Guild Wars 2

BlueZone.4236:

You guys are wrong. Destiny is the next MMO golden child (and it’s only semi-MMO and on consoles), with 853k concurrent players during its beta.
That’s compared to GW2’s beta which only had 400k concurrent players at its peak.

Well that’s the thing. The console thing is always going to drive numbers up. But in the end it might all come to nothing.

Console gamers are greater in number than computer gamers at this point. Before Skyrim launched, they said they expected to get 90% of their sales from consoles. Just the idea that there are so few console MMOs out there means that there’ll be less competition and more interest.

I would almost find it inconceivable that a game available on console wouldn’t have higher concurrency early on compared to a game on computers.

KarlaGrey.5903:

Yea, I agree too many ppl might actually believe some stuff they on the forums, such as this gem:

Vayne.8563:

VincentDW.9376:

Vayne.8563:

That said, stuff like first person view and wider field of vision, aren’t in the game. They haven’t been in the game since launch. No one from Anet has ever implied they’re coming.

But they were in the beta, and to my knowledge, Anet has never been able to articulate a good (i.e. not self-contradictory, like the reasoning we just saw) reason why they didn’t make it from the beta to release in some form or another, even if it’s a limited form. It’s not a matter of people asking for features like this to be created out of the blue; the features exist, they just aren’t being used.

When they are willing to give answers so embarrassingly bad that they literally contradict themselves, I can only imagine that means that the truth is even more embarrassing, something like, “oops, we accidentally fired all the coders who understood this feature, and now we have no one capable of altering it and no budget to hire anyone else.” I completely understand why someone would rather make nonsensical statements than admit the truth if it’s anything like I imagine it to be.

They’re not in the game because a decent percentage of the player base would lock themselves into first person view, be unable to play the game, assume the game sucks and leaves. Which is good for no one. Even people who want it.

Good thing we can ‘give them food for thought’ with counter arguments by showing just how asinine such (quazi-argumented) statements are.

As I already explained, I was being flippant. But since you quoted it, I’ll say this.

No one is EVER going to be 100% correct. Not you, not me, not anyone. However, I’m happy to let my posting recording stand up on it’s own and let everyone judge what I say. Even you, Karla.

laokoko.7403:

Vayne.8563:

laokoko.7403:

well, have you compare wow revenue compare to gw2?

I’m not sure why you keep bashing a game which make much much more money than gw2.

Regardless on how much less subscriber they have, they are still much much more than gw2.

I didn’t bash WoW. I made a statement defending Guild Wars 2 against someone who bashed Guild Wars 2 in favor of WoW, on a Guild Wars 2 forum. Now if you didn’t have bias, you’d be admonishing that guy, and not the guy kittenponded to him with now a quote from the president of Blizzard saying they’re bleeding subs.

Now, it’s true that WOW is going to make more money in that time period than Guild Wars 2, just as McDonalds makes more money than the steakhouse around the corner from my old place of business, which was awesome. It’s much better than McDonalds, but it will never make as much money.

The point is that I responded to an unreasonable post, and the people who don’t like this game are perfectly willing to come out against my perfectly normal response, and they’re just as perfectly willing to ignore the post I was responding too, which was, if not demonstrably wrong, at least very very easy to question.

ya but even if GW2 is having lesser concurrent players each quarter, there is no way to know it.

I dont’ even play wow. If I’m bias, I’d be in favor of GW2.

I’m pretty sure if there is bias, it’s not against Guild Wars 2. It’s against me.

Again, I was responding to someone. I didn’t come into this thread and say WoW is bleeding players out of the blue. I never would have done that. I’m retorting to someone who’s claiming it’s very successful and Guild Wars 2 isn’t. No matter what Guild Wars 2 is doing, when company president says it’s bleeding subscribers, that’s not something that said lightly or easily. It’s something you have to say.

Guild Wars 2 can’t be compared directly to WoW because buy to play games are in a different category than subscription games. Completely different story. But saying that would just make the original poster look right.

Guild Wars 2 has it’s challenges and WoW has it’s challenges. I wasn’t knocking WoW.

IndigoSundown.5419:

I’ve seen all kinds of numbers thrown around about ANet staff size back in the GW days. The average of these guesstimates is about 50. Current staff size seems to be between 300-350. Is the current game 6-7 times more complex? It’s surely prettier (except in combats, which are the ugliest I’ve seen in any game I’ve played). It’s surely designed to allow more people to play the same thing.

The GW team pumped out two additional campaigns in about 18 months, and an expansion roughly a year later. Now, maybe the content added to GW2 (some of which was later subtracted) is equivalent to or more than what was added to GW. Since I don’t know what is required now versus what was required then, I’m not prepared to judge. It sure doesn’t feel like it, though.

Adding stuff to MMOs is far more complicated than adding stuff to lobby games, for a whole lot of reasons.

Guild Wars 1 didn’t have to deal with stuff like downscaling either, which is an issue. It certainly didn’t have to deal with events interacting with each other. It didn’t have to deal as much with griefers, since you were usually bringing people with you who you wanted to go with you. It didn’t have to deal with balancing the content for one person or fifty, with different party compositions. Repawn rate adjustments. Lag from too many people in one area.

An instanced environment is far easier to control than an open world environment.

BlueZone.4236:

Vayne.8563:

BlueZone.4236:

Vayne.8563:

BlueZone.4236:

Just so people know what “short” means, Q1 2013 which is where 8.3 million comes from.
Q2 2014 is where 6.3 million was stated (EDIT: We’re in the Q3 2014 right now, silly me).

The drop isn’t sharp, it’s following the expected trend of how all games behave in its lifetime (the shape, not the time frame), and is expected tail off slowly or until Blizzard pulls the plug.

I guess the stock holders know more than you, because they’re selling. It’s funny that when GW 2 does 25% less in profit, it’s okay for people to say it’s dying because you don’t like where the game is going,. but when it happens to another game, you’re happy to defend it.

How is stating facts defending them?
Here’s the “attack” on WoW. That game’s dying because it has peaked and still following the expected life trend of a game.
Jesus, so much bias against me.

It’s not bias. I made a statement that in a relatively short amount of time the game has lost a lot of people. If I’d bothered to look it up, I could have used 800,000 in one quarter, which is a big percentage, even for WoW. The main point of my post is that WoW is bleeding subscribers.

Here’s a link to an article from Time Magazine ( http://time.com/3086189/world-warcraft-subscribers/ )

In the article you’ll find this quote from a WoW executive.

But when Blizzard president Mike Morhaime took his turn on the call, he admitted the company’s juggernaut MMO, World of Warcraft, has continued to hemorrhage subscribers.

If the company’s president can admit WoW is “hemorrhaging” subscribers, why is what I said so unreasonable? Blizzard knows it.

People are moving away from WoW because the game is aging. Because they don’t do frequent content updates. Because the nature of the player base is changing. Because new games are coming out. The bottom line is, my conversation is in response to a poster who thinks WoW is doing great and Guild Wars 2 isn’t.

It’s a perfect legit response, no matter how you try to edit it.

Do you know how to distinguish between subjective words and facts? I was putting “short” into perspective. Funny how you don’t like when others puts your subjective words into perspective. A litte too funny.

I love how you imagine me saying WoW isn’t bleeding, or how I supposedly edited something to mean…I have no idea what, you’ll need to make up more things to tell your fanbase what I did.
Do I really need to quote my UNEDITED posts within this thread to prove you wrong about my so called defense?

FYI, the only edit I made was correcting myself from saying we’re in Q2 2014 to Q3 2014. But you needed to make me look bad in front of your fanbase, so I completely understand.

Did you bother to contradict the person I was responding to. Because if you did, I didn’t see it. His comments were way off kilter, but you felt you could just let those go. My comments were a bit off kilter and you couldn’t let that go. That’s almost the very definition of bias.

See, I’m not saying that the people who are loudest, most disenfranchised and least reasonable should be the target of the communication. Most of those people are not going to change their minds or even stop their attacks.

But by continuing to be reasonable in the face of those people, they lose merit…their arguments crumple. It’s a strategy I use all the time.

Someone jumps on me and starts saying stuff that I believe most reasonable people would not accept. The more they say it, the more reasonable people come to my point of view…not because I’m necessarily 100% right, but because those disagreeing with me are so obviously disenfranchised.

They’re not going to change their mind, but the lurkers, who are the bulk of the forum population have some food for thought. They can make up their minds, only if people are willing to put the other side of the story down in words.

Same thing with Anet.

If Anet doesn’t reply to extended criticism, even with a “we’ve heard you, and we’re looking at it”, then people will just start to believe Anet doesn’t care, even if there’s plenty of evidence that they do.

Too many people believe what they read online…particularly in the absence of a counterpoint. The logic is, if Anet isn’t saying this is wrong, it must be right. It’s bad logic, but a lot of people use it anyway.

laokoko.7403:

well, have you compare wow revenue compare to gw2?

I’m not sure why you keep bashing a game which make much much more money than gw2.

Regardless on how much less subscriber they have, they are still much much more than gw2.

I didn’t bash WoW. I made a statement defending Guild Wars 2 against someone who bashed Guild Wars 2 in favor of WoW, on a Guild Wars 2 forum. Now if you didn’t have bias, you’d be admonishing that guy, and not the guy kittenponded to him with now a quote from the president of Blizzard saying they’re bleeding subs.

Now, it’s true that WOW is going to make more money in that time period than Guild Wars 2, just as McDonalds makes more money than the steakhouse around the corner from my old place of business, which was awesome. It’s much better than McDonalds, but it will never make as much money.

The point is that I responded to an unreasonable post, and the people who don’t like this game are perfectly willing to come out against my perfectly normal response, and they’re just as perfectly willing to ignore the post I was responding too, which was, if not demonstrably wrong, at least very very easy to question.

BlueZone.4236:

Vayne.8563:

BlueZone.4236:

Just so people know what “short” means, Q1 2013 which is where 8.3 million comes from.
Q2 2014 is where 6.3 million was stated (EDIT: We’re in the Q3 2014 right now, silly me).

The drop isn’t sharp, it’s following the expected trend of how all games behave in its lifetime (the shape, not the time frame), and is expected tail off slowly or until Blizzard pulls the plug.

I guess the stock holders know more than you, because they’re selling. It’s funny that when GW 2 does 25% less in profit, it’s okay for people to say it’s dying because you don’t like where the game is going,. but when it happens to another game, you’re happy to defend it.

How is stating facts defending them?
Here’s the “attack” on WoW. That game’s dying because it has peaked and still following the expected life trend of a game.
Jesus, so much bias against me.

It’s not bias. I made a statement that in a relatively short amount of time the game has lost a lot of people. If I’d bothered to look it up, I could have used 800,000 in one quarter, which is a big percentage, even for WoW. The main point of my post is that WoW is bleeding subscribers.

Here’s a link to an article from Time Magazine ( http://time.com/3086189/world-warcraft-subscribers/ )

In the article you’ll find this quote from a WoW executive.

But when Blizzard president Mike Morhaime took his turn on the call, he admitted the company’s juggernaut MMO, World of Warcraft, has continued to hemorrhage subscribers.

If the company’s president can admit WoW is “hemorrhaging” subscribers, why is what I said so unreasonable? Blizzard knows it.

People are moving away from WoW because the game is aging. Because they don’t do frequent content updates. Because the nature of the player base is changing. Because new games are coming out. The bottom line is, my conversation is in response to a poster who thinks WoW is doing great and Guild Wars 2 isn’t.

It’s a perfect legit response, no matter how you try to edit it.

BlueZone.4236:

Just so people know what “short” means, Q1 2013 which is where 8.3 million comes from.
Q2 2014 is where 6.3 million was stated (EDIT: We’re in the Q3 2014 right now, silly me).

The drop isn’t sharp, it’s following the expected trend of how all games behave in its lifetime (the shape, not the time frame), and is expected tail off slowly or until Blizzard pulls the plug.

I guess the stock holders know more than you, because they’re selling. It’s funny that when GW 2 does 25% less in profit, it’s okay for people to say it’s dying because you don’t like where the game is going,. but when it happens to another game, you’re happy to defend it.

Imperial Thor.5487:

Vayne.8563:

Imperial Thor.5487:

Vayne.8563:

Zardul.3952:

Just face the facts. This game ain’t doing well,
I’m tired of the problems.
I’ll give it until the new WoW expansion is released.

In sure it’s not the developers fault and may be that they are restricted and controlled by managers or ncsoft.

So why should I suffer with them when I could play a game that’s thriving ?

Facts? lmao

The fact is, according to the NCsoft quarterly report, the game is doing well. According to both Overwolf and Raptr, the game is doing well. According to logic (since they’re hiring not firing) the game is doing well.

On what do you base your “fact”?

I’m pretty sure I just read that WoW lost 2 million subscribers in a very short period of time. That’s about a loss of 25% of their player base.

Maybe you need to do a bit of research before quoting “facts”.

Warcraft lost remotely around 800k last I checked, Not Also making more money than they were with those players. Before also trying to start to do some research, Practice what you preach.

None the less. I agree. Guild Wars is doing fine and thriving just as well. May not make as much money but in terms they’re doing well. Just hope they last for a long time

My quote was 2 million players in a relatively short period of time, not the last quarter. Not so long ago, they were at 8.3 million now they’re at 6.4 million. That’s a pretty big drop.

They lost 800 subscribes in three months. You’ll notice I said a relatively short period of time not three months. Instead of accusing me of not doing research, you should read more carefully. A relatively short period of time isn’t referring to one quarter. It’s referring to what has been a consistent downslide.

I’ll give you that, You did say relatively short time, Doesn’t mean you’re referring to quarter or longer. Could help to be more detailed unless it’s just over my head.

I honesty don’t see what playbase has anything to do with a game thriving or not. Even if a game is making more money with smaller or larger players. They’re thriving. They won’t stop thriving until they’re not longer making a profit from the costs to run the game.

Bringing up it’s declining playerbase was a moot point. However at the same time, I don’t believe Guild Wars is declining. It did, It got more people after awhile and balanced out. It’ll lose more players but it’ll still make profits, And it’ll bring more people in with new content at some point because it’s around.

Regardless. Just to annoy you a little more. Add dueling. Add it. It’s not going to kill you Vayne. : P

It’s not really a moot point if they’ve lost a quarter of their player base this year. That’s a big thing. Because someone was saying how their new game is going to take all the Guild Wars 2 players away. I was pointing that out as a response.

The reason I didn’t put a number, is because I was too lazy to look up exactly how long it was. That’s why I generalize. This isn’t a thesis. No one is paying me to write it. It’s a causal statement off the top of my head with relevant information.

I don’t need to specific because the point doesn’t change with or without that number. I didn’t say a short period of time, I said a relatively short period of time. Shrugs.

As for dueling, I get plenty of that right here, thanks. lol

Imperial Thor.5487:

Vayne.8563:

Zardul.3952:

Just face the facts. This game ain’t doing well,
I’m tired of the problems.
I’ll give it until the new WoW expansion is released.

In sure it’s not the developers fault and may be that they are restricted and controlled by managers or ncsoft.

So why should I suffer with them when I could play a game that’s thriving ?

Facts? lmao

The fact is, according to the NCsoft quarterly report, the game is doing well. According to both Overwolf and Raptr, the game is doing well. According to logic (since they’re hiring not firing) the game is doing well.

On what do you base your “fact”?

I’m pretty sure I just read that WoW lost 2 million subscribers in a very short period of time. That’s about a loss of 25% of their player base.

Maybe you need to do a bit of research before quoting “facts”.

Warcraft lost remotely around 800k last I checked, Not Also making more money than they were with those players. Before also trying to start to do some research, Practice what you preach.

None the less. I agree. Guild Wars is doing fine and thriving just as well. May not make as much money but in terms they’re doing well. Just hope they last for a long time

My quote was 2 million players in a relatively short period of time, not the last quarter. Not so long ago, they were at 8.3 million now they’re at 6.4 million. That’s a pretty big drop.

They lost 800 subscribes in three months. You’ll notice I said a relatively short period of time not three months. Instead of accusing me of not doing research, you should read more carefully. A relatively short period of time isn’t referring to one quarter. It’s referring to what has been a consistent downslide.

blackoil.2673:

lordkrall.7241:

You are assuming:

1: That the majority of the player-base actually watches all interviews and so on and thus knows everything about this already.
That is not the case. For someone that does not follow the forums/reddit/twitter/facebook this is completely new information.

No, I’m not.

lordkrall.7241:

2: That writing the blogs are done by people that would otherwise build new features.

No, I’m not. If you made any degree in business you’d know what I mean when I talk about resources.

lordkrall.7241:

3: That building new features takes as little time as writing a blog post.

No, I’m not. I’m a developer and I can guess how much resources/time does a change take. And I’m sure it’s way way way longer than a blog post that takes, at most, 2-3 hours (that’s what I said)

lordkrall.7241:

4: That people will accept being told nothing at all about the Feature Pack before it is released.

No. But for me what would be better is either:
-> One “short” blogpost saying “Hey, we have a feature pack that will address all this issues so far”. You know, one paragraph for each “feature”. Then I know that in those 4 weeks they’re working on that, and will be expecting much more the day the patch notes are released.
-> Each post get more in detail about the things that will change. And don’t make 2 posts for the same feature (i.e. WvW """"""overhaul""""") but one. This way I will be expecting each day to get an overview for each feature, and will be expecting what’s to come next.

The first way would be for guys who just want to know what’s happening.
The second way would be for guys who want to know what will be released exactly.

I can perfectly adapt between these two profiles, I really don’t care. But not some kind of useless hybrid in the middle, where you get 20 posts of bullkitten.

Well it’s not all about you, or any one person. It’s about everyone. Some things you’ll learn first. The blog posts are clearly not going to surprise most of us most of the time.

I’m not sure what the big deal is. If they made blog posts for guys like you, they’d lose most of the people reading it.

Jski.6180:

Domino.1359:

Malkavian.4516:

Zardul.3952:

In all the others games I’ve played. This game has the worst dev to player relationship.

The forums feel like we are talking to a brick wall.

If I was asked to review this game on those areas I’d give it such a low score they would think I was trying to sabotage the game… When in fact I love the gameplay
But hate the non existing communication

Non-existant communication, you say? Could you name me one MMORPG that’s fully released in which a developer responded or remedied immediately or shortly after receiving a huge wad of complaints on the forums?

EDIT: Sometimes I think this post reminds me of this particular video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBddZ1uwtsk

We aren’t necessarily talking about an actual full-time developer to communicate with us. If you took the time to read this thread, along with the 10 other threads that have popped up recently, we are full aware a developer should be busy developing.
We ARE wanting a communication liaison between us and the developers rekindled again.
This is what the original poster quoted is talking about: many games have many communication liaisons who frequently post on game updates, etc. etc. GW does not anymore.

So your ok with “Hi thx for your post we cant tell you any thing now but things are in the works” because that about all they can say every time.

I don’t know. They could go and say, these topics were discussed with devs, so they at least know about them. They may or may not accept these suggestions, but they’ve heard them and will give it some consideration.

Because in the end that’s all fans can really ask for.

So many suggestions out there and without someone just coming and saying, yes, we heard you, we understand this.

Some suggestions will get implemented and they can keep a record of those to show they do listen, so when some entitled fans think that Anet never listens, because they didn’t listen to him (or her) they can trot out the list and say, but we listened here.

Esplen.3940:

Vayne.8563:

OP, these are not people who work in the departments for the questions they’re answering and they did staggeringly bad because of it. Feel sorry for them for being in over their heads, rather than making a big deal about a single interview.

They didn’t say SAB is gone for good. They basically said they had a specific narrative focus. They have that focus in part because FANS complained about not having it in the first season. They listened to us.

Judging where a company is going from a single interview is just a bit of an overreaction in my opinion.

The problem, I think, is that there is a community that wants to play things like SAB and Anet not only sounds like they have no team working on it, but won’t acknowledge it as a mini-game or activity and instead treats it as a festival.

While I do agree that it wasn’t part of their department, it really sounds like it wasn’t part of anyones department. Additionally, they’re trying to be secretive because they don’t want to spoil the direction that the Living Story is going (into the maw of Mordremoth), which ends up just being, to me, an interview that would have ended up being (if they asked the “right” questions):

“Stay tuned and watch the patch notes.”

Which isn’t really how you conduct yourself during an interview.

Yes it’s not how you conduct yourself during an interview. I’m pretty sure those guys were completely unprepared for those questions. It wasn’t in their department. They were fudging, trying to do the best they could, but here’s a new flash for you.

Many game developers are more comfortable with code than people. I’m not saying it’s good or right that this should happen. I’m saying cut those poor guys slack, they were clearly in over their head. They didn’t know what to say.

Some people can tow the party line eloquently. They can say things in a way that mollifies even if it’s not what you want to here. But these guys might not even be aware of how popular SAB actually was. I’m sure not all devs have exactly the same knowledge.

It was a bad interview. No question about it. But that’s all it was.

Domino.1359:

Vayne.8563:

tigirius.9014:

Dusty Moon.4382:

tigirius.9014:

Domino.1359:

Zardul.3952:

Dusty Moon.4382:

Zardul.3952:

we need more Real time Forum communication from a Dev or Rep ..

if we was given a day in the wee kto do this at a certain time ON THIS FORUM , ON THIS WEBSITE.

it would Fix soooooooooo many complaints

Actually it wouldn’t fix anything. if you look at other games, where there is more communication, what happens is the players end up yelling and having temper tantrums at the developers. It changes nothing.

Ive been there, i played WoW for 7 years.

The communication on the forums did both Good and Bad…

but all this NO communication is just doing BAD, nothing Good is coming out of the Silent treatment.

Agreed, and this is the exact point of all these threads and chaos in-game and in our community. Such a small mistake and here is the result.

Dusty Moon: “Actually it wouldn’t fix anything. if you look at other games, where there is more communication, what happens is the players end up yelling and having temper tantrums at the developers. It changes nothing.”

Actually NO Dusty Moon the games that have the best community-developer relations are those in which they A: don’t stifle complaints like they do here B: Don’t throw away 2 years of suggestions folders C: Don’t follow a completely different direction than the one they sold everyone on (Nov 2012 announcement of Ascended and Fractals) D : Have an actual player council from all player types so they can get feedback instead of E: Shying away from the playerbase because they KNOW they aren’t fulfilling their list of not just 1 set of prelaunch promises mind you but the new second set that still has yet to be done on the wiki page.

Seriously, PoE, Skyforge, Allods, STO, Diablo III, WoW, Rift, EVE all have way better relations with their playerbase and it shows in their games. The devs know what the problems are they don’t just give people lipservice like what happens here, and their feature packs are actually fixes for the real concerns of the playerbase instead of just something a couple of guys were sitting around at taco bell talking about one day, because that’s exactly what this list of Feature Pack 2 looks like. not a single actual concern from the Engineer forum is in this patch. Explain that.

Like Rift? That game was so messed up when the developers listened to whiners on the forum. It is an accident waiting to happen.

There is nothing wrong with constructive comments but most on this forum post, ‘I want the developers to answer my question’. This is not a question/answer session.

Give good decent criticism with information to back it up. Just don’t say, ‘BECAUSE I WANT IT’. Unfortunately, people on this forum are the latter not the former.

You mean that’s why it’s still getting soooo many players on a monthly basis who stay with the game for a very very long time even after going F2P because it’s so messed up? It’s got a great basis for gaming a system where they don’t take advantage of you (unlike this economy) and they actually have CASUAL things to do like housing, fishing, alternate minigames with rewards.

So how is Rift messed up again? Oh that would be they aren’t you’re just trying to support your premise that Arenanet shouldn’t listen to their playerbase because…what again? And you’ve obviously not read any of the suggestions forum, you know that place where Arenanet dumped an entire 2 years or so of great criticism great solutions and feedback about the basic necessities of mmo gameplay….because to sit there HA and lie by saying that’s all these posts are about means you really haven’t spent much time here on the forums have you? wow…I suggest you take some time out of your day and actually go educate yourself a bit more about the sheer number of important necessary updates this game needs to be back on track borne of long term player’s experiences from multiple titles along their way, not to mention multiple internet game review personalities with a passion for this title and who’ve recently also expressed concern over the silence and misdirection that these feature patches are going in. It will inform you of just how wrong you are.

You’re deluding yourself. For a free to play game, Rift just isn’t that popular. I can’t imagine why you think it is.

What generalization is back by this?
I see on a popular mmorpg reporting site, Rift is consistently ranked as one of the most popular games – not of course THE most popular, but by far not enough to throw it out of this discussion.

And what site would that be?

tigirius.9014:

Dusty Moon.4382:

tigirius.9014:

Domino.1359:

Zardul.3952:

Dusty Moon.4382:

Zardul.3952:

we need more Real time Forum communication from a Dev or Rep ..

if we was given a day in the wee kto do this at a certain time ON THIS FORUM , ON THIS WEBSITE.

it would Fix soooooooooo many complaints

Actually it wouldn’t fix anything. if you look at other games, where there is more communication, what happens is the players end up yelling and having temper tantrums at the developers. It changes nothing.

Ive been there, i played WoW for 7 years.

The communication on the forums did both Good and Bad…

but all this NO communication is just doing BAD, nothing Good is coming out of the Silent treatment.

Agreed, and this is the exact point of all these threads and chaos in-game and in our community. Such a small mistake and here is the result.

Dusty Moon: “Actually it wouldn’t fix anything. if you look at other games, where there is more communication, what happens is the players end up yelling and having temper tantrums at the developers. It changes nothing.”

Actually NO Dusty Moon the games that have the best community-developer relations are those in which they A: don’t stifle complaints like they do here B: Don’t throw away 2 years of suggestions folders C: Don’t follow a completely different direction than the one they sold everyone on (Nov 2012 announcement of Ascended and Fractals) D : Have an actual player council from all player types so they can get feedback instead of E: Shying away from the playerbase because they KNOW they aren’t fulfilling their list of not just 1 set of prelaunch promises mind you but the new second set that still has yet to be done on the wiki page.

Seriously, PoE, Skyforge, Allods, STO, Diablo III, WoW, Rift, EVE all have way better relations with their playerbase and it shows in their games. The devs know what the problems are they don’t just give people lipservice like what happens here, and their feature packs are actually fixes for the real concerns of the playerbase instead of just something a couple of guys were sitting around at taco bell talking about one day, because that’s exactly what this list of Feature Pack 2 looks like. not a single actual concern from the Engineer forum is in this patch. Explain that.

Like Rift? That game was so messed up when the developers listened to whiners on the forum. It is an accident waiting to happen.

There is nothing wrong with constructive comments but most on this forum post, ‘I want the developers to answer my question’. This is not a question/answer session.

Give good decent criticism with information to back it up. Just don’t say, ‘BECAUSE I WANT IT’. Unfortunately, people on this forum are the latter not the former.

You mean that’s why it’s still getting soooo many players on a monthly basis who stay with the game for a very very long time even after going F2P because it’s so messed up? It’s got a great basis for gaming a system where they don’t take advantage of you (unlike this economy) and they actually have CASUAL things to do like housing, fishing, alternate minigames with rewards.

So how is Rift messed up again? Oh that would be they aren’t you’re just trying to support your premise that Arenanet shouldn’t listen to their playerbase because…what again? And you’ve obviously not read any of the suggestions forum, you know that place where Arenanet dumped an entire 2 years or so of great criticism great solutions and feedback about the basic necessities of mmo gameplay….because to sit there HA and lie by saying that’s all these posts are about means you really haven’t spent much time here on the forums have you? wow…I suggest you take some time out of your day and actually go educate yourself a bit more about the sheer number of important necessary updates this game needs to be back on track borne of long term player’s experiences from multiple titles along their way, not to mention multiple internet game review personalities with a passion for this title and who’ve recently also expressed concern over the silence and misdirection that these feature patches are going in. It will inform you of just how wrong you are.

You’re deluding yourself. For a free to play game, Rift just isn’t that popular. I can’t imagine why you think it is.

Clear.8512:

I’ll wait for the 2 weeks and 1 day for all the information to be on the table before a conclusion is reached.

They can easily condense everything into one massive wall of text but that doesn’t lead to hype. You might not be happy with the release strategy but they are probably getting more hits on the offical website/forums then they do during other time periods.

Not only doesn’t it lead to hype, it leads to people not reading it. I mean you know, a lot of people have the attention span of a dead newt.

What was I saying? lol

blackoil.2673:

Vayne.8563:

Since you haven’t actually seen the patch notes, one would think your ire is a bit premature.

My “ire” comes mostly for the 3-week blog post schedule to say absolutely nothing new. For that, why don’t they just spend these resources in making more features? Why WASTE the time in making useless blog posts?

If “casual players” just don’t read the blog (as the example you just said of your guildmate) and “hardcore players” are the ones who read the blogpost and get disapointed by it, it really doesn’t work.

It’s not useless. That’s like saying, they’re advertising this movie and I always know more about it than the trailer shows. Well yeah. Because they have to advertise to other people too. Not just you.

I know everything they’ve said too. You want them to say more/different new stuff? Why? It won’t be in the game till the 9th of September. Why should they say more stuff?

Not everyone reads forums. In fact, we know from experience in the past that most players don’t read forums. Only a small percentage of players do.

So Anet puts stuff for them on their webpage. Not everything is going to be for you. Sometimes it’s for them, and that’s okay…or it should be.

tigirius.9014:

nexxe.7081:

Brother Grimm.5176:

tigirius.9014:

…..
3. Adding a long drawn out grind to everything.

Above comment negates all reasonable expectation of anything else in this post. Poster has NO IDEA what grind in a MMO CAN BE. GW2 has minimal grind and it is ALL optional. NOTHING that requires any grinding is needed to complete game content.

Yes, optional. What are players left to do then? If their main form of content updates is always optional, that leaves them with nothing to do. Re-read what i just wrote and comprehend it.

Oh I know what grind means, just because you’re opinion is that it’s minimal doesn’t make it not a grind….it’s still a grind. You can’t deny that it’s a grind all you can do is use yet another logical fallacy to try to support your claim that so far everything they’ve been doing is perfectly fine. It’s not. And now even the major publishers about game reviews, those publishers who once held the GW2 banner high, are taking notice as well. It’s finally happened.

Maybe maybe instead of attacking people who actually care enough about the game to tell the developers what needs to happen to put the game back on track, you could be more contructive and actually join in with your own list of things the game needs improvement on as well as your own call for more communication. (Directed at Brother Grimm)

All theme park MMOs have to resort to some kind of grind, because no company makes content fast enough to satisfy the content locusts. Without the grind there’s be nothing to do, and everyone would go home. That’s why grind exists.

You buy a normal game for 30-40-50 bucks maybe. You play that normal game for 20 hours? 30?

You buy Guild wars 2 for 60 or 80 bucks and you get to play for what? At least a couple of hundred hours.

No game can provide thousands of hours of content. That’s why sand box games work for some people. Because not all the content comes from the devs. It’s why Skyrim was so popular on computer. Because of all the mods. Made by thousands of people. Wouldn’t work in an MMO though because too many people would create exploits.

So grind is introduced. You can actually enjoy this game without grinding, if you choose to do so. If you insist on having everything, you will have to grind.

If you didn’t have to grind to get everything, there would be no reason to play and most people would leave the game.

The game is working and making money because that grind exists.

Me, I don’t grind. How cool is that?

The feature patch has features in it. That means there are balanced changes, discussed in more detail on the Ready Up Show. If you want more information either watch ready up or get the patch notes from Ready Up from the Dulfy site.

The patchnotes probably aren’t finalized yet, so you won’t get to see them yet. The blog isn’t supposed to be a comprehensive set of patch notes. It’s a way for Anet to communicate with people who want an idea of what’s going on.

Why do you think everything is for people who follow every word about what’s going on.

I said to someone in my guild today that I can’t wait for the patch, he was like, what patch? Had no clue.

They don’t just put stuff on the blog for hard core WvW players. They put it on the blog for like you know, people who don’t live, eat, sleep and breathe this game.

If they put in too much detail, they’d lose half the audience they were trying to reach. Working as intended.

Since you haven’t actually seen the patch notes, one would think your ire is a bit premature.

I’ve been talking to people in game today. Most people I talk to don’t even know people are annoyed about something. lol

Guhracie.3419:

redux.1502:

Wait SAB isn’t coming back ever??
I never got to play during SAB or the Back to School event!
That was the one thing (outside the LS) that I was extremely excited to finally play someday. On top of the skins, I just wanted to experience it…
PLEASE bring SAB back Anet.

Here’s a quote from the interview. You decide for yourself.

“…as to whether or not we come back to it [SAB], whether or not in some other form, you know, I can’t really say, I don’t know how likely that is and that is really all I can say about it.”

I don’t know how likely it is that we’ll come back to SAB. That sounds pretty definitive to me.

He doesn’t know how likely it is…maybe because it’s not his decision or department. It doesn’t mean they will or they won’t. My guess is it’ll come back between seasons though.

ozmaniandevil.6805:

OK Vayne, I get what you’re saying. Thanks for clearing it up for me

Hey we Aussies have to stick together. Oi Oi Oi!

ozmaniandevil.6805:

Vayne.8563:

You found the one event chain in the game the farmers exploit. That’s what you found. There are people zerging, there are people not zerging.

I’m not sure why it would surprise anyone that some people play just to get rich no matter how they do it. The easiest way possible preferably.

But that’s only a small percentage of the playerbase.

I think one or two people in my guild do that, out of 150.

Let’s not mention the fact that doing the same content over and over and over for 2 years gets a little boring. If someone is going to be doing something mindlessly out of boredom, might they not at least want to make a little profit?

With many people having many, many level 80 characters and world completion many times over, I don’t doubt that at this point, they want to at least just make some gold to feel like their time in game is worthwhile.

Just my thoughts, my opinions. I’m not saying that should be the only thing they do, I’m just trying to explain why some people might play this way.

Not really relevant to what I was saying, mate.

The OP was distressed that everyone was doing this…but everyone isn’t. He saw a small group of people by percentage of the actual playerbase doing something extremely profitable.

It doesn’t matter why they do it. I’m playing more hours than most of them, I can almost guarantee it, and I intentionally choose not to do it. I don’t particularly care if other people do, however.

OP, these are not people who work in the departments for the questions they’re answering and they did staggeringly bad because of it. Feel sorry for them for being in over their heads, rather than making a big deal about a single interview.

They didn’t say SAB is gone for good. They basically said they had a specific narrative focus. They have that focus in part because FANS complained about not having it in the first season. They listened to us.

Judging where a company is going from a single interview is just a bit of an overreaction in my opinion.

You found the one event chain in the game the farmers exploit. That’s what you found. There are people zerging, there are people not zerging.

I’m not sure why it would surprise anyone that some people play just to get rich no matter how they do it. The easiest way possible preferably.

But that’s only a small percentage of the playerbase.

I think one or two people in my guild do that, out of 150.

GreenAlien.5623:

The thing is, they put the whole game out in, what 5-6 years? With 25 Zones and Dungeons and the need to do everthing, from gameplay to graphics and who knows what else..

And now they need a year for a single zone?
…….
Well, maybe they are already working on gw3 or something..

Or an expansion, maybe? lol

I don’t know Nerelith.

I think we WILL see major changes. I mean only four months ago, we saw major changes. To think that will never happen again, because it hasn’t happened in four months is a bit odd. Do you think it was a one off?

I suspect there will be big changes…but not on our schedule. On Anet’s schedule.

But, but…I have a special relationship with Anet. I’m their stalker! lol

I’ve played it some this week. It’s still a fun game. But it’s very VERY different from Guild Wars 2. You can’t jump. There’s no dodging. You can’t move and cast.

Don’t think you’re going to be playing a similar game. In some ways it’s a much better game…and in some ways, it’s not.

Xillllix.3485:

I have a friend who was also only waiting for SAB to come back. Today must have been a sad day for him learning it won’t happen any time soon.

What I miss about SAB is that you actually have fun with a party of friends, instead of doing it single-player-mode like the Living Story.

I have fun with a party of friends in the Living Story. What’s stopping you?

I’ve never heard of anyone getting banned for using it…but I tried it and didn’t like it.

I think Galen has it right.

Regardless of whether the big features are something that will be released in a living world type style or an expansion that I can’t say.

But to think those projects aren’t happening…it would almost beggar belief. There’s not enough content coming for the amount of people they have working there.

And since Colin has said there are teams working on bigger projects, I’m afraid I’ll have to believe him.

I’m sure most of us will be overwhelmed on patch day. And believe it or not, some people love being drip fed information this way (don’t ask me why).

Anet plans to say something about the feature patch all this week and for the next two weeks. That should give you some indication no?

I approve of this idea. The game should have a trial for friend’s of players.

Disingenuous post is disingenuous. This would never be released in this game. However asking for it to be released highlights the farmer problem that exists in this game. Farmers are not better than other people. They’re not more entitled than other people. And they don’t get to decide how to play the game.

Events were made by Anet to be completed. If you decide you want to farm them, and no one else shows up who wants to complete them all well and good.

But the second someone shows up who wants to play the game as intended,. and you try to stop them, you’re the troll.

If they’re not working on big stuff in the background, something is seriously wrong. I think the difference between me and a lot of people dissatisfied with the game is that I grew up being taught to make my own entertainment and that’s what I do. I’m sure if you played any game for the hours I played this game, you’d exhaust the content no matter how much content there was. So I have to content myself (pun intended) with the content available and I’ve always pretty much been in that boat…in every game.

My problem is the types of content most games focus on doesn’t interest me that much. I mean yes, I like new classes and skills, but I don’t particularly like dungeons and raids. That’s why Guild Wars 1 appealed to me so much.

So this game is going in the general direction I want, albeit more slowly than I figured.

I’m a pretty saavy guy so if they’re going more slowly than I figured, they must be doing something else (unless of course I’m wrong about how long it would take them to get to this point).

With a crew of their size, they should be further along than they are, UNLESS they really do have those big projects in the background.

Why not talk about it?

Expansions are gold to companies. They are something you announce at a time to garner the absolutely highest interest in them. You do it to compete with other competitor’s releases, or in a lull between them.

For example, Rift stopped all advertising and promotion when SWToR came out. They knew they couldn’t out advertise SWToR, so they just stopped. Period. They figured they’d start advertising again when the honeymoon period ended and get the disgruntled players all MMOs end up with. This is what they did.

MMO expansion annoucements are usually done strategically. If you talk about them beforehand they lose that impact and they let competitor know what you’re doing and what your schedule is.

Anet was able to come out a month before Mists of Pandaria by playing their cards close to their chest. It was a smart move. Coming out after would likely have hurt sales.

laokoko.7403:

Vayne.8563:

I’m pretty sure I just read that WoW lost 2 million subscribers in a very short period of time. That’s about a loss of 25% of their player base.

Maybe you need to do a bit of research before quoting “facts”.

Anet too scared to release actual data dont’ make them any better.

You are pointing your finger at companies who actually release info, compare to a company who is too scared to release any info.

As a public company BOTH games release info and I’m surprised you’re not aware of it. But since Anet doesn’t have subscriptions, it can’t release subscriber numbers, which should come as no surprise to anyone.

It releases profit statements. WoW doesn’t release that it lost 2 million subscribers because they’re brave. They have to release that information by law to their subscribers or they can be sued. They have no real choice.

Anet also releases quarterly reports to their investors, so anyone can see how much profit this game makes.

It’s massively entertaining to me that anyone would think that Blizzard releases figures because they’re somehow braver than another company.

laokoko.7403:

I remember last year Vayne was saying how great GW2 will become in the future. And now when people complain about lack of content, his saying really 300 employee isn’t that much to create big content.

Or the time marketing talked about the expansion worth of content that the game dev actually come out in the end and apologize about it and blame it back to the marketing…

I actually think GW2 provides lots of content. But unlike other mmorpg, GW2 dont’ try to maximize their content. For example other mmorpg just create a single dungeon or raid and that is enough to keep people busy for a few month to half a year.

I have always said, always no matter how far back you go, that Guild Wars 2 isn’t a great game. It’s a good game. It has the potential to be better. I always knew it was going to take time.

I STILL don’t think it’s a great game. It’s still a good game. There are improvements to the game for my play style. I’m relatively sure if I were a PvPer I’d be unhappy with the game. But as a PvE’er who doesn’t really prefer dungeons and raids, this is the only game out there that provides the content I like.

The game has advanced slower than I thought it would. That’s what happens with predictions sometimes. But now, at the two year mark, it’s starting to move forward in the way I thought it would.

There’s still every chance this can become a great game for me.

ProtoGunner.4953:

This game is really the only MMO I know that doesn’t release substantial content for the more dedicated player, i. e. no additional dungeons or raids. Yes, we got fractals – that was a good start, but then? Nothing. Almost every other MMO releases a lot of new dungeons and raids. We just get nothing, and I feel the urge to change the game just be cause of that: there is just simply nothing to do after world completion and the dungeon title which I got after a couple of months after release.

Other MMOs let you know months before what they will implement and then release it. GW2 won’t tell you months ahead what they want do and if they did it, they haven’t delivered it. Something is just completely wrong with this company. I am a bit sad, since GW2 (and GW) is/was my most played MMO franchise so far and I wish this will remain for the future.

I agree with you. Isn’t it wonderful?

Finally a game that releases the content the REST of us want to play, instead of dungeons and raids. Since every single other MMO does release dungeons and raids, why are you still here? Why not go play those games and leave ONE MMO for the rest of us.

I’d much MUCH rather have open world content than dungeons and raids.

Zardul.3952:

Just face the facts. This game ain’t doing well,
I’m tired of the problems.
I’ll give it until the new WoW expansion is released.

In sure it’s not the developers fault and may be that they are restricted and controlled by managers or ncsoft.

So why should I suffer with them when I could play a game that’s thriving ?

Facts? lmao

The fact is, according to the NCsoft quarterly report, the game is doing well. According to both Overwolf and Raptr, the game is doing well. According to logic (since they’re hiring not firing) the game is doing well.

On what do you base your “fact”?

I’m pretty sure I just read that WoW lost 2 million subscribers in a very short period of time. That’s about a loss of 25% of their player base.

Maybe you need to do a bit of research before quoting “facts”.

BlueZone.4236:

Vayne.8563:

BlueZone.4236:

Galen Grey.4709:

BlueZone.4236:

Well yeah, that’s obvious.
Now people can stop trying to falsely raise other people’s hopes about “big” projects cooking in the background being expansions or something equivalent.
Dry Top & EotM is as big as you could possibly expect from ANet.

Well lets put it this way. Work on Gw2 started in 2007. They had a ton of work to do at that point 5 years They created and populated 25 big zones with dynamic events and all that good stuff yet you think 2 smaller maps is all they can produce in 2 years with a much bigger team?

Its not like Arenanet made redundant most of the positions after release, they kept everyone + hired more people since release. Their content output didnt shrink so at the very least they’re capable of creating 5 big zones per year (thats assuming they started creating zones from day 1 of development and finished them on the last day prior to release which of course is absurd)

That the living story team is made up of 20 people out of over 350 and they alone did so much stuff is amazing. but they’re still like 1/15 of the whole employees and I dont think the living story team are the only ones doing any work at all.

The more I think about it, expansion is the only thing that makes sense.

Well, the point of the link Vayne provides shows how many non technical roles exist in a company. In that case, an expansion doesn’t make sense.

And thanks for the above open jobs list. In fact, it proves they are lacking in the technical department, and funnily enough the marketing roles were snapped up.

An expansion makes perfect sense, if you’re working on stuff in the background and if you’re NOT releasing most or all of it. You do that to make an expansion.

Again just because you personally filter everything through a negative filter, doesn’t make everything negative.

What? Regardless of your biased view on me, the idea of them holding back most of the stuff is silly. I don’t get why you bother to provide such a link only to do a heel turn on said perspective.

I’m not doing a heel turn at all. I’m saying I believe that in addition to working on an expansion, there are probably less people working on the content we’re seeing than we think. However, when people say lazy, what is everyone doing? Well…some of the people are working SLOWLY on an expansion (I don’t believe they have a full team working on all of it. I believe they’re working on projects and saving them for the expansion, which is the only way expansions can really be produced anyway), and I believe that the people who are left working are probably doing the best the can with the resources they have.

Maybe if people would stop using words like lazy, I wouldn’t have to post this sort of thing. Maybe if people stopped saying there are so many people Anet there should be MUCH more content.

There’s a steady flow of content to hold us over while an expansion is worked on. That’s my theory.

Mastermavrick.2439:

A nice helpful insight post, sadly this won’t stop very vocal entitlement ranters.

This post wasn’t supposed to stop that specific demographic. It’s for all the people who read and never post. Those people now have some extra information on which to judge how seriously to take specific rants.

There are some very good critical posts on these forums. And then there are people who just want to either troll, or they’re so convinced their viewpoint is some sort of majority opinion (or even worse better than everyone else’s opinion).

And there are a lot of people out there who do believe what they read without much question. So showing both sides of the story is always a good idea.

BlueZone.4236:

Galen Grey.4709:

BlueZone.4236:

Well yeah, that’s obvious.
Now people can stop trying to falsely raise other people’s hopes about “big” projects cooking in the background being expansions or something equivalent.
Dry Top & EotM is as big as you could possibly expect from ANet.

Well lets put it this way. Work on Gw2 started in 2007. They had a ton of work to do at that point 5 years They created and populated 25 big zones with dynamic events and all that good stuff yet you think 2 smaller maps is all they can produce in 2 years with a much bigger team?

Its not like Arenanet made redundant most of the positions after release, they kept everyone + hired more people since release. Their content output didnt shrink so at the very least they’re capable of creating 5 big zones per year (thats assuming they started creating zones from day 1 of development and finished them on the last day prior to release which of course is absurd)

That the living story team is made up of 20 people out of over 350 and they alone did so much stuff is amazing. but they’re still like 1/15 of the whole employees and I dont think the living story team are the only ones doing any work at all.

The more I think about it, expansion is the only thing that makes sense.

Well, the point of the link Vayne provides shows how many non technical roles exist in a company. In that case, an expansion doesn’t make sense.

And thanks for the above open jobs list. In fact, it proves they are lacking in the technical department, and funnily enough the marketing roles were snapped up.

An expansion makes perfect sense, if you’re working on stuff in the background and if you’re NOT releasing most or all of it. You do that to make an expansion.

Again just because you personally filter everything through a negative filter, doesn’t make everything negative.

BlueZone.4236:

I can’t find any interviews saying seven teams working on big projects, so you’ll need to link that for me to read.
I know they said they collapsed their story team to a single team and only a couple of big projects at the beginning of the year, which I’m sure we’ve technically seen now.
Are they working on more projects (big and small)? Yes, obviously.
However, the point is that when someone points out “big” project, I say refer to EotM or Dry Top in terms of size and development time.

Please get a reality check. This is ANet working full bore.

The Colin interview, before the most recent one, when there were four Living World teams. In that interview, its’ a video not text, he says there are four teams rotating on the living story and other teams working on other content. Now there were a couple of interviews, so I’m not sure which ones are which. I’m pretty sure it was a Pax interview, but you know, I have zero intention of trolling videos for you to find the link. Someone will probably have it.

Either delete characters or buy more slots. Those are really the options.

What the poster above means is no new stuff he’d consider new content. Plenty of stuff new. New tier of gear (ascended), new Living Story content, guild missions, new meta events, new jumping puzzles, new mini dungeon, new dynamic events, new path in Twilight Arbor dungeon, Tequatl has been completely revamped, AC has been revamped (all three paths). New PvP arenas, a new WvW map, quality of life changes including an account wallet, account bound dyes, mega server. Most crafting professions now go to 500.

A lot of the content that has been in the game is gone, since most of the first season of the Living Story was temporary content. Going forward, Living Story content will be permanent.

First of all, EotM was a big project, there’s no question about it. Anyone who doesn’t think it was a big project isn’t someone I’d even bother debating. Because it wouldn’t be worth it. It was a major undertaking. There’s a lot going on there.

Drytop is also a big project and we haven’t seen the whole map yet. Again, if you don’t think its’ a big project, that’s fine. Everyone can make up their own mind.

But you see, EotM has been finished for a long time and so the devs that worked on that would in theory be working on other stuff. Because you know, they don’t just stand there after their big project is done. Same with other big projects, including the wardrobe and megaserver. Those are projects done. Those people move on.

So Anet had said at an interview they had about seven teams working on big projects.

I know you don’t like the game and you want to belittle everything done, but in reality you don’t really know anything more than anyone else about what’s going on in the background.

Anet could have been working towards an expansion for two years, squirreling away stuff the whole time. You really have no idea.

But it means that between those expansions the content we’re getting is pretty kitten ed good, even if some people don’t appreciate it.

A lot of people talk about what the devs are doing and why they’re so slow. This is a link from a post on Reddit. I didn’t make the post, but it might do some good if people read it, before they complained about how many people work at Anet and how little they do.

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/2e0uf6/a_different_perspective/