that? What I am trying to say is buy putting stuff for sale and neglect the actual game play they’re not going to retain gem-buys any more then they’re not going to retain players who will never spent a single cent on gems. Which brings us back to square one. The first important thing they need to focus on for this to work is to have people playing the game regularly and thats not going to happen without making sure the game is fun for as many people as possible.
In a perfect word it would be true that they keep people happy and so those people are in the game and buy gems. But in this word there focus on the gem-store might backfire and if you look at the many complains this is not a theoretical chance but is it already happening. Many complains are about the gold-grind and the temporary content / items while both imho are a direct result of the gem-store focus. The gold-driven system makes it more rewarding to buy gems to transfer to gold and the temporary content is there to create a sense of urgency to get people to buy the temporary items involved with it and at the same time do the achievements.
An example of this you could have seen with many MMO’s in the past years, all run by people who believed to be very smart. They all went subscription-based and you could say the same about that system as you now say about a gem-store focus.. They need to keep people happy to have them stay.. But the reality is that they all failed as subscription based games (I can not name one subscription-based MMO in the last 6 years that is still subscription-based) and with that failing usually a big part of the support-team left and basically the whole game failed. While if they would have gone for a B2P game they might have been a huge (financial) success. But the focus on the money destroyed the game making the people behind it probably end up with less money they if they would have goon for another system.
(I was also active in the beta (and forums) of Rift saying they should not go for subscription-based and got the same sort of reactions as now get from you.. well guess what, it failed ans subscription-based and is now F2P of course the questions is, how many people will now still go play the game and how many would have still be playing if it was B2P? Sure they did make some nice money of it but it’s short-run money, the money for the long run they probably miss out on)
“they’d need to enjoy is buying stuff off the gem store without any particular love for the game itself.” but what if the stuff they buy will be the stuff you need to enjoy the game?
You see the many complains about the temporary items and the gold-driven system that I just talked about. So people don’t like that but gem-buyers don’t have that problem. They just buy gems and buy the items and other stuff they need. So it’s not true that you will be making both groups happy. (This is basically how F2P games work.. for 99% of those games it is.. if you are willing to buy items it’s fun to play else don’t bother with them)
And let me be clear.. The reason that I am here is pure selfish. I put a lot of work in creating a guild and also like to have a game that last multiple years (I am not one of those MMO hoppers) but the way they are now going seems to me to be the wrong way ending up in a boring or even failing game.
(edited by Devata.6589)
Living World takes one of the crappiest parts of Real Life — the fact that we often miss out on fun things due to other commitments — and puts it front and center as though it was a cool new feature.
The worst part of this with the living story is the rewards and achievements. Not only are players that are taking a break or are unable to play at the time missing out on story content, they are missing out on rewards and achievement points they will never be able to get. Looking back at GW1, the main thing you could ever permanently miss out on was a festival/event hat, and even those became attainable a bit before GW2’s release. Every special event would come back the next year, typically with some new content(and a new hat), but also restoring the old content. The only other items I recall being exclusive to a single event were Wintergreen Weapons, which like the hats, where later made attainable once again during the 2012 Wintersday event(and presumably all future years).
GW2’s list of now unattainable items is already longer than GW1’s. Molten weapon tickets, multiple food items, jetpacks, a mini, a tonic, and event a gear stat combo from just the F&F event alone. Tomorrow, two sets of dragon wings, Jade weapon tickets, another mini, more food, and a cooking recipe will be gone.
It’s true that many of these items are simply cosmetic and don’t have any impact on gameplay experience, aside from wanting something you know you will never be able to get. There are a few exceptions like the recipe, food, and stat combo, but the rest is just fun/cosmetic/fluff items. What does leave a lasting impact on gameplay is the lost achievement points. Starting this week, achievement points will be used to unlock rewards. Anyone not playing during a given living story step will permanently lose out an any associated achievement points. They are already falling behind the curve every day with daily achievements, so why push that even farther with temporary living story achievements? Are new players not already far enough behind with no chance at ever catching up to the veteran players?
New achievements can be a good addition to the game, but not when you only have weeks to get them before they are gone forever. It rushes existing players into doing everything right now, and away/future players from ever experiencing that achievement hunt.
I agree 100% Stop with temporary stuff, being it items, or achievements.
(btw I do except that the dragon-bash stuff will come back next year.)
And part of the reason for this tactic is imho the gem-store focus.. This is the part where I was talking about when I said that focus will imo make the game worse. Fact is that except for the achievement that seems to be to keep people playing, most of the items can easily be obtained with gold or gems and you can buy gold with gems.. yeah you can also buy gems with gold but without really farming for it not ad a high enough pace to obtain all those items.. Might be the reason they are now speeding it even more up.
So stop with the temporary stuff and stop with the gem-store focus but have a expansion focus. It would make me already very happy.
Sure there are many other thinks I would like to see differed like no instance based maps, traditional quest, in-game player housing, persistent WvW (franctions?), mounds, not a redefined list of mini’s, pets, mounts and a few more.. But at this moment
I think the temporary stuff is really damaging the game in an irreversible way by scaring people away that might never come back while the other thinks I dislike could be implemented in the future. Like with an expansion for example.
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Just look at this threat for proof, the main argument against the living story is people are afraid its not going to keep them interested in the game because they’re afraid there will not be any longer term engaging content like an expansion would have. I assume all those people who’ve been asking for an expansion do so because they want one and they’ll all happily buy one if its ever released. Yet their fear is the current release strategy will make them wanna stop playing in the long run. Making an expansion would be nearly sure money (obviously it still would need to be good enough) where as if they stick with the living story they need to have releases that are so good that they’d convince the skeptics that there is long term value in the game even without expansions.
Bottom line while they’ll obviously do what they can to insentivize people to buy stuff from the gem shop they also need to ensure people are happy playing the game and to do that they still have to make quality content even more so then an expansion most likely.
“Think about it, if you come back after say 5 months of not playing the game cause you were bored, would you spend any money on skins when you’re not sure if you’re going to be enjoying the game enough that you’ll keep playing in the longer term?” If they focus on expansions but the game gets boring fast they might still sell good for the first expansion but not anymore on the 2th. So also for expansion it is necessary to keep people happy if they want to keep on selling expansions.
And they indeed now try to keep people playing with the living story because else they do not buy stuff but I already see the problems with the gem-store focus. Gold-driven system and all the temporary stuff is not fun and bad for the game while the reason for it seems to be the gem-store focus so yeah they need to try and keep people busy but they also need to try to get those people to buy gems and you can already see the negative side of that.
My bottom line is. In both case they need to have people playing but with the expansion way they need to do that purely by having a good game while for the gem-store they also need to make people to really buy the gems and while doing that they might make the game worse in the progress (also resulting in not having people playing).
Btw it’s not totally the truth that they just need to have people playing. For the expansion part they just need to have people playing, for the gem-store focus they just need to have gem-buyers playing.
(edited by Devata.6589)
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Oh brother. Do you know why the hearts were added? To keep people at the places where dynamic events spawn. That’s it. They’re a relatively late addition to the game and were never meant to be the meat of the game. That’s why most hearts can be finished by doing dynamic events in those areas.
There are 301 hearts in this game and over 1500 dynamic events. And events are more satisfying to most people than the static quests in most games.
Not to mention the fact that most games only ship with about 500 quests and no personal story. There’s so much more content here then most MMOs, and you bring up the 300 hearts?
If you grind the hearts, or force yourself to do them, they’ll definitely feel like a grind. If you just go through areas doing events, most of the hearts will be mostly filled in, and then you can finish them off at your leisure.
snip
There are only X number of quest types, no matter what game you’re playing. Kill, capture, defend, gather make up 99% of quests in all games.
The difference in Guild Wars 2 is you don’t have to walk up to someone, get information, read a wall of text (most of which are terrible or routine), go out and get stuff and then go back to the guy for a dubious reward. You do some stuff, whatever it is, it all counts to unlocking the heart, getting you karma, you can then talk to each heart vendor and buy what you want, or skip it if you want.
And there’s no number in most of these quests. It’s not kill ten centaurs…it’s breaking their morale and driving them off. This may be a subtle different to some, but it makes a world of difference to others…including me.
snip
Well I say 75% you say 99% anyway then there is still that 1% and thats missing here where the design philosophy (thats what we are taking about here right) what to only have that those sort of events.
“And there’s no number in most of these quests. It’s not kill ten centaurs…it’s breaking their morale and driving them off.” Really????
You do understand that thats also just based on a number? Sure you don’t see the number and it changes depending on the number of people but it is still just kill x of this. You could do exactly the same in traditional quest.. ‘breaking their morale’ and then don’t give a number but a bar. You say it’s a subtle different but in reality it’s no difference at all.And let me also stat that I do not hate events.. Now it’s not really like you say that they make a difference.. thats yet another thing of the Design Philosophy make a difference and change the world.. like you describe but the reality now is that I complete an event, scare away the centaurs and when I walk by that place 10 min later centaurs are ruling it because 5 min after I left the event spawned again.
But I do not have anything against hearths, events or whatsoever. The question was the Design Philosophy then and the result now.
They then said the events would be less of a grind and more of a world changing event / story whatever..
But now the events feel like a grind and I miss the quest with a story.. The 1% quest you refer to when you see 99% are of this type.
I do not ask them to remove the events.. I would ask them to make them really have an impact on the world.. Let centaurs attack a map and if we defeat them they will be gone for at least a month,, if we lose they will be there for at least a month and the events or quest or whatever then also changes in that time.
Such events should also result in a good reward else people would not bother and the bad guys would be ruling Tyria.Furthermore, the number isn’t a constant like it is in most MMOs. It changes. It goes up as people show up and down as people leave. It adjusts on the fly. I’m actually amazed you can’t see just how advantageous this is and what a huge improvement to the MMO scene. You can bet a lot more games moving forward will use this (for good reason).
GW2 was not the first to use it. I did already see it in Rift and like I said I do not dislike events I do miss the quest especially because the events and hearths are all short grind ‘events’ while quest have the possibility to go more in depth. When releasing the game Anet acted like if it was the other way around.. Events would be no grind while all quest where grinds.
Quoting you “Furthermore, the number isn’t a constant like it is in most MMOs. It changes. It goes up as people show up and down as people leave.” quoting me from the comment before that “Sure you don’t see the number and it changes depending on the number of people”
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Oh brother. Do you know why the hearts were added? To keep people at the places where dynamic events spawn. That’s it. They’re a relatively late addition to the game and were never meant to be the meat of the game. That’s why most hearts can be finished by doing dynamic events in those areas.
There are 301 hearts in this game and over 1500 dynamic events. And events are more satisfying to most people than the static quests in most games.
Not to mention the fact that most games only ship with about 500 quests and no personal story. There’s so much more content here then most MMOs, and you bring up the 300 hearts?
If you grind the hearts, or force yourself to do them, they’ll definitely feel like a grind. If you just go through areas doing events, most of the hearts will be mostly filled in, and then you can finish them off at your leisure.
I was talking about the hearths and the events at the same time. Maybe that was not very clear but both the hearths and the events are similar in the way that it is kill this or research that. The mean difference is that hearths are always there while events just spawn. Both have a relative short ‘story’ and are not to be compared to some of the traditional quest we know from other MMO’s. And like I said.. yes 75% of the quest in those games are also like that but then there are also some really nice quest with a nice story.
If they would ever come with an expansion I would hope they would also reintroduce traditional quest again.
There are only X number of quest types, no matter what game you’re playing. Kill, capture, defend, gather make up 99% of quests in all games.
The difference in Guild Wars 2 is you don’t have to walk up to someone, get information, read a wall of text (most of which are terrible or routine), go out and get stuff and then go back to the guy for a dubious reward. You do some stuff, whatever it is, it all counts to unlocking the heart, getting you karma, you can then talk to each heart vendor and buy what you want, or skip it if you want.
And there’s no number in most of these quests. It’s not kill ten centaurs…it’s breaking their morale and driving them off. This may be a subtle different to some, but it makes a world of difference to others…including me.
Normally in most games, when you kill ten centaurs, there are still more centaurs right there. In Guild Wars 2, at least in most DEs, if the centaurs are attacking they get driven off. The the ogre quest with the harpies, if you defeat the harpies, a different creature inhabits the pond, until the harpies come back. Sure they come back. We’ve always known DEs would be cyclic, but it’s still a lot better than the old quest system for a whole lot of people.
Well I say 75% you say 99% anyway then there is still that 1% and thats missing here where the design philosophy (thats what we are taking about here right) what to only have that those sort of events.
“And there’s no number in most of these quests. It’s not kill ten centaurs…it’s breaking their morale and driving them off.” Really????
You do understand that thats also just based on a number? Sure you don’t see the number and it changes depending on the number of people but it is still just kill x of this. You could do exactly the same in traditional quest.. ‘breaking their morale’ and then don’t give a number but a bar. You say it’s a subtle different but in reality it’s no difference at all.
And let me also stat that I do not hate events.. Now it’s not really like you say that they make a difference.. thats yet another thing of the Design Philosophy make a difference and change the world.. like you describe but the reality now is that I complete an event, scare away the centaurs and when I walk by that place 10 min later centaurs are ruling it because 5 min after I left the event spawned again.
But I do not have anything against hearths, events or whatsoever. The question was the Design Philosophy then and the result now.
They then said the events would be less of a grind and more of a world changing event / story whatever..
But now the events feel like a grind and I miss the quest with a story.. The 1% quest you refer to when you see 99% are of this type.
I do not ask them to remove the events.. I would ask them to make them really have an impact on the world.. Let centaurs attack a map and if we defeat them they will be gone for at least a month,, if we lose they will be there for at least a month and the events or quest or whatever then also changes in that time.
Such events should also result in a good reward else people would not bother and the bad guys would be ruling Tyria.
I can also remember how they said the events would be more fun then the traditional quest because many of those quest where just kill x of that find x of that.
Back then I already did not like the idea that traditional quest would be gone as they make for a bound with the world.
But if you look at the hearts now they are all that sort of ‘quest’. The small farm quest basically. MMO’s thet had quest would indeed have about 75% of such quest but they would also have real fun interesting quest with a nice story and so on. I really mis that in GW2 and the hearths all feel like a grind.. kill x this, heal x that, research x of that and find x of that.
Oh brother. Do you know why the hearts were added? To keep people at the places where dynamic events spawn. That’s it. They’re a relatively late addition to the game and were never meant to be the meat of the game. That’s why most hearts can be finished by doing dynamic events in those areas.
There are 301 hearts in this game and over 1500 dynamic events. And events are more satisfying to most people than the static quests in most games.
Not to mention the fact that most games only ship with about 500 quests and no personal story. There’s so much more content here then most MMOs, and you bring up the 300 hearts?
If you grind the hearts, or force yourself to do them, they’ll definitely feel like a grind. If you just go through areas doing events, most of the hearts will be mostly filled in, and then you can finish them off at your leisure.
I was talking about the hearths and the events at the same time. Maybe that was not very clear but both the hearths and the events are similar in the way that it is kill this or research that. The main difference is that hearths are always there while events just spawn. Both have a relative short ‘story’ and are not to be compared to some of the traditional quest we know from other MMO’s. And like I said.. yes 75% of those traditional quest in those games are also like that but then there are also some really nice quest with a nice story that lets you ‘befriend’ the quest-giver, send you all over the world and so on.
If they would ever come with an expansion I would hope they would also reintroduce traditional quest again.
I did not force myself to do the hearths but to level the alts I now do not really have another choice then forcing myself to do them. Because me not forcing myself to do them resulted in a lot of low level alts.
About the personal story.. If I wanted to play a single-player game I would go for a single player game. I still need to force myself to complete 3 personal story’s. So far I have yet to complete one. But I do not complain about the personal story.. I guess some people will like it and it does not really bother me that it’s there. Aldo I think the name is totally wrong.. It’s the least personal story part of the whole game.. “My personal story” in an MMO is whatever I do in the game.. not a scripted single-player (with multiple paths) story I do.
(edited by Devata.6589)
You know the problem with housing in any mmo is what purpose does it serve the player?
If you want an example of how kittening useless housing is just take no further look than EQ2. It’s a literal dollhouse simulator and that’s not including the guild halls.
But they only serve limited functions and to be honest it’s more of just a juxtapose for skills you don’t have at all times.Hell all the players are just shiftless hobos because no one actually lives in a house and, this is important, has no reason to do so.
After having left the EQ2 housing experience, i’d rather not be a homeowner unless I felt the need to spend more than a lifetime adjusting brick a brack while my rl house remains a mess.
“You know the problem with housing in any mmo is what purpose does it serve the player?” Fun, and building something something up. ‘leveling’ it. Going into the PvE world to collect materials for it.. You know like nearly all non-lethal things in RPGMMO’s do like mini’s and skins and mounts.
Anyway, I would still go for the open world housing. The Archeage system is the best housing system I have ever seen in an MMO.
I can also remember how they said the events would be more fun then the traditional quest because many of those quest where just kill x of that find x of that.
Back then I already did not like the idea that traditional quest would be gone as they make for a bound with the world.
But if you look at the hearts now they are all that sort of ‘quest’. The small farm quest basically. MMO’s thet had quest would indeed have about 75% of such quest but they would also have real fun interesting quest with a nice story and so on. I really mis that in GW2 and the hearths all feel like a grind.. kill x this, heal x that, research x of that and find x of that.
I think what people want is a coherent LONG story campaign with expansive contents, and not these tiny updates with massive grinds built into it.
They are trying to compare these “episodic release” as TV shows, well too bad none of the current content has any quality climax to make people wanting to see the next thing. There isn’t any real goal. Who are we fighting now? Some pirates? GIVE people a purpose in your storyline, and not some random weird out of nowhere bs.
This. So much this.
Personally, I wouldn’t really care whether content is delivered as an expansion or in smaller living story style increments, if the end result was a coherent storyline with challenges that made sense and affected the state of the in-character world.
So far, the living story hasn’t achieved that. I’ve enjoyed each individual piece, but taken together there’s no coherent larger narrative emerging. Flame & Frost came closest, but then suddenly it was on to the next unrelated thing with no real resolution of the broader hows and whys.
The GW1 campaigns had that driving narrative, as did the GW2 personal story… and I miss it.
I’m still having fun, but I’d be having more fun if I had the sense of an unfolding story rather than just semi-random story parts being tacked together with little exposition and then disappearing again.
Even if it turns out that all these chapters are interrelated, there’s still a lack of forward narrative motion at the time to provide the epic adventure feel I’d like the story to have.
I look at is from an financial point of view. Would it be a bad idea to not bring big expansions but build on the game with a story that adds content (it does not really do that not as most is temporary, but ok) one by one in a nice story. So not a whole new race from one day to the next but an ongoing story.
Yeah that idea by itself is not bad.. And if this would have been an non-commercial company I would say, go for it.
But it is an commercial and they need to make money, one way or the other. Using the living story means they will need to make money with the gem-store and that means the story will become commercials for new gem-store items including with a lot of other bad decisions purely based on the idea ‘how do we get people to buy gems’.
And I personally think… and already see in the game, that that way of thinking is not good for the game.. If they would focus on expansions then there question was not “how do we get people to buy gems” but “how do we get people to buy the expansion” and I think the answer to that second question results in a much better game then the answer to the first question.
Just to clarify a bit, as Mike said there are numerous teams beyond our Living World teams, and some of them are working on much longer term projects which we’ll go into details on much further down the road.
It’s entirely possible some of the types of content which you might traditionally find in expansions would be released through an expansion in the future for Gw2, and it’s possible we’d try something different when it comes to integrating those type of releases.
We have no final plans one way or another about expansions at this time, and certainly haven’t ruled them out, it’s something we’ll discuss more in the future.
Edited to add: Our primary focus right now is on making the core Gw2 experience as strong and compelling as possible, we’ll release a blog post later this month detailing more specifically our plans for Gw2 in the second half of 2013.
“And it’s possible we’d try something different when it comes to integrating those type of releases.” But maybe some of us don’t want it in another way simply because if it’s not done as an expansion it means you need to focus on the gem-store and a focus on the gem-store is bad for the game.
Like the gold-driven system, temporary available items, making sure farming mats is not possible and so on.
“some of them are working on much longer term projects which we’ll go into details on much further down the road. …. We have no final plans one way or another about expansions at this time”
So thats very bad as it means that there will not be any expansion soon and the way to make money will be the gem-store focus.
“Our primary focus right now is on making the core Gw2 experience as strong and compelling as possible”
And you do not do that with the gem-store focus I was telling about but no expansion means gem-store focus. It;s the one or the other. You guys are not working for nothing aren’t you?You seem to forget that a substantiate number of your customers when for this game because it was B2P. And those that where interested in GW2 for that reason also had reasons not to go for a subscription based game and for a F2P game… Where the most likely reason not to go for a F2P game would be the cash-shop focus. And that does not just mean B2W it also means all those thinks we have lately see in GW2. The gem-store has les and les become an optional thing and more and more really a part of the game but even worse, game mechanics are designed around it trying to get people to buy from it but those same mechanics are bad for the game.
Just come with good expansion, make some money on that and then you can leave the focus on the gem-store and stop building game mechanics around that but build game-mechanics around having a good game. Then again if there are no plant at this moment it might already be to late.
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I am pretty sure I already said it was not B2W (so cosmetic) but that that is not the whole problem. A focus on the gemstore in this case also meant temporary stuff (nothing more then a marketing technique) and stuff like the gold-driven mechanics. Many of the complains you see on this forum can be indirectly linked to there focus on the gem-store and there would be no need for that focus (on this level) if they would focus on expansions in stead. That was the whole point.
That like saying gaming is money focus though its a “truthism.” Even in P2P games the game makers would have items you could buy with real life money to “enhance” your game by looks or others. So i am not sure if you have a point at all your in the end simply saying Anet is putting out this game for money and yes they are and should be that how our system works and should work.
It’s not the fact that they try to make money with the game. It’s a company, what do you expect. And it’s also not the problem that they have items they sell and they make some money with.
The problem is that when they decide to make money with the gem-store in stead of with expansions (and thats what they seem to be talking about here) is that a lot of focus go’s to the gem-store and we already saw that for a couple mounts. That focus however means there are doing things with the game now with the intention to make the game better but with the intention to get people to buy stuff from the gem-store. (think, gold-driven system, temporary items, events and so on) and in the progress they make the game worse. While if the focus is on making money with expansion they will try to make a good expansion (so a good / better game) so people will buy that expansion.
Making money is no problem at all but doing it with a gem-store focus is bad for the game while doing it with an expansions focus is much better for the game.
Free? Lol, nothing is free and as there is no expansion on it’s way we might expect even more gem-store focus what is kinda bad for the game imho.
Wow, someone makes a funny post and you still feel the need to come into it and turn it into a crusade against the gem store. I don’t see why every thread as to contain the same complaint.
Surely this isn’t what this thread is about.
On topic: If you’ve seen pictures, you’d know Anet had quite the food supply, including a cereal bar in their offices.
And then you complain about that. Thats how it go’s. Just clarifying thats it’s not free.
It is free but we all must pay a price for flaw in our charters if you cant help your self but to buy every thing you see then that something YOU must deal with not a business.
Now that Kill joy is out of the way.. They have been asking for a
I’d force the dev team to implement the sandwichmancer profession, and then spend the rest of the money making it really imbalanced so I can win the $$$ back in PvP tournaments.
They must be starving if they can only think of food as a new class!
I don’t feel the need to buy anything from the gem-store and I will not buy anything from it (that does not mean there are not items on there I would like to have)
Problem is more that because of the gem-store focus game mechanics change (gold-driver for example) and thats bad for the game.
However I just made my statement to clarify it’s not free. If you really want to talk about this I would suggest going to this topic: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/GW2-unlikely-to-get-expansions-Interview/page/6#post2351535
Then they can here go on with the funny thread.
Just to clarify a bit, as Mike said there are numerous teams beyond our Living World teams, and some of them are working on much longer term projects which we’ll go into details on much further down the road.
It’s entirely possible some of the types of content which you might traditionally find in expansions would be released through an expansion in the future for Gw2, and it’s possible we’d try something different when it comes to integrating those type of releases.
We have no final plans one way or another about expansions at this time, and certainly haven’t ruled them out, it’s something we’ll discuss more in the future.
Edited to add: Our primary focus right now is on making the core Gw2 experience as strong and compelling as possible, we’ll release a blog post later this month detailing more specifically our plans for Gw2 in the second half of 2013.
“And it’s possible we’d try something different when it comes to integrating those type of releases.” But maybe some of us don’t want it in another way simply because if it’s not done as an expansion it means you need to focus on the gem-store and a focus on the gem-store is bad for the game.
Like the gold-driven system, temporary available items, making sure farming mats is not possible and so on.
“some of them are working on much longer term projects which we’ll go into details on much further down the road. …. We have no final plans one way or another about expansions at this time”
So thats very bad as it means that there will not be any expansion soon and the way to make money will be the gem-store focus.
“Our primary focus right now is on making the core Gw2 experience as strong and compelling as possible”
And you do not do that with the gem-store focus I was telling about but no expansion means gem-store focus. It;s the one or the other. You guys are not working for nothing aren’t you?You seem to forget that a substantiate number of your customers when for this game because it was B2P. And those that where interested in GW2 for that reason also had reasons not to go for a subscription based game and for a F2P game… Where the most likely reason not to go for a F2P game would be the cash-shop focus. And that does not just mean B2W it also means all those thinks we have lately see in GW2. The gem-store has les and les become an optional thing and more and more really a part of the game but even worse, game mechanics are designed around it trying to get people to buy from it but those same mechanics are bad for the game.
Just come with good expansion, make some money on that and then you can leave the focus on the gem-store and stop building game mechanics around that but build game-mechanics around having a good game. Then again if there are no plant at this moment it might already be to late.
The gemstore is entirely cosmetic, you don’t have to buy anything, no one does. Some people do, that’s great. While I may not like that some skins are rng dependent, it seems people do as you see enough people buying them, even though a lot also post in threads to complain about them. In a way, that kind of means they are focusing on the game, as people wouldn’t make purchases on a game they’re completely unhappy with, so it is in Arena Nets best interest to focus on the game with cosmetic cash shop incentives.
I am pretty sure I already said it was not B2W (so cosmetic) but that that is not the whole problem. A focus on the gemstore in this case also meant temporary stuff (nothing more then a marketing technique) and stuff like the gold-driven mechanics. Many of the complains you see on this forum can be indirectly linked to there focus on the gem-store and there would be no need for that focus (on this level) if they would focus on expansions in stead. That was the whole point.
Free? Lol, nothing is free and as there is no expansion on it’s way we might expect even more gem-store focus what is kinda bad for the game imho.
Wow, someone makes a funny post and you still feel the need to come into it and turn it into a crusade against the gem store. I don’t see why every thread as to contain the same complaint.
Surely this isn’t what this thread is about.
On topic: If you’ve seen pictures, you’d know Anet had quite the food supply, including a cereal bar in their offices.
And then you complain about that. Thats how it go’s. Just clarifying thats it’s not free.
It’s still B2P.
2/10 for the effort.
Special for people like you I did put something behind it between ( ).
But then still you don’t get it apparently.
2/10 for the effort.
Then:
B2P game (focus on box-sales)
Now
F2P game? (focus on gem-store)
Free? Lol, nothing is free and as there is no expansion on it’s way we might expect even more gem-store focus what is kinda bad for the game imho.
Basically. content like dungeons (and other really good stuff) should stay in and all achivements and skins, mini’s, items should stay available to get for as long as the game exist. Then all the problems surrounding temporary content are gone.
Just to clarify a bit, as Mike said there are numerous teams beyond our Living World teams, and some of them are working on much longer term projects which we’ll go into details on much further down the road.
It’s entirely possible some of the types of content which you might traditionally find in expansions would be released through an expansion in the future for Gw2, and it’s possible we’d try something different when it comes to integrating those type of releases.
We have no final plans one way or another about expansions at this time, and certainly haven’t ruled them out, it’s something we’ll discuss more in the future.
Edited to add: Our primary focus right now is on making the core Gw2 experience as strong and compelling as possible, we’ll release a blog post later this month detailing more specifically our plans for Gw2 in the second half of 2013.
“And it’s possible we’d try something different when it comes to integrating those type of releases.” But maybe some of us don’t want it in another way simply because if it’s not done as an expansion it means you need to focus on the gem-store and a focus on the gem-store is bad for the game.
Like the gold-driven system, temporary available items, making sure farming mats is not possible and so on.
“some of them are working on much longer term projects which we’ll go into details on much further down the road. …. We have no final plans one way or another about expansions at this time”
So thats very bad as it means that there will not be any expansion soon and the way to make money will be the gem-store focus.
“Our primary focus right now is on making the core Gw2 experience as strong and compelling as possible”
And you do not do that with the gem-store focus I was telling about but no expansion means gem-store focus. It;s the one or the other. You guys are not working for nothing aren’t you?
You seem to forget that a substantiate number of your customers when for this game because it was B2P. And those that where interested in GW2 for that reason also had reasons not to go for a subscription based game and for a F2P game… Where the most likely reason not to go for a F2P game would be the cash-shop focus. And that does not just mean B2W it also means all those thinks we have lately see in GW2. The gem-store has les and les become an optional thing and more and more really a part of the game but even worse, game mechanics are designed around it trying to get people to buy from it but those same mechanics are bad for the game.
Just come with good expansion, make some money on that and then you can leave the focus on the gem-store and stop building game mechanics around that but build game-mechanics around having a good game. Then again if there are no plant at this moment it might already be to late.
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I do not see why it has to be “build around it”. Archeage is not build around that idea but has it and it seems to be working great. You get a much more lively always changing world. That what Anet tries to achieve in GW2.
Okay… Lets say suddenly GW2 has open world player housing.
A quick googling reveals estimates of 40,000 accounts on average per server. Many of these accounts are inactive certainly, but do you take away inactive players’ houses? Are houses something you have to earn, or does every player get them? A little more googling suggests a server might be “full” at 15,000 online players. Most servers are at least medium-capacity most of the time, so we’ll call this 20,000 players playing regularly, and lets say half of them having housing.
Where in the game world do you put 10,000 houses? The Guild Wars 2 world is very big, but it’s still on a scale much, much smaller than the real world. If you place them in existing zones, then no matter where you go, you’ll be fighting harpies, minotaurs and the risen dead on someone’s front lawn.
Conversely, if you create new “housing zones”, they’ll basically be massive empty spaces with nothing but player houses—and you still need space on the map for them. Lets say each city has its own housing zone. Each one has to house about 1,700 houses.
Space isn’t the only problem, either. The mood and user experience are a big issue too. Instanced housing and instanced storylines make the player feel unique. Though you know that everyone else in the world also commands the pact, you don’t see it. Living in a slum alongside thousands of other players, though, is humbling. It’s a much more “down to earth” feel, and that’s just not what Guild Wars 2 is about.
Basically, yes. Open world housing isn’t something you can just slap on.
To answer your questions. You would mainly work with new maps.. Like I said before I would like to see them putting some spots available in the already existing maps just to get more people there. Maybe only for guilds halls.
But when implementing housing yeah indeed it would be mainly in new maps and those maps are designed around housing. Some farm area’s with some open terrain where you can build the house.
You need to earn it but basically everybody should be able to get a least a small house and then upgrade it later. Inactivity would indeed mean you would lose it.. well material can be mailed to you. It should not be destroyed but you basically lose your spot.
The number of space might be a bid of a problem mainly because maps are instance based but I still think it should be possible. Maps will be pretty empty.. maybe some forest area and when you place a house that part gets cut down. You would be building city’s.
But to really give an answer about the scale I would need exact numbers and I don’t have them so I can’t give them.. But in the end it comes down to.. x people means you need x meter of building spots is about x maps design around this idea. And if other MMO’s can do that then why would GW2 not be able to do it.
You see , the thing is, I prefer if it is really part of the game. I now like WvW but what I do not like about it is that it really is like a separate game. It is not really part of the world. If we capture something is does not really change what ‘we’ own and after a week it gets reseted. The more you put in instances the more GW2 PvE becomes a hub you are in just to go to all the other games. It’s not one big world.. and thats what I expect from an MMORPG.
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No thats not how you do housing. It’s instance based so very boring.
Housing should happen in the open world.Open world housing is one of those things that’s a great ideal to strive for… but in actuality is completely impractical unless you design an entire game around it.
Instanced housing can be good fun though. Phantasy Star Universe did it okay, with crafting boss drops into giant multiple-piece decorations that people would see when they came to your shop.
Either way, I’d get used to it, since as of next week, they’re finally starting to add to home instances (a quartz node.) They wouldn’t make you go there every day for quartz if they didn’t plan on adding more.
I do not see why it has to be “build around it”. Archeage is not build around that idea but has it and it seems to be working great. You get a much more lively always changing world. That what Anet tries to achieve in GW2.
Why are you so exited about this Pixelpumpkin?
You basically want to ‘claim’ a house in the open world.. Well then you should be much more exited about the idea of open world housing in stead of instance based housing with a door you can place anywhere…
Like I showed in the other thread (https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/Housing-7/first#post2340982) you linked to this one:
This would be fun.
Instance housing is kinda boring.. I agree if you would have instance based housing this idea is better then having one portal or one button to take you to your house but in the end it will still be instance based housing.I can’t overstate how much I don’t want to be walking through Queensdale, or Plains of Ashford and seeing ramshackle huts, cabins, or other randomly-placed abodes. They might as well let Coka Cola go in and smear their advertisement feces all over the landscape. Seriously, could you imagine seeing some odd-looking building rammed into the side of a hill, awkwardly placed in the middle of a corn field, or right next to a centaur camp that has no purpose other than to stroke some idiot’s ego? The game would become a graveyard full of monuments to the vanity of the unwashed masses.
TL;DR
No, it would be ugly.
Thats not the way it works (see second video). In the maps there are specific terrains where you can buy some ground to put a house on. For the current maps there would not be a lot of places to have such places.. still I would suggest trying to have some places in all existing maps just to get people coming back there. but most of it should be in new maps.
So what you are saying “seeing ramshackle huts, cabins, or other randomly-placed abodes.” is not possible. It can’t be places everywhere randomly and so it will not be ugly. Please first watch the movie before you leave a reaction like this because now I have to explain why you are wrong while it’s already in the video.
I can’t overstate how much I don’t want to be walking through Queensdale, or Plains of Ashford and seeing ramshackle huts, cabins, or other randomly-placed abodes. They might as well let Coka Cola go in and smear their advertisement feces all over the landscape. Seriously, could you imagine seeing some odd-looking building rammed into the side of a hill, awkwardly placed in the middle of a corn field, or right next to a centaur camp that has no purpose other than to stroke some idiot’s ego? The game would become a graveyard full of monuments to the vanity of the unwashed masses.
TL;DR
No, it would be ugly.
Agreed. Instanced housing > open-world housing. And “stroking some idiot’s ego” could be applied to commander tags as well (plenty of bad commanders out there), but I digress. In my experience, LOTRO has the best player-housing experience thus far.
So with that the reaction of Reisinger is also based on false premises.
And about the ‘eletionist’ argument. Then we can also remove all legendary’s or other hard to get stuff.
The instance based still works in that similar way and there is nothing wrong wit it. If somebody is proud of something he wants to show it to other people. Has nothing to do with eletionist.
Besides that, if people place the building it will be a much more lifelike world. Wasn’t that exactly what ArenaNet said it was aiming for. If you would walk in a ‘city area’ a new house may have come or an old one is gone. Somebody painted his house in another color or planted a new tree. It would change all the time. Much more a lively place.
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