Guild Wars 2

I’ve been advocating adding new tiers to existing trait-lines for sub-classes. What if you unlocked up to tier 3 (current Grandmaster) in each trait line normally, like you do now, but tiers 4 (40 points in) and 5 (50 points) had to be unlocked via class quests?

DiogoSilva.7089:

Let’s keep things simple

Subclass Traiting System

• Expand the number of traitlines available to each profession.
• Make most of the traitlines (and each of their respective tiers) collectible through levels, quests, tome collection and boss hunting.
• Give an unique subclass flavor to each traitline (already happens to a certain extent). This also implies a redesign of the current traitlines and different trait allocation.
• Have each traitline offer traits that more deeply affect weapon’s skills, core profession mechanic skills and the profession as a whole.

This would basically be an expansion of the current trait system, with a stronger subclass flavor.

If anyone believes my proposal would be worse than the current system we have in place, please, I’d love to hear your thoughts.*

1) Expand the number of traitlines available to each profession.
I disagree with this. I think we just need to add on to existing trait-lines, and make each trait-line more focused and powerful. (kinda like what you said about weapon skills)

2) Make most of the traitlines (and each of their respective tiers) collectible through levels, quests, tome collection and boss hunting.
Not a bat idea, but it would require quite a lot of new content (which costs money to produce)

3) I agree with your last two bullet-points.

DiogoSilva.7089:

I think it’s too late for dual classing now, but we could always get dual subclassing.

EDIT:
And that would simply work based on my many-pages-old concept: each subclass = each traitline. Instead of having 5 restricting and broad traitlines, we could get X (more than 5) trait lines (which would be less restricting) with more specialized effects (which would be less broad).

I think this suggestion a great way sub-classes could potentially fit into the existing system.

Duel sub-classing is such a cool idea! To make this work there would need to be at least 2 new tiers in each trait-line. i.e. You can put 50 points in one trait-line and 20 in another, 35 points in both, or whatever.

This way they wouldn’t have to make up too many new traits, and this might also help with class balancing because our choices are more restricted.

EDIT: I keep going on about “balance” whenever I mention sub-classes. I don’t think classes are tooo imbalanced as they are, but I want every class to have multiple viable builds.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

In short I would like to see if the CDI group thinks subclasses are a relevant part of Horizontal Progression at this stage of GW2’s life?

Chris

I’m for sub-classes if they can be used to balance PvE, but I would rather have new skills than unlockable sub-classes because they’re more fun.
That said… I think we should wait to discuss sub-classes until the PvE Balance CDI. Better yet, give them their own topic because sub-classes affect players of all game-modes, including those who aren’t participating in the current discussion.

Looking at this made me want to log in and play my Guardian again. Then I remembered what stacking was…

Hmm… maybe I’ll still log in sometime and learn Arah.

One of the devs mentioned achievement grind in a CDI. He didn’t say much, but at least they’re aware of the problem.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Finnway.2183:
This summarizes how I feel about achievements in the living story.

I think there should be less achievements (like 5-6) for the meta, and have a separate achievement category for doing LS dailies to earn a bi-weekly chest (just of like dailies and monthlies). This way, players who like to grind will still be rewarded, and players who only have 5 hours to spend can still complete the meta.

I agree with this also. We are certainly trying to improve with our achievements in terms of activities, time requirements and rewards. I feel that we have been making good progress but we aren’t quite there yet. Soon though.

Chris

Behellagh.1468:

Finnway,

Those numbers you are quoting are income numbers in millions of South Korean Won. That’s roughly $150 million USD in 2012 and $80 million USD in 2013 and that includes game and gem sales. ANet announced the 3 million number mid Jan 2013 and 3.5 million at the one year anniversary in the end of August.

Alright, thanks for the clarification.

Well, I double checked those numbers and you can download the financial reports here: http://www.ncsoft.net/global/ir/earnings.aspx

According to the financial reports, Guild Wars 2 sold 256,000 copies since Sept 2012. That doesn’t add up in any way with the statement below (from GW2’s wikipedia page)

As reported by NCsoft and ArenaNet, by September 13 (about 2 weeks after launch), despite temporarily halting first-party sales, the game has sold over 2 million copies. By January 2013, over 3 million copies of the game have been sold. By August 2013 the sales have shifted 3.5 million copies.

Maybe a dev can step in a clarify things *cough *cough

HiddenNick.7206:

Finnway.2183:

Because exploring new areas while leveling was one of the best experiences I have had while playing Guild Wars 2.

The problem is that the maps are going to be level 80 areas and you’re not going to level up in them.

Umm…. emphasis on exploring? I enjoyed map completion too…

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Ok, cool…so they sold ~3.2 million copies by the time the game had been live for just over 1 month. Sounds like a cool record. I wonder why they don’t publicize that.

Because games like Call of Duty sell 7 million copies in one week.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Doesn’t sound right that GW2 sold only 90,000 copies in all of 2013. Maybe in a quarter, but for the whole year? Of course, a Q3 report would not even have sales for the whole year. I imagine they did well over the holidays.

2013 Q1 = 36,382
2013 Q2 = 28,899
2013 Q3 = 24,481

They sold 120,000 copies last year during Q4. Since the game launched last year I doubt it will do as well this year, but we shall see.

So how did you counter it?

Colin Johanson’s smile made the hackers rethink their decision :P

It still hasn’t reached 4.0 million. As of their Q3 report Guild Wars 2 had only sold 90,000 copies in 2013.
According to wikipedia, Guild Wars 2 is the 25th highest selling PC game of all time. That may sound really good, but Guild Wars 1 is the 11th highest (6.5 million copies sold).

It stands for “Collaborative Development Initiative,” but this answer is pretty accurate too.

It stands for ‘Public Relations’

Some of the CDI’s have been beneficial though. I think some of the things from the Living Story and Commander Tag discussions will get implemented.

The purpose of the bi-weekly patches is to draw players back to the game every two weeks. That, and the new skins added every patch which are added to RNG BL chests afterward, means that Yes, Living Story is working as intended.

As for the “Story” aspect of it —The Living Story is no different than patches in other MMO’s. ArenaNet is the GM; and they’re continuing to evolve our RP adventure. They may talk about how it’s a “living, changing world” but in reality it’s exactly the same.

Because exploring new areas while leveling was one of the best experiences I have had while playing Guild Wars 2.

Here is my top 3.

1) New skills. New skills are fun to use. I’d like to see 20-40 new skills for each class.

2) Skin Locker. Please make monetizing skins as convenient for the consumer as possible.

3) Reputation/Faction rewards with the Order you joined. It’d be nice if Orders mattered. This could even be tied into the housing system.

Evogrin.6027:

Well if we’re talking about PvP balance, ranger is in a really good place in tpvp….

Careful… off-topic sirens whirl

Gizmo.9178:

I noticed that many players prefer to win as fast as possible by zerging bosses, using exploits in dungeons, and only allowing certain builds/gear(whether you enjoy them or not) in order to complete instances as fast as they can.

I like to win as fast as possible… but I’m not so hardcore that I discriminate against other players. I agree with the general spirit of your post that this playstyle (yours not mine) is when GW2 is at its best. I wish there was more rewards associated with this playstyle (such as more Karma skins for completing events).

Gold sink. Taking crafting mats out of the economy.

@OP: Am I excited for the Q1 2014? Yes. But I am also skeptical. If the extra weeks taken off make a difference then I will be pleasantly surprised. I hope the update is at least on par with Tower of Nightmares.
Am I excited for the rest of 2014? No. I’ll be excited when they give us a preview of what their plans are.

Zoltreez.6435:

I gived up on this game today

classes are broken and the game is not going forward content wise.

I know how you feel because I’m at a similar place. But in ArenaNet’s defense I believe Tower of Nightmares was the best Living Story series to-date.

sonicwhip.9052:

Excited for 2014 because of Wildstar and Everquest Next(Landmark).

I’m hoping to get back into Diablo 3 when the expansion comes out. But ArenaNet will being me back if they put out good content updates.

DiogoSilva.7089:

cesmode.4257:

However, I dont think this line of thought belongs in this thread. Its more of a balance thing than horizontal progression.

Or, to stir the pot…how can horizontal progression attempt to fix some of the balance issues or build diversity issues the game has?

Balance is very important to make horizontal progression meaningful, be it either to validate more builds and gear stats, or to create challenging content that demands skill and not zerk-spam from players to beat it and get their cosmetic rewards. However, I do agree that this topic should be discussed in depth in its own thread. I hope Chris considers making a CDI about this someday, one that revolves around balance, combat systems and pve encounter design, and how they all tied to each other.

Encounter design and balancing aside, horizontal progression can be a vehicle or work as an excuse for Anet to revamp some of the game’s current character progressions systems, not only to improve their progression potential, but to fix existing issues in the meantime.

I just want to say I VERY MUCH agree with both Diogo’s and Cesmode’s points in this conversation. Also, I agree with Diogo that game balance needs to be addressed in order for more Horizontal progression in the form of skills to be meaningful. If PvE is still about “stacking” and “auto-attacking” than they might as well not bother.

Also, Diago, I believe the next PvE CDI topic after progression is PvE Balance. Since we’re alternating PvE, WvW, and PvP topics, I’m not sure when that one will happen. It’s interesting how some of our discussions roll into other topics (i.e. we will probably still be talking about subclasses in the balance CDI, haha).

EDIT: I also agree with Cesmode’s point that this thread isn’t the place to discuss PvE balance in depth. Please don’t mis-interpret my post and think I’m trying to derail this thread.

Finn Felagund has arrived!

At first glance it may look like he is wearing T3 cultural armor, but it’s actually a mix of Caudecus’s Manor, T3 cultural, and Karma armor.

Here is my last inspirational image! Look familiar? It was the first response when I searched “Death Knight” in Google.

Here a couple name brainstorm ideas and another inspirational image:
-Barbarian
-Blackguard
-Demon Knight
-Dragoon
-Ravager
-Ritualist
-Vampyre

INTRODUCING: THE DRAGOON

LORE: Following the defeat of Zaightan, warriors have risen up to master the magical energies left in the wake of his body’s destruction.
Formed from soldiers who failed their Guardian training, the Dragoon’s unorthodox methods and strong emotions is what gives them the focus needed to master the overwhelming power of Dragon energy.

ETHIC: Chaotic Evil. Dragoon’s strong emotions are the only thing keeping their bodies from exploding with Dragon magic.

GAMEPLAY: The Dragoon uses the energy of Dragon magic to corrupt their opponents. They place debuffs on their opponents while simultaneously buffing themselves. They can remove these buffs in a powerful explosion to buff their allies, buff themselves, or unleash a devastating attack. The only thing holding this power in check the Dragoon himself.

WEAPONS: Dragoons are not as skilled as Warriors or Guardians. Their main strength is their ability to focus on their most powerful emotion in order to suppress the Dragon corruption within them. To compensate for their lack of skill Dragoons wear heavy armor and wield slow, lethal weapons.
MAIN HAND:
-Axe.
-Mace.
-Pistol.

OFF-HAND
-Axe.
-Sword.
-Focus.
-Warhorn

TWO-HAND
-Longbow.
-Staff.

DiogoSilva.7089:

HORIZONTAL PROGRESSION
Horizontal progression can be a great substitute to vertical progression, because it does not (directly) invalidate past progression made by the player, allowing the player to continuously grow without wasting their effort in the past. In fact, this is a problem that could probably be toned down in current vertical progression systems as well.

THE FLAWS IN GW2’s MECHANICS FOR HORIZONTAL PROGRESSION

• They are generally under-developed;
• They aren’t as “visible” as they should;
• They aren’t as “tangible” as they should;

You might ask: what does Diogo means with the “visible” and “tangible” words?

I understand as “visible” any system where the progression can be easily identified or easily followed by the player:

• Gear stats are “visible” (vertical) progression because a player can look at them and directly compare to exotics or other previously equipped items and understand that they have made a progression.
• Achievements are “visible” because they have an entire UI dedicated to them, with bars that can be filled, points and stats that can be increased, a leaderboard system dedicated to them, and a section for long-term chest rewards and unlocked privileges.

So, why is GW2 lacking “visible” horizontal progression?

• Cosmetic progression is “visible” only when the items are equipped to your character. Skin collecting, however, is not a “visible” system – its progression can’t be easily followed by the player. When a skin is transmuted, the old skin disappears. When a skin is not used, it is usually wasting bank slot, which incentives the player to salvage it. When a new skin is obtained, it’s usually used for salvaging purposes or is immediately sold at the TP. No player feels that they are progressing this way.

Solutions to the problem, and other ideas to improve upon it:

• A Skin Wardrobe, where players can visualize all the skins they have collected, and work for long-term goals determined by the UI, like filling the wardrobe, filling completion bars and increasing points (probably through achievements), and gaining rewards out of that.
• Make unlocked collectible recipes and unlocked collectible dyes account-bound.
• A Hall of Monuments map. Even though the achievement system is already “visible” through the UI, it would be even more satisfying if it was “visible” within the world itself, with an incomplete statue of our own character that we would need to complete, several statues for the most important achievements, a collection the models for all mini pets and skins unlocked, etc.

This is a really great post in general. It also raises an important point: other games that have successfully monetized cosmetics give you virtually unlimited space to store your skins, and you don’t lose skins when you changing appearance.
Adding a PvE locker would add depth to the game, and create a cool “gotta collect ’em all” element. ArenaNet really has no excuse because the UI/model already exists, and they would still make money from Transmutation Crystals.

Tyops.5894:

When I first heard of the skill system for GW2 (as an avid GW1 player) I never imagined that it would be so static. For instance, I fully expected that although swords would come with 3 skills, that there would be more than 3 “sword” skills with multiple types of swords with different skill combos to be found. I expected some swords would be more offensive and others more defensive.

For example:

• Bonetti’s rapier: (1) Auto attack, (2) Riposte, (3) Bonetti’s defence.
• Gladius: (1) Auto attack, (2) Gash, (3) Hamstring.

Introducing skill variety within weapons could be a great way to introduce build diversity. This seems very long term.

I like your suggestion, but I just want to point out build diversity doesn’t matter when PvE doesn’t require you to have a good build to begin with. I think they should find ways to raise PvE difficulty in addition to adding a plethora of new skills.

Tyops.5894:

I truly believe that horizontal progression is at odds with and hindered by ANet’s monetization strategy. Many of the services offered to players in the cash shop should simply have been quality of life improvements added to the game, to players costed in gold rather than gems, and at a much lower price.

I like this idea. Players can always convert gems into gold, so it does not remove that aspect of it for players who want to pay. If nothing else, it will change players perceptions of the Gem-Shop.

Chris

Sorry to sound dumb- but what does “horizontal character progression” entail?

^^ It would be very helpful if you included a definition of “Horizontal Progression” in the OP. Asking a basic question never hurts either. i.e. “What is one of your favorite examples of Horizontal Progression from another game?”

WAAAHOOOOO!!!! It finally started.

• I would like to have 20-40 new skills for each class. Each class already has 40-60 skills counting weapons, so that would be 80-100 total skills to choose from. I think this would be a fun, TCG-esque system.

• To help accomplish this, I would like PvE skills to be separate from WvW/PvP. This would allow us to go crazy with our builds, and you would still have WvW to help players transition to the PvP skill-set. I don’t think this would cause balance problems because certain skills are already more useful than others; such as reflects, condition-removal, and Warrior’s banners.

• In order to do this, PvE difficulty needs to be raised. ArenaNet has been making progress on this but the game still isn’t there yet. Currently in PvE, it feels like your build doesn’t matter because content is easy, and hence any new skills added would seem somewhat pointless.

TL;DR:
(1) Rollout 20-40 new skills for each class.
(2) Separate PvE from PvP/WvW so these skills can be as fun as possible.
(3) Make PvE more challenging so our build choices matter.

EDIT: As an afterthought, I think the most challenging aspect of this suggestion is,“How does everyone unlock the new skills.” Every character already has loads of extra skill points so you would unlock the new skills instantly. Does anyone have any Thoughts/Suggestions on this?

LittleLepton.8915:

This thread makes me very sad. To see how community members treat each other… shakes head

Totally agree you with.

Shockwave.1230:

If you really wanted to make the game pay to win, you could pay someone to play the game for you!

Game over

That’s called power leveling and it was a legitimate problem in WoW. Gold farmers are basically the same thing. Some poor sap is sitting at a computer all day in a 3rd world country making less than $1 a day farming gold.

Skills 1-5 are locked to a weapon. To switch out skills 1-5 you have to equip a different weapon. Once you reach level 6 or 7 ( don’t remember which) you will unlock additional skills you can equip on hotkeys 6-9. Those can be switched out any time.

No idea about the pistols.

Well, the whole idea of an MMO is you can never win.
That said, in GW2 you can convert Gems to gold and gold can buy almost anything, and that’s why people say it is P2W.
I don’t consider it P2W, but I am frustrated that most progression in this game revolves around gold farming or converting gems into gold.

Just continue to play the game and read tutorials. Once you’re level 10 you will have a basic grasp of all the mechanics. If you have any questions then feel free to come back an post, but a lot of your questions can only really be answered by playing the game a little more. For now just:

• Read tutorial pop-ups
• Have fun
• Look for Heart-Quests and Events
• Don’t fight enemies over your level

I want a complete overhaul of racial elite skills, and I want them tied to a new comprehensive marriage system, which is also tied to a comprehensive housing system.

By completing nifty challenges with a character they will unlock “genetic traits” that they will pass on when they breed. At any point you can choose to “marry” two of your character and their “genetic traits” determines the racial skills available to their child.
As you complete challenges you also unlock decorations for your house —so your house is kind of like a “great hall” measuring the accomplishments of your dynasty.

You can either delete a character to make room for another, or ArenaNet will give everyone a free “dynasty character slot” for one character that you bred between two other characters.

I think this would open up a lot of unique new racial skills such as a cross between Hounds of Balthazar and Bear form. Imagine playing a Charr character with Human/Norn ancestors that can transform into an Bears of Balthazar Uber Charr!

A lot of people might think that this system would allow you to create OP combo’s (such as merging the intellect of an Asura with the brawn of a Norn) but I don’t think so. Plus, I think it would be fun. It would be like Sims meets GW2, and the housing system would allow you to record the accomplishments of your dynasty! I think this would go a long way towards truly making Tyria a Living World!!!

EDIT: In all seriousness, I’m just a little impatient for the actual CDI to get started, but Chris said he is having a busy day, so I shall wait.

^^ Where did you get the idea they’re releasing a new zone in 2014? I’d like a link to that. Unless you count the new WvW map as a new zone (personally, I don’t).

No, it’s not —but because most of end-game revolves around gold, and gold can be bought with Gems, it feels like the whole game is designed around the Gem-shop. Either you have to pay $10 a month on Gems or farm gold in order to progress.

Flash.6912:

It’s probably like this:

- Precursors Crafting
– New Legendaries ( Weapons + Trinkets)
– New PvP modes
– Guild Halls/ GvG
– New World vs World map
– World Bosses revamp & upgrading rewards
– New Fractals/Rewards
– PvP Legendaries
– New Living Stories Arc
– More Gem Store items

I think everything on this list is all pretty likely, if not already confirmed. The only thing I disagree with is another Wold Boss revamp. A few things you forgot to mention:

- Fractals Leaderboards
- New ways to obtain Ascended Armor + Weapons (instead of just crafting)

I’ve wondered this too. In addition to their reflection on 2013 they are doing on Twitch I would like a detailed post, at some point, on what their goals are in 2014 kinda like they did for the latter half of 2013. I can wait till the LS resumes in January, if need be.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Hi All,

This is my last day at work before the holiday season and I am going to be very busy!

Meanwhile I have a question. This thread is BIG. Would the folks who have already commented on Horizontal want a new thread which is just based on Horizontal or should we just carry on with this thread?

Chris

Hi Chris,

I’m for starting a new thread. If we don’t, players who join this thread a week late won’t even know we already covered vertical progression and moved on to horizontal. Even though some players will have to repost their thoughts, I think it’s better to do their opinions justice in a new thread then to leave them buried behind 39 pages.

Sirendor.1394:

Mungrul.9358:

The idea is that the material you craft the gear with doesn’t affect stats at all; rather it determines what the gear looks like. It means more work for the art team, yes, but when it comes down to it, one of the biggest complaints about crafted gear is the restricted set of appearances.

Aha. I think I see where you are going. For example heavy armour can have ‘berserker’ inscription: reflects itself in heavy armour with a typical look for a berserker? A heavy helm with horn for example. Carrion could look a little gloomy. Cleric could have some glow or other, or a particularly ‘elegant’ look.

I had an idea similar to this, but I said Ascended skins should be based on the way you obtain it rather than it’s stats (assuming you could buy it with account-bound currencies, such as Badges of Honor). I think that would add prestige to Ascended armor because it’s like saying “Hey… that guy is good at WvW” or “That guy is good at Dungeons” or whatever.

This is copied from a reddit thread. I don’t PvP, so I hope it helps.

Guardian

• Standard Shout Bunker: WvW players know this build as Healway but I’ve always just hear of this build just as Bunker Guardian. With a large amount of team support, sustain, and control this is an easy pick for most teams. The weapon is actually mostly up to preference. Scepter/Shield, Mace/Focus, and Greatsword are all typical choices. Learning how to pace your survival skills are a large part of this build.

• AH DPS | AH Bunker: Altruistic Healing is a weird trait in tPvP. PvE and WvW players know this trait very well with its ability to help you survive during absurd situations. In tPvP it can be very weak if you have no allies around but in team situations you have incredible sustain and can risk being very aggressive. Can work well with Hammer and Greatsword if you prefer just shift some major traits.

• Meditation DPS | Variant: The basic build is X/30/30/X/X with 10 points where you prefer. I personally like 0/30/30/5/5 because the boons it gives you are incredibly powerful. Meditations give you a decent amount of sustain and give Guardian the opportunity to play very aggressive. The Greatsword can be swapped with Scepter/Focus if you prefer. Off hand on Sword is also up to preference usually Focus or Shield.

I think if they added a new heavy class it would be a “black knight” like a Dragon-Knight, or Blood-Knight or something. I guess those would be a like a cross between Elementalist/Warrior or Necromancer/Warrior respectively.

^^ A moderator (not a dev) moved your post to the subforum where it was relevant. A lot of people in general discussion don’t give two kittens about Rangers. Not to mention you’re not the only class that feels they’re imbalanced.

For what it is worth though: You’re right, there is an ArenaNet conspiracy against you because you’re the only person who realizes that Warriors are overpowered. ArenaNet wants to silence you because they all play Warriors and if their class gets nerfed they’ll feel bad about themselves because they can’t play anymore.

^^ You should learn to detect sarcasm. Zelda isn’t P2W either (it’s a single player game). I gave the OP a reply which I felt had as much validity as his statement “ArenaNet hates Rangers.”

g e o.2589:

I don’t see the point in 3rd paragraph, do warriors P2W? nah they just get all good skills for free

Oh? Warriors get skills for free and Rangers don’t? I thought all skills had to be bought with skill-points…

ArenaNet likes Warriors because the class name begins with a “w,” which stand for “winning.” Ranger begins with an “r” which stand for… well, you can probably guess what it stand for because you’re smart.

Also, In classic DnD ArenaNet (the whole company) was always afraid to play as the ranger because they got scared if they weren’t playing a heavy armor class, hence they don’t truly understand the class archetype.

ArenaNet was also founded by former Blizzard employees, and, as everyone knows, Blizzard ONLY makes P2W games like Stacraft.
ArenaNet was also originally named “TriForge” —a reference to the TriForce from The Legend of Zelda series, and as everyone knows Zelda is also a pay to win game.

The Lost Witch.7601:

I’m saying I don’t want to obtain Ascended gear these ways (the ways I crossed out). I if Ascended gear is too common it’s not as significant when you get it. In your list, you want to make it as common as Karma, lol.

Haha, fair point, but let’s look at it from another perspective:

If a quest is super epic, like I don’t know… killing an Elder dragon, should it be fitting that you get merely an exotic weapon which skin you will probably not even transmute? On the other hand, it could offer an ascended weapon which at the very least, will be valuable for it’s stats. (Even if the skin is something terrible – which, being subjective – is likely to be the case for many players)

The thing is …quests like that don’t exist in GW2. The ones that do are called “meta events” and people run them on a daily basis. You can’t have people earning ascended weapons on a daily basis.

Well if they start coming in from daily bouncy chests… I’ll remember your ‘common as karma’ and shake my head.

Lol :P

The one thing from your list I’m still unsure about is Mystic Forge skins. Now that Ascended weapons are out do you think weapon skins crafted in the Mystic Forge should be Ascended? A lot of them cost 150+ gold to craft.

The fact is hardcore gamers, even if they are more hostile, are more skilled then soft-core players and they stay around longer. Softcore players might play for a year and then leave. Hardcore usually stay around longer and hence help to build up the game’s community (which every online game needs to succeed),