Guild Wars 2

Dolphin.2574:

The OP does have a valid question in his first paragraph. Has anyone compared the HD space consumed on a machine with HoT and one without?

Sam, I would be careful with your second paragraph though. It may be a gray area but questioning the legality of such a practice would be a no no. You may want to edit that one a bit. Your question stands on its own merits without such a reference. IMO of course.
“Using the forums or PMs to encourage, promote, endorse, or incite any kind of legal action against the company or any individual is strictly prohibited. Such content will be removed, and the author’s posting privileges will be permanently revoked.”

The license agreement actually states we can’t sue NCSoft or ArenaNet without working with them and trying to come to an agreement through arbitration. Also I am aware that MMORPGs in general are totalitarian rule. NCSoft and ArenaNet can ban pretty much anyone they want for any reason and you really don’t have any recourse except maybe your initial purchase price. So to be clear, I am not trying to rally anyone to take any action against ANet in any way. What I am doing is trying to discuss something that I have not seen discussed before.

Still it would be nice if their right to take up as much of your hard drive space as they choose to were outlined somewhere the license agreement for formality sake.

If it truly is the standard for all MMOs that the expansion content is a forced download even for those who don’t own the expansion that is ridiculous. It makes me wonder what size the WoW install requires on a hd these days.

I mean, I love the game but do I really want to devote 40-GB of space to it? I still believe there is an ethical question here. Since multiple MMORPG developers are following the pattern it’s not exclusively directed at ANet, but in general how ethical is it to require players to devote 5-10GB+ of hard drive space to patches for an expansion they don’t even have legal right to use and to content they never signed a license agreement for. When purchased at retail boxed each expansion has it’s own license agreement. Though digital download it’s blurry. Is the original GW2 license agreement a living document that a player signs every time they sign into the game? If so where has that been established. Should it be established to grant the MMORPG developers the legal rights to consume as much hard drive space as needed?

If you think about these sort of questions may help ANet. How hard is it for them to amend a few paragraphs in the agreement just so their customers are clear that they are claiming the right to do this?

Put gaming out your mind for a moment and taking the question up to a higher level. Is it ethical for any software product vendor to take up large amounts of your hard drive space with related add on products they offer that you never purchased and that you do not have the legal right to use without paying them for a license?

It appears HoT content is being incrementally downloaded with each GW2 patch. It appears this is being done for those who have purchased and have not purchased HoT. I have children who have GW2 accounts and have the game loaded on their computers. They don’t have a lot of hard drive space left (5-6 GB), I have not purchased HoT on their accounts. Over the coming months should I anticipate 10+ GB download patched to their games with HoT content they will not be using and have not paid for? I’d just like some clarification on this because this appears to be the way the expansion is being applied.

If the above is the case I don’t agree with it , if you’re occupying storage space for a product they did not pay for and do not want is that really ethical?

EDIT
I think to boil it down. What I"m really wondering is how much of the total GW2 install how much HD space will the for-pay expansion assets (models, textures, audio, etc..) account for? The new WvW map would be an example of content for everyone not for pay so I don’t think that content counts as part of this question. If it’s not through the license agreement, at what point to MMORPG developers gain the right to patch gigabytes of data for content you can’t play until you pay for? Is there a limit on how much space they can take? To better protect themselves for some crazy down the road who may try to litigate this should MMORPG developers better protect themselves or do most players not care at all?

Zok.4956:

After playing three days in the BWE1 my final verdict of this Beta Weekend Event 1, (without going into much detail because there are a lot of other threads with that):

It’s a beta, of course there are bugs that need to be fixed, some things should change, but overall it was a great and fun experience and I have high hopes for the final and finished expansion.

What do you think?

Love
*Map design. Beautiful environments that look and play nothing like what we’ve seen before in GW2.

*Elite Specializations. The Elite Specializations are core to the expansion. I love that on the new map I’m immediately surrounded by Tempest, Reapers, Dragon Hunters and Revenants. It feels like an expansion should. I think the Elite Specializations should be unlocked during the tutorial or shortly after. Having these professions on the first map makes it really come alive and I like the way they are designed. Even the Tempest which isn’t getting much love feels new with the overloads.

*Depth of Instanced Story. From what little we saw, I would say it’s much better scripted than anything else I’ve played in the game. The only personal story chapter in GW2 that was well scripted and well designed was The Battle of Fort Trinity. It’s the ONLY one that left any lasting impression at all. The instanced story in HoT we got to play matched that in depth. Very happy.

Dislike
*Limited map points I think there needs to be one or two more travel points on the first map of HoT. The reason is the map is much larger than it looks due to the vertical aspect. Once you have the basic Glider you’re ok but until then it’s a living hell that could be made more tolerable with the addition of maybe one new travel point to the south of the map, I’d suggest right past the bridge between Dry Step Mesa and Shourded Ruins.

Hate
*Adventures
The ones available in beta are incredibly boring. I think the concept of putting a leaderboard on trivial repayable content is a HORRIBLE idea. Now if the Adventures were creatively designed and really felt like mini arcade games that would be different, but the ones available were not. It takes a great amount of planning and skill to create short challenging puzzles. When you can’t find the fun no one is going to care. Do you honestly think anyone is going to care about the names on the Adventure leaderboards anyway? Maybe they will, but I just don’t think so. It’s not like the WvW and sPvP leaderboards where it’s one location. It’s not the same level of gratification at all. Think about how many of these you’ll have. I think it’s just way too much. I think the Adventures presented were poorly designed. I think I would have rather seen Hearts return.

*Stronghold. Not sure where to start with this one. Everyone on my team was confused. At the very least it needs a better interactive tutorial. But the strategy overall was not fun. It’s possible it takes more plays to “get it” but I never had to do that with Conquest or WvW so I think Stronghold as designed will fail. You’re bringing Guild Halls back, please give us real GvG again.

*The apparent size of the expansion. From what’s been harvested from the binaries and posted on-line it appears we are only getting 4-5 maps and that they are all smaller maps focused on the vertical movement. The expansions of GW1 gave us entirely new continents. While expansions will, never give you a 100% of the content you recieved in the original, Factions and NIghtfall felt so much like new games they got us about 80% to being an entirely new game. HoT feels like it gets us about 25% there. There’s just this feeling that there needs to be A LOT more. Maybe there is and we just haven’t seen it yet? As it stands we don’t even know if new dungeons or world bosses are being added.

*The death of the living world? I don’t understand why ArenaNet refuses to comment on Living World plans post HoT release. Don’t you think people investing in this expansion have a right to know what’s planned beyond it? GW1’s business model was based on expansions, but up until now GW2’s model has been micro-transactions. Can we expect that Living World is just another failed GW2 design where the cost didn’t match the forecasted payoff?

The goal of Stronghold it seems is to take supply chain management concepts of WvW and make them more dependent on NPC.s and provide this on a much smaller scale than WvW and in a structured PvP format.

As it is in beta it’s a little too complex for new players to grasp the goals without impacting their team mates. The worst about it though is that it’s just not all that fun. I really like Conquest although I haven’t played much of it I immediately understand the objectives. WvW I’ve done more of and again things are pretty clear. I was also very involved in GvG in GW1. I really think Stronghold could have been better designed and is overall a big letdown.

Since Guild Halls are coming, please consider bringing back GvG

In playing through the new map, I realized a big part of my enjoyment was coming from the new Elite Specialization mechanics. I do not want to play though 50% of this expansion in order to unlock the Elite Specialization. I will feel like half the game was wasted before I could get to the key thing making it feel new and fun. If ArenaNet chooses to make the Elite Specializations so difficult that they aren’t available until the half way point in the story progression I’ll probably not bother.

There are things a player should work very hard for and then there are things that are core to the play mechanic. The core play mechanic features should be provided very quickly in the games progression. The primary novelty from GW2 HoT comes from the Elite Specializations. You should be able to get the Elite Specializations completely unlocked in less time than it takes to unlock all utility skills in GW2. Make it go much longer than that and you’re destroying the game.

We’ve all worked hard to get to level 80 and Mastery’s give us a progression path. Please make the Elite Specializations something realistically obtainable very early into the game.

" I calculated the exp required to complete all the magumma masteries to be roughly equivalent to earning 266 levels. I think that’s a pretty solid timeline, provided that we see new masteries added on a somewhat regular basis." Meh, it’s a grind fest in a game by a company who claimed to philosophically be against grind.

i found the tempest underwhelming. In general playing with an Ele can be difficult. I found myself often pulling and being attached on both sides. It’s just not a profession that does well solo in high density maps like the Cursed Shore or the SIlverwaste.

What I like —-——————————————————————————————————————————-

• Elite Specializations. Because I have new skills at my disposal, I’m immediately drawn into the game. I feel making the Elite Specializations available immediately is a good idea. Have it unlocked as soon as a player signs in post HoT and don’t make them work for it. The only exception is if you’ve worked the Elite Specializations into the story. I find it doubtful you will since Rytlock was a Warrior and instead of him becoming a Bezerker or whatever Elite Specialization is planned for Warriors, he instead becomes a Revenant. So continuity is out the window with this specializations from the get go, why make players wait?

• The design of the maps overall are great. They don’t feel like GW2 maps. They feel like a place we’ve never been in every way possible. Excellent job to the developers on the map design. I do think adding an additional waypoint or two would be a good idea. You’ve obviously designed the maps in hopes we’ll fall to our death. When we do that (and you know we will) it would be nice to just a little closer to our team mates. Not having one or two additioanl waypoints along the way does not make the game more challenging, it really just ensures more repeat content (grind) which philosophically ArenaNet is suppose to be against. Without them, you’ve essentally designed a map that plays a lot like a dungeon except you will have people not in groups trying to play so it’s not a dungeon and shouldn’t be treated as such.

• The (not so personal) story. The mechanics, dialog and overall execution of the first story chapter really pulled me in. Kid gloves off most of the personal story execution in GW2 was a failure. Your writers did a horrible job, but you have the numbers on how many people actually played though all their personal story chapters. I imagine you know how badly you failed. So it’s very refreshing to see how well the story is being executed in GW2: HoT. I wanted to keep at it because I wanted to know how it was going to end. You NEVER achieved that with me on GW2. I can only say I hope all the story/missions are as good as the first.

• PvP Leagues ok this wasn’t playable but it was announced and I just want to say thank you, thank you, thank you!!!! A league system combined with changing queuing so that only same league players are matched will change sPvP and turn it into something great that even the most casual player can approach. This is the one feature I’ve dreamed about from the beginning guys. I can’t tell you how happy I am to hear this is coming.

What I didn’t like —-——————————————————————————————————————-

• Mastery system apparently there was some instruction on how to use mastery points following the first stroy conclusion. That information was not repeatable and I went to the Mastery tab unsure how to spend my points. The whole thing was confusing and I felt should have been blended better with the story. As implemented I hate it. You can do better and you should do better with something that offers such a valuable play mechanic.

• Linear design of maps I did actually like this, I just think you need one or two more travel points along the path.

• Catastrophic bugs everywhere Dynamic Events are core to this expansion. For Beta Weekend #1 your team was tasked with getting those events working for a single map and you couldn’t even pull that off. Yes, we all know it’s a beta but i’m shocked at just how early everything feels. It felt more unfinished the original GW2 betas ever did. Since every event in the game was bugged at some point in this beta weekend. I used the word Catastrophic because many of the bugs were blockers because the linear design of the map. You guys should really be ashamed of how poorly this went over unless of course you were expecting us to just not care that all the events were bugged. It felt like we were Alpha testing not Beta testing and there is a big difference.

Doing a quick Google search reveals her public contributions to GW2 (which were plentiful) all stopped three years ago in 2012. What’s also interesting is that her personal site hasn’t been updated since then. Talented writers move around. My assumption is she’s on another game project for another company by now, but the total out of the spotlight approach is a bit alarming.

Great post. The reality is structured PvP in any game that’s worth playing is going to be catering to a niche group who devote much of their free time to the sport.

I have often wondered why e-sport gaming hasn’t evolved to model the real world a bit more. For example, in the real world take Baseball for example. You have corporate teams, minor and major leagues, etc… Each have their own pyramid for championships leading to a winner being crowned. It’s a concept of leagues (some private and some sponsored). To make this analogous to GW2, in sPvP GW2 world essentially there is just one major league (well multiple major leagues if you divide up the International servers). This is great for the hardcore devotes, but it leaves a huge gap for those who can’t devote as much time but still want serious sPvP. Does the 36 year old who plays Baseball competitively in a local league love the game any less than someone who’s playing in the Major Leagues? Not necessarily, but given his skill and limited time to further develop his skill he could never enter MLB, but he does have that local league which lets him compete and have just as much fun…. In the GW2 sPvP world there is no counterpart to this and there really should be.

Technically it would be challenging to implement. There’s all kinds of questions such as "how would we stop an advanced hardcore player from grieving the minor leaguers for fun… While all solutions have their vulnerabilities much could be done on that front. For example if you implemented this sort of leaguing, once a player is qualified as a member of the top tier league. Their account is marked so they can not create a character to compete in the lesser leagues. If a player were to just buy a new account for the purpose of grieving simple safeguards to qualify them (if after a string of battles they consistently out perform everyone else in their league then they get promoted and can not reenter the minor league). If someone is caught grieving they could be banned… My point is technically it’s not that hard to get reasonable safe guards in place to enable a leaguing system. If such a system were ever implemented it would really open up the sPvP side of Guild Wars 2.

Thanks for the encouragement. After further investigating I see so much has changed. My old builds and trait chains have to be reworked and I should probably spend some time warming up again before jumping into this content!

Drawn back in because of the expansion rumors and really impressed by what I saw of Point of No Return. I’m now reading the end of the first season was even better. Maybe it’s just because I’m rusty in playing but I don’t feel the Point of No Return content is well balanced for solo play. I’ve heard it’s possible to play though it that way, but for me for solo experience it goes beyond sweat spot of really challenging to something I’d have to spend quite a bit of time and frustration with to beat. I know many gamers would would say that I just need to work harder at it, but those would likely be the types that typically go for the most difficult settings on games when the option is available… Also finding people to play though the content seems like it should be easier given the LFG option but after signing in twice today (once during peek hours) and getting no responses I’ve suddenly lost interest in the expansion. I played though all my personal story chapters solo without problem, so I’m thinking ANet has designed this Living World content with group play in mind, but it seems many players in the game world do not think that is the case which makes the experience or recruiting others to join a challenge and overall just led me to sign out and loose some interest in the potential expansion.

It does look like much of what the community was asking for when I last played has been addressed though so thank you ANet for listening and for the improvements in the end game content.

Wryscher.1432:

This adds to the feeling that the whole thing has changed hands. Almost everything they have added feels half done and rushed. When I have read about other mmo they talk about when the game launched they had all this stuff half done and it became what was released as time went by.

Here it seems like they had Halloween planned and then… Nothing. Like someone just said stop what you are working on, now we are going in the new direction. Here is the new ideas. Now go, you have a month. Good luck and Godspeed.

To speculate: It’s highly possible NCSoft laid off a lot of the high cost talent, perhaps not the superstars who got all the spotlight pre-launch but some of the lower-profile brains of the operations (although as mentioned I do wonder where Eric Flannum and Ree Sosebee have been hiding). Let’s just look at the technical aspect of the game from a development cost perspective. A Sr. Software Engineer in Korea makes an average of $40k a year. In the US that pay rate is double. Korea has a very strong talent pool and ArenaNet is wholly owned by Korean based NCSoft. It makes perfect sense to conceptualize and build the game with US talent but to shed some of that cost and maintain it largely with less expensive local talent.

So from a business stand point I would not be surprised at all if this were going on. NCSoft would be under no obligation to divulge this if it were true. In fact it would be something they would probably be wise to keep quite about.

The bottom line: When you release a product before its ready all the hype in the world won’t save you. When you’re constantly playing catch up, the quality of your updates will suffer. It’s kind of annoying now to think about the grandiose and luxury show-off pics of the ArenaNet office space. This was a very proud group pre-launch indeed. Almost seems Enron and Titanic-esque at this point… Almost.

Psientist.6437:

SamTheGuardian.2938:

…….
Some clear indicators to me would be the reduced cost of the game, the sale in the GEM store, the dramatic exchange rate increase in real currency to in game coin (real currency buys you 3x more in game coin than it did at launch, ArenaNet admits to using an algorithm they manipulate to keep the economy healthy- and bring in more micro-transaction dollars to help keep revenue stream coming in).
…..

Yes, the currency exchange uses an algorithm for “price discovery”. However there has never been an admission or any evidence that the algorithm is manipulated. Players exchanging gold for gems pushes the rate up, players exchanging gems for gold pushes the rate down. While I personally don’t like the system, accusing the developers of what would amount to fraud without any evidence is not objective.

They have said the algorithm used for currency exchange is confidential. It’s not as simple as you describe and they have also stated it’s not a “free market” system admitting they do manipulate it. Their revenue model is all box sells and micro-transaction based. They have said they retain the right to change prices as needed to help the economy of the game. Perhaps “manipulate” is too strong of a word. In the context of using the currency exchange rate changing with the value of in game coin dropping against real currency I think whatever word we use is arbitrary.

So I do believe watching the real world currency to in game coin exchange rate is something that could be looked at as a metric of the overall health of the game. If they value of in game coin increased against real currency that would be a sign as well.

I was one of the hundreds of thousands who played and loved the first GW series of games. I followed the development of the sequel intensely and then stormed the gates that pre-launch weekend. I put a lot of emotions into this game and in retrospect I had a lot of fun making it from 1-80 on my Guardian in three months. As I played the biggest letdown to me was the incredibly weak story (referring to personal story experience) and the broken state of the game. Even a month after release glitched events corrupted the high level maps, sPvP felt like a pre-beta product, exposing the games biggest weakness- horrible imbalance in the professions and core systems (e.g. paid tournaments) not in place at all. The WvW PvP suffered from game breaking hacks. Players were flying around using exports and the ranger bots were destroying the low level zones. Also the game engine that shipped needed a lot of optimization work. Culling techniques that were applied at the last minute were hurting PvP in general. Kid gloves off, that was the early days of GW2. It wasn’t pretty at all. For whatever reason the game shipped way too soon.

But under the broken mess, the innovation was still there. I was determined to not lay down a harsh judgement until I finished the final dungeon. That event came and went and I was so underwelmed I stopped recommending the game and then stopped trying to defend. I joined the voices of many others detailing specific things needed to be done to fix GW2. Things like getting rid of paid tournaments, fixing the culling problem in WvW, providing more things for guilds to do together, providing a better gear ladder. Providing some sort of ranking of PvP.

Here’s the interesting thing, ArenaNet listened.

Although I haven’t played in months, looking through all the patch notes I see they addressed most of the communities request. Some of these changes (e.g. the sPvP and hot-join pvp part of the game) are so drastic it seems they had no clear vision from the beginning. Colin Johansen said in recent interview “when you make an MMO you’re betting the company”. I think he’s right about that. I think it’s critical you get most of it right at launch and I think with all the changes that have gone in post launch, ArenaNet got more wrong than right.

I do hope the game survives. If get more free time in my schedule I’d like to give the PvP side a try again, but I honestly don’t think the game is doing as well as the core community may think. Some clear indicators to me would be the reduced cost of the game, the sale in the GEM store, the dramatic exchange rate increase in real currency to in game coin (real currency buys you 3x more in game coin than it did at launch, ArenaNet admits to using an algorithm they manipulate to keep the economy healthy- and bring in more micro-transaction dollars to help keep revenue stream coming in).

I don’t like they they are “focusing on the living world” and don’t even have an expansion on the drawing board. Although stand-alone add-ons like we saw with GW1 were never planned for GW2, expansions were always part of the plan! So to hear there are none on the drawing board six months after release should tell you what NCSoft thinks of GW2 (never forget what NCSoft did to Tabula Rasa. If one of their USA based studios produces a product that stops making a lot of money for them they tend to gut the company and destroy it. They don’t care what industry veterans they shame in doing so either).

There are many things an expansion typically bring. New playable races, New zones new professions, new skills, new armor, etc… Does ArenaNet really intend to make all of that available free in the coming months? If so I don’t see how it benefits them to hide that information. Honestly Colin sounded a bit bleak with some of his comments. If you try to judge popularity by searching the web (which has its merits) well, it’s not a pretty picture. Even Diablo 3 is getting more love on Twitch these days. That’s really not a good sign IMO.

Although it’s not critical to the future success of the game, I also wonder what happened to Eric Flannum and Ree Sosebee and Mike O’Brien. These three were high-profile ArenaNet employees and they completely disappeared from the Internet without a trace around September of last year. Do they still work at ArenaNet? If they do, it’s very interesting how their Public Relations department has chosen to hide/shield certain people.

GW2 was positioned to to become the new king of MMOs, but due to a very bumpy launch and initial unfinished design (e.g. aforementioned profession balance problems, incomplete PvP system at launch, broken events, no PvE content past 80) do you think all the hard work the company has put into making the game right will pay off -or- do you think MMO player bases in general refuse to circle around and give games a second chance?

So I spent a few hours hunting down videos of ArenaNet staff playing sPvP in GW2. Some of the them new and some old. I watched them then I watched again and again, noting the best I could the circumstances they were up against and their choice of skill execution and also their movement patterns.

My conclusion is the staff that developed this game are pretty horrible at their own product. Now the balance problems make more sense, technically they can’t even properly play the game they produced.

Of course what this really tells us is something ArenaNet admitted in the weeks prior to release in late August, that they had been so busy trying to put the final polish on that they had not played the game all that much.

Guild Wars 2 has all of the problems associated with game products rushed to market. When this happens it’s ugly. Like serving a half-baked cake at a five star restaurant. No one with any integrity will forgive you because your standards should have been higher. Failure is failure. Regardless of how hard a game studio works post release the product can not be saved. MMOs stand a better chance perhaps than most, but unless ArenaNet had spectacular
box sales in December then I think it’s window has closed and it’s done. Even MMOs have to grab public interest or they begin declining.

The ugly truth is, four months after release and PvP is still a unfinished mess. So sad what a waste. What a talentless bunch of developers. It’s like they were given the blueprint to create the most innovative sPvP every to grace an MMO and they completely kitten it away. So sad.

Chronomancer. Allow it to bend time and make it more powerful than the Mesmer and Guardian.

Syeria.4812:

Now you’re just trolling. Valve games, even those used for esports have rampant cheating. ESEA alone has banned 13 players for hacking in the past week. These are players who had hacks that made it through two separate cheating detection systems and are paying for a separate matchmaking system.

No. I’ve not said hacks don’t exist in those games. I’ve pointed out other companies (Valve and Blizzard for this discussion) have done a much better job dealing with those issues. Their issues don’t go months without being addressed.

When you have a security hole it must be dealt with quickly or people do exactly what they have done with GW2, they make videos, they put up links on sites to share with everyone. The hole to continues to go unpatched and the game just goes to garbage.

I can accept that occasionally a group of hackers will make it through. That will not change, what I have difficulty with is having a company like ArenaNet showing they have no good defense against such threats.

We’re going in circles now. The fact that game-breaking hacks went unstopped by ArenaNet from launch until present day is all the proof you need. Valve has never make that sort of long term failure with security. To my knowledge Blizzard hasn’t either. I welcome articles showing otherwise.

Regarding the validity of my claims about the speed/teleport/flight hacks. Google is your friend, you can find references to these things being used second week after release. I’m not going to hunt down the articles. I’ve already gone against my instincts and posted referencing to youtube videos to pacify the people here who are unable to do their own searching.

The facts are out there. You can do the math. If Blizzard or Valve have left a game-breaking security hole open for this amount of time and I somehow missed that in the press feel free to post a link. Until then it’s simple. I am right. You are wrong, the facts exist to validate. my stance. If you don’t believe me research. If you don’t believe me then I don’t care beyond this point. Too much negative energy here for me to continue. I don’t enjoy pointing out the Titanic is sinking.

NaturalPortman.9562:

Not sure if serious, or just kissing kitten on Valve and Blizzard. There’s so many hackers on Valve games and Blizzard games rofl. I could literally google a valve game right now and write “hacks” after the name and I will be supplied with all the hacks I ever dreamed of, it’s that simple for Valve games.

Regarding Valve and Blizzard exploits: You can find videos but they are things that have been patched…. Again, these studios understand response time to these sort of issues are critical. Juxtapose GW2. The speeed/teleport/flight hack has pretty much continued on unstoppable for three and a half months.

Hackers will hack but respected game studios have the talent and a solid enough foundation to wage war with hackers and fight back. It appears ArenaNet is not even able to do that.

Dual.8953:

SamTheGuardian.2938:

NaturalPortman.9562:

Kline.9561:

NaturalPortman.9562:

I have never seen speed hacks or any kind of hacks in pvp yet but okay.

i have

on top of wall clipping and insta stacking conditions to 25 and one shot hacks

Fair enough, but you talk as if this happens only to gw2. Hacks will exist in EVERY single game.

Yes. The difference is when an exploit is found the respected studios will deliver a patch within weeks (often days) of the exploit being uncovered to solve the problem. The hacks demonstrated in some of the links I’ve provided have been an issue since launch of GW2. In fact, research shows that some of these tools were actually created while the game was in beta pre August 25th launch! So this is different. It’s a case of the game studio having a foundation that has cracks so large they are unable to secure their product. If GW2 were an car it would be a shinny new Ferrari with a bent frame and a cracked engine block. It was delivered this way, but the defects are under the hood. Garbage.

You really don’t understand how Hackers work do you. If the hacker’s hack get patched, they don’t just call it a day, they examine the patch and make a work around. It’s an endless cycle of patching and finding work arounds. No matter what, if something on a network that can be accessed remotely, (eg, the internet) someone can hack it, and if it’s high profile they likely will. If you want to play games without hackers, the only thing you can do is get rid of your internet.

You are trying to water down the argument. After a patch, hackers will begin working on breaking through again but with a game studio that knows what they are doing (e.g. Valve or Blizzard) the hackers work is cut out for them. It may take them weeks to create a new exploit and when they do develop one it likely stays very low-profile. When one goes “mainsteam” and is easily downloadable and all over youtube, the companies mention have proven time and time again they are capable of taking action and securing their product.

ArenaNet has proven they can not.

If you want to continue to play GW2 competitively and it makes you feel better to think ArenaNet is no better or worse than any other company at taking care of these things then you can do so, but you are wrong.

Mike O’Brien should really resign over all the problems. I would be ashamed to be him right now. He made a very arrogant remark prior to launch in an interview stating how he would only be happy when GW2 became the #1 MMORPG. I guess he put too much confidence in his team and failed to deliver leadership and management. Regardless the buck should always stop at the top.

NaturalPortman.9562:

Kline.9561:

NaturalPortman.9562:

I have never seen speed hacks or any kind of hacks in pvp yet but okay.

i have

on top of wall clipping and insta stacking conditions to 25 and one shot hacks

Fair enough, but you talk as if this happens only to gw2. Hacks will exist in EVERY single game.

Yes. The difference is when an exploit is found the respected studios will deliver a patch within weeks (often days) of the exploit being uncovered to solve the problem. The hacks demonstrated in some of the links I’ve provided have been an issue since launch of GW2. In fact, research shows that some of these tools were actually created while the game was in beta pre August 25th launch! So this is different. It’s a case of the game studio having a foundation that has cracks so large they are unable to secure their product. I believe their programmers can’t do it because of the game engines design flaws. If they could, they would have by now. If GW2 were an car it would be a shinny new Ferrari with a bent frame and a cracked engine block. It was delivered this way, but the defects have mostly been under the hood. The new content before fix (e.g. Lost Shores) prioritization shows their inability to deal with the problems. Instead it’s the attitude of ignore/pretend the problems don’t exist and move forward for the player base willing to turn their head the other direction.

Yourtube search “Guild Wars 2 zoom hack”. Video posted Oct 9th which demonstrates game-breaking techniques. I have been told by a player who tried a few days ago that most of what you see in that video is still working even with the latest patch from ANet.

PetricaKerempuh.7958:

sam, maybe u have a point there, but spaming your own thread is just making you look like a rager. no need to respond to every single post in here. you are loosing credibility.

i’ve read all of this thread and i didnt find any example of hacks. it is only making conclusions out of anets statement that they removed the orbs because of hacking. i agree though, that there are a lot of exploits in spvp that need to be addressed asap. unfortunately we are gonna have to wait until January to get the 1st pvp patch. i hope it will be fixing bugs first, spectator mode and everything else second.

Here is one of many videos demonstrating hacks.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gX5G4Yp_he4

I’m sorry to inform you that there is no integrity server-side to support fair and balanced sPvP play. If you’ve been playing by the rules and taken it seriously, yes others are cheating to win.

Gintoki.6405:

i bet most of these “speedhacks” are just thieves using shortbow5 to teleport onto platforms. never seen an actual speedhacker, in spvp and in tpvp sure it happened in wvw. in terms of builds being pigeon holded. yes that somewhat true, most classes only have 1-2 decent builds with a little variation between skills. this happens in every game, obviously certain combinations are gonna work better than others. doesnt mean u cant come up with your own build which is similarly effective, but one of the thing the anet balancing team are working on is more build variation. update i think is 6th of december?

The fact that only a few build (and worst only a few professions) dominate sPvP show how horrible of a job they did when designing the game. Keep in mind ArenaNet made some bold statements early on in development about how they would be reducing number of skills from GW1. One of the main reasons driving that decision was that they were having to spend too much time balancing and they had discovered players would just gravitate to a handful of builds anyway.

So again it’s a case of where we got a lot of talk from ArenaNet, but their execution was a complete failure. They couldn’t even balance this greatly reduced set of skills.

It seems the entire development process was probably a very long, bitter struggle across the finish line where the frankenstein of a game was plopped out for release. There is definitely a lot of untold story about the hardship of this games development. Two of the three ArenaNet co-founders left during the development of GW2. When you’re at co-founder level you don’t go off to pursue other things just for the money. You don’t leave the company you co-founded unless you are truly very unhappy. They have done a great job at keeping the dirty laundry behind closed doors so no need to speculate on it other than to state the obvious, there is kitten that went down we’ll never know about.

Another question that was asked and dodged during the Reddit Q&A was over lead game designer Eric Flannum’s whereabouts. It seems the lead behind the game quietly (probably enraged) left the company shortly after launch. If he did who can blame him. I only have respect left at this point for people leaving the company to move on to more successful projects.

BLU.8961:

To add to the numerous amounts of people here… I have NEVER seen a hack used in SPvP (I even youtubed hacks and found that all of them did not use it in SPvP and even advised against it, meaning their anti-hack system for SPvP is fine).

Secondly, relating this to WvW is incredibly off topic in terms of discussing hacks and how it affects the game (See… SPvP forum at the top).

The game is dwindling in terms of the SPvP community, but its not just because of the devs. There has been such little community effort to do anything the past months, no one has attempted any small tournaments, even on a 1v1 or 2v2 or heck, even a 3v3 scale. I started attempting to change that today by announcing my 2v2 tournament. There has been almost no guides, and I don’t see that many people watching streams and supporting the teams that play this game to a professional level. Granted, the PvP team probably is not being given as much funding (a lot more people (and therefore money) play pve), but that does not excuse the outright lack of anything the SPvP community has been trying to do.

Tl;Dr Stop moping around about about the lack of SPvP support and give it some support!

Hacks are absolutely occurring in sPvP too. I’m not going to get into specifics for the same reason someone reporting grand teft auto doesn’t post links to how-do articles, but the same widely available tools used to perform hacks in PvE can be applied to WvW and sPvP.

No I do not know this first hand. I’m a software engineer by trade with over 10 years experience. Similar to how a forensic expert can observe something and often make a call, I can see how the tool works, its technique would be universal to all aspects of the game. Also the type of exploit being used tells me just how little control ArenaNet actually has over their game. It would be like building a bank and expecting customer to put their money in and then having no real way to guard that bank.

If you think about it the time you invest in an MMO is an investment in the game (sort of like a bank). Based on what I see going on with these hacks I would say it’s a bad product to invest large amounts of time in and to take too seriously.

To those following this thread, bear in mind sPvP is by nature very competitive. If someone were using a hack it makes sense they would try to silence this information from getting out. They would not other players to know this sort of leverage exist and is being commonly used by “winning” teams. My advise to you is to do your own research. I will not post specifics here, the information is not that hard to track down. if you love this game it will make you sick.

Orzwark.2431:

SamTheGuardian.2938:

I’m writing a passion filled letter to NCSoft (not NCSoft West but to their office in Korea) I am going to ask them to do whatever is necessary to save this game.

Please do tell us how it goes.

Don’t assume that they don’t care. Keep in mind NCSoft launched their Koream MMO Blade & Soul this year. Unlike ArenaNet that seems to (shamefully) hide numbers, NCSoft has boasted about Blade & Soul gaining momentum since launch.

If NCSoft East was hands off during development as reported, then you have to realize they were putting their faith in ArenaNet just like we were. The difference is they assumed all risk. If GW2 is failing and the much less expensive to produce Blade & Sould is thriving and increasing active players then I’m sure some very powerful people are not happy. If GW2 is under performing against expectations (evidence points there, see OP) then I think NCSoft will be more curious to hear from us western games than you may think. If for no other reason to help try and make it a better game.

The cost to develop games in the US is astronomically higher than in Korea. Wages are just a lot different. On the books I would imagine NCSoft is always questioning why they bother to fund talent in the US. The obvious answer is because they need a western based studio they can trust who understands the culture here and can deliver a winning product here. When that talent promises an industry shaker and delivers what proves a few months after launch to be a dud I would imagine there would be a price to pay. There should be anyway. Again, I would talking about state of the game December 1st 2012. Obviously GW2 had a very successful launch, but in a free-to-play model keeping active players in game and spending money is the life blood that keeps revenue flowing.

Suzu.4193:

At first i thought this post was going to be about some noob complaining about thief w/ max run speed+short bow, but after reading i completely agree.

They must of hired some drop out coders and programmers, the sheer amount of bugs in the skills alone have been there since beta.

And more recently the endless loading screen bug [a bug that has been fixed before] is back now and it seems like their OWN patch broke their own game client. It has been 15 days since the start of the SECOND endless loading screen bug and has not given an ETA on a fix of a GAME BRAKING bug.

And they show lazyness server side as well, if this game was so revolutionary they should of done a super server design like the upcoming elder scrolls online or ATLEAST make a districting system like in gw1 [at least for spvp anyways, seems like most of the NA HotM are empty except for anvil].

Thank you. See the details of my second (lengthy) post in this thread. On two very recent occasions they dodged talking about numbers when it comes to active players. Anyone not playing with biased blinders on realizes the insanely sharp decline the population has taken.

Also for those who buy gems, we’ve seen the value of gems increase and the value of in game coin decrease. This has long been speculated to be a metric of how strong the population is. The theory is when the active players numbers are high ArenaNet is selling plenty of gems, when the player base is low ArenaNet raises the value of gems to entice more people to purchase them (ArenaNet does not hide that the gem to coin conversion is not a free market system and that it is controlled by confidential algorithms… they are pretty up front about the gem store being a core part of their business model and how they keep revenue streaming in)

In currency exchange 100 gems today will buy you about 1.25 gold coin. This means in the coin to gem conversion, in game coin is about 4.5x less valuable today than it was at launch. I am very confident the game is going though a very sharp decline, possibly dying. As my original position states, if this is the case it’s simple justice and proof that the public is smart enough to spot the wizard behind the curtain.

I imagine sales of GW2 are not so hot right now. The MMO community is pretty tight, friends don’t let friends waste money.

Dual.8953:

@SamtheGuardian: Lol, Wow has a secure experience? I never even went anywhere near a gold selling site and my account was hacked 3 times in the same month no less. I eventually quit because of it. Anyways what server are you? I’m on Yak’s and as I’ve said, I don’t see any hackers.

Ignorance is bliss. Not really an issue if you just focus on PvE. I mean they are still there, but not impacting you. Since the game funnels most to PvP for end-game that’s really where this becomes an issue. Because your effort is kind of pointless when others get to use special rules that give them an advantage and there is no one to police it.

Syeria.4812:

SamTheGuardian.2938:

When ArenaNet stated why they had removed the Orbs they stated it was because hacks were causing a problem.

Habib Loew

After a careful reevaluation of orbs of power we have decided to remove them from WvW in an upcoming build. As implemented, orbs tend to strengthen teams who are already winning and make it even more difficult for underdog teams to fight back.

Link

Yes, it was mentioned that players had also been utilizing exploits to capture them, but the stated reason for removing them was because they strengthened teams which were already in the lead, which is the opposite behavior they’re interested in in WvW.

It was because of the hacks. The game spent over a year in combined alpha and beta testing. The power orb mechanic had been proven. The unexpected hacking behavior (and their inability to control it) is what caused their removal. It happened on my sever multiple times. Using the hacks the other team would keep the Orb which would in turn “strengthen the team already winning”. Again, everything ArenaNet publishes has gone through several layers of editing to spin it just right.

Remember how long it took for Jonathan ‘Chaplin’ Sharp’s article on PvP to get “localized” and finally published from the time he mentioned he had finished writing it? It was weeks.

Syeria.4812:

So you claim that speed hacking and wall warping is “rampant” but your proof is “just go look it up somewhere else yourself.”

Or go spend thirty minutes in WvW and pay attention. It does help if you know what to look for so you can at least report (not sure how much good that does)

Dual.8953:

Hacker’s will get where ever they want, and no one can stop them, just slow them down, and the fact this game got hackers so fast was how popular it became. At any rate, hacker’s weren’t the only reason, they were mainly the result of how sought after the orbs were. Not that they should have been doing that. The Orbs had another problem too being that they were usually captured by the stronger world, just adding to that world’s power.

When ArenaNet stated why they had removed the Orbs they stated it was because hacks were causing a problem. I can’t stop some people from continuing to ignore how bad some of these issues are. How do you feel about devoting 5,10,25 hours a week to WvW trying to play by the rules only to see many players on an opposing server (who is beating your server) utilizing these sort of hacks.

You can say “well it will balance its self out because I’m sure people on our server are doing that as well”. You can try to justify it a million ways, but it comes done to your contribution playing by the rules and others playing above the rules. It simply doesn’t work. The game studio has failed their community when they can’t get these things under control.

And most studios absolutely do have this under control. Well, not all of them, but then again that’s probably why it’s just that one game (cough WoW) that dominates because delivering a secure experience is pretty important. All games have their security incidents, the difference is ArenaNet does not have this under control. The doors to the bank remain wide open and they can not seem to control it.

bow.6179:

You hate Anet for this?! Really, you hate a company that made a game that you voluntarily bought? Wow…

Yes I bought it. Yes I’ve invested several hundred hours it. Yes I still play it, but I play it in a very niche way. It’s perhaps 10% of the game it was advertised to be. It does not meet the vision the company positioned.

i hope they infract this message. I’ve already copied it. ArenaNet has rubbed some of the press the wrong way too in all of this. A few of them would probably love to work with me to help get my words out there.

Everything I’ve said is true. Where I have made inferences have stated so. So if they want to infract this post and open the gates of PR hell I challenge them to do that. Early December would be a fantastic time for some bad PR (like GW2 is flying off the shelves anyway, lol)

If there is one thing I will credit ArenaNet for it’s understanding the importance of the press and how to position a product for a successful launch. They appear to be excellent at manipulation, smoke and mirrors. A company of Mesmers no doubt.

Gintoki.6405:

i bet most of these “speedhacks” are just thieves using shortbow5 to teleport onto platforms. never seen an actual speedhacker, in spvp and in tpvp sure it happened in wvw. in terms of builds being pigeon holded. yes that somewhat true, most classes only have 1-2 decent builds with a little variation between skills. this happens in every game, obviously certain combinations are gonna work better than others. doesnt mean u cant come up with your own build which is similarly effective, but one of the thing the anet balancing team are working on is more build variation. update i think is 6th of december?

It’s irresponsible to provide links to proof here. Google and Youtube are all you need to provide the proof you’re looking for in terms of hacks being very common place in this game. The whole incident with the power orbs proves A.) How serious the problem is B.) How out of control it is for ArenaNet (again, they had to alter core play mechanics of WvW because they could not deal with the hack).

Speed/teleport though walls hack was the primary reason Power Orbs were removed for WvW. Instead of dealing with the problems properly, after months of abuse ArenaNet finally just removed the Orbs from the game. This is documented. If you haven’t observed someone using speed hacks in WvW or sPvP then you simply do not know what to look for. It is a huge problem and ArenaNet simply can not deal with it… As a software developer I assume the performance hit they would incur from the additional auditing needed to stop these sort of hacks makes it impossible.

As it is, their graphics engine struggles to pump out 45-50 FPS on my system which far exceed minimum spec and can glide with 65+ FPS on Skyrim max detail no problem. Just months before release they licensed Umbra (third-party culling 3D technology) and this resulted in boosted frame rates but it also made it so you can’t see other players until they are very close. This is a problem that continues to this day in WvW. If their graphics engine (which was designed in-house for GW2) was worth a kitten this would be a non issue. I see the last minute license of Umbra as the failure of the GW2 software engineers behind the graphics engine. The words “not good enough” come to mind. I am making some strong assumptions, but some of this is easy to infer. Patching these security holes is such a nightmare for them they went in and changed their play mechanics (again, Power Orbs) to make it so the speed hackers wouldn’t so obviously destroy the balance.

Well it may not be obvious but it’s still happening. They (ArenaNet) hope the community will not find out and that those who do know will simply turn their head the other way and forgive it as a common thing that happens with these sort of games.

Well, it absolutely destroys WvW (still) and any form of competitive play in the game. In PvE it is a mild annoyance. I mean, you have large groups of players who are just cheating every day and ArenaNet is completely crippled from doing anything about it. Again, they are a second rate company.

When NCSoft brought AION to the west, although AION lacked innovative play mechanics it was a very solid release. It had a mild bot problem, but not game-breaking hacks. GW2 as a release quality product is a distant second to AION. Where is the company that put out the amazing first line of Guild Wars games? As a customer I had faith their quality and that has absolutely been destroyed.

At this stage I think calling ArenaNet’s delivery of GW2 anything less that a catastrophic failure is being too kind. Sure it has two milliom plus box sells thanks to their amazing marketing department and bench mark setting PR with the press, but that’s long past now and their game remains a broken, unfinished mess in many areas.

I have a few friends I managed to lure over from WoW in the first few weeks of GW2s release. They have since all returned to WoW. When they ask me how GW2 is doing they burst into laughter in a “I told you so” kind of way. That’s the reality of GW2 today. You still have a percentage of those two million who flooded the gates end of August still believing, but they are for the most part the fan-boy biased crowd who refuses to admit all the faults the game has and the fact that too much time has past for ArenaNet to realistically bring people back in. For the rest of the world the game is either just another garbage MMO that failed to make a dent in WoW’s kingdom or (just as common) it’s a laughingstock. When people find out you still play you get the slow-awkward-fat-kid-with-glasses-on-the-playground look. This is not a game for the cool kids. If I worked for ArenaNet I would probably hate myself.

ArenaNet won’t talk numbers. In the REDDIT Q&A multiple people ask for Mike O’Brien to discuss numbers or simply comment on how the game is doing, he refused to address those questions.

A few weeks earlier one of the lead programmers was speaking in Austin and he had altered slides so that numbers were not shown to the audience. He prefaced this by simply stating “our numbers are confidential”. Well, this is a no-brainier. Companies that have numbers to boast amount will do so. Companies that have numbers that shame them will hide them.

If I could say one thing to Mike O’Brien I would ask to address the entie company. I would say ArenaNet this game will fail because as a studio you have failed us. You showed a level of pretension unmatched in this industry with your lofty manifesto video and you simply failed to deliver that experience in a solid, production ready product in the time you choose to do so. For that you should be called out, you should be shammed and ultimately you should fail. You can infract me, but you can’t alter reality. This is YOUR FAILURE not ours. Own it kittens.

There are certain hacks and certain builds being used in structured sPvP. Joined multiple games today just to experiment and witnessed people run through walls and hoping across the map. Speed hacks are continuing to be used to give certain players an advantage. Also there continues to be just a very narrow set of builds dominating be it sPvP or what the community has dubbed tPvP (the later I have done much less of).

If you take the competitive side of the game even a little bit serious it’s really impossible to get enjoyment out of this side of the game, unless you indulge in the same tactics everyone else is. using and cheat.

What was the most fun aspect of the game in beta has become complete garbage and I hate ArenaNet for it. This is their failure. They have created all the ingredients to make something that could be the best action-oriented esport in history but it appears the internal talent to make that happen is gone or simply was never there. Perhaps they are there and they are just being funneled down different paths to try and sell more copies of the game.

Here we are almost four months from launch and sPvP has only degraded. The cracks in the foundation grow wider and the company’s response is to just build new structures on top of it (e.g. pay tournaments going live prior to some of these balance problems and exploits being properly repaired). By putting quality a distant second to new features I think I can qualify my statement that ArenaNet has become a second rate company. They don’t have a handle on the their product which is why it’s loosing players and failing.

As someone who has followed this game since its announcement, it angers me a a great deal. The game deserves better ownership, it deserves a better staff. Not a bunch of clowns who just want to have new content they can advertise to lure in new players. I have zero respect left for ArenaNet as a company. I have deep respect for the talented artist, but the company is garbage. The game deserves the shaft I expect it will get when game of the year awards are handed out, because it’s simply not anywhere near what it could have been. Garbage maintained by passionless people who either can’t or won’t put fixing the this sloppy mess they launched too early as a priority. Instead it’s lipstick on the a pig every month it seems.

I’m writing a passion filled letter to NCSoft (not NCSoft West but to their office in Korea) I am going to ask them to do whatever is necessary to save this game. Perhaps they need to fly some talent in or perhaps someone to baby sit. Going to let the people who own ArenaNet know as a player in the west I think they have done a horrible job. I encourage each of you to do the same.

Coffee.6394:

TL;DR:

the people in charge of pvp at the office dropped the ball, and continue to do so. pvp sucks in gw2, having the opposite of what the game mechanics are advertised as.

Who is in charge of sPvP? He has a name we should show him the respect of identity, Jonathan ‘Chaplin’ Sharp here’s looking at you.

Revelstoke.8924:

I realize I am re-hashing a long since beaten horse, but nothing is being done and I can’t wrap my head around why anyone at ANet thinks this is fair.

My stats for this particular tourney attached. Warrior mace/shield + gs spec, 30/10/0/30/0, not glass cannon but not a ‘tank’ either. Earth runes for protection, accuracy/blood sigils. Pretty ‘tanky’ spec overall.

Top Chat Log: 96% of my health was obliterated in the span of 2 seconds in four abilities.

Bot Chat Log: The thiekittenAUTO ATTACK*** lotus and wild strikes hit for 3k each? Additionally, my stun break was on CD so every one of those hits landed in a single basilisk venom.

I don’t have the ss of taking a backstab for 13k unfortunately… So here are my questions

1) ANet, why is this happening? I mean…I don’t think it takes months of QA or a rocket scientist to see how outrageously overpowered that damage is.

2) What’s the point in adding any kind of toughness whatsoever if it doesn’t seem to have an effect on damage mitigation worth a kitten I purposefully focused on raising toughness from the 966 default to the midway point to 2k solely to mitigate these types of ambushes…so what I took away from that is if I didnt have the toughness I had…I’d have been hit…harder?! You’ve got to be kidding me.

So really you’re telling us, the player, that there are 2 classes to play in competitive pvp…glass cannon thief and your-favorite-bunker-here. After all, the only game mode is conquest…and what’s better for taking and holding a node than a bunker. For a game that touts its flexibility you sure have pigeon holed us pretty well.

Im sorry to drag this topic up yet again but this has got to stop, plain and simple.

Oh and the kicker? Here’s the best part. Mid-way through the round that player switched from Engineer to Thief….I won’t even start as to who thought that mid-round class swaps during a tourney was a good idea….

There is no balance. It’s bunkers and burst and only a handful of professions need apply. Structured PvP is where balance is put to the test. The results of that test have been consistent since players figured out what works about a week after launch. It shows the failure of the design and they have not made this a priority.

Most of my hatred (yes, hatred ArenaNet) towards the company behind this game is around sPvP. It has so much potential. When you do manage to get two fairly matched teams in a hot-join scenario where no none of the unfairly balanced meta builds are being utilized you see what they had on their hands. Simply the best sPvP experience to be had. But the balance isn’t there and a lot of the core things sPvP needs have not materialized fast enough.

You will rarely have an enjoyable game in sPvP or tPvP.

So yes, I’m very disappointed in the company and I hate them honestly. I hate them because of the unfinished mess the game shipped in. Their lack of support for casual players (sorry, some recreational hardcore types want something more the just hot-join madness, which I would argue really has no structure at all making it’s name a misnomer).

Why do I stick around? I can’t explain. Hope I guess. It’s a difficult transition for me accepting the amazing product it appeared was coming in late beta and three months post release accepting the garbage the game actually is… It’s very difficult.

Alastar.2863:

First off, I have been playing since the free trial weekend, then I bought the game and I am having significantly more fun in this MMO then any other MMO I have ever played.

It ELIMINATED everything I found annoying about MMO’s.

…

Hi. Glad to hear some newcomers to the game are still enjoying it. I’d be very curious to know what you’re thoughts are after spending over 400 hours in the game. Playing through all personal story chapters, doing all events. With all due respect, some of your observations are solid but you’re still in the “honeymoon phase” with this game.

gamingtito.4709:

Hope everyone had a happy thanksgiving,
I’m new to the guild wars world and I’ve enjoyed playing with my Asura engineer over the last couple of days. However I am seeing quite a bit of negative feedback towards the game on the forum.

In all honesty, is this a game worth sticking with or is it one already in a state of decline?

Hi. I have a human Guardian with over 400 hours in this game… If I were starting today I honestly don’t know what my take would be. I can tell you I get very frustrated in the lower level zones on my alts. The number of players you see in those zones today is much, much less than what we had during the games first month.

There’s no question the game is in decline, but it started with over two-million accounts. I’m wondering what have the numbers really declined to? For comparison, SWTOR and AION (arguably the two most successful MMORPG games in the US behind WoW) average about 240,000-300,000 total players. If GW2 can maintain at least that player base then it will be successful, but it certainly is still in it’s post launch decline so now isn’t the best time to judge it. Unfortunately it’s also not the best of times to start playing. The inevitable server-consolidation has yet to happen, so there are still a lot of empty zones on some servers. Depending on the time of day you play you can run through a zone with only a handful of players on any server. You just have to use map chat to call for help when needed. I see the game as in a transitional state right now.

Most of the negativity you’ll find is around the recent changes to “end-game” (post max level content). Some love it, most it seems do not. Some of us are just angry ArenaNet went against it’s manifesto. As a company they released some very bold videos prior to the game launching that outlines their vision for what an MMORPG should be. The recent changes go against their philosophy so many of us are questioning their integrity and trying to decide if it’s worth continuing or not.

As some have predicted it’s become very difficult to get a party now for lower levels. Because of the lack of clear explanation in-game as to how the fractal dungeon works some players will drop after completing one or two shards because they are tied of whatever. Although ArenaNet wrote a very clear explanation of how these work on the website I really think it’s critical to have this information in-game. When the player enters the dungeon you should have had an explanation of how it all works so people would more mindful before dropping group.

As with many of the other things you’ve done this feels half-baked.

Back when Colin Johansen was doing a live Twtich feed on the (then) upcoming Lost Shores event he was asked if ANet was working on a cross-server LFG tool and he said that is currently not being worked on…. I just don’t understand how you could build something the play mechanics of a fractal dungeon and not foresee a lack of players available for the lower-levels very soon. Here we are a week from Lost Shores arrival and it’s very difficult to get a group for low level fractals now.

I feel it’s as if we continue to watch the game (and company) unravel with some of these decisions that just don’t make sense.

Tolmos.8395:

I see so many people trash talking the developers over ascended gear, saying they are terrible people and blah blah. But the truth is, despite my extreme disdain for where GW2’s future is headed, I feel no differently about the developers. Because, truth be told, I have a hard time believing any of this fiasco was the decision of any arenanet developer.

Developer is a broad term in the context you are using it. The programmers did not make the decision, but someone DID. The Lead Game Designer (was Eric Flanumm, guy talking with Colin Johansen in video a few months back about end-game ) I believe he has left the company as it appears someone else now has that title and we haven’t heard from Eric in months. The developers are responsible for this change, but you’re right it was probably a select few at the top who made the decision. There are probably many inside ArenaNet who hate this decision. Perhaps Flanumm even left over it. Who knows. They don’t want to talk about the internal process that was used to get us here.

Guys think about the timing in which Nexon bought the shares. All indicators show they had a very strong interest in GW2. They bought into the company knowing NCSoft had 100% control over ArenaNet because NCSoft owns 100% of ArenaNet. A lot of people think NCSoft is just the publisher and ArenaNet is independently owned and that’s not true. ArenaNet has zero independence outside of what Korean owned NCSoft chooses to extend to it. It’s been that way from the beginning.

Narkosys.5173:

That is based on speculation.
It depends on how you see things. Did they throw out the manifesto?
Tier gear and gated content.
Yes Nexon owns 15% voting shares of NC Soft in part publishes Anet who produces GW2.
Beyond that we just dont know the influence one has over the other.
It is safe to say they are without doubt making significant altering choices in the vision and direction of the game. The rest is up to you to decide and your critical thinking.

I will say this I played the game every day for 6+hours and on the 15th I stopped.

Yes they threw out the manifesto (well a big, big part of it). Again I will point out Mike O’Brien, Ree Sosebee and (most importantly, assumed former lead game designer) Eric Flannum have all been very quite since launch. I believe Eric is gone…

All evidence to me points to an internal shake up that they tried to keep very quite. It probably came quickly. I’ve never forgotten that ArenaNet was owned by NCSoft and that they have always maintained full control. I kind of expected them to gut the company and use Korean resources to maintain the game and add new content post launch. ArenaNet’s lead by an artistic group of visionaries, the funding flows from business savy, cut-throat NCSoft. They let they artist and dreams have their way until a better way to make money off what they produce can be had. Then they step up and remind everyone of who’s little kitten they are.

If there is any of truth to this the game is doomed. I hope NCSoft is reading this.

azizul.8469:

1. ANET create a game.

2. people farm item.

3. ANET doesn’t like people farm item. they say people playing their game the wrong way, so they nerfed farming.

4. ANET create a gearing system that require so many T6 mats, and hence require farming.

5. but but…. go to 2.

Heads up their kitten. Proof positive their iterative process is all wrong…. Having all end-game paths not really flushed out well (never ending changes to dungeons, unsuccessful balancing attempts for sPvP). The too much for them to control. Rumor is their lead designer (Eric Flannum) silently left the company shortly after launch. President and founder Mike O’Brien was very focal near launch and he’s been very quite in recent months. Where the kitten is everyone? Do they not know the importance of PR?

It’s empty zones on every server folks. This isn’t new btw, it’s been a slow death march since the diminished returns patch went in about a month after launch.

It’s the same song and dance as with every MMORPG. The game releases and the game studio has to react to unforeseen issues. In the case of GW2 it was their entire end-game concept was not flushed out enough (again, the game released half-baked). They also have dealt with an unsurmountable level of bugs.

What has been most telling in recent weeks is their approach to dealing with all of these issues, be it all these forum post or the empty zones in game that prove those of us posting are the vast majority, Anet is trying to take a page out of Apple’s playbook and just ignore the negative and focus on the positive in PR. That is another fatal mistake…

If I spend a few minutes in conversation with staff at Anet I would ask for Mike O"Brien, Jonathan Sharp and Colin Johansen to come in the room. I would look at them and ask “how does it feel to know seven years of you lifes work is going down the toliet so quickly? What are you doing to make sure your game is perfect before Christmas day…”.

The only possible saving grace

The holiday shopping season starts tomorrow. It’s possible (although highly unlikely with all player unhappiness) that enough people receive GW2 as a gift s to give it once last stand before… Time will tell. ArenaNet

francisling.2987:

Revolution, Guild Wars 2 was advertised as a ‘different kind’ of MMO, promising no ‘Holy Trinity’ and ‘No Grind’.

But unfortunately, the overall system IS a typical MMO.

And the solution on keeping promises? They obviously suppressed the ability to spec to a full healer or tanker, and now they suppressed ‘profitable’ farming areas.

Their overall way on keeping their promise has been very forceful, e.g. Leaving people no other choice but to do what ‘they were meant to do’.

Then comes the Lost Shore, agreeably half-baked’ as the last poster said, it didn’t tell us ‘what we were meant to do’ except FotM, and now a lot of us ’don’t know what to do’. And all hell breaks lose, along with the Ascended hell.

Sorry to sound poetic, but well I hope you get what I mean.

When you look at a game like WoW. Then you look at Lord of the Rings on-line, AION and other successful MMORPGs that have come after you have to ask youself “why has no one challenged the proven systems”.

The reason is because THEY WORK and they are very hard to break and create something superior. The sad thing is GW2 is absolutely a step in the right direction. A huge leap in the right direction, but it fell short because it came to market too soon.

The play mechanics it provides other MMORPG makers are already building on. I’m sure Blizzard is setting back taking note as well…. I just really was rooting for this game and I’m frustrated they dropped the ball.

I am now 100% convinced that those in charge at ArenaNet are detached from the needs and desires of their player base. Not only was the new Lost Shores level 80 zone quite boring during the past weekend event, what it left behind is also half-backed. The zone has no dungeon to offer and no large scale meta event (e.g. Claw of Jormag) cycling every three hours. As a result of these missing bits (very important bits) it feels half-baked. Perhaps a desperate attempt to put something out to stop the hemorrhaging loss of player log-ins each week and declining new account sales.

It’s actually quite frustrating seeing half-baked new content arrive when foundation bits are still missing. For example, try to go find a group to level 1 Fractal dungeon now. You’ll be waiting some time on many servers (if you can find one at all). The player base has been requesting a cross-server LFG tool for a while now. Had that critical feature been in place prior to Fractals arriving it would have added great value. As it stands now the new dungeon is just frustrating because players can’t even find a group.

It’s this sort of thing that tells me the staff at ArenaNet are chasing their tail. They don’t have a clear vision anymore, they desperate to find things they can do in short time windows to try and save their game. Unfortunately for them it won’t work. I’m not trying to be negative. What I see is quite easy (and disappointing) for anyone to see if you really look at the data.

On my server I’ve been hanging around LA looking for group for about 30 minutes. In that time window there were two LFG Fractal Dungeon request one for level 8 and one for level 6. How much effort would it have taken to build a LFG tool that works across server? How much thought would it have taken to realize the importance of such a tool prior to releasing Fractals.

Kitten-backwards ArenaNet. Kitten-backwards…
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/idiot

Allowing a player to play in multiple guilds cross server, promising a guesting feature and then putting in place a seven day restriction on transfers has destroyed my play experience. I had to pick between two guilds I was balancing my time between about 50/50. In any to sustain any level of joy in the game at all (dividing time leads to lack of sense of loyalty. With players dropping in herds from this game in the past few months guild loyalty suddenly became very important). It’s one of the things I hate ArenaNet for doing. One of a few things they’ve done recently.

Veltoss.9135:

My god people.. they added one tier of gear as a one-time gameplay improvement, why the kitten is everyone acting like this is the apocolypse?

Because it actually does change everything. It also goes against their original manifesto. Had they not made a bs video evangelizing the promised land for MMORPG gamers I doubt you’d see all this hate, but then again the gates would not have been stormed at launch either.

First rule of MMORPG design, do not lie to your customers. Second rule of MMORPG design. The analogy I’ve made before is that the company is run by a group of wizards behind the curtain. It’s all been smoke and mirrors. It’s a good enough illusion to fool you into thinking it accomplishes what they set out to do in your first few weeks of play (perhaps a month of play) but once you get to max level or once you run through enough empty events or realized that you’re not really using any strategy to play you start to realize it’s just eye candy.

Going to take this a slightly different direction (why not). I think it’s quite telling that when Amazon.com named it’s top 20 games for 2012 Gw2 came in near the bottom of the list one position behind Diablo 3 (a special kind of slap in the face if you consider the founders of ANet were Blizzard alumni). Diablo 3 is more of an arcade experience than an MMORPG, however I must say once we got past the bumpy launch Diablo 3 has not dealt with the swam of bugs GW2 has…. I enjoyed my three weeks in Diablo 3 and got my $60 worth. I’ve had much more fun in GW2 but I’ve also played with blinders on carefully filtering all the annoyances, balance issues and bugs. Being objective I would have to say Diablo 3 is a better quality product that was much more successful. It also is easy to jump in and jump out and just play. It’s a too-short, but well designed game none the less

GW2’s biggest disappointment is in it’s incredible potential. The changes to end-game show the developers have scrambled to patch in a fix because (they have the numbers) they know most level 80s were not signing back in very often. I predict the amount of work ahead of them to make things right is simply too great against the timeline they have before the masses exit. This is not a prediction of doom, it’s an observation of the reality that’s been going on in the game since about a month and a half post launch.

It’s sad they let the art department run the show. Now they get what they deserve.