Guild Wars 2

tofumon.5924:

Vayne.8563:

Have you tried a mesmer since the NPE…because I have. They did make the world easier to compensate for lack of traits.

So are you saying that you’d rather have easy content and no traits vs. more challenging content with a lot of traits?

Nope. I’m saying that how easy or hard the open world is doesn’t really change my experience while leveling. That is to say, it didn’t change my experience much at all.

I just hope you’re not using zerker for your Tequatl runs.

phys.7689:

Vayne.8563:

phys.7689:

IndigoSundown.5419:

Your better half is mistaken. It’s not that that other game can afford it and ANet cannot, it’s that the developer of that other game had a plan for furthering the game, is implementing it and you approve of its plan. ANet also has a plan for furthering the game and is implementing it. Some posters, including, I presume, you, just don’t like the plan. GW2 netted almost $6M per month in Q3, a time when dire predictions were being made in these forums about its health. While this amount is less than they made in Q2, it seems to me that’s still plenty to support operations, development and turn a tidy profit.

No sub, thank you, optional or not.

The idea as expressed is ostensibly to support development of content. However, I would have zero control over what content would be worked on. While I have zero control as it is, I can at least choose to spend money now if content I want is implemented, but don’t if what’s offered doesn’t interest me.

I believe in letting businesses make whatever business plan or monetizing scheme they desire. They’re going to anyway, so I’m essentially just riding the horse in the direction it’s already going. What I do not believe in is offering to throw more money at them if they don’t perform to my satisfaction. To do so essentially encourages businesses to under-perform, because customers will throw money at them anyway. This is kitten-backwards. It should be that businesses produce, then get paid, not they get paid and then produce.

i agree somewhat, but reality is in that same time period ffxiv likely netted 30 mil. 15 dollars a subscriber, and here number to the tune of almost 3 million, even if this exagerated, lets assume 1.5 million, that would still give them 22 million a month versus 6.

as to not throwing money at them, well, in a subscription game you are paying because they have given you so much, its worthwhile to access it. Now if you think about it like that, if the gw2 world isnt giving you something you would be willing to pay for, then thats probably the biggest problem.

Monetization basically boils down to giving people something they want to buy. I honestly think the initial plan for gw2, that they discussed before release would have been their most profitable plan.
buy 2 play, with small optional gem shop to fill in the gaps in earning. The monetization strategy right now, is basically an f2p model, and going further in that direction as we speak. I honestly wouldnt be too surprised if they went f2p, for f2p to work best, it needs to be free.

either that or they need to go back to a buy 2 play strategy. I know they didnt like the peaks and valleys of b2play, but thats the product they appear to be best at making.

FF XIV has console though. I’m not sure if it was comupter only that it would be as much or even close to as much. No one really knows. That’s the problem with comparisons.

There are a whole lot of people out there who won’t play games on a computer, but still have consoles.

if making a console port would really be guaranteed to increase your earnings that much, everyone would/should be doing it. The fact that more companies arent, probably gives a clue that they dont think it would be worth the investments.

Not all games would transfer over well.

purecontact.1680:

Are you aware that your living story does not interest everyone?

And new zones are new zones, living story or no living story. People act like everything in the zone is living story. That’s not the case.

Brother Grimm.5176:

I’m not apposed to he idea that Precurors should have a (slightly?) higher chance to drop in Orr than Queensdale, but the fact that this is not the case isn’t a game stopping tragedy of epic proportions….

This thread is more proof that far too many players seem to think the pursuit of the almighty Precursor is why the game exists.

Actually precusors do have a slightly higher chance of dropping in Orr than Queensdale.

That’s because in Queensdale you get both 80 level drops and 15 level drops. Only a percentage of your drops have a chance to be precursors.

In Orr all your drops can be precursors.

Have you tried a mesmer since the NPE…because I have. They did make the world easier to compensate for lack of traits.

Melfice.5091:

Vayne.8563:

Melfice.5091:

Vayne.8563:

Melfice.5091:

Vayne.8563:

Melfice.5091:

Why do threads like these get immediate attention by anet but then other threads with serious issues get ignored

Because these threads can be answered without starting a war?

I feel like it’s a slap in the face tbh. They need to stop wasting their time in threads like these and focus on the focus, and there are only wars starting in the other threads because people are frustrated by being ignored for so long

No it’s not a slap in the face. Talking to people is what community managers do. If they can say something and have something to say, they will.

Do you realize how unreasonable what you’re saying sounds. They’re not answering the things you want them to answer, so they shouldn’t answer anyone? That’s just wrong.

They’re not answering any problem at all, not just the things I want answered. The only threads that get immediate attention are threads like these where someone is trying their hardest to kiss anet their kitten

You’re not being logical.

Okay put yourself in the place of someone who is paid to interface with the community. Someone complains about the trait system. You don’t have an answer for that. That answer HAS TO come from devs. You have to wait for devs to give you that answer. That means you have to get it from them. If they don’t answer it, you can’t answer it.

This thread, you don’t need to go anywhere to answer it. It’s literally 60 seconds of your time.

I’m not even sure what this conversation is about.

How can answering something that takes 60 seconds to answer be detrimental to anything else.

I get it, you want threads answered. That has zero to do with answering this thread.

I get that this doesn’t take a lot of time to answer threads like these, and I don’t mind them being answered. What I do mind is that these kind of threads are the only thats being answered. Other threads with real problems can get 100+ or 500+ pages and still be ignored, but not these oh no once one of the pops up they just have to rush to it straight away

It’s factually untrue that these threads are the only ones being answered.

Melfice.5091:

Vayne.8563:

Melfice.5091:

Vayne.8563:

Melfice.5091:

Why do threads like these get immediate attention by anet but then other threads with serious issues get ignored

Because these threads can be answered without starting a war?

I feel like it’s a slap in the face tbh. They need to stop wasting their time in threads like these and focus on the focus, and there are only wars starting in the other threads because people are frustrated by being ignored for so long

No it’s not a slap in the face. Talking to people is what community managers do. If they can say something and have something to say, they will.

Do you realize how unreasonable what you’re saying sounds. They’re not answering the things you want them to answer, so they shouldn’t answer anyone? That’s just wrong.

They’re not answering any problem at all, not just the things I want answered. The only threads that get immediate attention are threads like these where someone is trying their hardest to kiss anet their kitten

You’re not being logical.

Okay put yourself in the place of someone who is paid to interface with the community. Someone complains about the trait system. You don’t have an answer for that. That answer HAS TO come from devs. You have to wait for devs to give you that answer. That means you have to get it from them. If they don’t answer it, you can’t answer it.

This thread, you don’t need to go anywhere to answer it. It’s literally 60 seconds of your time.

I’m not even sure what this conversation is about.

How can answering something that takes 60 seconds to answer be detrimental to anything else.

I get it, you want threads answered. That has zero to do with answering this thread.

phys.7689:

IndigoSundown.5419:

Your better half is mistaken. It’s not that that other game can afford it and ANet cannot, it’s that the developer of that other game had a plan for furthering the game, is implementing it and you approve of its plan. ANet also has a plan for furthering the game and is implementing it. Some posters, including, I presume, you, just don’t like the plan. GW2 netted almost $6M per month in Q3, a time when dire predictions were being made in these forums about its health. While this amount is less than they made in Q2, it seems to me that’s still plenty to support operations, development and turn a tidy profit.

No sub, thank you, optional or not.

The idea as expressed is ostensibly to support development of content. However, I would have zero control over what content would be worked on. While I have zero control as it is, I can at least choose to spend money now if content I want is implemented, but don’t if what’s offered doesn’t interest me.

I believe in letting businesses make whatever business plan or monetizing scheme they desire. They’re going to anyway, so I’m essentially just riding the horse in the direction it’s already going. What I do not believe in is offering to throw more money at them if they don’t perform to my satisfaction. To do so essentially encourages businesses to under-perform, because customers will throw money at them anyway. This is kitten-backwards. It should be that businesses produce, then get paid, not they get paid and then produce.

i agree somewhat, but reality is in that same time period ffxiv likely netted 30 mil. 15 dollars a subscriber, and here number to the tune of almost 3 million, even if this exagerated, lets assume 1.5 million, that would still give them 22 million a month versus 6.

as to not throwing money at them, well, in a subscription game you are paying because they have given you so much, its worthwhile to access it. Now if you think about it like that, if the gw2 world isnt giving you something you would be willing to pay for, then thats probably the biggest problem.

Monetization basically boils down to giving people something they want to buy. I honestly think the initial plan for gw2, that they discussed before release would have been their most profitable plan.
buy 2 play, with small optional gem shop to fill in the gaps in earning. The monetization strategy right now, is basically an f2p model, and going further in that direction as we speak. I honestly wouldnt be too surprised if they went f2p, for f2p to work best, it needs to be free.

either that or they need to go back to a buy 2 play strategy. I know they didnt like the peaks and valleys of b2play, but thats the product they appear to be best at making.

FF XIV has console though. I’m not sure if it was comupter only that it would be as much or even close to as much. No one really knows. That’s the problem with comparisons.

There are a whole lot of people out there who won’t play games on a computer, but still have consoles.

I’m not seeing it either. The only thing I don’t like is the traits, but you surely don’t need them to level, not even on a mesmer.

Melfice.5091:

Vayne.8563:

Melfice.5091:

Why do threads like these get immediate attention by anet but then other threads with serious issues get ignored

Because these threads can be answered without starting a war?

I feel like it’s a slap in the face tbh. They need to stop wasting their time in threads like these and focus on the focus, and there are only wars starting in the other threads because people are frustrated by being ignored for so long

No it’s not a slap in the face. Talking to people is what community managers do. If they can say something and have something to say, they will.

Do you realize how unreasonable what you’re saying sounds. They’re not answering the things you want them to answer, so they shouldn’t answer anyone? That’s just wrong.

Using the News and Announcements Section more often is something I can definitely get behind.

Melfice.5091:

Why do threads like these get immediate attention by anet but then other threads with serious issues get ignored

Because these threads can be answered without starting a war?

And not sure most players don’t like it.

I just looked up swamp solo on a thief. OMFG.

InfernoHero.5687:

Deamhan.9538:

Trying that program now. Wow, where has this been all my [GW2] life?

On Reddit.

It’s really simple to use, and it offers no advantage. I’d wager half of Guild Wars 2’s player base uses it with no issue.

I’d wager that 75% of the player base has never even heard of it. And then there are people who tried it and didn’t like it…like me.

Ykfox.3825:

Vayne.8563:

You can solo the daily fractal if you do a low level 1. My wife and I sometimes two man one.

Some Fractals can be solo’d, some inherently can’t. Swamp/Dredge fractals offhand, need a minimum of 3 players.

I never said otherwise. I’m just saying it can be done. Doesn’t mean every fractal can be soloed.

I don’t know. A wolf by itself isn’t a huge problem. An elite wolf surrounded by other wolves, where some are always going to be flanking you? Terrible design decision. I don’t see how they could have not been nerfed.

You can solo the daily fractal if you do a low level 1. My wife and I sometimes two man one.

Just send an email to exploits@arena.net

Jerus.4350:

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

I see this, precursor crafting/scavenger hunt, brought up almost always when listing communication woes.

ArenaNet did keep us in the loop, announcing when it was being pushed back, and then when the current iteration was scrapped, and had to be started from scratch. The announcements have been quoted countless times in threads, and yet….it always seems to come up as something the Devs totally ignored and kept silent about.

Good thing it wasn’t something else, or it would be used as an example of how ArenaNet ‘over-hypes’ everything!

A real case of darned if you do, and darned if you don’t. /sigh

This is the first time I’ve seen mention of them saying that there were setbacks. Do you have quotes?

I don’t have them off hand but I’ve seen them posted several times in other threads.

I agree with the OP. I’d like to have some idea of what’s coming up myself.

KarlaGrey.5903:

No need to force layoffs when 1) people are leaving on their own, and 2) losses can be offset, to an extent, by cutting salaries (and benefits) at the mid/lower end of the staff.

So tell me. How many people have left? And how does that compare to normal attrition of any company?

I’m thinking that the attrition rate is relatively normal for a company of Anet’s size. Do you have evidence to the contrary?

Bloodstealer.5978:

Vayne.8563:

phys.7689:

Behellagh.1468:

phys.7689:

Vayne.8563:

So according to this report, Guild Wars 2 is making $5,968,222 per month…roughly anyway.

Seems pretty good for a two year old game without an expansion…to me anyway.

~SNIP ~

~SNIP~

~SNIP~

The second you said Guild Wars 2 would be right next to Wildstar, a game that didn’t make six months before they laid off people and canceled their holiday updates, you lost any credibility.

Even if Guild Wars 2 spiraled down now (and there’s no real sign of that) it’s far more successful than Wildstar was. Comparing the two on any level can’t be anything but disingenuous.

It’s like saying that if the game hasn’t been moderately successful for the last couple of years, it would have been the same as a failure. Terrible comparison.

All MMO’s reduce their staffing a short whiles after launch.. staffing levels through development are always larger prior to launch.. after launch many positions are simply suplus requirments and are most likely contractually designed to be terminated at that point.. nothing new to report here I am afraid.

Focus more on the actual relevance of the report not what you surmise it to be Vayne. Face facts qtr on qtr there is a downward trend to GW2, some of which coincides at points with other launches that have so say now bombed.. so where is the upspike in players coming back to GW2 that should theoretically affect future earning … unless of course they are coming back but more leave .. not the kind of balance I would want in my own businesses finances.
I am not saying GW2 is doomed, in fact I agree with you I don’t think it is (yet) in that sense as all MMO’s see drop offs, plateauing and upsurge’s but facts remain GW2 appears to be struggling to curb the decline albeit it’s still generating a decent amount of money (profit.. not known) in its launch market… does this however represent the players left are being generous shoppers or has the game been pushing more to the cash shop of late to maybe stretch out some figures running up to the latest report… we all are guessing in part but using what we can draw from the game, the press, the players and the results, but the fact remains GW2 has had a poorer than expected year, lets hope the next Q on Q period can ignite the upsurge in both content quality and player interest like it did this time last year, but with a view to maintaining it going forward because 2 years still doesn’t make the game a success.

I am hoping they have content plans at least a year in advance of this and are working hard to seeing such plans come to fruition (maybe in the form of traditional expansion or maybe something else), but it needs something because even though these figures show a decent generating pull, downward trends cant really be expected to keep pulling those numbers and there is only so much shopping players will do until even the most loyal either run out of coin or simply get fed up with it and look elsewhere.

Focus on facts, not speculation.

Fact…NCsoft West and Wildstar suffered a layoff of people. Anet didn’t. That’s a fact.

You keep talking about the business going down or comparing it to failed games. If that’s the case why was Anet unaffected by layoffs.

I worked in the publishing industry. In almost any creative field you expect lower sales as time goes on. That’s normal for the industry I worked in. This isn’t some theory I’m spouting off the top of my head. It’s absolutely normal for games to sell less as time goes on and games that don’t are the rarest of exceptions.

So I’m not even sure what you’re on about.

Cuddy.6247:

Vayne.8563:

The OP mentioned gear. He didn’t mention skills.

So gear can’t have horizontal spread as well? kitten, I must’ve been playing World of Warcraft wrong all this time.

Gear most certainly can be different without being a treadmill. It’s why we have Soldier’s gear, Berserker’s gear or Valkyrie’s gear.

But these are introduced early and the range of effectiveness that some people want (especially people who play trinity MMOs) is kitten poor. It’s not that options aren’t available, it’s just that 90% of the options are pretty crummy and people don’t want to use them. Whereas in virtually every other MMO you could take a warrior, give them a particular weapon, and have about six different ways to build that warrior instead of one, or two depending if you want to drop the Fast Hands trait. Even further from that, all six of those different ways (with different gear specs) were effective.

Guild Wars 2 doesn’t provide that.

Check yourself before you wreck yourself.

I didn’t use the word treadmill. I used the word stats. In this game gear has stats. He was complaining the power didn’t go up. That was the complaint.

Defend the indefensible if you must but I’m done with this.

Rysinsun.7306:

TLDR: Vayne is right, everyone else is wrong. Move along.

I wonder why people ignore others who agree me in in this sort of post.

Ashen.2907:

scerevisiae.1972:

60k is a grad programmer fresh out of uni. Snr devs, dev mgrs, architects etc will be well clear of 100. In any case, 100k is a realistic mean salary figure, once on-costs and insurances are taken into account.

The average game dev salary for the region where ANet is located is between 70k and 80k. The cost to employ is between 1.2 and 1.3 x base salary. The 100k estimate mentioned is a bit high but is significantly closer to normal than the 60k mentioned as a counter argument.

Except we simply don’t know. It’s all just guesswork. I’m not sure what the point is. We’ll end up arguing numbers that no one is ever going to confirm.

My oh wow moments usually come from close calls. We had about ten of us in the guild, going around the new zone…from fort to fort, trying to get everyone the Breach achievements.

We finished the first with about 11 seconds left…then most people needed silver and we finished that with seconds to spare. That was the most recent one.

There have been many others.

scerevisiae.1972:

60k is a grad programmer fresh out of uni. Snr devs, dev mgrs, architects etc will be well clear of 100. In any case, 100k is a realistic mean salary figure, once on-costs and insurances are taken into account.

According to this page:

http://www.gameindustrycareerguide.com/video-game-programmer-salary/

Salaries right out of school are $40,000 not $60,000. First page I stopped at, but it should at least give the indication that no one really knows the numbers.

My home instance has candy corn, sprockets and quartz to farm and yeah…I broke down and bought the other nodes too (for no real reason except why not).

My issue isn’t with how long it takes to make, so much as how the current system hinders experimentation.

Why try something new when you know it’s going to be a ton of work to even try it?

Cuddy.6247:

Vayne.8563:

Wizzlock.3492:

Cuddy.6247:

I’m not sure most reasonable people would agree with your interpretation. He doesn’t directly say he wants “gear progression” – in fact, here’s the actual quote:

simply only for “Reskinning purposes”. By this I mean of course, there is no more progression after level 80, you’re the same, but only look different. The difference between gear had halted.

There’s no more progression after 80. Basically, very little you do after 80 can allow you to experience the game differently. Which is true in some respects, primarily those respects being that only so much stuff works well and new content is being designed to deliver to those who made the rest of the game easy by their own decision, which makes it even more marginalized than it was before.

Given his poor grasp of grammar in the first place (likely primary foreign language), I think we can rule out any set in stone definition that his only idea of progression is a gear treadmill and the only differences he’s talking about is in regards to the rating.

And without any suggestions of what he wants, there likely won’t be any way to tell what kind of progression he wanted past 80, only thing we can know is that he felt dissatisfied with a lack of progression because of gear (which could also mean marginalized gear and usefulness).

Thank You!
I wrote more or less the same thing, but I made mistake of pinpointing it to someone manipulative statemants from all over the forums, and my answers were deleted. Because – You know. My offtopic is offtopic, when someone else offtopic is THE TRUTH!. And on the other side – english is not my first language, so I never would do this so fluently.

Good to see some people do not like to generalize and try to look for real meaning and not the easiest answer. Sometimes (and that times are always) I think that white knights of MMO forums do more damage in name of protecting games name, than they actually help it. But that’s just my opinion.

One guy agreed with you. One guy agreed with me. I still say most reasonable people would have interpreted it the way I did.

I maintain that. I’m not sure having a single guy agree with you or even five means much. The fact stands that I believe this guy was talking about gear progression and I think most people would thing the same.

Why? Because in that paragraph he quoted the stuff you get from fractals…which is gear. Therefore logically, he expected the gear to give him some kind of advantage.

And that’s what this game was not supposed to be about.

Way to completely dismiss obvious subjectivity. Twice.

Progression and variation doesn’t have to stop at vertical ratings. There is also horizontal spread that GW2 lacks when compared to other MMOs. You read into this idea of progression way too negatively to have an open mind about horizontal progression.

The OP mentioned gear. He didn’t mention skills. You say I ignore subjectivity. You’re ignoring words. Words in the OP.

When I interpret stuff, I interpret stuff by looking at the wording. The OP was talking about fractal gear…IE the gear you get from the Fractals.

Now in the game, gear has stats. That’s what differentiates between gear. Why is an ascended item better than an exotic one. More stats…and more damage, which I certainly consider a stat.

There’s one way to intepret the OP’s words without completely trying to stretch it to prove a point. Anyone who says otherwise…they’re welcome to their opinion. But I don’t think you’ll find many to agree with you.

Thus my comment about most people interpreting it the way I did is fine.

If the person kittenponded to me, didn’t try to “teach me a lesson” this would have been a long dead issue. The words themselves, they’re pretty clear.

phys.7689:

Vayne.8563:

The second you said Guild Wars 2 would be right next to Wildstar, a game that didn’t make six months before they laid off people and canceled their holiday updates, you lost any credibility.

Even if Guild Wars 2 spiraled down now (and there’s no real sign of that) it’s far more successful than Wildstar was. Comparing the two on any level can’t be anything but disingenuous.

It’s like saying that if the game hasn’t been moderately successful for the last couple of years, it would have been the same as a failure. Terrible comparison.

im talking about earnings right now, its right next to wildstar in earnings at this moment.
gw #4
ws #5
lineage2 #6

point is, if you think wildstar isnt making enough money this moment, what does it say that gw2 is right next to them in earnings? If wildstar keeps earning at this same pace, it will justify the similar budget to GW2.

past success isnt really relevant to the current product. Ncsoft will just be like, yall were real good at making a new game, go make a new game, dont waste time on GW2, give it minimal updates. If they feel gw2 has peaked in terms of earnings.

Businesses work in expectations. They have a business plan. The business plan determines the success of the game far more often than the profit. That’s why some projects making profits are scrapped and some games making less profit stay. It’s all about the plan.

If NcSoft/Anet planned for a dropoff in income after two years, and the game is within range of the plan it’s considered a success. That’s often how it works anyway.

Wildstar didn’t make the initial success…didn’t meet it’s targeted expectations. The layoffs aren’t because of how little the game made. It’s because of how little the game made so soon after launch. This isn’t a problem Guild Wars 2 has.

Guild Wars 2 had no layoffs, because Anet is still meeting expectations, which is why they can say at the quarterly report the the game is still performing strongly. This is the quote “Still strong performance in NA/EU”.

That wouldn’t be said if it wasn’t true. You don’t lie to stockholders at a stock call. That’s why they also said that Chinese sales were below expectation.

A two year old game that’s non sub will have completely different expectations than a new game that’s subscription anyway.

You can’t compare apples and oranges no matter how hard you want to.

phys.7689:

Behellagh.1468:

phys.7689:

Vayne.8563:

So according to this report, Guild Wars 2 is making $5,968,222 per month…roughly anyway.

Seems pretty good for a two year old game without an expansion…to me anyway.

aion is way older, lineage 1 is way older. Its doing as well as blade and soul virtually which has started off with a lot less numbers.

If anet hadnt reached so many people it would be doing ok, but it started high and has consistently sunk this year. blade and soul for example, has been generally stable. Whereas say a blade and soul can still hope to expand, gw2 has basically gotten and lost all of those customers. They wont get most of them back unless they give them something substantial.

B&S is a subscription based game. It has recently expanded into Japan but it’s Korean income hasn’t been stellar. Of course this excludes the royalties from China. Royalties they pointed out as “decreased royalty sales from B/S China” in this report.

Income from Korea – millions of KrW – % of overall income from Korea

4Q13 – 17,887 – 100%
1Q14 – 19,234 – 100%
2Q14 – 16,632 – 86.9%
3Q14 – 17,046 – 86.3%

B&S had a three month head start on GW2 and even if we exclude GW2’s incredible 4Q12 income (so B&S has roughly 6 months more income), GW2 still earned 24.5% more than B&S. Not bad for a subscription free game over it’s lifetime.

L1 was South Korea’s UO and AION their WoW. And until this quarter AION’s numbers had been steadily falling. TTM AION’s income was still less than ours. And like B&S, over 80% of AION’s income, excluding royalties, is from Korea.

I’m not ready to put on my DOOOOOOM!!! hat for $6.4 million USD per month (average exchange rate for 3rd quarter was 1023.19 KrW per 1$), equivalent to 427 to 534 thousand subscriptions worth (at $12-15 a month) of income. Again, not bad for a free to play after purchase game.

Just wait for ESO. Okay just wait for WS. Well just wait for the new WoW expansion.

This time for sure.

exactly, blade and soul never had the start up and number of players trying it out that guild wars had, and now, here we are today, with the same revenue. A revenue which has been stable, they arent losing many players for blade and soul. Also korean market + the american market has less gamers than the US+NA markets.

Also as you say blade and soul came out 3 months earlier, and is still bringing in the money.

Yeah, GW2 hit hard, it started huge, could have blown up the world, and now it falling behind a game (in quarterly profits) thats been out longer, has a pay model that most analysts claim is the losing pay model, Hits a smaller market, had less initial sales, less development time(far as i can see 2-3 years versus 5)

gw2 also has continually fallen whereas blade and soul has mostly stayed stable.
Its doing ok, right now, but its trend is downward, and its underperforming based on what it should be doing.

That said, there would be no reason for them to cancel it yet. Its making nearly as much money as blade and soul. However, should this trend continue gw2 will be right next to the wildstar, which many people claim is a failure. (its actually pretty near it right now)

Every quarter, i have said, this is a bad trend, its falling down, and losing people/revenue. And every month you guys seem to suggest that something will change on its own. Especially with the hardcore cash shop focus in this last quarter, (halloween, long sales, bonuses, and an expanding cash shop every 2 weeks) their total profits still going down.

yeah, i would say its time to come up with some new strategies, and make the product appeal more. In fact i really hope they have already done that, because it will be a hard time if they only begin dealing with this now.

That said, i think good content will cure all woes. People will quickly forget the past/problems, as long as you can give them something really good. Of course, i havent seen something really strong for gw in a long long time. (the type of thing that makes people change opinions, or reignites interest)

The second you said Guild Wars 2 would be right next to Wildstar, a game that didn’t make six months before they laid off people and canceled their holiday updates, you lost any credibility.

Even if Guild Wars 2 spiraled down now (and there’s no real sign of that) it’s far more successful than Wildstar was. Comparing the two on any level can’t be anything but disingenuous.

It’s like saying that if the game hasn’t been moderately successful for the last couple of years, it would have been the same as a failure. Terrible comparison.

VodCom.6924:

Hold on the hype for a minute.

IIRC during last year report of NCsoft’s earnings an expansion was also mentionned. I’m still waiting for it as far as I can see.

Wait for an official press announcement to unleash the hype train. Otherwise, the forum will turn mad again because of 2 words on a kitten ed sheet of paper.

If I had my druthers, I’d wait for the official annoucement and not start the hype train. It would be much better if we could do that.

I sort of suspect that won’t happen though.

phys.7689:

Vayne.8563:

So according to this report, Guild Wars 2 is making $5,968,222 per month…roughly anyway.

Seems pretty good for a two year old game without an expansion…to me anyway.

aion is way older, lineage 1 is way older. Its doing as well as blade and soul virtually which has started off with a lot less numbers.

If anet hadnt reached so many people it would be doing ok, but it started high and has consistently sunk this year. blade and soul for example, has been generally stable. Whereas say a blade and soul can still hope to expand, gw2 has basically gotten and lost all of those customers. They wont get most of them back unless they give them something substantial.

Lineage is Korea’s WoW. I’d be stunned if it wasn’t doing amazing. Lineage servers in the US are all shut down because of lack of interest. That’s the thing. Lineage is a phenomenam in Korea, but failed in the US. It’s a bit hard to actually compare games in different markets, because they’re completely different markets. Lineage makes ton of money for NCsoft, but none from the US. Guild Wars 2 still exists in a US market. I’m not even sure why anyone would compare a sandbox game from a different region with a themepark game.

Blade and Soul and Guild Wars 2 are literally neck and neck. They’re very close. If one is sucessful than it’s likely the other is too.

BTW the line about most people never coming back…strictly your opinion. No one can say what people will do. Even people who say they’ll never do something often end up doing it. I’ve seen that line too often.

If this game is making close to 6 million US a month, that’s a lot of people spending a lot of money in the cash shop. The last players this game has, the more each of them on the average are spending.

I’m not sure this game is doing as badly kitten many people are trying to say.

So according to this report, Guild Wars 2 is making $5,968,222 per month…roughly anyway.

Seems pretty good for a two year old game without an expansion…to me anyway.

Lord Kuru.3685:

Look at how much new content they’ve created in two years. Do you really think they are even capable of creating enough new content for an expansion pack? (The answer is no.)

Unless they’ve been working on an expansion pack longer than you think they have, in which case it’s a different answer.

No one knows for sure but Anet and NCSoft.

Wizzlock.3492:

Cuddy.6247:

I’m not sure most reasonable people would agree with your interpretation. He doesn’t directly say he wants “gear progression” – in fact, here’s the actual quote:

simply only for “Reskinning purposes”. By this I mean of course, there is no more progression after level 80, you’re the same, but only look different. The difference between gear had halted.

There’s no more progression after 80. Basically, very little you do after 80 can allow you to experience the game differently. Which is true in some respects, primarily those respects being that only so much stuff works well and new content is being designed to deliver to those who made the rest of the game easy by their own decision, which makes it even more marginalized than it was before.

Given his poor grasp of grammar in the first place (likely primary foreign language), I think we can rule out any set in stone definition that his only idea of progression is a gear treadmill and the only differences he’s talking about is in regards to the rating.

And without any suggestions of what he wants, there likely won’t be any way to tell what kind of progression he wanted past 80, only thing we can know is that he felt dissatisfied with a lack of progression because of gear (which could also mean marginalized gear and usefulness).

Thank You!
I wrote more or less the same thing, but I made mistake of pinpointing it to someone manipulative statemants from all over the forums, and my answers were deleted. Because – You know. My offtopic is offtopic, when someone else offtopic is THE TRUTH!. And on the other side – english is not my first language, so I never would do this so fluently.

Good to see some people do not like to generalize and try to look for real meaning and not the easiest answer. Sometimes (and that times are always) I think that white knights of MMO forums do more damage in name of protecting games name, than they actually help it. But that’s just my opinion.

One guy agreed with you. One guy agreed with me. I still say most reasonable people would have interpreted it the way I did.

I maintain that. I’m not sure having a single guy agree with you or even five means much. The fact stands that I believe this guy was talking about gear progression and I think most people would thing the same.

Why? Because in that paragraph he quoted the stuff you get from fractals…which is gear. Therefore logically, he expected the gear to give him some kind of advantage.

And that’s what this game was not supposed to be about.

Clerigo.9475:

Vayne.8563:

Clerigo.9475:

Again, the primary concern of posters/players is whether the target person wrote/explained something in perfect english or gave an opinion on a given subject that matches 100% your own.

No one really cares, again, what can be done to keep players happy and increase player base, or at least stop it from bleeding heavily. Saw this kind of behavior in other AAA tittles that are no more.

GW2 is not, currently, the game that the majority of people was expecting it to be when they first bought it, or it wouldnt have only less than 400k players when the sales got as high as 3.5k.

The game is not in good shape, for all the reasons everyone knows. And when the next 2 major AAA mmorpg launch and with WOW WoD expansion coming up, GW2 will take another blast to its shell.

People need to start to listen to other players and start coming up with solutions than can be met at middle ground so that everyone is happy to some extent.

Inviting players to leave is just wrong, as im sure no one will have fun if GW2 servers go empty someday.

Learn to listen, learn to share.

What evidence do you have that Guild Wars 2 has less than 400k players? You say a lot of stuff, but I’m not sure you can back it up.

It was in the yearly report launched about digital games. I myself have also my doubts, because i find it hard to believe gw2 has that many active players.

You can find the report all over the internet and also in major gaming forums like mmorpg.com, ign , tenton etc etc.

I’ve looked at many reports and I’ve never seen that statistic. The only time I’ve seen the number 400,000 was in a report during the first year, when it claimed that Guild Wars 2 at one point had 400,000 concurrent players.

That means at that one moment, logged in at the same time, 400,000 people were playing. Obviously not everyone who plays is going to be logged in at the same time. Some people live in different time zones. Some play only a couple of days a week. Some go on vacation.

At any rate, I’ve not seen any site at all that says the number of people playing this game, so if you’ve got a link, by all means, I’d love to see it.

Clerigo.9475:

Again, the primary concern of posters/players is whether the target person wrote/explained something in perfect english or gave an opinion on a given subject that matches 100% your own.

No one really cares, again, what can be done to keep players happy and increase player base, or at least stop it from bleeding heavily. Saw this kind of behavior in other AAA tittles that are no more.

GW2 is not, currently, the game that the majority of people was expecting it to be when they first bought it, or it wouldnt have only less than 400k players when the sales got as high as 3.5k.

The game is not in good shape, for all the reasons everyone knows. And when the next 2 major AAA mmorpg launch and with WOW WoD expansion coming up, GW2 will take another blast to its shell.

People need to start to listen to other players and start coming up with solutions than can be met at middle ground so that everyone is happy to some extent.

Inviting players to leave is just wrong, as im sure no one will have fun if GW2 servers go empty someday.

Learn to listen, learn to share.

What evidence do you have that Guild Wars 2 has less than 400k players? You say a lot of stuff, but I’m not sure you can back it up.

In this case I believe Occam’s Razor is the best policy. Stats are the simplest explanation. If he meant something else, he should have said so.

Wizzlock.3492:

Vayne.8563:

Wizzlock.3492:

Vayne.8563:

What do you make of this paragraph from the OP?

“Eventually that came to an end when we found out the weapons/armor, even fractual stuff did next to nothing, and was simply only for “Reskinning purposes”. By this I mean of course, there is no more progression after level 80, you’re the same, but only look different.”

Well -frankly I was thinking about new abilities of weapons (You know – attributes, special abilities) – expanding the flat progression. I don’t know what You were thinking about. New level cap? New weapon tier? I don’t like those ideas. OP didn’t specify his idea od “progression”, so I will be nice enough to not put any words in his mouth.

Vayne.8563:

There are only two things that will differentiate a piece of armor or a weapon. It’s looks or it’s stats. The OP is complaining that it only looks different. That means he wants more stats.

Unless of course you can find some other meaning in that paragraph.

Sure I can. To be honest – I haven’t thought about what Youthought… which says something about both of us, don’t You think?
Basicly – we have 4 Primary attributes, and 5 Secondary attributes. I think there is room for some special effects. I could give and example from Diablo 3, where we’ve got so much crapy weapons with crapy stats, but some have really cool bonus effects (armor for obtained coins, %chance for coin burst enemy etc.) in contrast to GW2 weapons which, You know – are so special, every and each of them, that actually non of them is. They are all the same – few choices, less viable etc.
I do not say same system will work in GW2 – no no no. But I do say I would welcome some diversity for this long stale layout we have.

He doesn’t want things JUST FOR APPEARANCE. A special affect is appearance. He wants stats. It’s clear from what he’s saying.

Sorry you can’t see that.

Sorry – now You are putting words in MY mouth. I do not like this and I do not appriciate this. let me give You example:
You say – “A special affect is appearance”
I say – “special effects. I could give and example […] armor for obtained coins, %chance for coin burst enemy etc.”

And again – You say what OP wants – “He wants stats. It’s clear from what he’s saying”. But it’s based on Your interpretation of his words, NOT his actual words. Good luck in real world with that attitude. So please point me to a place where he wrote:
“He wants stats. It’s clear from what he’s saying.”
Because I don’t see it. I see where Your interpretation comes from, and maybe You are right, but without clarification from OP, You sir are over-interpreting, or in other words – lying.
Sorry that I can see more, than just “I don’t agree with him = he’s wrong!!!” game. I’m so so soooo sorry.

I’m pretty sure most reasonable people would agree with my interpretation. Bottom line is this is what I believe he meant and this is what I’m responding to.

I won’t be responding to any more for your posts.

Wizzlock.3492:

Vayne.8563:

What do you make of this paragraph from the OP?

“Eventually that came to an end when we found out the weapons/armor, even fractual stuff did next to nothing, and was simply only for “Reskinning purposes”. By this I mean of course, there is no more progression after level 80, you’re the same, but only look different.”

Well -frankly I was thinking about new abilities of weapons (You know – attributes, special abilities) – expanding the flat progression. I don’t know what You were thinking about. New level cap? New weapon tier? I don’t like those ideas. OP didn’t specify his idea od “progression”, so I will be nice enough to not put any words in his mouth.

Vayne.8563:

There are only two things that will differentiate a piece of armor or a weapon. It’s looks or it’s stats. The OP is complaining that it only looks different. That means he wants more stats.

Unless of course you can find some other meaning in that paragraph.

Sure I can. To be honest – I haven’t thought about what Youthought… which says something about both of us, don’t You think?
Basicly – we have 4 Primary attributes, and 5 Secondary attributes. I think there is room for some special effects. I could give and example from Diablo 3, where we’ve got so much crapy weapons with crapy stats, but some have really cool bonus effects (armor for obtained coins, %chance for coin burst enemy etc.) in contrast to GW2 weapons which, You know – are so special, every and each of them, that actually non of them is. They are all the same – few choices, less viable etc.
I do not say same system will work in GW2 – no no no. But I do say I would welcome some diversity for this long stale layout we have.

He doesn’t want things JUST FOR APPEARANCE. A special affect is appearance. He wants stats. It’s clear from what he’s saying.

Sorry you can’t see that.

Wizzlock.3492:

Vayne.8563:

There are so many flaws with the OP, I’d have to make a post almost as long as the OP to list them. Staring with the wrong name for Fractals, then talking about gear progession like that’s something people came here for, and moving on to people dying in dungeons which made them give up.

If they changed this game to make it something you play, OP, I’d leave. What you want isn’t really what this game was designed to be. It was DESIGNED to be about skins, not stats.

Hello again
Please do point me to a part of OP rant, where he’s all about “stats”, You know.
I really would like to give You 2 advice, that You are like to spread all around other topics:
1) Don’t put words in someone else mouth. What OP wrote and what You are saying are two totally different things. You blame him/her, for Your own interpretation (or even over-interpretation) of his words. Funny. But not so much
2) State own opinions. Do note, that OP is stating his genuine opinon. There’s no statments like “we” or “this is wrong”. He’s talking about his own expirience and feelings. Have guts to respect that, especially when You demand it from people with most of threads I’ve seen You.
Cheers

(I do not agree with all flaws that OP mentioned, my leave was dictated by other subjective reason)

What do you make of this paragraph from the OP?

“Eventually that came to an end when we found out the weapons/armor, even fractual stuff did next to nothing, and was simply only for “Reskinning purposes”. By this I mean of course, there is no more progression after level 80, you’re the same, but only look different.”

There are only two things that will differentiate a piece of armor or a weapon. It’s looks or it’s stats. The OP is complaining that it only looks different. That means he wants more stats.

Unless of course you can find some other meaning in that paragraph.

Mungrul.9358:

Something else preventing long-term absentees from returning:
The longer you stay away, the more expensive it becomes to return and play any new content that’s been released.
If you’re a current player, any seasonal content (the only content that actually gets released for this game) is unlocked permanently for your account as long as you log in while it’s active.
However, if you haven’t logged in for a few months or years, if you want to experience content that has been and gone, you have to pay to access it. So you’re immediately presented with exactly the same game you left (this is slight hyperbole, as I’m aware Lion’s Arch and Kessex have gone through hefty changes).
Actual new content is minimal, unless you count the addition of more skins through the gemstore.

This strikes me as being a particularly backward way to attract lapsed players.
It’s basically saying:
“So hey, you haven’t played for a while but you’re interested in trying the game again? Welp, you’re gonna have to pay for that privilege! Yeah, that stuff was free for all those guys who log in every day, even if they are a drain on server load and have cost us more through just playing than you have without. But hey, them’s the breaks! Pay up or get lost!”

It’s an insane business model.

I’ll say it now:
ArenaNet, if you make past previous content freely available for all customers rather than just those who log in, I’ll re-install.

Somehow, I don’t think you’ll do it.

And for those guys who go on about people who threaten to leave but then continue playing, go ahead and add me in-game. I think you’ll find I haven’t played in well over a year now.

Actually there are two new zones that you don’t need to pay for to access. The only thingt you can’t access is the story prior to the current story. And technically you can access those if you want to tag along with someone who already unlocked them.

So if you don’t care about the rewards and achievements from those stories, you can play them for free. I’ve run a couple of people through them.

IN game mails from the game don’t count to your limit, only personal mails do. You can have 100 game mails from the game and it won’t do a thing to you receiving personal mail. I have characters that have dozens of mails from NPCs.

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

Vayne.8563:

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

this is all working as intended because they want new players to buy experience boosters in the gem store.

New players aren’t the ones who seem to have a problem with it.

well, existing players may have level 20 experience scrolls to skip level 1 – 19 and they may have friends to tag along in WvW / EotM for events trains.

some may do dungeons explorable paths with friends or guild members and swap in before the last boss or before the final cinematic is finished playing to get the 33% experience bar.

btw, does it still works this way? the amount of experience earned from completing dungeons.

Sure it still works that way. The point is new players have nothing to compare it to and it’s not particularly painful compared to most other games.

I don’t see a lot of new people complaining about the speed of leveling up. There’s certainly not an increase in complaints.

It’s people who used to level up a certain way and perceive this way to be different that are complaining.

There are so many flaws with the OP, I’d have to make a post almost as long as the OP to list them. Staring with the wrong name for Fractals, then talking about gear progession like that’s something people came here for, and moving on to people dying in dungeons which made them give up.

If they changed this game to make it something you play, OP, I’d leave. What you want isn’t really what this game was designed to be. It was DESIGNED to be about skins, not stats.

My loading screens were much longer before I got my SSD… but yes, I feel like I spend a lot of times on loading screens. That’s why God invented forums. lol