Guild Wars 2

Mojo Gris Gris.5941:

Vayne.8563:

You’ve got it in one. Seven people complaining over and over again does not a stampede make. You named people who have posted dozens of times in this thread, while ignoring the drive bys that say I’m fine with it, or it’s not as bad as people say, or even I like it better.

I’m not going to do your work for you. Look at the thread and start putting marks next to people who complain about it multiple times such as yourself and people who don’t have a problem with it.

How about if I do the work for both of you?
I actually thought about what Vayne was saying here, and I wondered just what the numbers were. So I decided to go to page 1 and make a spreadsheet. Any opinion which was stated as overall negative got a ranking of “nay.” Any opinion overall positive got a “yay.” Any opinion which was modified to be better after their own OP also got a “yay.” Any opinion which was ambiguous, but seemed positive got a “yay.” Every poster got only one rank no matter how many posts they made. Any posts made regarding only the trait changes was ignored. Likewise, some posters which had no stated opinion were ignored. I purposely gave the “yay” crowd more leeway, and was more stringent on all of the “nay” votes.

Vayne.8563:

It’s closer than you think.

Not even a little bit close.
The final number, as of now, is 47 Yays.
The final number of nays?
225… that’s 17% for / 83% against the NPE.

Oh, wait…here’s my input. Overall, I understand why Anet wanted to do something, but I think it went in a bad direction.

226-47

Granted, that is only this thread.
In the interest of providing constructive criticism and not derailing the thread completely, I offer the following suggestions:
-Remove the level gating of PS.
-Remove the dancing for cows/other bundle changes. Those things were much better before.
-Add more actual explanation of game mechanics that are “confusing for new players” instead of removing functioning content or level gating content or features. Actual tutorials or even a GW2opedia to reference in-game would be great.
-Fix the stat slump and give SPs earlier.

I did like what they did for dodging, but I feel it came too late. I also liked the rewards, even though some of it becomes useless as you level.

I will hold any trait comments/complaints until the new system is launched.

But page 1 was before changes were made to the NPC that solved some people’s complaints. This thread started BEFORE the change. A lot of people were complaining about the elite skill unlocking at 40 where as almost no one is complaining about it unlocking at level 31 by comparison. Likewise there were bug fixes where on your second character, you didn’t get locked out of stuff like skill points.

Taking it from the beginning means you’re ignoring changes that people thought were okay. There were even people who said (not sure if in this thread or not) that they were okay with it after those changes.

You have to count from when the changes were made, because it pacified quite a few people, except for the most vocal. You’d also have to exclude people who are complaining mainly about the trait system and saying that’s the NPE which is a bunch of other people.

phys.7689:

Behellagh.1468:

phys.7689:

oh yes, and of course some specific businesses do not always expect to profit more during the holidays.

btw q3 2013 =26k
q4 2013=45k

q3 2012=47k (release quarter)
q4 2012=101k

so yeah, lets be specific, gw2 is expected to do better in q4 than in q3, during the holidays, as evidenced by the previous 2 years, and common sense.

Well 3Q12 was only a month plus pre orders and 4Q12, which is when I bought it, while the holiday quarter also was during the first 3 months of a new release.

Also don’t know where you got your 2012 and 2013 numbers from but in million KrW the two 2013 quarters were 24,481 and 33,555 and the two 2012 quarters were 45,841 and 119,013. This is off the NCSOFT quarterly reports so …

i think the game came out in late august, but i will say most of the sales would have been during the 4th quarter.

my bad, was looking at net income,

that said, the numbers still show the same trends, 37% increase last year, and first year big increase.

Point is the games are expected to make more money during the holidays. Part of the reason they release end of Q3, is so they can have a product out for the big season.

the fact that it is down 3% from q3 is pretty bad, even i, who assumed they would have less gains, would have thought they would at least be up 5-10% for the holiday season, and to me that would have been a sign things were below average.

I would say that people were actively displeased/disinterested rather than just not that impressed.

An expansion however can be a great reset, though i dont think this one was optimally timed. Balls in their court now, but i would say they are down some points in the game.

You’re saying games are expected to make money during the Christmas season but individual games may or may not be expected to, depending on how old they are. What you mean is COMPANIES are expected to make money during the quarter.

If a new game comes out before Christmas THAT game will make more money. That doesn’t mean older games from the same company will. Selling games was my business. One a game, any game, was three months old, we sent them back and replaced them with other games, with very few exceptions. Microsoft Flight Simulator, the current version of Chess Master or the Current version of Sim City stayed on the shelves.

Everything else, it wasn’t really worth stocking. Maybe a single unit if I particularly liked the game. That’s how computer software works. I know because I made a living buying and selling computer games.

phys.7689:

Vayne.8563:

@ phys

Yes, you are supposed to make less every year. Read some business plans, then get back to me. That’s factored in. Expansions are usually released to reinvigorate, but yes, games EXPECT to make less money year and year and often quarter on quarter.

Even NcSoft at it’s investor meetings has said Guild Wars 2 is meeting expectations. You know more than them?

did you look at the graph.
lineage 1 made more money this 4th quarter than last year
lineage 2 made more money this 4th quarter than last year
blade and soul made more money
in fact, of all their games, the only one to make less is gw2.

notice also the graph for their other games are showing fairly stable earnings, or upward trends, barring 4th quarter spikes.
the information is provided, we dont have to guess. Right there, at the same company, other products in the same business, you can see whats can be expected by old MMOs in earning and trends.

Subscription games do make more money. Because that is their BUSINESS PLAN. How can you comment on ANY business without knowing the plan. I’ve been involved with at least half a dozen business plans in my life. Three of them expected a downturn from season to season and even year to year, built into the business plan. Saying something is bad without having seen the business plan is just guessing. You are just guessing.

Now comparing games to other games, without any context at all, is ridiculous. A game with a subscription will possibly make more than a game without a subscription. Again, it depends on the business plan. It depends on the strategy that is being used to judge the game.

Simplest test is this. Did Anet lay off anyone working on the game at any time in the past two years. If this game was not meeting expectations, you can bet that would have happened. Anet is, instead, hiring. That doesn’t generally happen with games not meeting expectations.

You can believe anything you want, but comparing a game that’s a Korean game, with a sub, to a game that’s a Western game, without a sub, is like comparing two different types of fruit in two different parts of the world.

You don’t have the information to judge how the game is doing. If NcSoft says it’s meeting expectations, it is, because companies have to be forthcoming when games are not meeting expectations. Wildstar clearly didn’t meet expectations. When SWToR came out, even though it made a lot more money than Guild Wars 2, that didn’t meet expectations. Half the staff was fired. TSW didn’t meet expectations. The president of the company left the game and a third of the staff was fired.

What you have right now is your opinion. What I have is my opinion. What NcSoft has is their comments on their expectations, which is what businesses base plans around.

@ phys

Yes, you are supposed to make less every year. Read some business plans, then get back to me. That’s factored in. Expansions are usually released to reinvigorate, but yes, games EXPECT to make less money year and year and often quarter on quarter.

Even NcSoft at it’s investor meetings has said Guild Wars 2 is meeting expectations. You know more than them?

Edit: To be clear business factor in expected downturns in sales.

Good luck, John! Thanks for all your hard work here.

phys.7689:

Vayne.8563:

phys.7689:

Vayne.8563:

phys.7689:

but regardless you are expected to earn more in Q4 than in Q3 in america, thats just the way business works. The fact that they earned less during the holiday season shows a pretty large drop off in appeal. take a look at the difference Q3 and Q4 the previous year.

I’m sorry but I don’t think you know enough about business to comment here. I ran a business in America and it wasn’t true for our business. More to the point, the business I ran also sold games, and I know a lot about that business from a retail angle.

I also worked in publishing after that, and again, sales were NEVER expected to go up quarter on quarter for a book or a game. Ever. It was never expected.

Now, I brought up WoW as an example, because no one says they’re unsuccessful, but their profits absolutely flutuate between expansions. They take some big, big hits to revenue just before an expansion comes out and they always have. Are you saying Blizzard is not doing well, because they’re in a similar boat to Guild Wars 2.

Boxed games always have less sales as time goes and and business plans tend to reflect that. Why?

Because when a game comes out, it’s hyped to hell and most people that are going to buy it, buy it when it comes out. A year later, other games are hyped to hell. A year after that other games are hyped to hell. For non-MMOs, 90% of all the copies EVER SOLD are sold in the first 90 days of the games existence. It’s normal for the industry.

Retail stores always tend to want to be better than the last month of the last year, not the month before it. They’ll experience surges for example in December, and at tax refund time.

Do you think resort hotels do as much off season? No. So quarters flutuation. They expect to do more year on year. But that’s a different business and has nothing to do with games.

What you’re saying isn’t only demonstrably untrue, but it makes no sense.

if you are saying you arent expected to sell more games in the xmas season, i dont know what video game retailer you worked at. Just look at q3 to q4 the previous year, its not crazy talk.

We are expected to sell more games in the Christmas season. But you said that you’re expected to do more quarter on quarter and that’s 100% false. For example as a computer store, we do more in the quarter before the summer than after the summer. The summer is the slow quarter, during which we ALWAYS did less than the quarter before.

Which has nothing to do with the rest of what I said which you conveniently ignored. Games sell MOST of their copies EVER in the first 90 days of their existence.

That’s true even of WoW expansions. That’s true of Guild Wars 2. That’s true of most games.

So how would you then think that they’re expected to go up every quarter? What you said about businesses in America is again, demonstrably wrong.

i said q3 to q4, which is for ncsoft, summer/fall season to christmas season.

A gaming company is not a software company. Sales are EXPECTED to fall over time for games. This isn’t some half baked theory. This is fact. This is in every game’s business plan. The summer fall thing I said refers to retail in general which deals with all games not one specific game.

In the book industry it was the same. That’s why you keep coming out with new books. Because the old ones, by and large, stop selling. Out of well over a million books published, only the tiniest percentage ever sell more later than they do when released.

Sure there’ll always be an exception like a Harry Potter, but do you really think that books come out, get all that promotion and then a year later people are buying it more than when it released.

You’re defending something that’s literally indefensible.

phys.7689:

Vayne.8563:

phys.7689:

but regardless you are expected to earn more in Q4 than in Q3 in america, thats just the way business works. The fact that they earned less during the holiday season shows a pretty large drop off in appeal. take a look at the difference Q3 and Q4 the previous year.

I’m sorry but I don’t think you know enough about business to comment here. I ran a business in America and it wasn’t true for our business. More to the point, the business I ran also sold games, and I know a lot about that business from a retail angle.

I also worked in publishing after that, and again, sales were NEVER expected to go up quarter on quarter for a book or a game. Ever. It was never expected.

Now, I brought up WoW as an example, because no one says they’re unsuccessful, but their profits absolutely flutuate between expansions. They take some big, big hits to revenue just before an expansion comes out and they always have. Are you saying Blizzard is not doing well, because they’re in a similar boat to Guild Wars 2.

Boxed games always have less sales as time goes and and business plans tend to reflect that. Why?

Because when a game comes out, it’s hyped to hell and most people that are going to buy it, buy it when it comes out. A year later, other games are hyped to hell. A year after that other games are hyped to hell. For non-MMOs, 90% of all the copies EVER SOLD are sold in the first 90 days of the games existence. It’s normal for the industry.

Retail stores always tend to want to be better than the last month of the last year, not the month before it. They’ll experience surges for example in December, and at tax refund time.

Do you think resort hotels do as much off season? No. So quarters flutuation. They expect to do more year on year. But that’s a different business and has nothing to do with games.

What you’re saying isn’t only demonstrably untrue, but it makes no sense.

if you are saying you arent expected to sell more games in the xmas season, i dont know what video game retailer you worked at. Just look at q3 to q4 the previous year, its not crazy talk.

We are expected to sell more games in the Christmas season. But you said that you’re expected to do more quarter on quarter and that’s 100% false. For example as a computer store, we do more in the quarter before the summer than after the summer. The summer is the slow quarter, during which we ALWAYS did less than the quarter before.

Which has nothing to do with the rest of what I said which you conveniently ignored. Games sell MOST of their copies EVER in the first 90 days of their existence.

That’s true even of WoW expansions. That’s true of Guild Wars 2. That’s true of most games.

So how would you then think that they’re expected to go up every quarter? What you said about businesses in America is again, demonstrably wrong.

I didn’t find this confusing, but a lot of people did (and some still do even now).

Most MMOs have a constant breadcrumb trailing leading you from place to place as you level. You’re told exactly where to go and what to do at every stage of your journey.

Guild Wars 2 really doesn’t have that. You’re expected to sort of run around and find stuff all on your own. This is where a lot of people get confused.

They’re expecting to run to a star and go from star to star. I’ve lost track of how many people before the NPE would type that they must be doing something wrong because they personal story outleveled them.

Or the number of people who simply didn’t know what they were supposed to do at all, like walk out and explore was so foreign to them.

Find and join a casual guild. Plenty of players in my guild are older or have a bad connection or don’t have the skills. So what? We still have fun playing together.

phys.7689:

but regardless you are expected to earn more in Q4 than in Q3 in america, thats just the way business works. The fact that they earned less during the holiday season shows a pretty large drop off in appeal. take a look at the difference Q3 and Q4 the previous year.

I’m sorry but I don’t think you know enough about business to comment here. I ran a business in America and it wasn’t true for our business. More to the point, the business I ran also sold games, and I know a lot about that business from a retail angle.

I also worked in publishing after that, and again, sales were NEVER expected to go up quarter on quarter for a book or a game. Ever. It was never expected.

Now, I brought up WoW as an example, because no one says they’re unsuccessful, but their profits absolutely flutuate between expansions. They take some big, big hits to revenue just before an expansion comes out and they always have. Are you saying Blizzard is not doing well, because they’re in a similar boat to Guild Wars 2.

Boxed games always have less sales as time goes and and business plans tend to reflect that. Why?

Because when a game comes out, it’s hyped to hell and most people that are going to buy it, buy it when it comes out. A year later, other games are hyped to hell. A year after that other games are hyped to hell. For non-MMOs, 90% of all the copies EVER SOLD are sold in the first 90 days of the games existence. It’s normal for the industry.

Retail stores always tend to want to be better than the last month of the last year, not the month before it. They’ll experience surges for example in December, and at tax refund time.

Do you think resort hotels do as much off season? No. So quarters flutuation. They expect to do more year on year. But that’s a different business and has nothing to do with games.

What you’re saying isn’t only demonstrably untrue, but it makes no sense.

phys.7689:

Behellagh.1468:

fractal.7039:

There was more issue with his Doomsayers comment then the numbers…. GW2 is far from doom and gloom.

Now Wildstar on the other hand…

I am not a doomsayer. I put those numbers out there, as neutral as possible rather than have a doomsayer take them out of context.

to be honest it was a pretty bad look
to go down 2.1% in the xmas quarter is a pretty bad deal.
but this isnt surprising, the numbers were steadily declining for most of last year.

this also probably why they felt they had to start pushing/promoting an expansion. I hope they have the content to back up an expansion. This expansion will probably determine what type of future gw2 can expect. It wont go out of business, but it may decide the support it will get.

When do you think the expansion started being produced?

It’s not a result of recent numbers. It doesn’t make sense that it should be. I’ve said this before but it bears repeating.

Business plans for games always expect less and less incoming as time goes on. When MoP launched, WoW had 10 million subs and I think it when down to 6.4 before the new expansion launched. Just look at the figures.

Drops are expected. They knew they were working on an expansion. They didn’t announce it until it made sense to do so, which was months after the WoW expansion launched, so people would have been tired of it.

Companies time launch annoucements very carefully. Anet has always met expectations of the business plan or there would have been layoffs.

pupi.2465:

The grand majority Gw2 community are afraid of PvP.

You don’t have to be afraid of PvP to find it stupid or annoying. Some of us play games for things like, I don’t know, say story.

Story comes from fighting AI, not random people who think that an RPG is about pwning someone.

I’d prefer account bound. I don’t want to have to unlock the same skills on every single alt. The traits are like that now, and it’s stopped me from leveling more alts.

Hroatgar.5814:

Smooth Penguin.5294:

I have nothing to spend Laurels on, so making them farmable in unlimited quantities is a horrible idea. Even after spending them on the Mystery Cat Tonic, and Ascended stuff, I have a pile that just sits there.

I think the best choice you could have made is not quit playing. Just because you decided to return to the game, you’re not Entitled to catching up for all the lost time you chose to lose.

It is not because you did not stop playing and have a tons of laurels that this is a terrible idea. Some people play MMO casually and other, like me, play them intensively. Why should the people that take their time and do not worry that much about elitism should be equally be rewarded for their game time? Do you think this is fair? If yes then be proud of time gates and I can refer you hundreds of time based mobile game that you will probably like.

But if you’re causal why do you need it NOW? See a casual person should be happy they’ll just get the stuff eventually logging in…because they’re casual. If they’re insisting on doing stuff now, they’re not casual…at least in attitude.

Now if you’re causal in playing and impatient in attitude, most games can’t deal with that.

Hroatgar.5814:

So as i can see, Almost everybody agree on the fact that time gates should not be used to lengthen the end-game time since it discourage most if not all people that start/restart playing the game.

You mean of like the six people that posted in this thread?

You’d need a whole lot more than a few hundred people commenting to know what most people think. Probably more than a few thousand.

The biggest complaint on the forums when most people were quitting was not having anything to do at max level. While Anet tried to solve that problem they introduced time gating in an attempt to give people something to work for. That’s my interpretation anyway.

Many of the people who left, left because they saw it as a betrayal, not because of time gating.

Saying otherwise is trying to rewrite history.

There’s stuff to explore even in the Silverwastes, though admittedly less of it. Then again, it’s not an expansion map.

My guess is there will be plenty to explore in the new maps in addition to whatever else they give us.

Think of normal maps a sec. There’s tons of POI’s way points, all sorts of stuff. You can complete some maps without even getting into every area of that map. There’s hidden stuff all over the place.

The these things aren’t mutually exclusive.

People DID ask for progression. They asked for horizontal progression. There’s different ways things can progress. There’s character progression, story progression…and yes, with any sort of progression something is always gated in some sense. Pretty sure you can’t get to 80 without hitting 79 first.

Progression doesn’t have to be a bad word.

That really is the problem. The first guys that complain it takes too long, are often the first guys gone as soon as there’s “nothing to do”. You can’t have it both ways.

I want it fast and then there’s not enough content? Well no game in existence can make content fast enough for some players.

This allows slower players to catch up, and stay a bit more current while slowing down players who have nothing but time.

Is it annoying to some players? Absolutely? Will some players leave because it’s annoying? Probably yes. Are there more that will stay and do it? My guess is yes.

Tower of Nightmares is my favorite.

Hroatgar.5814:

Vayne.8563:

At this moment the daily festival reward gives you an extra laurel as well. Not sure if you factored that in.

1 Laurel every day? This is for sure an improvement but this is temporary and the limitation remains.

Ascended armor is and has always been time gated. You don’t need it to play the game today. I’m not really sure what your rush is.

As you up to level 50 fractals?

It was meant to be a long term goal. That was by design.

And yes, it’s temporary but it’s still 1 a day for at least a couple of weeks, and probably more, so that it will at least aid you in your specific problem.

At this moment the daily festival reward gives you an extra laurel as well. Not sure if you factored that in.

Deamhan.9538:

Pure speculation and completely wrong.

First of all, know the difference between instancing and server. Even before the megaserver, maps could fill up and result in multiple map instances.

The game will put you into the fullest map that still has space available. So the game knows beforehand what instance it will place players who attempt to go there via waypoint.

Umm no. What you are saying is factually wrong.

First of all, my pure speculation was in the patch notes. More importantly the megaserver does NOT put you in the fullest map with space still available. Where you got that idea from is beyond me.

There is an algorhythm that takes into account many factors of where you’ll be put, including your home world, your guild and your friends list. It finds the best match for you, in theory anyway) and places you there.

This was all covered by Anet in great detail.

Edit: Here’s a quote from the April 15th patch notes:

“Instead of overflow and home world maps, players will now simply end up in the map that makes the most sense for them, depending on their social environment (party, guild, home world, and more).”

mtpelion.4562:

Nexon makes its profits via parasitism.
They latch on to another company, take a controlling stock interest, influence the board and executives into making short term profits to drive up the stock prices and pay substantial dividends, then dump their stock to cash in leaving the company a cashless, directionless, customerless mess.

The fact that they are going public with this statement tells me that NCSoft has been resisting Nexon’s attempts to sink in their fangs… how long they can continue is the real question now (a 15% stake can turn into a controlling stake if you manage to get the board of directors stacked with people who you selected).

Sarcasm aside, people DID buy gold from illegal gold sellers to buy black dyes. The fact that now that’s legitimizes someone doesn’t change the fact that this system, even before dyes became account bound, is far more generous than the system in Guild Wars 1.

But no one cares about that. They only want to bring up Guild Wars 1 when it proves a negative point aboout this game.

Deamhan.9538:

Obtena.7952:

If your whole issue is that the game doesn’t have enough ways to get gear more directly, then what does that have to do with grinding?

Simple. ANet’s very own definition of grind is that, if there are many different ways to get it then it is not grindy. Thus the opposite is also true. If there are very few or just one way to get it, it is grindy.

Sort of my definition too though.

If I can do anything to level, then leveling isn’t grinding to me, because I’m not doing the same thing over and over.

Take a game like Aion at launch. There were times when quests ran out, period. You were at one outpost, you weren’t high enough to go elsewhere, you ran out of quests, and literally the only thing to do was kill the same four bosses over and over again, until you were a high enough level to get to the next quest hub.

This was more or less the original definition of grinding. Farming was always something else.

I’ve watched the word evolve over the years as language does. But I still feel a need, personally, to draw a line between grinding experience for levels in a very limited venue, and just something taking a long time.

Lots of things take a long time, but if you can do them anywhere, how is it grinding?

I could almost go with the definition of grinding a specific dungeon to get a full set of dungeon armor because that’s repeating very specific content.

But saving up karma points to get say obby shards? That’s not grinding to me,. because I’ll eventually get it no matter what I do. I’m not stuck doing the same thing over and over.

Think about how grind is used in every day life. You go to work every day, do the same thing, it’s back to the grind. Most people use it to mean something repetitive. And that’s how it was used in MMOs for the longest time.

Deamhan.9538:

What’s even worse, it doesn’t show up as contested until you are in LA. In fact, all contested waypoint in the PvE maps are like this.

You click on a waypoint in another map, loading screen, message about the way point you tried to go to is contested and so you are sent to another one.

Is it really too much to show them as being contested before hand?

The mega server, when you way point, doesn’t know which instance of the map you’re going to be put on. So it can’t predetermine a contested waypoint.

If your server is contested, but you end up on another server, it may not be. Of course, the Fort Marriner thing is always contested, but the system was put in place since most contested waypoints aren’t consistently contested.

You click on the waypoint before the megaserver knows where it’s going to put you. It would be silly the other way around, since you’re asking the game to do a calculation that you’ll not end up using. It sort of has to be this way.

It was changed when the megaserver was introduced.

I rez people almost everywhere, but not during major events in the Silverwastes. Because dying myself isn’t helping them.

This is a matter of practicality not being a nice guy.

Cameirus.8407:

Sounds awful.

Does not look like they are actually fixing the trait system (ie reverting the changes they made in their entirety), in fact it looks like they are making it worse with mastery adding a second level of crap at level 80.

Ah well, I enjoyed GW2 for a while, guess good things cant last. Shame, I really was excited by that manifesto video, and they did look to be delivering….then post launch it all went away, step by step the vision was eroded, and what we are left with is a grindy boring makework game. So much potential lost due to lack of ambition and lack of courage to follow through with their early convictions.

Fixing does not have to mean reverting. Since we don’t know what is being done, we can’t know if it’s going to be fixed or not fixed.

Many people can see why it was changed in the first place though, even though it was implemented badly.

Unlocking stuff by playing the game isn’t necessarily going to be a bad thing. However, some people would rather prejudge things than wait to see what they are. Shrugs.

You could only unlock one dye seed every 24 hours in beta, by talking to an NPC in your home instance. But worse still, if you bought plant food from the cash shop, you could accelerate that and get dyes faster. I thought it was horribly greedy.

People complained on launch that dyes weren’t account bound but the system we got on launch was far more generous than the system we had in beta.

Also you have to stay in the zone until the entire timer runs out. If you leave the zone before that happens, you forfeit your merits. Someone has to wait.

If another guild triggered it and you didn’t, you also have to click on an option that says to accept it.

JSemar.5821:

Why does everyone think this is OK? I actually read a dev compare it to cable TV and ordering channels. Lol I mean really? This is a kitten game. We already bought and paid for it and was promised future content. Jeeze I love Anets creativity and WANT to experience it but throwing a price tag on every little thing everywhere in the story is stupid. The entire concept of living story has been destroyed single handedly by this. I have zero interest in buying content that should already be mine anyway. Could you imagine if Skyrim or something charged you a dollar for every quest after the main storyline? Please fire the idiot that thought this was a great idea.

We think it’s okay because we got future content for free. All of season 1 was free. They didn’t say infinite free content forever.

And the new zones that come with it are free anyway.

You’re missing only the story which many people don’t really care about, or are happy to look up on youtube.

It’s okay because at some point, a company is going to charge more money for new content. I’ve not seen a whole lot of companies give new content free forever. Guild Wars 1 didn’t do it. You had to buy the historic mission pack at one point.

WoW charges $15 a month, barely comes out with updates between expansions, sell you the expansion AND has a cash shop.

I’m pretty sure this isn’t that bad.

Phoebe Ascension.8437:

And btw Vayne, you should read Gaile’s posts more often. She repeatedly said ‘we notice a lot of player repeat their opinion, even go in a fight over it, to hope their opinion would gain more value, but fact is, it still remains 1 opinion’. Maybe you don’t get the meaning of this yet? You have probably more posts then any forum member, but you still are one person and your many posts won’t turn you into a clone system.

Sure. I get the meaning.

But since you keep replying to me and make vague attempts at personal attacks, I don’t know why you’d think I wouldn’t respond. However, it doesn’t really matter. I’m leaving this thread and you can get the last word.

Because in the end, though I don’t give a kitten about Keg Brawl anymore, it wouldn’t hurt my game if it was around every day.

That doesn’t mean I think it’s worth doing and I don’t think that Anet is going to do it, but it wouldn’t hurt my game.

And for your sake, I hope it happens…I just don’t think it will.

Serelisk.6573:

Vayne.8563:

More to the point, if the metrics showed that Keg Brawl was so amazingly popular, then why is it the game that’s only once a week? Do you have an answer for that?

Logically, the game they put once a week is the least popular game. It makes sense.

Those that like it don’t want to admit that the other games are more popular, but I can’t think of any other reason Anet would have made Keg Brawl the odd man out.

My opinion doesn’t matter. Your opinion doesn’t matter. The opinion of the people who don’t play it, which would be most of the player base, probably does matter.

So you can supply a reason why Anet made Keg Brawl the only minigame that’s only once a week?

So, the issue with basing all of your judgments about things on metrics is that it doesn’t address why things happen or why numbers look the way they do. I’m sure you’ve been told this and should probably be an important element of maintaining a business.

So, the question in this thread was never “Is Keg Brawl unpopular?”. It was “Why is Keg Brawl unpopular?” and my suggestion is that it has far more to do with the poor exposure and advertisement of the game, than it ever had to do with how often the activity was accessible.

Meaning, I believe that making it only available 1 day a week had such small positive impact that it is thoroughly outweighed by the myriad of negative things that the update brought. Where as any large positive impact from the update were the result of Daily Activity achievement and the Activity NPC being placed in the center of Lion’s Arch. Again; both of those things could have been done without making keg brawl unplayable.

In my opinion, Keg Brawl would have been more popular if you could have an organized team and get on the same server. That wasn’t how the game was laid out. It was laid out with random teams and sometimes your team sucked.

The other three mini games in the rotation, you basically are responsible for yourself. You might get stuck in a hard arena with a lot of good players, but you sink or swim on your own merits.

Keg Brawl was mishandled from day one. It was too easy for people to throw stupid shots from mid court that new people couldn’t defend against. It was too easy to throw kegs out of bounds. If it weren’t for the achievements it would have been even less popular than it was.

Your idea that it wasn’t popular because it wasn’t advertised is a nice theory but there’s nothing to back it up. There’s just too much stuff to do in the game for people to really get on board with it at this point.

Sorry you don’t agree, but that’s my opinion.

Phoebe Ascension.8437:

Cause it was just after Ellen Kiel’s ellection (and all the achievements linked to their respective activities like southsun survival, etc), when the hype for the new ones was still hot, and people learned them because daily ap, that they were a bit more popular. Secondly, Anet wanted activities on fixed days i think, and they needed to discard one of the activities for dual days. Keg brawl was discarded because it was temporary less popular then because the other ones were hyped/fresh because ap.

And please stop trying to turn numbers in your favor. It’s making your posts loose value. There’s a lot of ‘I think that it’s that much players’ ,‘I think it’s a niche’, ’I’m pretty certain it’s a bigger number then you think’ wich quick ‘So this matter and that doesn’t matter’ conclusions in your posts. Seriously they don’t go together, and especially not to back up your opinions. Metrics players posts are just that: impressions, and not conclusive. Turning them into your own favor thinking your post gaines value with it, is just not really constructive.

Every problem in gw2 is worth discussing. Even niche player ones. Stop trying to play the god of the forums and discard all niche players problems cause you feel you are better then it. Sorry but this has to be said. You are also acting like re-enabling keg brawl more days, would hurt anets time. I wouldn’t. The mini-game is finished! all they have to do is change schedule or re-enable npc in hoelbrak. I’m not saying it won’t cost time, but definitely not as much as you make it out to be.

Your reply is very entertaining Phoebe. Obviously Anet has no experience with reading metrics and was easily fooled by the situation of new games being more popular than old games. Of course, in some ways, those new games are better games because they’re not team games, so you don’t randomly have to depend on team mates who have to clue to win. That might also be a reason why Keg Brawl wasn’t as popular.

But you know, I’m not trying to be the god of the forums, and I don’t care that you think I am.

See, I was there when Serelisk made posts in the past about Keg Brawl that received on these forums virtually no support. So much so that he even commented in those post at how little support he received. If that doesn’t tell you something, I guess there’s not much to say.

This thread was about Keg Brawl not being there at all, it was answer. Serelisk highjacked it and changed the topic and I answered.

It doesn’t matter what you think or I think if Anet has the numbers, but Anet has the numbers.

It’s been nice chatting with you.

Phoebe Ascension.8437:

Vayne.8563:

Tom Gore.4035:

Serelisk.6573:

I don’t know if I understand your overall point. My argument is that they could have did everything they did in the activity rotation update (namely move the NPC to where he is now, in Lion’s Arch) but keep all the activities open 7 days a week where the Activity Daily would be for a specific activity. So Keg Brawl will have increased population on Sunday instead of only available on Sunday. You know, the exact same way they’ve been incentivizing content since Guild Wars 1

So all activities available every day, but activity-specific dailies (and preferably one every day)? Not bad. I like this suggestion. It would be like the best of both worlds, really.

I don’t think it would change anything. I still think like six guys would love Keg Brawl and it won’t make a bit of difference to anyone else. I’m obviously exaagerating, but it’s really a non-issue.

This thread should be closed, anyway, because this is all off topic. The OP got the answer he was looking for.

You are acting like your opinion is the only opinion in the world. First of all, you don’t have the metrics, so you don’t have the right to use them as a argument for discussion. A lot of players play Keg brawl. Empty maps happen often because of a bug with merging maps, leave and rejoin, and lemme tell you, you’d be surprised how often you get a full run.

Keg brawl is the most discriminated dialy activity atm, all activities goes TWICE A WEEK, and KEG BRAWL ONCE. Not fair. Keg brawl should at least go twice a week as well.

If your way of ‘closing an argument/thread’ is the way to go, then lemme go offtopic for once: You like NPE, 90% dislike it. Your opinion doesn’t matter, the other 90% wins hands down and Anet can only focus the 90% and not your niche. See what I did there? Used an argument to win in a cheap way. Just stop it already Vayne. If you dislike Keg brawl, you shouldn’t be wasting time here. It’s like you’ve been wanting ages for Keg brawl to be removed, and now this thread appears you are jumping on it… A person who doesn’t like keg brawl, doesn’t post here, doesn’t play and and that’s the end of it.

It’s irrelevant whether the NPE is 90% dislike or not. Not only is your number wrong, it’s much less than that now, but also, it’s 90% of a bunch of people posting on forums. Those changes weren’t made for them, so what they think…not really relevant. And just because a bunch of forum people cry wolf doesn’t mean it’s necessarily a bad thing.

More to the point, if the metrics showed that Keg Brawl was so amazingly popular, then why is it the game that’s only once a week? Do you have an answer for that?

Logically, the game they put once a week is the least popular game. It makes sense.

Those that like it don’t want to admit that the other games are more popular, but I can’t think of any other reason Anet would have made Keg Brawl the odd man out.

My opinion doesn’t matter. Your opinion doesn’t matter. The opinion of the people who don’t play it, which would be most of the player base, probably does matter.

So you can supply a reason why Anet made Keg Brawl the only minigame that’s only once a week?

Lifestealer.4910:

Vayne.8563:

phys.7689:

Vayne.8563:

phys.7689:

There are 8 minute fights in other games where people can watch videos, and know exactly what to do, and still need to build skills at executing it. So still requires skill, if its well designed.

These are the types of fights I like the least…not because it requires skill. That’s not my issue.

I don’t love going out of the game to have a watch videos to do things. I prefer to solve things on my own merits. I still don’t have all the badges in Silverwastes, because I’m missing one and refuse to look at Dulfy.

Memorizing what to do and practicing it till you can do it like a trained monkey might be challenging to some people…but I personally don’t see it that way.

Being the first guy to figure out what to do, or figuring out a different way to do stuff is far more challenging.

my point is skill isnt just about knowing what to do. Its about learning how to do it well, and its not really all about being a trained monkey. Is every sport ever about being a trained monkey?

well perhaps you see it that way. Regardless whether you use a guide or not, skill exists

A video game is not a sport for a lot of reasons. At very least, PvE in a video game. Talking about players is something different.

The reason it’s not a sport is because someone programmed it and there’s nothing in it but that program. Juggling requires hand eye coordination and it requires practice, but I wouldn’t call it a sport.

Here’s the difference. When facing a human you don’t know what to expect. You really don’t. Let’s say the best, most accurate fast ball pitcher in the world is facing you. He can still throw one over your head. It’s happened.

When you’re facing AI, you know what to look for specifically and what to do specifically eventally. Half of it is memorization, half of it is reflex. Maybe not exactly half but you get the idea.

Unfortunately, I don’t find that stuff impressive. First of all, it puts every single person who lives in Australia at a disadvantage, because we have no servers here. I’m almost guaranteeing an extra half second lag. So less interest because no fairness there.

And of course net connections affect things, what kind of computer you have. That wouldn’t really happen with sports (though admittedly you can have a better bat).

It’s just not the same thing.

Tell that to all the E-sports game out there who gets as much viewer in their world finals series as any of the top sports out there.

If you read my comments from the beginning you would know I was talking about PvE AI, not PvP.

PvP has a chance to be more because there is thought and strategy involved. People work in completely unexpected manners.

Once you learn a PvE encounter it just gets easier and easier.

Milennin.4825:

Oh, I don’t know… character bound dyes, RNG boxes, gear grind.

And before you say dyes are account bound now. Yes, I know. Only 1+ year after launch and after they broke their promise made in their pre-launch blog post. Little late with that. They probably had a good reason to make them account bound: incentivise collecting all dyes for your account, buy all the dye packs in store NAO!

In Guild Wars 1 the dyes weren’t even that. They were one buy one use. Did Nexon do that too?

Milennin.4825:

Nexon has been influencing design decisions in Guild Wars 2 since launch. It’s pretty obvious if you look at all the things that are bad about Guild Wars 2, the majority can be blamed on what Nexon would have done.
It’ll only get worse once they are given more power.

Evidence of this? Because I don’t see it at all. People who played Nexon games before have said how much worse they are. This is just more tin foil hat stuff.

Halvorn.9831:

Vayne.8563:

The 50% of the people who haven’t looked twice at their trait screen since launch. I remember one of the devs saying something about how many people NEVER looked at a trait screen. It was an amazing number.

You surely are with me when I am saying that a solution to this problem cannot be to make acquiring these traits even more of an effort.

Having said that I think the direction of this discussion is somewhat misleading. It is not important whether an absolute majority of players do or don’t like this system. Those who don’t even care for traits at all, are they the target audience?

What about those who care of the traits? Do you think there is a tendency how they think of the current trait system?

Actually, you haven’t been following the conversation if you think I’m for the new trait system, because I’m not. I’ve never been. I’ve been vocally against it.

But then someone comes along and starts saying how 10 months is a long time and Anet doesn’t care about the game, or whatever today’s attack is and I think…10 months really isn’t that long in programming, particularly for something that doesn’t have a major affect on most players.

I’m not saying it doesn’t need to be changed. I’m saying that it’s unreasonable to expect the to have run right out and changed it.

But there’s also a way to get mostly ascended without getting full ascended. If you get the jewelry and the weapons, the the difference between having the armor and not having it is minimal.

Actually they can’t make changes. What they have to do is get the bulk of the stock holders to become dissatisfied. That’s what they’re attempting.

They’re saying here NCSoft isn’t giving you enough return on your investment. So they can try to get a block of votes.

But NcSoft isn’t going to sit there and let this pass unchallenged. And most saavy stock holders will know this is a power play anyway.

Astralporing.1957:

Vayne.8563:

Tom Gore.4035:

Serelisk.6573:

I don’t know if I understand your overall point. My argument is that they could have did everything they did in the activity rotation update (namely move the NPC to where he is now, in Lion’s Arch) but keep all the activities open 7 days a week where the Activity Daily would be for a specific activity. So Keg Brawl will have increased population on Sunday instead of only available on Sunday. You know, the exact same way they’ve been incentivizing content since Guild Wars 1

So all activities available every day, but activity-specific dailies (and preferably one every day)? Not bad. I like this suggestion. It would be like the best of both worlds, really.

I don’t think it would change anything. I still think like six guys would love Keg Brawl and it won’t make a bit of difference to anyone else. I’m obviously exaagerating, but it’s really a non-issue.

If it wouldn’t make a difference for everyone else, but benefit the dedicated keg brawl players (of which there are more than 6 in this game, i’m pretty sure), and it could be accomplished by simply enabling original keg brawl npc in Hoelbrak, no more changes necessary, then why don’t do it?

Like I said, my experience turned me off from keg brawl. It’s entirely likely that more people like it from it being full of people doing it than not. I think that’ sthe reason they did it.

Anet has the stats on how often it sat empty, we don’t.

This is one of those situations where it might be better for more people doing it this way.

Serelisk.6573:

@Vayne

Based on my own anecdotal experience (Of which I have legions more to draw on than you do), I’m going to say your post is an exaggeration and caution anyone from taking that as a fact. There’s no way you’ve had so few Keg Brawl games that removing it entirely is a reasonable solution. I just can’t fathom. It sounds like you’re saying that you’ve never or only rarely got into a functioning Keg Brawl match, and there’s no way that’s the case.

[PUNT] had at least 1 person playing actively in almost every timezone from OCX to Euro (including myself during breaks from school or when work schedule allowed it), with the main one being NA and I’ve never heard testimony that remotely resembles yours. Sure, are there dead periods? Yes. Could you never find a game ever? Probably not.

And the ideal that the higher degree of advertisement would not help to further alleviate those issues is a pretty bold one.

I’m in Australia mate. My prime playing time might well account for my experiences. It doesn’t change how I feel about Keg Brawl though. I found it a major disappointment.

Actually removing items not being used, isn’t odd at all. It gives players a bad feeling when they go to do something and can’t get anyone to do it with them. I know because that’s how I felt when I wanted to play Keg Brawl.

It would have been better, for me, not to have the option at all, then to stand around, waiting and hope someone eventually comes in.

With the way it stands now, Keg Brawl arenas are almost never empty and I do get a game.

Tom Gore.4035:

Serelisk.6573:

I don’t know if I understand your overall point. My argument is that they could have did everything they did in the activity rotation update (namely move the NPC to where he is now, in Lion’s Arch) but keep all the activities open 7 days a week where the Activity Daily would be for a specific activity. So Keg Brawl will have increased population on Sunday instead of only available on Sunday. You know, the exact same way they’ve been incentivizing content since Guild Wars 1

So all activities available every day, but activity-specific dailies (and preferably one every day)? Not bad. I like this suggestion. It would be like the best of both worlds, really.

I don’t think it would change anything. I still think like six guys would love Keg Brawl and it won’t make a bit of difference to anyone else. I’m obviously exaagerating, but it’s really a non-issue.

This thread should be closed, anyway, because this is all off topic. The OP got the answer he was looking for.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Vayne.8563:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Vayne . . . I’m sorry. I have no intent of going forward with leveling my alts which got started after the Trait revamp because of this. Sure, I play my ranger almost exclusively.

. . . almost . . .

But at least one of my characters is saddled with no Trait Masteries to speak of. I will have to do events for another character to try to grab the last ones. I don’t plan on seriously starting another alt until I know what the new system is going to be and it’s in place.

This change we’re talking of did affect me. Negatively.

That’s one reason I’m interested in seeing what’s coming out instead, rather than being merely academically interested as I am concerning grind.

And I’m not saying you’re not affected. Show me where I said this.

I’m saying MOST people don’t really care or know or think about it. The bulk of the people. Not the 15% of the people who come to forums. The 50% of the people who haven’t looked twice at their trait screen since launch. I remember one of the devs saying something about how many people NEVER looked at a trait screen. It was an amazing number.

Surely you realize that people like us a vast minority. Not some great majority. And yes, many of us in that vast minority are affected.

But most people aren’t…even if we are.

I AM affected. That doesn’t change a word I’ve said.

No, I’m not saying you said that. I know you know I am careful about that particular gripe here on the forum.

I’m just adding my point to this. Again. Since the old thread has been locked (but not forgotten) I felt the distillation of it needed to be put here in the midst of this. The change affects me, even as much as I might realistically say otherwise? It did. It changed how I played the game in a negative way.

Yep, it changed how I play in a negative way, quite drastically. I just acknowledge I’m not a typical player.

Keg brawl was inherently going to be slanted to people who learned it first. Most people aren’t going to sit there and play it over and over again and build up their skill while consistently getting their kittens kicked.

That’s a good reason not to move it front and center. You love keg brawl so you don’t see the frustration it caused people. Even on daily activity days when it was an activity, I heard tons of complaints about it.

You like it. You’re a tiny percentage of the player base. Anet can’t reach out to every small niche group and make it right for them. It’s not reasonable to expect them to.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Vayne . . . I’m sorry. I have no intent of going forward with leveling my alts which got started after the Trait revamp because of this. Sure, I play my ranger almost exclusively.

. . . almost . . .

But at least one of my characters is saddled with no Trait Masteries to speak of. I will have to do events for another character to try to grab the last ones. I don’t plan on seriously starting another alt until I know what the new system is going to be and it’s in place.

This change we’re talking of did affect me. Negatively.

That’s one reason I’m interested in seeing what’s coming out instead, rather than being merely academically interested as I am concerning grind.

And I’m not saying you’re not affected. Show me where I said this.

I’m saying MOST people don’t really care or know or think about it. The bulk of the people. Not the 15% of the people who come to forums. The 50% of the people who haven’t looked twice at their trait screen since launch. I remember one of the devs saying something about how many people NEVER looked at a trait screen. It was an amazing number.

Surely you realize that people like us a vast minority. Not some great majority. And yes, many of us in that vast minority are affected.

But most people aren’t…even if we are.

I AM affected. That doesn’t change a word I’ve said.

Ashen.2907:

Vayne.8563:

Ashen.2907:

Vayne,

100% of all players were affected. They may not know to what degree and they may not know what it was like before the change but they are affected.

Edit: in theory players who do not stick to the game beyond the early levels are not affected.

100% of the people aren’t affected. If you never intend on leveling another alt, the trait change doesn’t affect you.

And the point of being affected or not, if you don’t know your affected, you’re not actually affected by it.

That is to say, my response was based on the premise that there was a thread with a lot of people who all agreed. A lot of people (not all) did agree. But it’s still a very small percentage of the player base.

You can’t go say someone is affected if they say they’re not. I’ve talked to people in my guild who say that it doesn’t affect them. I tried to argue it did…and lost.

I am affected on my main as I must either unlock the new GM traits or buy them at the new costs if I am going to return to my previous state of having all traits unlocked right? Thats not a complaint by the way. Ive got the resources for it to be completely painless on a character who already had all everything else unlocked.

You don’t need to know something is affecting you, or even understand the affect, for it to be doing so. This is not an opinion, it is a fact.

That said the affect on someone might be minimal. Someone with a single main character and a lot of gold and skill points will be able to quickly purchase the new GM traits without seeing any more than a minimal impact. But the gold and ski points so spent cannot be spent on something else. An affect, but minimal.

There’s no reason to talk to someone who’s trying to disprove me at all costs. If I say that it’s hot out and my wife says it isn’t, the heat isn’t affected her. Of course, it’s affecting her in some way. Because heat affects humans. But she’s not bothered by it at all.

Since you’re having trouble with casual English feel free to swap out “it doesn’t affect everyone” with “most people don’t care one way or the other”.

Serelisk.6573:

I played almost every day for a year. Spent that time actively going out of my way to try and make games more fun for everyone. Passing to newer or less skilled players, or playing with self imposed handicaps so that every game felt competitive and everyone was involved if I could help it. The only time [PUNT] ever team-stacks is to counter and deny aggressive lobbing (#2-skill on keg makes games less fun for everyone but 1 person).

And I genuinely do not think that Keg Brawl was this supposed graveyard you make it out to be. Possibly on less populated timezones, for sure. But I can almost guarantee the reason that changed was because of the higher degree of advertisement which came with the same update, not because it’s only available on a single day.

(Edited to be less of a jerk)

There were many times I tried to play Keg Brawl befroe the change and stood in an completely empty arena for an hour. You can say anything you like but this happened. Not once. Not twice. Not three times.

If you think that makes a good impression on people playing the game, you’d be wrong.

Ashen.2907:

Vayne,

100% of all players were affected. They may not know to what degree and they may not know what it was like before the change but they are affected.

Edit: in theory players who do not stick to the game beyond the early levels are not affected.

100% of the people aren’t affected. If you never intend on leveling another alt, the trait change doesn’t affect you.

And the point of being affected or not, if you don’t know your affected, you’re not actually affected by it.

That is to say, my response was based on the premise that there was a thread with a lot of people who all agreed. A lot of people (not all) did agree. But it’s still a very small percentage of the player base.

You can’t go say someone is affected if they say they’re not. I’ve talked to people in my guild who say that it doesn’t affect them. I tried to argue it did…and lost.