Guild Wars 2

Sorann Peace.9056:

Einlanzer.1627:

I don’t at all hate the new season of the LW, and I actually like some of the game system changes that have taken place lately, but the pace of content releases is still egregiously slow and that is certainly one of the biggest reasons this game has hemorrhaged players.

In 2 years there has been 0 new weapon types, 0 new classes, 0 new races, 0 new game modes (unless you count SAB), very few new skills, 1.5ish zone maps, 1 large dungeon, a bunch of paid cosmetics, and some temp content.

I know there’s been a lot of miscellaneous stuff, mostly minor and bundled with the LW, but still – that’s pathetic. That’s significantly less new content than most totally free MMOs that are less successful than GW2 see in the same time period.

What is going on here, exactly? The #1 way you attract and retain players is by generating hype. The #1 way to generate hype is to talk about your plans in advance, and to release major content updates frequently. Most people don’t care as much about story as they do about having new stuff to play around with. This game desperately needs an expansion or to have much bigger content patches than it has been getting, pronto. The 2nd most desperate thing it needs is more consistent interaction between designers and players.

Your source of the game having lost players is…? People have been saying that this game is losing players since the Lost Shores launched back in November of 2012. If it’s bleeding players so badly, then why hasn’t the game gone under yet, and why does the game continue to feel more and more populated as time goes by? Even with the megaserver change I’ve noticed sharp increases in the number of players I encounter, and those increases are taking place long after megaservers were introduced.

Not to mention, I’ve routinely felt increases in player population. While there was a period around 2013 where the population seemed to decline, it has steadily gone up since. And if you’re going to cite anet’s revenue, that has more to do with the fact a large number of potential customers have already bought the game and many play the game for free after buying it, which is perfectly okay.

---

To answer your main point though, there has been a lot of added content just as a previous poster stated right above me, but a lot of it was temporary. I’m pretty sure that once season 2 is up and we’re rolling on to season 3 and season 4 and so forth, the content will begin to pile up. Also, there was a recent interview I believe where ArenaNet vaguely hinted that their goal was to add new maps as part of living world and make that more of a primary focus than it was in season 1.

(Note: I interpreted it as a vague hint, but nobody in the gaming press seemed to catch it. So keep in mind I just interpreted the article as them hinting at that, so take what I say with a grain of salt if you must.)

Heck, the “Season 2 will be returning!” literally shows a portal in-front of the gate to Fort Vandal. (Although the website glitched for me recently, I still remember what the image looked like.)

New map incoming during S2 second half….portal advertise. This is what they are planning. Each season will introduce new content, maps, races, etc. People do not like it, they want a large pack. I feel this is the better way to go, since I’d rather take smaller chunks to download the new content, rather than download for 2-3 days and be unable to play. The US still doesn’t have a decent broadband system and large downloads still require many to take exhorbitantly long times to download the biweekly patch.

Also they were preparing a game release into China, guess where their focus was? Yeah, properly introducing a game to a 160+ million player market. So let’s see where we go in the next year….

Arenanet, how about letting us view the camera view from one of our party mates, as in GW1. That was a great feature!

Not sure then, I would report this in the bug reports and see what comes of it.

Check your audio settings, you can mute or change the volume of dialogues.

Kalendraf.9521:

Roybe.5896:

Pandaman.4758:

All these posts supporting mobs, but nobody thinks for a moment about environmental critters getting one-shot when they’re trying to roam.

I’ll always remember you, innocent bystander bunny, whatever your name was.

If those death animations weren’t so darned amazing, I would leave the ambients alone..but, man, those frozen bunny animations kill me every time I see them! And nothing makes me giggle more than sneaking a Big Ol’ Bomb under the but of a deer or yak!

Melandru, hear our pleas!

As evidenced by the cruel tortures described above, as well as the earlier postings by Snowbunny and the Frogs and Ravens in Queensdale, your meekest children are being brutally slaughtered for the amusement of these wicked creatures. We carry no loot, offer no experience to our killers, and do nothing to provoke their attacks. Yet day after day, we are subjected to their relentless onslaught. Why cruel masters of Tyria must we suffer this way?

- Ambient Alliance

The Charr have no Gods!

Well I could blame Arenanet for ‘luck nerf’ or admit that my guild, farming for the Grawl Paw with me, succeeded in beating me roughly 4:1 in getting one, i.e. with 3 other people farming this received 13 between them when I finally got 1. So yeah. RNG is RNG.

Pandaman.4758:

All these posts supporting mobs, but nobody thinks for a moment about environmental critters getting one-shot when they’re trying to roam.

I’ll always remember you, innocent bystander bunny, whatever your name was.

If those death animations weren’t so darned amazing, I would leave the ambients alone..but, man, those frozen bunny animations kill me every time I see them! And nothing makes me giggle more than sneaking a Big Ol’ Bomb under the but of a deer or yak!

Well you know what they say…

‘You can’t keep a good one down.’ I suggest you keep trying. I know you are very happy to lose since you are so tired…or does that ‘Sleeeep!’ statement mean something entirely different?

Terrahero.9358:

Mitch.4781:

It is beyond me why they had to dumb down the levelling experience even further to make it easier for “new players”.

This isnt about making it easier for new players anymore. Ive never heard a single person complain GW2 was to difficult or complex when it just came out, and we all were new players.

Because those players left the game in frustration before anyone knew they were here.

Still having issues. Mozilla 32.0.1 clearing cache does not change situation. Also checked in Chrome, still broken there also.

Also turned of Avast!, ABP, and Ghostery. Still getting broken page.

I doubt this is a matter of underestimating those that stick around, it’s a matter of overestimating the people that the marketing department convinced to give the game a try and didn’t stick around.

My apologies for not putting in my 2 cents on this. I do feel that the GW2 gem store is a good thing. However, they are not utilizing it in a fashion that is maximizing it and in a certain light is actually using it incorrectly. The maximization part is related to this video is the idea that there could be huge profits made IF there was more items like the box of fun, something already sold. Things that have little or no inherent use to the owner, but fosters greater community involvement. Bobble headed tonic and the water balloon fight are others. These are great implementations of the idea and need to occur with more frequency.

Although I agree that cosmetic items (skins of armors) offer no ‘advantage’ to the game to other players, they do create a level of friction between players. They are a constant reminder to some that the game reward system is influenced by the gem store, otherwise the various game skins featured in the store would be available through the game or remain within the store perpetually. Yes, I am aware that one can use in game gold for this, however, many times the availability time is so short for the skins, that this is not physically possible to generate the gold within the amount of time.

Another problem, tied to this, is that this game’s end game is about the skins…we all love to play dress up. This endgame is in general, gated through the store. Again, with in game gold this leads to people trying to maximize their time and gold earning by champ farming, speed running the dungeons, etc. Again, these are not the only reasons people do these things, nor are they always a problem to the game at large, but people setting the goals of getting store items with gold are playing to avoid the monetary system, is one of the points of the video.

Still broken Firefox and Chrome. Refresh nor cache dump fixes this.

We need to get over this distinction. If anything, the BtP model means that people are MORE sensitive to poor monetization in the RL store.

The overall point of this video is what retail has known for years, making things that make it fun to part with your money means more will come and do just that.

Why people have a problem…Gw2 has the first problem.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?annotation_id=annotation_4004028033&feature=iv&index=2&list=PLhyKYa0YJ_5BF-cMaj6gIe-7uD5rZG9ur&src_vid=FwI0u9L4R8U&v=Mhz9OXy86a0

All I am interested in this is how many people vote overall. That is a significant number.

I wonder what will happen when they bulldoze Orr and make it a paradise and ALL the content is gone? Seriously, there has to come a time when New players will never see the original storyline of Orr. Seriously, Orr has also changed since the beginning. It’s much easier now AND has fewer spawns. This is the definition of a Living World, right? We killed the ruler of the area and it’s influence is diminishing over time until we’ll have bunnies and rainbows all over the area!

Thorn will be quite amused at the state of LA. Probably will want to thank the person that did it!

Furyan.9578:

Vayne.8563:

Because they really did run tests with new players and this kept new players playing longer and staying with the game longer. This is what Colin said directly. A year of testing on new players.

The thing I find fraudulent about that is we were all new players once. I don’t know anyone out of all the players I know who had difficulties with how the systems worked before this patch. After the patch is a different story, so saying its to help new players is a self-defeating standpoint.

How new a player were you when you didn’t know how to WASD? Or understand what anything on screen meant, at all? Or didn’t know what any keys did? If you are trying to attract this demographic then these things need to be taught. They found that tutorial areas do nothing to help the situation or are not cost effective to implement. So they are giving that experience in the starter areas. Oh, and guess what? They have PROOF this is the best way to do this. If you do not accept their proof that’s on you. I’m pretty sure they are as surprised as we are at what they had to do to successfully onboard new players with retention in mind.

Errant Venture.9371:

Azure The Heartless.3261:

dace.8019:

I remember the first time I saw Diving Goggles, conveniently placed on the precipice of a ledge above some water.

After the initial shock wore off, I stood staring down at them, my mind racing to comprehend their meaning, Literally a couple of possibilities swirled around my tiny brain but it was too much. Exhausted, I logged off.

I went for a walk just to clear my mind. The image of those goggles haunted me as I walked along the path, teasing me with their impenetrable puzzle. I saw the moon and the stars, and it dawned on me. Just like the endless mysteries of the universe, I was not meant to understand. In another life, in another time – maybe.

I had looked upon those goggles on that ledge like a mouse looks upon Michaelangelo’s David. They were simply too huge to comprehend, to hold their full meaning in my head would be like holding the sea in a teacup.

Sometimes I still dream about them, and the ledge. The water below rushes up to meet me, I understand a little bit more – but then I wake up, and the dream, like the answers, fade away.

9/10 part 2 pls

Eagerly awaiting the sequel.

….and…GW3….confirmed.

BTW..this patch was different in that the servers were shut down. 99% Of other patches give you 1 hour in open world 3 hours in dungeons to complete before you are removed. Ample time to finish what you need. I understand your frustration, I’ve been dc’ed for 3 or 4 champs in the last week two of those as my guildies on mumble said ‘there it goes!’, losing all the rewards. However, this is the best patching system in any game. I will not stand for a battle.net shut down every tuesday for maintainence.

At this point, they say they have tested this with new players and it works. Let’s see. That’s all we can do. The downed state to you was engaging, to a new MMO player it might have been confusing the first time, frustrating the second time, and ‘flip table’ stupid the third time. At which point this sucks, walk away, uninstall.

We do not know. The company is not sharing, nor should they. They have made a change. Let’s see how it goes. If it fails, won’t it be great to say ‘We told you so!’

anzenketh.3759:

Behellagh.1468:

Metrics are tools, nothing more.

The problem with too much focus on metrics is that you tend to design a game to match the metrics instead of innovating. I hope that ArenaNet understands this or they will fall pray to the same problem that the social game industry fell into. Too Many Clones. (Or is the AAA gaming industry already at that problem).

Extra Credits: Metrics
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqGcXOksFGg

The above video explains another reason that is applicable to Guild Wars 2. Often metrics based games create inaccessible products only accessible to a niche player-base. This is perhaps what happened in the initial development of this game. Leading to a complete re-design of core systems.

‘For gamers, by gamers’. Yes, they created a niche game. However, I think their original scope was to say ‘a fun game designed by people that know how to have fun’ a very different statement. The second one is a lot more inclusive than the first one. The first one is catering to those that identify themselves as gamers, a much smaller subset of the overall market than the second one.

As far as splitting the game, this isn’t that type of game. Sorry. That is all the other MMO’s in the world that have a different game when you finish leveling your character, mainly because that brings in QQ for higher level Best In Slot gear, etc.

Bad move. Sorry, that will truly destroy this game. I came here because I love the idea that there is no ‘upper level’ in PvE and I will leave if that content gets added.

If you want to play at a higher level, go sPvP. It is fun and awesome. Srsly.

Maybe a little understanding of what game companies in general, are doing. First a little background for you to read:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normal_distribution

Here’s the same information written without the mathematics

http://www.regentsprep.org/Regents/math/algtrig/ATS2/NormalLesson.htm

Now, how does this relate to our predicament? It goes like this:

People that are ‘leet’, in forums, ‘from China, but not the US/EU’, by your discussion, live in the 3rd standard deviation of the curve to the right, based on population and proficiency, and are insulted when the game isn’t being created to make you happy. Based on the Normal Distribution, the 3rd percentile makes up less than 1% of the overall gaming market.

Gaming companies have awakened to the idea that there is a market around the median that equates to 70% of the game population. So how do they attract that 70% and retain a higher proportion? The marketing dept. knows how to do this and does it well in any game, thus the huge influx into many games.

The disconnect comes in when that 70% get into the game, many do not know how to play games…WASD is new to them. Think about it this way, PC users are reluctant to play games designed with console players in mind because the interfaces are to simplistic. Console players do not, generally, play PC games, so they buy this great game all their PC friends are playing and struggle because of the ‘complexity’, a complexity PC players love…see the problem?

Now multiply that by the general population and invited non-gamers into a world like Tyria and you see the game companies problems. They want larger profits and want the game to be accessible, but they have always been afraid to anger their top <1% players. In business bypassing so much of a profitable market because you cater to <1% of that market is a problem.

The company wants larger profits, so they want to sell more games and retain buying customers. If you are churning new customers out because of mechanics and confusion, you try to eliminate those from the game and repair it.

The minority of the game do not like it, sorry guys but we need more players or no one will play. The game has to maintain a level of profitability or the servers will close. (BTW if a game profitability is low, but profitable, a company will close the server to bring online a more profitable game..but that is another discussion) To maintain that level of profitability you have to keep the loyal base buying, but as that diminishes over time, you have to bring on more players also. Yes, loyal players will churn, however, if you have two problems, you can only face one at a time, and generally the harder to understand and deal with takes priority. Onboarding and decreasing new player churn is the hardest to get a handle on between the two. Although the argument is made that it’s also way more expensive to do this, in the long run the game becomes healthier and more profitable, with an easier to sustain profitability level.

It’s already been stated that the metrics used were obtained from the West and East and interestingly both sets of metrics pointed out the same thing.

I have played ranger since release. The longbow is seriously an issue. For a lark we took 5 rangers out into Plains of Ashford and left nothing standing on the map around the junkyard, almost killing stuff as fast as the spawn rate….we figured that 15-20 rangers could grief the whole level 1-3 area leaving nothing standing for anyone else to kill. This is a huge problem, not only for the meta in PvP, but for all low level areas of the game. My ranger is stacking 3k+ damage on lvl 80 grawls, with one skill, not even at full range….It needs to be looked at.

So the other two branches are at the same level are gone, too? I agree on them explaining. I just can’t see them deleting this content for any other reason than they were forced to.

As for the Orrian content we were warned on what they were doing and why…again I am not happy about the shifting and the jarring continuity issue.

The only other thing I wonder about is players overall completion rate of these story lines. If completion was negligible, maybe they made these changes to streamline and shorten the personal story to get people to the end of the story quicker so that the players can get into the Living Story content easier/quicker…particularly if they are going to remove/change most of the Orrian countryside at some future point…I mean Zhaitan is dead right? Why are there still undead floating around the area. Trahearne cleansed Orr Right? Where’s the trees and plants?

At this point all I can do is SMH and ride the train to the next station.

NCSOFT is Arenanet. NCSoft only considers us as consumers, particularly retail customers. They want us to keep coming back so we continue to buy more from the store, but not so many that the upkeep degrades profits.

My theory on the unannounced disappearance of this, the one and only storyline. (the Orian storyline changes were discussed on the run up to release)

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/lore/lore/Tonn-Apatia-cut-from-Personal-Story/first#post4399717

Business is business. NCSoft wants this game in China, China says no to Apatia, APatia is gone. I can only conjecture on why it was completely removed from the code. Datamining is the only thing that makes sense.

As far as the changes to the Orrian Storyline, Arenanet has claimed to move because of level issues. That was from the 3 week lead up. The sneak removal of content has to do with the Chinese release. You can deny this, but in doing so I would like another theory as to why it was released in this state. Until we hear from someone internal, it makes a lot of sense.

The only reason I can even come up with on the removal of the Apatia story is some Chinese censorship issue that required the series to be completely removed from the code so it could not even be datamined. Whether it’s the idea of doing something that caused some one to be incarcerated and killed somehow being subversive to the Chinese government, or some social taboo that we do not understand. I have actually done this story step a few times because I thought it was actually one of the more compelling story ideas in the game. My two coppers on this. I hope it can come back…it made my characters who they are…

Edited for additional information:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Apatia

“The word “apatia” appears in Portuguese, Esperanto, Finnish, Italian, and Polish with the meaning of “apathy.”

There’s the possible source of the problem. By naming her apathy that gives the powers that be in the Chinese government a reason to strike the story from the game. This can be construed as a call to rise up against the government….yes it seems odd, but if you look at it from the idea of a cautionary tale against apathy, the it truly becomes a call to act against repression.

hannah mee.7925:

Khristophoros.7194:

Well to be blunt, GW2 is not a game that makes people want to keep playing.

There will be a lot of people who just log in to do the Living Story or to do dailies at some point, and there’s no way ANet can make a financially feasible effort when most of their players don’t get on enough to want to spend money on the gem store.

This game isn’t about concurrency, it’s about retention. As long as you log in and collect your biweekly updates, you are retained. The danger point to NCSoft is when they see logins drop. At that point, they will either go with an abusive FTP store or shut the NA/EU servers down.

When people begin to realize that MMO games receiving their money from RL money stores makes the game a pure retail operation, they will get their expectations in line with the way the game is designed and will either be happier playing or move on to other games not reliant upon such items.

mtpelion.4562:

This patch is the result of R&D that told them that they would inconvenience a minority of players while making the game accessible to many, many more people.

They are not going to lose money or players (overall) as a result of this patch.

OMG! Another voice in my neck of the woods! Welcome! ;p Only caveat I have on this is, as long as they interpreted their data correctly AND implemented the changes needed accurately to enable people to learn easily.

duckideva.6358:

Na, I’ve been talking to some ex-ncsoft guys.

If the rumors are to be believed, this is all coming from ncsoft, who want the game to be more like the Korean grinders. Those games make a lot of money for their primary single-voice shareholder: Nexon. Nexon bought a 15% share of the company, making them a huge, huge, huge voice in the boardroom. Nexon was the originator of the the pay to win model, and still escrows billions of fiat currency in it’s NX currency.

Anet is small fish compared to the sharks in the pool where they swim. If the directions are coming from nexon and ncsoft to make the game match what the Korean and Chinese markets expect from an MMO; then there is nothing Anet can do about it.

I mean, look at what happened with Garriot and Tabula Rasa. Sure, ncsoft eventually had to pay him 30 million dollars because of their fraud, but in the mean time, a game idea with great potential was destroyed by a company that wanted it to be a different sort of game.

Or ncsoft and City of Heros. My point being, if ncsoft has decided that GW2 is going to the pay to win model whether the players and developers like it or not, then that’s the direction the game is going to go, and there’s not a kitten thing that the devs at Anet can do to stop it.

This is my theory, and I stand by it.

THIS THIS…SO MUCH THIS! Welcome to the wilderness! Glad to have another voice in it!

Kamui.4038:

Roybe.5896:

For those that say ‘Arenanet must take into account the voices of their customers’, I agree. However, I also believe that we, as forum goers, and ‘veteran players’ aren’t in a position to ‘know’ what non gamers and new players need in the way of introduction/help in learning a new game.

What are you talking about? We were ALL in that position at one point or another. We ALL know what non gamers and new players need because we were ALL one of those types. We weren’t born with Atari joysticks or Nintendo controllers in our hands.

Because no one remembers how noob they really were. I was playing with a brand new 60+ year old player and was amazed at the things that were confusing them. This was someone that didn’t know how to truly use WASD. You know one of those ‘kittened, 6 year olds’ the patch was supposed to help. Please, when you remember that you didn’t know how to move in a game and you want someone to undnerstand that a key can let you dodge out of damage AND that it doesn’t work every time AND …AND..AND… that’s when you understand why these changes are happening in this game and every other one out there. More people know NOTHING about games and would be willing to spend their money, at any age IF the games were more accessible and forgiving as they learned the basics..and I do mean BASICS.

For those that say ‘Arenanet must take into account the voices of their customers’, I agree. However, I also believe that we, as forum goers, and ‘veteran players’ aren’t in a position to ‘know’ what non gamers and new players need in the way of introduction/help in learning a new game.

We know what we know because we play games…a lot. Now look at your grandparents. People MY age. Many would love to learn to play. Many have free time and certainly have the money. What they do not have is the experience of 5+ years of gaming experience and they have to put up with attitudinal crap and disrespect from those that ‘know better’.

Game companies have learned a harsh fact that the 2% doesn’t like. The market around the median is way more lucrative, because that where 70% of a market is located. What all these developers have come to understand is that their expected baseline is set way to high to attract these people. Even in a game as simplistically designed as GW2 (in the veterans eyes). So now vets, what do you do? Leave, complaining that your feels are hurt, that the dummification of games is hurting your fun times? Or do you reach out and help those that need it and bring them to a level, that might not be as high as yourself, but would be much higher than the expectations of those new to gaming? You either can lead the charge to help others or you can be the cause of another games industry crash, bigger than the one that happened when I was your age. You have the choice to make a difference…whichever decision you make.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

Gizmo.9178:

Just because there are threads here that say they are unhappy with the changes does not mean a majority of the players dislike them. The forums does not represent the majority of the players.

I have been playing this game for 2yrs and I LOVE these changes.

People should not try to speak for others.

I love when people say this like the forums are not at all a representative sample of the game.

I’m sure there are dozens of players who like this update who don’t post on the forums…

BUT I am also sure there are hundreds of players who quit the game because of this update who don’t post on the forums…

If true, then we will see some of these things change..but I’m betting not as many have quit as people would like to think.

BTW, if you ‘quit’ but log back in to get your free update, you haven’t quit. You are considered retained.

MMO’s are glorified Skinner Boxes?!?! OMG Say it ain’t so! <sorry for the sarcasm> This IS the model these games, and actually any game that gives points, rewards, incentives, etc. are based on. Positive reinforcement. Swing a sword, swing a sword again, get a reward. MMO’s have taken this to a new level, with the FtP model leading the way.

Errant Venture.9371:

Skill challenges are also level-locked

Skill challenges are level locked BUT if one is started by a higher level character, the locked person WILL complete the challenge and will have the skill point available when they are ready to use it.

Probably considered by the Chinese as anti government propaganda..you know, people go missing and never return. However, I thought they would fork the game over these issues, rather than remove full pieces from the US version. Although we might have a free and open society in the West, NCSoft is based in the East and accepts these types of changes without care to possible business outcomes.

Proposal Overview
Better officer communication tools

Goal of Proposal
A way to keep a log of people that have been banned and the reason(s). We are a larger guild in a gaming community, our turnover requires a way to inform future officers of our decisions and reasoning behind these issues.

Looser Mail/Messaging rules within the Guild- Current system stops working after only two mails are being sent. We run into this issue constantly. Frequent Guild events require prizes to be mailed to winners and we have to coordinate between the officers to be certain that all prizes are rewarded in a timely manner. Change the mail count to 5 or 6 in a short time rather than 2 before it locks you out of the functionality.

Proposal Functionality
The ban log provides a clearer communication network between officers and future officer, in organizations that, on the larger side, have a limited ability to maintain ‘corporate memory’. The Mail/Messagin change is a QoL change that, although in its current implementation is a great idea for public messaging, is to draconian within the protected areas of a guild.

Associated risks
Abuse within a guild although possible, is extremely unlikely. A poor decision on banning someone might be made, however with proper documentation these can become more obvious to future leaders.

tigirius.9014:

Gibson.4036:

Charleston Chew.1209:

Adapt or move on. How simple life is, innit?

Looks like there are at least a few who are choosing the latter.

What remains to be seen, is whether the “new player experience” will entice as many new players to join the game as it has current players to “move on”.

There was a game dev team that took that attitude when it came to the sweeping changes they made to the game and thought it would be cute to have a bit of tough love. Guess which game that was. Wildstar, they are hemorrhaging players now fyi.

I again point to the game industry changing its audience to the median (center and left of the normal distribution) rather than to the top 2% of the game. It seems this might be an NCSoft directive to all their devs. If they can sell their game to the 70% of the market around the median, and only lose the top 2% of the market, in business sense, that’s a fair trade off. The nice thing about this move is that the devs get blamed, the games close, and NCSoft walks with a huge pile of money!

Labjax.2465:

Vayne.8563:

Yes, it takes an hour to get going. But once you get that hour, you can pretty much go around and play the old way. I did.

I give up. If you can’t see my point when you’ve written it in front of your own face, then repeating myself is certainly not going to make you see it.

I’m glad you continue to find fun in the leveling process. I sincerely am. But please realize that you are not everyone and nothing you say will make you everyone.

The irony!

Rauderi.8706:

pdavis.8031:

5) Was planning on rolling an alt but decided to wait until after patch to check new leveling, and was sorely disappointed.

6) Trying to get my wife to play more and was excited because it was supposed to be “easier and user friendly” and am upset that it makes it needlessly more complicated.

5) Right on.

6) Same, except the wife part. I’m actually embarrassed to tell my non-GW2 friends to come to the game now. I’ll be testing it out with an open mind, but I expect to be disappointed.

You get what you expect.

Wiz.1543:

Or take a quote from Dulfy. So much this.

Or you know, don’t let the videos release pre-patch or cancel the previews all together to make it fair for everyone and all the fansites. Getting tired of playing catch up every patch.

In other words don’t release anything that can influence the tradingpost, or release it via an official channel so everybody is informed at the same time.

Playing catch up takes a lot of the enjoyment out of the otherwise great patch.

I know content creators like Woodenpotatoes, Boggoter Mighty Teapot and Matt Visual which I am all a fan of need content to prepare for great video’s to get us more into gw2. So what you can do is split content in tradingpost effecting and non tradingpost effecting. And only let the latter be previewed. This is easier said than done, and easy from a standby perspective.

But something needs to be done about playing catch up every time.

Maybe one simple but elegant solution is to take off the trading post x time before and x time and after patch?

Then someone will complain that Anet isn’t communicating properly with us. Again lose/lose.

Ahh, the Ne..uhh Consortium <wink> controversy raises it’s ugly head again!

I’m pretty sure many players in this forum are no where near these benchmarks, but well above them. That’s the problem. Kind of like the ‘first world problem’ meme. We are so attuned to playing that mechanics aren’t that much to adjust to. This is what is driving game companies now. They are attempting to bring in people that are completely new to the market and realize to do this will alienate their current playerbase. However, profits drive business. If NCSoft demands that the game becomes more accessible to access this new market, Arenanet has little choice but to comply. If this is an internal change to better the accessibility from research, then it shows how far out of touch all developers are with their game design, and how far the 2% have moved the curve of access denial. Which makes sense. From the amount of dislike I’ve seen in games aimed at the new, uninitiated, slow to learn population. If the 2% can make the game interesting enough for them, then they can limit the inputs of those that want to play but have been told they suck so often that they do not bother.

Bertrand.3057:

Roybe.5896:

Because the top players are upset that the new business model shifts the focus of games to the center and left of the standard curve.

If this experience is merely for those to the center and left of the curve then I’ll withdraw my complaint because we are doomed as a society already. I didn’t realise Anet was in the business of creating games for special needs

You do realize that the center of the curve is where ‘average’ is defined? 1 Standard deviation away in both directions = roughly 70% of a market? Why should a company cater to less than roughly 2% of a market when they could make so much more from the 70%?

I posted this elsewhere, but I’ll post this idea here. Game companies are about creating profit. They realize that there is more money the closer they develop to the center of the normal distribution curve of any given market. However, no matter your measure whether physical ability, mental acuity, money available, etc. games, in general, are to hard. Particularly if you keep aiming at the top 2% of said curve, this further alienates the rest of the markets population. Believe me if your grandfather or grandmother felt comfortable playing a game, and invited all their other friends to play also, that market is much larger and with larger amounts of disposable income and time to play, which will lead to a more lucrative outcome. Game makers are aiming for the middle of the curve with less focus on the ‘elite’. We can either embrace the changes and help others gain experience and comfort within a given game, or we can leave. You make your choices, you take your chances.