Guild Wars 2

I think it’s a bad design decision over all. I think the solution is to make them no longer account bound. That would solve everything.

Tell you what? How about you give up all the progress you’ve made in the game in the last year, and Anet will give you that stuff?

Because it’s hard for people just starting out in an MMO to catch up and what they’re giving is really very little.

cesmode.4257:

Tasty Pudding.3764:

NCSoft Q3 quarterly earnings report was just released and GW2 revenues are down 15% from the previous quarter. We now know what was the impetus for the Collaborative Development stuff that appeared in early October. Is that going to make any difference? The numbers show that the Living Story content has not been enough to stop the continuing decline in sales – if anything, the decline has accelerated.

I think at this point the only thing that can turn it all around is a new box expansion. The longer they wait to do this, the more radical the expansion will need to be to get people back.

I think Living Story IS the reason why people are playing less, myself included. Living Story is just an achievement grind, and follow the zerg. Nothing more. They need to give us real stuff, traditional content patches. The CDI was good to have, and we talked about some really good stuff. I hope some of it is implemented. Two things that would make me play GW2 more these days is if the cadence was adjusted and if they removed achievements from Living Story to maybe one or two achievements, not 10. Achievements are driving these patches. Any time you have achievements driving your content, it becomes a grind, a “not fun grind”. I.E. People doing the same repetitive tasks over and over and over for..what?

The problem here is that you think people are playing less, but Anet knows if people are playing less or not, and I’m thinking they’re not thinking that’s the case. I think people are playing more actually.

The season achievements for WvW, for example, have people in my guild who didn’t used to WvW doing it. And some people seem to like the tower.

It’s not supposed to be content you can play for years, but then, in two weeks it’ll be different content. And I get it’s not your cup of tea. That’s fine.

But you shouldn’t assume that because you don’t like it most people don’t. Just like I don’t assume that because I don’t like other MMOs most people don’t.

Dante.1508:

Cloudwalkernz.1328:

LOL unlike the OP, I actually looking forward to a sub based MMO. Why? you may asked. It is because like a lot of people I am sick of all the so called free to play MMO. I always end up spending more money than I am on a sub based MMO. Also I am sick of the RNG and P2W rubbish.

As far as GW2 goes, it is fairly good value for money. Sadly, maybe because it has no sub, Anet don’t seem to be able to afford to make an expansion like a sub based MMO lile WoW which has just announce yet another expansion. Something that no doubt will help them to bring back a lot of old players and new alike.

As far as B2P, I think only Ever Quest Next is following that model. Every other new MMOs are either sub or f2p.

Everquest Next is going Free to Play not Buy to Play.

I’m actually Enjoying Rift myself wish i’d gone to it before i purchased Guildwars 2 honestly its a much better game with a lot more longevity.

Different strokes for different folks. I disliked Rift quite a bit. I thought it was an almost game. They almost made the changes the genre needed (from my point of view) and they stopped short.

That made it worse for me than games that didn’t pretend to be different.

Dante.1508:

MAD CAT.9321:

Hey look another “this game is dying” thread… ugh

I don’t see this thread as a game dying, more of a games wrong direction? and now we see the results?

Personally don’t hold too much hope with Wildstar either their whole payment plan killed that for a lot of players, i mean come on Free to Play then 180 to Pay to play heh..

Personally think Everquest Next and Elder Scrolls Online are the big worries for Guildwars 2…maybe the new WoW expansions too.

Sorry but truth..

What truth are you speaking of?

How about you look at the boxed sales of just about every MMO over the same period of time? Guild Wars 2 is doing fine.

When a game comes out, logically, those most interested in it, buy it right away. Then there’s a wave of people who find out about it when it’s new and different from people who have bought it and are playing it.

Those who don’t like the game, slowly leave, others come on board, but more slowly. This is what happens in pretty much every MMO that comes along. There are exceptions but they are VERY few and far between.

The truth is this game hasn’t launched in China yet and it’s still doing well. That’s the only truth anyone can get from the quarterly report.

Yep, just like Guild Wars 1. There are no evil player characters. Even in factions, you’re still good, no matter which faction you belong to.

This is one of the few hallmarks of the series that’s been retained.

Adine.2184:

Devata you are aware that Tengu are native to Tyria not Cantha right?

I thought the sensali Tengu were native to Cantha.

Naus the Gobbo.5172:

It doesn’t matter what they do at this point.

New games are coming out, and seeing as how we just get the same stuff over and over again(with the exception of SAB, Queen’s Jubilee and the Tower of Nightmares) people will go to new games to get a fresh experience.

The biggest counter towards this is the fact that the games that are coming out either have a subscription model, or that they may not have all the “basic” features GWII has like level/reward scaling, everyone having the same stats in PvP, and proper rewards for world exploration.

I personally am interested in Wildstar. It may not have all the things I like about GWII, but it will be a fresh experience nontheless.
And even if I end up not playing it for that long, it will still have been a more fresh experience than what ArenaNet seems to have in mind for this game.

New races, professions, maps, quests etc. seem to be off the table, and it is these things I desire.
Releasing the Tengu as well as their starting zones would do wonders.

New games can work two ways. Yes, there’s always going to be a drop off of players when a new game comes out…but because new games are often buggy (sometimes buggy enough to be unplayable) and they don’t have all the features at launch, people go, try them out and come back.

I know a number of people who tried the FF beta, and came back, because that game was "nothing special.

Where do we go from here? I think that Guild Wars 2 won’t try too hard to compete with Wildstar (they’re both NCsoft games), and they have time to shore up stuff before the next big game comes out after that.

I’m pretty sure the grass isn’t always greener on the other side but people will still cross the street to see.

Protoavis.9107:

CHIPS.6018:

Maps are empty because there are no alts. Everyone is farming to trying to max gear their one single level 80 character, and there are only a few places to farm.

this pretty much. As it is right now, the only reason to make alts is to make grinding things like Dragonite faster (alt’s don’t get the bonus chest, but the normal chest spawns for them, the one with dragonite) or make a zerker warrior to grind dungeons faster. The game is becoming less and less alt friendly.

This is not the only reason to make alts. I’m not sure that most people make alts just for financial gain. Most people I know make alts to experience different personal stories, change up the professions they play, and just take a break from their main. Some people, like me, make alts because they’re actually playing a role (which doesn’t mean I’m RPing). I simply have characters that have certain themes and the game becomes completing those themes. I know a lot of people who make characters for this reason.

There are plenty of people who have more than 10 characters. They don’t have them for financial gain.

This said, the current trend it is making it harder for people who play a certain way to have alts, because they feel they must have BIS gear, and that probably does contribute to less people in the mid level zones.

Protoavis.9107:

Xae Isareth.1364:

The problem is that there’s no reward incentive up go back to those maps or do DEs in general. Karma has very little use to the average player and if you wanted to farm karma, you would just join a champ train in Queens or FGS.

No karma in FGS champs, they aren’t events like Queensdale

WvW zerg is faster karma (if you’re on a dominating server)

Vayne.8563:

Dragsooth.4071:

Might be time to realize this game is dying.

People have been saying that for a long long time. It remains untrue. There’s absolutely no evidence to support it.

There are servers on WoW where middle zones are empty and there aren’t a whole lot of people who claim WoW is dying.

well…they are bleeding accounts at an increasing rate. Not dying but also not the game or population it was a few years ago

Except that the same thing was true in WoW when it had 12.4 million subscribers at its height. It’s always been true that on some servers, the middle zones were empty. There was never a time when it was otherwise. I can’t think of any game where it was otherwise, either.

So the point stands.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Ascended is a done deal. However, complaining about it might make them think twice about implementing Trasncendant or w/e if their horizontal progression skill initiative fails to entice players who want progression goals.

Absolutely the best reason for complaining. It’s not going to stop ascended gear from getting into the game, but it might make Anet think twice about going one further.

The weapon grind was overkill….not so much the ascended part but leveling your crafting professions to 500 was unnecessarily punishing.

KOPPER.1458:

Do we know if this bar is per server or all severs?
Might be just me but I want to fill that bar as soon as possible. Not because I want to see it go away but because I want to see it filled and do it as quickly as possible.

Out of curiosity…why?

I’d rather see people have a chance to play the content and not have to rush to catch it. Maybe someone’s away for a week or even two on vacation. Why not let them have a crack at it too?

More to the point, build updates means stuff gets fixed. Try playing older MMOs that no longer have support where that doesn’t happen. Those people have good reason to complain.

I think people are forgetting that Guild Wars 2 has yet to launch in China which will be a boost, possibly a significant boost to revenues.

And I don’t think any other MMO offers the type of experience GW 2 offers players. It may not be the experience everyone wants, but clearly some people do. It’s the reason I can’t play other MMOs right now, though I acknowledge it’s possible MMOs that fit my play style my come out in the future. Right now, however, there’s nothing but this MMO for players like me. Without this, I’d be forced to stick to single player games.

KOPPER.1458:

My current problem is this. Great stuff in the gem store. Not so much in these games or updates, and not multiple ways to earn rewards and or buy them. No expansion talk at all. We get LS which last me 1-2 days and then I sit and wait another 2 weeks.

Sounds great I know, only 2 weeks. In the mean time I am bored and have little to do.
I love this game, I love the lore I just want a full expansion with new fully fleshed out zones, skills, race, perhaps class, etc etc…

So you’d finish an expansion in a month and not have anything to do for the rest of the year? Probably not going to be any better for you.

Dragsooth.4071:

Might be time to realize this game is dying.

People have been saying that for a long long time. It remains untrue. There’s absolutely no evidence to support it.

There are servers on WoW where middle zones are empty and there aren’t a whole lot of people who claim WoW is dying.

I don’t know. The jack in the box scythe is by far my favorite gathering tool of all of them. It’s perfect for halloween, my favorite holiday and I put it on my charr necro. Absolutely love it.

Dark Catalyst.1028:

Why are people complaining about sub fees? They are typically trivial amounts per month. Like, eat at McDonald’s one time less per month and there you go.

I’m certainly not complaining about sub fees. I’m complaining about the games that have them, because I think they all suck (at least all the ones I’ve tried have). So why would I pay a sub fee, not to have fun. I don’t want another sub fee game, because I think the content of those games is inferior. I don’t believe they fix bugs faster. I don’t believe they are generally less buggy. I don’t believe they’re more fun.

Sub fee games, to me, have been crap…but it’s not because of the sub fee.

I only care about fun. I find the new tower fun, so I care about that. Because I find it fun. I don’t do the things I don’t find fun.

Arikyali.5804:

Conncept.7638:

Drap a post in the LFG tool, this is exactly why it has an open world content category.

Did that once, no one cared. Dungeons have faster response. I’m more than capable of soloing on the empty maps, but it’d be nice to run into random company and meet new people.

That’s why I play with a guild. Me and another guildie are currently in the process of zone completing the iron marchs (took a break because a new version of the game is out).

Pay to play MMOs don’t bother me. I’d gladly pay to play an MMO I enjoyed playing. My problem is, pay to play MMOs don’t match my play style at all, and I’ve tried most of them.

Yes, I’d love to ride this eagle for five minutes to get to where I’m going. Yes, I’d love to run the same dungeon over over over again for a chance to get this piece of gear that I’ll NEED for the next dungeon.

I don’t mind running stuff over and over again for options…because that leaves the choice up to me.

Pay to play MMOs are gear towards specific types of players. I’m not one of them.

You must not have been around in Guild Wars 1 at the end, because we got the same mask every year at the Dragon Festival, and we got cat ears and devils horns on successive years there. And I remember being disappointed.

I’m not really sure that one event constitutes a trend anyway.

But the real thing you might be missing is that I’ve seen people who have heavy and medium armor want masks like that and ask for them on the forums. To people who aren’t wearing light armor, those masks aren’t as easy to get, particularly if you didn’t play Guild Wars 1.

NargofWoV.4267:

Septemptus.7164:

This goes to the problem with server population.
I think that servers show population of account bound to the server, but don’t show average players numbers.
If many people left from a server like 3 months after launch, server can have Very High status and be mostly deserted. I think it’s like that on my server (but I won’t spoil the name)

Na, I’m on one of the most populated servers and we have this same issue. Folks generally don’t wish to go back and redo content that is pretty meaningless. We can’t even get Karka Queen Event to be on a rotation. >shrugs<

Doesn’t necessarily matter how high your server population is, if it’s not a predominantly PvE server, which some aren’t. Some servers are far more focused on WvW or even PvP.

I know on Tarnished Coast, the unofficial RP server, there are usually people around because everyone has a million alts they’re leveling.

Edit: Note also though that it also depend on when you’re doing it. Not just time of day but also if you’re trying to down bosses in say Fields of Ruin on path day and everyone is in the new Tower it’s a whole lot more likely that zone will be dead empty. The new Living World content comes out, people flock to it for a few days, and then it’s slowly starts returning to business as usual.

An Siorai Tharian.4516:

Vayne.8563:

Ameepa.6793:

If I had a son, I would not want him to develope same kind of MMO addiction that I have. :P

I would. Because the other addiction options are far far worse. My sons are addicted to computer games…but neither of them drink, smoke or do drugs.

When I was young it was watching too much tv…now it’s playing computer games. So people get addicted to sports.

It’s definitely the lesser of evils from my point of view.

It can still be a problem if you let the addiction go too far. And unfortunately some people have.

Some people have played for so many consecutive hours in a row while fighting a single boss (in another game) that they ended up literally getting physically ill while playing the game as a result of not resting for such a long period of time (playing video games for more than 18 hours in a row is not healthy). Other people have actually gotten fired from their jobs because they couldn’t learn to stop playing games and actually do what their bosses told them to do instead. Some people have even lost girlfriends, wives, or children because of their video game addiction.

Suffice to say getting addicted to this stuff is not always the healthiest choice a person can make for themselves. It can ruin your life, just like any addiction. Which is why teaching a kid who is interested in gaming the proper attitudes about restraint, and how to do their work before getting to their gaming is incredibly important.

Sure so teaching kids young to stand up and stretch regularly, and make sure you eat is probably a good thing.

You didn’t mention what server you’re on. I know in Tarnished Coast, there are usually some people around willing to do events. You do have to talk in map chat sometimes to get people there, however.

Brother Grimm.5176:

I’m waiting for the thread from the player that bought more than a few sets for Alts….

I do like this change, but I agree there needs to be a perma-set without the silly animations.

I bought four sets and I’m still happy that they did this (because I have lots more than four characters lol).

Iason Evan.3806:

Vayne.8563:

Iason Evan.3806:

Vayne.8563:

I don’t necessarily believe the living world teams are comprised largely of coders in the first place though. At least that seems to be implied by some of what’s said. Not everyone who designs games codes.

I have already addresed that issue Vayne. I am not saying an LS team should work on it. I am saying that a team should work for a whole cycle to release a patch that only addresses bugs within the game. At this point you are arguing things that are not a part of my thread. If you want to address the issue in the context of my OP then fine. If not please stay on topic. I don’t want it derailed. The same goes for everyone else please. I want to know if the community would like a patch dedicated solely to squashing bugs. Please stay on topic and keep it constructive! Thanks.

You can go back throughout my post history. I am always effusive in my praise and constructive in my criticism and never rude. I am not complaining for the sake of whining. I am trying to add to the discussion of making the game better by bringing up what I think are salient points and ideas that could help to achieve those ends.

I think you’re missing my point. These bugs are being worked on by people. Bugs are fixed with every single patch. Every time a bug is fixed, it gets added into the Living World patches. If the same number of people are working on bugs, then the same number of bugs will be fixed.

In other words, if you’re not diverting Living World teams to working on bugs, the bugs won’t be fixed any faster, even if you do only put out a bug fix.

What you’d have to do is take the teams that are working on certain bugs off those bugs and put them on the specific bugs you’re talking about.

For example, we just had a patch today which, according to the notes, gives performance improvement in large scale battles. I haven’t tried it myself, but if it does what they say, is that more important than a single dynamic events in Bloodtide Coast?

By design, it would be a team equipped to handle such issues and would work for four months to just squash bugs that have plagued the game since day 1. That would be the update we would get for that 2 week time frame. If it is just one bug like you are talking about, then no it isn’t worth it, but I am talking about them tackling myriad issues in one patch.

It’s really simple: You either think a team should be dedicated to this or not.

And therein lies the problem. How could I know if a team should be devoted to this, when I don’t know what they’re working on right at this moment. Am I in a position to say that this is more important or better than what they’re doing? That’s a management decision I don’t have enough information to make.

Ameepa.6793:

If I had a son, I would not want him to develope same kind of MMO addiction that I have. :P

I would. Because the other addiction options are far far worse. My sons are addicted to computer games…but neither of them drink, smoke or do drugs.

When I was young it was watching too much tv…now it’s playing computer games. So people get addicted to sports.

It’s definitely the lesser of evils from my point of view.

Why is it even worth the risk?

Dark Catalyst.1028:

eisberg.2379:

Dark Catalyst.1028:

You get what you pay for.

I pay a trivial fee per month for another game and I’m guaranteed to receive decent content that isn’t rife with bugs upon patch release. The few bugs that do slip through are caught within the first 24 hours.

What game is that? Every MMO that I have played had bugs in their content updates, and none of them fixed all of the bugs found in 24 hours. In my experience, GW2 has been no different than any other MMO when it comes to fixing bugs, including the MMOs with a subscription fee.

I find that my posts are getting pulled whenever I mention that other game, but given the way things are now, the quality of that other game merits a sub fee while GW2 does not.

Not with the shallow content and the bugs present from release.

Even if there were a single MMO that released great content often with no bugs or bugs that were fixed in 24 hours (and I’ve never seen it), it’s certainly the exception to the rule. There are dozens of MMOs out, and I’ve played at least that many. Age of Conan, for example, was so bugged it was unplayable on my machine. Other people had the same problem I did. Lotro and DDO had tons of bugs. SWToR…I don’t even think I need to go there.

And I’ll bet you dollars to donuts that the game you’re talking about has plenty of reported bugs and that if I googled those bugs, I’d find the list.

Anet has always listened….to some degree. But listening doesn’t have to mean obeying.

When Anet said that walking wouldn’t be included in the game, and that you could only run, the RP community complained and Anet launched the game with a walking animation. When they released character creation in beta without being able to choose eye color and Colin said they wouldn’t be able to put that in, people complained and Anet put it in.

The problem is, some ideas put forward aren’t good and some aren’t to everyone’s liking. If someone suggest something and they don’t listen to that specific idea, it’s very easy for someone to say that they don’t listen…but it’s demonstrably not true. Anet does listen.

As for what makes me happy about the game…it’s usually the little touches. I sort of like the whole Living World concept. I love the way Kessex looks right now and I loved the instance, short though it was, that led into the content. That’s the right way to do it. I got some fun, I got some loot, I got some story. That made me happy. I liked it enough to do it on a handful of categories.

Achievement point chests make me happy too. And my guild (but that has less to do with Anet).

Gibson.4036:

This whole argument over whether or not a player should be able to craft to level cap or not misses a simple point.

ANet intentionally made it possible to do so. This was no mistake that later got fixed. Then they intentionally changed it.

It makes complete sense to ask them, “Why?”

We don’t know that Anet intentionally made it possible to do so. We know that Anet created a system in which is was possible to do so. Was it intended? Were the implications of it thought out?

Is it possible that if everyone could craft relatively cheaply and easily to 80 there would be less people in the open world? Does making people actually play the game server some sort of purpose?

To say that it was an intentional design decision Anet consciously chose (as opposed to an unintended consequence which was later fixed) is an assumption that I don’t think we can make.

Iason Evan.3806:

Vayne.8563:

I don’t necessarily believe the living world teams are comprised largely of coders in the first place though. At least that seems to be implied by some of what’s said. Not everyone who designs games codes.

I have already addresed that issue Vayne. I am not saying an LS team should work on it. I am saying that a team should work for a whole cycle to release a patch that only addresses bugs within the game. At this point you are arguing things that are not a part of my thread. If you want to address the issue in the context of my OP then fine. If not please stay on topic. I don’t want it derailed. The same goes for everyone else please. I want to know if the community would like a patch dedicated solely to squashing bugs. Please stay on topic and keep it constructive! Thanks.

You can go back throughout my post history. I am always effusive in my praise and constructive in my criticism and never rude. I am not complaining for the sake of whining. I am trying to add to the discussion of making the game better by bringing up what I think are salient points and ideas that could help to achieve those ends.

I think you’re missing my point. These bugs are being worked on by people. Bugs are fixed with every single patch. Every time a bug is fixed, it gets added into the Living World patches. If the same number of people are working on bugs, then the same number of bugs will be fixed.

In other words, if you’re not diverting Living World teams to working on bugs, the bugs won’t be fixed any faster, even if you do only put out a bug fix.

What you’d have to do is take the teams that are working on certain bugs off those bugs and put them on the specific bugs you’re talking about.

For example, we just had a patch today which, according to the notes, gives performance improvement in large scale battles. I haven’t tried it myself, but if it does what they say, is that more important than a single dynamic events in Bloodtide Coast?

Paulytnz.7619:

Vayne.8563:

Xae Isareth.1364:

Vayne.8563:

haviz.1340:

Vayne.8563:

See, I don’t need a final boss…which is my point. I could care less about a final boss. It’s what makes it more of a game and less of a world to me. That’s why I like zones like Hirathi and Straits of Devastation better than other zones. Because it’s less about a big boss and more about an ongoing war.

But other people do and you should acknowledge it. Does Anet want to lose those people or will it give them a proverbial carrot?

I for one like some of the temple events but only under one condition – at most five participating players. Wish they would just swap temple priests with arah priests, that would mean more fun for zergs and for dungeons crawlers!

That’s an interesting comment…that I should acknowledge it. I’ve lost count of how many times that I’ve said that the game I want and my point of view probably doesn’t represent the majority.

However, I do believe that most people thinking dungeon runners and raiders and people who want end game are a huge majority…and that I don’t think is the case.

It is my belief there are more people who solo these games and want unstructured solo content, than there are people who want challenging group content. I can’t prove it, but it’s what I believe.

There’s no real evidence for either side at the moment, but WoW is the single most successful MMO in existence and pretty much every MMO that comes out apart from GW2 has raids. So there must be a substantial demand for them.

Yes I know most WoW players don’t raid, but it’s an iconic feature of the game.

Also, wouldn’t having a MMO based mostly in solo content defeat the purpose of it being a MMO? The 2 Ms ate what makes ESO different from Skyrim.

Okay so WoW has raids and WoW is successful. Baseball stadiums have hot dogs, but hot dogs aren’t why people go to the ball park. The fact is, before you can get to raids in WoW you have to do a whole lot of other stuff and people who do that often don’t go any further.

But there’s another bit of information here that can also mislead. How popular WoW is is completely irrelevant to traditional end game. First, WoW came out at a time when there was almost no competition. They were piggybacking off the mad success of an RTS with the same name. The company had a ton of money to advertise their product that didn’t come from that product.

So it’s popularity is partly based on timing, and partly based on the deepness of its pockets as well as what actually is in the game.

I think it’s a mistake to look at WoW as a winning game combination based on any single factor of it. If I had to guess, I’d say timing was the biggest factor of WoW’s success. Certainly the MMO field when it came out wasn’t rife with competition and there were absolutely no free MMOs.

Have to disagree with you here sorry Vayne. Search for something called “Runescape”, been out 12+ years and there has ALWAYS been a FREE version available. It is a very successful game as well with MILLIONS of players and over 100+ servers which is what we would call worlds here….

Okay there was one free MMO at that time. But also at that time, Runescape wasn’t competition for WoW. It was still a completely different type of game. My kids played it.

Regardless of that the meaning of what I was saying stands. Today you have Dungeon and Dragons Online for free, Lord of the Rings for free, Star Wars The Old Republic for free, Age of Conan for free, Star Trek Online for free. Look at the competition with free to play MMOs now, look at the IPs, the brands, the companies behind these titles.

I can’t imagine anyone can look at runescape as a free game and compare it to WoW. Where as today, there are free well known IPs out there. Basically WoW entered an area competing with a tiny handful of games compared to what’s out there now. That situation will never exist for MMOs again, so no MMO will ever be able to have the same success.

Protoavis.9107:

Vayne.8563:

PraetorMortis.8610:

If you hired someone to paint your house and when you asked when it will be done, they told you a vague timeframe loaded with qualifiers, you wouldn’t hire them.

If you hired someone to paint your house and they said the job would be done by the end of the week, you’d be pretty upset when 6 months had gone by.

I think what OP is trying to communicate is that it is annoying to have Anet talk up all the goodies they have planned for the year and then miss deadlines and alter the end product. Remember precursor scavenger hunt? Of course you don’t, that idea that they wanted to make sure the “got just right” turned into crafting, which is now pushed back.

I think that they’ve done a great job putting stuff out this year. That said, if the stuff they put out wasn’t the thing you were excited for, it’s understandable you’d be miffed. The need to either manage expectations better or step up their delivery process. That would quell a lot of the forum outrage I’m sure.

Except that painting your house is completely different from programming a game. The odds are painting your house won’t throw up quite so many unknown issues. It’s less complex.

Building an office build, for example, often goes over budget and over schedule, because it’s more complex.

Progamming tasks, even with the best intentions can take a whole lot longer than you want them to. So here’s the choice.

Say nothing at all when everyone is bugging you to say something because they want to know the direction of the game…they want transparency…or say something and put a likely date on it and move it back if it runs over time.

I suppose they could say we’re going to do this but we can’t say when but people complain about that too.

What would you suggest Anet do in these circumstances?

Or…you know, the middle ground of waiting a little bit until they’re confident they can deliver in the estimated time frame before giving a time frame, there’s little more damaging to customer relations than failing to meet your estimates.

When you give estimated time frames and then continually fail to deliver, it’s a bit “the boy who called wolf” people get tired of it.

I’ve lost track of the number of games that have been delayed. I don’t really get this whole middle ground thing. The only time you can be sure you can ship something in time, particularly with a program, is not to say anything at all until you’re ready. Microsoft is a much bigger company than Anet and their stuff ships with so many bugs it’s not funny sometimes.

I don’t see how it’s reasonable to expect Anet to do better than any other game manufacturer when it comes to either release dates or bug free content. Take a popular game like Skyrim…buggy as hell.

So they announce stuff that the think they can do, probably with the best intention and stuff comes up. If they say nothing people complain. If they don’t give a time frame, people complain. If they give a time frame and they don’t meet it, people complain.

And if they wait long enough to give a time frame until they can be sure it will make the deadline, it’s about the same as waiting until its out.

It would be different if other programming companies didn’t have the exact same problem, but on a project this big with this many people working on it…you just can’t ever really guarantee a schedule and I suspect most people accept that.

Kaiyanwan.8521:

The whole game is designed around sPvP. It is the core of the game.
All other parts of the game have to be adapted to the fact, that the game has to work in eSports.

Saying, that the game was not designed around PvP is therefore totally false. If the PvP part was just so minor, why all those changes, that work in PvP, but ruin or restrict features in PvE.

This is a PvP game with a PvE world set upon it. Unfortunately for the DEVs, the game seems to be seen as a PvE game by most players, and that is why all parts of the game are in constant trouble…

So why was most of the game’s budget and most of it’s advertising spent on PvE? Voice acting is among the most expensive thing you can put into a game. I can safely say that 90% or more of the voice acting is in PvE. Why the huge world? Why 1500 dynamic events? Why banging the living/breathing world drum so hard for so long?

I can’t think of any real evidence that this game was ever supposed to be predominantly a PvP game.

sirflamesword.3896:

Clearly all the people who feel angry about the way the game is headed have all been banned because of the new forum rules. I guess the forums are finally going to get to that point where they want them, with no one being critical about the game…

Edit: Also incoming infraction/ban

You mean to imply the majority of posts on these forums are positive? I’m thinking that might not be the truth.

On topic: Schedules either will or won’t get pushed back….but I’d personally rather have stuff worked on a bit longer and released when it’s ready than rushed out to meet some arbitrary deadline.

Seven Star Stalker.1740:

Vayne.8563:

Basically it’s because it would trivialize many of the encounters in the game.

Trash mobs are supposed to be trivial. I don’t see your point .-.

Also, getting knocked off a beam isn’t exactly challenging. It’s just frustrating to deal with.

You know, in the five years I played Guild Wars 1, I think I heard the term trash mob maybe once.

When any mob can drop a precusor, no mob is actually a trash mob, and therefore no mob is actually trivial. That’s also part of why downleveling exists.

It just feels too much like an exploit in too many places. All you’d need is a knockback and you’d be set. Mobs that surround places like vistas or jumping puzzles would suddenly be meaningless.

People who come from other games see mobs and trash mobs. I see foes and foes. None of them are trivial to me…and I’m pretty sure Anet didn’t design these mobs as “trash”.

Zera Allimatti.2541:

I blame NCSoft’s largest shareholder, NEXON, for the constant 2 week update that keeps introducing new stuff to buy for gems. As long as NEXON holds the reins, ArenaNet has it’s hands tied. It’s like EA: pushing for profit rather than quality.

Nexon owns 15% of the company. It’s not a controlling interest. There isn’t any real evidence that Nexon has any influence at all.

The closest thing you could find is that someone who used to work for Nexon now works for NCsoft. Of course, some of the founders of NCsoft used to work at Blizzard, so what does that prove?

DonRobeez.3560:

From my personal experience, a lot of things feel dull and repetitive.
Nothing really feels like a real challenge.

In WvW you can not really show individual skill since most of the time it’s about zerging and blobbing.
Unless you are roaming and you are lucky enough to hit in a few other players, which occasionally happens.

I am aware of the new maps and spectator mode. While they are nice, it’s not great when the game still feels repetitive.

I want to have that competitive feeling again, the same the original Guild Wars gave me.

I want the same feeling I got from my very first relationship, when love was deaf, dumb and blind. lol

The problem is, you’re unlikely to ever get the same feeling as your first no matter what happens. Your first is your first. We become inured to feelings.

Sometimes its hard to remember that when we look back at stuff, we’re editing it in our minds, often severely.

I don’t necessarily believe the living world teams are comprised largely of coders in the first place though. At least that seems to be implied by some of what’s said. Not everyone who designs games codes.

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

^ ideally,

each should get one-third of the attention, to be fair.
1/3 – PvE
1/3 – WvW
1/3 – sPvP

“I don’t think that SPvP is getting as little attention as you think. "
^ well, sPvP is certainly not getting enough attention when compared against WvW and PvE though.

“With the exception of adding new game modes (and I can understand Anet’s reluctance to do this),”
^ hah. they really should add more game modes. other games such as team fortress 2 has more than one game modes and there are lots of players still playing team fortress 2. which is why i said, need more players.

“what else would they do to SPvP to make it more compelling for competitive players?”
^ i think them hardcore sPvP players want better match making, more game modes.
i would not really know since i am a casual non competitive sPvP player.

Team Fortress is a PvP game so of course it has more game modes. Think of it this way.

What do you think will happen if Anet adds a new PvP mode. Will more people PvP…or is it possible that the people who currently PvP will now be split between two game modes….because that’s the gamble that they take.

You’re comparing a game that is a PvP game, Team Fortress, to an MMO that isn’t a PvP game, but it has some PvP in it.

No, I don’t think it should get 33% of the resources, unless you can prove that 33% of the playerbase enjoys it and spends more than 33% of their time there. That’s not how business works.

I used to manage a computer store and I put more emphasis on the stuff that customers wanted, rather than the stuff that was there that I liked. In this case, for better or worse, there are probably less people SPvPing than playing WvW, so of course WvW is going to get more attention. It would actually be unfair if SPvP got the same amount of attention, because then you’re be taking resources away from a large segment of the player base.

I believe Anet is slowing changing SPvP to try to build interest, but honestly if that interest doesn’t build, don’t expect more resources to be diverted there. It’s just not how businesses work in my experience.

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

“But I still never really believed this would be a game that centered around PvP. The constant focus on a living breathing world pretty much precludes that.”

^ of course not.
but sPvP is in a sad state at the moment.

while PvE and WvW has been getting all the attention all these months.

SPvP has gotten since launch new maps, an observation mode, a solo queue, a restructuring of rewards and new skins. In addition, much of the game balancing seems to be based around SPvP (and PvE people aren’t impressed by that).

I don’t think that SPvP is getting as little attention as you think. But there is a lot less of it than WvW (it’s much smaller in scale and scope) and there’s a whole lot less of it than PvE.

With the exception of adding new game modes (and I can understand Anet’s reluctance to do this), what else would they do to SPvP to make it more compelling for competitive players?

Protoavis.9107:

You didn’t have to own the game to see the quote, owning the game only guaranteed entry into beta, many randoms who hadn’t bought it were also in beta. the public betas (which that quote eventuates from) was also largely advertising/hype making as pretty much every press outlet was invited into it because anet wanted them to post articles (ie free advertising…), anet were also aware from previous press betas (before the public ones) that their quotes would be extracted from the beta forums and posted everywhere……lets call a spade a spade, anet and how much experience they had around that time with multiple beta’s and everything they posted being quoted in the hype train that anet manipulated and arranged (by giving every press outlet access) can’t possibly be that naive, so let’s not play dumb

So you’re saying that no dev can say anything at all that’s not advertising? And people want devs to be more open and transparent? Both these things can’t happen.

A dev in an MMO is going to say hundreds of things and some of those things, particularly pre release are going to change. That’s why there are betas in the first place. A beta is a test period during which things are tried and then changed if they’re deemed not to work.

So a dev that answers a question on a forum, there answer is now an advertisement and their word is locked in forever as a promise?

This is something I can’t agree with at all. And if people insist on using this argument, then Anet becomes completely justified in not saying anything, just in case it might change at some point in the future.

I don’t believe, and I don’t believe most people think, that this game was sold on the basis that you can level to 80 crafting. It was a neat fact that was always going to be subject to change.

Protoavis.9107:

Vayne.8563:

Protoavis.9107:

Vayne.8563:

Protoavis.9107:

Togashi Jack.9531:

I don’t know, this might be a foreign concept for some people but you might want to consider leveling to 80 by a means that is not exclusively crafting, such as… well… playing the game?

the crazy thing is, crafting is playing the game and was one of the ways touted by anet before launch as the “play the way you want” and being able to reach max level with it, wvw was another of the “play the way you want” things….

while I don’t personally find the crafting thing an issue, it does highlight a continual back tracking of what the game was promoted as.

I don’t remember Anet promoting the game as you can level from zero to max level through crafting. If it was even said by a dev, it was certainly never said to promote the game.

What they were saying is that you get experience for a variety of different things and there are different ways to level. That’s all they said from my recollection. So you can level in WvW, you can level doing DEs even if you just do them in the starting zones, you can level doing dungeons and you can certainly augment your leveling by crafting and personal story in between. And you get experience also for waypoints, points of interest and vistas.

But to say that the game was advertised as a game that you can reach max level just crafting….I’d need to see a dev quote before I buy into that.

It came up a bit by dev’s in beta and was even advertised on gaming blogs like

http://massively.joystiq.com/2012/06/12/leveling-to-80-through-pure-crafting-possible-in-guild-wars-2/

http://gw2.junkiesnation.com/2012/06/11/dev-tracker-level-to-80-by-crafting-alone/

The only reason I remember it is because of the “you can make a dedicated crafter and get to 80” type quote that was floating around pre launch

Okay, what gaming sites write in their blogs is not “advertisement”. They can write anything they want, positive or negative, for that matter.

So Anet didn’t advertise this game as a game you could level to 80 in crafting. What’s really being said here is that at one time it was possible, someone noticed, and they wrote an article about it. I read all those articles.

I also read articles that talked about dye seeds, but they’re not in the game anymore.

MMOs change all the time. The game wasn’t sold on the premise that everyone can level to 80 in crafting, in spite of the fact that you originally could. I personally believe (and has always believed) that was over the top, and that it should be scaled back, which is eventually what happened. I wasn’t surprised it happened. It made sense.

But there’s a big difference between something in the game changing and something in the game changing that it was “advertised” on. This wasn’t a main selling point of the game, even if some people bought it for that reason.

You’re missing the quote by one of the dev’s/game designers which started the blog entries….

I’m not missing it, all I see is a quote with absolutely no context at all. Let’s say there was a thread and a dev posted in it and said, yes it’s possible to do this. Does that mean the game was advertised that way? Not in my mind, because you have to own the game to see the quote.

There’s a difference between a dev saying something in a post on a forum and how a game is advertised. As the simplest example, at one point Colin said in a quote that you wouldn’t be able to walk in this game. At another point he said you wouldn’t be able to change your eye color. Other dev comments included stuff about energy potions, which were later taken out of the game. I brought up dye seeds before.

Just because a dev mentions something in a forum post, doesn’t mean the game was sold based on that. It only means that a dev made a comment. Now, was it in response to a question. Did someone ask the question can it be done and the dev said yes, because at the time it could? I don’t know. That thread can’t be accessed at all.

And again, if you can’t access the forums until you buy the game, if a dev said something on the forums and someone else reported on it, it’s still not something the game was sold on, even if someone bought the game because of it.

Suppose I went and bought this game because I liked the idea of dye seeds. They were in the game. They’re in the official strategy guide. They were taken out very late in the development of the game, abandoned in favor of the current system.

Does that mean that the game was sold on the basis of dye seeds? I don’t think so.

Protoavis.9107:

Vayne.8563:

Protoavis.9107:

Togashi Jack.9531:

I don’t know, this might be a foreign concept for some people but you might want to consider leveling to 80 by a means that is not exclusively crafting, such as… well… playing the game?

the crazy thing is, crafting is playing the game and was one of the ways touted by anet before launch as the “play the way you want” and being able to reach max level with it, wvw was another of the “play the way you want” things….

while I don’t personally find the crafting thing an issue, it does highlight a continual back tracking of what the game was promoted as.

I don’t remember Anet promoting the game as you can level from zero to max level through crafting. If it was even said by a dev, it was certainly never said to promote the game.

What they were saying is that you get experience for a variety of different things and there are different ways to level. That’s all they said from my recollection. So you can level in WvW, you can level doing DEs even if you just do them in the starting zones, you can level doing dungeons and you can certainly augment your leveling by crafting and personal story in between. And you get experience also for waypoints, points of interest and vistas.

But to say that the game was advertised as a game that you can reach max level just crafting….I’d need to see a dev quote before I buy into that.

It came up a bit by dev’s in beta and was even advertised on gaming blogs like

http://massively.joystiq.com/2012/06/12/leveling-to-80-through-pure-crafting-possible-in-guild-wars-2/

http://gw2.junkiesnation.com/2012/06/11/dev-tracker-level-to-80-by-crafting-alone/

The only reason I remember it is because of the “you can make a dedicated crafter and get to 80” type quote that was floating around pre launch

Okay, what gaming sites write in their blogs is not “advertisement”. They can write anything they want, positive or negative, for that matter.

So Anet didn’t advertise this game as a game you could level to 80 in crafting. What’s really being said here is that at one time it was possible, someone noticed, and they wrote an article about it. I read all those articles.

I also read articles that talked about dye seeds, but they’re not in the game anymore.

MMOs change all the time. The game wasn’t sold on the premise that everyone can level to 80 in crafting, in spite of the fact that you originally could. I personally believe (and has always believed) that was over the top, and that it should be scaled back, which is eventually what happened. I wasn’t surprised it happened. It made sense.

But there’s a big difference between something in the game changing and something in the game changing that it was “advertised” on. This wasn’t a main selling point of the game, even if some people bought it for that reason.

Bright, while I agree that’s an issue, I don’t think that issue has anything at all to do with culling.

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

^ heh sPvP was supposed to be a big part of guild wars 2.
not a small optional part.
but a big pvp part.

“Think of Disney World. Do you tell Disney World they need more visitors because not everyone rides the Wedway People Mover? Cause it’s sort of what’s going on here.”
^
and disney land / disney world has more than 3 attraction rides.

I’m not sure why you think SPvP was meant to be such a large part of the landscape. The way I saw it, I looked at the percentage of time pre launch that Anet spent talking about it. I also looked at PvP in Guild Wars 1 and looked at how much time Anet had spent working on that (as compared to working on PvE).

I came to the conclusion long before launch that this was going to be a PvE centric game.

And Guild Wars has more than 3 rides too. They have different sections of theme parks with different rides in each. I mean each dungeon is a separate ride. Tournaments aren’t the same as hot join PvP either. Even in WvW, there are different things to do (including jumping puzzles, small group stuff and zerging) and they’re all different experiences.

My point is that if you’re only talking about SPvP as the only competitive area of the game, I’d have to question the initial assumptions of the argument.

I get the OP’s dissatisfaction with SPvP in this game, as a replacement for the various modes of PvP in Guild Wars 1. I understand that completely and even sympathize.

But I still never really believed this would be a game that centered around PvP. The constant focus on a living breathing world pretty much precludes that.

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

Vayne.8563:

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

Vayne.8563:

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

Vayne.8563:

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

for guild wars 2, they need to attract more players though.

lets see todays players
http://store.steampowered.com/stats/

Current Players | Peak Today – Game
203,864 | 574,079 – Dota 2
29,967 | 76,213 – Team Fortress 2
18,591 | 51,656 – Counter-Strike: Global Offensive
6,340 | 29,229 – Counter-Strike: Source

come on, guild wars 2 can do better!

by the way, DOTA2 has such a steep learning curve, yet it still have so many players. O_O

Do you know how many players log into Guild Wars 2 every day? Cause I don’t think anyone does.

i dunno.

cos they were never transparent with the numbers of players unlike steam.

i do recall they say they have 17k sPvP players.
that 17k were peak at one point or current average players, i have no idea also.

But steam isn’t technically a developer, steam is a delivery platform. They can only tell you the number of people who log in the game for games that have contracted with them…and their contracts aren’t necessarily a good deal for gamers. They can be transparent. What does it mean to them? They don’t own most of those games you listed.

yes, steam is only a platform.
but steam is developed and maintained by valve software.

valve software developed and is maintaining the games i mentioned, i.e. Dota 2, Team Fortress 2, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, Counter-Strike: Source

well i suppose the figures are the players who ran the steam client, logged into steam and played those games for that game.

i guess current players would mean players currently logged in and still playing that game.

Right, but since we don’t have numbers for Guild Wars 2 (which you don’t play through steam), bringing up the numbers of other games with the implication that Anet needs to do better somehow, presupposes that we know how well it’s doing in comparison to those other games…and we don’t.

And none of this really deals with the OP who’s looking for something that’s more competitive, which I’m not sure would yield a greater number of players.

oh we do have some numbers.

http://wac.7725.edgecastcdn.net/807725/website/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/GW2_Anniv_Infographic.jpg

they boasted 460,000 players at one time.

i also heard there is about 17,000 + players for sPvP but i dunno if that is peak players at one time or average players daily monthly etc.

the OP wants more competitive, in guild wars 2.

lets look are some valve games.
Dota 2, Team Fortress 2, Counter Strike: Global Offensive, Counter Strike: Source

are those games competitive?
well, they sure look competitive to me.

do they have lots of players?
yes, there are lots of players playing them.

so my argument is, you want a game to be competitive?
get more players.

when i said “guild wars 2 can do better” earlier, i meant the part about getting more players to play guild wars 2 sPvP.

at the moment, it certainly does not feel like there are many people playing guild wars 2 sPvP i.e. the competitive part of guild wars 2.

First of all, I don’t think SPvP was a very strong part of the game. On the other hand, plenty of people play WvW, and that’s competitive. It’s not competitive based on small team, but it’s still PvP and shouldn’t be ignored.

Competitive is a funny word. Is Crab Toss competitive? Is Southsun Survival competitive? Is Sanctum Sprint competitive? Different people will give you different answers.

It doesn’t matter how many people play Dota, because there’s no one playing PvE dota. That’s a game that has one function and everything goes into that function. I don’t think SPvP was ever meant to be the main part of Guild Wars 2. It was meant to offer another option.

Think of Disney World. Do you tell Disney World they need more visitors because not everyone rides the Wedway People Mover? Cause it’s sort of what’s going on here.

SPvP is one portion of the game. People either play it or they don’t. But the health of the game isn’t based on SPvP and the number of players SPvPing, particularly at this point, probably don’t reflect greatly on the overall health of the game.

Protoavis.9107:

Togashi Jack.9531:

I don’t know, this might be a foreign concept for some people but you might want to consider leveling to 80 by a means that is not exclusively crafting, such as… well… playing the game?

the crazy thing is, crafting is playing the game and was one of the ways touted by anet before launch as the “play the way you want” and being able to reach max level with it, wvw was another of the “play the way you want” things….

while I don’t personally find the crafting thing an issue, it does highlight a continual back tracking of what the game was promoted as.

I don’t remember Anet promoting the game as you can level from zero to max level through crafting. If it was even said by a dev, it was certainly never said to promote the game.

What they were saying is that you get experience for a variety of different things and there are different ways to level. That’s all they said from my recollection. So you can level in WvW, you can level doing DEs even if you just do them in the starting zones, you can level doing dungeons and you can certainly augment your leveling by crafting and personal story in between. And you get experience also for waypoints, points of interest and vistas.

But to say that the game was advertised as a game that you can reach max level just crafting….I’d need to see a dev quote before I buy into that.