Guild Wars 2

The Super Adventure Box will return.

The Wurm is the absolute worst example you could have chosen. Numerous times he’s died without a life bar even showing up when i’ve been there. Dude needs a buff.

Shadow Behemoth scales pretty pathetically too; the Maw Shaman also goes down crazy fast.

These are events in literally the first zones in the game (1-15), and while I agree with you that those in particular could be tuned to scale better, your original premise is deeply flawed when viewing the game as a whole.

Try Grenth, Melandru or the Claw of Jormag with 70 people and tell me they’re not scaling to match. :P

The majority of the account bound drops in Fractals can be salvaged without issue. The shoulder item in question should be reported in-game as a bug.

Back pieces however universally can’t be salvaged. Something I’d love to see fixed.

Hey Colin! I hope the China trip exceeded expectations.

Thanks so much for the comments re: Megadestroyer and that master list of events.

Our guild LOVES the Megadestroyer. This is potentially a little sad, but basically after every major new build we get a huge group to go try him and see if a daily chest has been added for him but left out of the patch notes. It’s definitely one of the coolest Meta Events in the game, and requires an enormous amount more coordination than, for example, the Dredge Commissar, the Jungle Wurm, or the Shadow Behemoth, all of which provide extremely quick access to a daily chest reward. It would be outstanding if our fiery friend could be buffed to match.

I know that the list you were linked to was exhaustive, so I wanted to just give voice to a couple of them, seeing as you value my opinions so very highly ;P

Devouring the Brand is a massive, entertaining chain that is very, very rarely done. Along exactly the same lines as Ogre Wars or the Campaign Against Taidha Covington, it would be a perfect candidate for the Bonus.

Battle in the Vault – Plains of Ashford is absolutely desperate for a Meta Event with a Bonus Chest attached. Every other starting area has one- along with big huge boss encounters that don’t really occur in Plains. It’s almost like you guys are discriminating against the Charr- but I know that can’t be it, because they’re kitten. (<- uh. replace that with the word you used to describe why you’d roll a Charr).

On a personal note, I’d absolutely love Vexa’s Lab and the Forsaken Halls to receive the Bonus. They’re among the most gorgeous, unique content in the game, they’re extremely involved, can’t exactly be rushed through, and would stand well to be seen by as many players of GW2 as absolutely possible. They’re great.

The Gates of Arah Meta Event feels incredibly climactic, is tough, and basically sticks out like a sore thumb now that the 5 Orr Temple events all award daily chests but it doesn’t. There’s a satisfying pattern (big tough Meta event, Bonus Chest awarded, area held by the pact, exotic Karma vendor unlocked) that is broken by the Gates event lacking the chest. That said, the spawned world chest from this event seems to have a great loot table, so this is a low priority in my opinion.

Thanks again!

The theme is Retribution.

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/releases/april-30-2013/

That’s all we’ve got so far

For my part, I think the skins Braham and Rox are using are incredible, and would make stellar additions to the game proper. They aren’t particularly flashy or effects-laden, just cool designs.

Am I the only person that truly enjoys playing this game?

Nope

Awful lot of emphasis behind that nope by the way.

Granted, the groups with vets are definitely to be avoided at low levels, but I soloed a ‘scope with my level 4 Engi in Plains the other day (flex) It felt pretty awesome. Had an actual newb (first character) ask me what the deal was with them, and I explained what was going on with the Molten Alliance and we partied up to track down and kill another one together. If more moments like that follow I have no issue with living story stuff being disruptive and encroaching into newbie areas, it’s sort of the point. This is what’s going on in the game world right now, it’s not walled-off and having no impact beyond a cinematic or something only max level players would ever see. Asking to “opt out” is pretty silly, it’s only affecting certain areas and you’re given the opportunity to easily and freely go to any other part of the world if you want nothing to do with it.

Rangers may still have a ton of issues but nonetheless they are awesome; I’ve found myself saved multiple times in the last week by one running that resurrection spirit.

I hope that you get the response you seek, but they are very unlikely to incentivize transferring to higher population servers in any way.

Jemmi.6058:

Hawkian.6580:

There is no such limitation, buy away.

The only thing is that you can’t equip two of the same item (doesn’t matter where/how you bought it).

Do you mean 2 of the same item of ascended gear only?

It’s not ascended gear that’s the determinant, it’s the “Unique” label. However, very few items besides Ascended gear possess this label. The Ancient Karka Shell accessory is one.

There is no such limitation, buy away.

The only thing is that you can’t equip two of the same item (doesn’t matter where/how you bought it).

Does it say “Unique” ?
What do you think the word “unique” means ?
Do you know the Highlander movies ? What’s its main quote ?

He’s talking about buying a ring and an amulet. It was 5 sentences.

Knockdown – completely useless, as you cant attack them anyway when they are on the ground

Hmm?

It can’t possibly be for everyone- sorry that you don’t enjoy it.

ArenaNet is very likely to give you a refund if you seek one.

TactiCol.8450:

Mirta.5029:

how about running dungeons, doing fractals, buying gear with dungeon tokens, salvaging and selling it, doing dragon events, doing high level zones? I bought most of my character slots and minies by converting GOLD to GEMS. Never had ANY money problems. You’re doing something terribly wrong in this MMO.

I am not a dungeon runner tbh and am not interested in making lots of in game money. I’m just concerned with the loot drop rate and low in game incomes. I have to finance two accounts and my son does most of the spending on his account. I am an adventurer by trade (in game wise) and have played MMORPG’s since the day Anarchy Online came out. I have ran several guilds in other titles and I am well seasoned in the dynamics of the MMORPG.

Whilst it is possible to get by with the most basic of gear in this title, it’s is very difficult to gear up without making a financial contribution. I have not really had this problem in other titles in the genre, although most were subscription based.

There is no element of surprise in the loot table, little to no money to be made from gathering and very tight margins on crafting. Short of running dungeons repeatedly (A form of grind I thought ANet was against in principle) what other methods are there for making a living in game ?

You’re being bombarded with a lot of good information here but I wanted to make sure to check your awareness of two factors:

-Karma Vendors in Orr sell level 80 exotic pieces (best gear in the game) for 42k karma (0 gold)
-There are over 20 world events in-game that provide a guaranteed rare with a chance for more, once per day

Also, to the point of dungeons, it’s worth noting that running them is both a great source of gold and a direct source of endgame gear itself (from the unique dungeon tokens). If you feel this is too onerous a grind of the sort “you thought ANet was against in principle,” bear in mind that it isn’t at all necessary (reference the above tips for starters).

Enjoy the game, and best of luck to you and yours!

edit: As an aside, you absolutely should not have to convert $ into gems to get gold to spend as in-game currency. The fact that you’ve already done this multiple times may have crippled you from becoming accustomed to earning a regular stream of gold in-game, making the cost of things in-game seem inordinately burdensome.

edit again: Just for general knowledge, you need only be on the same server with other players for WvW. Dungeons, open world events, etc. can all be easily done cross-server.

stof.9341:

Vayne.8563:

If you like to WvW, most of your dailies can be gotten just running around. At the end of your play time, look and see what’s left.

The end of my playtime is right after dailies reset. Rather annoying if you ask me.

Oh come on! That means the majority of your playtime is firmly within the period for the previous dailies and you can get a look at the next day’s before you log off!

If you’d said “the reset comes exactly in the middle of my playtime every night” you’d have a slightly more compelling case to be annoyed. :P

I agree with the OP, and have felt this mental anguish. Weeklies in place of Dailies would be a perfect fix! It would net the same rewards, yet not force players to log on Daily to accomplish them. Brilliant!

It’s not that this is a bad or illogical sentiment, it’s just completely at cross purposes with the idea of dailies in general.

Dailies aren’t supposed to be a thing that all players just get regardless of how often, when, and how they play. They are designed to incentivize- reward- you for logging in on any given day. The underlying thought to this concept is that an active population logging in every day is beneficial to everyone else in-game on any given day.

Changing to weeklies would eliminate this advantage in favor of people logging on once a week. It sounds nice from the perspective on an individual player, but it wouldn’t be communally beneficial.

Instead, I’d like the addition of more weekly rewards that reset with the Guild Missions reset on Saturdays. Maybe some very tough open world content that gave a guaranteed drop better than the typical world bosses, an extra couple of laurels, or a choice of useful utility items (like Personal Story mission rewards).

Tosha Daydreamer.9251:

It’s pretty remarkable how free you’ll feel once you let go of that whole “needing things” in a virtual world.

No, you don’t need laurels. You don’t need to do your dailies. You don’t need to do fractals. If you do, you really need to revise the way (and why) you play games.

Especially this kind of game….

Laurels aren’t a necessary component of the experience that you will be left behind without if you don’t log in every day. They are however an incentive for doing so, because if you log in every day and do just about anything short of standing and idling the entire time, you’ll achieve them.

First Dailies were a fixed set of categories that locked you into certain activities every day.

Then they made them a rotating pool that changed what was rewarded each day.

Then they made them a rotating pool of options to choose from, allowing people to different things to be rewarded even on the same day.

Then they made it so that Laurels were awarded for completing either the PvE or PvP categories.

I just can’t really imagine how the current system could be viewed as particularly onerous or restrictive. Try to shift your perspective rather than blaming the design.

goldenwing.8473:

So, in light of the vaunted “community building exercise” that guild missions were supposed to encourage, any suggestion for how to handle the situation where other players may be inadvertently included in the event?

Don’t join the fight? Leave?

Ensure that the boss, once tagged, belongs to the guild that tagged it and no one else can attack it? Will that encourage griefers?

These aren’t questions aimed specifically at you, but at the player base in general and the developers.

I would actually say just don’t worry about stuff like this. You weren’t griefing and the guild could absolutely have tracked the bounty out of the location with the merchants/other players before activating the fight. Out of curiosity, did you notice if they won?

So we did another one and got Sotzz, can you guess what happened next? I bet you can. We had 15 people plus everyone in the map and nothing. One person did find him but he insta teleported. These are so badly designed it makes me cringe.

When you find him you need to tell your squads the location and start the fight immediately and just focus on staying alive until more people get there. It is completely doable.

Sotzz isn’t the toughest bounty on the list by a long shot.

Orangensaft.7139:

Marauding Scum.6728:

I think the “exploit” was just people using guilds as "on demand mobile banks ", less true banks upgrades, less gems sold and etc.

…i cant believe arenanet thinks this is an exploit…
i personally never used the guild transport bank but i have no problem with others doing it!
Why?
Because they have as good as NO advantage from it (and thats what makes an exploit and exploit)
they dont earn more gold or items faster it just makes life a little bit easier by saving a wp maybe which costs like 3 silver max and by saving the time you would have to wait until your screen loads…

Why did you simply take that as accurate? The basis of the exploit wasn’t just using mobile guild bank capability. This was a case of players in game taking advantage of other players. Apparently ArenaNet received enough data about this happening in-game to take rather draconian measures against it. Yes, it sucks that this is an inconvenience to legitimate players. They had to weigh this inconvenience against the potential damage of the exploit to- wait for it- legitimate players.

If you feel making access to the guild bank slightly less convenient is destroying the game, that’s your prerogative. You’re more than entitled to complain vocally about it as well.

It’s pretty crappy to suspect nefarious intent on their part, however, like they just really wanted to stick it to small guilds. I hate it every time an exploit was used widely enough to take universal action against. That doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be done.

Rhaps.8540:

Yalora Istairiea.6287:

The bubbles behind the underwater Carrier Pigeon

I always felt they should have made it a penguin for underwater.

Now I won’t be satisfied until this happens.

The bullet casing sound effects on different surfaces STILL get me to this day, and I knew about it at launch.

KrisHQ.4719:

Imagine if extra bank slots had RNG, buying kittenloads of tokens never knowing if you will ever receive an extra bank slot. Who the hell would do that?

Absolutely no one, which is why that would never happen.

Welcome, feel free to send me a PM with any questions!

There are no elves in Tyria.

clay.7849:

I think the tipping point to see whether we continue to see meaningful updates or an expansion would be Xmas 2013.

Works for me, I appreciate you putting down something concrete. See you then!

Bravo, you’re a genius.

clay, you had remained relatively civil in debating these points and my arguments regarding the MMO marketplace. I was enjoying refuting your presuppositions to a point… pity.

By the way, the forums are not even close to a representative sample of the playerbase. I had thought you would know that before engaging in a discussion of this nature; it’s a key facet of the situation to be aware of.

Anyway, out of curiosity how long do you say the game has before it dies?

And by the way, it’s not a binary state. It’s a continuum.

I’m a semi-casual semi-hardcore gamer.

clay.7849:

2. The game appealing to casual players doesn’t mean they will buy it.

Absolutely ludicrous. Did you mean to add more to the end of this sentence? We need only find a single casual player who bought this game because it appealed to them to disprove this.

How many more casual players are out there that might be interested in this game?

Millions. You must know this.

Again, you assume that this game can just keep selling copies and be fine without answering the question of why casual players will continue to buy a game that is already 6+ months old.

What…. what. First of all, why do you keep trying to inject into my argument that only casual gamers will buy new copies of the game? I’m not saying that. Any kind of gamer can buy a copy. Your $60 is worth no more or less than the one before or after you. Second of all, World of Warcraft did not hit 3 million accounts, a milestone that has already been reached by GW2, until just over a year after its release. I know you know this because you’ve referenced these very numbers in other threads. People don’t look at a bit of new information about an MMO and go, “ooh, that’s interesting! Wait, it came out 8 months ago. Screw that.” Because it’s a one-time purchase, the value of buying a copy of Guild Wars 2 increases over time. Your entire rationalization here is bizarre.

3. So, you assume that buyers are going to outpace quitters?

No…. I didn’t say anything like that…. nor does that have to happen for there to be a stable/growing population in-game. Nor is there really a such thing as a “quitter” in this context. Nor is any of that particularly relevant to the topic of financial success which is what we’re talking about.

It doesn’t seem like my example stuck, so here’s a little more:

Gamers A, B, C, and D have been playing for months and decide to stop playing. Gamer E is then given the game as a birthday present, while Gamer F sees an announcement about a sale and decides to take the plunge. Upon hearing about a new feature release, Gamers A and B decide to come back and check it out, but the feature doesn’t interest C or D. Gamer E eventually realizes the game isn’t for her and decides to leave, but Gamer G comes along and was so excited by the new feature that he buys a copy to check it out. Finally, A and B note that they still just aren’t into it, but C and D have been away for so long that they just want to see what’s changed and jump back in.

The only extra layer of complexity here is allowing for the possibility of “quitters” to come back at some point, which is more realistic than my previous, simpler example making the same point. The total population of the game remained relatively stable during that entire period, without the “stickiness”/longevity of any individual player being particularly relevant. That’s my point. Without a subscription, it’s far less important- at no point during any of that stuff above did ArenaNet lose out on any money.

4. You also seem to think that there is a chance that 2013 will outsell 2012 without an expansion or any major update.

No, I never said anything remotely close to that.

5. You don’t have any evidence to show that this game has any more of a devoted community than any other game that is healthy or not. For every example you want to show me, I’ll provide a counter example. If you really want to do this, let’s start a new thread.

There is no need for a new thread. I’m contending that a devoted community is part of what ensures an MMO “does well,” and I provided you 5 examples, both quantitative (80,420 subscribers to the GW2 subreddit, vs. 85,629 for WoW and 27,162 for SWTOR) and qualitative (people doing creative things like making real music with the choir bells, or providing community services like public guild bounties). Thus far you need to provide 5 examples of how GW2 does not have a devoted community to reach equilibrium.

6. I agree that the game sold enough copies to go from High to Very High. Sure. What does that matter?

The title of this thread is “Is Guild Wars 2 Doing Well?”

I allow for the possibility you included this question as a joke.

clay.7849:

Still, you make points that are not refutable.

What an outrageous premise to begin with… aren’t you attempting to refute them?

The only point I made that was unable to be refuted with data was a single prediction about the future. I make no claim to knowing what will happen, it’s just a prediction. Everything else I said could be refuted with data or logical assertions.

1. Of course the game needs to keep selling to make it profitable. What about it being a casual game lends it to selling more copies, especially as newer games get released?

This question almost reads as sarcastic- are you saying you do understand this one point?

If not… the game itself appealing to casual players along with an accompanying business model (no subscription) lowers the barrier to entry and widens the prospective market of gamers to a larger group. A larger pool of potential consumers yields the potential for increased sales over a smaller pool.

I had thought this was the most obvious aspect of the entire conversation. You acknowledged that the game does a good job of appealing to casual players, but that you didn’t believe they would stick with it (“longevity”) which would result in lessened chances for success. I didn’t realize you were also contending they’re not doing a good enough job to result in more initial sales to casual players.

2. I’m not quite sure how we are saying anything different. You say that longevity is not explicitly linked to revenue, but say that the game needs a stable and ideally growing playerbase. I think that longevity and stable/ideally growing playerbase are synonymous.

You’re quite correct in that you’re not seeing how our premises differ. I’ll try to clarify further:

Imagine that players A, B, C, and D buy GW2 and play it for 2 months. They don’t buy any gems. They play a lot for those two months and then get sick of the game and stop. Because they were not paying a subscription fee, their departure does not result in a loss of guaranteed revenue (nor is it technically even a departure, because they could return at any time- but let’s just say they don’t). In the meantime, players E, F, G, and H get interested by some bit of news and buy the game or are given a copy as a birthday present. The size of the playerbase has not changed in this situation, despite it not being composed of the same individuals.

Longevity on the part of the individual player is irrelevant to that aspect of financial success. Revenue to ArenaNet only increases in the above scenario.

3. http://www.kdbdw.com/bbs/download/169600.pdf?attachmentId=169600

This is as good of a prediction of revenue I can find for NCSoft, as you can see the predicted revenue from GW2 is predicted to fall 85% in Q1 and Q2. The Q3+ numbers are based on an expansion that, so far, doesn’t seem to be in the works any longer. Without an expansion, I really don’t think you can expect to see sales numbers continue like they did around, and shortly after, launch. In fact, if nothing drastic happens to the game (like a major update adding serious content or an expansion), it would be natural to see the sales numbers dwindle.

I take this point to mean that your claim of “sales continuing to fall” was based on this analyst prediction of ongoing revenue for this year, which you note yourself is apparently based on unfounded or outdated assumptions. Even marrying it in terms of accuracy, you completely disregarded my overarching point as well.

As you seem to acknowledge yourself… quarter-to-quarter, week-to-week, and day-to-day sales will fluctuate based on what is actually occurring, such as a major update, a discount, a significant marketing push, etc. and of course they will never mirror the sales figures in the launch window; that would be absurd. But you seem to equate “having sales equitable to that at launch” with “doing well” or “financial success,” and I have no idea why.

I don’t really want to argue about the devoted community thing. I disagree, but it isn’t worth discussion as it realtes to this conversation IMO.

This is the one point that there is ample evidence to actually prove or refute; again, unless you have some specific criterion for “devoted” that I’m unaware of, this is just a plainly apparent fact. You may disagree, but if you don’t wish to back up your refutation I will simply take your disagreement as additional evidence in favor of its accuracy.

Last, the part about the servers. The part I replied to suggested that the game is doing well because server population is up. You simply cannot deduce that from server population going up, because it is account based.

Operating from the assumption that it is indeed account based, do you concede that this means the game must have sold enough additional copies in the last few days to cause that change, or not?

clay.7849:

Hawkian, you’re a smart dude and you do a good job of making logical posts that tie in subjective ideas, such as “this game is going to be very successful” or that GW2 has a “devoted community”.

:-/

“This game is going to be very successful” is an opinion, specifically a prediction. I presented it as such.

“GW2 has a devoted community” is a fairly demonstrable fact, unless you want to get into ludicrously stringent definitions of the word “devoted.” The GW2 subreddit has over 80,000 subscribers- not viewers- alone. Players have composed renditions of Still Alive and Billie Jean using the Wintersday bells. Others like me have written guides on an enormous number of content releases. Guild Missions hosted open to the public have been taking place every week. This forum itself is chaotically, almost horrendously active. You, right now, are a part of the devoted community I am referring to, despite your predictions running counter to mine.

You can’t know how many accounts were needed to sell to make a server go from high to very high, so your point it also disengenuous.

What point do you think I was attempting to make?

clay.7849:

casual is the opposite of making money

As Rovio wonders where all of its stacks of gold bars came from…

That is based on accounts, not activity.

Really disingenuous to make that point in this discussion. Assuming that it is in fact accounts, that means that a significant number of copies of the game were sold recently, because the servers went up from High to Very High.

clay.7849:

Your post assumes that there is an infinite amount of players willing to continue to buy the game. I really don’t think that is true.

The longevity of players playing the game is linked to revenue from people who want to buy expansions, to continued cash shop purchases, to getting friends to buy the game to play along with.

The sales of this game will continue to fall until the next expansion. That is the nature of the game. Longevity does drive revenue. I never thought that would actually be something questionable.

It can’t possibly have been intentional for you to have twisted the content of what I said to this degree, so I’ll just try to clarify:

1. There will never even be an infinite number of people on this plane of reality, so I can’t possibly have assumed an infinite number of players are willing to continue to buy this game. Ironically, there technically are an unlimited number of game accounts that could be sold, however, because a person can buy more than one. But before you ask, no, I don’t think this is a significant source of revenue.

What I meant was that is it less important to ensure that individual players are motivated to stick with the game for a prolonged period of time- i.e. years- because the game’s financial model does not depend on them for business revenue. Marketing, promotions and even content can be geared equally or even primarily toward attracting new players rather than ensuring that old ones continue to play. An older customer isn’t “worth more” by definition as is the case with a subscription model.

If four players quit, but four new players join, nothing changes in terms of guaranteed revenue; they’ve still sold 8 copies total and it didn’t matter how long the first four played. If four players quit a subscription MMO, four instances of recurring revenue have been removed from the company’s books. If four more join, they’re replacing the original four, but they need to stick around as long as the original four did to make up for their departure. It should be obvious how massive a difference this is in terms of a business model in practice.

2. Of course you are 100% right about longevity being linked to revenue from gem sales, potential expansion sales, and word of mouth. What I actually said was that it isn’t explicitly linked to revenue, as is the case with a subscription model. The game is seven months old. You can have played every day since launch and have paid literally no more than retail price (or, in my case, $18 less than retail price).

Because even spending a single cent after the initial cost of entry is optional (and because a huge chunk of the playerbase will never do so), such additional spending cannot be counted upon as a regular/recurring/consistent stream of revenue in terms of upkeep and infrastructure costs. Revenue obtained in this way would wisely be used in determining priority, scope and scheduling of new additions to game including eventual expansions, which would of course requite another one-time purchase, and so on…

My point was that ArenaNet does not require longevity on the part of individual players in order to be financially successful. GW2’s success requires, as I said, a devoted community (which it has) and a numerically stable, and ideally growing, playerbase- regardless of how “old” the people making up that playerbase are.

3. You casually toss out the term “continue to fall” as though you are referring to some kind of trend data or evidential phenomenon, but I have absolutely no idea what you’re referring to, or even that the term really applies… one assumes you mean the rate of sales is decreasing, since we’re not talking about the loss of guaranteed revenue (i.e.: subscriptions), but this rate will fluctuate during any given period for a huge variety of reasons… Sales/discounts, holidays involving gift-giving, and major content releases with marketing force behind them (there is some sort of Box at present that seems relatively popular) will cause spikes in the sales numbers; months with quieter releases or no external contributing factors will see dips in these numbers instead.

None of that is indicative of longevity of the individual player, especially casual players in the context of what we were discussing, being the primary force in driving revenue for this game’s future. To put it another way, unless an individual has spent $60 in gems already, it is in ArenaNet’s best interest to attract a new player rather than to ensure that player is “sticky,” to use your parlance.

Of course, anyone who has been paying attention to their releases thus far could name numerous ways in which they are doing both; my prediction is that this strategy will ensure multiple years of financial success.

It’s also a particularly silly argument because (unlike a subscription model) prolonged playtime is not explicitly linked to revenue. All ArenaNet expects from any given account holder is that they paid retail or discounted-retail price for the product. Economically speaking it matters almost none at all that the existing casuals keep playing long-term if new casuals are buying copies and replacing them (even if they, in turn, don’t stick with the game that long).

Dedication and “stickiness” will come from a devoted community alongside a stable playerbase in numerical terms. The second half doesn’t have to come from the same group of people sticking with the game forever.

By the way I’m going to try to stop saying “casuals” from now on, it’s starting to feel like a slur. :P

Calae.1738:

Teenagers want economics and politics? Adults want teddy bear backpacks and ginger bread swords?

Anyone can like or dislike anything; maturity isn’t tied to age like armor level requirements.

Regardless, no one wants economics. I’ll give you politics since intrigue and cold wars between factions are ripe for serious MMO story content, but no one wants to hear about the way the Krytan Federal Reserve has been lowering rates lately or the plummeting real estate values in Beetletun. -_-

Yes it is!

All that remains to be seen is how well.

Calae.1738:

The target demographic is anyone above 13 and below 16. If there are adults who like that kind of stuff then they’re Disney adults. You know who they are. The ones that watch Disney movies.

While I disagree with your premise wholeheartedly (13-16-year-olds not exactly being a cash crop in terms of sustained revenue), what on Earth is wrong with “us” folks who enjoy Disney movies? You really gonna tell me you don’t like Aladdin?

Riot Inducer.8964:

Effectiveness should be cheap vanity should be expensive.

Well-expressed, with your consent I’ll be using this paraphrase to explain the concept to people.

Also it should be noted that this is exactly how the game works right now (with high-level Fractals being the sole exception).

Tintaglia.4762:

Apparently per account, not per character, unless it was my easy mode on the second character today that didn’t give full chest Bauble Bubbles.

Nailed it. Infantile Mode does NOT reward the daily chests.

(And it shouldn’t. Come on now.)

bcd.4352:

It would be cool if this was an ongoing April Fools / Easter thing. A new world comes out each year.

A yearly release could not possibly sate my appetite for more Super Adventure Box.

Vol.5241:

OK seriously, I’m a big fan of SAB too, but how about you wait until the nostalgia and initial excitement goes away.

Do you really expect SAB to be fun on your 5th, 6th playthrough?

After you have all your BB’s to afford the skins? After you find all the hidden zones and mazes?

Certainly (like any traditional platformer or Zelda/Metroidvania), once you have the entirety of the levels and secrets down to memorization and rote repeition, it won’t be particularly fun to keep playing.

That’s why the prospect of bringing it back with the additional Worlds and zones unlocked is so exciting. It’s a great minigame platform to build on.

That said the premise of this thread is ludicrous.

Nappychappy.7046:

imo, GW2 will go entirely F2P, then finally add tonnes of items to the cash shop that would have saved it from the beginning.

April Fool’s…?

I’m looking for some clarification on Komali’s mechanic- I just don’t think we can get him reliably out of the field, even though I thought we knew the correct way.

If anybody has any info, please let me know!

Nappychappy.7046:

By the way the percentage of the population who farms is 100%.

Not enough paper in the world available to print out the giant kitten “citation needed” sign this deserves.

Komali just wrecked my groups of 5- couldn’t get the shield off at all, though we did last weekend. Very weird, not necessarily a stealth buff, but maybe a bug. I’ll need to read up on it and see if I’m missing anything.

FrizzFreston.5290:

Hawkian.6580:

Meadfreek.6789:

These bounty mission targets need to be nerfed significantly!

Just wanted to voice a “definitely, definitely not!” on this point.

Learning the mechanics of each of the bounty fights is important and will continue to become more important over time. 2-MULT is the most complex fight so far. Good luck!

Scaling issues isn’t the same as a fair fight. If you HAVE to fight a bounty with only 8 people that will leave out alot of people that actually want the reward and such.

So in a sense, and I know people are going to be completely ignorant and rage over it, It needs to be “nerfed”/fixed so that it doesn’t scale up like crazy.

No, this isn’t a good reason at all.

1. You don’t HAVE to fight a bounty, any bounty, with 8 people. Komali can be done with 5, probably 4, or 10, or probably 12. He just becomes more difficult as you start ramping the numbers up, and thus to ensure that your guild completes the bounty successfully you should prepare for this. Technically, he could be done with 30 extremely coordinated people, who understood not to attack him in his fire shield until he gets pulled out of it. But in practice that many people will just shoot first, and it’s better to organize around that.

2. It’s up to your guild management to ensure that everyone that gets their commendations for the week. First of all, even in a T1 Bounty, there are two targets to choose from. It’s pretty unlikely that you’ll get two of the “anti-Zerg” bounties at once. Many of them reward zerging just fine, and most of them are at least doable if not the most efficient the more people you have. With a t3 the opportunities to get a kill for the personal rewards increase. It’s a good idea to offer “makeup” runs during the week for any members that didn’t get their commendations or missed an event. The potential for unlimited people not being able to get their rewards from a given bounty is a terrible reason to change the design of that bounty.

3. The Guild Missions aren’t about the personal rewards. Yes, I’m glad the rewards are good, and it’s nice that those who participate get something individual for their effort. But the guild missions are about accomplishing something together you wouldn’t be able to accomplish alone. ArenaNet can’t design around your argument because it’s not about each person in your guild, it’s about our guild. That’s why Merits are a currency of the guild itself and not an item. The Guild Leader can’t just ditch a guild and take the Merits with him, they stay with the guild. Coordinating and succeeding together is key, even and especially if that means sending a specific team to kill certain bounties.

Jemmi.6058:

The argument that it took a competitor a long time to get something is not a valid argument. Why does it keep coming up?

In order to remain competitive, you need to offer services/features which your consumers want. In this case, a LFG is wanted. Competitors have realized this and implemented them. In order to remain competitive in the current market, the supplier needs to offer these features in addition to exclusive features, or it will lose customers to the competition.

Simple economic theory.

This is an interesting post, because Guild Wars 2 does employ many very strong market differentiators (this is what you meant when you said “services/features which your customers want”- it’s actually features that your customers want that your competitors do not offer that win the day), but neither lacking nor having an LFG tool would be one of them. Secondly, you seem to be approaching the issue from the position that Guild Wars 2 will not remain competitive, or is struggling to be competitive, in the MMO market right now. Is that a correct interpretation?

Just turned 80 only doing wvw.
Now I wanted to do the first dungeon I got mail for…nobody is interested on the map, no tool to find other players besides spamming in /M every 5 minutes. Not user friendly and basically makes the story dungeons kittenblock.

Please I hope you are working on a simple LFG tool…in wow I understand they would want people to waste time since it is a pay per month game. Waiting and spamming is not convenient nor is using a third party website.

First off, I’m sorry you had trouble finding a group on Map Chat for AC Story (I’m assuming you were asking on Plains of Ashford).

However, I have to note that GW2LFG (the third party website) is convenient. It’s outrageously convenient. It is so flipping convenient that literally all ArenaNet would need to do is reproduce its exact functionality through the in-game UI and we could all go home. Please give it a shot, and good luck in the Catacombs!

You cannot- CANNOT- zerg Komali, 2-MULT, or Tarban. I don’t know about Big Mayana but apparently her too! Asking for help and scaling him up with 20 people from your guild was a huge misstep- though of course I understand the instinct. 8 players is just about perfect to take him down.

Null Field and the thief trait Bountiful Theft can be really useful for taking off the stability to knock him/pull him out of his fire shield.

Meadfreek.6789:

These bounty mission targets need to be nerfed significantly!

Just wanted to voice a “definitely, definitely not!” on this point.

Learning the mechanics of each of the bounty fights is important and will continue to become more important over time. 2-MULT is the most complex fight so far. Good luck!

Yes. The only difference is that it’s a single target.

This doesn’t make a whole lot of sense because everything that is in them is stackable (dungeon tokens, drops of karma, bags of gold). The first two are things you either probably have stacks of in your inventory already or will from the first time you open a bag. And stacks of bags of gold are instantly convertible into nothing by just you getting the gold (technically so is the karma, but save em, for when you need karma).

They may occupy an inventory slot upon acquiring them but in actuality they don’t take up a single extra slot when you open them.

You can do dungeons with people on any server in your region Eladoni.