Guild Wars 2

Daywolf.2630:

Actually I do have an idea of the statistics. Few report, but some have over the years.

Whatever, I have seen some reports too and they indicate different things. In fact it’s been on the rise and that’s why cash shops started making their way into other MMOs with subs.

Daywolf.2630:

No, GW1 is not an mmo. But then they call about everything an mmo these days, better for marketing propaganda. The only thing massively-multi was in essence a 3D lobby.

I gave my reasons for it. I don’t care if it’s an MMO or not. It’s just semantics. Reality was that people were playing it as if it was an MMO. I put almost 7000 hours in it and so did many more. That’s good enough reason for me. GW1 didn’t have a lobby, there were lots of lobbies, not just one. There were lobbies all over the world if you want to use that term.

1. Don’t think so. Either people will be able to get it very quickly and moan that they need the next level or it will have time gating again which will kitten em off again.

2. Some mind, some don’t. It depends on the person. Some people don’t care about endgame at all and they might be ok with it. Some will want to get the max tier just to feel complete (not because they need the stats so much) It will depend on how easy it is for casuals to get.

I also think that if the skins were to finally look awesome then that would tick a lot of people off who don’t think they can get etc etc.

Really there are a number of factors involved. People who want progression won’t last unless Anet is willing to take the next step and then you quickly get into the zone where gear differences become even bigger.

I am already expecting there to be messages in LA: LFM for X dungeon, only ascended gear!

So I guess it will be relatively easy to get or time gated or both. It’s not going to have a big satisfaction factor in any case.

Desthin Sinkropht.4123:

You wanted more numbers? You got:
Ascended gear.

Well, the game’s out a year and we got a few time gated trinkets. That does not make a full set of gear yet. So for the people who want gear progression it’s too little too late if you ask me. It certainly was for me.

Desthin Sinkropht.4123:

You wanted to remove gear grind? You got:
Time Gated Crafting, ensuring that the vast majority of players can easily keep up.
Long periods between gear releases, ensuring that even the most casual player can have the gear with minimal effort.
Farming Events Where the casual player can join in the living story to get enough materials to cover just about anything

There is still gear grind. Just because it looks different doesn’t make it a good thing.

Time gating is crap. It’s completely artificial and all it does is slow people down who have more time to play. A known side effect are the people who log in just to do their daily and log out again. Wonderful idea.

Farming events yes. You know the solution to grind is not introducing grind and then make it dead easy to do so. That gets old real fast.

Oh and I leveled a toon to 80 in a couple of weeks and had enough karma and gold to instantly fully equip my character in exotic gear top to bottom, with the addition of an ascended amulet. On the same day I turned 80 I could afford this. No need to do anything, it was already done before turning 80.

It’s so kitten easy it makes it pointless. I quit because I was done. I finished my toon. I didn’t have a reason for any dungeons because none of the heavy armour options for dungeon gear is appealing to me….so there it was. I was all done. I thought of leveling an alt but couldn’t be bothered. Already had 40 gold spare and over 100k karma and my alt is level 11….I mean c’mon.

It’s so easy it’s become completely pointless.

That’s not a good thing in my book.

darkdomino.9578:

Free2play, buy2play, whatever the hip kids wanna call it these days… I’m not big on jargon or acronyms.

All I know is that GW2 is not a subscription-based MMO, and that’s the distinction you should take away from my statement.

I’m not saying GW2 should go subscription-based, in fact, I’m pretty staunchly against that. It’s one of the reasons why I like GW2 so much. However, I’m curious to know if the model that GW2 is using to take in money is truly taking in money. If it is, I’m curious to know why we haven’t seen any significant content updates almost a year into release.

Well, and there you have a clear point. I am sure GW2 is doing well enough to survive and continue in it’s current path but I don’t believe one second that this B2P model made them enough money to do more than just that.

Maybe if they do well in China can they afford bigger things but chances are that even if they make more money they won’t do bigger things unless they have to. They’d rather take the money and tell you it’s all as intended.

GW2 had an extremely good start and there’s no denying that, but by now I think it’s all settled down quite a bit and I think they are doing well enough for their purposes, but not more. I just look at new games that are planned to come out in the next year and I see don’t see any B2P in there so far, even within NcSoft. That tells me enough really.

Think about it. If every big MMO title became B2P from now on, people would have no reason to be loyal to any game anymore and just hop around like crazy. Where would they spend their money? It’d be a battle of the cash shops rather than the games. Not sure if that would be a good development really.

At the moment I think starting with subs and adding f2p options later if needed is a better way to go. People can choose their plan and play as they want.

Lunar Sunset.8742:

Zeldain.5710:

Lunar Sunset.8742:

I think they are doing really well, there are many people who have bought well over just the standard box price in gems. Multiply that by a thousands and you got $$$$. Good way to do business, making more money than those p2p games.

Hehe, no they aren’t.

Oh look, someone who works at Anets financial department. Send over their financial statements so I can have a look see.

Perhaps you could clarify where you got your numbers from before pointing the finger at him? What did you say? Ohhhh you made them up…I see.

I’ll believe the other guy, thank you very much.

http://www.gamefront.com/guild-wars-2-level-cap-raise-confirmed-for-future/

They did mention that they are also going to raise the level cap at some point, but no idea when that might happen. I think it won’t happen till people had a chance to get ascended gear together. Of course if they do raise the level cap to 90 or whatever, the gearing up will start all over again. I doubt that the ascended gear will be raised from 80 to 90. In fact I even wonder if legendary weapons will be upgraded to level 90. That’ll be a touchy subject when it comes to that.

But I wouldn’t expect it for at least another year.

Chewablesleeptablet.3185:

I believe Anet wants a finite number of employees to stay in budget.

Every company wants that. There’s always a budget but I do think that because of the business model of GW2 they are more limited in what they can do.

Grim.3487:

I can’t help to think that just the numbers only tell half of the story. It seem to me that I am not the only one who just logs on to do the dailies, and then log off again.

I wish I found it as interesting as I did on release, but I can’t shake the feeling that everything is just grinding for the sake of grinding. And the living story feels like something you speed through just to get a few extra achievement points, but to what end?

Well and here’s the thing. If you quickly solo your dailies and log off again, you are no benefit to other players and if you spend no cash in the gemstore, you are also little use to Anet. No rudeness intended, it just is what it is.

I tried the game again for a few weeks and stopped again after not even 3 weeks. Why? Well I leveled my toon to 80, got full exotic gear right away. Ran around circles in Orr for a few evenings to get that new greatsword (Crystal guardian) and I was done. I logged in again but didn’t know what I was doing it for. My character was pretty much done the day it turned 80 and just grinding dailies for more ascended trinkets (got one right away) for the sake of getting them, didn’t seem interesting anymore. Am I now an active player again? I can guarantee you I didn’t spend a dime on the gemstore.

It’s things like that, that make it hard to determine player numbers really…

Daywolf.2630:

darkdomino.9578:

People often hold up GW2’s free2play model as one of the best/fairest in the industry… is the model working?

No, because this isn’t f2p, it’s b2p. So it can’t be working with the model since it wasn’t used.

In f2p’s, generally 95-98% of players never spend a dime. B2P, everyone pays up front, thus it is not “free”. Reminds me of people that used to insist GW1 is/was an mmo.

For someone who’s being very specific about him calling this f2p while he obviously meant b2p, you certainly take a big liberty with freestyling some numbers here.

You have no idea how many players spend money in f2p’s.

And GW1 can be considered an MMO in my view. I don’t really care if it is or not, but the truth is that the only thing it missed by the standard definition of an MMO is a persistent world. Well, since most MMOs have a persistent world for leveling that is pretty much devoid of players after a few months of release and instead everybody is stuck in dungeons or raids or whatever type of instance, I don’t really see that difference as a very significant one.

Just keep practicing in front of the mirror and one day you will be able to do it too.

Chicho Gosho.6507:

I think GW2 changed the face of MMOs and i’m glad it did. About the finanial part ANet said they’re doing fine and they don’t need an expansion to continue so i’ll trust them on that.

And pray, do tell, how did GW2 do that? Because even NcSoft’s own next game Wildstar will have a sub structure in it and FF is doing sub only. I see some games that are coming out with smaller skill bars but hey….that was GW1.

So I really have no clue what you mean when you say it changed the face of MMOs. GW2 is different, but that’s about it. I don’t think it changed much in the general land of MMOs.

Forbin Project.1759:

Vayne.8563:

The Quarterly report from NcSoft, which is a publicly held company, shows that Guild Wars 2 is doing fine.

You can trust what NcSoft reports on how well one of their games is doing right up to the weekly conference call on a Friday when they tell you not to come in on Monday because everyone is fired and the servers will be shut down in three months.

Well actually the report doesn’t show that GW2 is doing fine. They said with the report that GW2 is stabilising but sales were still down as per the report. If you look at the report than you see that from the last quarter of 2012 to the first quarter of 2013 sales dropped by more than 70% and from Q1 to Q2 it dropped again by around 20% between those two quarters.

If indeed it’s stabilising in the mean time that is good news for the fans here, but to say “the game is doing fine as shown in the report”, well that doesn’t sound like a fair conclusion from the numbers in the report I would say.

Reality is that since we don’t know what their break even point is, it remains speculation how bad it really is or if it’s that bad from their point of view at all. I mean all MMOs have a massive dip after the initial sales but what I do read in those numbers is that the financial model of B2P doesn’t seem to fare much better than other MMOs. And for me that is the most interesting conclusion: with all of its bravado and innovation it doesn’t seem to break from the mold from that side of things.

Did they get their investment back? I think so. Are they running a profit today? Again I think so but the margins are down of course. Is this game so innovate or refreshing that it broke the problem all MMOs suffered since WoW (big initial sales, mass exodus, settle with a good enough amount of people to continue as a more humble title).

It appears that GW2 might be around for a while yet but not as the big mold breaker that changed the face of MMOs it perhaps wanted to be. Key for the fans is that the game is profitable enough to stay alive. That should be possible I think. We’ll see if China gives them a big boost or if it’s going to deflate again after a few months.

I really am curious if Chinese players would like a game with no significant endgame. I just really don’t know.

Elothar.4382:

Really, in summary, the earnings statement referenced by Vayne and Gehenna are readily available for different time periods. For those interested in such things, check them out.

For more in depth analysis, financial institution associations publish key metrics by industry such as profit margins, earnings per share, etc. These are also helpful in determining how well or poorly a company is doing compared to its competition and the industry at large.

One thing that we are not likely to see on the financial statements are numbers related to actual players. Others more knowledgeable than I in this area likely can comment better on how the game is doing in terms of players.

For the company the key is of course financial. If they had 2 people play who spent 10 million per month on it, it would stay open. Not realistic but the point is that for the company the key element is how much money is coming in compared to the costs involved.

For players the key thing is getting a full experience, which includes other players being there. So indirectly the is affects the income because the more people play, the more income they generate and if servers start feeling empty it might cause more people to quit.

Player numbers are difficult to calculate however. At which point do you count a player as active? If they log in once a week for half an hour? I don’t know. There are no subs to keep track of.

So that’s where concurrency comes in. As long as there are enough people online at the same time, specifically on prime time (evenings mostly) then the game will generally be experienced as a healthy population. So that’s more interesting for me to know than an awkward calculation on how many active players there are. In a game without subs that’s not really the most interesting.

So we got the peak of last year (over 460k) but not a clue what happened since then. It’s not something game devs comment on a lot in general.

But considering the sales figures that are known, the 460k was from a time when sales were 4 times higher than they are now. I don’t think that it means that there are only 115k concurrent players as some of the people who bought the last game are still playing, but it’s not unconceivable that the numbers lay around 200-250k. But really I just don’t know.

As long as it’s enough players for the players themselves and the income is high enough for Anet/NcSoft, the game will continue just fine. If GW2 loses more players in the coming year then it might get tough, but it all depends on what the break even point is for Anet and I certainly don’t claim to know that.

There are threads here of people complaining of empty leveling zones and a lfg tool is in the make I saw. That’s usually an indication that people are having more difficulty finding other players to play with. Of course not the people in bigger guilds as they have their guild but I have this feeling that a lot of people just pug around a lot.

So yeh it’s important to get more new players in as you always lose players. Time will tell if their current approach works for the longer term. I think 2014 can be a telling year for Anet. Will the game do well in China and what happens here in the mean time. We have the 1 year celebration, that usually is a reason for people to log in and have a look. So is the current slow growth just something of the moment or more structural? No idea, it could go both ways quite easily.

Pacifica.9576:

Gehenna.3625:

Here is the link to the actual interview: http://www.zam.com/story.html?story=32955&storypage=2

Page 2 speaks of the expansion point.

They asked him if LS replaces expansions and he said yes in a general sense. He did not however say that there never will be an expansion.

Right, I read that part, but my point is that while he uses southsun cove as an example, southsun itself isnt worthy of being called an expansion zone. It is a great zone, but I don’t think, for example, the crystal desert or far shiverpeaks could be added in one update like this. Would they split up these larger areas into a zone per release? How would they add something like Orr- a lair of a dragon, in an update?

I don’t work for Anet, so I have no idea how they want to do it, but they are not necessarily looking into adding new zones necessarily so the answer may be that they are not going to do that at all. But again, I wouldn’t know, I am only saying that the OP is not correct in his conclusion.

Here is the link to the actual interview: http://www.zam.com/story.html?story=32955&storypage=2

Page 2 speaks of the expansion point.

They asked him if LS replaces expansions and he said yes in a general sense. He did not however say that there never will be an expansion.

Vayne.8563:

Gehenna.3625:

Vayne.8563:

Gehenna.3625:

The financial reports shows that Last year GW2 made a lot of money and in the first two quarters of 2013 sales are down dramatically, like 70% down…Also the second quarter was down from the first quarter again. So the financial reports actually show that the game is going down financially in the first half of this year. In that sense GW2 has followed the same trend as other MMOs.

Anet/NcSoft have also said that by now the game is stabilising and slowly growing again. So the game is not dying but financially I don’t think they’re exactly sitting on roses either.

So my assessment is that it’s doing ok. Not great, not horrible, but ok.

Except that game sales aren’t what the game is supporting itself on and NcSoft hasn’t said how much the cash shop has made.

I suspect the cash shop more than compensates for game sales.

Sales are sales, not just box sales. There is no point in them to do these reports for their investors if they exclude cash shop sales. It’s rather odd that you keep insisting cash shop sales are excluded from this. That makes absolutely no sense.

It’s called an earnings report by the way and for comparison Lineage 2 is in there as well and that’s free to play. How would you account for those sale numbers then?

Okay I’m not sure. I remember reading something…but it may have been that they didn’t separate out the cash shop from sales. It’s entirely possible I’m misremembering what I read.

No problem. Mind you, with all of that I am not saying GW2 is dying. They still make sales and every MMO goes through this cycle. They have slow player growth again and that’s always a good sign. As long as the game does well enough to keep it going, I am sure a good number of people will be happy and I am not so bitter that I want GW2 to die. I am happy for the people who like it if keeps going for a long time.

Vayne.8563:

TooBz.3065:

Arguing with Vayne is always a lost cause. I’ve never seen him even concede to other point of view, change his mind about anything, or admit that someone else may have a point. Save your fingers.

Actually, I can probably dig up and show you posts where I’ve admitted someone was right, and changed my opinion,. but I doubt you’d pay any attention to that.

Of course, that would make your comments above a direct lie.

Lie is a strong word of course….

If he had said you never conceded to another point of view it might be a lie….but what he actually said is that he’s never seen you concede to a point. So it may not make his comment a lie…. he might’ve just missed it or even forgotten about it if he did see it. Just a thought.

Vayne.8563:

The problem is, if they change this game so you like it, I’d probably not like it. lol

Hahaha, you are so right in that. In that sense it is true that a game developer can never win.

DusK.3849:

I’m all for new content. It just shouldn’t be implemented in a way that makes all other content completely irrelevant. LS has been treading dangerously close to doing that (Crown Pavilion, invasion meta-events), especially with this latest release. It’s a very delicate balancing act, but I feel it can get done right without compromising the concepts that make Guild Wars 2 what it is and what makes it different from the rest.

Most of what I see as suggestions basically boil down to “let’s bring WoW’s endgame over to GW2” which not only does exactly that (makes previous content irrelevant), but flies in the face of everything that we’ve been told GW2 wouldn’t be at least two years before it was even released.

Too many people picked up this game without learning about it first, and made assumptions on what it would offer simply because it said “MMO” on the box. Complaining that there’s no gear treadmill-esque “endgame” akin to other MMOs is really no different than picking up a copy of Street Fighter IV and claiming it’s not a “real” fighting game because there’s no 8-way run.

Bring in more dungeons, or more areas, hey that’s great. Just don’t make it so that everyone’s funneled into them to the point where nobody’s doing anything else anymore.

leveling zones are already mostly irrelevant and funneling is what Anet does best at the moment. Some people still love it. My guess is that Anet is actually not capable of doing more because of existing restrictions in their resource management. Some people think that GW2 has sold so well that they have loads of money to throw at continued development. I think differently. They lack the tools and people to do it, that’s my guess.

Manoa.5897:

Gehenna.3625:

Manoa.5897:

“23,470,844 Caravans Destroyed in World vs. World.”

No, you’re doing it wrong.

23+ million caravans destroyed and 3.5 million copies sold = less than 7 caravans destroyed per player account in a full year.

That’s massive stuff, right? Did you kill your 7 caravans yet this year?

That assumes that all 3.5 million accounts have played WvW, which nowhere near reality. Considering the vast majority of the playerbase does not WvW, calculating yak kills on a per account basis skews the average HEAVILY downward. A better gauge would be to see the average kills/WvWer basis rather than on a kills/account basis (sadly, we do not have any stats on how many accounts actually WvW to calculate that average).

I was just showing how easy it is to manipulate numbers. It wasn’t a serious calculation, and I take Anet’s calculations in the same way.

Vayne.8563:

Gehenna.3625:

The financial reports shows that Last year GW2 made a lot of money and in the first two quarters of 2013 sales are down dramatically, like 70% down…Also the second quarter was down from the first quarter again. So the financial reports actually show that the game is going down financially in the first half of this year. In that sense GW2 has followed the same trend as other MMOs.

Anet/NcSoft have also said that by now the game is stabilising and slowly growing again. So the game is not dying but financially I don’t think they’re exactly sitting on roses either.

So my assessment is that it’s doing ok. Not great, not horrible, but ok.

Except that game sales aren’t what the game is supporting itself on and NcSoft hasn’t said how much the cash shop has made.

I suspect the cash shop more than compensates for game sales.

Sales are sales, not just box sales. There is no point in them to do these reports for their investors if they exclude cash shop sales. It’s rather odd that you keep insisting cash shop sales are excluded from this. That makes absolutely no sense.

It’s called an earnings report by the way and for comparison Lineage 2 is in there as well and that’s free to play. How would you account for those sale numbers then?

The Master.2893:

Vayne.8563:

The Master.2893:

Vayne.8563:

The Quarterly report from NcSoft, which is a publicly held company, shows that Guild Wars 2 is doing fine.

“Fine” is an understatement:)

If their reports are even close to accurate then GW2 is bailing out the rest of the company right not. NCSOFT without GW2 would be losing money otherwise.

Which is good for us at least…

Indeed it is so…

I don’t want to overstate things. I think it’s doing well personally, but in reality, sales of the box have slowed. So I say it’s doing fine.

In reality I think that as time progresses, this game is going to pick up a lot of speed. When it releases in China it’ll be doing a lot better than fine. lol

Okay I got the numbers to end this debate (Q2 2013):

Q2 2013 PDF File (use download link) page 4-5

(Numbers in Million Korean Won)

Operating Profit: 62,248
All Game Sales: 192,014
GW2 Sales: 84,791, up from 66,038 last Quarter

Costs of GW2 are not directly provided in this presentation.

…No matter: Which means without GW2 NCSOFT would be going bankrupt right now. Yes this game is here to stay Blizzard!

Indeed it is so…

Reading is a skill. So is knowing the difference between light and dark blue….You actually quoted the numbers for LINEAGE 1 and not GW2….GW2 is barely bigger than Aion at the moment.

The actual numbers for GW2 are 36,382 and then 28,899 so they are going down and nowhere near the Lineage 1 numbers.

bigtime.7410:

3.5 millions times $60

They paid for development, a nice profit, and sever fees for the next 100 years. They dont need revenue, they’ve already been paid. Anything more is just pure greed, and by the looks of it, sacrificed a good IP for extra bucks. They’ve blew it with this game, Im not touching another product thats associated with any of these companies.

lol, you’re funny. Aside from the fact that Anet doesn’t get that 60 bucks because of intermediaries and taxes, you clearly have no idea how much it costs to build and maintain an MMO. If they closed the gemstore today I don’t think the game would last very long at all before they had to pull the plug on it.

marnick.4305:

People are talking. Obviously it works.

I never said it didn’t.

marnick.4305:

The lack of context can be easily interpreted by anyone with a brain.

Perhaps you overestimate mankind here. If as you say this type of marketing works, then clearly the opposite is happening.

I don’t think most people see the context and I don’t think just having a brain is enough. This is why marketing works, because people are easy to trick. It happens to the best of us really.

DusK.3849:

First off, I’m sick of that word. The concept of an “endgame” is stupid.

More importantly: You’ve stated what you don’t like. That’s fair. So where are the suggestions? Simply saying “revamp the content and make the game zergless” is terribly vague.

Well a single player game is done when you complete the campaign. MMOs go on after that.

So what would you call content for when you’ve reached max level and finished the campaign?

You want to do the same stuff over and over again or would you want different activities?

See, no matter what you call it, endgame or max level content or whatever…the point of an MMO is that you can play together with people on a long term basis.

If there is nothing new once you hit max level, then most people will get bored on a relatively short term. That is a bit counterproductive for an MMO.

The financial reports shows that Last year GW2 made a lot of money and in the first two quarters of 2013 sales are down dramatically, like 70% down…Also the second quarter was down from the first quarter again. So the financial reports actually show that the game is going down financially in the first half of this year. In that sense GW2 has followed the same trend as other MMOs.

Anet/NcSoft have also said that by now the game is stabilising and slowly growing again. So the game is not dying but financially I don’t think they’re exactly sitting on roses either.

So my assessment is that it’s doing ok. Not great, not horrible, but ok.

skullmount.1758:

Aww man. This sucks if its true. He was one of the devs that was pretty consistent at posting on the forums and answering questions.

Vol.5241:

Why are we jumping to the conclusion that they fired a bunch of employees? Maybe they are actually expanding job positions and hiring more people to keep up with the ridiculous demands of the playerbase?

Isn’t that what people here wanted? Hire more devs to fix bugs and such? Hire more artists to update and create more skins in the game?

Well the did post on twitter that they are hiring:

ArenaNet ?@ArenaNet 18h

ArenaNet is hiring! Positions are listed on our site, incl. server programming, localization & more: http://www.arena.net/ #gamejobs ^RB

maybe they are continually hiring to keep up with the people leaving…it does make you wonder. Well, it makes me wonder in any case.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

snipped for length

As much as I might agree with your individual assessments (and I largely do agree), I am not convinced that we represent a majority of players here.

Why do I think that?

Well, most players who left and think this game is crap are not posting here. Just a few like myself who still have an interest in the discussions. Also most people who are positive about the game do not post here, they are playing the game.

So as much as I know that I would need some changes for me to play this game again, I do not presume that I am part of some majority. In fact I consider myself a minority compared to the people who are enjoying the game as it is.

Perhaps on the total of the 3.5 million copies sold I might be part of a majority who got disenchanted with the game, but that’s a guess. And even if more than half of the players quit, most of them have moved on and stopped caring about GW2 entirely. So they don’t matter for GW2 anymore because they are mostly lost for good.

In spite of the big numbers posted, the current numbers are smaller. Smaller sales in 2013, lower concurrency, slow growth of player numbers after the big dip etc. It’s all about stabilising what is there now.

The next big numbers will come from China and if they stay big they will determine the future of the game more than we do. Dunno if you ever considered this, but if China is a success then that’s where the money will be for them and the opinions of those customers will inevitably have to become leading. Not yours or mine. So China could be a great thing for the game, but could be a bad thing for the players depending. I’m not sure yet either way.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

olleandersson.9408:

I have to agree with OP. I’d much rather run around with items contained by completing challenging content than running around with my legendaries, making players think ‘’Wow, he managed to get that weapon.. how the *?!’’ Rather than ‘’Oh well.. yet another guy who’s playing around on the trading post a few hours a day..’’

Legendaries aren’t hard to get. Time consuming? Yes, but challenging? No way. We need items that are actually hard to get your hands on without having to spend thousands of gold.

And i’m saying this as a trading post freak…

Just saying? GW1 with it’s weapons to be traded often brought comments of “how much did you have to pay?” rather than “where did you get that?”. This is not new to GW2

Sure but then we didn’t really have legendary weapons and the really expensive weapons were a lot harder to come by than here.

I remember also that weapons had level requirements. And some skins were only available in oldschool stuff. Man, the pride I had for having a -5/+28 gold Echovald shield and it wasn’t even perfect stats.

I just don’t get that feeling from anything here. Somehow it just all feels meaningless.

Tachenon.5270:

Gehenna.3625:

That they sold 3.5 million copies is amazing. They were also lucky I think, because the game came out just before all those other MMOs introduced f2p to their games. But it’s ok to be lucky. No matter how anyone turns it, selling that many copies is a great feat. In fact that’s probable the only number that I will support. It’s a very clear number that can’t really be misinterpreted.

Guild Wars 2’s initial blush of success was pretty much guaranteed by the folks who played Guild Wars. I’d say a fair portion of those 3.5 million copies were snatched up by manifestly misguided Guild Wars players, who were expecting more of what they loved about Guild Wars in Guild Wars 2 than what they actually got. How many are still here?

It would be interesting to see the ratio of former Guild Wars players to players who didn’t play Guild Wars among the currently active players. It would also be interesting to know which of these groups is most happy with the current state of the game.

Standard Disclaimers ~

‘Fair portion’ does not mean ‘all’.
In my opinion, this post presents my opinion.
‘Interesting’ in this context means ‘interesting’.

Oh trust me, I am one of those “manifestly deceived” people. Still, selling 3.5 million copies is still an amazing amount. Of course the vast majority of them were sold in the beginning and not so much in 2013.

Before EotN came out Anet back then said they didn’t want to add more continents because it would just make the world bigger and bigger and the population too spread out. When they announced GW2 was in the make. This argument was repeated.

But we know that the people who worked there then are generally not the people who are there now. There are indications going in both directions. Anet doesn’t really want to commit to whether or not there will ever be an expansion. They say it’s unlikely but that doesn’t mean no.

There are also indications that maybe or maybe not cantha will be brought back. Who knows really?

What I am thinking is that they are releasing GW2 in China shortly. That will bring lots of cash in for them hopefully and then 6 months to a year after that might be the time to reconsider an expansion idea.

Personally, I don’t know if they will or not…but if they do, I wouldn’t expect it in the next year or so.

Behellagh.1468:

GW2’s quarterly sales

3Q 12 = 45,841
4Q 12 = 119,013
1Q 13 = 36,382
2Q 13 = 28,899
(unit: millions of Korean won which is about 1,100 to a US dollar)

Fixed that for you…it’s 2013 now

Paulytnz.7619:

Gehenna.3625:

Paulytnz.7619:

People moan when they can’t make cash in game and now people complain when they can. Anet just can’t win…….

This thread isn’t about how easy it is to get gold but how central to the game it is or has become.

To me it sounded like a rant about new weapon skins being gemstore only which causes people to trade gold for gems to get them and now since gold is easier to make the trading of gold to gems is inflating the price. Gold is not needed for MANY parts of the game.

New weapon skins are coming with SAB is that Gemstore related? No. Will it be gold related? No.

Well, you do have a point. If you look at the title of the thread and the content of his post, they don’t exactly match. I was looking at the title more cause it’s what catches they eye in the forum.

There is of course a wide issue and he is speaking about a specific one. When the game came out I already thought the gem store would become more and more important over time. Simply because box sales would drop. That is a given to me. All MMOs start big and then crash after a few months. Then they stabilise and go on with that base hopefully growing more than losing players.

But as there are no subs and box sales have dropped quite a bit, Anet still has monthly bills to pay.

The OP complains about it and I do feel it’s a detriment that the game is focusing more and more on the gemstore, but that’s the reality when people don’t pay subs.

Also because when we agree that cosmetics are what this game is about at level 80, in a weird way it does make it pay 2 win. People end up grinding whatever to make cash to trade in at the TP for gems or they buy it with money, so you can just hang out and show off or something. The game then becomes a bit pointless when you like progression but that’s not what this game was supposed to be about….just a bit confused about the ascended gear there and the coming level cap raise, but other than that the game really is about looks. If winning = looks, then paying for looks = pay 2 win.

I dunno, I just find it all a bit confusing when I think about it really.

Everybody expects the game to cater to themselves and them alone. The fact that others like some of the same things you do and are therefore like-minded is merely convenient, but gives no higher qualification than “I want”.

People should talk more in “I want” and “I feel”…it would make these discussions a lot more honest in the end.

marnick.4305:

Everyone knew this was advertisement but let’s be clear. If you expected anything different from advertisements, you are terribly naive.

To be honest, I don’t remember any of the games I played making quite such a numbers display as Anet have done here in preparation of their China offensive.

Sure, companies may at times indicate sales numbers but I don’t think I’ve ever seen any of the games I played before make such a hoopla about it.

Maybe you have different experiences.

Personally when I see numbers I want facts and context so I can weigh the value of these numbers. Advertising like this obviously doesn’t give you that context.

Paulytnz.7619:

People moan when they can’t make cash in game and now people complain when they can. Anet just can’t win…….

This thread isn’t about how easy it is to get gold but how central to the game it is or has become.

Manoa.5897:

“23,470,844 Caravans Destroyed in World vs. World.”

No, you’re doing it wrong.

23+ million caravans destroyed and 3.5 million copies sold = less than 7 caravans destroyed per player account in a full year.

That’s massive stuff, right? Did you kill your 7 caravans yet this year?

marnick.4305:

Heroes and henchmen go against the idea of an MMO. Removing those is almost necessary to build a proper MMO.

I don’t agree. I have a companion in SWTOR too and that’s just fine. They can fill holes in instanced content when there are not enough players. There are complaints about DE’s that are undoable or take waay to long because leveling zones are empty. Having a couple of companions could solve that issue. That’s why I say that persistent worlds are generally overrated. In the end you spend most of your time in instances anyway.

marnick.4305:

Next up are a decent player centred economy. For that, player crafting and a decent automated trading system are necessary. Honestly, I’m happy I don’t have to deal with Kamadan anymore. Doesn’t mean the current system can’t improve, but I’m more happy with the GW2 economy than the GW1 economy overall.

I miss being able to trade person to person in GW2. Crafting is not necessary but it is something some players enjoy, so it could’ve been an addition for GW1 at some point. What you are not explaining is why you think the economy is better. You may not’ve liked the method, but the guru website had a whole section dedicated to pricing. If you don’t like the concept of going to an external website for that, I wonder how you like that LFG is done mostly on an external website in GW2.

marnick.4305:

Third, I don’t think GW2 has less “group” content than GW1, but it’s done in a different way. GW1 is like going to play indoor basket with your team while GW2 is more like street basket where random people come and go all the time. One doesn’t need to invite someone to a party to have a group. I like that. Gives the game a more natural feel.

GW1 only had group content. That’s all there was. This is why there were henchmen to begin with. Group content for me is not zerging. I define group content as content where you are in a group (like in dungeons). GW2 has a limited number of dungeons as group content. That’s it. Random people coming and going in zerg is not group content in what is generally considered group content in MMOs. Group content also involves group composition. In GW2 that’s not really existant except in Fractals. [/quote]

marnick.4305:

I still feel GW1 and GW2 have a certain common ground, that’s more described as underlying respect for the player than any particular mechanics. They’re different games, and should be like that.

You may feel that way but others do not. I don’t see that common ground simply because I have to accept that when I played GW1 I enjoyed it and when I play GW2 I don’t.

What you describe as common ground are differences to me. If you make concept general enough then everythings the same, but it’s the specifics that make the difference.

marnick.4305:

I wasn’t waiting for a GW1.5.

Fixed that for you. You don’t know if no one was waiting for that, but you are wrong. There have been loads of threads about people who did want GW2 to be more like GW1….oddly they were expecting that because it’s called Guild Wars again.

I submit to you that GW2 is much more different from GW1 than for example Mass Effect 2 was from Mass Effect 1.

For a sequel GW2 isn’t really a sequel. The name belies the reality of the game as far as I’m concerned. That doesn’t mean that it’s a bad game for everyone, but it was a disappointment for a fair number of people I’ve seen here in the forums.

Constructive feedback is as much about form as content. At the same time, replies often are at fault for making sure the thread becomes non-constructive.

In my view, constructive threads would look more like this:

Mr X.123

(Subjective Statement): I think/feel that fleeting content is ruining my experience of GW2.

(Argument 1) The reason I feel that way is because there is only a small window for that content and that means I have to play it then and cannot do it later. It gives me the feeling that Anet is forcing me to play in those time frames or I will lose out on content I would like to play at a time that I can.

(Argument 2) I am a completionist and I set a goal for myself to complete all achievements. I missed one LS update and now I can never get those achievement points.

(Suggestion) I would like that some of the LS content comes back or that Anet gives u another way to experience it and/or gives us a way to complete these achievements.

Now remember this is all opinion, so any statement is subjective. There is no general truth that can be claimed, it’s about your view. So no need to bring in things like “most people” or “everybody knows”. Also lashing out at Anet is not constructive. The reason you are upset maybe constructive but lashing out is not.

Then to be constructive there need to be arguments. Not facts. There are no facts to claim, just your personal experience and reasons. Why do you feel that way and what is it that keeps you from enjoying something.

Lastly, if you have any, make suggestions. But know that suggestions you make may not be realistic. It may however give developers a direction.

So, all in all, creating a constructive post takes a bit of thinking. That’s why we see so little of it. We all get emotional about things but the key is to explain the emotion instead of venting it.

Equally replies shouldn’t be about telling people why they are wrong or defending the game or Anet. Constructive feedback is about trying to understand the person’s point of view. So asking questions about why a person feels a certain way. Now it’s constructive to offer alternate viewpoints, but as suggestions, not as arguments. Suggestions may not work.

It’s not constructive to say: “Nobody is forcing you to be a completionist” or “don’t let the door hit you in the rear”

It could be constructive to say: Well, I a struggle with that as well. What I do is I focus on the achievements that are not related to temp content. I see them as sub achievements and that way I don’t feel the need to complete them so I can enjoy the rest of the game.

But it’s still a suggestion, it may or may not work.

Disclaimer: I don’t claim to be an expert, nor do I claim that I am as constructive as I could or should be.

Moss.5371:

marnick.4305:

GW2 is an MMO while GW1 was not.

Howcome? It’s the other way around in my opinion, see I did plenty of actual group play in GW1 in dungeons and story. In GW2 dungeons, you just take care of yourself.

Generally speaking a persistent world is part of the definition of an MMO, so technically he has a point. However, since most MMOs actually end up ignoring that open world and stick people into instances (dungeons, pvp maps, wvw maps etc.) I think that the persistent world feature is highly overrated and not needed for a Massively Multi Player Online game. Did GW1 have lots of players that could meet online and play together? Yes, so for me it can still be classed with MMOs.

If MMOs generally had persistent worlds that were not empty leveling zones a few months after release, I could see that as a more important distinction.

marnick.4305:

1/ I’m not convinced GW2 is entirely in the different direction. In my experience, GW2 is an MMO while GW1 was not. GW2 is exactly what you’d get when trying to make an MMO out of GW1.

Well, it’s always a matter of opinion but here are some thoughts.

GW1 had henchmen and heroes.
GW1 had group play as a main element
GW1 had well organised sPvP with much variety
GW1 elite armour tooke more effort to collect
GW1 had no TP, trading was done in Kamadan mostly, between players
GW1 had trading between players
GW1 had a world that was darker, more in line with the background story
GW1 had character classes that actually made a difference
GW1 didn’t not have WvW
GW1 didn’t have zerg content
GW1 didn’t have jumping puzzles
GW1 didn’t have tiers for gear
GW1 didn’t have crafting
GW1 didn’t have mystic forge RNG

Now, this is not about what’s good or bad but about differences. I think when you look at it, it is significantly different as a game. To me even the things that are similar are done quite differently.

Chuo.4238:

Sure, but…

1) just because many or most do it, doesn’t make it right, and
2) there are lots of companies out there that actually try to live up to their hype and make a good product, and take professional pride in what they do.

1) My point is that Anet are not special in that, but I agree I don’t like it either in general.
2) Ahh that’s a matter of opinion though isn’t it? I think Anet didn’t live up to the hype others do. Who is right? We can only be right for ourselves, not for other people. I am a big fan of SWTOR for example but they didn’t live up to the hype either and made a ton of mistakes….but they turned things around. Still not perfect but I enjoy it. Others still hate it and think the devs are idiots. Is their opinion not true for them?

Sirendor.1394:

I have played GW1, completed every campaign and enjoyed the end-game for a long time. The PvP system in GW1 just was one of the best at that time.

I bought GW2 because I enjoyed GW1 so much, because it was for me one of the best MMO’s I had ever played, even though the graphics became outdated and the system slightly. I think I would still buy GW2 if I had to make the decision over, but I wished they listened to their playerbase. So many people make magnificent suggestions, but so few get listened to.

What I would be interested to know is why you would choose GW2 over GW1. Personally if GW1 got updated graphics and 3D maps so you can jump on stuff I would definitely choose GW1 over GW2 today. Then they could’ve added all those jump puzzles and stuff in GW1 instead. So, what makes GW2 better for you?

milo.6942:

Moss.5371:

GW2 is going in the exact opposite direction of GW1. In every single aspect of the game. Which is incredibly sad for all the GW1 fans.

Actually, I would like to know if there’s any GW1 fan that likes GW2 better as a whole.

vayne will be quite happy to tell you he does, and possibly write several more paragraphs describing why

I am sure he can speak for himself but I don’t actually know if he likes GW2 better than his experience with GW1. I know I’ve picked some fights with him, but he is actually more reasonable than I even thought

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Pretty sure there haven’t been any threads on translating the released infographics into Chinese before. I think it’s pretty darn helpful of him/her.

He also posted the new one with it which has lots of thread and the old one that was translated has already been out for a few weeks

http://www.gameranx.com/updates/id/16811/article/guild-wars-2-year-one-infographic/

Just an example, without the Chinese on it even. So it does seem like old news to me, but hey.

Moss.5371:

GW2 is going in the exact opposite direction of GW1. In every single aspect of the game. Which is incredibly sad for all the GW1 fans.

Actually, I would like to know if there’s any GW1 fan that likes GW2 better as a whole.

Hey that’s a very good question actually. I know that there are GW1 players who also like or love GW2 but I don’t remember many of them saying (if at all) that they liked GW2 better.

Of course I do mean GW1 players who played GW1 for a long while, say at least 3 years or so. Not the ones who came into it much later because games do get old after a while.

Vayne.8563:

Chuo.4238:

Gehenna.3625:

Oh crap, just when I thought I found all 3 threads about this, there is a fourth one….lol

Numbers without context are what people want them to mean.

I’ll give a couple of example.

It’s about the first year. “Fastest selling MMO” is fastest MMO selling in the west in the first NINE months since release as calculated by a company that was asked by Anet to do these numbers. Take that for what it’s worth.

460K concurrent users (at one time)…Yep when the game came out. Great spin to advertise with that a year later when I think we all know it’s nowhere near there anymore.

So GW2 has got some big numbers, but what they actually mean? Well, it means one thing: Anet is advertising their game, that’s what it means.

I think we’ve learned since GW2 released that ArenaNet is all about hype and spin, implying one thing, and delivering another.

Your analysis is, sadly, probably accurate.

You mean the same as all companies? Every single one? I concur.

I still remember Rift, rather than closing servers, giving everyone free transfers off them and then switching them to test servers. They didn’t merge servers though.

Yep just like any other company out there. I think the mistake a lot of people made (myself included) is to think that Anet were different in that. GW1 was completely different, they spoke to their fans on forums regularly etc. but it was silly to think that they were not a company wanting to make money. Perhaps at one time….but a lot of the original staff isn’t there anymore. Things change and that’s sometimes hard to accept lol.

Well Anet said that temporary content is working for them, keeping people logging in.

I don’t like it so it doesn’t work for me, but apparently it does work well enough to stabilise the game. Anet also said they are going towards adding more permanent content. Now I am not a big fan of this game, but could that indicate that they are at least sort of listening to their fans?

Vayne.8563:

Gehenna.3625:

Professor Marvel.7584:

That right there is what I’ve been saying all along as well. ANet will make the game that the people want, and if the people want to play Farmville Wars 2 then that’s the game they will get.

If you don’t want that kind of stuff, stop doing that kind of stuff.

The problem isn’t the developers, it’s the players.

-PM

I think the biggest problem started when they made GW2 for a different type of player than GW1 was. You kinda get that when two games share the same name.

This is a very interesting statement. It implies that everyone who played and enjoyed Guild Wars 1 played and enjoy Guild Wars 1 for the same reasons.

In my experience, a whole lot of people played Guild Wars 1 for the PvP and just the PvP. But also a whole lot of people played Guild Wars 1 as a single player game and never PvPed. And then there are people like me. I played Guild Wars 1, because it was a good game to play within feeling like I was being led around by the nose. I could pretty much do what I want when I wanted. There were a lot of options.

I feel the same sort of way about Guild Wars 2. I don’t feel that way about most MMOs.

That said, there is increasing pressure to play Guild Wars 2 in specific ways, instead of the way you want. That pressure is part of what some fans are responding to. They want to bang around doing whatever they want, instead of grinding out gold or focusing on achievement points.

I still enjoy the game…but not as much as I might have had the game been made for someone who wants an immersive experience.

It’s still the best MMO for me…but it’s not quite as good for me as it was months ago.

Oh no that’s not what I meant with that. See it as an overlap. GW2 is a very different game from GW1 and so there have been alot of complaints from GW1 players that it no longer appeals to them. There are of course also a lot of GW1 players who do like it.

But that big a change of direction automatically means you will lose a significant part of your player base.

It’s like Metallica. You have the old fans who just drew the line at the black album. Undoubtedly they have been very successful since then but it’s a new crowd mostly and a good number of old fans refuse to buy any of their new albums…but not all of course.

Vayne.8563:

You can only compare sales to sales. Do you think if Guild Wars 2 went free to play…with no purchase, people wouldn’t make accounts? Maybe even multiple accounts?

A game that has no cost means someone can make an account play the game for two seconds and never look at it again…because it costs them nothing.

You can only compare sales to sales.

Correct but box sales in GW2 = accounts. In other games it does not. That was my point. You can’t make a clean comparison.

You are also correct about sales, but box sales are just part of it. There is no mention of the gemstore and other games also have cash shops. They are part of the sales. So this needs to be included for a fair comparison. Total sales are all the money made togehter. F2P works as long as there are enough sales in the cash shop as well.

Vayne.8563:

So how long was SWToR available before it went free to play. I’m pretty sure it was more than a year. That means in the first year, Guild Wars 2 sold more copies than SWToR, no matter what it did after it went free to play. And no one can say what Guild Wars 2 would do if it went completely free.

It was less than a year actually. SWTOR launched December 2011 and f2p came in Novemeber of 2012. I know that within the first 9 months GW2 sold more copies, I do not contest that. I just find the comparison difficult because since f2p and their cash shop came into being, sales are not the same configuration anymore. That’s why I say just counting box sales is not a clean comparison. Still an amazing amount of sales, but not a clean comparison.

No one can say what GW2 would do if it went completely free, but the cash shop would have to take over completely. We haven’t heard much about that subject however.

Vayne.8563:

The other sales figures to look at are games like Rift which at least according to some sources, never hit 1 million sales.

Dunno, I’ve heard various stories as well. Point is, I never said 3.5 million isn’t amazing as far as I know. In fact I didn’t mention that in my first post at all, so not sure why you brought that in as the only reply to my post, when I myself didn’t even mention that number.

Vayne.8563:

Guild Wars 2 is, of the MMOs that aren’t free, the fast selling MMO of all time. I’m sure it sold 3.5 million copies faster than WoW did. But even if it didn’t, WoW was a cash rich company, coming off the heels of success with Star Craft and Warcraft 2. These games were very well received and the company had boatloads of money to advertise.

Agreed.

Vayne.8563:

Tell me, how many TV commericals did you see for Guild Wars 2, compared to how many TV commercials you’ve seen for SWToR or WoW? But even with the handicap, Guild Wars 2 sold amazingly well.

I have not seen a single tv commercial for SWTOR. I have seen them for WoW. GW2 sold amazingly well and I know they also made tv commercials but I never saw those on tv, just on youtube. And I still agree that GW2 sold an amazing amount of copies, especially in the first 3 months. Sales plummeted something like 70% after that as we know from the financial reports, but as this would include cash shop sales I do not now the ratio, just the total sales of course.

Vayne.8563:

What’s less clear is how many people stopped playing for good. How many people don’t like the game.

Some people claim most of the people who bought it stopped playing permanently. I don’t know if that’s true or not. If it’s 50% that’s 175 million people who still log in from time.

I don’t know if it’s more or less than that, but I know there’s a lot of people playing this game and I think people who try to convince others otherwise are doing the wrong thing.

I don’t know those numbers either…btw I think you meant 1.75 million, not 175 million. My personal guess is that it’s less than that but it is anybody’s guess really. If some one logs in 5 times during a year to say hello to some friends or just to see where the game’s at but don’t actually get into playing are they to be counted? I dunno. That’s why I prefer to know about concurrency because that’s more interesting than anything else. But the concurrency of today we also don’t know.